New “aura” weapon

[ManTheMister]

A new weapon type that is essentially a damaging aura. Would work somewhat like a heater/cooler except it doesn’t affect your own drone and the ammo type can be changed. It can’t dig, and bio ammo only changes the color, doesn’t grow terrain (terrain interaction up for debate. Maybe it does dig/grow terrain). Possible upgrades would be radius, damage, energy, maybe how many times/second it damages energy, making it so that enemies inside of the radius have a smaller radius around them that also damage nearby enemies, radius upgrade over time, and anything else that that I might not have thought of.

[Alpino_WILL_STEAL_ oats!]

Hmmm... Yes, and... why exactly do you think this needs to belong in the game? Or well, uh.. or well how do you think it would improve the current roster of futuristic glowy weapons of mass destruction? 

 

Aside from that great idea, i think it should be more directional, like an unaimable semi-circle that stays in its possotion. 

[Marker Mage]

So would it be a damaging forcefield or more like a plasma globe, just sending electrical arcs at targets that get close enough? I rather like that second one.

Maybe the default would have just one electrical arc that would hit the closest target within its limited range (whether it be enemy, building, or terrain) and upgrades would raise the possible number of electrical arcs to allow it to hit the second-closest target, third, and so on. Of course, a single electrical arc could hit an enemy and another enemy close to that enemy with the right upgrade.

[Lurkily]

I actually already do this with heaters.  I have a bomber that just bombs the region with a heater/solar/sensor stack.  It does litter the terrain with heaters, though.

[notsew93]

I like the idea of an aura-damage lightning coil. Upgrades could include target jumping chain lightning. 

I was actually trying to find a good solution to that sort of thing today - I have a very large drone, with a hanger on one end that spawns ore carries. The drone is large enough to where the hangar end of it is not on-screen, so I wanted to create an automated defense of the area. I tried enemy sensor bristles, and even laser pinwheels, but without the directional sensor being able to point at enemies I could not really make a auto-motor-spin turret. 

I ended up creating a lot of rocket launchers because they have a wide angle of dispersion, and with enough of them blind firing became a viable "damage field". 

I later put a camera on the far end of the drone, so I could actually see stuff, but still, that is my example of why I would want an aura or Tesla coil weapon. 

To balance the fact that you don't have to aim it, such a device could be made to require a lot of power when active, plus additional energy per lightning bolt fired, and it could be short range like the lasers.