New CAS weapon ideas? I feel the current CAS weapon selection needs some love.

Development Ideaguys
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Currently the current weapon selection has a diverse but not exactly plentiful amount of weapons.

You got Rocket pods, Lasers, Mini guns and mini rockets, but that’s about it in terms of mounted weapons under the weapon mounting points.

So I ask you for more ideas, mainly out of curiosity for what you would think would be a good CAS weapon (Obviously something that is more or less like the current selection of weapons. Nothing like a super death laser or missile with lock-on-guidance to a target).

I will go first:

This weapon would be like the GAU in terms that it would be a ballistic weapon. But it is an Auto Cannon instead of the regular GAU.

It will use 105mm shells or smaller for what would be an acceptable rate of fire for a auto cannon that could be mounted underneath a dropship that could do considerable damage should any xeno be unlucky.

These shells when impacting the ground/floor/weeds or some other surface will create a spark and a 3X3 explosion (AP rocket stun for T3/Queen if they are hit with JUST the explosion) as well as a high damage dot where the center of the shell hits which is able to crit/kill a queen that is full health. This is due to the fact it is a relatively small area of impact so to make the pilot time worthy of this weapon.

The delay until impact is quite high too (about 10 seconds), so any actual kill with this weapon will be absolutely golden.

But you might say “Well that’s nice but it’s like the Keeper II with just more shots.” That may be true but here where it changes it fires It fires 3 times. Every time the weapon fires it fires at least 3 shells before it rests, meaning if you have more than 2 on your dropship it will be able to fire quite a lot of shells and that’ll give a lot more probability of hitting something, before the weapon overheats and needs to cool down a bit to be able to fire again.

But what’s the downside? Well let me tell you.

Firstly the ammo ain’t cheap, 700 points for each box of shells which holds roughly 21 shells total (second most expensive ammo box in the printer just behind incen minis)
And the rest period is quite odd too: Fire, Fire, Rest, Rest.

Secondly you would need more than one aboard the drop ship for its potential to be noticed. Along with only having one type of ammunition (HEAP hence the explosive power of the rounds and being able to crit/kill a queen with a single hit).

Not even mentioning the cost of the weapon itself, considering its made of high grade metals and exotic materials to withstand the POWERA of these shells. It won’t be near the word ‘cheap’ any time soon. It costs a whooping 1000 points for the fabricator to print. Quite a hefty amount of points to spend on a weapon system. Not even considering the ammo you need to buy to even use it.

TL/DR the stats.

Stats of the autocannon complied:

Costs: 1000 fabricator points.
Firing sequence: Fire, (Can’t control) Fire, Rest, Rest. (Fires 3 shells per fire sequence but then needs 2 rest periods to cool the barrel). And takes 10 seconds to reach the ground.
Ammo types and cost: 105mm HE-AP Auto Cannon shells and costs 700 points to print a box of 21 shells
Potential damage: Creates a 3X3 explosion with the explosive ability to stun T3/queen. If hit in the center of the explosion it will either crit queen (from full health) or kill queen (from half health).
Suggested number to mount aboard: 2

That’s my suggestion, now I want to see yours!

Also I wouldn’t mind any fan artwork for this idea should it get off the ground!

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I think that air-deployed mines could be very interesting.

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I think being able to drop more stuff with the launch bay would be cool. Like it could load a supply crate of ammo, meds, etc. and airdrop it on a flare or laze just like a turret. Obviously Req can do this with coords but sometimes it takes forever or the spot isn’t clear, whereas a PO could do it faster and on demand, giving RTOs more options. Same for mines, would be a nice alternative to turrets. Maybe floodlights too.

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Both good ideas, Perhaps dropping bombs or grenades too? like in WWI where fighter pilots threw grenades out the cockpit of their craft, but instead it will just drop a jagged line of explosives/hedp/or specialized ammunition from it.

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61V43mP_d
This is my suggestion

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Would be cool lol, though quite hard to code in.

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When working on CAS weapon remakes I had came up with the following concepts during early implementation and testing with a couple players. The full design notes are still on GitLab. Unfortunately all this work is not usable in current game because it required very extensive modifications to how FMs, CAS, and even the sound system worked, which are not compatible anymore.

1. The GAU-23F Spitter

This was a GAU Variant with a number of big differences:

  • Cannot be fired Direct
  • Brute AP Damage (as opposed to GAU-21 explosive)
  • It has variable fire rate and ammo count, spinning up for more output during continuous fire
  • The weapon is “Fixed”, the gimbal is determined by attachment position on the dropship
  • Hits occur in a corridor with increasing damage and visual effects

I still have a a video somewhere i think if you want an idea of how it looks. We struggled with balancing it properly becuase it has very high damage potential, but rarely reaches it.

2. The AIM-224-LA5 ‘Sparkler’ (Widow Block 5 Light Attack)

This was basically meant to be a directed HEFA missile.

  • Fast, no meaningful explosion
  • Airburst Shrapnel, going above cover with uneven shape
  • Annular blast in Direct Fire
  • Directed blast when fired in FM
  • Partial Pylon/Ceiling piercing

I could never balance this one. It was meant to be a joke and FF-prone such it’d only be relevant in HvH, but in practice it was destroying things.

3. The AGM-229 Keen

Essentially a slightly stronger Banshee replacement that used the next sound warnings framework to make one hell of a noise as a way of balancing it out. Weaker in FM mode.

Now, some of the other weapon concepts that were to be tested with new backend systems but never were implemented

The bunker buster GBU - This was to be a railgun-esque direct-only drop bomb that could pierce through ceilings at reduced efficiency. It would use new visual effects for impact area telegraphing.

Laser-guided Autocannon shells - Plan was to allow moving/locking laser designator dot, and introduce alternate ammunition for GAU-21 (or another weapon) with gliding homing to track the laser designator position

Area denial laser - Basically a much stronger laser with telegraphed attack area for suppression.

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Additions to CAS armaments and any OT tie ins are conceptually 100% approved. Balance pending actual code implementation of course.

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Not really a weapon, but it may be cool to let the pilot take pictures of the ground, allowing CAS to scout xeno pushes or maybe the hive location. This would of course not work on underground locations, and may be somewhat hard to balance, though.

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So, I’ve got a few ideas.

Being able to drop bombs on coordinates. Essentially dumbfire munitions that don’t need a lase. Currently all weapons need a lase or flare in order to function, but what if we could just drop bombs in a general area around a set of coordinates?

Now, for actual weapons:

57RIKER (Striker):

A 57MM Cannon that is mounted to weapon ports on a DS. But due to it using a sophisticated loading system, it also takes up the adjacent electronics port.

Would be able to fire HE-I, HEFT-I and AP-I rounds accurately during a fire mission, and fire from orbit as well but with a severe accuracy detriment (3-4 Tile radius).

HE-I Shells would essentially be a glorified explosive mortar. HEFT-I Would be a glorified shrapnel mortar. AP-I would be a stronger version of an AP SADAR rocket, capable of gibbing smaller xenos such as Runners, Drones, Lurkers, Spitters, etc. While also dealing significant damage and stunning larger xenos, such as Queen, Praetorian, Crusher, etc.

The gun would be limited to 2-3 rounds per fire mission, and no other weapons could be used while firing due to the recoil of the gun with it being offset from the center.

I just think that this would be an interesting weapon to have added, as it would reward utilizing fire missions, Gimbal, and offsets to the pilot’s advantage.

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fire missions for transport PO

door guns and sentries automatically fire on fire missions

Otherwise locked to what transport could always direct fire (lasers, GAU)

separate printer points for each pilot to prevent dickheads spending it all on themselves

12

Can we bring back Fatties or is that gone forever?

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I plan to work on such a thing

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I’ve got a really weird idea.

What about a CAS turret? I’m imagining those ball turrets that were installed on flying fortresses.

The way it would work is you would install it on one of the interior hardpoints. Someone would have to mount it, (likely a DCC). It would have a viewport similar to the one in the FM menu where it can focus in on signals or flares, but instead of direct firing on the flare or running a fire mission, the support gunner can fire on any of the visible surrounding tiles. Of course the gun doesn’t need to be ultra powerful, I’m thinking something similar to the support machine gun the APC and tank had.

This would be really cool because it’d allow for CAS to provide more steady support rather than running an avoidable fire mission here and there. Trying to hold the FOB? Throw some CAS flares around and let the support gunner go to work laying down fire on visible targets.

Could do a variant of it that takes SADAR rockets and has a hefty cooldown time, but that would be significantly more powerful than just a dinky little machine gun.

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So, I have had another idea.

What about a GBU-28?

There would be only one of them available for CAS, but it would be a bunker buster. Able to penetrate the hive core in order to destroy the hive and give the marines an edge in a stalemate. Granted it may be difficult to balance something like this.

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I think we should be able to modify rocket pods to load marines into them and fire them at xenos/the hive

thank u

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Carlarc left the reasons of removal in there long ago. If somehow those points were to be fixed, it could be added back, probably.

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I see. Thank you for telling me.

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Try auger weapons (sci-fi shit or something)

basically, they can go into caves, but they’re weak and announce exactly where and when they will land, and they still can’t hit the hive (like an OB), also they’re slower than typical CAS

or you could go the other way with it and make it powerful and give it a dummy stupid cost (pocket OB???)

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I feel like a ball-turret gunner module would be super cool. It’d let someone have a ground view of the xenos as the dropship flew by, and aim and fire a big gun at them- due to the distance, there’d be a small window of warning on where the projectiles would impact, before they did- it could do the same damage as the buffed GAU did, except on a waaay smaller area.