Description: An ancient pre-space era towed howitzer, most likely pulled from some museum by the UPP to serve in the Tientsin Campaign. It is speculated that UPP later supplied it to the CLF guerrillas in the Neroid sector. This one has a digital aiming computer for ease of use from untrained personnel and has been modified to accept modern 122mm HE rounds.
Type of equipment: An artillery piece which can use 122mm 21.8 Kg HE rounds to devastate enemy position and fortifications, and support ground forces.
History with the Almayer: This particular weapon was used, the command of the Almayer’s dismay and surprise, against their marines during operation Tachyon Tackle. While it only fired 3 rounds before getting captured by ground teams, 2 of these were accurate enough to inflict heavy casualties to 1st platoons Foxtrot squad. During the operation, Ordnance technicians and engineers figured out its aiming computer but even then it saw now use beyond firing a single round to little effect for the enemy. The gun was then towed aboard via a power loader and send to deep storage along with the very limited amount of shells that remained.
In game mechanics: The [PL-96 (D-30)] 122 mm howitzer is an extra choice to buy from the tech tree, probably best put either at level 2 or 3. The howitzer will be brought up in the vehicle bay with a width of 3 so that it can fit in the back of a dropship. It can only be moved with a power loader, which requires a windup for the loader to grab and lift it, then tow it around at a slow pace. Once deployed, the howitzer will need to be anchored to the ground to fire which also takes a windup. The howitzer only comes with 6 HE shells total. Since each shell weights 22 kg carrying it and loading it would require a windup. It’s strength lies in demolition and a bit of stun rather than raw damage for the sake of balance. It needs to be operated by 3 crew which will be designated as artillery crew from cryo, specifically the 2 OTs and 1 engineer who figured it out. The engineer will operates the computer, and the OTs are the loaders. Its system would be like the one of the mortar with the difference that there’s greater warning in the form of the sound of firing alerting the imminent impact, as well as the impact warning itself.
that was a direct fire howitzer if I remember correctly. This is basically better mortar
Edit: This one has high explosive power with big falloff ideal for demolition. It has limited rounds and the idea is to have a long reload process unlike the mortar.
Nope, that was a placeholder.
Was supposed to be projectile Iirc.
The actual gun part never even made it to a state that could be shown off. Only the mechanics of the frame/vehical part.
Howitzer would be cool though as something to buy with tec points.
Options to buy there are balanced out by opertunity cost, people that whine against that are silly.
See no need to anchor it though if it only can be moved with a power loader. That already restricts the time to deploy, so yet another timer is unneccecary.
Balance is important, but making something bothersome to use aint the way.
Also, 3 people is too many. You dont want to overpack stuff like this where people are responsible for each others performance. Specificly, where other people can negativly impact others performance.
The less people invloved with the actual gun, the less friction points. I say max two, much easier to do communication that way.
Also, the more people you have, the more tasks you need to give them related to the gun. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you have people only do something once every 5 minutes.
Keeping operator count low, helps to prevent bloat and keeps players busy. Busy = playing the game. Important.
Now for the fun part:
A lot of your ideas are earily similar to the Field guns Tisx has been working on.
So similar, you could work with him on this or ask if you could expand on his code.
And if you want extra spice for this, i would concider porting the fancy projectile animation from TGMC.
I don’t think that TGMC projectile animations would suit the style and atmosphere of CM. Maybe it’s just a reluctance to changing things to be more flashy, though.
Nah dont worry, the system is the important part one would port.
How it actually looks, can be easily changed once the system is in place.
Besides, you actually think being able to hear the whistel of a shell flying towards you would make the atmosphere worse then having a big red text say it?
I mean, we already have a tons of projectiles. Each grenade has its own animated one as well for example.
So saying animated projectiles wouldnt fit CM, is a bit late.
Only real diffrence is that the mortar has it on TGMC and on CM it doesnt. Thats the main visual diffrence, the barrel it comes out of.
I really dont get whats so bad about adding another projectile and how it wouldnt fit a game that has already uniqe projectiles for every other gun.