Apparently the people I tell this idea to one on one think I should post it somewhere, so if nothing else you're getting a chuckle out of it thanks to them. I'm still debating what category of weapon this would consist of, but I was imagining Battle Rifle would be a good pick, or perhaps an alternate Heavy Assault gun in lieu of the Jackhammer. "A refinement of a popular design improvised by New Conglomerate guerrilla forces from repurposed industrial laser cutters, the NC Chemical Laser Rifle (needs better name) rapidly generates energy from controlled chemical reactions to discharge a laser beam of unmatched power." Basically those NC boys weaponized a chemical laser cutter they had lying around their factories (and yes, chemical lasers are a real thing, and wouldn't be atypical of anyone with advanced manufacturing know-how) to make the ultimate in high alpha damage customer satisfaction. Damage values could be toyed with a bit, but for now I'm imagining something along the lines of 334 damage @ 10 meters, dropping off rather quickly to 225 damage @ 60 meters (dropping off to 250 minimum damage would be rather problematic, what with a two headshot kill at any range, but this setup still retains 250 damage shots out to just shy of 50 meters). The rate of fire here would be peculiar: While the weapon fires full auto, there's a 0.225 second charge delay between shots (that's about 266 rounds per minute, if you care) which, unlike other weapons, must also be completed for the first shot in addition to subsequent rounds. If you're engaging a target head on and open fire at the same time, the need to charge the first shot, followed by the subsequent rate of fire, gives you an all bodyshot TTK against a target without any damage resistance of 0.675 seconds, rather laughably slow. If on the other hand, you get the jump on a target and they don't react to you until you've already fired the initial shot into them, the charge delay needed to fire the two follow up shots to kill them brings your TTK in the same conditions as above down to 0.45 seconds, on par with weapons such as the TAR, GR-22 and a spooled up T7 Mini-Chaingun without the BRRT attachment. Headshot TTK in the same ambush circumstances, getting the drop on someone and shooting them before they react, brings it down to the 0.225 second delay it takes to charge another shot, not only fairly fast in this game (albeit still slower than the headshot TTK of the 167/600 damage/rate of fire tier) is also very flexible, as you only need to shoot them in the head once before a shot to the body will finish them off. Basically this serves to emphasize the gun's role as an ambush weapon. You want to see your target first, get in their blind spot and open fire to kill them before they ever knew what hit them. While the projectile's very fast speed, nonexistent bullet drop (it's a laser, after all) and good stationary ADS accuracy (moving ADS accuracy would be worse than other battle rifles, and hipfire would be about the same; bad but becomes workable with a laser sight) do give it a strong place in long range combat, the Chemical Laser Rifle would leave a very obvious Lancer-esque tracer which, while not quite as persistent, still paints a very big "I'm over here! Shoot me now!" sign on the user, something which is a bit of a death sentence given how your time to kill advantage all but evaporates against a target who's aware of your presence. Throw in the inability to equip a suppressor (or any barrel attachment, for that matter) and you have a weapons platform which, while extremely powerful in surprise attacks, paints a target on you pretty much every time you use it. I suppose that's the gist of it. Questions or comments are welcome as I continue roughing out the concept.
I only read NC and Laser/Charge up. And I suddenly realised there was something fudamentally wrong. Let's review this again... NC, Lasers - Lasers, NC. Still doesn't match. I think it should be left to VS. Lasers and VS are already old buddies.
The funny thing is, none of the VS arsenal actually consists of lasers, but rather function more akin to particle beams. The wiki on these matters if anything sure makes it sound way more cool than lasers, really. I mean, you're flat-out discombobulating their very elemental structures! Meanwhile the charge up period of the Chemical Laser Rifle isn't much akin to the charge mechanic on the Spiker or Lancer, but rather the firing delay on the Railjack. Besides, it's not like humans don't already use lasers for industrial and military purposes, or do the VS teach their kids in Spandex Pre-School that their alien god-thing invented lasers these days?
So, essentially, you want a full auto slug shotty with better range, velocity, and accuracy, that has a huge tracer beam. Meh. Try out a full auto slug shotty. It's pretty similar to what you described. Oh, and the lack of immediate fire would suck. Cut the first shot charge time in half or eliminate it entirely.
Most VS infantry weapons use micro plasma projectiles. Only weapons in the VS arsenal that are laser based is the Saron HRB (Heavy Rail Beam) (Though with the last change it had to its splash one could argue that its a plasma bolt), the Lancer, and the Vortex. As for the Original Poster what your thinking of was in PS1 and was called the CBL (Continuous Beam Laser) which was a VS AI weapon of our BFRs. As of right now the games coding can't do Continuous damage weapons properly but they are working on that as well as a few other bits of coding for weapons.
While continuous beam weapons would be cool (if also very much a VS thing), the Chemical Laser Rifle wouldn't require any special mechanic of that sort, since the weapon fires a short pulse that can be treated like any other projectile, with a more persistent sci-fi-esque laser "tracer" to create the visual effect of a laser weapon (the tracer of course, deals no damage). The slug shotgun of course also has better hipfire accuracy, would have a faster ADS movement speed and indeed, due to the fire delay and lower damage per shot of the Chemical Laser Rifle compared to a slug equipped shotgun, is ultimately better at frontloading a big chunk of alpha damage up close. The niche the CLR would fill is in being able to project high alpha damage accurately out to medium ranges, beyond what can be hit reliably with the slug shotgun, without supplanting the utility of other longer ranged weapons; sniper rifles of course can deal even more alpha damage at longer ranges, and the default battle rifle's lack of fire delay, less blatant tracer and higher maximum rate of fire give it advantages both at concealed fighting at range and as a more general purpose gun in close to medium range. Playing around too much with the charge time could prove hazardous; without having to charge the initial shot at these damage figures you'd be looking at a very competitive close range TTK in a straight on engagement (provided you land all your shots, mind you) without losing any effectiveness at range for it, which could ultimately lead to it trumping your other battle rifle option for any scenario in which concealment at range isn't a concern. Reducing the charge time on the first shot (or perhaps going with a different bullet damage/charge time metric) could be viable, but I feel the current proposed figures do a good job emphasizing the weapon's niche as a medium-range, high alpha damage ambush weapon that can be worked accurately out to longer ranges at the cost of stealth.
I just read "chemical rifle" and thought of these guys: Given the NC "underdog/rebel/insurgent/terrorist" status, I think a chemical weapon would be fun for MAXes. Just happily spraying the stuff everywhere.
VS use plasma, not lasers. why is this so difficult to get across? Anyways, excellent idea, OP. Fits the, "Miners who rebelled and repurposed technology." theme very well, and fills a much needed niche. TR and VS would of course -also- need another battle rifle, but that's another topic for another day. Three possible barrel attachments you actually could potentially have would be a Beam Focuser, a Frequency Modulator, and a Beam Splitter; one increasing the effective damage range at the cost of a slightly longer charge time, one removing the tracer by altering the frequency to be out of the visible spectrum, the downside being losing velocity and/or damage range, and the last one simply making this weapon function like a shotgun. I hate being the shotgun faction, but it seems DGC has decided that that's our fate.
Pls don`t make it a shotgun,there are already enough in the game. I like the idea, though I am disappointed of the lack of any chemical warfare after reading the title. I`m gonna piggyback the thread a little to include some HA weps i thought of: TR - The sparrow - laser guided rocket launcher - very fast speed very agile (Half - Life rocker launcher), long reload, can only guide in ADS, has only 200 meters life and after that it explodes. Damage profile similar to the phoenix. NC - Needs a name - AV rail gun - no drop high velocity rail gun - long reload, long charge up time, user cannot move during the charge up until the shot is fired to compensate for the massive recoil. Damage would be a bit higher then decimator. At 120 meters the weight of the projectile + poor aerodynamic properties would cause oscillations to occur changing the flight path to expanding spiral to make sure effectiveness at range is limited. VS - Photon Particle Accelerator (even with some backstory, sorry NC xD)- the vs scientists have uncovered the very ancient vanu technology used to create the wormhole that led everyone to Auraxis. While not being able to understand exactly how this technology works or how it can be used to travel trough space,the VS have understood that the photon is not restricted to the speed of light, and can be in fact accelerated faster, creating a rupture in space-time. - giant AV purple beam - Massive damage in a cylinder with approximately 1m diameter - single use weapon (needs to resupply after every use), long charge up time, damage is applied over time (~1.5 secs), needs to be deployed before firing, user cannot move during charge up, cannot move or aim during firing. Space-time continuum corrects itself from the paradox the PPA has created rather quickly, making the rupture completely dissaper at the 160 meter mark - 0 damage at 161 meters. No damage drop-off.
Energy weapons in general are VS territory. It doesn't matter if it's laser, plasma, <insert exotic energy weapon name> or Vanu Wizardry. This is all the more important when you said "the projectile's very fast speed", which makes the proposed weapon not a "laser" by definition (which should be hitscan), but yet another non-related energy weapon named by a misguided soul like a certain Saron "Laser" Cannon. In effect, you're suggesting an AI Lancer. For the NC no less.
hmmm a faction specific weapon with bullet velocity = speed of light,with 0 bullet drop um no. and although vs uses plasma weapons, its "energy weapons" If you want to give this one to the vs it would sound ok, accept for the bullet speed thing, or if it was an ns weapon, maybe but this would take away the faction bonus from VS not that its a good bonus,
If you want a LASER-based weapon for NC, what would be the VS equivalent if you get a "fast-firing" high-tech hitscan weapon? A charge-up, heat-based launcher that shoots no-bullet-drop Scythes with no-bullet-drop Dual Photon pods? And what about us at TR? Triple shoulder-mounted Vulcans for Heavy Assault? All in all, a simple LASER carbine best matches VS weaponry due to its no-drop, but TR could use something different for a change as well, and the fast-firing pattern matches our weaponry. You have enough weapon variety at NC.
