New Spin On Archwing Secondaries - Launchers

[IronWolfSaber]

Launchers

What is it? :

Introducing off-primary weapons into Archwing mode.

How is this one different?
Typically when most Tenno suggest secondaries for Archwing they're still thinking in terms of pistols that more grounded Tenno are more familiar with; what is being suggested here is more in line of thinking of Archwings specifically, by up-sizing the off primary weapon to that of a launchers similarly found on modern jet fighters!

So why launchers?

1. It's Archwing - Observe the weapon swap animations for Archwing. Note the clunkiness of it; note how even using a quick strike melee can be clunky as well? This is designed very well on purpose to impose that archwings are indeed fact not Tenno but something a bit larger and cumbersome; still far more agile nimble and maneuverable than anything Grineer or Corpus have flying but still not a Tenno in absolute performance. Having another weapon that is just simply a weaker primary wouldn't suit the mode very well ESPECIALLY if you accidentally swap to melee instead of the pistol.

2. Primary Weapons - Another thing to note is primary weapons and how they work; notably they never EVER run out of ammo. Which is one reason why Tenno have secondaries in the rare or possible event the primary weapon runs out of ammo. In addition primary weapon functionality is already poor as it is in comparison to the first weapon of choice the Imperator. Now imagine a pistol version of most of the current weapons for archwing we have? All very poor excuses for weapons we really don't need nor would spend time swapping and by the time you swap to it generally your primary weapon has ammo again to deal with whatever threats you are facing. While primaries can use a buff this idea isnt going to address that. Nor are we going to suggest weaker primaries to act as new secondaries.

3. The Environment Given - To give Archwing more feel that its a space to space combat 'gundam' simulator. While Archwing powers can stand side to side with most of these launchers; launchers can get immensely creative as much as powers can. Deployables, mines, dispensers, generators, drones, missiles, rockets, bombs, nets and so much more.

4. Content - Gives more things into archwing to do; farm, build, master, mod, craft, theory craft, plat sell, paint, and just annihilate enemies with.

So about that clunkiness you mentioned?

Solved easily by making 'Hold F' into 'Activate Secondary' combination of hold F + mouse click could be used in weapons that need it or hold F + middle mouse click for secondary actions if the weapon has it. Tap F would be reserved for swapping to melee. The currently equipped arch-wing weapon (primary or melee) will not be put up this entire time allowing you to immediately get back into the action as soon as you get the launch off. Some secondaries may fire by holding F alone while others are more context sensitive such as locking on; laser guided; or manual detonations. Some secondaries may also hinder movement while in use or others are fire and forget firing after they been armed allowing the primary or powers to be used in conjunction for more concentrated firepower.

What about the Energy level of the primary weapons rendering the secondaries useless?

Secondaries unlike primaries are so much slower to restock its ammo stores; Also their ammo counter should also be displayed along with the primary weapon so the player can know when it is ready to fire. Generally the more powerful the secondary is in effect or utility the lower the entire mag and slower the ammo stock. For example a rocket pod may restock a single volley with every primary mag emptying allowing the player to use a volley while the primary takes a breather. However, a Cruise missile launcher may only be viable every two reloads or more even after being modded.

What about the Archwing powers; some of these already has some of these abilities?

What about Mesa with her pistols?
What about Excalibur with his sword?
What about Ember vs Ingus?
What about Archer and her bow?

There is room for both definitely but in light of these weapons some of these powers could use a buff or differentiation. For example Elyrton may have a passive buff that secondary increases magazine size by 50% rounded up to help maintain it is the bomber wing. Odotana may get a restock passive buff making it the premier fighter wing, and finally the Itzal may get a damage buff playing into the stealth wing role more strongly.

About that creativity what kinds of examples of weapons you can see being made?

I have a few and here are some basic descriptions, classes, and examples:
Arming - How long a player has to hold F to activate?
Readiness - how long a player has to wait for the weapon to be ready again? This will never surpass primary weapons score. May surpass natural regenerative power use.
Endurance - How long or how often this weapon can be used?
Anti-formation - This weapon is good against a large group of clustered enemies
Hard Kill - This weapon is good against single targets
CQC - Close Quaters Combat makes this weapon peferrable inside of ships or very close proximity in space.
DS - Deepspace, This weapon mostly performs very poorly in interior spaces and will prove very difficult to use to its best advantage.
Standoff - This weapon performs decent at medium ranges and is somewhat balanced between either interior ship fighting and deepspace

Weapon Classes

Rockets - Typically will have a high up time or higher endurance to the point it can be easily used every time the primary weapon is found unsuitable for the situation.

Missiles - While not as frequently usable as the rockets majority of smaller missiles are readily usable when appropriate and opportunity provides itself.

Mines - Are infrequently usable making regret in wrong timing of its use very possible; between waves and transitioning of objectives would be highly feasible.

Cannons/Large Ordinance - The long reloading time on these makes one think about using the weapon ahead of time and to carefully pick targets or the situation.

Utility Dispensers - Similar to mines they're infrequent use makes them niche for very reactive situations.

Weapon Ideas

Rockeye

 

Fig 1-1 Rockeye Diagram

 

 

These rocket pods fires a scattering salvo of old fashioned contact explosives in a tight pattern, devastating entire squadrons. 

Grineer Semi-Auto Salvo Rockets
Anti-formation & Hard Kill, CQC

Wing Top Mounted; Fires around and behind the wing forward.

Fire mode : Hold F + Mouse Click to Fire; Short Arm Time

Forced but short wing slowdown to position rocket launcher direction at target crosshair.

Can be fired out of position causing rockets to be fired in a direction not currently aimed at. This is more of a mastery obstacle rather than a 'feature.' More a player moves while secondary mode is activate the more off target the salvo will be. 

ADS mode tightens the pattern.
Burst Fire Salvo of 5 unguided rockets in a semi-geometric/random pattern that spreads over distance drastically making it ineffective at longer ranges, Multi-shot mods will change patterns.

Warhead Type is a contact small AOE explosive, goes dud if it hits nothing

Very Fast Fast Projectiles
Damage Direct hit is higher
Individual Rocket damage is low.
Entire Salvo with AOE explosion damage is medium at designated ranges.

Restocks rockets fairly quickly; making it an easy weapon to weave into attack patterns with frequent usage. 
Can be fired multiple times before being exhausted.



Vaptron - Corpus Rocket pods, This rapid firing highspeed plasma bolt launcher that uses its magnetic fielding to help home in on potential targets but due to its slow turning makes it a poor choice to home in on close targets making marksmanship more required for a direct hit.

Corpus Rockets
Long Range Killer
Longrange Deepsace; poor interior fighting due to terrible turn rates
Varied Arming Time - Longer the arming the faster the bolts are.
Long Reliable Range; Unrelaible Short range before detonation.
Semi-Auto
Medium Readiness
Low Endurance
Med Damage

Sanguinmore - Tenno Rocket pods. This swarm launcher lets loose a torrent of void guided armor piercing darts into the enemies in front of them capable of skewering the enemies multiple times before running out of energy to carry on. The high turn rate and seeking capabilities allows these darts to hit the target multiple times or a multitude of targets.

Tenno Rockets
Anti-formation
Varied Arming Time - Longer the arming time the longer the projectile life is.
Single Action Shot.
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
High Damage Potential

Blem - Grinner Standoff Ordinance Dispensing Missile - This slow missile launchers a missile launcher that spreads bomblets along its unguided flight path and detonating the entire chain of explosives at the end of its journey. Tenno operators can prematurely detonate the missile causing it to have a much larger explosion for more bomblets yet to be dispensed yet.

Grineer Dispensing Missile
Anti-formation
Medium Arm Time - Fueling and then the launching velocity is slow at the start.
Single Action Shot - Manual Detonation possible.
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
High Damage

Summa - A spent reactor launcher is best recycling program the corpus came up with when it came to disposing spent reactor cores. Not only does it get rid in a fiery explosion but the remaining radiation is harmful to anything that enters its field.

Corpus Radiation Missile
Anti-formation/Area Denial
Medium Long Arm Time - Manual Detonation possible
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
High Damage

Willowscent - A locking sword launcher that punctures its target before detonating in to thousands of razor sharp slithers to cut targets apart. Multiple swords can be launched against multiple targets or onto a single target for a hardened kill.

Tenno Lock-on Missile
Anti-formation / Hard Target Killer
Short Arm Time - Manual Narrow Locking Required to launch, Locks can stack
Low Readiness
Medium Endurance
High Damage

Oalfboff - Grineer Mine Launcher is capable of dispensing homing mines that chase targets that near them down. Mines layed remain for a time and in position until a suitable target is in range. Not suitable to use in CQC as the mine's explosions can cause damage to the launcher.

Grineer Offensive Mine Launcher
Defense / Escape
Short Arm Time
Low Readiness
High Endurance
Low Damage
Burst Fire

Absentext - Corpus Shield Generator Launcher is capable of creating a small bubble that allows one way firing from within protecting occupants.

Corpus Shield Generator Launcher
Defense / Stationary
Short Arm time
Extremely Low Readiness
Low Endurance
Single Shot.

Bastillion - Tenno palisade launcher places an offensive wall of blades that reactively launch against any nearing targets while asorbing fire and allowing fire from behind the safety it provides allowing one to bolster the defenses against harder targets.

Tenno Barrier Launcher
Defense / Offensive
Short Arm Time
Extremely Low Readiness
Low Endurance
Single Shot

Repugnance - Infested Gas Dispenser creates a trail of deadly toxic gas spores that burrow their way into enemy systems.

Infested Gas Dispenser
Escape / Offensive
Short Arm Time
Medium Readiness
High Endurance
'Burst Fire'

Recourse - This large caliber Tenno Cannon is capable of putting a high kinetic shell through any tough target knocking it heavily off course and potentially destroying it from impact alone before it detonates.

Tenno Cannon
Assassinate Hard Target Killer.
Medium Arm Time
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
Semi-auto Fire


Optiflex - This high energy beam Corpus Cannon lets out a torrent of destructive energy capable of annhilating entire squadrons of hostile ships.

Corpus Cannon
Anti-formation
Medium Arm Time
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
"Burst" Fire Beam

Ragna - Inspired by the balor formorian primary weapon; this Grineer energy beam is able to cut a patch clear through entire swaths of enemies with intense heat.

Grineer Cannon
Anti-formation
Long Arm Time
Low Readiness
Low Endurance
Single shot beam

Axiom - This Infested Missile Launcher is hungering for battle willing to seek out prey on its own and bringing misery and death to all those it latches onto slowing them down.

Infested Missile Launcher
Debuffer
Medium Arm Time - Wide area multilock, Locks do not stack
Low Readiness
High Endurance
Multiple missiles launched based on how many where locked.

Sinus - This wall of infested flesh blocks access and shots growing larger overtime until it eventually ruptures leaving a lingering fume of toxic gases that can crew through any life support seals of crafting passing through it.

Infested Wall Launcher
Short Arm Time
Low Endurance
Low Readiness
Single wall deployed.

If this thread gets enough likes/conversation I may draw some more.

Edited October 13, 2015 by IronWolfSaber

[Insizer]

Bastillion has got me thinking of Bleach

[DoomFruit]

"Absentext" - I see what you did there...

Me, I just want an effective Itano Circus. Not the homing paintballs that Odonata fires on #3.

Edited October 12, 2015 by DoomFruit

[theammostore]

Yes please lets do this. This sounds amazing

[IronWolfSaber]

Added the following secondaries:

Ragna Grineer Beam Cannon

Sinus Infested Wall Launcher

Axiom Infested Missile Launcher

Suggested Passives for Arcwings involving the secondaries

Odotana - Restock Speed+

Elytron - Magazine+

Itzal - Damage+

Added Rockeye diagram and updated design notes for it.

 

Currently in work

 

Rockeye Nice picture.

Drone Launchers and figuring out how they differentiate from missiles. (thinking longer projectile lifespan with some behaviors)

Other Utility

More Tenno weapons

More Infested weapons

More missiles

Bombs

Torpedoes

Cruise Missiles

Edited October 13, 2015 by IronWolfSaber

[Aisenkuis]

Oooh! I read it all and just take my money allready. I need this! :O

[Pro3Display]

random idea: something like armored core shoulder weapon units / back-mount weapon units

[IronWolfSaber]

random idea: something like armored core shoulder weapon units / back-mount weapon units

 

Some of them maybe shoulder 'launched' and back mounted instead I have to be considerate of the animations of the archwing though as it has alot of complicated moving parts and tries its best to not clip with the tenno or itself. Majority of the weapons will be wing mounted and pointed oddly for forward firing or using non forward firing solutions (ie lock on missiles would just launch irregardless of wing position) while some weapons will require wing or tenno positioning to fire. 

[Kinetos]

+1

[Pro3Display]

Some of them maybe shoulder 'launched' and back mounted instead I have to be considerate of the animations of the archwing though as it has alot of complicated moving parts and tries its best to not clip with the tenno or itself. Majority of the weapons will be wing mounted and pointed oddly for forward firing or using non forward firing solutions (ie lock on missiles would just launch irregardless of wing position) while some weapons will require wing or tenno positioning to fire. 

it really doesnt matter where it is mounted i talk about functionality.

for example Folding large caliber cannon.... well we have grattler tho.... but w/e

[IronWolfSaber]

it really doesnt matter where it is mounted i talk about functionality.

for example Folding large caliber cannon.... well we have grattler tho.... but w/e

 

Devs have taken serious issues with clipping before to the point they have issued out bug fixes consistently for them. It has to be part of the considerations. 

[Pro3Display]

Devs have taken serious issues with clipping before to the point they have issued out bug fixes consistently for them. It has to be part of the considerations. 

i mean i proposed example of functionality, not placement, and only partly - design

designers will make it look so it would fit the game anyways so i don't even consider them being "exactly same as example"

 

difference is that you automatically consider things that should not be forgotten being changed.

i dont even consider taking into account things that 100% will be changed drastically.

 

does my pov sound legit?

Edited October 16, 2015 by Pro3Display

[Culaio]

+1

 

Its great to see that there are still people who have believe that archwing game mode can be awesome, it just needs some changes. 

 

I must say that your idea is pretty awesome :D

 

I saw before someone  having idea of "heavy weapons" as secondary type of weapon for archwing guy twho created the thread with the idea mentioned shoulder/back mounted cannon type of weapons, but other people in the topic mentioned missle pods so we could do "macross missile massacre", here is link to his idea:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/471324-idea-3rd-archwing-weapon-heavy-weapons/

 

 

By the way I created topic where I try to collected ideas, related to mechanics of archwing game mode, would it be ok if I put your idea in my thread ? of course I would give you credits, and would post a link to your thread, I already posted in my thread that heavy weapon idea, I mentioned above(of course after asking owner of the idea).

In my thread I am slowly building up on his idea of heavy weapons as secondary weapons, into something more: 'special equipment' - in this slot not only would fit heavy/complex weapons but also defensive systems or support systems, for example:

Weapons like:

-shoulder/back cannon/s

-missile pods

-attack drones

-kamikaze drones

defensive equipment like:

shield drones(satelites?) - small "drones" float around projecting small round energy shields to defend you from attacks from every direction(protect spherical space around you) but since they move around the defensive space around you would have holes that would let some of attacks reach you(so it wouldnt be OP)

Support equipment like:

-repair drones - would repair you and your allies

 

In this slot would fit any equipment that wouldnt fit in primary or melee weapon slot. It could stuff that is too big or complex for primary slot, also stuff that isnt directly attached to us like drones, also weapons that are too big to be attached to us, which would be float near us or be materialized when we equip or activate "secondary" weapon, even materializing orbiter or part of it equiped with weapons to attack enemies would a possibility as 'special equipment'. 

 

link to my thread if you are interested:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/508803-archwing-mechanics-a-trip-to-the-docking-bay-for-some-much-needed-upgrades-for-quality-of-life/

Edited October 19, 2015 by Culaio