I SHOULD have the map for the test mission posted up tomorow and a description of how I hope for combat in this to work; once I have that up we can take a vote to skip ahead to the shooting at each other portion of this episode and then prepare for the actual killing stuff and the Jihad breaking out. We did this before and came up with how we wanted weapons to behave so that we can have some uniformity in our posts; the laser colors are canon so I am adding them to the description.
Laser weapons come in two types which are standard and pulse. Standard lasers fire a beam of coherent light that last slightly longer than a second and slices through armor like a knife and usually cuts long gouges and gashes into a target. Pulse lasers fire intermittently and release dozens of short laser blasts over a quarter second period, the result is less spread and greater damage to the area of impact. Laser colors vary by the manufacturer but they are always within a certain color spectrum because of their target wavelengths: small lasers are red in hue and ER versions approach orange in color, medium lasers are generally green ranging from lime to olive in hue with ER versions being sapphire and darker, large laser types are blue in hue some ER versions might be purplish.
PPC weapons fire hyper charged particles similar in appearance and effect to lightning. They travel slightly slower than the speed of light but the mass of the particles being fired combined with sheer energy allows the weapon to outclass lasers in damage and range. They are usually colored a pale white to an off-pink with some being blueish. A regular and ER PPC has a minimum range of 90 meters before the particles accelerate enough to cause significant damage.
Flamer on a 'mech fires white hot liquid plasma from it's engine to a maximum range of about 90 meters and causes damage by melting whatever it hits and cause 'mechs to heat up. The fact that it is radioactive just makes it that much more dangerous to infantry.
Plasma Rifle fires a white hot ball if plasmatized foam at a target dealing damage in a manner similar to a flamer over greater ranges. Getting hit by one causes the 'mech to heat up.
Autocannon is a class of weapon with a varying size and weight and even effect. Some autocannons fire in automatic bursts while others fire single massive shells semi-automatically. Things all AC's have in common is that they are automatically reloading large bore projectile weapons with rifled barrels rated 2,5,10, or 20 and have similar range, weight, and ammo specifications within each class.
LBX Autocannon are smooth bore varieties of Autocannons with a slightly reduced range but the ability to fire both standard autocannon rounds and scattershot rounds similar to a shotgun shell. They can only fire one ammo type at a time but can freely switch from one type to another between firings or even missions if the proper types are equipped.
Ultra Autocannon weapons are very similar to regular autocannons but with twice the cycle rate.
Rotary Autocannon essentially a gatling gun style weapon firing autocannon shells. They are ammo hogs with full auto rates of fire and ar eprone to jamming when fired for more than a short burst.
Machine Guns these weapons come in thousands of varieties but they all have some things in common. They are belt fed fully automatic weapons capable of penetrating vehicle armor at point blank ranges (less than 100 meters) and are often used primarily for anti infantry and battle armor work.
Gauss Rifles fire solid slugs that weigh 125kg each at speeds exceeding several times the speed of sound! The force of their shot heats the air inside the barrel to combustion and creates a brilliant flash of fire and plasma when used. Though the weapon does not use chemical propellant the energy required by the weapon to propel its ammunition means that damage to the gauss rifle could have explosive consequences.
Missiles all missiles regardless of type fire one missile per tube per volley and swarm on the designated target; since most missiles have only simplistic guidance systems and poor maneuvering capability they will not all usually hit the target hence they are fired en mass. Streak Missile systems avoid this by only allowing the weapon to fire when a hard lock is achieved by all missiles at once while Artemis enhanced missiles have better targeting and guidance systems than other missile types. Long Range Missiles must travel at least 180 meters to activate their guidance system but can be blind fired at enemies within that range.
Rockets are unguided self propelled warheads; they can only be fired in a single volley all at once but have an intermediate range and strong explosives.
If I missed something let me know.
