Today we are going to talk about the weapons in Drox Operative a little. In a fantasy game, there really isn't that much of a difference between the various weapon types except their DPS (damage per second), who can use them, and sometime range. In Drox, there are way more variations. They have the usual variations in damage, speed, who can use them, and range. However, there are also many broad types that work very differently, they don't all fit into the same slots, and they cause different types of damage.
First of all, there are a lot of different types of weapons. Ballistic weapons fire a small, physical object at very high speeds (think railgun). Beam weapons fire some kind of particle beam (like a laser). Bomb weapons launch a bomb directly to the specified point in space and explodes. Doomsday weapons are massive, one use weapons which are explained more here. EM weapons fire an electromagnetic pulse of various sorts that damages and causes lingering problems. Fighter bays launch fighters of course. Freezer weapons do damage, but at the same time are designed to impact the movement of the enemy in some way. Mine weapons launch mines. While mines lack enemy tracking, they makes up for it with power. Missile weapons fires missiles that track their targets. Virus weapons use various particle beams to do damage, but also upload a virus to disrupt the enemy's systems. Then there are various other weapons that don't fit into any category very well, things like Lightning Fields, Hellfire, and Big Bang.
All of these weapons types have different damage, speeds, and ranges like usual. Missiles do a lot of damage and have great range, but are slow. Beam weapons are fast, but they're not as powerful and their damage diminishes as the distance to the target increases. EM and virus weapons do less damage, but they also have powerful debuffs. Mines and bombs do a lot of damage because they forgo tracking for pure explosive power.
Unlike a fantasy game there isn't one weapons slot (or two if you count duel weapons). The bigger more direct weapons typically fit into a heavy slot and the more tactical ones typically fit into a medium slot. Also there isn't anything from preventing you from installing multiple weapons, well except for crew requirements, power load available, and empty slots of course.
The use of weapons is also a little different than in a fantasy game. In a fantasy game you either do a generic attack or use a skill attack. Both of these are assumed to use your equipped weapon. In Drox your weapons and skills are somewhat combined so you use them more directly like you would skills. So you might use your laser beam on the fighter right next to you and launch a missile at the mothership that is further back.
And finally, all of the weapons don't cause the same types of damage. Weapons like missiles, bombs, and mines cause explosion damage. Beam weapons cause thermal damage, ballistic weapons cause kinetic damage, EM weapons cause EM damage, and while no whole category causes radiation damage, some specific weapons do.
That's about it. That should at least give all of you a little more insight into how the weapons work.
