Alpha 16 - The one with Phasers

Hey gang. Happy Thorium Thursday!

Over the weekend I released Alpha 16. This has a number of bug fixes, including many improvements to the collision system for torpedoes, impulse and warp speed, and shield power.

The big feature is Phasers. If you've played other bridge sims, their laser weapons usually auto-fire and don't require any manual charging - you just pick a target, and if the target is in range, which is defined by some arc with a certain radius away from the ship, then the lasers will automatically fire on some interval. Nifty, but not inspiring.

Thorium Classic, on the other hand, requires the tactical officer to charge the phasers before firing them. It's a little dance of charge, fire, repeat, with pauses every now and then to cool the phasers down.

Thorium Nova follows this pattern, but in its own, more deeply integrated way.

Charging

Tactical no longer charges the phasers. Instead, that's the responsibility of the Engineer, who has a special "Phase Capacitor" item on their Systems Monitor - one for each Phaser system assigned to the ship. This acts like a battery - power diverted from the reactors goes into the Phase Capacitor, slowly charging it. Then, when the Tactical officer hits the "Fire" button, the power rushes through the phasers and out into space, draining the Phase Capacitor.

So now Tactical has to coordinate with the Engineer to make sure they've go the power they need when the crew enters battle.

This might seem needlessly complex - why not just integrate the Phase Capacitor right into the phasers? But there's method to the madness. If you attach a reactor directly to the phasers, it actually won't do anything. Phasers need a higher throughput of power, and reactors and batteries just can't supply enough juice fast enough.

But what if you attach the Phase Capacitor to another system, like the Impulse Engines or Shields? It will only last for a short while, but an extra boost to non-phaser systems could come in handy at different times.

Same thing applies to the Phasers - attaching multiple Phase Capacitors to one phaser system will overcharge it, providing even more devastating damage. Naturally, though, overpowering any system will cause the heat to increase dramatically faster, so the crew has to choose if its worth the tradeoff.

Targeting

Phasers are fired from the same targeting screen as the torpedoes. Tactical clicks a target within targeting range - that's it.

Phasers emulate the other bridge sims - their range is configurable. You can choose the maximum range in kilometers, and maximum arc in degrees. This is used to generate a cone extending from the ship - targets within the cone can be hit by the phasers.

"Why maximum?" you may ask? Because the phaser arc is configurable. You can hit a stationary target very far away by narrowing the beam arc, which lengthens the range. Or you can hit a target flying around close to the front of your ship by widening the beam arc, which shortens the range.

And phasers can be mounted in different directions on the ship - so one phaser can be pointed 45˚ starboard, while the other is 45˚ port, giving you an even wider range of phaser coverage, so long as both phasers are charged.

Phasers can be fired a full blast, or increments of 25%, so you can be a bit more surgical with how the phasers are fired to disable a ship instead of outright destroy it. Naturally, as Phasers are fired, the beams appear on the targeting grid and the main viewscreen.

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That's about it. Feel free to play around with it on the latest alpha and let me know what to think.

Next, I plan on working a few engine features. These include

• System sound effects, for the phasers, torpedoes, engines, reactors, etc.
• UI sound effects, for buttons, card changes, etc.
• Factions - Whether a ship is a friend or enemy, and systems for changing that based on your behavior.
• Heat generation and dissipation for engines, torpedoes, and phasers.