Idea: Electromagnetic warfare

[kiedtl]

I think there's potential for a cannon that messes with the target's sensitive electronics, a la HERF cannon, instead of doing physical damage by destroying nodes. Such a cannon would fire a projectile that simply passes through any obstructions (with the exception of a predefined list of materials that block it, possibly including most metals and concrete), while having a high chance to induce random effects in nearby "electrical equipment":

• Technic machines (including jumpdrives!) would randomly activate, deactivate, draw in massive amounts of power, or fry the CLU's in their upgrade slots.
• Battery boxes might suddenly gain a small amount of charge, or lose it instead.
• Mesecon wires, injectors, blinkies, luacontrollers, and logic gates would randomly activate in nonsensical ways.
• Luacontrollers would additionally have a chance to burn up, requiring them to be re-placed.
• Digiline devices would receive garbled events, with LCD screens outputting random messages.
• Buttons, switches, knobs, and such would change their values.

To protect against this, ships could either layer themselves with EM-resistant materials, or use a new HV machine: the "EM disruption field", which would draw in a large amount of power to destroy any EM projectiles that pass within a certain range. Ideally, this machine's range would be customizable, with it drawing in more power to protect more area. If this effect is found to be too strong, perhaps it could instead have a variable chance to destroy the projectile or maybe just inhibit its effects, instead of outright removing it.

[BuckarooBanzay]

let me know if you need help in the "disrupting mesecons/technic" department :+1:

[kiedtl]

Thanks :)

It's just an idea for now, though, I'd like to hear from others before going ahead with this, including possible usages outside of player-to-player warfare (similar to how 1hit built a mining rig with a couple hundred yellow cannons).