TAU ARCHON

This ship is based on the Denron Archon  - the ship designed by Scott Hunter a.k.a. Warlock)
in both appearance and some of the weaponry characteristics (W).

The Archons primary weapon is the formation and subsequent projection of the Crystal Storm
from the ship front.  Each individual crystal consists of a matter with rather arcane physical
characteristics in fact, this matter is hyper-cold, and capable of absorbing tremendous
amounts of energy on contact (thus, a more appropriate name for the weapon would be the
Ice Storm).  If such a crystal hits a space vessel, it will freeze the crew (1) and drain some
of the vessels energy reserves (2).  Since absorption capacity of each crystal is limited,
the target ship will suffer less damage to the hull and crew if it has sufficient energy reserve.
Contact of a crystal with a high-energy source (such as a weapon or an energy projectile) is likely
to result in the annihilation of both objects (3).  Surprisingly, this weapon has only minimal effect
on large non-energetic object (such as asteroids) (4).

The secondary function of the Crystal Storm is to provide protection for the Archon.  If activated,
this function will project the ice crystals on random concentric or spiral paths around the ship,
forming a large protective cloud, difficult to penetrate with most types of weaponry and deadly for
any ship foolish enough to approach.  Both weapon and special functions use the same emitter (5),
and require a short charging time (6).


Technical notes:

(1) The crew will die if frozen.  When the last crewmember is frozen, the whole ship will freeze.
The Crystal Strom will not freeze ships (and simply destroy them instead) if you set DoFreeze = 1
in the ships INI file.

(2) Set both FuelSap parameter to zero in the INI file in order to disable the battery draining effect.

(3) In addition to normal damage, any object that comes in contact with an Ice Crystal will suffer
damage equal to its damage_factor (shot damage for projectiles, for example).  To disable this feature,
set DoReactiveDamage = 0 in the INI file (not, however, that this will make the Archons defense much
more vulnerable to projectile weapons).

(4) DO NOT set the DamageMin to zero, otherwise ships with high battery regeneration (as well as
asteroids and similar objects) will become completely immune to Archons weaponry.

(5) All parameters but speed and range are the same for the primary and secondary functions
of the Crystal Storm (see INI file).  Please note that the actual battery drain per crystal is equal to
(weapon_drain / special_drain).

(6) While the charging (ChargeTime in the INI file) time is relatively short, it is the most critical part
in the Archons tactics, since it gives the enemy the opportunity to score some hits or evade
the line of fire while Archon is charging its weapon or deffense.  Please note that the bright glow
is the indication that the weapon is charging/charged.

(W) How this ship is different from the Denrod Archon

In the Warlocks original design, Crystal storm would do no immediate damage to the target,
but instead deposit individual crystals until a critical mass is reach (at which point the object
would become frozen/dead).  This is rather complicated in both implementation and game balance
(for example, ships with high firepower (or kamikaze pilots) would simple approach and destroy Archon
with impunity before its crystals would take their toll), so I decided to make the weapon a little more
simple and dynamic, while retaining most of the cool effects.

Also, in the original design, the crystal would track the target somewhat.
 
And finally, the Denrod Archon design had a special that would replicate the special function
of the opposing ship.  This approach is quite questionable in both implementation and the in-game logic
behind it, so I decided to develop a special I though would better suit this ship.
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*Tau* <twships@tau137.com>

13 February 2003
