I was fighting NPC's and It just popped into my imagination.

New Weapon:

Exotic Rail Gun:

Installs a Exotic Rail Gun on your ship (limit x per ship).
Scales in attack (+ammo) and size based on your rank (grows with your ship every 100 ranks)
AMMO: Each time you attack and this weapon is installed you use Exotic matter equal to Attack value of the weapon.

______________________________Size ATK
Rank 001 - 100 Exotic Rail Gun - Mark 1 10 60
Rank 101 - 200 Exotic Rail Gun - Mark 2 12 120
Rank 201 - 300 Exotic Rail Gun - Mark 3 14 180
Rank 301 - 400 Exotic Rail Gun - Mark 4 16 240
Rank 401 - 500 Exotic Rail Gun - Mark 5 18 300

Balancing Issue: Although the weapon is powerful, supplies of Exotic matter will definitely determine the usefulness of the weapon, Players will lose x amount of exotic matter every time the weapon fires and if there is not enough exotic matter the weapon should not activate (decreasing attack power of the ship)

in PVP mode
When ship is on aggressive stance: weapon consumes Ammo at regular rate. Each attack done by the controlling player consumes 100% of ammo needed E.G. 100 Attack 100 exotic matter per Attack.
When ship is on defensive stance: weapon consumes ammo at decreased rate. Each defensive fire of the ship consumes 10% of the ammo required to fire guns. E.G. 100 Attack consumes 10 exotic matter

*This feature is to protect players that are constantly under attack so they will not lose their stores of Exotic matter at an alarming rate.

genius +1

Yes, this is a great idea. It makes attacking a lot more complex, and it would be a great use for exotic matter. Other modules could use the same idea. You could even use exotic matter you recharge your ship.

I would much rather that weapons that scale in rank and favour the rich were used in NPC fighitng but not PVP fighting. Exotic matter's main use currently is missions... and frankly from the stats i've seen you need a tonne to complete them all. It's all fair and well for a Dysonian but i think giving more strength to the already ridiculously strong is just stupid.

Good idea on a level playing field, or a field with 2 teams above the rest opposing one another but in the current state of affairs i think weapons like the one suggested should be restricted to NPC fighting. NPC only modules could be fun i think.

Higher level should mean more exotic matter.

100 per volley for 100 attack below 100.
220 per volley for 200 attack below 200.
400 per volley for 300 attack below 300
700 per volley for 500 attack below 400
5000 per volley for 1000 attack on up.

I am almost level 300 and this seems fair enough. I would do it but only if the cannon had no weight or very little. Also incentive to use dark matter for important enough things would leave this to be an occasional use weapon.

Anything below 200 attack for me right now would be a waste of time.

i like the idea of scaling weapons, I don't like the idea of using ammo......of any kind.......one more thing to worry about.

The ammo is a power boost. If you don't have any supply of ammo. There is no more power boost. You can simply uninstall the canons and use something else.