Modding in an ion cannon

Yes, but the complexities behind it are numerous. I suggest by modding in some basic things first, ship stats, planet upgrades, structures, etc. Then once you have the basics move up a gear. Even I'm not sure on where to start with this, but it is doable. I would start with editing the special ability that has it (TEC capital ship I think). Then try and replicate it on normal weapon effects.

Advent have a form of it too. I was lookin at it.

I have already modded in several ships and structures, this one is just kind of stumping me.

Whats really getting me is this: is there a way to make a weapons damage output be that of a special ability. still lookin into that, i just got off the road, so i'm not crackin on this fully yet.

If somehow you can declare a damage type to bring up an ability, thats all you need right there. A no-damage, no area-of-effect ship disable ability.

Also still trying to figure out how this would balance into the game heh. I'm thinkin an expensive specialized unit, maybe for all factions. Reason i want it is to get the one that always seems to get away.

If one were to mod this in, there would have to eventually be a development to lessen the effective time of the weapon too. Like an ion, make it disrupt things, but maybe with research, the actual ability it has to disable engine systems and warping would be less.

Don't know if any of this is even possible heh. I'm sure the star wars guys are trying it or are interested in doing this though.

Let me know if you guys find anything, i'm gonna work on it.

Have you tried making the ability Passive? I know its a long shot, but sometimes things that are blatantly obvious work... I doubt it though. Good luck anyway.

Take a look at the Marza's Incendiary Shells ability. It specifically binds a damage over time effect to all Missile and Autocannon weapons, while the Lasers on the Marza remain unchanged. It works as a passive ability bound to the weapon types "Missile" and "Autocannon" through BuffIncendiaryShellsSelf.entity and then dealing damage for a period of time with BuffIncendiaryShellsTarget.entity. Looking at those should be a good indication of seeing how to bind abilities and disables to weapon fire. Combine the Buff...Self.entity with the TEC Akkan Ion cannon Buff...Target.entity and you should have just what you are looking for.

As a side note, IMO your disabling weapon would probably work better like this. Make a weapon that fires every 5 seconds, and applies a -5% to movement, turning, phasing, and +5% to weapon cooldown with a 4 sec duration. Now for the fun part, in your target.entity, set onReapplyDuplicateBuff to "StackNewBuff".
Now for just one ship with said Ion weapon, the disabling effect will be near negligible, but 10 Ion weapons firing on the same ship will be a serious problem, keeping the poor sucker on near permanent lockdown. Could be a great way to make early game scouts more useful in late game encounters.