Making ammo type determine damage type

[Barbariandude]

I was talking to Seamus S, and he had the most interesting idea which would fix the problems of galleons being underpowered with anything other than lumberjacks, gatling + flak being mandatory on almost every ship as they have the highest anti-armour damage and highest anti-hull damage, respectively, and gunners being underpowered compared to engineers as you don't need more than 1 ammo type for the vast majority of guns. Just make ammo type determine damage type.

This would make which guns you take largely a stylistic choice depending on your playstyle, and would allow far more options for loadouts other than just gatling + flak for brawling. It would also allow heavy weapons to actually strip armour, which would make brawling galleons viable, and it would make gunners much more needed as you could switch from anti-armour to anti-balloon to anti-hull ammo type as needed.

Opinions?

[NikolaiLev]

This was an idea I had long ago, but deemed it too radical to bother suggesting.  I'm pleased someone else has considered it though.

An ammo type could change direct, AoE or both to a certain type.  It could also just turn a certain % of total damage into a given ammo type.

Any way you slice it, this would make gunners very interesting, and would help bring more weapons into the spotlight.

It'd take some careful tweaking so that, say, dual light flak with one/both using piercing ammo isn't as good as a dedicating piercing weapon + a dedicated explosive weapon.  But still.

[Barbariandude]

It'd take some careful tweaking so that, say, dual light flak with one/both using piercing ammo isn't as good as a dedicating piercing weapon + a dedicated explosive weapon.  But still.

Well, the flaks with piercing ammo would lose the explosive damage type, so they wouldn't do much damage to the hull, just strip the armour, meaning it wouldn't be terribly OP. This idea kind of throws away "dedicated" explosive/piercing/flechette weapons, except as the damage the default ammo type does.

[Seamus S]

I just think this makes more sense for most of the guns. A cannon is just a tube after all. It can fire explosive rounds, flechettes, AP rounds, incendiary rounds, etc. I think this would also make gunners much more valuable to a ship's crew.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I like this idea. Would make gunners very viable for competitive play. You could have them changing between armor piercing and other types for any gun which would extend the usage of others. I'd really love to see shatter added to the regular mortar. I think the burst from it would be crippling at close range. Which would be doable if there was ammo types like this.

Really this wouldn't be a radical change but more of a refinement of the gun system.

[Shinkurex]

this is a very interesting suggestion... and I can see how this would make the gunner more viable in some other capt. eyes.... My only concern is balance... seems like it could be a nightmare. For instance the gat... sit a gunner on that, and all he would need are piercing and explosive type ammo.... with the gat's large clip, and fast reload, it could be way too OP... how would you guys overcome this balancing issue?

[Ofiach]

Maybe something like a gat couldn't use explosive type ammo. And a mortar couldn't have piercing. A few realistic restrictions would make it easy enough to balance.

I couldn't imagine two gats going from piercing to explosive on the fly... that would just be STOOOPID.

[Shinkurex]

hmmm... to be honest, I'm not too fond of that idea Ofiach... if we restrict the ammo, it'd put us right back where we started where some pilots devaluing gunners... to counter suggest, what if the ammo had the defined ammo (e.g. explosive gets 4 ammo, piercing 2 and so on).... The problem with this is that you would see ray-cast weapons the only weapons on a ship, as they can be a bit more accurate. Ideas to overcome this?

[dragonmere]

Devil's Advocate:
This would reduce teamwork, and encourage maverick "I know better than you, captain!!" gunners. The fact that you need two warm bodies actually coordinating and cooperating to make the gat/flak combo "OP" means it's not OP. It's balanced for teamwork. It's a tool that quickly and effectively shows crews that working together is a must, and not an option in this game. Coordination and teamwork are the difference between chasing down a galleon for three minutes while your AI decides to switch randomly between guns while shooting at random ship parts, and a 10 second strip/kill with two players who understand what's going on. If any gunner could decide what damage type he feels like using, this would make teamwork more of a pain in the ass. Hard enough convincing new players that bullets shooting straight are more important than the seemingly appealing bullets that explode or put fire damage on components.

[Barbariandude]

The fact that you need two warm bodies actually coordinating and cooperating to make the gat/flak combo "OP" means it's not OP.

While you do have a point that it does encourage teamwork, the main problem is that there is no other weapon combination in the game that can do the same thing (which also has the knock-on effect that the only ammo type worth a damn is heavy clip, every other ammo type is redundant, making gunners useless). There are only 2 other armour-stripping weapons in the game (mercury field cannons and harpoons), and absolutely nothing that can strip armour in the heavy weapons category. This would even the playing field for captains selecting loadouts, and be a lot less restrictive. With the reload times on a lot of the guns (allowing enemy engineers enough time to bring the hull back up) it would still need teamwork to have one player with piercing and one with explosive in order to guarantee the kill.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Give guns a stock ammo feature. This would be their base damage type which is what we have in game currently. The ammo will change say the secondary or primary damage with limitations. Along with capacity reductions or improvements you'd have firing speed and reload time that would be affected. Same as it is now. That would help balance the new system. But the potential repurposing guns would extend their utility by a huge amount. Heavy clip would still exist but it would not provide any change. It would be the stock damage.

It isn't that hard of a system to balance. Lot of it is already implemented in game right now. This would just be giving those types more meaning.

Imagine how much it would affect sniping matches to be able to load flechette rounds into mercs. Or heck gunners switching and alternating between armor piercing and explosive hull cracker rounds. The meta could be turned on it's head and Qwerty would never fall asleep streaming again!

[Barbariandude]

Along with capacity reductions or improvements you'd have firing speed and reload time that would be affected.

That sounds extremely interesting, I'd not thought of balancing the different ammo types with reload speed. Would definitely help keep the teamwork involved in having multiple players with multiple damage types as mandatory at the medium to high level of play while still allowing the flexibility of the new ammo types!

[Squidslinger Gilder]

More emphasis on aim as well if you have a longer reload time. Gunners that waste shots or don't wait for armor to drop will be not as effective as good gunners which time them perfectly.

So lets outline the rounds now and what could be converted...Just an example:

Heavy Clip = No change, just stock ammo but you get the spray reduction.
Burst/Incendiary = Flechette. Shells would be more shot gun like so more chances for hits being spread. As such the ammo would have a range reduction as well as accuracy. Chance of fire ignite as well. Lot of gunners already use incendiary for balloon igniting so this would be a no brainer. It would also be used for spreading fires due to the burst effect.
Greaser = Component shatter round. High rate of fire, fast reload, dmg nerfed. Range and accuracy reduced. But extremely effective against components due to fire rate.
Charged = Explosive hull cracker round. Pretty much same as regular charged except extend the reload time. So dmg buff, reduced ammo clip. Reduction in fire rate as well.
Lesmok = Armor piercing but weak hull dmg. Light weight ammo designed for distance and penetration on armor. Accuracy hit but rate of fire increase.
Lochnar = The do everything round. Dmg buff and same restrictions but the round gains all the capabilities of the other rounds. Flechette, Shatter, Armor pierce, and Explosive.