Info > Feedback and Suggestions

Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas

(1/55) > >>

awkm:
Everyone knows that Gunners may not be the most popular role to play on your ship.  Many think that running Engineers is the most beneficial due to the assortment of Repair/Buff equipment Engineers can carry.  It's time to make Gunners more desirable and the easiest, fastest, and arguably best way to do it is through new Gunner Ammo.



This is a call for new Gunner Ammo that you think will make you choose the 3 slots for ammo that a Gunner has over the 1 slot that the others have.



Theoretically, coming up with ammo types that are more niche means that players will need to take advantage of the the additional gunner slots.  Non-gunners will usually decide to carry 'safe' ammo, which will give them as many gun options as possible.  Niche ammo has very specific use cases: situational and on what gun.  If a gunner is coordinated with the pilot, using these niche ammo should have a large pay-off.  That's the direction I'd like to steer new gunner ammo.

Here is a short list of things we can do, but we welcome other ideas.  However, try to keep the ammo effects localized to the gun they're loaded into.


* Effects can stay while a gunner is not on the gun, but ammo is loaded into it (like heatsink)
* Probably could increase max gun health while ammo is loaded
* Modify primary and secondary damage
* Modify damage modifier of gun
* Modify range
* Modify muzzle speed
* Deal proportional damage over entire clip (e.g. reduce gun health to 20% by end of clip) 
* There's a lot we could do... brainstorm away!




Many have suggested other things like new tools and passive abilities.  While these ideas may be good and could solve the gunner issue, these ideas require many new features, code work, UI, and will require new interaction paradigms (how to select and use things) or break existing ones.

Here is a simple rule that we try to follow as much as possible due to results in alpha and beta of the game (more about that later):

* Ammunition is only used at a gun and forces a reload.  The new ammunition is 'loaded' into the gun at the very last microsecond of the reload time (the bullet icon filling).  Up until then, you can switch between what ammo is being loaded.
* Repair equipment is only used when you are running around the ship and must be used on a component
* Pilot tools is only used while on the helm.  They are active so long as you have the skill selected.
* The two spotting pilot tools, Range Finder and Spotting Glass, are the only two exceptions to the above interaction paradigm.  We'd like to keep it this way and not introduce any more special cases outside of 'spotting' equipment.
Here is information regarding what has happened with Gunner ammo in alpha and beta:

* Ammo affected reload time.  E.g. one ammo reloaded very quickly but had fewer shots.  However, the way in which the reloading mechanics worked we had to remove reload duration effects because it was breaking in several cases.  It was subject to a lot of abuse.
* There were gunner passive abilities but were removed because there was a difficulty of selecting what passives were active.  Ultimately, passives caused the decision space to collapse and therefore did not offer players any additional meaningful choices.

Thanks for everyone's input.  Dev App usually has some some weird things to be tested.  Get in touch with Keyvias for a key to Dev App.

awkm:
From SirNotLag:

Dropper ammo: adds a drop of like 15 m/s to all projectiles shot, 50% less arming time, +10% more damage ( i thought of this due to the dropping mines discussion but figured a new ammo type could get the job done and may be useful for other weapons due to the damage increase and less arming time)

Rocketry ammo: 20% chance of adding a fire stack on the enemy and +60% projectile speed, however every shot adds a fire stack on the weapon your using (I was thinking of having the chem spray stop the fire stacks but since this is a range ammo type its be to easy to keep the weapon chemed and then you would just have a super powerful lesmok. So have the fire stacks added from this ignore chem spray immunity and that may also have the extinguisher become more useful as a niche tool.)

Flat ammo: reduce accuracy, projectiles travel -15% slower, +20% damage increase

shredder ammo: -30% clip reduction, +20% faster fire rate, +20%  damage increase, every round deals 10 damage to the weapon.

awkm:
From Caprontos:


An ammo that deflates an enemies balloon, causing it to move down quicker, and up slower. like mimicking the pilot tool

An ammo that has a chance to remove chem spray seconds or buff seconds..

An ammo that "seeks" specific components.. So if you shoot with in a certain range, the ammo will turn to hit it (so like, if you have engine seeking ammo, the ammo will turn and hit engines as long as your close) (Reduced rate of fire though..).

On that note.. magnet ammo that makes it pull toward metal parts of the ship..

An ammo that changes a guns dmg type.. (goodbye  balance!)

Light loch.. that works like loch but will only reduce light guns to 1 hp.. with slightly reduced stats..

Some new debuff ammo.. Things like, if you hit an engine its output is reduced by 25% for 20seconds..

An ammo that marks a hit ship.. works even in clouds.. but the mark follows normal rules and will go away if not visible.. (single shot, +20% reload + a bit more range).

An ammo that creates small tar clouds.. on impact..

Friendly ammo (heal - buff - chem spray allies from afar..)

Friendly ammo 2 - (Use the magic of friendly ammo to heal - buff - chem spray yourself..)

An ammo that makes a ship magnetized.. and pulls it toward any nearby ships..

Delayed fire ammo.. it only tries to add fire stacks x seconds after hitting an enemy ship..

Ammo that only works for mines, but lets you use a hot key that explodes all the mines you shot with the ammo..

buff ammo that adds a buff to the gun that lasts for two clips.. second clip can be any ammo.

Ammo that extends the life of engi buffs and chem spray... maybe it makes a buff last 2 clips, instead of timed.. if the ammo is active when the buff is added.. the point is so... having one buff engi is fine because he doesn't have to buy your gun all the time, and still buff and shoot his.... or just to make chem spray last longer..

Ammo that increases the turn ratios of the gun .. but dmgs the gun the entire time it is outside its default range.. (They said the pyramidion couldn't shoot to the right..)

Random stat ammo.. that randomly adds buffs and debuffs from a pool that includes all available buffs and debuffs.. (... no? I didn't think so)

SirNotlag:
You forgot my Swarm ammo idea!

Swarm Ammo: -30% projectile speed, + 1000% fire rate, -40% clip size, -10% damage, weapon breaks after it fires the full clip. (like lochnager for fast firing weapons)

Some type of clip that sacrifices damage for durability would also be nice, could even come in 3 different flavours, one for long range, one for short range, and one that makes the weapon useless but makes it so durable it should be able to stay alive till your in its effective range and can load up another ammo type.

Also note that the numbers i give are pulled completely out of thin air to be used as examples. I'm sure there are better ways to mathematically get the effect for the ammo types I suggest.

P.S. if you do use any of these ideas can the name of the clip be based off the name of the player who thought of the idea such as a "Sir Notinham Clip" or a " Caprontos Clip"?

awkm:
I see how it is... you want it named after you :)

I can entertain that idea.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page