Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas

[AceHangman]

Okay, so I don't have the time to read and reply to all of this, but I didn't notice when you mentioned it only has a 25% chance to go off.

Really, so you didn't take time to even read the suggestion before declaring it bad.  It's the very first sentence of the description.  You quoted it in your reply.  Instead of just letting the suggestion sit, you got all negative and started going off on a rant which makes other people believe your misleading remarks.  Now Sammy B.T. thinks the ammo works with flamers, which the description clearly states it does not.  All you did was force someone to take time to correct your misleading statements because they gave you the benefit of the doubt that you actually had the basic, common courtesy to read a post, and actually think before quoting and bashing on it.

The flamer would be ridiculous.

Yes, that would be powerful, but as stated, flamers use particles, not projectiles.  They don't impact they pass through and as such, would be hugely overpowered which is why the ammo doesn't work with flamers.

As for implementation, that's not the point.  It was a suggestion, and even if not viable as presented, it could at least spark some ideas or creativity elsewhere.  Who's going to want to put forth what might be a reasonable idea if they're just going to get ragged on by people not even taking the time to give them the common courtesy of being thankful they took an interest in trying to help and improve the game when requested.

[Milevan Faent]

Okay, so I don't have the time to read and reply to all of this, but I didn't notice when you mentioned it only has a 25% chance to go off.

Really, so you didn't take time to even read the suggestion before declaring it bad.  It's the very first sentence of the description.  You quoted it in your reply.  Instead of just letting the suggestion sit, you got all negative and started going off on a rant which makes other people believe your misleading remarks.  Now Sammy B.T. thinks the ammo works with flamers, which the description clearly states it does not.  All you did was force someone to take time to correct your misleading statements because they gave you the benefit of the doubt that you actually had the basic, common courtesy to read a post, and actually think before quoting and bashing on it.

The flamer would be ridiculous.

Yes, that would be powerful, but as stated, flamers use particles, not projectiles.  They don't impact they pass through and as such, would be hugely overpowered which is why the ammo doesn't work with flamers.

As for implementation, that's not the point.  It was a suggestion, and even if not viable as presented, it could at least spark some ideas or creativity elsewhere.  Who's going to want to put forth what might be a reasonable idea if they're just going to get ragged on by people not even taking the time to give them the common courtesy of being thankful they took an interest in trying to help and improve the game when requested.

The current implementation of ammo probably can't make it so the ammo doesn't work on flamers. I also don't think Muse would like a concept that excluded a specific gun. At no point did I make them miss that statement in your post, nor did I even comment on it, so don't go blaming me. They clearly missed that part of your post. But the post I was referring to not having the time to read was the specific one I WAS REPLYING TO, not the original post. I READ the original post, but obviously I missed that 1/4 chance thing, just like they missed the flamer thing.

[Crafeksterty]

The flamer would be ridiculous.

Balance aside, this would probably be amazingly hard to implement on Muse's side and would honestly be found by most to be more annoying than game enhancing.

^ Point ^


The ship is the only thing aaffected by outside things, engineers fix that outside intereaction. Gunners shoot to intereact with stuff outside. The ship can flip upside down and you still wont fall over. Imagine yourself as parasites controling a flying skkywhale battling other skywhales. When your skywhale dies, you die. And you good parasite try to be the medecine, and the brains and muscl of your own skywhale.

So, just saying that nothing really affects your character, just the ship you fly.

[awkm]

Let's try to keep the arguments down to a minimum.  We can argue their potentially balance when and if they reach the testing phase.



In general, if there's no good way to counter something then it's generally bad design and can potentially aggravate the player.  It's like games where you can get constantly stun-locked.  Harpoon edges dangerously close to this kind of harassment.  Ultimately, if there are cases like the harpoon the person on the receiving end must know that this can happen to them.  Usually, you will know what kinds of guns other ships are using by both being in the match as well as looking at another's ship loadout.  The concern about having these kinds of effects on ammo is that the information is more opaque.  There are many more players to dig through while in match lobby to see what ammo they have, and the effects of the ammo may not exhibit itself clearly during gameplay.  All these things combined create the feeling of being harassed and not having fun on the receiving end.  This is a very important consideration when designing all aspects of the game.

 The player needs to understand what is happening to them and why otherwise it will feel random

[redria]

The player needs to understand what is happening to them and why otherwise it will feel random

Ah. Impact ammo is a pretty hard no then.

Homing ammo has been mentioned several times, but mostly for added accuracy. What about a homing ammo that (maybe) reduces range and severely reduces damage?
The intent is not damage, but is instead intended to give you an idea of the location of the nearest enemy.
Fire your gatling at a wall, see that it curves up and to the left. Pilot turns left and goes up a bit. Try again. Ammo goes straight. You now know the (general) location of your enemy, but you sacrificed an ammo type to do it.
Bring 2 ships with gunners and you can triangulate positions (assuming that you don't pick up different ships).
Tactical ammo types!

[awkm]

It's not a strict no, not just yet.  A lot of fixing can happen once the skill gets effects.  All that these skill raise is a yellow flag and that it'll be riskier to implement because if the visuals don't work, then we shouldn't have the the skill or whatever else it may be.

Impact, or the thing that does a knockback, is in fact a feature I asked for a while back and does work... but must be on the gun itself.  Like the harpoon, it means it's a weapon that has unique functionality.  Therefore a player can discover it via ship loadout or seeing it being shot in game.  On that note, it's much easier to make an individual gun's effects (trails, explosion, muzzle flash) rather than apply those effects via a skill to any gun it is equipped to.  This is because there are a few different types of guns that need effects applied (straight projectile, arcing projectile, raycast, particle).  Furthermore, the effects applied by skills (the unique muzzle flashes) are most visible locally.  In other words, when you're sitting on the gun.

[HamsterIV]

I didn't read the entire thread so I don't know if this has been suggested but:

Proximity fuse: causes ammo to detonate if part of the enemy ship is in the blast radius (turns a near miss into a hit, but will cause a direct hit to detonate early).

Tar grenade: reduces clip to 1 shot, causes projectile to create 1 tar cloud on impact. (doesn't have to be ship impact) this could be used to make smoke screens by shooting at walls

Beacon rounds: Causes the bullet to light up a cloud for the duration of its life span. Does not replace flare because bullet life spans are very short.

Disco ammo: Doesn't actually change the bullet property (or may even reduce its effectiveness) but has a strobe effect for it's muzzle flash and lays down a "fat beat". Lets the other team know you are here for a good time.

[Crafeksterty]

Disco ammo: Doesn't actually change the bullet property (or may even reduce its effectiveness) but has a strobe effect for it's muzzle flash and lays down a "fat beat". Lets the other team know you are here for a good time.

A good time to DIE!!!



Proximity is allready on the dev app, dont know if you have noticed.


Your Tar cloud gave me a n idea for the Blind Rounds

Instead of Blind rounds increasing the animation of an explosion to last and follow the ship where it hit, they instead emit a small Black / white cloud for every shot that last for 3-4 seconds. Every shot every second that is (Flamer). if that is possible.
This change then makes it... easier? But also makes some guns (And a reasonable selection of guns) to be very good at blinding the enemy. Lets ofcourse, not forget the Drawbacks, which is -50% recoil -30% Clip which i simply want to give -50% clip and -100% fire ignition chance instead now.
Guns like, Carronade, Gattling, mortar, Light flak, Flamer, hades, hwacha will be very good at blinding.

This new Blind smoke mechanic (Which is add a 2-man sized cloud on the ship where it got hit) seems like a very cool ammo i would love to use.

It would be cool if it is possible to make the ammo effect scale the cloud duration. For example. The higher the clip, the less the cloud will last. The smaller the clip, the longer the cloud lasts. So that guns like heavy flak, Mercury, artemis, etc etc are good also. Carronades and other guns with aprox 10 and less ammo count wont be affected much. Mines i believe will hit everywhere on a ship and have the longest cloud. While using flamer with this may be useless if there is no minimum length of a cloud.

My only issue is the lag that it may offer.

So either increasing the blast animation to last longer, which i believe is a local thing.
or
Give the gun the ability to produce small clouds on the ship where it got hit.
Where ever the ship gets hit usualy is around it, so it will blind pretty effectively and would encourage blinding specific areas. Most presumably the helm. Would be neat seeing gnners actualy shooting for the helm just to piss off and make it difficult for the actualy crew on the opposing ship.

[Dementio]

Deadly Trail ammo Mechanic... idea:
Projectiles now have an added or changed trail that behaves similar to tar barrel. Trail is really thin at the beginning and, while staying on the battlefield for X seconds,  increases to a radius of Y. Vanishing might be shrinking in radius or disappearing from origin to explosion point, something that looks pretty and is also useful in gameplay.
When enemy ships touch said trail they get damaged/set on fire/spotted, whatever. Damage/Fire would only apply to components that stand in direct contact with trail (trail touches, trail destroys).

What would be weird would be that the trail solidifies and then sinks like a ship with no balloon, or even faster (mass of trail calculated or fixed amount?). Shooting above enemies might be worth it to have them drop down and out of arcs.


Boomerang:
Projectile arcs get changed so the projectile turns around at a fixed or calculated distance.
Even if you are behind your enemy, you can still hit his front and vice versa. Might be able to shoot from one side of the ship to the other. Example: An asymetrical junker could then use both sides while it has turned its wrong side to the enemy or shoot behind your own ship.
Usefulness and Possibilities depend on implemented mechanic.


Self Destruction:
1 ammo. Fires nothing and immediately explodes, destroying the gun, upon left click.
Why? Example Goldfish: Destroy your front gun and get close without the front gun being destroyed by the enemy, rebuild gun at the right time and win.
Difference to lochnagar? Shoots nothing, thus is as stealthy as a stone (nobody suspects a stone!) (does it make explosion sound?). Gun is isntantly reloaded with default ammo upon rebuild (ability to choose another ammo?).


Sacrifice (Joke ammo?):
You pump yourself full with buffed steroids, lift your gun and throw it at the enemy. Both damage types are now impact damage (no AoE) and, of course, have massive knockback. Arcs are not so good, starts dropping at 20m? Can drop down on enemies.
Gun is lost forever until respawn.

Tar grenade: reduces clip to 1 shot, causes projectile to create 1 tar cloud on impact. (doesn't have to be ship impact) this could be used to make smoke screens by shooting at walls

Beacon rounds: Causes the bullet to light up a cloud for the duration of its life span. Does not replace flare because bullet life spans are very short.

If I look at this, I wonder if their could be harpoon-like ammo. Magnet-like ammo has already been mentioned.

In general, if there's no good way to counter something then it's generally bad design and can potentially aggravate the player.

This might be off-topic, but how do you counter ammunition or buff?

[Richard LeMoon]

Sacrifice ammo would be cool, but a total troll. I would say to give the ammo +5000% damage, and remove the gun from the ship. Also, don't let anyone use it that has not played the game for a few months or gained X commendations from higher level players.

[Omniraptor]

In fact, let's not let anyone use are level 15 in everything with over 9000 salutes on the forums.

[Milevan Faent]

In fact, let's not let anyone use are level 15 in everything with over 9000 salutes on the forums.

Even GoIO forums have to eventually reference this meme XD

[Devinstater]

I don't know if Ammo is the solution, but Gunner's need a reason to have at least one needed per ship. Sick of joining a ship and being chirped by my teamates about how much better off we would be if only I was an engineer with the buff tool.

I find choosing gunner is very important when my friend's are not on because it lets your crew-mates know that your intention is to be raining death on the enemy, not to be the main engineer. I.E. if someone else wants to be the main gunner, they will select another ship to join because you have made your intentions obvious. I would like this to be the case AND be optimal.

When I play with my friend he is always a gunner so that when people elect to join my crew they know that he gets the primo gun better they sign up.

Sorry to just whine without offering a solution but I don't know enough about the game to offer one.

[HamsterIV]

How about a gunner tool that could be used in walking mode (like the spyglass)?

I am thinking a reload crank that causes the gun to reload faster. At high levels of play the gunner could hop off their gun and reload crank until just before the gun is about to shoot then hop back on and load the popper ammo. At lower levels of play engineers not expecting to shoot can take the crank as their one gunner item and back up a goldfish's main gun.

Often I ask for gunners because I need two bullet types and the third bullet is wasted space. It would be nice if that spot was filled with something that could be useful in another aspect of the game.

[Crafeksterty]

That may be a very imbalanced tool then. On a goldfish, all 3 crew members except the pilot can crank the main gun and do hwacha alot sooner and keep a ship disabled constantly.