Info > Feedback and Suggestions

Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas

<< < (7/55) > >>

Milevan Faent:
So, to throw in my half a cent (because I'm cheap like that), here's an idea that includes experimental math!

I remember a time in dev app where there were two special ammo types that basically were Charged ammo, but favoring either primary or secondary damage (depending on which one was loaded). Now, while this was niche ammo, it was too similar to Charged IMO, and basically had no purpose. Charged was better in every case, especially as both types damaged the gun.

So, here's a much improved version of the original concept, that takes it in a totally different direction.

Instead of increasing the damage of the gun, this ammo modifies the modifiers. There are two options available to go with here, so I'm gonna cover them both.

Option 1: The damage modifiers for primary and secondary damage are all increased by 0.2 (to throw out a theoretical number for the sake of example). Not sure what the negative effects could be, but they'd probably be similar to Charged. No direct effect on the damage the gun actually deals though.

The Effect:



The damage is clearly more all-around than what you get with Charged. This makes it good for guns that aren't really all that accurate, as it can give them the ability to deal damage to more than just the 1 thing they're good at in situations where they can't keep focused on that one thing. A Gatling on a squid comes to mind. While it might be capable of taking down the hull armor completely if you hit with most of the shots, on a ship that moves so fast, it's relatively easy to miss the hull and hit everything else instead. With this ammo, while it's still bad to be missing the armor, at least you're still doing something effective. And while Charged could make you more effective in general as well, this makes your gun better at the things it's bad at as well as the thing it's good at, increasing the number of viable targets the gun can hit without sacrificing viability. Though obviously charged is still better in situations where the gun is more likely to be successfully used in it's primary role only (like a Metamydion).

Option 2: The ammo affects only primary or secondary damage (effectively it's split into two like the original concept that inspired this), perhaps with the modifier for the improved damage increasing by 0.3 instead of 0.2. Probably reduces the modifier for the other damage by a small amount, like 0.1.

The Effect:



With this version, I think the modifier would have to be a bit higher than the other because of the lack of increased damage on the second type, but this could result in OP weapon setups, thus the suggestion that the non-primary type take a penalty (if a small one). As you see in this example, now Artemis does NO damage to the Hull with it's secondary damage, and very little against balloons and armor, though it's primary damage is significant overall (if still lower than Charged in the Hull damage).

Either option really provides a powerful tool really. I'll let you guys discuss it from this point on though.

Another idea along a similar thought process is an ammo that doubles the armor/health of the gun, but reduces the modifiers by a significant amount (0.3, maybe even 0.5).

awkm:
Another idea that was emailed to me:

Instead of going more niche and extreme, make an ammo that is pretty general with smaller buffs.  This may make it more attractive for an Engineer to take a more general ammo than specializing in one thing or another when it's not really their job too.  This may mean the existing ammo needs a healthy push into one niche or another to make it work.  The idea is interesting is because it takes the opposite approach.  Gunner = Specializes in situational damage dealing.  Engineer = Specializes in situational repairs.

RE: Normal Ammo

Interesting idea.  Although it's kind of troublesome that all guns will be unloaded and you have to sit there and load everything in before a match.  Guns like flare would be hideous to load at the start of the match.  Basically what this may collapse to is racing towards each other, trying to load each gun (maybe even choosing guns that reload the fastest), and whoever loads their guns first wins.  It almost sounds like a Western quick draw shootout at high-noon.  I like the concept but I worry about how it'll affect the phases of combat.  It's pretty dramatic.  If there was a way for guns to be loaded when you start... guns are loaded randomly with the collective ammo that everyone has brought?  I hate randomization but the captain choosing what ammo each gun takes based on the collective ammo of his/her crew would increase an already painfully long Readying time and make it excruciating—definitely don't want to do that.

RE: Loading gun at last second

We've actually jumped back and forth between this.  While the interaction is totally weird as it is now, we felt that it was less punishing and allowed players a degree of freedom to react.  Reloading and locking the type of ammo means that if the combat situation changed with those 4-12s would mean you'd be really screwed... especially if ammo became more niche.  It's a huge risk.  Being able to switch ammo at the last second mitigates some of the risk; some of the risk still lies in the fact that the gun is reloaded (unusable) but at least you can recover and respond in a more meaningful way than not being able to use your gun because it has an ammo that doesn't work for the current situation.

This issue was one of the biggest decision issues we wrestled with.  We're still willing to look at it again, though.  This change would be required if we decided to have guns unloaded at the start of a match.  This means the first thing that everyone does is:
- Pilot starts steering and setting up position
- Engineers buff or load ammo
- Gunners load ammo, but since they have more variety and don't have buffing responsibilities it'll likely be up to gunners.

So what it should be at the beginning/recoup phase:

- Pilot steers
- Engineers buff the ship
- Gunners load ammo

RE: buff hammer

Can definitely look into this as well.

RE: the ideas so far

I really appreciate the feedback and your ideas.  There definitely a lot of crazy ideas out there... some you may think are totally jokes may actually be rather interesting.







The timing of when these changes drop will be... 'interesting'.  It's like asking if I want to fight 20 five year olds or if I want to fight one five year old that is 20 ft tall.  It definitely seems like highlighting the gunner means I have to nerf some engineer stuff too.

B'Elanna:

--- Quote from: awkm on May 20, 2014, 01:13:53 pm ---It definitely seems like highlighting the gunner means I have to nerf some engineer stuff too.

--- End quote ---

Myroc:
Regarding the reloading issue when using default ammo, I propose the following solution: At the start of the round, and any time a gun reloads on its own without anyone manning it, it loads Scavenged Ammo, which has a -20% Damage Penalty and a -20% penalty to clip size*. It would encourage staying on the guns more to catch reloads as your firepower will suffer otherwise. You'll still have to reload at the start of the round, but I don't think that is really an issue. You have plenty of time to reload all your guns before engaging any enemies (bar on Duel at Dawn, at least, but it shouldn't be too great of an issue).

*Really, this could be any penalties you want, but the point is that it would be inferior to all other ammo types.

awkm:
RE: Engineer Nerfing

Don't worry.  There are some really cool tools coming down the way that'll make it awesome.

RE: Scavenge Ammo

Hmm...  interesting.  Could work.  Although maybe just forcing guns to stick to what ammo you reload with forever may be better....  Yeah it'll be riskier in general.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page