Lets Talk: Ammo

[Milevan Faent]

So, the current direction of the game looks to be shifting ammo from the very generalized way it is now into a more niche system. I figured I might as well start a discussion on this, and get the input of the community as a whole, as well as throw out my own ideas for some concepts. So, lets get started!

Lochnagar
No changes to suggest for this one, it's already a niche ammo as is!

Heavy Clip
While this one is also sort of niche, it's also kind of dull. I see this used on maybe 2-3 guns in the game period. So, I'm gonna throw out the suggestion I've seen a few other people make, as it's also one I strongly agree with. Make Heavy Clip make the ammo heavier! This means instead of just reducing the recoil to 0 and the ammo by 25%, make the projectiles actually gain an increase in their drop speed. This should have no effect on the life of the ammo (that is, how long it takes before it stops existing automatically), but on any ammo that drops, goes up, or even has no drop, it now gains a drop.

Why? Because this actually has a HUGE impact on how many guns work! On some guns, like the shotguns (aka carronades), the effect is minimal as it would still almost work as it does now, just maybe hitting lower than it does right now and requiring a bit more work to aim. On guns like the Mines or Hades, suddenly the way it works has changed SIGNIFICANTLY! Mines are now depth charges if you fire down, dropping huge distances, and even if you fire up, the way they move has changed enough to change how this will place them! Perhaps you just hopped a mine over the enemy to land right on the opposite side of them, instead of it ending up way above or below them, due to the change in it's arc!

*new* Light Clip
With this change, I feel it's appropriate to create a counter-part to it, similar to Dragon Ash and Dense Slugs (dev app ammo that we will probably see eventually!). Light Clip works in the opposite direction of Heavy Clip. Instead of reducing the recoil, it doubles it! Suddenly, that very narrow blast is fired wildly, and no one knows WHERE it will go. In exchange, the ammo is increased by a decent amount (not sure how much, but probably more than the 25% that Heavy Clip reduces it by), perhaps the turn speed of the gun is increased slightly, but most important of all, bullets (or flying orbs of death, or mines, or missiles, or whatever the gun fires) are lighter, and thus float upwards for a brief time after firing (like 1-3 seconds at the most), rather than falling down like normal. This again changes the arc of the shot, but does not change the life of the shot.

Why? This change actually creates a new way to manipulate a gun's arc, and when combined with the other ammo types, creates whole new ways to use many of the guns, especially for a Gunner. Suddenly your gun can hit that little bit higher up than it used to be able to, and when combined with Heavy Clip, the reverse is true. Depending on what you're firing, you've suddenly got a LOT of new options!

Incendiary
I actually suggest this one not be changed. We need some not-super-niche ammo types for Engineers, and while this isn't exactly NOT niche, it's not really niche either. It's rather generic actually. I don't usually see it get used much though, so it may actually need a slight (SLIGHT!) buff.

Among the other ammo types I haven't covered so far, I'm either uncertain what (if anything) to do with them, or they are probably better off just remaining as they are as the more generic engineer ammo, so I'll leave this here for now. I'll probably touch on others if ideas come up.

If you have any ideas of your own, discuss them here! If you either agree or disagree with what I've said so far, speak up, I wanna hear from you! Let's gather a bunch of feedback to share with Awkm in his quest to improve gunners!

[Dementio]

Ammos. They are situational and not every gun benefits from every single ammo type as much as it would with another ammo. Adding too much stuff to one ammo type, might even make it less useful.

I entirely disagree with your suggestion on Heavy Clip. While it would make sense that the projectiles drop, I don't see much use of it.
Heavy clip carronades can be good disablers (since shatter damage) and are not too easy to disable with. You can't see the projectiles and you have to know your ship's movement as well as your projectile speed. It gets little use in that specific area already and I doubt adding a drop to it would change that for the better.
Last time I checked Hades has a pretty good drop as well as good up-/downwards arcs. I can't see how more drop would make it better.
If you want Mines to go lower than they already do, I suggest having the pilot lower the ship for 1 second.

If the drop that the ammo creates is too big, then I don't want it added to Heavy Clip. I would rather have an individual ammo type that creates a drop that can have bullets fly almost straight downwards than add that to heavy clip. If the drop is not too big then I would question why you would want to add it in the first place.


Light clip. You might wanna keep ideas for new ammo types in this thread here https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4079.0.html


Incendary certainly needs a buff to be more enticing. The problem I see with it is that most guns destroy more than this ammo can set on fire. A gatling can destroy most armors in only 1 clip and if the armor happens to go back up you want to be ready to take it back down again, thus by wasting bullets by trying to set the balloon on fire, you are going to have less bullets to destroy the newly rebuild armor, giving your enemy more time to kill you instead.
It doesn't make sense on most explosive guns since they are needed to kill the ship and not to set fires. The exception here would be the Banshee Carousel to make it do more fire.
It might make sense to use it on a Heavy Flak or lumberjack, but to hit with incendery from a long range is quite rare.

Incendary just adds too many negative effects on a gun and with the extra chem spray going on there is even less use for it.


All other rounds seem to be just fine to me. I am only worried about the existence of Charged rounds. It needs a bit more love, but it only, mostly, gets used on the Mercury and Heavy Flak for quick long range kills.

[Milevan Faent]

I started this thread because this is partially what is going to be happening anyway. Ammo IS going to be reworked to be more niche to help Gunners have more purpose. But they're also going to probably be getting buffs to go with that niche.

I'm also well aware of the ammo thread, but that's already been suggested there. I simply kept the suggestion in here as it relates to what I'm working on here.

As for Heavy Clip making ammo heavier, you're just not seeing the potential. The biggest potential is the way the heavier weight will change the arcs when firing up or down (as in, almost straight up or down). A shot straight up with certain guns will create a high ballistic arc weapon that can potentially hit in ways that it otherwise would not. Likewise, shooting down will be able to hit things that would normally be out of range completely. The same is true for the Light Clip suggestion, but in reverse. Light Clip may actually be more useful in some cases, aside from the loss of accuracy.

On Dev App right now, there are 4 new ammo types. 2 of them make Charged worthless. 100%. The new ammo types do a LOT more than ANY of the current ammo types, so the current ammo types either need to be brought up, or the new ammo types need to be brought down. And I think the ammo will be more interesting if they're brought up instead. As such, current ammo that doesn't do much needs to do more. Are the current ammo types balanced for how the game is right now and fine? Of course! But they won't be in the future when the new ammo comes out. And rather than nerfing the newer ammo too much (some of it will need to be nerfed a bit at least), I'd rather see the old ammo tweaked in ways to make them match the new ammo.

[Crafeksterty]

I dont know, its for the ammo thread. Dont know why were splitting up the information. What you are working with can also be for something in the ammo thread. So really no point atm for a seperate thread.

[Dementio]

I do see the potentional, you just don't see that you are requesting a new ammo type. (If the shots were so heavy that they fly straight down how am I supposed to hit with heavy clip hwacha? What else is there to negate the spread?)

Ammos are situational. If you want an already existing ammo type to be used in a different scenario, you want a new ammo type. I am not saying that tweaking the current ammo types is a bad thing in general, rather most of them are fine enough as they are. However, we should let MUSE implement some new ammo types in the dev app, nerf/buff them, and after they found their place in the actual game think about what to do with the "old" ammo types.

[awkm]

New ammo is already on Dev App.

Please redirect your ammo comments on the stickied thread.