Reload UI while off gun.

[HamsterIV]

I spend a lot of time as a gungineer, and one of the most frequent mistakes I make is swapping ammo on my gun right as the reload cycles ends. It is usually when things get busy and i just put out a fire or two, I hear the gun still clicking so when i mount it and press 2 for the specialty ammo type I expect the ammo to load and the gun to be ready. Instead It starts a new load cycle because in the time it took me to hop on the gun the reload had completed and I was sitting on a fresh clip of vanilla ammo.

To make the game dynamics a little more transparent I would like to see the load status of the gun on the gun's icon when it is viewed from deck roaming mode. Currently it shows the ammo icon with a background indicating the repair state of the gun. I would like the ammo icon to fill from the bottom up (like the bullet icon while in gun mode) to indicate what state the reload is in. This hopefully will prevent people like me from pressing the swap ammo button when I get on a gun too close to reload complete.

[N-Sunderland]

+1, I've had the same thing happen to me more times than I can count.

[Omniraptor]

I propose a different system: pressing a key to select an ammo type will only queue up the ammo client-side, nothing will actually change in the game unless the user manually reloads (or the gun runs out of ammo). Once a reload begins, the gun will load the currently-queued ammo type. The ammo type can't be changed before the reload completes.

That way you wouldn't have to worry about last-second ammo-type timing, but you would still be able to hop off a gun to do other stuff while it reloads.

Shooting an ammo type you don't have in your loadout is already supported in production, if a gunner loads burst into a hwacha, an engineer who only brought heavy can still shoot burst.

[MrJeff]

I wouldn't mind if it was another engineer tool. An "Ammo Box" for example. When used on a weapon, it resets the "default" ammo to the loaded type. That way, I can run to a gun, load up my preferred ammo, and set it as the new default. Then I don't have to worry about hopping off the gun to do something else until the gun, or ship was destroyed. It also means that there is more reason for a gunner to take a new "default" and then conditional ammo, as no one has to worry about it reloading to standard anymore.

As it is a tool, it means I can't take any repair item, or the buff hammer. (Of course, I'm of the opinion that buff hammer should effect health and turning of a gun, not damage.)

[Hoja Lateralus]

Omniraptor - Great idea and it makes gunners more useful (for example in galleon they can always load all guns before an attack - one clip good ammo CAN make a difference). You have my sword.

MrJeff - Good idea, but I think it should be gunner's equipment, not engineers.

[MrJeff]

MrJeff - Good idea, but I think it should be gunner's equipment, not engineers.

I read elsewhere that the dev's really wanted to keep gunner's equipment to ammo. Thus the call for ammo type requests. Otherwise, yes it would be a good gunner item.

[Hoja Lateralus]

I think very few engineers would use it, although it may be usefull. Maybe some co-engineers would take this instead of buffers.

[HamsterIV]

The OP was not asking for a new item, but rather a change in the Global UI seen by all players.  I am sure the competitive players have the reload times of their weapons as part of their muscle memory. I am not one of those people and would like a little visual indicator to tell me how long until I wait to jump on and swap ammo's at the last second of the reload.

[Mezhu]

Or instead, you could learn not to miss the reloads.

I miss quite a few myself and yes it is frustrating especially when it's a slow gun you're re-reloading but I don't get why that has to be changed. Guns reload timing is already transparent enough through sound and animation, anytime anyone misses a reload it's purely his/her own fault rather than the game's mechanics. Mistakes have to be punished, noone asks for a second chance when he misses a hull repair cooldown or uses the wrong tool- minor details like those is in many cases what differentiates the winner and the loser, and as such they should not be simplified.