Instant-ish Ammo Switching [New mechanic]

[Crafeksterty]

When a gunner switches ammo, he has to reload the whole gun.

What if he just changes on the guns current stats?


When a gunner changes ammo on a reloaded gun, it will only take 1 and a half a second to switch it.
The Ammo count he had on it when switching changes Proportionately.

The 1 and a half a second is there to not be abused DPS wise when switching from ammo to ammo.
And a reason to not keep switching ammo because it wont be worth to abuse a minor bug in it.



The Problem
When someone switches ammo with this new mechanic, the only problem when the gun changes is how much shots it has left.
So when someone changes ammo from charged to greased, the gun isnt fully reloaded.

Instead, the game during the time of 1.5 seconds of minor reload simply instantly calculates the ammount of clip size you had (57% of greased ammo left) and proportionately with % translates it into the new ammo (57% ammo left on incendiary. Less shots but still aprox 57% of incendiary clip size).

That way, guns will eventualy have to do a FULL reload and Ammo switching will actualy be usable.

A hades Lesmok has 6 shots. If he drops it down to 3 then switches to Greased wich is 10 shots a full greased clip. It will turn into 5 shots. (50% if lesmok, 50% of greased)
He shoots one shot on Greased, and then switches back to lesmok which goes back to 3. He switches back to Greased and the ammo counter says 5 again.
This is what can happen with the calculation but it will take him 3 seconds to shoot 1 extra shot of Greased hades. Its just not worth it.

Heatsink will actualy be used by gunners, Combinations of Lesmok and Incendiary can be brought up on flamers etc.

A gunner on a squid that is manning the flamer can use Lesmok to start off with, and usually squids come in close enough for incendiary. Thats when he takes 1 and a half seconds to switch over to incendiary for a more effecient fire making. Since Lesmok has less ammo, it also eats up the proportionate clipsize quicker than greased would. so he still would not have maximum ammount of incendiary ammo just proportionate to what he had on lesmok. Meaning he will eventualy have to Reload.

The problem is very small on higher ammount ammo weapons, but on mid ammount ammo weapons (Hades, LF, carronade) its just not worth it because of the 1.5 second switch.
On Low number weapons, this is a different story.

-Heavy Flak can combine Heatsink, charged and Lochnagar to deliver a weak to strong shots.
So a gunner loads Heatsink (gives heavy flak 3 shots), shoots 1, Switches to Charged, Shoots 1, Switches to Lochnagar, and fires his last shot.

-This wouldnt apply much on a Twin Carronade as its shots or dps is more worth it individualy than it is to switch. It would be able to switch from heatsink to Lochnagar on the last shot.
Lumberjack can benefitt slightly from this ammo switching too. Again, good use of Lochnagar for those close encounters.




The best weapons that benefit from this is:
Hwacha, Flair, Harpoon just because their reloads are so long that switching ammo on them will be easy and make them pretty usable.

Hwacha dont have to preemtively guess Burst or Heavy clip anymore because it is 1.5 seconds away from either.
Flairs can have 3 shots with heatsink combined into them.
Harpoon can be easier to fire because you can simply add in Lesmok. Dont know how exactly you would use it still.

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Oh and everything else on the gun changes. Stuff like stats from default template ofcourse.



So what do you think? Would this break the game in someway? Would it enhance Gun play and gunners ability to steer a gun exactly how he wants it?

It centers around avoiding having to Reload for the effect of using different ammo. The biggest problem imo currently is the giant wall of Reload that makes different ammo uses not worth it.
With this, a gunner can play around with how much shots he can churn out of his gun with the pauses of ammo switching. Heck maybe even make it 2 seconds ammo switching. Enough to make people reluctant, or commited to switch ammo.

[Arturo Sanchez]

kinda complex to code and hard to keep track of in a HUD.

Pretty much fixing what isn't broken.

[Dementio]

It shouldn't be that hard to code.

I like the idea in itself, but I feel like it would take a small skill requirement off of the gunner's shoulders. If the enemy closes in on the lesmok Lumberjack, then the gunner should know when to reload. The gunner has to know which ammo is going to be the best, depending on the positioning of the own and the enemy ship.
At the same time though, it would make heatsink so much more useful. You could finally extinguish your own hwacha with just the cost of maybe 3 seconds of not being able to shoot.

Lochnagar might screw it though, since the gun will have 1 shot, which could be interpreted as 100% so within maybe 3 seconds you could have a fully reloaded burst hwacha, but that depends on how good the code is written, I suppose.

[Arturo Sanchez]

it is due to the amount of overhaul required to actually pull it off. Its essentially remaking the whole gunning mechanic.

He makes it sound like it'll be a patch job. It won't be. Its a full rewrite.

[Dementio]

Muse is able to detect when an ammo switch happens. Instead of calling the reload-function they should easily be able to call a new ammo-switch-function, which includes this mechanic, which is fairly similar to the reload-function.
I am not a game developer and I don't know about Muse's code, but I can't see it being so hard to implement.

[Queso]

Never judge an idea's merit based on difficulty to code. It's almost impossible to judge that from the player side standpoint unless you are familiar with what's going on. It also distracts from the idea itself, which is a pretty interesting one.

[Crafeksterty]

Yeah thats the thing, we always over or underestimate developers ability to do things.
The big Go for Question is, Should they do it?

On this idea, the only things if put simply would be to "code" is. Ammo-Switch-reload of the like Dementio mentioned, pluss keeping track of ammo in a proportionate way. Now im probably underestimating.

What this changes is flexability to the gunners loadout. It feels like it can be at the very best spot of how engineers will wish they were gunners when gunning on a gun. As much as gunners would wish they were engineers when repairing. Atleast thats how i imagine it

[obliviondoll]

I'm not entirely clear on the logic/lore being able to explain how you can swap what kind of ammo is in the gun without reloading it.

That said, however, the idea does seem like it has merit, and I can see simple solutions to a couple of the other objections here:

hard to keep track of in a HUD.

The HUD only has to show the current ammo count for the ammo type you're using. If the gun is at 50% ammo and you have an ammo type with 6 shots per reload, it will display 3 shots. If you switch that to a different ammo type with 10 shots per reload, the HUD will show 5 because it's still at 50% capacity.

Lochnagar might screw it though, since the gun will have 1 shot, which could be interpreted as 100% so within maybe 3 seconds you could have a fully reloaded burst hwacha, but that depends on how good the code is written, I suppose.

If the Lochnagar round can't be loaded into a less-than-full gun without a full reload, this would negate the problem entirely. Switching to Loch after firing even a single round with some other ammo type would automatically force a reload.

It could be a special feature of Lochnagar rounds, OR it could be a function which kicks in any time the ammo count on a gun would drop below 1 on a reload. If we use the reverse of the example from above, If you're using an ammo type with 10 shots per reload, then unload until there's only one left, maybe you wouldn't be able to switch to an ammo type that only gets 6 shots per reload. Or doing so will force a reload because you don't have a full unit of ammo in the chamber. It could just "discard" any amount of ammo below a full round. So while 5/10 -> 3/6 is a simple whole-number conversion, 6/10 -> 3.6/10 = . Which do you think? If it's above 0.5 do we "round up" and give them the bullet unless it's the last round in the clip? Or round down so ammo swapping with less than full ammo could be costing some of the clip as well as time?

Personally, I'd rather see forced rounding down on the ammo count (truncation is the mathematical term, but it's likely nobody cares). But hey, discussion point! Anyone else got ideas?

Also, another point of interest... if you decide to switch ammo types, but select the wrong type in the first instance, does the ammo-swap timer work like a reload timer where it's only locked in at the last second? Or would you reset the timer every time you switch ammo types?

Again, I have my own opinion, and that is that, for simplicity's sake with the current controls (I sometimes use the scroll wheel for ammo swapping), they should apply the current reload mechanics here as well. Switch ammo type to begin the timer, but until it ends, you can freely swap. This would also mean that cancelling a quick-swap and reverting to your already-used ammo type wouldn't cost extra time, just the 1.5s *IF* you notice before the swap completes.

When looking at the idea from a "realistic" perspective, my own suggestion for solving this issue would make a little more sense. Unlike this proposal, it explains how new ammo types make it into the gun, which this idea doesn't. That said, looking at things in relation to fun, game balance and user-friendliness, I think this suggestion is probably the better option. (Yes, I like someone else's idea more than my own. Problem?)

Also, because I can't remain 100% on-topic without saying SOMETHING to spoil it...

It's "amount" not "ammount" and "flare" not "flair". Although at least "flair" is a real word, just not the one you were looking for.

[Crafeksterty]

Personally, I'd rather see forced rounding down on the ammo count (truncation is the mathematical term, but it's likely nobody cares). But hey, discussion point! Anyone else got ideas?

That would fix some of the ammo bugs i mentioned.
But then it would also take away how one can churn out as many strong shots as possible in HF and Carronade/lumberjack. Which is something i personaly want to keep
Tbh it would be a better idea to have rounding down of the ammo count anyway to keep a consistency going.

[SirNotlag]

its an interesting idea, would definitely increase the potency of gunners and the overall power of guns. I am personally not for it though its is just a massive boost to overall offence in the game. I'd have to see it in effect in the game but I feel that a chain gun that can switch quickly between incendiary and grease rounds would be able to whittle down armour incredibly fast with very little counter play.

[Crafeksterty]

Ide say the counter play is actualy having a gunner. I mean, a gunner is seppoused to be good offencively. Weve been hauling engineers all this time now.
I wouldnt be suprised of being too used to it.
Not to mention the switching takes 1.5-2 or more seconds depending on balance of how we see it. Thats a few extra seconds for the mallet to repair again.

[Caprontos]

If this needs drawbacks to balance.. a few ideas..

Perhaps upon switching there is some %chance it miss fires a few rounds.. A bigger negative for guns with less ammo..

Since they plan to add "adrenaline" abilities to classes, maybe instant reloading to a new ammo could be one of the gunners things.. Basically this would limit how much it could be used..

Maybe (using someone elses idea from awhile back a little)... Mixing certain ammo has some drawbacks.. Like grease might catch fire if incendiary is used right after adding a fire stack to the gun.. Though this would make the system complicated more then it needs to be.. I don't know how many negatives would make sense here though..

[Crafeksterty]

There are allready drawbacks. The time it takes to switch can be costly, but because you are a gunner, suddenly its worth it.
Again, we are bit too used to having engineers gunning. Having a gunner should convey controling a weapon properly because they have the slots for it.

With this, ide say i can finaly see gunners on the Gattling guns of a metamidion atleast because he has the right combination of ammo, draw back lies in that he is a gunner and wont be able to help on repairs other than having a wrench.

And in somecases (again) would bring 2 gunners.
Pilots and engineer may now properly use their ammo that they have on a gun because it is a simple switch. So for an engineer or pilot that cannot take the time to load the right ammo can now use up 2 secs to switch to the right ammo. Especialy if a pub newbie reloaded a crap ammo into it.


Also. Adrenaline abilities?

[Caprontos]

In one of the fireside chats a few weeks back... I don't remember exactly which one now...

That they are considering adding(or were working on - was awhile ago so idk exactly) a system where each class could do something special, where engineer could run faster or gunner can turn a gun out of normal arks for a little bit and the pilot might make the ship go faster.. - something like that.. So this would be inline with that idea (ie a special ability the gunners could use sometimes). Can probably ask them in an email to get a more  complete response, I think Awkm/Eric is the one who talked about it. I am 90% sure they called it Adrenaline.

Also I am for the idea with no additional drawbacks, I was just adding some thoughts if it needed to have them. I think it could help make light guns who's lack of need for more ammo types become more viable because of things like the above greased + incendiary.. Viable for gunner use I mean...

[obliviondoll]

The drawbacks are the delay before you can resume fire after switching ammo types and the loss of ammo when the numbers don't line up to make a full unit of ammo. Why exactly does it need more than that?

You have to stop firing for 1.5 seconds to switch, stalling that precious damage output and giving the enemy crew 1.5s longer to work on repairs, and if you switch ammo types again, that makes for 3s of downtime without reloading.

This penalty is more punishing on weapons like the gatling gun with rapid fire and higher ammo counts. The truncated ammo count will punish the guns with slower firing and less ammo.