The Case for Falloff Damage and a Third Damage Type

[Giersdorf]

Too many valid points it's making my head spin guys, keep up the good work.

[SiepeAssassina]

This is an interesting idea.
It may look like it will make the game more complicated but actually some more mechanics can be scrapped in favor of this one...

But Geo already wrote what will happen...

[Richard LeMoon]

Email was sent and response was positive (so far).

[Solidusbucket]

I had to read this a couple times to understand it.

Makes sense now.

Different ranges alter an ammunition's effects. I like it. Here is what i get from it.

All guns with arming time become a peircing weapon before the ammunition arms.
 Excluding hades (which is ass backwards. Fire then peircing even though it turns into a fireball after arming? Wtf?)

Guns without arming time have some sort of falloff for maximum ranges to make it balanced for use with heavy clip of old (that i have never seen but i feel like it made more sense)

And/or

A minimum range falloff is added to guns without arming to enhance or mitigate their effectiveness.

Falloff is either a percentage reduction / enhancement of the weapons primary or secondary effect and/or an added tertiary effect.

I hope that is right.

[Richard LeMoon]

Pretty close. Guns could have any damage type on the falloff, which I am going to start calling 'Terminal' damage, as well as moving it to secondary in place of Burst since it happens before Burst.



Guns that have arming times could have piercing, impact, shatter, or even fire (if any) as Terminal damage. A heavy round from a Flak or Lumberjack could have high shatter abilities. Or the unarmed explosives could catch fire on impact.

Rest rest about increasing a gun ability or limiting its full ability to a shorter range is right. The main thought is to be able to increase the velocity and reduce the spread of all guns, thus making them more fun to shoot.

Terminal damage would not even have to end before Burst armed, like in the case of the Hwacha suggestions. Rather than the green space, the blue would start almost at the start, while the red would go a little over halfway. There could even be a possibility for a gun designed to have all major damage on Terminal and Burst, making an ammo that changed abilities mid-flight.

A final thought would be the make some Terminal damage hurt your own ship if your target is too close, similar to mines. Hwacha might be another good candidate for this.

[The Djinn]

Pretty close. Guns could have any damage type on the falloff, which I am going to start calling 'Terminal' damage, as well as moving it to secondary in place of Burst since it happens before Burst.

So this is a really cool idea, but I'm not sold on the presentation.

I think an easier way to present the idea (and increase clarification) would be to simply give all weapons three Range Increments and 2-3 damage types at each increment (make that a variable amount, possibly).

The you might see something like this:

ARTEMIS
0-500m: X Shatter Damage
50-250m: X Shatter Damage, X Explosive Damage (Secondary)
250-1300m: X Explosive Damage (Primary), X Shatter Damage (Secondary), X Fire Damage (Tertiary)

I think it's a little clearer, and has the added advantage of being able to display ranges immediately for clarity, instead of dealing with terms like "Terminal" for "Point-Blank," which is a bit confusing (since Terminal typically means "end"), and without having to math out how useful the weapon is after Terminal range but before Arming range.

[Arturo Sanchez]

I have nothing to add as of now, but this is my post expressing support for Richard's above ideas.

Okay, nevermind, I started fantasizing about this. A third ammo type could...

He's not talking about ammo type. What the actual...

[Richard LeMoon]

I bought this up on a Fireside chat again, and one concern was that new players would not understand it and it may add too much complexity. Given that most new players do not read guides or ask questions, and rarely know about arming time, this may seem the case at first glance. But then you have to stop and think. They don't even know about arming time, one of the most defining features of the most powerful guns. Adding a falloff mechanic would not only negate some of that (making armed guns a little more useful at close ranges), it would not even be noticed by most players. All they would see would be guns that could shoot further with a higher hit rate, and other guns that did not seem completely under powered at close ranges.

Without thinking about the numbers, just the perceivable effects, how do you think new players would view the added game complexity of the falloff mechanic described in this thread? Would it be too confusing? Would it even be noticed? Would giving Flaks better close range abilities (some shatter or peircing) without changing long range kill power be good or bad for new players?

[Atruejedi]

I have nothing to add as of now, but this is my post expressing support for Richard's above ideas.

Okay, nevermind, I started fantasizing about this. A third ammo type could...

He's not talking about ammo type. What the actual...

Was a typo. I obviously meant damage type. Couldn't edit the post. Calm down, son.

I bought this up on a Fireside chat again, and one concern was that new players would not understand it and it may add too much complexity. Given that most new players do not read guides or ask questions, and rarely know about arming time, this may seem the case at first glance. But then you have to stop and think. They don't even know about arming time, one of the most defining features of the most powerful guns. Adding a falloff mechanic would not only negate some of that (making armed guns a little more useful at close ranges), it would not even be noticed by most players. All they would see would be guns that could shoot further with a higher hit rate, and other guns that did not seem completely under powered at close ranges.

Without thinking about the numbers, just the perceivable effects, how do you think new players would view the added game complexity of the falloff mechanic described in this thread? Would it be too confusing? Would it even be noticed? Would giving Flaks better close range abilities (some shatter or peircing) without changing long range kill power be good or bad for new players?

As we've discussed via other means, your system would increase the skill ceiling while making #AllHitsMatter. No longer would shooting the wrong component with the wrong ammo and the wrong weapon result in absolute uselessness. More pewpew = more fun. Everybody wins.

[Dementio]

I bought this up on a Fireside chat again, and one concern was that new players would not understand it and it may add too much complexity.

New players don't even know about the limits of gun arcs or the most basic of synergies between piercing and explosive guns. In fact, new players literally don't know anything, because they just joined the game. To them though, this addition to the game makes very little difference, as it doesn't even have to apply most of the time.

While the ship and lobby game can get very deep and counters are found in unexpected places, the actual guns themselves only are so complex. Single guns are easily countered and most of the time only have one ammo type. Your proposed idea would make a lot of useful ships actually viable in some sense. Spires, Fish, Galleon's long range side, which gets completely nullified in close range. Some long range builds may decide to bring ammo types oriented after the falloff damage type when they expect to be needing more damage output in close range (Mobula vs Squid/Fish).

Although not a necessary addition, I would still like to see this added to the game.

[Helios.]

the idea of arming time i was led to believe was that you didn't want the shells to blow up in your face, so you added a mechanism to prevent the shell from blowing up in the barrel or when you were nearby. if you shot a shell into a ship where it stopped, lodged itself in a wooden timber or something and then when the arming time was over, exploded. the ensuing damage would then cause shatter damage back on your ship, as the flying spars and whatnot flew everywhere, including back at you, if you were too close. the mine launcher is of course not powerful enough to lodge the mine into the side of a warship, and it would do its unarmed damage as usual, but then bounce off into the intervening space, perhaps arming after the time limit is over, to deleterious effect, if the ships are very close together

rockets don't have to be fired from a shell and therefore don't need to have this precaution. the point blank vs long range distinction might be one of speed therefore, as the rocket thruster accelerates the missile it speeds up over time. the explosive payload might be unaffected, but shatter damage might be reduced as the actual impact speed of the rocket would be much less at close range than at distance.