Guns Of Icarus Online

Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: awkm on May 19, 2014, 02:08:20 pm

Title: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 19, 2014, 02:08:20 pm
Everyone knows that Gunners may not be the most popular role to play on your ship.  Many think that running Engineers is the most beneficial due to the assortment of Repair/Buff equipment Engineers can carry.  It's time to make Gunners more desirable and the easiest, fastest, and arguably best way to do it is through new Gunner Ammo.



This is a call for new Gunner Ammo that you think will make you choose the 3 slots for ammo that a Gunner has over the 1 slot that the others have.



Theoretically, coming up with ammo types that are more niche means that players will need to take advantage of the the additional gunner slots.  Non-gunners will usually decide to carry 'safe' ammo, which will give them as many gun options as possible.  Niche ammo has very specific use cases: situational and on what gun.  If a gunner is coordinated with the pilot, using these niche ammo should have a large pay-off.  That's the direction I'd like to steer new gunner ammo.

Here is a short list of things we can do, but we welcome other ideas.  However, try to keep the ammo effects localized to the gun they're loaded into.







Many have suggested other things like new tools and passive abilities.  While these ideas may be good and could solve the gunner issue, these ideas require many new features, code work, UI, and will require new interaction paradigms (how to select and use things) or break existing ones.

Here is a simple rule that we try to follow as much as possible due to results in alpha and beta of the game (more about that later):

Here is information regarding what has happened with Gunner ammo in alpha and beta:


Thanks for everyone's input.  Dev App usually has some some weird things to be tested.  Get in touch with Keyvias for a key to Dev App.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 19, 2014, 02:08:47 pm
From SirNotLag:

Dropper ammo: adds a drop of like 15 m/s to all projectiles shot, 50% less arming time, +10% more damage ( i thought of this due to the dropping mines discussion but figured a new ammo type could get the job done and may be useful for other weapons due to the damage increase and less arming time)

Rocketry ammo: 20% chance of adding a fire stack on the enemy and +60% projectile speed, however every shot adds a fire stack on the weapon your using (I was thinking of having the chem spray stop the fire stacks but since this is a range ammo type its be to easy to keep the weapon chemed and then you would just have a super powerful lesmok. So have the fire stacks added from this ignore chem spray immunity and that may also have the extinguisher become more useful as a niche tool.)

Flat ammo: reduce accuracy, projectiles travel -15% slower, +20% damage increase

shredder ammo: -30% clip reduction, +20% faster fire rate, +20%  damage increase, every round deals 10 damage to the weapon.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 19, 2014, 02:09:35 pm
From Caprontos:


An ammo that deflates an enemies balloon, causing it to move down quicker, and up slower. like mimicking the pilot tool

An ammo that has a chance to remove chem spray seconds or buff seconds..

An ammo that "seeks" specific components.. So if you shoot with in a certain range, the ammo will turn to hit it (so like, if you have engine seeking ammo, the ammo will turn and hit engines as long as your close) (Reduced rate of fire though..).

On that note.. magnet ammo that makes it pull toward metal parts of the ship..

An ammo that changes a guns dmg type.. (goodbye  balance!)

Light loch.. that works like loch but will only reduce light guns to 1 hp.. with slightly reduced stats..

Some new debuff ammo.. Things like, if you hit an engine its output is reduced by 25% for 20seconds..

An ammo that marks a hit ship.. works even in clouds.. but the mark follows normal rules and will go away if not visible.. (single shot, +20% reload + a bit more range).

An ammo that creates small tar clouds.. on impact..

Friendly ammo (heal - buff - chem spray allies from afar..)

Friendly ammo 2 - (Use the magic of friendly ammo to heal - buff - chem spray yourself..)

An ammo that makes a ship magnetized.. and pulls it toward any nearby ships..

Delayed fire ammo.. it only tries to add fire stacks x seconds after hitting an enemy ship..

Ammo that only works for mines, but lets you use a hot key that explodes all the mines you shot with the ammo..

buff ammo that adds a buff to the gun that lasts for two clips.. second clip can be any ammo.

Ammo that extends the life of engi buffs and chem spray... maybe it makes a buff last 2 clips, instead of timed.. if the ammo is active when the buff is added.. the point is so... having one buff engi is fine because he doesn't have to buy your gun all the time, and still buff and shoot his.... or just to make chem spray last longer..

Ammo that increases the turn ratios of the gun .. but dmgs the gun the entire time it is outside its default range.. (They said the pyramidion couldn't shoot to the right..)

Random stat ammo.. that randomly adds buffs and debuffs from a pool that includes all available buffs and debuffs.. (... no? I didn't think so)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 19, 2014, 03:20:07 pm
You forgot my Swarm ammo idea!

Swarm Ammo: -30% projectile speed, + 1000% fire rate, -40% clip size, -10% damage, weapon breaks after it fires the full clip. (like lochnager for fast firing weapons)

Some type of clip that sacrifices damage for durability would also be nice, could even come in 3 different flavours, one for long range, one for short range, and one that makes the weapon useless but makes it so durable it should be able to stay alive till your in its effective range and can load up another ammo type.

Also note that the numbers i give are pulled completely out of thin air to be used as examples. I'm sure there are better ways to mathematically get the effect for the ammo types I suggest.

P.S. if you do use any of these ideas can the name of the clip be based off the name of the player who thought of the idea such as a "Sir Notinham Clip" or a " Caprontos Clip"?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 19, 2014, 03:23:38 pm
I see how it is... you want it named after you :)

I can entertain that idea.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Omniraptor on May 19, 2014, 04:09:25 pm
I too would like a clip that makes your weapon useless but nigh-invulnerable. Also, please make heavy clip to increase muzzle speed on the carronades only.


p.s. This is more of a 'general tools' idea, but would it be possible to implement tools that take up 2 or 3 slots?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Captain Smollett on May 19, 2014, 04:27:26 pm
Invulnerability clip would actually be pretty cool.  ]

Gun does deals half damage, takes 75% less damage.

Omniraptor clip
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kieran Kindree on May 19, 2014, 05:13:22 pm
Extremely close range tar-based ammo that, if it hits the engines, renders them virtually useless...unless a specific engineering "cleaning tool" is used to dissolve it.

Or ammo that works similarly for the harpoon (advantage: longer range. disadvantage: only works for the harpoon) - The "fouling line" to snag and tangle props.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kieran Kindree on May 19, 2014, 05:19:12 pm
I know we don't really want damaging/killing players to ever take precedence over damaging ships, but I've always thought there culd be something like "grapeshot ammo" that slows the movement of actual players for a time as they are "injured" on board.

Might be far more annoying than effective though. 

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Tanya Phenole on May 19, 2014, 05:28:05 pm
May I suggest a Miss Phenole Rainbow Friendship Clip?

Healing clips.

-40% clip size, +30% speed rate, no damage modifier. Can be used to heal  both on ally and enemy ship.
(concept name smth like Resin Gum Shots - sticky charges, which keep the ship together)

I am joking of course, but something like that could really give a new feel to game. And repower gunners
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 19, 2014, 05:39:01 pm
Explosive ammo: adds a small explosion on impact which carries the secondary damage type of the weapon, -5% fire rate, and -10% damage ( idea would be for weapons that don't normally have explosions to get them such as the chain gun or carronade so it makes it easier for them to break components since their secondary damage is shatter and they fire multiple inaccurate shots).

Delayed ammo: increases the range of the projectiles but not the speed at which they travel, -25% clip size, +15% weapon damage, -10% fire rate, +10% arming time

Metal Slug ammo: removes the secondary damage and adds it to the primary, -20% projectile speed, -15% projectile lift

Unstable ammo: reverse of the slug ammo removes primary damage and converts it to the secondary damage type, +10% projectile speed, +20% explosive AOE, -20% clip size, -15% fire rate.

not sure if these last 2 could be done or if they'd even be balanced, but hey just an idea :D.

P.S. Honestly i feel it would only be fair that the person who thought of the idea for a weapon type should at least get a say it what it is going to be called, Yes that means id probably try to have it named after myself or my avatar cause I am vain like that  ;D
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Sammy B. T. on May 19, 2014, 05:40:06 pm
Acid rounds

Lower projectile speed
Lower rate of fire
Smaller clip
Each consecutive hit on a component from the same clip does more damage
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Myroc on May 19, 2014, 06:16:10 pm
This is a call for new Gunner Ammo that you think will make you choose the 3 slots for ammo that a Gunner has over the 1 slot that the others have.

Normal Rounds.

...that's it. That's the suggestion. Making gunners more viable in comparison to engineers isn't going to happen simply by giving them a new ammo type. You're just going to see engineers run around with that ammo type instead. The problem is this: Repairing recquires you to have a lot of different tools to be useful, but gunning only requires one single ammo type to be operating at optimal conditions. It is very, very easy to get away with only ever using one particular round type on a particular gun, at the very least for light guns; Extra ammo types are redundant 99% of the time. Extra tools are never redundant. Not to mention that in the earlier case, that person can still operate any other gun at normal conditions.

Fixing the problem of gunners being inferior to engineers is only going to happen if either A: Make carrying extra ammo types equally as useful as carrying extra tools or B: Restricting the ammo types that engineers can carry. If normal ammo type wasted a slot, you would either have engineers give up their ammo type in order to be flexible, or focus on one particular type of ammo and more or less restrict themselves to guns where they would be useful, which is not currently the case. Default ammo is the pipe wrench of ammo types. It's an average tool that works well for everything, while not excelling in any particular area. You're currently giving it to everyone for free. Change that and gunners are going to become a lot more viable. (Alternatively, go the opposite direction and give everyone pipe wrenches for free. It's likely going to devastate the game as it stands, but it would at least make gunners and engineers more equal.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Goldenglade on May 19, 2014, 06:20:45 pm
^^^^ agreed
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Deltajugg on May 19, 2014, 06:51:29 pm
Normal Rounds.

This.
So much this.

Why did noone say that before? o.O
Why did I not say that before, thinking about it today?

I was thinking about it earlier today (all the hive minds), and how would the execution look like, for we'll end up with a problem of not having a basic ammo at the very start of the game and reload mechanics would have to change a little bit if there's no basic ammo for a gun to switch to if the user isn't holding it with the correct ammo. I propose all guns to be empty at the very start of the game, for them to reload only by clicking the R button, and for the ammo to be applied based on the ammo used by the last person, something like "marking" the weapon with the ammo of the user that was the last to set it, so it will reload with this ammo type every time until someone changes the "mark" for a different ammo. That's of course a change that would probably take a while, but it seems like the best solution to make gunners viable. For as Myroc said, you're basically giving everyone a free "pipe wrench" in the shape of the normal ammo clip that has quite universal purpose.

I would even go one step further, for even that won't solve the problem for the guns that are very good with only one ammo type (merc,flamer,gat and so on), not to mention the "normal ammo" idea while being really good, it may be denied for the time being, for it'll probably be quite alot of code work.
One of the reasons there's not much purpose for the gunner is that not only engineer can repair AND use guns effectively, but he also can bring buffhammer, which replaces most of the ammo types in their effectiveness, or gets rid of many flaws of certain ammo types, denying the trade-off for its benefits, and that is basically what hurts gunner the most. Why would you want a class that can use different ammo types for different purposes in situations, when one ammo type engie can bring is good 85% of the time, and more powerful than any of the tree gunner can bring if the gun gets a buff?
For that reason I would like to see buffhammer changed for guns. Reduce the damage buff for them, so a buffed ammo will be more relevant in its effective area than unbuffed one, but so it won't overpower the idea behind bringing more ammo types for different situations. At the same time, I'd also like to see the reduction of the amount of hits needed to buff a gun.

Those are my ideas at least. I tried really hard to come up with some kind of ammo that could help resolve the issue of gunners being hardly relevant compared to +20% damage buff, but as Myroc said, people will simply switch to that ammo an an engineer and the issue will stay there. Whatever ideas we could come up with, I think that to balance-out gunners we need some new mechanic changes rather than simply new ammo type.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 19, 2014, 07:19:37 pm
Special ammunition coming in! Warning: Ammo types might require special coding effort.

Speedster: Reload X% faster, but sacrifice the second damage type?

Sticky ammo: Projectiles stick on enemy ship (maybe even terrain) and explodes either when told or when reload or when max number of projectiles is reached (example: mines). Mines have an extra field next to the number of "bullets" in your gun, this same field could be used for this ammo type too.
And either
- 1 damage type gets done on impact, 2 damage type gets done on explosion/release or whatever.
- No damage gets done, full damage on explosion/release or whatever on whereever the projectile is located (just saying because direct damage. Second damage type behaves like normal).
The latter might be troublesome since projectiles do not always hit the same thing as you believe they do.
Might be op if combined with mines.

Curly McSpiral: Removes recoil like heavy clip, instead of flying straight the projectile path is a spiral. Maybe removes arcs.
Could use some tuning in what else it does and how big the spiral radius is and if it gets larger over time/distance.

Spacial ammo: Projectiles never actually leave your barrel, but appear at Xm away from your barrel/gun, as if your guns is over there and you are shooting from over there, thus (e.g.) spread only starts over Xm away and the range begins there as well as arming time.
Would enable you to shoot through terrain/cover (no escape!). Might behave weirdly with the harpoon.
Or maybe just make it so that it shoots through the 1 object it hits? Even through ships. But only through 1 thing and then goes back to hitting stuff.

Slow-mo ammo: Reduced or no arming time. Projectile speed is reduced... MUCH! Range stays the same and arc/drop behave as if the projectile was shot with default rounds. It is just slow. Reeaallyy slow.
Might require weird coding.

Joking A Rounds: After every load the gun behaves like a random other in the same weight class. It of course inherits every stat that the chosen gun has as default (range, projectile speed, spread, damage types...).
Example: Light Carronda gets loaded with said ammo -> Suddenly shoots flak shots.
Example: Lumerjack is now Hwacha.
Might reduce ammo to a specific amount so gatling can't shoot 80 mortar/mine shots or 20 Heavy Carronade shots.
Might remove certain 1 shot per clip guns (Mine and Harpoon).

Twice the ammo: Doubles the ammount of ammo a gun can have, but triples the reload or whatever else the negative side should be.
Example: Harpoon 1 ship, harpoon a second one or harpoon it again INSTANTLY!

Trick shot: Projectiles look different? I dunno, I just wanted to write down the name, before somebody else does!
Maybe throw some cake in the enemies faces so they can't see anything?

Suprise!: Projectile is now a punching glove and does impact damage along with the direct damage of current gun. Only 1 shot. Range is 10m or something else that's really short, but not so short that nobody can hit with it.
Impact damage only to push the enemy away. May not even have to damage enemy reliably.

Reverser: Instead of dropping, projectiles now fly upwards or in the calse of flamethrower: Downwards. May even turn gun arcs upside down.
As a potentional special effect: Let the gunner see the world upside down while on gun that has this ammo loaded.

Placeholder: It will not fully reload the gun, it stops the reload at ~99%. This allows gunners to leave the gun and load their special ammo in it when required. Like burst or heavy for hwacha in case you don't know which will be more useful before you don't even see the enemy. Will load the select ammo once "R" is pressed (again).
If the same ammo is select and "R" is pressed then either don't load anything or just load default ammo.
The price would be that you give up 1 full slot in order to use the other 2 more effiecently.



For reload changing ammo (if it happens) I propose the following mechanic:
The ammunition will first be loading in normally and then only the next one reload will gain the reload effect from the just used ammunition. Might be abusable by reloading again immidiately (for whatever reason you want to do that).



Also, yes, engineers have 2 ammo types because of default ammo. Gunners don't have them loaded in every so they don't count as ammo for gunners. It has been addressed before in its own thread.

Maybe instead of removing default ammo there could be a new engineering tool that is close to useless for the engineer, but might serve as a second tool for the gunner, any maybe even pilot?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 19, 2014, 07:27:14 pm
Here is my brainstorm of current ammo and maybe some new ammo.




Old ammo Type


There are some ammo type that needs love, but there has to be a use for them individualy.
The reason why i want some of these ammo types to enhance is because Ammo like heavy clip serve a defined purpose. So enhancing their purpose could make the gunner have great form of control on the enemy ship


Greased Rate of Fire up to 80%, Damage down to -35%
Lets make greased fire faster, and nerfing the buff hammer use on greased weapons [Would work well with Charged change]

Incindiary needs 10%-20% extra chance on giving fire. BUT give it precentage damage to the gun that uses it. 95% damage to the gun thruout the clip.
This is to enhance fire use thruout every weapon, but punishes it for useing it, so that guns that work well with the ammo arent as powerfull.
With this, a gattling gun can be as good as a flamethrower. Along with banshee being super devestating with its aoe. This should then in the end make fire happy people more viable in the use of fire. Simply having the ammo type may cause some chaos for the next reload. So it isnt an ammo type one wants to use constantly, but rather for the moment to cause a bit of chaos. Hwacha would be the best example as a gun that would switch out to this and cause some form of chaos before switching out to something for the kill.


Charged can balance out its bons and cons with 50% damage, instead of 30%. But -50% rate of fire, instead of 20%. 50% damage thru out the clip
[This change would work well with greased change] Again, in my case, it is all about choosing the correct ammo for the right moment. This ammo type is not for every time use, but rather for the correct time. This is also a huge bait for buff engineers to enhance the Damage % to 70, so that most engineers will get Charged ammo type. The rate of fire i could see being a huge detriment to the actual shooting of the gun. But is a nice balance versus buff engineers, and rewards them for actualy hitting. This also balances out being a better choice than greased/Heatsink in terms of damage. Its just the DPS that may be smaller. But the clip damage is bigger.

Heatsink Give it 25%-75% maximum health to the gun that has heatsink
This way, we can be sure that a heatsink weapon is a weapon harder to disable. It is noticed by the chem spray glow. Along with the core nature of heatsink is to protect the gun.



New Ammo type

We want new ammo that really changes up a weapon in such a way that you want the new ammo type and some other ammo type.
Most of this is very hard due to default ammo type being present. Here is my suggestions as new ammo type.

Barricade Turn the gun into a shield. The icon is a shield with a bullet over it. 1 shot. 200% more gun health. -100% rotation speed
[This works well with the heatsink change] This is a good tool for some ships. Changing the gun into a damage soaking craze some ships would love to have. A galleon may protect his right side by giving those 2 heavy guns barricade ammo type. A pyramidion may give his side guns barricade. A spire may give all of its guns barricade for maximum protection. A goldfish can have this loaded before it reloads into a different ammo type. This in turn with heatsink will be for an unexpected effect because it does not have a chemspray glow. However, it only acts as a barricade and one shot isnt alot at all.

Dragon ash / Rubber gluv Remeber the Dev ap ammo?
This will not work well with my Charge change (Maybe if you make this more powerfull)
The concept of these 2 tools types were the best. These 2 tools were about increasing either the primary or secondary damage types. So for each tool, you would want them to do MORE damage than what charge can do. So, if charged allready does 50% damage as of my suggestion, then dragon ash, or rubber gluv have to 1 up charged with 70% more damage to its priority (Primary or secondary) But -30% damage on its other damage type.
As of now, charge gives 30% more damage on both damage types, dragon ash and rubber gluv would then give 50% more damage, but -30% less other damage type... damage. Bring back this ammo type! It was great! it just needed to one up charged.




Mechanic suggestion
Instead of a gun being auto reloaded into default ammo, it would be nice that the ammo instead waits for player to jump in with an input.
Jumping on a gun for the last microsecond is very... very weird and makes for situations where i put in the ammo just in time but it reloads again anyway.
Just a suggestion.










Also
Quote
Normal Rounds.

and

Quote
This.
So much this.

Why did noone say that before? o.O
Why did I not say that before, thinking about it today?

Maybe because no one... listens...  https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,3576.msg62802.html#msg62802
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: macmacnick on May 19, 2014, 07:37:22 pm
Depth charge ammunition. Makes projectile weapons' shells sink more quickly, or in the case of mines, sink downwards once deployed. (Richard + geo's idea.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Saull on May 19, 2014, 08:11:41 pm
What do you guys think of an gunner tool that increases weapon turning arcs in exchange for increased firing spread? New weapon combinations would come into play that otherwise wouldn't be possible or were too difficult to reliably maintain. Close range strafing options would benefit most as the increased spread wouldn't interfere too much with gats, mortars, carronades, ect once up close but using the tool to try and get an extra merc or other snipers to line up with each other would be hit harder by unreliable spread getting in the way of long range precision.

 I would think that this would be better for gunners and not a "safe" ammo for engies as it's use is potentially redundant. The ammo benefits most weapons that already have mostly good overlapping arcs and would better serve as a reactionary ammo type. Say if a ship has a damaged engine and can't turn fast enough to maintain its normal arcs. A gunner with this in their pocket would be able to continue performing in a situation where they normally couldn't. Same goes for awkward angle of approach.

My main concerns  is that messing with turning arcs could really mess with ship/gun balance, creating problems where there used to not be problems
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Omniraptor on May 19, 2014, 08:35:37 pm
I'd also like to add my voice to those who want the engineer to lose an ammo type- so engineers will have a choice of 1 ammo type and gunners will have a choice of 3, instead of choosing between 2 for the engi and 4 for the gunner like it is now.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: B'Elanna on May 19, 2014, 09:28:59 pm
My professional Ammo Wishlist:

.clearing throat sounds of an old man.

that is all!

On a bit of a serious note: add a new damage type. Maybe Ice?! .-.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Myroc on May 20, 2014, 01:36:58 am
Buff Hammer
That's the other problem that needs to be dealt with. As said, engineers are currently sometimes even better at firing guns than gunners are because they can bring something that gives them a flat damage boost with no downsides. (Yes, the gunner can bring it as well, but he then becomes completely incapable of repairing. In a game that is largely about repairing things as they break, this is terrible.) I propose we instead change the effect buff hammer has on weapons. Increased reload rate? Increased turning speed? Something that isn't a flat damage boost at the very least.

Maybe instead of removing default ammo there could be a new engineering tool that is close to useless for the engineer, but might serve as a second tool for the gunner, any maybe even pilot?
You mean the Pipe Wrench?




Also, don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, I'm not saying that I don't want to see extra ammo types in this game, by all means, feel free to encourage suggestions for them and implement them. I just want to point out that it's not actually going to solve the problem at hand.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Captain Smollett on May 20, 2014, 02:31:40 am
I think we'll eventually have to accept additive affects.

Using the previous example; having an ammo type that increases turning arc would be useful however having a tool that lets you increase turning arc while also being able to bring any other 2 ammo choices you want would make a gunner relevant as they'd be able to do something no other class could do.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 20, 2014, 03:12:01 am
How about enabling the gunner to combine ammo types? Imagine a Charged Lochnagar Heavy flak combined with some Heatsink for increased turning! Incendary + Greased Gatling!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 20, 2014, 03:16:56 am
How about enabling the gunner to combine ammo types? Imagine a Charged Lochnagar Heavy flak combined with some Heatsink for increased turning! Incendary + Greased Gatling!

.... And that is precisely why that will never happen. That would be broken as hell. More broken than flamers were before the damage nerf (the very first one, where they still did 4 damage) after they were fixed.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 20, 2014, 08:17:13 am
Bouncing Balls:
Reduces damage by 75%
Removes secondary damage type
Changes primary damage type to impact



Impact damage is OP, so a heavy damage nerf allows every gun to deliver some delicious impact damage. Because everything needs impact damage.

Oh, and heavy-flak fish would be (more) viable. ;)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 20, 2014, 08:26:23 am
I know the buff hammer and engineers allready can have an ammo type, but dont give up on making the ammo types something more wanted.

In my suggestions, i try to enhance the effect of the ammo types on their purpose. Charged gives more damage, give it that BURSTY damage but make it fire slow.
Make greased use up a clip quickly but take away the damage, its not a damage ammo. Incindiary gives fire, Make it give out fire to the enemies.
Heatsink protects the weapon, lets make that even more clear.

I seriously suggest bringing dragon ash and Rubber Glove back but 1 upping charged in damage. (Lets not forget the %damage on the gun thru the clip).

If... changing damage modifiers is a thing, then... can i suggest.

Flachette ammo changes the weapons damage values to work better versus the baloon. (Does not stack with weapons allready good versus baloons)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 20, 2014, 08:27:17 am
Bouncing Balls:
Reduces damage by 75%
Removes secondary damage type
Changes primary damage type to impact


I want to test this!!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 20, 2014, 08:58:43 am
I know the op requested no gunner tools due to additional coding, but if you were to take the already existing chem-spray as a start, how hard would it be to make a gunners tool (snake oil) that when applied increases rate of fire or yaw speed? All it would need is a recolouring of the chem-spray effect to a murky brown and would be applied in the same way. (As an example, It would have to be more efficient when used as a gunner with greased rounds on a gatling than an engineer using a buffed gatling  with greased rounds, or an engineer using a buffed oiled gatling with normal rounds.)

If all you do is add more ammo types, engineers are still able to use them and the problem is not resolved.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AscendantWyvern on May 20, 2014, 09:15:44 am
I have two i'd like to propose, i'm a beginner to the game so take my suggestions with that in mind  :P

- Splitter rounds
      These rounds are designed to break in half after being fired, creating multishot potential. This is useful to add spread and dilution on firing.
      +100% magazine, -10% accuracy, -40% damage, Fires two rounds per shot.
   
- Featherweight rounds
      These rounds are made to be light, aluminium or tin coating etc. They lack a heavy punch, but they increase loading speed and fire rate. I think this would be useful strictly for the reload, which could synergize with other ammo layouts (i.e. something that could buff the gunner)
      -20% damage, +10% drop, +20% loading speed, +20% fire rate, +15% magazine

Again, I am by no means an expert...just feel like tossing out my ideas.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 20, 2014, 12:30:28 pm
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:

(http://i59.tinypic.com/9kbbqx.png)

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:

(http://i58.tinypic.com/sg77a0.png)

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).
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 20, 2014, 01:13:53 pm
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.

(http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140225013221/powerlisting/images/3/3a/Wantedbulletbend.gif)





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.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: B'Elanna on May 20, 2014, 01:55:41 pm
It definitely seems like highlighting the gunner means I have to nerf some engineer stuff too.

(http://31.media.tumblr.com/f2f2e3d54678e88b954e87573ddede47/tumblr_n3ms91f1dV1txhpu8o1_500.gif)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Myroc on May 20, 2014, 02:18:00 pm
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.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 20, 2014, 02:31:12 pm
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.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Wundsalz on May 20, 2014, 03:07:37 pm
Ammo alteration request for greased rounds: reduce the projectile life-time instead of decreasing the projectile velocity. Currently the main purpose of greased rounds is a DPS icrease. On top of that it reduces the arming distance for ballistic weapons. This renders incendiary and heatsink ammo, which can be used to reduce the arming time as well almost useless.

Some remarks regarding the problems of the current ammunition system:
Currently there are different reasons to pick a certain ammunition type:
- higher DPS(clip)
- higher DPS(reload)
- higher damage per clip (to reach interesting thresholds)
- improve the weapons aim
- allow usage out of its normal field of operation
- increase the ignition chance per time.
Here's a spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15RREfsibnztlmcwrfDj5SQwfmrhl5Zo9BqpZWxbVXCY/edit?pli=1#gid=92641896) which show recommended ammunition types for each gun along with a loadout recommendation for each gun.
It illustrates one of the major problems of the Gunner role: Most guns do not require multiple ammunition choices. Normal + X is usually sufficient to operate a gun efficiently. I doubt adding or altering ammunition types will change this significantly as the criterium for choosing these weapons ammunition is usually dps optimization which can be done by exactly one ammo type.

The Loadout-Recommendation-table shows that buff-engineers can outperform gunners more significantly and often in the usage of guns than the other way around. I'm talking about the pure damage output here - the engineers increased maintenance efficiency isn't even considered. The reason for this is the buff hammer which can optimize the damage output of guns and is de-facto restricted to engineers. Actually the plain 20% buff itself outperforms most ammunition types in most guns when it comes to DPS optimization (http://i.imgur.com/wCeSNYM.png). The fact that the ammo-dps boost and the buff-hammer-dps boost stack allows a buff-engineer to de-class gunners in performance with any weapon which is used to inflict a lot of damage in brief time-frames.
Nerf that god damn thing already! Remove the damage buff effect and replace it with something else (maybe an HP boost)!

In general I think all ammunition types could use a bit more of their positive effects and a bit less of their negative effects.

I do like the idea of adding normal rounds to the choice-pool for all players. This would make Gunners way more attractive for some weapons which currently run quite fine with Normal rounds + one other ammo type (e.g. mine launchers, Hades).
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 20, 2014, 03:30:21 pm
There are some things i disagree with the spreadsheet, like heavy being detrimental on Gattling gun, when that is the clip to have maximum dps on maximum range, along with the gattling could aswell disable components very well.

But it is true that ammo is what makes the gunner have a hard time standing with the other classes.

That is why we want to come up with a change to ammo, and new ammo that makes you want more ammo types.
Increasing the positives is one way, but the positives is also something the engineer will abuse constantly, so lets give some detrimentals that make the user not want to use it constantly. Thats why i suggest a small overhaul to the current ammo where charge does more damage, but damages itself and fires slower and fires even slower when damaged. Greased fires quicker, but it does less damage. So it does more damage per reload basis. Incindiary actualy deal higher chance of fire damage and be usefull. etc etc.

The only ammo where you want different ammo are, Heavy Clip, Lochnagar, Lesmok. Between these 3 they are VASTLY different.
So lets give that vast of diffrence in charged, greased, incindiary and heatsink. Burst is pretty well in the middle ground of good.

And would help for an extra or two NEW ammo that are as different as heavy clip and yadda yadda are.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 20, 2014, 03:50:08 pm
RE: Current Ammo Overhaul

Yeah, this is on the table too.  I'll take feedback on those as well.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: geggis on May 20, 2014, 04:09:21 pm
The first I heard of the vanilla/normal rounds idea was in September last year from Mr. Mouse (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,410.msg42470.html#msg42470) and it just sounded so elegant to me and mechanically consistent. At present gunners sacrifice more because they have to choose a repair item to even have the capacity to fix stuff (and even then they sacrifice rebuild/repair speed and the ability to fight fire depending on what they go for). Engineers on the other hand get standard ammo and an alt with a full complement of engineering tools. Yes, they loose two ammo types being an engineer, but they don't loose the ability to gun like a gunner loses the ability to fix things efficiently.

The biggest problem with the vanilla/normal rounds idea is indeed working out how (p)reloading guns should work. Scavenged Ammo sounds like a good way of sidestepping the whole reloading issue as it means the default ammo isn't desirable and encourages all crew to exercise caution when jumping on, and perhaps more importantly, off a gun. The ammo icon could be a broken bullet or something and the gun have really dull sounds. If gunners suddenly become the loaders or ammo carriers then that pushes them into a really interesting and unique space where they could very well be multi-tasking like engineers do. Engineers alternatively, in the role of gunning, would have to be specialised or roll vanilla like a gunner has to with engineering tools (pipe wrench). It sounds excellent to me.

As for new rounds...

I've always wanted to see something that allows guns to turn beyond their default arcs. Perhaps damaging them in the process when they do. I'm not sure how bullets can influence the mechanics of the turntable the gun is mounted on but... hey, it sounds good to me.

Penetrating/ghost rounds that go through components? Could be handy against Galleons head on and other long ships. I'll leave negative effects to you awkm -- that's a science and I'm no scientist! :-)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 20, 2014, 06:04:08 pm
There was some brief discussion between me and the Lead Engineer, Watchmaker, and we're so far leaning towards looking at the Buff Hammer's effects on guns.  Buffing damage outright, or the amount of the damage buff, will need to be looked at.  We think that this will solve a lot of issues so those of you who brought up Buff Hammer, great observation.  The next step then would be to look at the current set of ammo and introduce a few new ones in the effort to push things into niches.

RE: vanilla

Again, the vanilla rounds is good idea theoretically... it just introduces a lot of weird behaviors.  Even if the guns are loaded with Scavenged rounds, a lot of people will be up in arms about it.  Basically you just start each match nerfed.  It's pretty detrimental to new players.

RE: penetration

This existed before.  The Field Gun was able to do it for a short period of time in Dev App... it was severely OP.  The functionality is still there but making it into an ammo for all guns seems risky to me.  We'd have to be smart and limit the penetration power based on muzzle speed and so forth, Field Gun being one of the most effective cases here.  Ideally, I'd prefer if it were linked to a particular weapon.

RE: Impact... sort of

I don't mind weapons dealing Impact damage, what I don't want is that knockback given to all weapons.  If were ever the case, it'd have to be cleverly limited based on some variable like muzzle speed or explosive damage etc...  But same as above, I'd like it if it were linked to a gun.




You can always change my mind though :P  Giving guns super unique functionality, and potentially abusable functionality, just feels dangerous.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 20, 2014, 06:53:38 pm
Here is my two cents on the Normal ammo being a selection, For one I am extremely against some form of crummy scavenger ammo becoming the default OR the idea of having no ammo in the guns when a ship spawns as it leaves you too vulnerable if the enemy is in your spawn point and you would get steam rolled without being able to fight back. But would it be possible to have it so that the weapons wait before they decide their ammo like as soon as an someone jumps on the gun the ammo in their first slot is the one selected as if it was there all along.

Ex: ship spawns, engineer with greased runs over to gun gets on, immediately starts shooting greased rounds at the birds cause they looked at him funny. Eventually they re-spawn gunner carrying heavy, lesmok, and charged runs over to gun, gets on, it now has heavy in it, if he wanted lesmok he has to reload and switch to lesmok, but heavy is in the gun if he needs to shoot it immediately.

In this system I also feel it would be best if the last ammo that was loaded into it so if the gunner left the weapon to load itself it would have put heavy back into the gun.



Now for a new Idea!
I heard that there used to be ammo types that loaded faster than others but that it could be exploited so you could use the faster reload time to load in a better ammo type... WHY IS THIS CONSIDERED AN EXPLOIT! Why not make it a feature?!

hear me out on a tool for gunners that hopefully would not require much work. Call it a "reload crank" "Auto loader" whatever does not matter right now, but it would be selected exactly like the other gunner tools by sitting on a gun and selecting it to have its effect no new UIs or Models or anything just its little grey picture at the bottom of the screen. While it is selected the gun reloads 35% faster or something it would take some tweaking and math to get it to a fair and balanced point, If the gunner left the tool active when the reload was complete it starts another reload, meaning the gunner just wasted time adding in a form of risk reward for the use of this tool. That also separates the good gunners from the great gunners, as a great one switches to this tool immediately as the reload starts and waits till the last second to switch to his ammo type maximizing DPS.

This way with the current system an engineer could take this tool but be confined to only using regular ammo, while a gunner can still use specialized ammos with this tool. This increases reload without being some magical passive as it would be a very active skill the gunners perform sitting on the gun rather than twiddling their thumbs, staying true to the spirit of GOI.

One problem I see is both these ideas cant be implemented together... UNLESS! the reload crank tool thingy becomes a gunner exclusive tool to stop engineers or pilots from buggering up the game by jumping on guns without any form of ammo. Hell if that happened certain sniper ship builds might be taking 2 gunners simply for the variety and speed they can dish out pain over the engineers.

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: macmacnick on May 20, 2014, 07:43:38 pm
What about the 'spring clip' thing that existed for a bit in the dev app? +200% ammunition capacity,  ≈50% damage, gun unloads all rounds almost instantly upon fire, with 50%-75% more spread than usual, and once the clip is emptied, the gun breaks? (the mine launcher in the dev app was fun, 2 mines, once they deployed, they exploded as they were inside of one another, kind-of like you'd be launching an explosive that is timed to detonate in midair, was glorious, but had to rebuild. Plus the flamer was a wall of fire. All that it needs is the extra minus, such as -50% projectile speed (range) so that it would be truly close quarters, high risk, high reward.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 20, 2014, 07:44:42 pm
What about the 'spring clip' thing that existed for a bit in the dev app? +200% ammunition capacity,  ≈50% damage, gun unloads all rounds almost instantly upon fire, with 50%-75% more spread than usual, and once the clip is emptied, the gun breaks? (the mine launcher in the dev app was fun, 2 mines, once they deployed, they exploded as they were inside of one another, kind-of like you'd be launching an explosive that is timed to detonate in midair, was glorious, but had to rebuild. Plus the flamer was a wall of fire.

It's already back on dev app for testing.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Stuboi on May 20, 2014, 08:01:25 pm
Freeze ammo: Ammo designed to hamper and dismantle the use of weapons and engines rather than destroying it. To be used as a supporting ammo type to frustrate enemies.

- Reduces the rate of fire, firing angle and velocity of the target guns
- Reduces the speed and manoeuvrability of the ship for a period of time.
- Targets hit by freeze ammo cannot be set alight for a short period of time.
- Increased amount of time to repair ship parts affected by Freeze ammo for a short period of time.
- Freeze ammo causes a moderate drop in ammo damage of the user.

Smoke bombs: Passive capsule which can be sent hurtling towards an opponent setting off smoke screen on impact, blinding the pilot and crew onboard for a short period of time.

- 1 shot capsule
- No damage
- Long reload
- Short to Mid range.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Goldenglade on May 20, 2014, 08:08:33 pm
we could always just make weapon jams a common thing for non-gunners.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 20, 2014, 08:53:24 pm

I heard that there used to be ammo types that loaded faster than others but that it could be exploited so you could use the faster reload time to load in a better ammo type... WHY IS THIS CONSIDERED AN EXPLOIT! Why not make it a feature?!

Because it would be a must have type tool then. I mean, for now, sure. But for the future, not healthy at all.

I would like ammo that reload at different rate if the auto-reload mechanic is back, because then whenever you switch ammo even mid reload, you start reloading again. But you are allowed to reload an ammo without having to be in it for the last second. So im yes for faster reload ammo if the auto-reload is back, but not in its current mechanic. Would be exploited to bits and hell, everyone would use it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 20, 2014, 10:23:12 pm
 Crafeksterty I get the feeling you didn't read all of my post, i was not talking about bringing those ammo types back i was talking about getting an additional tool, sure it would be mandatory for gunners but so is some form of fire protection for the engineers.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 20, 2014, 10:50:08 pm
Crafeksterty I get the feeling you didn't read all of my post, i was not talking about bringing those ammo types back i was talking about getting an additional tool, sure it would be mandatory for gunners but so is some form of fire protection for the engineers.

Except fire protection ISN'T mandatory, it's just almost always needed on at least 1 engineer. Unless the enemy team has a lot of fire, you could get away with just a single chem spray. A reload tool like you suggest would be absolutely necessary ALL the time. That's not the kind of thing I'd want.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Caprontos on May 20, 2014, 11:00:49 pm
I can't reply to this all short so.. sowwy..

RE: Normal Ammo

While I get where the normal ammo idea comes from, I think it would just remove currently valid strategies for certain ships (mainly junker, spire, mobula) and add little to nothing to the gunner class because he wouldn't be any more useful in most cases on guns he is not already useful on. - imo.

Consider, how does this make a captain want a gunner on a merc or a gatling gun (and really any gun you don't normally use a gunner for, and opt for third engineer) anymore then they do right now? It wouldn't change it very much I think - if at all, but it would make lesmonk useless as an ammo in most cases for an engineer, that -to be effective- has to use guns to and be in the spots that he is (at lest two spots on every ship, save rare cases).

I think instead of removing useful functions, to pretend you improved the gunner class its better to try to improve the gunner class so he is chosen for useful reasons, over the third engineer... more at the bottom on this..

RE: Loading gun at last second

Can't we have our cake and eat it to..? Why not just make it reload the last used ammo - but your free to change it if you want up to near last second?.. and make changes that happen literally last second not happen, if it means the gun will reload completely.. That would useful, if possible..

I end up having to reload because I jump in a gun to late and hit the key to switch to the right ammo thinking I will make it.. I have caused us to lose games over it.. and at lest a point.. or not getting a kill when should of.. etc..

Why mitigate one risk and add another?.. I am sure I am not the only one who has/will do this..

If an issue is, well then Player A can just load ammo X and player B doesn't need to bring it to use it... add in a mechanic that if when the clip is being reloaded, the player that emptied it didn't have the ammo that matches it goes normal.. - after typing the below this might be why we can't have our cake and eat it to :P haha.

----------------------------

I was thinking, what makes a gunner useful right now, he is useful on a hades, a mine launcher, and the medium guns..

Why is he useful? because he can make the gun effective at three (possibly four if normal is useful in some cases over the three other types commonly used) ranges in most cases.. which is for more useful then an engineer who can do two at best (mostly in cases you need engineers shooting), and one in most cases where a gunner isn't currently useful anyway.

But you can't just add ammo that makes the other guns useful at three ranges realistically.. because.. they do not have enough range to really get the same benefit.. engagements happen to fast for it to happen when inside gatling range.. and giving these guns more range, brings up balance issues..

So you would need to, if you wanted to go the purely ammo route, find ways to use the other two ammo slots.. that can be used quickly (if it takes to much time, it isn't going to be useful in most cases), and be useful enough that a buff hammer + more repair power isn't just out right better.

Ammo that can give you advantage positioning, like the ammo that makes the enemy unable to raise up quickly... which brings up the "time" issue... or ammo that is more effective if your maybe at 50% of the normal range of the gun.. then the most commonly used ammo.. to give gunners a two range option..


I think - basically gunners need buffed for brawling ships/ guns, they are already used plenty for sniper ships.. or at lest guns that can hit longer range. Granted you could add ways to buff gunner value on a merc (marker ammo that can mark through clouds, is an example why you might want him over a buff engineer)... mostly this is on a mobula though..


I don't think you need to remove the value of three engineers to make gunners useful.. you just have to find ways - that fit what you want to do with it - that will make the gunner valid over a third engineer for meaningful reasons... Gunner utility and gunner combat value vs "third" engineer are things that need reviewed..

Any nerf to engineer - is a nerf that effects all the spots that have to be an engineer - just as much as the third engineer that is the issue.. and won't necessarily make gunners more useful...

Hopefully that makes sense.. haha..
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 20, 2014, 11:40:19 pm
Crafeksterty I get the feeling you didn't read all of my post, i was not talking about bringing those ammo types back i was talking about getting an additional tool, sure it would be mandatory for gunners but so is some form of fire protection for the engineers.

Except fire protection ISN'T mandatory, it's just almost always needed on at least 1 engineer. Unless the enemy team has a lot of fire, you could get away with just a single chem spray. A reload tool like you suggest would be absolutely necessary ALL the time. That's not the kind of thing I'd want.

Correction it is ALWAYS NEEDED on at least one engineer unless you want to go down in a fiery blaze.
 Sure every gunner would take this tool, but i can see engineers passing it up for an additional ammo type because they have to be running around and cant sit on the gun to see any use out of it. This thread is about giving ideas that will buff the gunner and there is my idea! I'm not proposing some god item here, it pretty much makes reloading for gunners more interactive and more efficient, and it seems small enough in scope to be easy to implement and take out if its no fun.

Sorry to come off as aggressive but i feel you misquoted and misunderstood me,
we ARE allowed to have differing opinions.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Myroc on May 21, 2014, 01:48:02 am
Here is my two cents on the Normal ammo being a selection, For one I am extremely against some form of crummy scavenger ammo becoming the default OR the idea of having no ammo in the guns when a ship spawns as it leaves you too vulnerable if the enemy is in your spawn point and you would get steam rolled without being able to fight back.
Point A: At roundstart, you should have more than enough time to reload all your weapons before engaging an enemy.
Point B: In the cases where you don't, your enemy is equally as affected by it as you are.
Point C: Whenever you respawn, you get the choice of where to deploy. Avoiding getting thrashed in this moment of vulnerability is as simple as not deploying in front of your enemy.

I don't think you need to remove the value of three engineers to make gunners useful.
I think that you do. The only way you're going to make gunners on par with engineers is if you make the former better at repairing, or the latter worse at gunning. (On light guns, at least.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AscendantWyvern on May 21, 2014, 02:55:40 am
A good solution for the normal ammo selection is to have all cannons pre-loaded with normal ammunition upon spawning. Once the initial clip is spent, it loads in the current ammo selected if not already done so.

That way all players can use the guns without panic to get their ammunition loaded, while forcing choice on ammunition type.

An interesting bonus to that is the ability to have a gunner pre-load ammunition types and letting an engineer use it afterward without losing the said type (until the clip is emptied, of course.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Captain Smollett on May 21, 2014, 03:14:40 am
It has been known for a long time by a lot of players that nerfing the buff hammer would make gunners more viable.  However buffing, how and when to buff and working it in to a repair cycle all while gunning is one of the few arts that engineers have.  Removing its bonus to guns would probably remove it from many ships.

Instead of making the engineers worse, make gunners more diverse.

Gunnery tools that stack effects would make gunners superior in so many instances.

A tool to make reloading go faster.
A tool to make the gun turn quicker and farther.
A tool to give longer zoom and range.
A tool to give an increase in rate of fire.

If a gunner had tools like this, he could take the scope, the rate of fire increase and lesmok.  No one would ever use an engineer on hades again.

The gunner could take reloading faster and increase rate of fire and greased rounds.  This would make a gunner far superior on gattling.

A gunner with faster turning, zoom, and faster reload/burst would make a gunner a better choice on a n artemis.

Zoom scope and reload with charged could even make a gunner a viable choice on mercs.

Giving a gunner the ability to stack effects would make them outclass engineers on guns.  While engineers could still stack their buff to a gun, gunners could stack multiple tools.  In very high team work related moments, perhaps the gunner could apply their tools to an engineers gun in the same way and engineer applies their tools to a gunners gun.

Make gunners different, but superior to engineers on gun.  Don't make engineers worse.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 21, 2014, 03:18:50 am
Crafeksterty I get the feeling you didn't read all of my post, i was not talking about bringing those ammo types back i was talking about getting an additional tool, sure it would be mandatory for gunners but so is some form of fire protection for the engineers.

Except fire protection ISN'T mandatory, it's just almost always needed on at least 1 engineer. Unless the enemy team has a lot of fire, you could get away with just a single chem spray. A reload tool like you suggest would be absolutely necessary ALL the time. That's not the kind of thing I'd want.

Correction it is ALWAYS NEEDED on at least one engineer unless you want to go down in a fiery blaze.
 Sure every gunner would take this tool, but i can see engineers passing it up for an additional ammo type because they have to be running around and cant sit on the gun to see any use out of it. This thread is about giving ideas that will buff the gunner and there is my idea! I'm not proposing some god item here, it pretty much makes reloading for gunners more interactive and more efficient, and it seems small enough in scope to be easy to implement and take out if its no fun.

Sorry to come off as aggressive but i feel you misquoted and misunderstood me,
we ARE allowed to have differing opinions.

It is true we are allowed to have differing opinions. I am firmly of the opinion however that unless the enemy team actually has something that regularly gives out fire stacks, you could almost get away with not having any anti-fire tool. That doesn't mean I won't still want at least a chem spray, just in case, but it's not as necessary.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 21, 2014, 08:04:43 am
It has been known for a long time by a lot of players that nerfing the buff hammer would make gunners more viable.  However buffing, how and when to buff and working it in to a repair cycle all while gunning is one of the few arts that engineers have.  Removing its bonus to guns would probably remove it from many ships.

Instead of making the engineers worse, make gunners more diverse.

Gunnery tools that stack effects would make gunners superior in so many instances.

A tool to make reloading go faster.
A tool to make the gun turn quicker and farther.
A tool to give longer zoom and range.
A tool to give an increase in rate of fire.

If a gunner had tools like this, he could take the scope, the rate of fire increase and lesmok.  No one would ever use an engineer on hades again.

The gunner could take reloading faster and increase rate of fire and greased rounds.  This would make a gunner far superior on gattling.

A gunner with faster turning, zoom, and faster reload/burst would make a gunner a better choice on a n artemis.

Zoom scope and reload with charged could even make a gunner a viable choice on mercs.

Giving a gunner the ability to stack effects would make them outclass engineers on guns.  While engineers could still stack their buff to a gun, gunners could stack multiple tools.  In very high team work related moments, perhaps the gunner could apply their tools to an engineers gun in the same way and engineer applies their tools to a gunners gun.

Make gunners different, but superior to engineers on gun.  Don't make engineers worse.

All of this, even though the thread OP said no tools. Adding more ammo types isn't going to solve the problem, new tools will.

I imagine the tools would work similar to chem-spray: click to apply when off the gun, a relatively long cool-down, and the effect stays active for several seconds.

Some names:

A tool to make reloading go faster - Reloading Press
(http://picturearchive.gunauction.com/2870643/8336893/9cb57d798c922a0bbc7f2e12ecfd7d50.jpg)
A tool to make the gun turn quicker and farther - Oil Can
(http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/green-old-rusty-oil-can-15395192.jpg)
A tool to give longer zoom and range - achromatic lens
(http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/4SaleRR/4inchMeniscus_1.jpg)
A tool to give an increase in rate of fire - Snake Oil
(http://www.greenmarketing.com/images/uploads/snakeoil.jpg)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Stuboi on May 21, 2014, 09:39:10 am
we could always just make weapon jams a common thing for non-gunners.

That would be interesting actually.

Perhaps different ammo types increase or decrease the chances of a weapon jamming too?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 21, 2014, 09:47:33 am
RE: Impact... sort of

I don't mind weapons dealing Impact damage, what I don't want is that knockback given to all weapons.  If were ever the case, it'd have to be cleverly limited based on some variable like muzzle speed or explosive damage etc...  But same as above, I'd like it if it were linked to a gun.
Impact damage applies forces based on the damage dealt, correct? So a merc shot dealing 10 times the damage as a gatling bullet will apply 10 times the force (not actual numbers). But with the rapid fire and high ammo count of the gatling, the gatling would probably give more "push" over a full clip.

Perhaps 20% damage (down from 25%) or even 15% or 10%, and an ammo reduction identical to (or even worse than) lesmok. Actually, I'm sure someone could pretty quickly spreadsheet stuff and determine damage amounts and the force when compared to mines to find a nice balance where damage and force are both factors but neither one is overwhelming for any gun. Would be interesting to see which guns would shine with this ammo.

Really I just love impact damage and want more of it in the game.

~edit~
Re: jamming
I would be pretty heavily against jamming, especially if it varies between classes. Right now you are in complete control of your ship. The only dangers are the enemy and what they can do to you. Introducing the randomness of jamming (assuming it's a percent chance and disables a gun) would introduce a possibility that your perfect scenario trap gets wrecked because you were unlucky and your guns jammed up. There are ways to design around it (5% chance of a "jam", "jams" deal 5% damage to your gun, gunning tool that "buffs" a gun to reduce/prevent "jams"/damage) but it introduces a mechanic that is more random and frustrating than fun and inventive.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Saull on May 21, 2014, 10:26:44 am
In regards to jamming. This game, as a pvp only game with heavy reliance on team work and crew cooperation, can be considered to be pretty competitive and in my opinion competitive style games and "random elements" should be kept far apart. And that can be hard enough to do without making them a feature. I mean who exactly thought that the slip mechanic added to Brawl was a needed improvement over Melee?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kushala Daora on May 21, 2014, 10:43:06 am
Having a shot or two with all bullet kinds and guns and ships, I've thought the balance through and I have to admit that the game's quite nicely balanced ship and gun wise. The roles and their gear, however, are a dull choice, and this is why I think this thread is necessary.

While I'm leaning towards normal ammo, I think the goal here is to make gunner as unique as other classes by modifying his gear (which consists of bullets), not make him necessary by making him the only class with useful ammunition. All combinations of crew roles should be viable.

So instead of making gunner shoot more hurtful bullets or shoot under angles no mount point can, I suggest ammo that changes the way guns shoot.


I tried to think of giving the gunner something that works differently from changing the fire rate or damage, and came up with this. Revolution is way better than buffing or nerfing.
But, if we decide that a rebalance is needed, I propose two simple rebalance options, based on how ununique the gunner is.


Edit: I know that devs already replied that making new weird shots is troublesome, but can i pleaseee get this idea considered without the extra work being an issue?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 11:18:02 am
Steering this back on track...

It is highly unlikely that we will implement tools, passives, or non-ammo related changes to the gunner in the near future.  None of those would be testable until several months out, and don't forget the several months of testing that comes with new things.  Furthermore, it breaks several design paradigms that are in place:

- Pilots tools can only be used on helm (aside from spotting, which are the only unique cases)
- Engineers tools can only be used while running around and on components
- Gunner ammo can only be used on a gun, while on a gun

There's a lot of inertia to stay that way because of how many of our systems are architected from UI, code, to design.  Introducing tools will also introduce confusing and unclear interactions.  Don't let this discourage you, though.  Remember that we can put many of the effects of the proposed tools into ammo types.

If it really seems like we need to move towards breaking our own rules, we will.  However, at this point there are other options (more diverse ammo) that are much faster to start testing on (next week even) and don't require us to strip out larges portions of the system.


RE: Unique behaviors per gun (linked/combo shot)

Interesting ideas sprinkled through those proposals.  However, we can't do unique behaviors for each gun with 1 ammo type.  Not only would it be unclear from a player to figure out what the ammo actually did (aside from testing each gun on their own or providing a wall of text to explain it), the code is not set up to handle those very specific cases, but the reasons not to do it have more to do with clarity and opacity of what the ammo is supposed to do rather than the actual implementation.

However, there may be something interesting about rewarding accuracy and consistency of shots.  How a piece of ammo knows that and explaining that is another story :P  Ah, game-isms.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 21, 2014, 12:43:09 pm
(Don't want to push, or sidetrack, but i suddenly really like the impact idea and this thread begs for discussion on it - last post unless people ask for more)

I ran some numbers and based everything off of the power of a single mine. If you have any concerns, run your ship into a single mine and see what that does to you, then consider proportions.

Damage modifier: 0.2
Clip size: 0.7
Gun deals only primary damage, losing the ability to inflict any secondary damage it has.
Primary damage is converted to impact damage.

Per clip, light carronade easily wins, dealing 68% of a single mine's damage per clip. Gatling deals 56%, Hwacha 47%, and Heavy Carronade 45%. All others are below 40% per clip.
Only 4 weapons deal less than 20% damage per clip: banshee (12%), mercury (10%), harpoon, and flare gun (1% lol).

Per shot (for immediate knock-back effects), Heavy carronade loads up 45%, making it easily the best pusher. Heavy flak falls in at 20% (along with mines) per shot before carronade shows back up, along with merc and artemis.

With modifiers in consideration, The most possible damage to deal is 185 to balloon, 154 to hull, 62 to component, or 82 to armor per clip of the light carronade.

I don't know how AOE would come into play (if at all) for how impact damage works when hitting multiple components.


I ran numbers for allowing in secondary damage only and the lumberjack runs away with the show, dealing 160% damage per clip. The next closest was hwacha at 84%, meaning dropping primary damage and applying only secondary damage makes the ammo OP on one gun to the point of non-viability.


I don't have numbers comparing reload times or buffs, and it's on excel, not a google doc i can share, but if it has real interest I can make one. ^.^

The ammo type turns any gun into a utility weapon, and works best on close range weapons (preventing snipers from spamming knock-back). With the heavy nerf of the damage modifier, the guns don't deal massive damage by any means. The guns become effective against armor, hull, and balloon, but can't do enough damage per clip to be truly dangerous in terms of damage (can be nearly effortlessly denied by an engineer making a simple repair. This is not an ammo type your engineer would take - it is next to useless as a singular ammo type. However, a gunner being able to load it in when the opportunity arises, or when their own weapon is not in effective range, or when their weapon can't fire effectively (inside arming times, or firing a gatling down at a ship trying to balloon-block the shots) suddenly becomes much more desirable. A single mine can be devastating when it explodes, knocking off arcs, throwing ships into and out of situations of danger or advantage, etc. The ability to apply that pressure at any time would be incredibly tempting to any pilot, meaning gunners with their multiple ammo types are very tempting.

Thanks for your patience.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 21, 2014, 01:27:49 pm
(Don't want to push, or sidetrack, but i suddenly really like the impact idea and this thread begs for discussion on it - last post unless people ask for more)

I ran some numbers and based everything off of the power of a single mine. If you have any concerns, run your ship into a single mine and see what that does to you, then consider proportions.

Damage modifier: 0.2
Clip size: 0.7
Gun deals only primary damage, losing the ability to inflict any secondary damage it has.
Primary damage is converted to impact damage.

Per clip, light carronade easily wins, dealing 68% of a single mine's damage per clip. Gatling deals 56%, Hwacha 47%, and Heavy Carronade 45%. All others are below 40% per clip.
Only 4 weapons deal less than 20% damage per clip: banshee (12%), mercury (10%), harpoon, and flare gun (1% lol).

Per shot (for immediate knock-back effects), Heavy carronade loads up 45%, making it easily the best pusher. Heavy flak falls in at 20% (along with mines) per shot before carronade shows back up, along with merc and artemis.

With modifiers in consideration, The most possible damage to deal is 185 to balloon, 154 to hull, 62 to component, or 82 to armor per clip of the light carronade.

I don't know how AOE would come into play (if at all) for how impact damage works when hitting multiple components.


I ran numbers for allowing in secondary damage only and the lumberjack runs away with the show, dealing 160% damage per clip. The next closest was hwacha at 84%, meaning dropping primary damage and applying only secondary damage makes the ammo OP on one gun to the point of non-viability.


I don't have numbers comparing reload times or buffs, and it's on excel, not a google doc i can share, but if it has real interest I can make one. ^.^

The ammo type turns any gun into a utility weapon, and works best on close range weapons (preventing snipers from spamming knock-back). With the heavy nerf of the damage modifier, the guns don't deal massive damage by any means. The guns become effective against armor, hull, and balloon, but can't do enough damage per clip to be truly dangerous in terms of damage (can be nearly effortlessly denied by an engineer making a simple repair. This is not an ammo type your engineer would take - it is next to useless as a singular ammo type. However, a gunner being able to load it in when the opportunity arises, or when their own weapon is not in effective range, or when their weapon can't fire effectively (inside arming times, or firing a gatling down at a ship trying to balloon-block the shots) suddenly becomes much more desirable. A single mine can be devastating when it explodes, knocking off arcs, throwing ships into and out of situations of danger or advantage, etc. The ability to apply that pressure at any time would be incredibly tempting to any pilot, meaning gunners with their multiple ammo types are very tempting.

Thanks for your patience.

So, if I understand you right, you're theorizing (should this ammo be made) based on the damage being reduced by 80%, and the clip by 30%? Just want to make sure I understand how you're working this out. I'm liking what I'm reading otherwise. Maybe, if nothing else, we could get it in the dev app just to see what happens when we make random weapons deal impact damage as an experiment.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 21, 2014, 01:35:02 pm
So, if I understand you right, you're theorizing (should this ammo be made) based on the damage being reduced by 80%, and the clip by 30%?
Correct. A normal 100 piercing damage slug would instead deal 20 impact damage.
A normal 100 ammo clip would instead have 70 ammo. (and a 2 shot clip would instead only have 1 shot due to rounding, similar to lesmok)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 21, 2014, 01:37:03 pm
So, if I understand you right, you're theorizing (should this ammo be made) based on the damage being reduced by 80%, and the clip by 30%?
Correct. A normal 100 piercing damage slug would instead deal 20 impact damage.
A normal 100 ammo clip would instead have 70 ammo. (and a 2 shot clip would instead only have 1 shot due to rounding, similar to lesmok)

About the only odd element I can see to this is flamers with impact damage XD
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 21, 2014, 01:40:05 pm
- Pilots tools can only be used on helm (aside from spotting, which are the only unique cases)
- Engineers tools can only be used while running around and on components
- Gunner ammo can only be used on a gun, while on a gun

Then why not instant effects on selection?
Ive made this thread few days ago, and it was on addons. (Dont know if you remember).
At first, i tought of it as a tool outside the gun, applied on the gun.

But then one can eliminate the need for tool model, effect and animation if you simply make it...
An instantaneus effect on selection while on the gun. Much like on the helm.

So with an ammo loaded, you then select over to a non-ammo gunner tool while on the gun, much like on the helm.
And those are addons that slightly help the weapon from being detrimental off of the ammo drawbacks, or strengthening the buffs.
I dont know how this cannot be done, all it needs is icons as a selection. And ofcourse as new gunner selections.
Applying buff hammer buff to the gun is no different from this, just that this addon buff is active whenever the gunner has it selected on the gun.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 21, 2014, 01:55:16 pm
I am tempted to suggest new engineer tools that are only a good choice for gunners, for some reason.
A new sort of pipe wrench that is best for repairing/rebuilding guns, but has barely to any effect on balloon/hull/engines, or something. Something that an engineer would never take, but a gunner could drive immense use from. The problem is that the gunner can only have 1 engineering tool and a tool that reacts differently on every component it hits, might require too much coding/effort...
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 02:55:56 pm
RE: Instant/Passive Effects

Yeah, it fits in the overall design paradigm of when what skills are used when.  However, the other thing to note is that while it is a Gunner item, it behaves differently from ammo.  Now, something that's in the same class of items (the Gunner slots) doesn't do the same thing as the others.  So far, the only exception are the two Spotting tools... they're Pilot tools but are used while running around.

In the case of an instant/passive gunner skill that is activated while on a gun, the item doesn't force a reload.  Having this item activated will also produce a strange interaction with reload.  Under the current reload mechanics, you will reload to whatever ammo you have selected.  However, I won't necessarily have an ammo selected now.  What do I reload?  It would make sense to reload whatever was previously in the gun if I have that ammo... but how do I know what was in the gun?  You can see where this goes.  Not that we can't solve the issue, it's already steepening the uphill battle that we're trying to fight in making choosing Gunners more desirable than Gungineers.

A lot of the difficult issues end up being clarity of behavior and how to tell players what is going on in a way that is clean (UI) and intuitive.  Intuitive and clean usually mean as simple as possible.




RE: Gunner focused repair tool

Such an item would be obviously great for a gunner who normally just needs a repair tool to fix their own gun (engineers already have a lot to worry about).  However, then this selection skews heavily towards collapsing the decision space of "What engineer tool do I pick as a gunner?"  The decision space is currently quite skewed where users will most likely take Pipe or Spanner.

However, there's always the Engineer and how this kind of tool will affect their loadout decision making.  For Engineers, it becomes a little more unclear... maybe that's a good thing.



Just to make it clear, I'm not shutting anything down outright.  I want to let everyone know all the considerations that need to be taken into account before things are set into motion, and then to steer the feedback into a direction that is more immediately actionable.  There are numerous good ideas so far that I'm working into this big change.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 21, 2014, 04:17:21 pm
As I've said previously adding new ammo types is cool, however it will not affect the desirability of gunners. Instead of having literal 'passives' that are activated while mounted on a gun, make them work like chem-spray and be pre applied, this shouldn't cause a coding nightmare by affecting the reload mechanic.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 04:24:52 pm
Where do I equip this Gunner Chem Spray?  In a gunner slot?

That breaks paradigm and introduces behavior confusion.

You're right that it'll be little to be very little coding... but how do we display it to the user?  It's a running-around tool only available in the gunner slot?  That's weird, breaks paradigm. 

What if it's an Engineer tool?  But then why would a gunner bring it?  It's more useful to bring something to repair the gun if you need to.

Then the question is: why is the engineer more desirable?  Maybe the answer is Buff Hammer's effect on guns.  Maybe we'll look at dealing with that.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 21, 2014, 04:26:22 pm
Where do I equip this Gunner Chem Spray?  In a gunner slot?

That breaks paradigm and introduces behavior confusion.

You're right that it'll be little to be very little coding... but how do we display it to the user?  It's a running-around tool only available in the gunner slot?  That's weird, breaks paradigm. 

What if it's an Engineer tool?  But then why would a gunner bring it?  It's more useful to bring something to repair the gun if you need to.

Then the question is: why is the engineer more desirable?  Maybe the answer is Buff Hammer's effect on guns.  Maybe we'll look at dealing with that.

Yes, In a gunner slot. We're all comfortable with the pilot tool exceptions, I don't think people would be that confused by having some gunner 'tools'.

Edit: I strongly feel that this would be the best way to go. Maybe you could introduce some engineer passives that aren't tools to even it out. (that, or you should probably remove the spyglass and range finder from the game)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 04:34:53 pm
Again, we do not want to introduce any more exceptions than we have to.  This is not a 'no'.

No conclusions can be made without proper testing.  This means that these kinds of passives, tools, etc... could be the solution.  However, they're definitely not going to be tested first because of the time it would take to implement them.  The thing that can be easily implemented and tested is more ammo or tweaks to ammo.

Again, I'd like to hear ideas for new ammunition or changes to current ammunition... or even changes to Engineer tools (like buff) to increase the desire of Gunners on a ship.

If tests prove that ammo doesn't solve anything, I'll take suggestions on new mechanics.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 21, 2014, 04:41:54 pm
Trying to keep with awkm's base, easy-to-change criteria, yet keep things useful. Pros and Cons color coded.




Lesnagar (Rail Ammo):

+100% damage
+200% projectile speed
+50% projectile lift
+20% ignition chance
Removes arming time (DONT USE ON MINES!).
Single shot.
50% proportional damage to gun per clip.
Adds 10 stacks of fire to your gun, chem or not.
-120% rotation speed

Hyper velocity ammo. From the insane minds that brought you Lochnagar, we now have Lesnagar! All the benefits of Lochnagar and Lesmok, with twice the danger! This devastating ammo requires both a gunner and engineer to use, and pilot to aim.


Anti-gravity rounds:

+[whatever it takes]% lift to make arcing rounds go up instead of down.

"What goes up must take them down."


Aries Clip:

+1000% damage.
Removes arming time.
Single shot.
Destroys gun. (could it automatically fire as soon as loaded?)
Range reduced on all guns to <5 meters.

"Why did you name this infernal contraption the Aries?"
"Simple, sir. Aries' symbol is the ram."



Ammo types that don't fit so well in the easy to do restrictions, but would make gunners far more desirable:

Buff Rounds:

100% buff over the progression of the clip.
-20% damage.

"She don't do much now, but wait till you see what comes next.

Tinker Clip:

Gun is fixed (options below) by this clip.
Gun fixes itself when broken?
Damage modifiers? Reduction in firing speed? Fewer rounds?

"Engineers? We don't have time for bloody engineers!" 
Going with gunners needing to fix their own guns, make a special mechanical clip that fixes the gun while firing. Opposite of the DevApp special damage modifier ammos. This frees the gunner up to take something other than pipe wrench.

Options:

Rate of repair? 50-100% repair over full clip? Would greatly benefit low ammo, fast reloading guns. Not so great on high ammo or slow loading guns.

-OR- Instant fix when reloaded, like heatsink or a pipe wrench tap. More beneficial to all but long reload guns.

-OR- Constantly repairs guns while loaded. Would benefit large clip, long-firing guns, as well as load and forget. Would require more code changes.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 21, 2014, 04:59:14 pm
Is there possibility of having ammo types that change the turning range of guns? Another player asked as well, I think. If there is, I would add:

Overclock:

+ X% turning range.
Damages gun while firing.

"We didn't need these safety stops in the first place."

Lefties/Righties:

Shifts the gun's entire turningrange left or right. -10% left, + 10% right, for example.
Con is that you lose range in the other direction, and use normal ammo.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 06:01:33 pm
Test for experimental ammo is now on Dev App for brave testers.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on May 21, 2014, 06:09:31 pm
RE: Instant/Passive Effects

Yeah, it fits in the overall design paradigm of when what skills are used when.  However, the other thing to note is that while it is a Gunner item, it behaves differently from ammo.  Now, something that's in the same class of items (the Gunner slots) doesn't do the same thing as the others.  So far, the only exception are the two Spotting tools... they're Pilot tools but are used while running around.

In the case of an instant/passive gunner skill that is activated while on a gun, the item doesn't force a reload.  Having this item activated will also produce a strange interaction with reload.  Under the current reload mechanics, you will reload to whatever ammo you have selected.  However, I won't necessarily have an ammo selected now.  What do I reload?  It would make sense to reload whatever was previously in the gun if I have that ammo... but how do I know what was in the gun?  You can see where this goes.  Not that we can't solve the issue, it's already steepening the uphill battle that we're trying to fight in making choosing Gunners more desirable than Gungineers.

A lot of the difficult issues end up being clarity of behavior and how to tell players what is going on in a way that is clean (UI) and intuitive.  Intuitive and clean usually mean as simple as possible.


Just to make it clear, I'm not shutting anything down outright.  I want to let everyone know all the considerations that need to be taken into account before things are set into motion, and then to steer the feedback into a direction that is more immediately actionable.  There are numerous good ideas so far that I'm working into this big change.

So my previous example for the "auto loader" does not run into a lot of these problems, selecting it would force a reload and having it selected would just start another reload. I'm not the only one to suggest something like this either, but my favorite part about it is its simple with no affects except when the gun is reloading.
Anyway enough about that there are plenty who agree with me( just look at the number of suggestions for something that does this effect, I can't clam it as my own idea anymore :) ) and those that don't as i would argue that there may be some builds that would take the third ammo choice over faster reloads but I cannot think of any so i have to agree that it would likely become a mandatory gunner tool.


I find it really hard to come up with new ammo types that would be useful in very specific situations but ill give it another try.

How about Flash power Clip:
drastically reduce range by -70% or something, arming time is reduced by 80%, rotation speed of the gun is doubled, reduced damage by -35% ( basic idea for this ammo would be if you were fighting point blank, it allows weapons with arming times to still be very effective)


As for previously mentioned ammo i like the idea of some sort of acidic ammo that does more damage on each subsequent hit, and i also love the idea for ammo type that adjust the arcs, even if one adjusts it right and another adjusts it left, it would make gunners ability to carry three ammo types very nice. 
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 21, 2014, 06:15:11 pm
HOLY SHIT! PROXIMITY IS MY NEW FAV ONE! That is a Great Ammo type! Holy Crap!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SquireOfFire on May 21, 2014, 06:21:49 pm
Tesla rounds:
on hitting: engines or weapons this sends and electrical charge thorough the component, disabling it for 2 - 5 seconds (depending on the weapon you are using and if it is effective against said component or not)
-30% ammo
-10% firing speed
+10% range
(should be nerfed or incompatible with the flamer)

kerosene soaked rounds:
on hit: increases the chance of igniting the hit ship and has a small chance to ignite mid-air.
+30% ship ignition chance
10% chance rounds will ignite mid-air, granting bonus fire damage (similar to that of the flamer)
+20% firing speed
deals damage to the weapon these rounds are fired from (per round fired)
-30% damage
-10% range

tracer rounds:
on hit: has a small chance to spot a ship
+20% damage to balloon
-20% ammo
-10% damage to everything else

mini-heat rounds:
+40% damage to hull armor (not the hull itself)
+20% range
-30% overall damage
-10% ammo
-20% firing speed
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 21, 2014, 06:35:29 pm
RE: Autoloader/Reload Crank

We had ammo and passives that modified reload speed.  The way we did it before was subject to a lot of abuse and we ended up ditching reloading speed related shenigans.  However, there's a chance faster reload may come back in some shape or form.

Having Autoloader/Reload Crank means that we would be officially making that last second ammo switch an important thing and not only a "nice to have."  That's kind of interesting.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 21, 2014, 07:28:14 pm
[Note that ive only tested the effects, not on a match or a ship]

New Proximity
Very, very powerfull. The drawbacks isnt enough. This ammo type is such an easy mode for most guns.
The -60% secondary damage, is not enough.
I suggest add another -30 to primary. or just -50% less damage overall instead.
Along with activating under 50% of the AOE. 80% is... you cant miss. You just cant miss.
Maybe, tune down the AOE to 1500%, but then keep 75% activation.
For now, it seems very easy mode and lumberjacks will always hit, no exception.
[Remember, i havent tested this versus ships so maybe it is maintainable.]


But here is the things it acomplishes!
Hwacha actualy becomes an area of Denial type of weapon!
I can see people having fun actualy using the Lumberjack/Heavy flak (New people that is)
Mines can be used as proximity warnings.

And some other uses. Ive noticed that i do prefer direct hits over this, but this does quite the easy mode of damage. Il need further testing, this is neat!
This can... easily replace burst rounds. If we have both, then one will be used over the other.

The mechanic of this ammo can be used in other ways for other ammo type. Or weapons in general. Im liking the idea of this, its very strong atm.


Injection Clip
It is actualy in a good place now.

May be the go to ammo for the mortar, while the gattling and stuff is pretty good.
This ammo is seppoused to be used only on short ranges. I dont know if it is best to have no arming time.
This is combating lochnagar by the edge, maybe thats what you want. Almost replacable. A hades in particular does better than the gattling. I dont know why i would bring a gattling if this can satisfy close range needs AND long range. I suggest removing the arming time buisness.


Dragon ash + Dense Lungs
I find these to be balanced in a sense for the gunner.

If we remove Charged, suddenly gunner is more valuable for their slots.



For now, ive only tested these versus Test Dummies.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 21, 2014, 07:59:25 pm
That stuff should be posted in the DevApp forum. I already made comments on prox, and it is horribly game-breaking as is. You will only hurt yourself with the mines.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Myroc on May 22, 2014, 04:46:08 am
RE: Autoloader/Reload Crank

We had ammo and passives that modified reload speed.  The way we did it before was subject to a lot of abuse and we ended up ditching reloading speed related shenigans.  However, there's a chance faster reload may come back in some shape or form.

Having Autoloader/Reload Crank means that we would be officially making that last second ammo switch an important thing and not only a "nice to have."  That's kind of interesting.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of an "Ammo Crank" or some sort of ammunition whose sole benefit is to increase reload speed. The fact that it is "abused" to increase reload speed then switch to a better ammo type at the last second may be just what Gunners need to be better than engineers! On it's own it would be only moderately useful, but when coupled with other clips it really shines, as you can have a fast reload speed without having to fire terrible ammo. Since it is an ammo type used best in conjunction with other ammo types, this would actually make the Gunner's extra ammo slots useful, as Engineers would only be able to choose between good ammo types and fast reloads.

The one problem here, though, is that the game is balanced around the current reload values, and suddenly giving every gunner the ability to reload faster is likely going to break things horribly. If this Reloader ammunition is implemented, it needs to be paired with a nerf to the reload speeds of all guns in the game.  That means that Gunners would be able to fire their guns at what is currently optimal efficiency, where-as Engineers would either be plagued by slow reloads or inferior ammo types, making them not as good for gunning.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 22, 2014, 05:32:50 am
That makes for the same story, just new to us.

In one alternate univers, all guns are faster, and then slowed down to this univers speed. Haha.
So really, expect quick firing on ships with gunners. Ide go for 2 gunners on my ship then.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mezhu on May 22, 2014, 09:04:27 am
A 'hotfix' of sorts would be changing the buffkit's effect on weapons from a very short but strong boost in damage to a weaker all around boost with much longer duration.

Everyone appreciates the variety current ammo provide, and almost every gun can benefit from ammo swaps. Greased gatling might be the strongest in DPS, but heavy and incendiary still retain some use for sniping components or spreading fires/switching focus to balloon. The main issue right now is that having the buffkit's boost is far superior to the added utility of the additional ammo types.

So what happens if you don't actually need the engineer to spam buffer hits on the gun with each reload? What if he's just there once every minute (like on the balloon), so that a gun can be buffed but still be used by a gunner?

I think a change in the buff's effect to 1 min duration, +5% damage, 10% faster reload would do the trick
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 22, 2014, 09:17:53 am
I think a change in the buff's effect to 1 min duration, +5% damage, 10% faster reload would do the trick
So much yes.
But.
+5% damage is fine.
I'm not sure about the faster reload. It almost requires having a buff kit on your ship to be able to hold your own in a fight. Maybe a buff to gun turning speed, or to gun health?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 22, 2014, 09:22:17 am
Woooow, hold up. Introduce faster reload with buffkit, then you will want gunengineers everywhere! Ok maybe just one.

But yeah, i see your point. But, i dont think  that does the trick. We want gunners to be utilised for their gunnery, not make engineers weaker so that we maybe get a gunner.
Im, very much burned out on ideas. I cant possibly contribute with forum text any more.

Other than max HP ammo types would still be cool. I mean barricade + max health to heatsink would be super hot.
Along with maybe Tinker ammo, and Ammo crank. Throw in Proximity and injection, and weve got combinations that may want players have gunner on their ship.
But thats just me though.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 22, 2014, 12:03:15 pm
Woooow, hold up. Introduce faster reload with buffkit, then you will want gunengineers everywhere! Ok maybe just one.

But yeah, i see your point. But, i dont think  that does the trick. We want gunners to be utilised for their gunnery, not make engineers weaker so that we maybe get a gunner.
Im, very much burned out on ideas. I cant possibly contribute with forum text any more.

Other than max HP ammo types would still be cool. I mean barricade + max health to heatsink would be super hot.
Along with maybe Tinker ammo, and Ammo crank. Throw in Proximity and injection, and weve got combinations that may want players have gunner on their ship.
But thats just me though.

Why would you want a gunner on the ship to use proximity or injection, while you can have an engineer with proximity or injection + a buffhammer or better repair tools to rebuild their broken gun? The alleged 'problem' is still not being adressed.

Quote
Everyone knows that Gunners may not be the most popular role to play on your ship.  Many think that running Engineers is the most beneficial due to the assortment of Repair/Buff equipment Engineers can carry.  It's time to make Gunners more desirable and the easiest, fastest, and arguably best way to do it is through new Gunner Ammo.

Any additional ammo you add to the game can still be taken by engineers, and adding more variety will not change that fact. Engineers can still perform the other Repair/Buff tasks that gunners cannot do effectively, while the gunners advantage is far more niche. An engineer can use 50% of the 'gunner' benefit (2 ammo types out of a possible 4), while a gunner can only use only 33.3% of the 'engineer' benefit (1 repair tool out of a possible 3). It is also worth noting that every single engineer tool can be used to benefit each component on the ship (except for using a buff hammer on a flame-thrower, which is arguably neutral), where currently different ammunition choices have the possibility of being detrimental to particular weapons.

Unless there is a solid non-replicable advantage given to a gunner shooting a gun (one which requires 2 gunnery items to be used simultaneously) the engineer will remain the favoured class. By all means add these new ammo types (THEY'RE AWESOME!) but don't be deluded into thinking that it is, in any way, a solution.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dirius on May 22, 2014, 12:22:25 pm
Instead of special amo I think it would make the gunner more viable to give them better abilities. For example, make the gunner able to aim weapons faster by maybe 20%

Another idea I've been thinking about is the ability to 'overclock' a gun. Switch it into a mode where the weapon fires and reloads 50% faster, but takes damage for each shot

For example a very slow weapon being boosted would break after only 6 or so shots, while a very fast one would last longer.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 22, 2014, 12:38:55 pm
Any additional ammo you add to the game can still be taken by engineers adding more does not change that fact, while engineers can still perform the other Repair/Buff tasks that gunners cannot do effectively.
A lot of this too.

New ammo types that damage the gun/ship only promote engineers because, especially with heavy disable right now, gun damage is a problem best solved by engineers.

For an ammo type to actually promote gunners, it would need to be inherently productive for your ship and your team, but would need to not be inherently powerful.
New ammos don't need to deal massive damage. The guns themselves already deal good damage, and your engineer is going to take those ammos that complement this.
New ammos need to reduce the damage of the weapon and provide other opportunities to benefit your ship and team.

Consider, you would (probably) not make your engineer take an ammo that will reduce your damage output since that will be their only option. However, a gunner can still take the damage ammos along with the niche ammo types that actually reduce your damage output.

The strength of the gunner is their versatility and ability to be useful at different ranges and in different situations. Right now the ammo types focus mostly around your damage output and range capabilities, with the exception of heatsink. I think new ammo types need to be types that you would not want your engineer to take in any situation. Types that are inherently not good if your choices are that ammo and normal. But they should be capable of being used very effectively if you have a gunner who can load that ammo in for a single clip to provide you with some form of advantage before switching back to more conventional ammo types.

Examples I've seen in this thread being Anti-gravity rounds, tracer rounds, and my own impact ammo.
Anti-grav would allow shots to fall upwards instead of down, making mortar crazy interesting, but not an ammo you would take with your engineer since there are better ammo types for a player who is limited to normal +1.
Tracer rounds would have to deal next-to-no damage while giving a percent chance to "spot" a ship if that ship is hit. Engineers taking it would sacrifice their damage output, but a gunner would still have 2 other ammos to take damage ammo types.
Impact ammo would allow each gun to deliver impact damage instead of its normal damage type. The damage would be severely reduced to where an engineer with a mallet could maintain anything being focused, but the impact would be distinct and noticeable. Engineers would again be weakened by taking it, but a gunner could easily fit it in for interesting situations/tactics.

Another idea that is probably infeasible and may not be desired would be healer rounds, which deal 0 damage to enemies, and 50% damage as a repair to friendlies. A close range ship could then support a long range ally by assisting with repairs while the long range ally snipes. But your gungineer taking this would immediately nerf your ability to fight, making it mostly only desirable for gunners.

In essence, if ammo types are the immediate band-aid to the problem, then we need to come up with ammo types that a pilot would love to have available on their ship, but that would not be beneficial as a singular ammo for a player.

TL;DR: Think of ammo types focused around utility, not damage - damage ammos will be taken by engineers, while utility ammos are taken by gunners.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 22, 2014, 12:41:16 pm
Cool, but that would be horrendously immersion breaking red! (almost as much as injection clip)  :P

My only concern is that the utility ammo is not as desirable as having a choice of three from the already existing ammo types that we have.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mysterious Medic on May 22, 2014, 03:20:06 pm
Alright so, I've thought about this a bit and I have to agree with geo. Ammo types really won't fix the balance of the classes. Even utility ammos I feel could be used with an engi. No, I think the permanent solution is passive gunner tools. The reason buffed guns are so great is because the buff stacks on top of whatever other ammo you're using- so a buff ammo is pointless. I'm thinking a passive buff gunner tool will fix this. It will take up a gunnery tool slot, and it will make whatever gun you go on have that passive buff for whenever you're shooting it. If an engineer would use this gunnery tool it would put him at a disadvantage because he cannot use other ammos in conjunction with it.

Let's take the example of the buffed greased gat. Right now, it will always be better than a gunner just with greased rounds and two other ammos, because the other Ammos aren't needed. But with a gunnery passive buff, the gunner will have the edge- always a permanent + 20% damage without all that silly clicking- and you get two other ammo types.

These passive tools shouldn't be limited to simulating buffs either. You could have passive tools for adding hp to the gun, reducing arming time, adding fire chance- the possibilities are nearly endless.

This fixes our problem and doesn't nerf the engineer who will always still have more repairing power. All it does is make the gunners better at well... Gunning.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 22, 2014, 03:27:40 pm
I've made a thread here: https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4125.0.html
rather than reposting and restructuring my previous ideas in this thread, in order to illustrate my point and create a more definitive proposal.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: MidnightWonko on May 23, 2014, 04:06:08 am
Here's an idea: more charts/graphs.  The numbers are practically an incomprehensible mess of gibberish.

Even something as simple as lining the stats up in rows and columns would make it way easier.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mezhu on May 23, 2014, 12:58:15 pm
And another thing, sorry for yet another double post.

Have you considered my Injection proposal, of turning it into a Turret ammo type? I think it helps resolve a lot of gunner utility issues that are being adressed, and creates a very niche, situational ammo type that is extremely hard to use but allows for tremendous rewards if properly applied, while also slightly boosting the offensive potentials of Spires and Mobulas without affecting the other ships as much.

I'll type it here once again in case it got hidden with all the posts and stuff and I'll shut up afterwards.

Injection Clip
-95% rotation
+30..50% rate of fire
-10..30% damage
+80% damage done to gun with entire clip
Does not stop firing until clip's emptied


Practically turns the gun into a turret that can be preaimed, allowing for gunners to 'use' more than 1 guns at the same time, giving some ships the ability to improve their offense while allowing engineers to return to defensive positions (5fecta mobulas anyone?). The ammo type is far too situational to be used by engineers and gives the gunner a more active role of quickly rotating the ship to set the guns up in proper arcs. Gives pilot a whole new thing to learn, as it turns ships into 'biplanes' with fixed turret aiming. Is hard to use effectively, even harder to use to its' maximum efficiency, promoting crew communication and practice.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: vyew on May 23, 2014, 01:23:01 pm
And another thing, sorry for yet another double post.

Have you considered my Injection proposal, of turning it into a Turret ammo type? I think it helps resolve a lot of gunner utility issues that are being adressed, and creates a very niche, situational ammo type that is extremely hard to use but allows for tremendous rewards if properly applied, while also slightly boosting the offensive potentials of Spires and Mobulas without affecting the other ships as much.

I'll type it here once again in case it got hidden with all the posts and stuff and I'll shut up afterwards.

Injection Clip
-95% rotation
+30..50% rate of fire
-10..30% damage
+80% damage done to gun with entire clip
Does not stop firing until clip's emptied


Practically turns the gun into a turret that can be preaimed, allowing for gunners to 'use' more than 1 guns at the same time, giving some ships the ability to improve their offense while allowing engineers to return to defensive positions (5fecta mobulas anyone?). The ammo type is far too situational to be used by engineers and gives the gunner a more active role of quickly rotating the ship to set the guns up in proper arcs. Gives pilot a whole new thing to learn, as it turns ships into 'biplanes' with fixed turret aiming. Is hard to use effectively, even harder to use to its' maximum efficiency, promoting crew communication and practice.

This is as niche as it can get. It is interesting, fun, and has a high skill ceiling and encourages having a 2nd effective ammo to salvage an attack run or to simply not have to rely only on this ammo.


Personal suggestion: An ammo that shoots around cover (not proximity rounds). A gunner would shoot away from the cover, after which the bullets would curve towards the target, thereby requiring skill to manipulate the bullet arc.

tl;dr curving bullets :) :) :)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 23, 2014, 02:56:02 pm
Ammo that makes the projectile follow the cursor while it's in mid-air? It would make long range easier. Question would be if the cursor can change the arcs by moving up and down.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 23, 2014, 04:07:34 pm
And another thing, sorry for yet another double post.

Have you considered my Injection proposal, of turning it into a Turret ammo type? I think it helps resolve a lot of gunner utility issues that are being adressed, and creates a very niche, situational ammo type that is extremely hard to use but allows for tremendous rewards if properly applied, while also slightly boosting the offensive potentials of Spires and Mobulas without affecting the other ships as much.

I'll type it here once again in case it got hidden with all the posts and stuff and I'll shut up afterwards.

Injection Clip
-95% rotation
+30..50% rate of fire
-10..30% damage
+80% damage done to gun with entire clip
Does not stop firing until clip's emptied


Practically turns the gun into a turret that can be preaimed, allowing for gunners to 'use' more than 1 guns at the same time, giving some ships the ability to improve their offense while allowing engineers to return to defensive positions (5fecta mobulas anyone?). The ammo type is far too situational to be used by engineers and gives the gunner a more active role of quickly rotating the ship to set the guns up in proper arcs. Gives pilot a whole new thing to learn, as it turns ships into 'biplanes' with fixed turret aiming. Is hard to use effectively, even harder to use to its' maximum efficiency, promoting crew communication and practice.

This is as niche as it can get. It is interesting, fun, and has a high skill ceiling and encourages having a 2nd effective ammo to salvage an attack run or to simply not have to rely only on this ammo.


Personal suggestion: An ammo that shoots around cover (not proximity rounds). A gunner would shoot away from the cover, after which the bullets would curve towards the target, thereby requiring skill to manipulate the bullet arc.

tl;dr curving bullets :) :) :)

Ammo that makes the projectile follow the cursor while it's in mid-air? It would make long range easier. Question would be if the cursor can change the arcs by moving up and down.

... How would either of these concepts be possible? There is no logic behind them at all. Admittedly, proximity doesn't necessarily make too much sense, but it at least makes more sense than curving bullets, or magical bullets that move with the cursor after being fired.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 23, 2014, 04:39:09 pm
Does it have to be realistic?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 23, 2014, 05:36:55 pm
We had 'homing' in beta.....

Not sure about following cursor, though.  Might require a lot of work for that feature.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 23, 2014, 06:02:11 pm
Dont know if we need homing now with proximity.

Ive come up with a few tweak suggestions.

Burst Rounds Change
300%+ AOE (Dont really know a healthy number)
Projectiles activate in 200% of new AOE
20% clip size
25%- Rate of fire
50%- Overall Damage
Would be a good change for proximity, or just directly input it for the Burst Rounds.


Incindiary Change
Add in that extra fire (10 or so extra %)
With 25%+ aoe.



Also, is Max health on guns any possibility? Heatsink could go for that, along with an ammo type dedicated to it (Barricade).

Also, questioning a flashback to when gunners (or anyone) could load ammo into guns without having to be in them for the last microsecond once on the dev app.
With a possible introduction to new gunner ammo and perhaps an engineer tool that may make gunners life easier... Would that reload mechanic be for the better or worse? Because i dont remember why it was so bad.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: MrJeff on May 23, 2014, 06:03:59 pm

What about Heat-seeking? After a standard arming time, it makes slight course adjustments toward the hottest point in it's directional cone. Not enough to bend around most cover, but enough to focus on some already inflamed components. Pair with someone firing incendiary rounds, it would bring additional meaning to "focus fire".

Note: Do not fire into your ally's close-quarter flamer-heavy scrum. 

Point to consider: How would flares help/hinder/modify this. Either act to distract... or as a way to paint a target?

--

Is there a design consideration around what ammo can do? There are a few damage types, but what about inflicting other conditions to components. (Electrical Shorts, Frozen/Iced, Blinded sights on guns.) Is that along the lines that you are looking for? It would be a way to work in ammo-synergy and ways to encourage varied ammo usage.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 23, 2014, 06:07:00 pm
Blinded sights on guns

Huh!! Never tought of that.

Edit: Actualy, i once suggested the light flaks puff of smoke when it hits something to be larger.
Now that i think about it, Is it possible to make an ammo type, force the explosion effect follow the enemy ship at where its being hit at?

For example, shooting at a racing pyramidion wont be so blinded but the smoke from light flaks shooting at it, but an ammo that prolongs the explosion animation while following the enemy ship (Or explosion animation follows the enemy ship where it hit him).

I mean, it could be straight up

Smoke Ammo
The explosion of the gun lasts for 3 seconds longer on direct hits as well as it stays with the enemy ships momentum.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: MrJeff on May 23, 2014, 06:20:19 pm
Blinded sights on guns

Huh!! Never tought of that.

I was trying to think of alternate methods to anno...er...confront people. Mud to block sights, tar to lock a weapon in place, foam to jam the barrels,  etc. I had this thought of a squid sneaking up behind people and making them unable to fight back for a small period of time. It wouldn't win DM's by yourself, but in point games it could prevent the death of your ally-on-the-spot.

I'm sure more creative people could come up with others. I've been trying to come up with one that would simply unseat the enemy gunner, like when a gun is fully damaged or far too hot. Force them to sit back down and re-aim. I can't think of anything interesting enough. Same with the "force their gun to go into reload mode" ammo. :)

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 23, 2014, 06:53:52 pm
RE: Status effects

Adding an effect on a targeted component might be possible.  What it would, though, is that it won't be repairable.  I don't want to introduce another tool to negate the effect meaning it can't be TOO detrimental like fire stack.  Intermittently emitting a distracting spark might be okay, doesn't go away until the gun is destroyed.  It'll take a while for these kinds of ammo to make it in though since it'll involved both code and time, although probably less than new tools.  I like the idea.

RE: Homing/heat seeking

Our 'homing' is basically like heat seeking.  It'll look for engines more or less.  Haven't played with it in a long time but it's still in the code.  We may be able to pull it out and make it a skill modifier.

RE: Not being there last second

It was a risk/reward and information display decision.  If you're not there to reload the gun, and it's reloading on its own, how do I know what ammo the gun is being loaded with?  Now that we have additional UI and such, it might not be a big deal.  It's something to discuss but will undoubtedly be a huge change gameplay wise.  For better or worse, unsure.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on May 23, 2014, 07:28:41 pm
Blinded sights on guns

Huh!! Never tought of that.

Edit: Actualy, i once suggested the light flaks puff of smoke when it hits something to be larger.
Now that i think about it, Is it possible to make an ammo type, force the explosion effect follow the enemy ship at where its being hit at?

For example, shooting at a racing pyramidion wont be so blinded but the smoke from light flaks shooting at it, but an ammo that prolongs the explosion animation while following the enemy ship (Or explosion animation follows the enemy ship where it hit him).

I mean, it could be straight up

Smoke Ammo
The explosion of the gun lasts for 3 seconds longer on direct hits as well as it stays with the enemy ships momentum.

I thought the clouds we have were bad enough... XD
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 24, 2014, 11:07:08 am
They are, but this is a bit more specific to Crew vision. Like, simply taking away their physical vision for 3 or so seconds. Being in clouds, takes away actual vision of sorts.
Its not like the smoke rounds will stop spotting, just make it hard for pilot/Gunners to see when getting hit.

2 Light flaks/Artemis/1 Mortar/ and maybe some other can keep a ship blinded haha, and give a reason for Explosive weapons to be shot early XD
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 24, 2014, 01:49:43 pm
Powder Keg (incendiary's bigger brother) :

+50% chance of ignition on hit.
+10% velocity.
+5% damage.
-10% capacity
+10% recoil
20% damage over progression of clip.
Muzzle effect: Heavily smoking flames that severely obscure gunner's vision.

"Double the powder and shorten the fuse!"


Ironclad Clip (heatsink's bigger brother):

Puts out 6 stacks of fire on reload.
Fireproof while loaded.
+200% HP max while loaded.
-50% ammo
-50% velocity
-50% rate of fire
-90% rotation speed

"Load up the Ironclad and get to the engines. This smells like Moonshine." -me

This would definitely make gunners higher value against disable builds. I would require my Galleon gunner to bring this ammo.



And another one a little out of the scope of the base changes.

Stealth shot:

Removes all graphical effects, including tracers, projectiles, and particles.
-30% damage.
-10% velocity

"Lighten the powder, lads, we don't want them to see where we are killing them from."
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 24, 2014, 06:02:04 pm
Here is the list of ammo that have a unique purpose that would make for gunners instead of engineers coming from this topic. Also. it is IMO.

Quote
Stealth shot:

Removes all graphical effects, including tracers, projectiles, and particles.
-30% damage.
-10% velocity

Quote
Smoke Ammo
The explosion of the gun lasts for 3 seconds longer on direct hits as well as it stays with the enemy ships momentum.
-50% recoil -30% Clip

Quote
Tinker Clip:

Gun is fixed (options below) by this clip.
Gun fixes itself when broken?
Damage modifiers? Reduction in firing speed? Fewer rounds?

"Engineers? We don't have time for bloody engineers!" 
Going with gunners needing to fix their own guns, make a special mechanical clip that fixes the gun while firing. Opposite of the DevApp special damage modifier ammos. This frees the gunner up to take something other than pipe wrench.

Quote
Placeholder: It will not fully reload the gun, it stops the reload at ~99%. This allows gunners to leave the gun and load their special ammo in it when required. Like burst or heavy for hwacha in case you don't know which will be more useful before you don't even see the enemy. Will load the select ammo once "R" is pressed (again).
If the same ammo is select and "R" is pressed then either don't load anything or just load default ammo.
The price would be that you give up 1 full slot in order to use the other 2 more effiecently.

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Heatsink Give it 25%-75% maximum health to the gun that has heatsink
This way, we can be sure that a heatsink weapon is a weapon harder to disable. It is noticed by the chem spray glow. Along with the core nature of heatsink is to protect the gun.
Or
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Barricade Turn the gun into a shield. The icon is a shield with a bullet over it. 1 shot. 200% more gun health. -100% rotation speed
[This works well with the heatsink change] This is a good tool for some ships. Changing the gun into a damage soaking craze some ships would love to have. A galleon may protect his right side by giving those 2 heavy guns barricade ammo type. A pyramidion may give his side guns barricade. A spire may give all of its guns barricade for maximum protection. A goldfish can have this loaded before it reloads into a different ammo type. This in turn with heatsink will be for an unexpected effect because it does not have a chemspray glow. However, it only acts as a barricade and one shot isnt alot at all.

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Acid rounds

Lower projectile speed
Lower rate of fire
Smaller clip
Each consecutive hit on a component from the same clip does more damage

These are all the ammo types coming from this topic that i could see myself bringing 2 gunners with and always 1 gunner atleast on every other ship.
These are ammo that engineers would wish they had but they cant because not enough gunner slots.



Like seriously, Stealth ammo, im so going to make my gunner use it on the lumberjack. Problem is they will need rangefinder to be sure.
Many other ships would benefitt from this, and would want a gunner on ships like the squid, goldfish, Pyra... maybe all ships for certain situations.

Smoke rounds about being annoying and making them react slow. On a spire, ide use this alot versus a charging pyra so that the pilot and gunners dont react torwards a hydro or their awareness generally.

Stuff like the Heatsink, Barricade and Tinker clip are different variants on making the gun survive. Something engineers would like to bring, something gunners on some ships have to bring.

Then we have acid rounds, rounds that reward the gunner for hitting the ship. Its harder to fire, but rewards him in a unique way.

The other ammo that we now have are stuff like Injection and Proximity (That still need tweaking) that are just as different and saturated enough to make the engineer WANT more gunner slots, thus we have a gunner for that.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Caprontos on May 25, 2014, 12:56:28 am
I think part of the issue is.. the lack of situational time for many light guns that currently lack the need of a gunner..

Stuff that could be considered.. with that in mind...

Disabler ammo
An ammo that increased part dmg or mainly gun dmg, but lowers all other dmg the gun normal has.. So in these short fights if your getting the worst of it.. you could opt to have the gunner use this to disable the enemy to buy that extra time... maybe

Close Combat Ammo
I suggested earlier close range ammo, that's only useful.. close range but is stronger then usual..

Deflate ammo
(similar to what was suggested earlier) An ammo that forces a ship to drop altitude.. temporarily.. + the makes it hard to go up but easy to drop "debuff".. (that then maybe leads to a immunity so it can't be abused or the ammo just gets greyed out for x amount of time till it can be used more).. Could work for this also.. It would give you the chance to get out of their gun arks and maybe escape death once..

Freeze ammo
It just freezes the enemy ships controls + gun angles for a few seconds... so if they are turning, they keep turning.. if they are going full speed they keep going full speed.. Like with the deflate ammo.. once loaded the clip is greyed out for a few mins before it can be used again.. to stop it from being used constantly.. or maybe, a ship is just immune to the effect for a few mins so you can't chain use it as a team ...

If an ammo needs special rules to make it balanced.. is it bad?

Confuse ammo
what about an ammo that makes the enemies controls go haywire for a few seconds. The pilots speed control, would move up and down randomly during this time and the balloon would go up and down randomly.. Wheel could turn left and right.. Maybe guns would randomly invert and such, so up is left and so on making it hard to aim..  (balance.. see above)..

I know this realistically doesn't make a lot of sense.. but .... so what.. I just want it.. I just like the whole concept of it...

Shrapnel ammo
This ammo could just jam enemy guns/engines for a few seconds .. just another "Save" ammo thought..

Attract ammo
Basically it would attampt to pull incoming ammo to it.. so if you shoot it away from you.. enemy ammo will go away.. I don't get it either..


Ejecto ammo
It just forces all the people on the ship to fly off at a random % chance..... The more they fly off the better... again I just think it would be funny.. really... Just me?..


Most of these ammo's, are ammo's you mainly use close range.. when your probably going to die situation.. Maybe best defense could be a good offense :S idk.. anyway..

These ammos.. are just.. random ideas

Double or nothin ammo
Its normal ammo, where the clip either is 2x normal ammo in every stat... or it breaks the gun and nothing happens.. 50/50 chance if op.. then a weighted 30/70 chance..

Pierce ammo
The ammo goes through ships it hits, and can hit enemies behind it also.. So if you catch your enemies side by side, you might be able to hit both.. How cool would getting two kills with one flak shot be?..

--
Ice ammo
Deals more dmg to parts on fire.. (the whole heat then cool thing).. but has a chance to remove a stack with each hit..

Achilles ammo
Does more dmg to parts on a repair cool down... (name pointing to.. if your fixing something, then its opened up and so you hit it when its weak..... yep)... Including hull/balloon... but hull and balloons dmg shouldn't be as extreme maybe as parts bonus.. I think guns = most bonus.. engines a bit less and hull/balloon bit more less.. based on how often these things are under repair

Splash ammo
Does more dmg to hull if it hits a component... I hear if a gun hits a component, the component blocks the hull some what.. so this would make it so it does more dmg if it hits them.. Name is random idk what to name it..  Just for guns/engines..

Gust ammo
Has a chance to double fire stacks, on parts that are already on fire...

Counter ammo
Does more dmg to guns that are firing

Critical ammo
Does more dmg the less permanent hull health  you have..

(These all would be similar to normal ammo.. at regular power, but noticeably stronger, under its situation).
--

Steady ammo
Ammo is very sensitive to ship movement and can easily be thrown way off target.... but stronger then normal ammo with more range.. This could even be like a second merc ammo.. so like charged buffed but if the ship moves much you will miss.... Clearly a long range ammo.. for ships that can not move at all..

Ram ammo
Adds a debuff to hit ships, that if rammed while they have it.. get hit for a bit more .. So like it softens them up..

Shock ammo
If it hits a gun it has a chance to kick the user off it.. bit more chance to kick engineers off it...?

I get some of these are able to be completely over powered but.. with proper balancing and thought I am sure all things can be made balanced...... well kinda..

Sorry if I repeated your idea btw.. I didn't mean to.. I just didn't see your similar idea..

.. an bed time again..
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: omegaskorpion on May 25, 2014, 01:23:53 pm
im not sure did anybody send this kind of idea but:

Spreader ammo:

works on weapons that shoot missiles/protectiles

the projectile spreads to 10 smaller parts. (every small projectile does -50% of the normal damage and the aoe is halfed)
the projectiles spred to small area and fly the same lenght as the normal rounds. (they still fly to same dirrection where you shoot)

mag capasity is reduced by 60%
fire rate is lovered by 25%
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 26, 2014, 04:23:21 am
What about replacing some ammo?

Im suggesting Straight up replacing greased with injection, Burst with Proximity, Charged with Lungs and Dragon.

Cus #realtalk ammo like greased and burst and charged and 2 others or 1 are very close to being default ammo like.
Having more specific ammo may make more gunner slots more desirable. As ive stated in the Design Paradigm, Game balance, and Gunner vs Engineer topic.

Just wanted to make it clear and question it here. How much do we take away if we replace greased with injection etc etc.
For what i think, starting off with Heavy clip ona  standard Pyra would be pretty vital as you then get every gattling shot in from max range. Until the gattling starts reloading, you can place in injection which then will take down the hull.



If so, greased, charge, burst, whatever can become something new in the future.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 26, 2014, 09:58:23 am
What about replacing some ammo?

Im suggesting Straight up replacing greased with injection, Burst with Proximity, Charged with Lungs and Dragon.

Cus #realtalk ammo like greased and burst and charged and 2 others or 1 are very close to being default ammo like.
Having more specific ammo may make more gunner slots more desirable. As ive stated in the Design Paradigm, Game balance, and Gunner vs Engineer topic.

Just wanted to make it clear and question it here. How much do we take away if we replace greased with injection etc etc.
For what i think, starting off with Heavy clip ona  standard Pyra would be pretty vital as you then get every gattling shot in from max range. Until the gattling starts reloading, you can place in injection which then will take down the hull.



If so, greased, charge, burst, whatever can become something new in the future.

Why did everyone keep thinking the ammo was called Lungs? It was LUGS, not Lungs, and now it's Slugs, because no one can read XD
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 26, 2014, 12:26:49 pm
Slungs?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AceHangman on May 26, 2014, 04:16:11 pm
Concussion rounds
Lowers damage by 50%, increases clip size 25%.

Any characters caught within the AoE/Burst radius of the shot have a 25% chance to be pushed to the edge of it, possibly off the ship.
This does not affect any character on the helm or on a gun, as they are considered anchored or holding on.  This means that engineers will be affected most often as they're typically the ones running around deck banging on things.

It should come with a distinctive sound, either when it 'procs' and pushes someone or while being fired to differentiate the skipping and jumping of the character from lag.  It should not work with the flamer as that uses particles that pass through everything, but even with the gatlin it could be useful since, despite the small burst from the rounds, multiple hits could still jostle a character unnervingly while trying to aim their tools.

This leads to a new passive equipment called, Safety harness, which prevents being moved by concussion rounds and also halves the falling time it takes before respawning when falling off a ship (regardless of whether it was caused by concussion effects or just falling off.)  As for whether it should by Pilot gear (which breaks a paradigm of only spotting equipment being usable off the helm) or Engineer gear is up for debate, I think it should be pilot gear since it would give a real choice between spyglass or not and engineers basically need their own slots for actual tools.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 26, 2014, 04:20:55 pm
Concussion rounds
Lowers damage by 50%, increases clip size 25%.

Any characters caught within the AoE/Burst radius of the shot have a 25% chance to be pushed to the edge of it, possibly off the ship.
This does not affect any character on the helm or on a gun, as they are considered anchored or holding on.  This means that engineers will be affected most often as they're typically the ones running around deck banging on things.

It should come with a distinctive sound, either when it 'procs' and pushes someone or while being fired to differentiate the skipping and jumping of the character from lag.  It should not work with the flamer as that uses particles that pass through everything, but even with the gatlin it could be useful since, despite the small burst from the rounds, multiple hits could still jostle a character unnervingly while trying to aim their tools.

This leads to a new passive equipment called, Safety harness, which prevents being moved by concussion rounds and also halves the falling time it takes before respawning when falling off a ship (regardless of whether it was caused by concussion effects or just falling off.)  As for whether it should by Pilot gear (which breaks a paradigm of only spotting equipment being usable off the helm) or Engineer gear is up for debate, I think it should be pilot gear since it would give a real choice between spyglass or not and engineers basically need their own slots for actual tools.

A tool that did this kind of thing would have to lower the damage by as much as 75%, and have other negative effects. The DPC or DPS of such a clip should be noticeably lower than other ammo types due to the sheer problems it can cause. That said, I don't think it's a good idea. I can't imagine it would feel fun to be on the receiving end of it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AceHangman on May 26, 2014, 04:59:37 pm
Quote
That said, I don't think it's a good idea.  I can't imagine it would feel fun to be on the receiving end of it.
Oh... gosh.  I'm sorry.  I didn't realize that in the entire history of the world in warfare and weapons design this is the criteria we established for weaponry; whether the target enjoys it.

Obviously the numbers are workable, but since it's only based off burst radius (of which each weapon has a different one and they can't be boosted with burst rounds since you'd be using these rounds) then you'd need a sizable round, that burst next to a character ( a hard target to hit since most weapons with appreciable burst have garbage accuracy for human-sized targets) and then there's only a 25% chance it pushes them to the edge, of the burst (and most places on a ship your can't fall off even if you tried jumping.)

I sure don't enjoy being on the receiving end of a flamethrower barrage, but it's there, serving it's purpose.  When I think of starting multiple fires on a ship and making engineers sweat and run around trying to time their extinguishers with the repair swings of other engineers their discomfort makes me smile.

I didn't realize this thread was for 'comforting' suggestions on ammo.  Perhaps you prefer the Barrel of Monkeys round?  If it strikes the hull, dozens of tiny monkey avatars cover the ship, racing back and forth and covering the eyes of any gunners.  Hilarity ensues.
Or you prefer to use the Two-ply rounds, so not only can those pirates trying to rob your ship, rape your female crew members, and plunder your wreckage enjoy the decorative streamers coming off their ship they can be soothed by the light scent of aloe?

Also, if you don't like the risk that one gunner might be choosing to fire substandard rounds just to annoy you, take the Safety harness tool and laugh all day long as not a damn thing happens to you and you easily fix all the piddly damage being done with a simple spanner tool.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 26, 2014, 05:23:08 pm
Quote
That said, I don't think it's a good idea.  I can't imagine it would feel fun to be on the receiving end of it.
Oh... gosh.  I'm sorry.  I didn't realize that in the entire history of the world in warfare and weapons design this is the criteria we established for weaponry; whether the target enjoys it.

Obviously the numbers are workable, but since it's only based off burst radius (of which each weapon has a different one and they can't be boosted with burst rounds since you'd be using these rounds) then you'd need a sizable round, that burst next to a character ( a hard target to hit since most weapons with appreciable burst have garbage accuracy for human-sized targets) and then there's only a 25% chance it pushes them to the edge, of the burst (and most places on a ship your can't fall off even if you tried jumping.)

I sure don't enjoy being on the receiving end of a flamethrower barrage, but it's there, serving it's purpose.  When I think of starting multiple fires on a ship and making engineers sweat and run around trying to time their extinguishers with the repair swings of other engineers their discomfort makes me smile.

I didn't realize this thread was for 'comforting' suggestions on ammo.  Perhaps you prefer the Barrel of Monkeys round?  If it strikes the hull, dozens of tiny monkey avatars cover the ship, racing back and forth and covering the eyes of any gunners.  Hilarity ensues.
Or you prefer to use the Two-ply rounds, so not only can those pirates trying to rob your ship, rape your female crew members, and plunder your wreckage enjoy the decorative streamers coming off their ship they can be soothed by the light scent of aloe?

... it's not a matter of it being enjoyable to the target. It's a matter of if it's so annoying people will just up and quit because of it. Things that take away control of your character are ALWAYS going to be annoying as hell. You aren't looking at the full effects your ammo would have. Say I take your ammo and apply it to Hades. As it stands, using the numbers you've given, you've created a weapon that 1) deals a decent (not great, but decent) amount of damage, 2) has 10 shots, and 3) will quite likely hit enough times against the hull that even if it doesn't knock the people off, quite likely prevented them from saving the ship ANYWAY. And with the Artemis it's even worse, as the Artemis is more accurate, while still having a decent AoE.

You would HAVE to include a counter to this, as it's that powerful, and that counter would then become NECESSARY on everyone but the pilot. This means no more spotting. A gunner still has to move around enough that they'll be knocked around occasionally, and any time that happens, they're being prevented from getting on a gun, which means they'll be stopped from doing anything. Flamers are a pain but they're something that can be dealt with in a variety of ways (the easiest of which is to stay away from said flamer and it's short-as-heck range). This has no easy counter without sacrificing something important. I can't see it adding anything positive to the game, and a lot of negative things to it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 26, 2014, 07:33:02 pm
Mines and Lumberjack using that effect on players... No. End of discussion.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AceHangman on May 26, 2014, 09:20:42 pm
Other than the potential of it being unbalanced, which everything has the potential to be, I'm not seeing the Armageddon you're describing.  This is a thread for ideas, if the numbers don't work, they can be tweaked, if the burst radius on weapons turns out too large, the rounds can reduce burst size.

Quote
Say I take your ammo and apply it to Hades.
As for your Hades example, you've taken one of the heaviest weapons with a large burst radius (which is obviously what this ammo would work well with, not a Mercury Field Gun), which just so happens to fall in an arc which, except at close range will almost always drop on the balloon (where no one will ever be.)  Even if you did hit the hull, you would have to catch a character in the effect range, and they would have to be unattached to a gun or helm (which even engineers can man).  Furthermore, there is never a guarantee that it does anything at all.  Even if you were say that 1 out 4 shots definitely moves a person (and that would be untrue) there's no guarantee that they they're blown off the ship or even that it had no effect on their performance because they were in a 6 to 9 second round time from just hitting a component with wrench or mallet and thus able to realign with no effect of their performance.  Also, if your gunner is dropping 4 mortar rounds dead on where it would catch the same area, then they're a crack shot or you're right against the enemy and you should be going for damage.

As for hindering a gunner; against this ammo, a gunner is actually less likely to ever be unattached from their weapon since these rounds would cause reduced damage to the gun they're on, meaning they're less likely to get thrown off when it's destroyed or spend more time unattached repairing the damage, since it would take half as many swings to fix any damage, and that's just using a -50% damage example.  And that's before even factoring in a 3 in 4 chance that the round does not even affect them.

Mines and Lumberjack using that effect on players... No. End of discussion.
Sorry, no.  Assuming that it takes 4 hits to 'proc' the 25% chance of Concussion, then your ship just flew into 4 mines.  You've got a lot more to complain about and it has nothing to do with this ammo type.  Even then, you've only taken the damage of hitting two mines.  Also, this ammo has no affect on the mine launcher's clip size since it fires one mine at a time.  I don't even think you could try and hit 4 mores on purpose to make your example even valid.  If your assertion is that your opponent is able to pinpoint 4 mines into your flight path through sheer skill then they would be using normal rounds for a kill, not these, which are a delaying/attrition tactic.

As for the Lumberjack, that's a primarily balloon disabling weapon.  Since it's highly unlikely anyone's standing on the balloon, only a hit on the underside of the balloon might affect someone (depending on ship configuration)  Since mortars arc down they're more likely to land atop or along the side of the balloon.  There's a chance you might claim you could cruise under and fire upwards to catch the target as the mortar rises but then you're likely getting within the range where the mortar has no AoE.  But taking it to the extreme, that you're an expert marksman and do land a mortar on the hull and it has a burst radius... Great!  That's what this ammo is for.  Except you just did 50% of the already low direct damage of the weapon to hulls and components (and cut it's phenomenal damage against balloons to half) and have a 1 in 4 chance that maybe an enemy crewman get skipped a meter or two over assuming they weren't manning a gun.  Sure, the potential is there but the weapons you're using as an example wouldn't be better off than normal rounds.

In fact, in almost all cases, it's better to use normal rounds than these, which are way less efficient except in a few cases where they might work well.  But since those cases are quite rare or unlikely, that means classes other than Gunners can't risk taking this ammo as their one option.  Which means, this ammo type is exactly the kind of example of something only a Gunner might be able to bring to table in a crew.  And if it turns out it's not useful, they still have their other two ammo types or normal as always.

That's the point of the thread.  There's obviously testing going on and things can get tweaked.  I don't know why you would assume that any idea is just going to be tossed into the game slipshod.  Other than a claim that 'It takes away character choice!' (Like your choice not wear a safety harness on a flying brick tethered to a gas-filled balloon.)  Everything else is able to be tested and tweaked.  As for, '...taking spotters away.'  There really isn't any reason not to take the Spyglass (rangefinder being the only option.)  This actually adds another choice for anyone other than the pilot (which is everyone else.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 26, 2014, 10:53:59 pm
Other than the potential of it being unbalanced, which everything has the potential to be, I'm not seeing the Armageddon you're describing.  This is a thread for ideas, if the numbers don't work, they can be tweaked, if the burst radius on weapons turns out too large, the rounds can reduce burst size.

Quote
Say I take your ammo and apply it to Hades.
As for your Hades example, you've taken one of the heaviest weapons with a large burst radius (which is obviously what this ammo would work well with, not a Mercury Field Gun), which just so happens to fall in an arc which, except at close range will almost always drop on the balloon (where no one will ever be.)  Even if you did hit the hull, you would have to catch a character in the effect range, and they would have to be unattached to a gun or helm (which even engineers can man).  Furthermore, there is never a guarantee that it does anything at all.  Even if you were say that 1 out 4 shots definitely moves a person (and that would be untrue) there's no guarantee that they they're blown off the ship or even that it had no effect on their performance because they were in a 6 to 9 second round time from just hitting a component with wrench or mallet and thus able to realign with no effect of their performance.  Also, if your gunner is dropping 4 mortar rounds dead on where it would catch the same area, then they're a crack shot or you're right against the enemy and you should be going for damage.

As for hindering a gunner; against this ammo, a gunner is actually less likely to ever be unattached from their weapon since these rounds would cause reduced damage to the gun they're on, meaning they're less likely to get thrown off when it's destroyed or spend more time unattached repairing the damage, since it would take half as many swings to fix any damage, and that's just using a -50% damage example.  And that's before even factoring in a 3 in 4 chance that the round does not even affect them.

Mines and Lumberjack using that effect on players... No. End of discussion.
Sorry, no.  Assuming that it takes 4 hits to 'proc' the 25% chance of Concussion, then your ship just flew into 4 mines.  You've got a lot more to complain about and it has nothing to do with this ammo type.  Even then, you've only taken the damage of hitting two mines.  Also, this ammo has no affect on the mine launcher's clip size since it fires one mine at a time.  I don't even think you could try and hit 4 mores on purpose to make your example even valid.  If your assertion is that your opponent is able to pinpoint 4 mines into your flight path through sheer skill then they would be using normal rounds for a kill, not these, which are a delaying/attrition tactic.

As for the Lumberjack, that's a primarily balloon disabling weapon.  Since it's highly unlikely anyone's standing on the balloon, only a hit on the underside of the balloon might affect someone (depending on ship configuration)  Since mortars arc down they're more likely to land atop or along the side of the balloon.  There's a chance you might claim you could cruise under and fire upwards to catch the target as the mortar rises but then you're likely getting within the range where the mortar has no AoE.  But taking it to the extreme, that you're an expert marksman and do land a mortar on the hull and it has a burst radius... Great!  That's what this ammo is for.  Except you just did 50% of the already low direct damage of the weapon to hulls and components (and cut it's phenomenal damage against balloons to half) and have a 1 in 4 chance that maybe an enemy crewman get skipped a meter or two over assuming they weren't manning a gun.  Sure, the potential is there but the weapons you're using as an example wouldn't be better off than normal rounds.

In fact, in almost all cases, it's better to use normal rounds than these, which are way less efficient except in a few cases where they might work well.  But since those cases are quite rare or unlikely, that means classes other than Gunners can't risk taking this ammo as their one option.  Which means, this ammo type is exactly the kind of example of something only a Gunner might be able to bring to table in a crew.  And if it turns out it's not useful, they still have their other two ammo types or normal as always.

That's the point of the thread.  There's obviously testing going on and things can get tweaked.  I don't know why you would assume that any idea is just going to be tossed into the game slipshod.  Other than a claim that 'It takes away character choice!' (Like your choice not wear a safety harness on a flying brick tethered to a gas-filled balloon.)  Everything else is able to be tested and tweaked.  As for, '...taking spotters away.'  There really isn't any reason not to take the Spyglass (rangefinder being the only option.)  This actually adds another choice for anyone other than the pilot (which is everyone else.)

Okay, so I don't have the time to read and reply to all of this, but I didn't notice when you mentioned it only has a 25% chance to go off. That partially removes the problem, but creates another one that I personally don't like. RNG is annoying. I've never really liked my fate being decided by RNG. Flame stacks use RNG, but most of the time it's very predictable anyway (flamers proc so many times per second it's going to get multiple stacks easy, Banshee has a high enough proc chance that you're going to get a decent number of fires going, and so on).

Also, in the case of the Hades, I've seen Hades hit the hull more often than the balloon actually. Just my personal experience in the game. Is it accurate? No, but you only need 1 or 2 lucky shots to pretty much ensure that an enemy ship dies. I can't say I'd ever view this concept as balanced or good. I simply don't like it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Sammy B. T. on May 27, 2014, 12:06:48 am
The flamer would be ridiculous.

Balance aside, this would probably be amazingly hard to implement on Muse's side and would honestly be found by most to be more annoying than game enhancing.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: AceHangman on May 27, 2014, 05:10:52 am
Okay, so I don't have the time to read and reply to all of this, but I didn't notice when you mentioned it only has a 25% chance to go off.

Really, so you didn't take time to even read the suggestion before declaring it bad.  It's the very first sentence of the description.  You quoted it in your reply.  Instead of just letting the suggestion sit, you got all negative and started going off on a rant which makes other people believe your misleading remarks.  Now Sammy B.T. thinks the ammo works with flamers, which the description clearly states it does not.  All you did was force someone to take time to correct your misleading statements because they gave you the benefit of the doubt that you actually had the basic, common courtesy to read a post, and actually think before quoting and bashing on it.

The flamer would be ridiculous.
Yes, that would be powerful, but as stated, flamers use particles, not projectiles.  They don't impact they pass through and as such, would be hugely overpowered which is why the ammo doesn't work with flamers.

As for implementation, that's not the point.  It was a suggestion, and even if not viable as presented, it could at least spark some ideas or creativity elsewhere.  Who's going to want to put forth what might be a reasonable idea if they're just going to get ragged on by people not even taking the time to give them the common courtesy of being thankful they took an interest in trying to help and improve the game when requested.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 27, 2014, 06:41:19 am
Okay, so I don't have the time to read and reply to all of this, but I didn't notice when you mentioned it only has a 25% chance to go off.

Really, so you didn't take time to even read the suggestion before declaring it bad.  It's the very first sentence of the description.  You quoted it in your reply.  Instead of just letting the suggestion sit, you got all negative and started going off on a rant which makes other people believe your misleading remarks.  Now Sammy B.T. thinks the ammo works with flamers, which the description clearly states it does not.  All you did was force someone to take time to correct your misleading statements because they gave you the benefit of the doubt that you actually had the basic, common courtesy to read a post, and actually think before quoting and bashing on it.

The flamer would be ridiculous.
Yes, that would be powerful, but as stated, flamers use particles, not projectiles.  They don't impact they pass through and as such, would be hugely overpowered which is why the ammo doesn't work with flamers.

As for implementation, that's not the point.  It was a suggestion, and even if not viable as presented, it could at least spark some ideas or creativity elsewhere.  Who's going to want to put forth what might be a reasonable idea if they're just going to get ragged on by people not even taking the time to give them the common courtesy of being thankful they took an interest in trying to help and improve the game when requested.

The current implementation of ammo probably can't make it so the ammo doesn't work on flamers. I also don't think Muse would like a concept that excluded a specific gun. At no point did I make them miss that statement in your post, nor did I even comment on it, so don't go blaming me. They clearly missed that part of your post. But the post I was referring to not having the time to read was the specific one I WAS REPLYING TO, not the original post. I READ the original post, but obviously I missed that 1/4 chance thing, just like they missed the flamer thing.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 27, 2014, 08:44:17 am
The flamer would be ridiculous.

Balance aside, this would probably be amazingly hard to implement on Muse's side and would honestly be found by most to be more annoying than game enhancing.

^ Point ^


The ship is the only thing aaffected by outside things, engineers fix that outside intereaction. Gunners shoot to intereact with stuff outside. The ship can flip upside down and you still wont fall over. Imagine yourself as parasites controling a flying skkywhale battling other skywhales. When your skywhale dies, you die. And you good parasite try to be the medecine, and the brains and muscl of your own skywhale.

So, just saying that nothing really affects your character, just the ship you fly.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 27, 2014, 12:11:35 pm
Let's try to keep the arguments down to a minimum.  We can argue their potentially balance when and if they reach the testing phase.



In general, if there's no good way to counter something then it's generally bad design and can potentially aggravate the player.  It's like games where you can get constantly stun-locked.  Harpoon edges dangerously close to this kind of harassment.  Ultimately, if there are cases like the harpoon the person on the receiving end must know that this can happen to them.  Usually, you will know what kinds of guns other ships are using by both being in the match as well as looking at another's ship loadout.  The concern about having these kinds of effects on ammo is that the information is more opaque.  There are many more players to dig through while in match lobby to see what ammo they have, and the effects of the ammo may not exhibit itself clearly during gameplay.  All these things combined create the feeling of being harassed and not having fun on the receiving end.  This is a very important consideration when designing all aspects of the game.

 The player needs to understand what is happening to them and why otherwise it will feel random
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on May 27, 2014, 12:25:36 pm
The player needs to understand what is happening to them and why otherwise it will feel random
Ah. Impact ammo is a pretty hard no then.

Homing ammo has been mentioned several times, but mostly for added accuracy. What about a homing ammo that (maybe) reduces range and severely reduces damage?
The intent is not damage, but is instead intended to give you an idea of the location of the nearest enemy.
Fire your gatling at a wall, see that it curves up and to the left. Pilot turns left and goes up a bit. Try again. Ammo goes straight. You now know the (general) location of your enemy, but you sacrificed an ammo type to do it.
Bring 2 ships with gunners and you can triangulate positions (assuming that you don't pick up different ships).
Tactical ammo types! :D
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on May 27, 2014, 12:33:09 pm
It's not a strict no, not just yet.  A lot of fixing can happen once the skill gets effects.  All that these skill raise is a yellow flag and that it'll be riskier to implement because if the visuals don't work, then we shouldn't have the the skill or whatever else it may be.

Impact, or the thing that does a knockback, is in fact a feature I asked for a while back and does work... but must be on the gun itself.  Like the harpoon, it means it's a weapon that has unique functionality.  Therefore a player can discover it via ship loadout or seeing it being shot in game.  On that note, it's much easier to make an individual gun's effects (trails, explosion, muzzle flash) rather than apply those effects via a skill to any gun it is equipped to.  This is because there are a few different types of guns that need effects applied (straight projectile, arcing projectile, raycast, particle).  Furthermore, the effects applied by skills (the unique muzzle flashes) are most visible locally.  In other words, when you're sitting on the gun.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on May 27, 2014, 12:47:28 pm
I didn't read the entire thread so I don't know if this has been suggested but:

Proximity fuse: causes ammo to detonate if part of the enemy ship is in the blast radius (turns a near miss into a hit, but will cause a direct hit to detonate early).

Tar grenade: reduces clip to 1 shot, causes projectile to create 1 tar cloud on impact. (doesn't have to be ship impact) this could be used to make smoke screens by shooting at walls

Beacon rounds: Causes the bullet to light up a cloud for the duration of its life span. Does not replace flare because bullet life spans are very short.

Disco ammo: Doesn't actually change the bullet property (or may even reduce its effectiveness) but has a strobe effect for it's muzzle flash and lays down a "fat beat". Lets the other team know you are here for a good time.

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 27, 2014, 02:38:56 pm
Quote
Disco ammo: Doesn't actually change the bullet property (or may even reduce its effectiveness) but has a strobe effect for it's muzzle flash and lays down a "fat beat". Lets the other team know you are here for a good time.
A good time to DIE!!!



Proximity is allready on the dev app, dont know if you have noticed.


Your Tar cloud gave me a n idea for the Blind Rounds

Instead of Blind rounds increasing the animation of an explosion to last and follow the ship where it hit, they instead emit a small Black / white cloud for every shot that last for 3-4 seconds. Every shot every second that is (Flamer). if that is possible.
This change then makes it... easier? But also makes some guns (And a reasonable selection of guns) to be very good at blinding the enemy. Lets ofcourse, not forget the Drawbacks, which is -50% recoil -30% Clip which i simply want to give -50% clip and -100% fire ignition chance instead now.
Guns like, Carronade, Gattling, mortar, Light flak, Flamer, hades, hwacha will be very good at blinding.

This new Blind smoke mechanic (Which is add a 2-man sized cloud on the ship where it got hit) seems like a very cool ammo i would love to use.

It would be cool if it is possible to make the ammo effect scale the cloud duration. For example. The higher the clip, the less the cloud will last. The smaller the clip, the longer the cloud lasts. So that guns like heavy flak, Mercury, artemis, etc etc are good also. Carronades and other guns with aprox 10 and less ammo count wont be affected much. Mines i believe will hit everywhere on a ship and have the longest cloud. While using flamer with this may be useless if there is no minimum length of a cloud.

My only issue is the lag that it may offer.

So either increasing the blast animation to last longer, which i believe is a local thing.
or
Give the gun the ability to produce small clouds on the ship where it got hit.
Where ever the ship gets hit usualy is around it, so it will blind pretty effectively and would encourage blinding specific areas. Most presumably the helm. Would be neat seeing gnners actualy shooting for the helm just to piss off and make it difficult for the actualy crew on the opposing ship.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 27, 2014, 04:57:28 pm
Deadly Trail ammo Mechanic... idea:
Projectiles now have an added or changed trail that behaves similar to tar barrel. Trail is really thin at the beginning and, while staying on the battlefield for X seconds,  increases to a radius of Y. Vanishing might be shrinking in radius or disappearing from origin to explosion point, something that looks pretty and is also useful in gameplay.
When enemy ships touch said trail they get damaged/set on fire/spotted, whatever. Damage/Fire would only apply to components that stand in direct contact with trail (trail touches, trail destroys).

What would be weird would be that the trail solidifies and then sinks like a ship with no balloon, or even faster (mass of trail calculated or fixed amount?). Shooting above enemies might be worth it to have them drop down and out of arcs.


Boomerang:
Projectile arcs get changed so the projectile turns around at a fixed or calculated distance.
Even if you are behind your enemy, you can still hit his front and vice versa. Might be able to shoot from one side of the ship to the other. Example: An asymetrical junker could then use both sides while it has turned its wrong side to the enemy or shoot behind your own ship.
Usefulness and Possibilities depend on implemented mechanic.


Self Destruction:
1 ammo. Fires nothing and immediately explodes, destroying the gun, upon left click.
Why? Example Goldfish: Destroy your front gun and get close without the front gun being destroyed by the enemy, rebuild gun at the right time and win.
Difference to lochnagar? Shoots nothing, thus is as stealthy as a stone (nobody suspects a stone!) (does it make explosion sound?). Gun is isntantly reloaded with default ammo upon rebuild (ability to choose another ammo?).


Sacrifice (Joke ammo?):
You pump yourself full with buffed steroids, lift your gun and throw it at the enemy. Both damage types are now impact damage (no AoE) and, of course, have massive knockback. Arcs are not so good, starts dropping at 20m? Can drop down on enemies.
Gun is lost forever until respawn.


Tar grenade: reduces clip to 1 shot, causes projectile to create 1 tar cloud on impact. (doesn't have to be ship impact) this could be used to make smoke screens by shooting at walls

Beacon rounds: Causes the bullet to light up a cloud for the duration of its life span. Does not replace flare because bullet life spans are very short.
If I look at this, I wonder if their could be harpoon-like ammo. Magnet-like ammo has already been mentioned.

In general, if there's no good way to counter something then it's generally bad design and can potentially aggravate the player.
This might be off-topic, but how do you counter ammunition or buff?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 27, 2014, 05:36:26 pm
Sacrifice ammo would be cool, but a total troll. I would say to give the ammo +5000% damage, and remove the gun from the ship. Also, don't let anyone use it that has not played the game for a few months or gained X commendations from higher level players.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Omniraptor on May 27, 2014, 06:02:33 pm
In fact, let's not let anyone use are level 15 in everything with over 9000 salutes on the forums.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on May 27, 2014, 07:26:09 pm
In fact, let's not let anyone use are level 15 in everything with over 9000 salutes on the forums.

Even GoIO forums have to eventually reference this meme XD
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Devinstater on May 28, 2014, 10:59:34 am
I don't know if Ammo is the solution, but Gunner's need a reason to have at least one needed per ship. Sick of joining a ship and being chirped by my teamates about how much better off we would be if only I was an engineer with the buff tool.

I find choosing gunner is very important when my friend's are not on because it lets your crew-mates know that your intention is to be raining death on the enemy, not to be the main engineer. I.E. if someone else wants to be the main gunner, they will select another ship to join because you have made your intentions obvious. I would like this to be the case AND be optimal.

When I play with my friend he is always a gunner so that when people elect to join my crew they know that he gets the primo gun better they sign up.

Sorry to just whine without offering a solution but I don't know enough about the game to offer one.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on May 28, 2014, 12:20:28 pm
How about a gunner tool that could be used in walking mode (like the spyglass)?

I am thinking a reload crank that causes the gun to reload faster. At high levels of play the gunner could hop off their gun and reload crank until just before the gun is about to shoot then hop back on and load the popper ammo. At lower levels of play engineers not expecting to shoot can take the crank as their one gunner item and back up a goldfish's main gun.

Often I ask for gunners because I need two bullet types and the third bullet is wasted space. It would be nice if that spot was filled with something that could be useful in another aspect of the game.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 28, 2014, 01:46:25 pm
That may be a very imbalanced tool then. On a goldfish, all 3 crew members except the pilot can crank the main gun and do hwacha alot sooner and keep a ship disabled constantly.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on May 28, 2014, 02:00:56 pm
Crank could start the cooldown timer, preventing multi user abuse. Besides the goldfish needs a buff anyway.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on May 28, 2014, 03:37:16 pm
Ofcourse, thats why we have ammo like barricade, or +health to heatsink or ironclad.

But yeah, adding a cooldown seems like a thing but it then becomes an engineer tool. There are no other tools in the game that produce cooldown other than engineer tool so this i believe "Would break design paradigm and etc etc" -muse
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on May 28, 2014, 07:12:22 pm
Speaking of cooldown...

Boreas Ammo:

Increases cooldown times on components hit, based on converted damage.
Converts 90% of damage to X milliseconds of cooldown.
90% less actual damage.

"Cool your (http://japanhr.ja.funpic.de/wall/images/thumbnail/Dancing%20Blue%20Footed%20Boobies.JPG)."
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on May 29, 2014, 12:04:31 pm
I had an idea for specialty ammo that targets specifically engines or guns (but not both).

Glue Ammo: +50% dammage vs guns -30% dammage vs  all other components. ??? Reduced aim wiggle???
Sawdust Ammo: +50% dammage vs engines -30% dammage vs  all other components. ??? Reduced aim wiggle???

It could turn a gatling gun, carronade, or banshee into an effective disabler so long as you had a gunner with multiple ammo types.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on May 29, 2014, 01:09:49 pm
Gatling and carro are already good disablers with their shatter damage, but the idea is interesting. It would allow a mortar to shoot by itself without assistance or even bring a heavy flak on a goldfish without it depending entirely on its ally.

An "engineering"-tool for the gunner has already been mentioned. As well as the idea of tweaking the buff hammer to be less useful on guns, but give the gunner a tool that IS good for guns.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on June 02, 2014, 02:24:17 pm
IDeas from Milevan Faent:


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!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on June 03, 2014, 01:07:59 pm
So I had an idea, and it doesn't work. You will understand shortly. But suffice to say it makes things too complicated, requires a whole lot of work, and wouldn't necessarily help gunners. But it would make choosing your ammo type(s) fun and interesting! So perhaps I am posting this simply to give others a way to build ammo types they think would be cool/niche to help continue the growth of ideas. :)

A complete overhaul of the ammo system:

Exhibit A: Currently you get 1 or 3 ammo choices based on your class. My overhaul would take each of those ammo choices and break it into 2 choices each. You now get 2 or 6 ammo slots.

Exhibit B: Every pair of 2 ammo slots would be linked inherently, so the effects of your 2 choices would combine to make up one ammo type in game.

Exhibit C: Your first ammo slot of each pair would be a range modifier, and the second ammo slot would be an effect modifier.


So for example, your ammo type would be <modifer A> <modifer B> Rounds.

An example of choices and effects:
NameModifier TypeEffects
LesmokRange+50% Muzzle speed
-25% Rate of fire
-20% Spread
LightRange+25% Muzzle speed
-15% Rate of fire
-10% Spread
SteadyRange-5% Spread
SlowRange-10% Muzzle Speed
+5% Rate of Fire
+10% Spread
-8% Damage
BoulderRange-20% Muzzle Speed
+10% Rate of Fire
+20% Spread
-16% Damage

             
NameModifier TypeEffects
IncendiaryEffect20% Chance of setting 1 stack of fire
-5% Damage
BurstEffect+20% Area of Effect
-10% Rate of fire
ConcentratedEffect+25% Damage
-10% Clip size
DispersedEffect+25% Clip size
-10% Damage
DestructiveEffect50% Health loss of gun per clip
+25% Damage
HeavyEffect-50% Spread
-10% Turning Speed
LockedEffect-100% Spread
-95% Turning Speed
+10% Damage
ChilledEffectPrevents Fire Stacks
Removes 3 stacks of fire when reload completes
+5% Spread
-5% Rate of fire
NormalizedEffect+5% Clip size
GreasedEffect+20% Rate of fire
+10% Chance to catch fire from fire effects
+5% Spread

So say I want to run a close range ship. I am going to have my crew's ammo types probably taking steady, slow, or boulder as modifiers to make myself more effective in close ranges. Or perhaps I would make them go with lesmok or light to make them better while I close the distance.
Their effect modifiers would maybe go into concentrated. A gatling gun running concentrated boulder clip would get +9% damage, -10% clip size, +10% rate of fire, +20% spread, -20% muzzle speed.

You could use effect ammo types to take a specific design, while taking range modifiers to give yourself an appropriate range. As I've seen, right now heatsink, incendiary, lesmok, and lochnagar are used more for range modification than anything else. That means their intended purpose tends to get ignored in favor of their secondary effects, which seems sort of silly to me. This style would allow you to take long range incendiary ammo. Imagine a locked lesmok hwacha. Suddenly the hwacha's range description would make sense.

As I stated in the beginning, this is entirely infeasible. But I encourage you to build an ammo type that you would consider taking (or maybe a set of 3 ammo types that would make gunner interesting) and see if you can come up with suggestions to help guide the ammo development ongoing.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on June 04, 2014, 12:40:52 pm
Ooh. Ooh ooh. Zill talking about damage in a different thread made me think of 2 ammo types.

Inhibited clip:
Damage % is directly related to gun health. 75% damage at 100% health, 100% damage at 50% health, and 150% damage at 1% gun health.
(Possible buff to rate of fire as the gun is damaged?)
(Possible increase in projectile speed/reduction in arming time to make shots travel faster as the gun takes damage, without changing arming distance)
Rewards gunners with bonus damage for guns not being fully repaired.
"As the gun breaks down, certain safety features stop working."

Inverted/hacked clip:
Gun behavior for taking damage is reversed: full health guns operate terribly and low health guns operate at optimal rates
Buff to damage and maybe something else to make it not useless in decent health guns
"These bullets feel weird. Are you sure you should be putting them in our guns?"
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on June 04, 2014, 09:00:04 pm
I would call the inverted/hacked clip 'Large Bore' ammo instead. In the olden days, they had to use larger and larger cannonballs as the bore increased in size due to use and heat. Larger projectiles caused more damage as the gun 'wore out'. As an added bonus, make this the only ammo that will still operate in a gun with 8+ stacks of fire.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on June 05, 2014, 03:45:56 am
Both those 2 ammos sounds awesome to have.

Kinda afraid that the inhibited clip is a more gunengineer thing. (Gunengineer with normal engineer loadout)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Omniraptor on June 05, 2014, 05:12:01 pm
I actually think it would be a gunner thing, mercury or mine launcher + lochnagar + large bore/inverted + spanner = awesome
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 06, 2014, 12:13:34 am
As an inverse of the Large Bore / hacked clip idea: Match Ammunition, temperamental ammunition that squeezes every ounce of performance from a well-maintained gun, but is awful in guns of poor repair.

Gun condition 90-100%
+10% projectile velocity, -10% arming time (increased range, but keeps its arming distance!).
+10% fire rate.
-50% weapon spread (not as good as Heavy Clip).
-25% Magazine Capacity.

Gun Condition 50-89%
+10% projectile velocity (looses arming time bonus).
-15% weapon spread.
-25% Magazine Capacity.

Gun Condition 20-49%
+5% projectile velocity.
-10% fire rate.
-25% Magazine Capacity.
5 damage to gun per shot fired.

Gun Condition -19%
-50% fire rate.
+25% weapon spread.
-25% Magazine Capacity.
5 damage to shot fired.

As you can see, this is best for situations where a ship is very safe, and does not take fire. However, as soon as the gun(s) begin taking damage, they will be rendered much less useful. Squids and snipers will like this ammo, but tankier ships will find it very situational, and overall this will require a quality engineer to keep it perfect.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 06, 2014, 05:59:51 pm
I like the sound of "Proximity Ammo" someone mentioned earlier, perhaps because it bursts as soon as it enters its normal splash it can ONLY deal secondary damage, and has a bigger splash range. This would let things like a hawatcha throw up a solid wall of flames after a ship, and make hitting with a lot of weapons easer, but in exchange you would loose primary damage and projectile speed.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on June 06, 2014, 06:01:48 pm
I like the sound of "Proximity Ammo" someone mentioned earlier, perhaps because it bursts as soon as it enters its normal splash it can ONLY deal secondary damage, and has a bigger splash range. This would let things like a hawatcha throw up a solid wall of flames after a ship, and make hitting with a lot of weapons easer, but in exchange you would loose primary damage and projectile speed.

Hmm.. We already HAVE a proximity ammo in the Dev App (though it's been temporarily removed while we test something else), but this could be a nice way to balance it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: MrJeff on June 06, 2014, 06:41:46 pm
I like the sound of "Proximity Ammo" someone mentioned earlier, perhaps because it bursts as soon as it enters its normal splash it can ONLY deal secondary damage, and has a bigger splash range. This would let things like a hawatcha throw up a solid wall of flames after a ship, and make hitting with a lot of weapons easer, but in exchange you would loose primary damage and projectile speed.

Hmm.. We already HAVE a proximity ammo in the Dev App (though it's been temporarily removed while we test something else), but this could be a nice way to balance it.

This could also be one way to manage smoke screens. Large secondary range with little damage, but the explosions it creates when triggering lasts a while.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on June 06, 2014, 10:14:54 pm
A little outside of what is possible, but...

Optical Shot

Highly specialized
Single shot
+80% lift
+200% range
-70% Velocity
-90% damage
Shots never arm.
Gunner gets bullet cam view with view rotation.
Can spot enemies from bullet view.

These shells are hollowed out and the internals replaces with optics and transmitters. Allows you to shoot a single, slow-moving, straight-flying bullet that gives the gunner a safe view from a distance. The rotational fisheye lens camera lets the gunner look sideways for a unique ability to see around corners. They can also spot enemies by clicking like the spyglass.

Benefits to engineer: Low to null
Benefits to pilot: moderate
Benefits to gunner: High

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 06, 2014, 10:45:16 pm
That is a surprisingly cool idea, but might be better suited to a unique gun than a ammunition type.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Saull on June 06, 2014, 11:07:00 pm
I would very much like to have a discussion of proximity ammo and it's place in GoI's future. If I had my way it'd function closer to loch ammo as a mid/high risk high reward way of turning around 2v1 scenarios when enemy ships are flying real close to each other. Sorta like how grenades work in modern FPS games. But that I suppose is a thread for the Dev app forum
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on June 07, 2014, 12:40:41 am
A little outside of what is possible, but...

Optical Shot

Highly specialized
Single shot
+80% lift
+200% range
-70% Velocity
-90% damage
Shots never arm.
Gunner gets bullet cam view with view rotation.
Can spot enemies from bullet view.

These shells are hollowed out and the internals replaces with optics and transmitters. Allows you to shoot a single, slow-moving, straight-flying bullet that gives the gunner a safe view from a distance. The rotational fisheye lens camera lets the gunner look sideways for a unique ability to see around corners. They can also spot enemies by clicking like the spyglass.

Benefits to engineer: Low to null
Benefits to pilot: moderate
Benefits to gunner: High
While kind of cool in concept, it doesn't make sense as an ammo (as others have said). Also, this kind of technology seems kind of out of place in GoIO.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: macmacnick on June 07, 2014, 12:55:08 am
Milivan, GOiO is set as if WWI extended for decades beyond 1918, and the world's desolation is a result of this. The camera was invented in the 19th Century, and television sets became commercially available in the 1920s. That is not to say it was invented in the 1920s, but became commercially viable then. Most likely, the early models would have been restricted to government use, in the GoIO setting, or they might not have invented the television, and instead use the precursory Scanning Disk, which was invented around 1824, which was also a component in the early Mechanical Television sets. So, yes, the technology would be in-place.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on June 07, 2014, 01:08:12 am
Milivan, GOiO is set as if WWI extended for decades beyond 1918, and the world's desolation is a result of this. The camera was invented in the 19th Century, and television sets became commercially available in the 1920s. That is not to say it was invented in the 1920s, but became commercially viable then. Most likely, the early models would have been restricted to government use, in the GoIO setting, or they might not have invented the television, and instead use the precursory Scanning Disk, which was invented around 1824, which was also a component in the early Mechanical Television sets. So, yes, the technology would be in-place.

Yes, cameras existed.... but not modern cameras. You seem to be confusing current and 1920s tech. A camera back then could NOT have done anything like what you're talking about here XD Even assuming some advances since then, just based on the rest of the current tech, it seems unlikely a remote control wireless digital camera (which is basically the only way to do what you're talking about) would exist.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 07, 2014, 02:13:25 am
A good solution for the normal ammo selection is to have all cannons pre-loaded with normal ammunition upon spawning. Once the initial clip is spent, it loads in the current ammo selected if not already done so.

That way all players can use the guns without panic to get their ammunition loaded, while forcing choice on ammunition type.

An interesting bonus to that is the ability to have a gunner pre-load ammunition types and letting an engineer use it afterward without losing the said type (until the clip is emptied, of course.)
This is a great idea on how to handle having "normal" ammo as a loadout ammo type.

That, and If the shooter who emptied the gun does not have the ammo type that was in the gun, they load the first ammo in their inventory (or only ammo, in pilot/engi's cases). So players know what they are firing, the "bullet" icon next to the magazine count could be replaced with the currently loaded ammo type.

No problems with empty guns at spawn, although I kinda like that idea. There seems to always be a flurry of activity at spawn as the pilot runs to the wheel, the engineers whip out their buff hammer or spyglasses, and the gunners... Load their preferred ammo. This happens anyway.

If it really seems like an issue you could, say, have guns sit at a "half-loaded" state until someone hops on, so it reloads faster.

While this would be an excellent implementation to make gunners more viable, it still does not address the fact that a engi will simply take normal ammo and a buff hammer, and still outperform gunners.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: macmacnick on June 07, 2014, 03:02:03 am
Oh, milivan, they had basic cameras, of the kind that could take burst photographs, at about 12 pictures per second, which also allowed for the early motion pictures with real people to be filmed.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on June 07, 2014, 07:01:02 am
Oh, milivan, they had basic cameras, of the kind that could take burst photographs, at about 12 pictures per second, which also allowed for the early motion pictures with real people to be filmed.

This much I know. But the level of technology required to do what this would effectively be doing (wirelessly transmitting an image at high speed, while also being small enough to fit inside a weapon's ammo which by it's very nature is not too incredibly large, AND being remotely controlled) isn't really something they could have done. Like you said, they had BASIC cameras (see below), which at best were bulky, could not capture pictures fast enough to create a smooth image, probably could not be remote controlled easily, and almost certainly could not transmit images wirelessly in anything approaching an effective speed. The sheer size of all the parts combined would be too big for any ammo fired in this game, save MAYBE a mine (and even then I'm not entirely convinced it could fit). I may not know exact details about that time period, but I know enough that I have a very hard time seeing an effective camera that meets these requirements and is small enough for it to be used like this existing in GoIO.

(http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/images/Ernemann-Klapp-Camera-(1920).jpg)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on June 07, 2014, 09:06:49 am
Does it have to be realistic?

I feel like the topic of this thread is shifting. You can question the logic behind it if it ever gets implemented. Just like how these ships can stay aloft, how pilot tools work, how buff works and on and on.

I would like this ammo type.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Twomd on June 15, 2014, 07:16:14 pm
What if you added a type of ammo with a disabling charge, it would temporarily disable the system it hits. For instance, if it hits left engine, that engine shuts off for a small period of time. The tradeoff to this would be a significant decrease in damage. For guns like chaingun, you could make it so that a certain amount of bullets must hit to disable.

Currant Shots:

Disables System Temporarily
-75% Damage
-25% Projectile Speed
-25% Fire Rate
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Coldcurse on June 16, 2014, 03:28:53 am
what bout knockback bullets that slow the ship infront of you to prevent it ramming your ship.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Coldcurse on June 16, 2014, 03:30:06 am
what bout knockback bullets that slow the ship infront of you to prevent it ramming your ship.
Or at least slow him down enough to give your captain enough time to reposition the ship.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Armani on June 24, 2014, 02:13:02 pm
Hello everyone!

I've been playing for a while, and theres something that has stood out to me personally about a gunner which I find rather jarring: a complete lack of non-manned weaponry. Literally everything in a gunners kit is designed to be loaded into guns (Aka ammo types). And because of this, there is a sense of tunnel vision for gunners.

Gunners man guns. Guns are only usable in combat. All of the gunners tools are ammo types. This means that all of a gunners tools are useable for combat only - Ammo has no value other than combat related things. What I would like to see is a bit of utility to be added. Here are some ideas I drafted up that open up gunner tools that may allow for a bit of pure utility in the gunners kit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ITEM 1: SMOKE BOMBS
You might think I mean another ammo type. I don't.

Smoke bombs would be like the spyglass, just on a cooldown. Throw a bomb by hand, hit an enemy ship, have the bomb stick to it and start spewing out a medium sized, dense smoke cloud from that area. Balance wise, it would be wise to add a cooldown to the ability - say 10 seconds - to the ability. That way people just don't spam the things over the edge, and landing one feels like you really accomplished something.

The result of smoke bombs are fairly obvious? You can't see stuff, so walking around is harder. The possibility for a laugh as someone blindly strolls over the edge of their ship. Impairing the navigators vision. Etc.

What it adds is something a gunner can use that isn't related to a gun. When all of your guns blow out a gunner could use this to buy time. Engineers and navigators also have the option of equipping something to use purely for utility and that doesn't require a gun. People could use it to have fun. It even fits a bit with the theme of marines on ships - because we all know boarding is a horrible idea. Think of it as psudo-anti personal gear.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ITEM 2:
Blunderbuss

Keeping in line with the idea of the steampunk marine, enter the blunderbuss.
 
When ships are rammed against each other, not everyone is able to get to a gun and help fight. Open up the battlefield a bit with the option of pulling out a gunner tool - a short range rifle. Use the rifles to knock around enemy players, disrupting them (but not doing damage).

This next part is critical - NO DAMAGE IS DONE BY THIS GUN. That would be horribly unfun. Instead, a blunderbuss would be used to knock enemy players around on their ship. Knock gunners off guns, navigators off the wheel, engineers away from repairs, etc. It fits with the theme in that gunners transition from being gun crew to being real soldiers. Fighting quickly becomes uninterrupted, and feels better and more fluid. Also it would be single shot, and on a medium length cooldown (the reload animation would be so cool :D).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have other ideas, but I'd like to see if anyone likes these first. :D Best of luck in the skies all!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Imagine on June 24, 2014, 02:30:56 pm
There will not be anything that can introduce player to player combat, whether it's boarding or shooting (even if non-damaging).
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: DJ Tipz N Trix on June 24, 2014, 05:13:31 pm
I think this is being gone about the wrong way.  If we really want gunners, I posit we remove ammo from all the other classes.  It may ruin the 3-1-1, 1-3-1, 1-1-3 symmetry, but if you are really looking to make gunners a more viable class, this is the best way I see to do it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on June 24, 2014, 08:30:27 pm
I think this is being gone about the wrong way.  If we really want gunners, I posit we remove ammo from all the other classes.  It may ruin the 3-1-1, 1-3-1, 1-1-3 symmetry, but if you are really looking to make gunners a more viable class, this is the best way I see to do it.

Well thats the worst way to go about it! that just makes gunners mandatory by making it so only one type of crew build can be formed and takes all the fun out of the game. Its not like gunners are some useless smucks here that actively detract from a crew they are useful if you know how to use them. Granted there are some guns only good with one ammo but there are also guns that need the multiple ammo types to have full potential ie hades, light flak, and practically all the heavy guns.

Regardless removing ammo from other classes would not fix gunners it would break the game.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: DJ Tipz N Trix on June 24, 2014, 11:13:38 pm
I think this is being gone about the wrong way.  If we really want gunners, I posit we remove ammo from all the other classes.  It may ruin the 3-1-1, 1-3-1, 1-1-3 symmetry, but if you are really looking to make gunners a more viable class, this is the best way I see to do it.

Well thats the worst way to go about it! that just makes gunners mandatory by making it so only one type of crew build can be formed and takes all the fun out of the game. Its not like gunners are some useless smucks here that actively detract from a crew they are useful if you know how to use them. Granted there are some guns only good with one ammo but there are also guns that need the multiple ammo types to have full potential ie hades, light flak, and practically all the heavy guns.

Regardless removing ammo from other classes would not fix gunners it would break the game.
If you really need 2 guns with special ammo, you take 2 gunners.  If you need one, take one gunner.  If your ship can run just fine without special ammo, take no gunners.  I don't think it would break the game.  I think it is something to think about.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Tanya Phenole on June 25, 2014, 05:33:42 am
If you really need 2 guns with special ammo, you take 2 gunners.  If you need one, take one gunner.  If your ship can run just fine without special ammo, take no gunners.  I don't think it would break the game.  I think it is something to think about.

That will ruin the initial idea of teamwork as highest priority. Class does not means that your role is strict , we have pilots, rebuilding hull and engines in critical situation, gunners as main repair force for guns and helping on rebulds as well (no engines-no arcs - no shooting). And engineers, able to do everything.

Currently, game has 10 pilot tools, 8 gunner ammo types and only 6 engineer tools. 2 of the pilot tools designed specially for engineers and gunners. Adding 2 ammo types, which will be useful  for engineers, and engineering tools useful for gunners and pilots, would help to correct the class balance.
 
However, this topic is dedicated to ammo types ,  not to rebalancing engineer's tools.

My suggestion:

Phosphoric shot.
+70% projectile speed
-20% rotation speed
clip size reduced to 1.

Highlights the component being shot, so the enemy ship is not shaking the spot. Also, the halo of lighted components helps pilot to watch the movement of the enemy ship in blind zones.
Puts several stacks of fire to the gun being shot from and to damaged coponent as well. The lightning effect stays for 8-10 seconds.

How to exploit:
- by gunners, who can instantly extinguish their gun by heatsink clip. This mostly related to heavy flak gunners, who don't have much use before armor breaks. (weapons, generally used by gunners, like Typhon, Lumberjack, Manticore, Hades  require only 2 ammo type for tactic advance, so probably the third slot can be taken by Phosporic clip, which gives huge advance).

- by pilots having light guns near helm, like Galleon or Spire. Unlike taking flare gun, this does not makes the gun slot itself completely useless in terms of damage. Helps the crew to do spots, helps himself to prevent enemy ship going blind zone  in brawl. Makes harder to shake spot by cloud, does not influences to shaking spot under cover.

- completely useless for engineers because, well, -1 person gunning on the ship. Very few ship build have no-shooting engineers. Also can't be used for Pyramidion's maindeck due to lowered rotation speed.

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Koali on June 25, 2014, 10:39:22 am
How about an ammo type to counter chemspray, i.e. wash it off? Some kind of water shots, perhaps? These would probably help the opposing team by removing fire stacks, though. How about some sort of chemical solvent-type shot? Either a spray or a bomb-like projectile (like a big glorified water balloon). It could vary between weapons. (Big shot on most guns, but carronades, gatlings, and flamers get a spray)

Chemical Solvent
Removes the effects of Chemspray
Does only 50% damage <-- that can change for balance
as a spray -60% ammo capacity
as a bomb Only 1 shot

OH GOD, FLAMETHROWERS THAT REMOVE CHEMSPRAY
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Tanya Phenole on June 25, 2014, 12:57:59 pm
How about an ammo type to counter chemspray, i.e. wash it off? Some kind of water shots, perhaps? These would probably help the opposing team by removing fire stacks, though. How about some sort of chemical solvent-type shot? Either a spray or a bomb-like projectile (like a big glorified water balloon). It could vary between weapons. (Big shot on most guns, but carronades, gatlings, and flamers get a spray)

Chemical Solvent
Removes the effects of Chemspray
Does only 50% damage <-- that can change for balance
as a spray -60% ammo capacity
as a bomb Only 1 shot


OH GOD, FLAMETHROWERS THAT REMOVE CHEMSPRAY


1) we already have amazing thing which balances chemspray. Time.
2) "Chemical solvent" is kind of silly name from terms of chemistry... Cause lots of them are highly flammable, and huge amount are completely impossibe to set fire with.  The ones which are flammable are usually evaporise really fast to use them as a fuel for gun. 
3) in current game balance flamethrowers is a threat even for chemsprayed ship.  Pings/seconds spend on gunning/carronades which destroy spray status
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: macmacnick on June 25, 2014, 01:13:35 pm
Want to avoid flamers? Go mid-long range as a ship build. Or do a Long and short range junker. there. Fixed.


Also, how-about an ammo?
Grape Shot
+20% ammo capacity
+25% spread
Each projectile shot splits into 5 fragments, dealing damage over a greater area, but consequently, each fragment does only 20% of the normal damage.
-40% rotation speed,
-30% projectile speed.


Does all damage across many components, but is mostly viable for close range, due to enhanced spread.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on June 25, 2014, 05:01:45 pm
Paint.

Damage: 0

Range: 50%

Ignition chance reduced to 0%

Why? Painting the enemy Galleon pink with a flamethrower is funny.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Koali on June 25, 2014, 06:20:36 pm
Paint.

Damage: 0

Range: 50%

Ignition chance reduced to 0%

Why? Painting the enemy Galleon pink with a flamethrower is funny.

This could be one of the best ideas up here. I mean, they'd be like "Oh noes, they haz fire! CHEMSPRAY ALL THE THINGS!" Only to be covered with paint.

1) we already have amazing thing which balances chemspray. Time.
2) "Chemical solvent" is kind of silly name from terms of chemistry... Cause lots of them are highly flammable, and huge amount are completely impossibe to set fire with.  The ones which are flammable are usually evaporise really fast to use them as a fuel for gun. 
3) in current game balance flamethrowers is a threat even for chemsprayed ship.  Pings/seconds spend on gunning/carronades which destroy spray status

To counter:
1) What about those impatient players who want to shoot things right now?
2) The"Chemical Solvent" would essentially be glorified water. Water is a common solvent, and just about anything could be described as 'chemical' in one way or another (I think). I just thought it would sound better than "Water Balloons."
3) I don't have any idea what to say here.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 26, 2014, 12:08:36 pm
How about an ammo type to counter chemspray, i.e. wash it off? Some kind of water shots, perhaps? These would probably help the opposing team by removing fire stacks, though. How about some sort of chemical solvent-type shot? Either a spray or a bomb-like projectile (like a big glorified water balloon). It could vary between weapons. (Big shot on most guns, but carronades, gatlings, and flamers get a spray)

Chemical Solvent
Removes the effects of Chemspray
Does only 50% damage <-- that can change for balance
as a spray -60% ammo capacity
as a bomb Only 1 shot

OH GOD, FLAMETHROWERS THAT REMOVE CHEMSPRAY
There is another thread running about a "water cannon" light gun concept that extinguishes fires and pushes other ships, perhaps "washing off" Chemspray would be an interesting feature for the gun, but not an ammo type. I think Chemspray is balanced as it is.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Koali on June 27, 2014, 11:49:28 am
There is another thread running about a "water cannon" light gun concept that extinguishes fires and pushes other ships, perhaps "washing off" Chemspray would be an interesting feature for the gun, but not an ammo type. I think Chemspray is balanced as it is.

I'd like to see that. Could you direct me to that thread?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on June 27, 2014, 12:22:23 pm

I'd like to see that. Could you direct me to that thread?

https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4382.0.html (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4382.0.html) Ought to link properly.

Back on topic, the earlier ideas about guns spawning "unloaded" and default ammo being something you would have to take with you seemed like a fantastic idea to me. Of course, it would mean changing the reload mechanics to remember the last ammo selected, but very few people would be complaining.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on June 27, 2014, 05:26:33 pm
I for one would complain!

 For one I am extremely against some form of crummy scavenger ammo becoming the default OR the idea of having no ammo in the guns when a ship spawns as it leaves you too vulnerable if the enemy is in your spawn point and you would get steam rolled without being able to fight back. But would it be possible to have it so that the weapons wait before they decide their ammo like as soon as an someone jumps on the gun the ammo in their first slot is the one selected as if it was there all along.

Ex: ship spawns, engineer with greased runs over to gun gets on, immediately starts shooting greased rounds at the birds cause they looked at him funny. Eventually they re-spawn gunner carrying heavy, lesmok, and charged runs over to gun, gets on, it now has heavy in it, if he wanted lesmok he has to reload and switch to lesmok, but heavy is in the gun if he needs to shoot it immediately.

In this system I also feel it would be best if the last ammo that was loaded into it so if the gunner left the weapon to load itself it would have put heavy back into the gun.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on June 30, 2014, 04:32:43 pm
How about some trickshot ammo types?

Split shot (spawns two bullets at an offset of 5 degrees) reduces damage for each bullet by 30%
Party shot (explodes into confetti and streamers)
Spiral shot (bullet travels in a corkscrew manner)
Dub shot (replaces normal weapon sounds with Dubstep beat)
Smoke screen shot (emits a non tar cloud that breaks line of sight)
Ghost shot (shot ignores hull and balloon collides and only hits components)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Verbose Mode on July 01, 2014, 12:07:10 am
I for one would complain!

 For one I am extremely against some form of crummy scavenger ammo becoming the default OR the idea of having no ammo in the guns when a ship spawns as it leaves you too vulnerable if the enemy is in your spawn point and you would get steam rolled without being able to fight back. But would it be possible to have it so that the weapons wait before they decide their ammo like as soon as an someone jumps on the gun the ammo in their first slot is the one selected as if it was there all along.

I understand your point, but I think the "steam rolling spawns" would be negated by the fact that captains always have multiple spawn points to choose from, and most wise captains spawn farther away to give crews prep time anyway. Spawning right on top of an enemy and instantly unloading a Hwatcha would not be an option because a gunner would have to load it first, so it removes the factor of having a fresh ship suddenly pop into a fight from thin air.

Besides, I think loading guns would simply be an extension of the normal "rolling into battle" prep that happens: pilot flies, engies buff or spanner out kerosine damage, gunners run around loading their guns with preferred. It just changes it from a option to a responsibility.

Of course, after a gun is used, it never will stay empty: the last shooter will load their first ammo as soon as it empties or reloads.

In all, any problems from starting with empty guns can be solved with minor changes to player strategy.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on July 01, 2014, 12:15:15 pm
After watching lets play videos of GOI I think nerfing the vanilla ammo will be extremely newbie unfriendly. Many of these videos feature gunners shooting vanilla ammo even when they have enough time to preload. Since these lets plays are done with a group of friends who are also newbies there are no vets barking orders at them to swap ammo types. Even in my own games I have noticed powder monkeys keeping Vanilla active in the face of repeated requests to change ammo. With Vanilla being in the state that it is in I can work with sub optimal gunners. However if vanilla were significantly worse I would become very angry at gunners who did not do their job. Also if AI were to still use vanilla this would be a significant nerf to pilots who start the game without crew. We spend enough time in lobby as is.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SirNotlag on July 01, 2014, 02:26:04 pm
I understand your point, but I think the "steam rolling spawns" would be negated by the fact that captains always have multiple spawn points to choose from, and most wise captains spawn farther away to give crews prep time anyway. Spawning right on top of an enemy and instantly unloading a Hwatcha would not be an option because a gunner would have to load it first, so it removes the factor of having a fresh ship suddenly pop into a fight from thin air.

Besides, I think loading guns would simply be an extension of the normal "rolling into battle" prep that happens: pilot flies, engies buff or spanner out kerosine damage, gunners run around loading their guns with preferred. It just changes it from a option to a responsibility.

Of course, after a gun is used, it never will stay empty: the last shooter will load their first ammo as soon as it empties or reloads.

In all, any problems from starting with empty guns can be solved with minor changes to player strategy.

I still think it would be a very unfriendly play style for newer players as captians often spawn close to the enemy causing the steam rolling, plus a galleon can take up to 2 min to load all its guns if they are done one at a time so if you were fighting a gold fish or squid on dunes in a galleon regardless of where you spawn they will spot you and close the distance fast and a new gunner might not be able to load enough guns in time to fight back, again causing serious steam rolling.

then there are issues with the king of the hill game types where the captain is going to burn kerosene to get to the point fast leaving the engineers busy and the gunner to load and again certain ship types have to many guns space to far out to be able to load in time to be in a good fighting condition. This would just end up making certain ships unusable in king of the hill.

I find the idea of guns spawning unloaded adds way more problems than it fixes.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: DJ Tipz N Trix on July 06, 2014, 01:48:24 pm
How about Lightweight Ammo?

+100% rotation speed
+50% projectile lift
+30% clip size
-25% damage
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 07, 2014, 01:27:56 am
Now, I rather doubt this random idea of mine is even possible, but I figured I might as well throw it out there. Is it possible to make "Charged Rounds" actually "charge"? For example:

For every 1 second the gun with Charged is not firing, it builds up a Charge. Each Charge increases the damage of the gun by X% (let's say 5 for this example), to a maximum of 60% (again, for example purposes, but probably somewhere between 40% and 80%). Each shot costs 1 Charge for every 50 damage the gun deals (for weapons that deal less than 50 damage, it costs 1 charge per shot). It only gains charges 10 seconds after the last shot fired.

This creates a lot of front-loaded burst damage that drops as a battle goes on, and requires time to build up again. This makes it more suited to hit-and-run tactics, or as a "first volley" type ammo, before switching to something a bit more useful in prolonged combat.

As I said at the start though, this was just a random idea that seemed interesting in my head, and I figured I might as well throw it out there.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kestril on July 07, 2014, 11:45:36 am
A  little late to the thread, but here's some suggestions on ammo types

Point Blank Ammo
+50% Primary damage.
Projectile disappears when it reaches it's arming time.
Projectile Deals no secondary damage.

The thinking is that this ammunition gives the light flak/heavy flak/hades some usefulness when the enemy gets inside their arming time. Likewise, it's not an ammo type the engineer would take, but it adds some versatility to the guns which have this ammo.

Tracer ammo
Enemy hit with this ammunition is spotted.
Hit Clouds are lit up for the life of the projectile.
-X% damage
-X% clip size.

A good ammo to spot ships. I'd mine point with this ammo. Again, this ammo is all about the utility. An engineer would not usually take this because it's not required, only nice to have.


Freezerburn Ammo
Deals X% more damage to components that are chemsprayed. 
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while chemsprayed, the gun takes X damage while fired.
(again, adds some utility to shut down clever chem-spraying engineers).

(Alternatively)
Converts hit components that are chemsprayed to X stacks of fire 
If this gun is fired while chemsprayed, it converts the chemspray to X stacks of fire. 



Overload Shot
Deals X% more damage to components that are buffed.
Ignites component s that are buffed with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired, it ignites the gun with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while buffed, it takes X damage.

This adds some utility to gunners and gives a clever captain and gunner the tools to shut down a buffed ship. It also gives some need for corrdination "don't buff, loading Overload/Freezerburn. ammo" In short, it gives options.









Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 07, 2014, 11:49:31 am
A  little late to the thread, but here's some suggestions on ammo types

Point Blank Ammo
+50% Primary damage.
Projectile disappears when it reaches it's arming time.
Projectile Deals no secondary damage.

The thinking is that this ammunition gives the light flak/heavy flak/hades some usefulness when the enemy gets inside their arming time. Likewise, it's not an ammo type the engineer would take, but it adds some versatility to the guns which have this ammo.

Tracer ammo
Enemy hit with this ammunition is spotted.
Hit Clouds are lit up for the life of the projectile.
-X% damage
-X% clip size.

A good ammo to spot ships. I'd mine point with this ammo. Again, this ammo is all about the utility. An engineer would not usually take this because it's not required, only nice to have.


Freezerburn Ammo
Deals X% more damage to components that are chemsprayed. 
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while chemsprayed, the gun takes X damage while fired.
(again, adds some utility to shut down clever chem-spraying engineers).

(Alternatively)
Converts hit components that are chemsprayed to X stacks of fire 
If this gun is fired while chemsprayed, it converts the chemspray to X stacks of fire. 



Overload Shot
Deals X% more damage to components that are buffed.
Ignites component s that are buffed with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired, it ignites the gun with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while buffed, it takes X damage.

This adds some utility to gunners and gives a clever captain and gunner the tools to shut down a buffed ship. It also gives some need for corrdination "don't buff, loading Overload/Freezerburn. ammo" In short, it gives options.

We already have the first in Dev App right now. Aside from the Tracer ammo, I don't really think these are good ideas. A counter to chem-spray will just be taken on every ship that uses fire as their primary source of damage, and will basically make fire OP and Chemspray useless. A VERY bad idea. And something that interacts with Buffing will likewise make BUFFING underpowered as well. Both of these ideas are too problematic I think.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kestril on July 07, 2014, 12:04:07 pm
I don't agree.  It's opportunity cost. You get the ability to maybe shut down chemspray, but you give up keeping the gun immune to fire and extra damage from buff/charged/whatever. The gunners need some niche and autonomy and need to be able to do what the engineer can't. Those ammo types fill that role, and are too niche for an engineer to take.

Although, I don't think it will make fire OP. To pull off a freezerburn/fire combo would take about as much coordination or more coordination as a gat/mortar. Rmember, the gunner would have to aim at specific components.  Furthermore, the  gat/mortar kills outright, while the fire just disables. As of now, I've got no reason (other than for fun) not to take a gat/mortar or hadies/flak pryamidion, but with these ammo types, I could see running a carronade/flamer or even the banshee with a anti-chem gatling gun.

Also, I'd welcome a gunner ammunition which can help midigate or counter engineer tools. It gives the gunner some usefulness and a distinct role.

If you're worried about damage, maybe it could look like:

Freezerburn Ammo
Deals X% more damage to components that are chemsprayed. 
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while chemsprayed, the gun takes W damage while fired.
-Y% secondary damage.
While loaded, this gun takes Z% more shatter damage
Where X > Y


(Alternatively)
Has X% chance to converts hit components that are chemsprayed to X stacks of fire.
-Y% secondary damage. 
If this gun is fired while chemsprayed, it converts the chemspray to X stacks of fire. 



Overload Shot
Deals X% more damage to components that are buffed.
Ignites component s that are buffed with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired, it ignites the gun with X stacks of fire.
-Y% secondary damage.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while buffed, it takes X damage.

Where X > Y.

Also how does it make buffing underpowered when buffing can be applied to engines/balloon/hull as well? I don't get how one ammo type can make the entire buff tool underpowered. It's not like I'll tell my squid crew "don't bring the buff hammer, the gunner is bringing freezerburn."
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 07, 2014, 12:44:37 pm
I don't agree.  It's opportunity cost. You get the ability to maybe shut down chemspray, but you give up keeping the gun immune to fire and extra damage from buff/charged/whatever. The gunners need some niche and autonomy and need to be able to do what the engineer can't. Those ammo types fill that role, and are too niche for an engineer to take.

Although, I don't think it will make fire OP. To pull off a freezerburn/fire combo would take about as much coordination or more coordination as a gat/mortar. Rmember, the gunner would have to aim at specific components.  Furthermore, the  gat/mortar kills outright, while the fire just disables. As of now, I've got no reason (other than for fun) not to take a gat/mortar or hadies/flak pryamidion, but with these ammo types, I could see running a carronade/flamer or even the banshee with a anti-chem gatling gun.

Also, I'd welcome a gunner ammunition which can help midigate or counter engineer tools. It gives the gunner some usefulness and a distinct role.

If you're worried about damage, maybe it could look like:

Freezerburn Ammo
Deals X% more damage to components that are chemsprayed. 
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while chemsprayed, the gun takes W damage while fired.
-Y% secondary damage.
While loaded, this gun takes Z% more shatter damage
Where X > Y


(Alternatively)
Has X% chance to converts hit components that are chemsprayed to X stacks of fire.
-Y% secondary damage. 
If this gun is fired while chemsprayed, it converts the chemspray to X stacks of fire. 



Overload Shot
Deals X% more damage to components that are buffed.
Ignites component s that are buffed with X stacks of fire.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired, it ignites the gun with X stacks of fire.
-Y% secondary damage.
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while buffed, it takes X damage.

Where X > Y.

Also how does it make buffing underpowered when buffing can be applied to engines/balloon/hull as well? I don't get how one ammo type can make the entire buff tool underpowered. It's not like I'll tell my squid crew "don't bring the buff hammer, the gunner is bringing freezerburn."

Okay, let me point something out you seem to be missing. On my Flamethrower x3 Squid, I load up 3 Engies with your Freezerburn Ammo. Suddenly, what was meant to basically be a counter to my ship just became a massive target that my ship probably eats alive. In one case, I just buffed my damage with 0 downsides. In the other, I just destroyed their anti-fire protection and probably just destroyed them with easy. A flamethrower can EASILY hit an entire ship on its own. Any ammo that can be used to counter the Engineer can be made OP with large-AoE weapons.

As for the Buffing being UP, I was referring to your other ammo which interacted with Buffing. If I see even a single buff hammer on the enemy team, I immediately ask my Gunner to bring your Overload Shot, and suddenly that ship can be eaten alive by my Flamers. Doubly so if they also have Chemspray and the gunner brings Freezerburn as well. I can counter 2 enemy engineers with just 1 Gunner, effectively discouraging the enemy from bringing those tools. Why would you bring something if it will just make it easier for your ship to be killed?

That said, following the pattern Ammo is going with based on Dev App (at least for the moment), a more appropriate penalty to the ammo you're suggesting would be a straight up -% to all damage, and a big one, like -50% or more. Then, the +% would be something like +80% or even +100% against the specific conditions. This means you use this ammo, and the gun is worthless against anything but it's specialized target. Still don't think it's a good idea to have ammo that interacts with tools that are either absolutely necessary, or already kind of rare, depending on if you're talking about chem or buff.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on July 07, 2014, 12:57:14 pm
I can think of a better way to balance those counter-buff and counter-chem ammo types.

Freezerburn Ammo
Adds 1 fire stack per X seconds remaining on Chemspray effect
Deals -25% damage with -20% (at least - maybe worse) fire chance

Overload Shot
Deals -66% damage
Deals +300% damage (applied to already-modified damage value, totals up to +25% from normal damage level) to buffed parts

That way, it would make the weapons far LESS effective for general use, so you'd have to rely on their use specifically against the tool they counter.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on July 07, 2014, 01:17:08 pm
Quote
Freezerburn Ammo
Deals X% more damage to components that are chemsprayed. 
If a gun loaded with this ammunition is fired while chemsprayed, the gun takes W damage while fired.
-Y% secondary damage.
While loaded, this gun takes Z% more shatter damage

Liking this alot. It doesnt need the "If chemsprayed itself takes damage".
This is a very good tool to counter attack versus chem spraying. Forcing for a more proactive play with the chemspray itself.
This is a really neat idea!
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kestril on July 07, 2014, 02:20:28 pm

Okay, let me point something out you seem to be missing.

Put some chemspray on those fires, man. Deep breaths. I didn't mean to come off as confrontational, so I apologize if I did.


Quote
On my Flamethrower x3 Squid, I load up 3 Engies with your Freezerburn Ammo. Suddenly, what was meant to basically be a counter to my ship just became a massive target that my ship probably eats alive. In one case, I just buffed my damage with 0 downsides. In the other, I just destroyed their anti-fire protection and probably just destroyed them with easy. A flamethrower can EASILY hit an entire ship on its own. Any ammo that can be used to counter the Engineer can be made OP with large-AoE weapons.

So, the flamethrower balance is a separate issue altogether (I think they got buffed in the most recent patch), so I understand your concern. But you still do have some downsides, Your ship has to get close and stay close in order to be effective, and lacks anything but disabling power. Also, I'd like to add that this is an idea thread. I wasn't claiming that the weapon was perfectly balanced as suggested. I just wanted to convey the concept of an ammo type which has a niche use against chemspray. 

Quote

As for the Buffing being UP, I was referring to your other ammo which interacted with Buffing. If I see even a single buff hammer on the enemy team, I immediately ask my Gunner to bring your Overload Shot, and suddenly that ship can be eaten alive by my Flamers. Doubly so if they also have Chemspray and the gunner brings Freezerburn as well. I can counter 2 enemy engineers with just 1 Gunner, effectively discouraging the enemy from bringing those tools. Why would you bring something if it will just make it easier for your ship to be killed?
It's a risk/reward sort of thing. Captians now have to ask, Is buffing worth making that part more vulnerable to a very specific ammo type? It's those questions that have no clear answer which make the game fun to play! Note that it doesn't make the ship easier to be killed, it just makes the parts easier to disable.

Quote
That said, following the pattern Ammo is going with based on Dev App (at least for the moment), a more appropriate penalty to the ammo you're suggesting would be a straight up -% to all damage, and a big one, like -50% or more. Then, the +% would be something like +80% or even +100% against the specific conditions. This means you use this ammo, and the gun is worthless against anything but it's specialized target. Still don't think it's a good idea to have ammo that interacts with tools that are either absolutely necessary, or already kind of rare, depending on if you're talking about chem or buff.
I'd agree that a strait up damage penalty would be more appropriate.

Although,as a general note I would like to see more ammo that increases/decrease the damage taken from certain ammo types. It could allow for another level of interactivity and complexity for high-level play. For examples sake, lets say charged increased the damage taken from shatter. So, when I pilot hears that "charged" effect (and maybe sees some sort of projectile trail indicating charged ammunition), they could quickly instruct their crew to bring the shatter damage on that component. I say that just as an example.

I disagree about your last point. I for one do want to see some more interactivity with your opponent's ship. Niche ammo is what gunners need to distinguish themselves from gungineers:

Quote from: awkm
Theoretically, coming up with ammo types that are more niche means that players will need to take advantage of the the additional gunner slots. 

And it's what muse wants to see too :)


I can think of a better way to balance those counter-buff and counter-chem ammo types.

Freezerburn Ammo
Adds 1 fire stack per X seconds remaining on Chemspray effect
Deals -25% damage with -20% (at least - maybe worse) fire chance

Overload Shot
Deals -66% damage
Deals +300% damage (applied to already-modified damage value, totals up to +25% from normal damage level) to buffed parts

Yeah, this is probably more in-line with the purpose of the ammo. Thanks!  I'd probably give the freezerburn ammo a little bit of lessened projectile speed (and thus a range penalty), just to make sure you have to get even closer with that flamer, and maybe a clip-size decrease.

I might lessen the overload shot to -50% damage, but it's often better to nerf, THEN buff. Because It's hard to distinguish the purpose of a weapon/ammo when it starts off as OP.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on July 07, 2014, 02:52:23 pm
Just saying hi.

Some interesting things going on.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Neithrantulre on July 08, 2014, 12:42:50 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 08, 2014, 01:02:20 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.

... Your Phosphorus rounds don't really make any sense. We already have Incendiary.....
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on July 08, 2014, 01:05:57 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.

... Your Phosphorus rounds don't really make any sense. We already have Incendiary.....

I think he wants airbursting incendiaries that leave a lingering cloud of fire.

The size or duration of the cloud should depend on the radius of the weapon's AoE so it's not possible to load a Flamer up with Tar rounds and spit out insane amounts of death clouds everywhere.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Neithrantulre on July 08, 2014, 02:22:30 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.

... Your Phosphorus rounds don't really make any sense. We already have Incendiary.....

I think he wants airbursting incendiaries that leave a lingering cloud of fire.

The size or duration of the cloud should depend on the radius of the weapon's AoE so it's not possible to load a Flamer up with Tar rounds and spit out insane amounts of death clouds everywhere.
That is what I meant.
I think that it would be fine as long as the clouds did significantly less fire than a flamer and overlapping clouds did not double damage. It would not be useful in a flamer except to increase the effective range when running away, and fire stacks themselves do no hull damage.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 08, 2014, 02:33:58 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.

... Your Phosphorus rounds don't really make any sense. We already have Incendiary.....

I think he wants airbursting incendiaries that leave a lingering cloud of fire.

The size or duration of the cloud should depend on the radius of the weapon's AoE so it's not possible to load a Flamer up with Tar rounds and spit out insane amounts of death clouds everywhere.

Except Flamers have a rather large AoE. So you would in fact leave flaming clouds of death everywhere.
That is what I meant.
I think that it would be fine as long as the clouds did significantly less fire than a flamer and overlapping clouds did not double damage. It would not be useful in a flamer except to increase the effective range when running away, and fire stacks themselves do no hull damage.
So, to clarify, do you want these clouds to actually deal fire damage? Or do you want them to create fire stacks? Because if it's fire damage you want, they would actually have to deal significantly MORE than the flamer for them to matter at all. After all, the Flamer actually only deals like 1.3 damage, but hits like 16+ times per second.

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on July 08, 2014, 02:53:54 am
Except Flamers have a rather large AoE. So you would in fact leave flaming clouds of death everywhere.

I'm not sure why, but I was thinking of AoE as being exclusively relevant to impact-triggered explosions when I typed that. My bad.

I'm inclined to think 0 damage with fire stacks applied every second would work better than dealing any direct damage with a phosphorous cloud. I like the suggestion of making overlapping clouds not add multiple effects too, that would help to reduce any possible exploits with rapid-fire weapons.

Imagine Tar ammo being loaded into a Gatling Gun though. Blaze away from a little outside maximum range with 82 shots and create a massive wall of destruction in front of the enemy, blinding them AND blocking movement all around the area they want to approach. Even if you were only taking damage from one cloud at a time regardless of how many overlapped your ship, that would be insane. There would need to be some kind of limitation on their viability with rapid-fire weapons. Maybe there could be a limit of 3 active clouds per weapon. And possibly also have a % chance of producing a cloud from an airburst rather than it happening every time, and tie that chance to the weapon's fire rate?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Neithrantulre on July 08, 2014, 02:59:37 am
Tar Ammo:
-100% damage
When your shots airburst, they create Tar Smoke clouds

White Phosphorus rounds
like Tar Ammo but starts fires instead of straight damage, probably more powerful, closer range?

useful on explosive guns when the enemy is out of range but approaching. Gets gunner on metamidion off the gatling occasionally.

... Your Phosphorus rounds don't really make any sense. We already have Incendiary.....

I think he wants airbursting incendiaries that leave a lingering cloud of fire.

The size or duration of the cloud should depend on the radius of the weapon's AoE so it's not possible to load a Flamer up with Tar rounds and spit out insane amounts of death clouds everywhere.

Except Flamers have a rather large AoE. So you would in fact leave flaming clouds of death everywhere.
That is what I meant.
I think that it would be fine as long as the clouds did significantly less fire than a flamer and overlapping clouds did not double damage. It would not be useful in a flamer except to increase the effective range when running away, and fire stacks themselves do no hull damage.
So, to clarify, do you want these clouds to actually deal fire damage? Or do you want them to create fire stacks? Because if it's fire damage you want, they would actually have to deal significantly MORE than the flamer for them to matter at all. After all, the Flamer actually only deals like 1.3 damage, but hits like 16+ times per second.

It would be fair to say that since the flamer does not actually have a normal AOE stat but has a large primary AOE(4 meters, about average), that it would do nothing with the flamer.  I was talking about fire stacks, something like every 3 seconds in the cloud every component would have a 30% chance to get 1 fire stack, obviously needing real ingame testing to see what is balanced. If the idea is to make gunners more desirable, then the utility ammo like this would have to actually be worth taking, but not viable for an engi as the only ammo. For balance comparison, engies must bring a fire tool to be viable, but even though gunners would like one, its too necessary to have a normal repair tool first.


Gatlings have a tiny AOE, I wouldn't be scared of them. Think about using it to make the Lumberjack more effective at precisely 1650 meters (where you probably can't score a direct hit) with it's 12 meter explosion radius. Or using it with the mine launcher to get a different kind of mine altogether.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: DJ Tipz N Trix on July 08, 2014, 05:56:37 pm
Makeshift Ammo
-50% arming time
-50% damage
+50% rotation speed
+50% projectile lift

Like a lochnagar type shot for guns with many rounds in them.  Instead of taking damage to the gun, you instead sacrifice damage for arming time.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on July 08, 2014, 11:35:11 pm
An ammo idea il share here also.


TNT
An ammo that gives a ship the ability to do Impact AOE damage when it dies.

-90% less ammo
-90% damage

When the ship dies with a gun loaded with this, it will do 75 impact damage, multiplied with more weapons loaded with this.
Squid and Goldfish will blow up up to 225 dmg maximum
Pyra and Spire will blow up to 300 maximum
Mobula and Junker 375
and Galleon 450


Its just a number and the reason why its impact is to deliver a distortion like a push effect. So in most cases, ships will have either 2 or 1 with this ammo loaded.







IF THIS IS POSSIBLE
A weapon giving the ship some kinda of a buff...

Then it would be cool to have other ammo  types that do something else to the ship.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 08, 2014, 11:38:45 pm
An ammo idea il share here also.


TNT
An ammo that gives a ship the ability to do Impact AOE damage when it dies.

-90% less ammo
-90% damage

When the ship dies with a gun loaded with this, it will do 75 impact damage, multiplied with more weapons loaded with this.
Squid and Goldfish will blow up up to 225 dmg maximum
Pyra and Spire will blow up to 300 maximum
Mobula and Junker 375
and Galleon 450


Its just a number and the reason why its impact is to deliver a distortion like a push effect. So in most cases, ships will have either 2 or 1 with this ammo loaded.







IF THIS IS POSSIBLE
A weapon giving the ship some kinda of a buff...

Then it would be cool to have other ammo  types that do something else to the ship.

This isn't just a different type of ammo, this is an entirely unique mechanic, and well outside of the realm of what the devs seem to be looking for.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on July 09, 2014, 12:04:41 am
I know i just threw in the idea D:
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kestril on July 09, 2014, 03:55:42 am
I think that should be more a pilot tool than anything.

Pilot tool, Scuttle charge: If the ship dies while the tool is activated, it will blow up. Shuts down engines when used.  Engines and balloon glow bright red to indicate an active scuttle charge.

In any case, using that 3rd pilot slot is a hefty price to pay to go boom, but may have a niche use on the spire, or just to discourage ramming.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Neithrantulre on July 09, 2014, 10:40:13 pm
Proximity Rounds:
-40% damage
+25% velocity
+30% explosion radius
detonates as soon as the projectile is within blast radius of anything, including enemy shots midair

Can be used for inexperienced gunners to maximize their damage when shooting difficult guns
Can be used for all gunners to extend the range of difficult and arc-ey weapons, there is no ammo that increases range less than 70%
Can be used for experienced gunners to shoot down rockets and slower moving shells, Gat/Mortar has more options to approach a sniper if they can shoot down the Lumberjack shots with the mortar, at least some of the time.
Would rarely be taken by engineers because of the damage penalties, but can make new gunners more valuable (get less frustrated with the game early and might stay), and gives unique capabilities to gunners, buffing the class as a whole.

Inspired by this guy's idea for a weapon that acts similarly, which would be interesting as well https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4046.msg69823.html#msg69823
up to MUSE to decide which flavor it should be, or both.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on July 09, 2014, 10:43:46 pm
Proximity Rounds:
-40% damage
+25% velocity
+30% explosion radius
detonates as soon as the projectile is within blast radius of anything, including enemy shots midair

Can be used for inexperienced gunners to maximize their damage when shooting difficult guns
Can be used for all gunners to extend the range of difficult and arc-ey weapons, there is no ammo that increases range less than 70%
Can be used for experienced gunners to shoot down rockets and slower moving shells, Gat/Mortar has more options to approach a sniper if they can shoot down the Lumberjack shots with the mortar, at least some of the time.
Would rarely be taken by engineers because of the damage penalties, but can make new gunners more valuable (get less frustrated with the game early and might stay), and gives unique capabilities to gunners, buffing the class as a whole.

Inspired by this guy's idea for a weapon that acts similarly, which would be interesting as well https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4046.msg69823.html#msg69823
up to MUSE to decide which flavor it should be, or both.

We already have Proximity Rounds in the Dev App, but it's different from what you're suggesting here.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Canon Whitecandle on July 15, 2014, 02:03:44 am
Flak/Shrapnel/Tar/Shaved/Hollow Rounds:
Changes the gun's primary damage type to another damage type, at the cost of a damage reduction. Personally, I believe the roles of gun and gunner need to be broadened instead of narrowed to achieve the desired applicability. If a gunner can make his gatling pop balloons and disable at the pilot's behest, he'd be invaluable. Sure, engineers can take one kind of 'modifier' ammo but the moment that ammo isn't needed or is proving to be ineffective in the situation they've lost out. They're flying too high for that shot on the balloon you want and you can't climb back up to their level? Better waste the rest of your flechette gatling on the underbelly of their ship and load in normal rounds.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on July 15, 2014, 10:43:54 am
RE: Changing Damage Types

I've thought about it but realized it is incredibly risky.  Why?  It's because of information and response.  As a Captain, I can generally understand what kind of strategy you're going to employ by your ship, its loadout, and your crew's loadout.  If suddenly your guns are doing something not what I expected then it can become unpredictable (in the bad way).  Even if I know that your Gunner has these ammo types, each gun could potentially have 4 functions.  Multiple that by the number of guns then you get a possibility space that is almost impossible to predict.

If you imagine Poker, it's like if you had your hand and also a supplementary 2-3 cards where you could switch a card in your hand with a supplementary card whenever you wanted.  Poke suddenly becomes very difficult.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on July 15, 2014, 04:40:26 pm
I like the unpredictableness.
And isn't that what heavy clip hwacha, lochnagar flak/lumberjack and incendary gatlings are? It may not be as extreme as outright changing the damage type, but you already have such unpredictability in the game. Of course it won't be as unpredictable because you expect every hwacha gunner to bring heavy clip, because you should do that because everybody does and nobody on a gatling ever used incendary instead of greased, when they want the enemy armor down, because chem spray.
But if you can expect that and your expectations are the actual reality too than there seems to be a lack of diversity, but we maybe get new ammo types for more diversity, but if the new ammo types don't orient themselves on stuff that has never been seen before, which means more new mechanics, which maybe means tons of programming work, which means the devs will probably go for ammos with less new mechanics, which means we get the possibly new ammo types sonner, but it might be bad because there could still be a lack of diversity und unpredictableness, then there will still be a lack of diversity und unpredictableness...

If you imagine Poker, it's like if you had your hand and also a supplementary 2-3 cards where you could switch a card in your hand with a supplementary card whenever you wanted.  Poker suddenly becomes very difficult.

I might miss-interpret this here, but isn't this what the gunner is supposed to do? Aside from the fact that you may already know all the enemy's crew loadouts, shouldn't the gunner make use of every single trick he has to make it as hard as possible for the enemy to fight back? I can understand though that you may not want a gunner to out-unpredict the enemy expectations for balance issues.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: awkm on July 15, 2014, 05:41:35 pm
Even with the ammos we have now.  The gun and its damage types defines much of its role.  The ammo only augments their uses slightly.

I fear that if we completely change the role of each gun just because we have this or that ammo, then why bother looking at your enemy's loadout?  Why bother having different guns in the first place?  Ammo will become the defining element.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on July 15, 2014, 08:37:05 pm
Some fun with fire.

Proximity Flameburst

First and secondary damage reduced by 99%

+30% chance of adding a fire stack.

No arming time.

Use stats similar to Prox ammo in Dev App for detonation.

Hot shot

Loads super pre-heated rounds.

+50% chance of adding a fire stack

Adds 3 stacks of fire to your own gun on loading

Short Fuse

100% chance of adding a fire stack

Range reduced to less than 50 meters.

Secondary damage reduced to 0.

Adds 10 stacks of fire to your own gun over progression of clip
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Sprayer on July 16, 2014, 04:40:25 am
Feedback ammo

+15% Damage
No passive drawbacks

-Whenever a shot misses or something is hit against which the primary and secondary damage type have a damage modifier <1, the gun takes 2/x of its max hp damage. x is the clipsize.
-Whenever a shot hits something against which the primary or secondary damage type have a damage modifier <1, the gun takes 1/2x of its max hp damage. (overridden by first case)

Does not work with the flamethrower (or raycast weapons?).
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Canon Whitecandle on July 16, 2014, 12:05:56 pm
Even with the ammos we have now.  The gun and its damage types defines much of its role.  The ammo only augments their uses slightly.

I fear that if we completely change the role of each gun just because we have this or that ammo, then why bother looking at your enemy's loadout?  Why bother having different guns in the first place?  Ammo will become the defining element.
Throwing my opinion in on this, but that tends to extend match wait times. I've been sitting in completely full games in lobby for 5-10 minutes because the captains are hashing it out and changing loadouts to counter what the other guy is doing with crews rebuilding every minute or so. The strategy in GoI shouldn't be 'countering what they have', it should be, 'utilizing our ships as effectively as possible as a team'. It's a team-based ship combat game, and so each team needs to work with each other and not doing their own thing to counter X, Y, Z.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Kestril on July 16, 2014, 12:31:01 pm
I'd like to see ammo that changes damage types. It would give some variety and versatility, as well as open up more strategies. I really can't pop balloons with my junker, but if my gunner on the hades could change the primary damage to flechette, then I could have some balloon-popping utility. 

Ammo will not become the defining element, because the guns already behave and shoot so differently with different range bands. Changing damage type will just add some niche versatility in weapons.  Plus, you're sacrificing an ammo type that makes the gun shoot better or more effectively in order to gain that versatility. Sacrificing charged or burst or lesmok in order to have the ability for a manticore to deal piercing damage IS a tough call. But it would allow for some neat and interesting combinations. For example, I'd take a banshee carousel on my squid and tell the gunner to bring ammo that changes the primary damage to shatter instead of explosive in order to better disable engines.

It may not "fix" the gunner balance issue entierly, but it'll come a heckofalot closer than what we've got now.


Quote
Throwing my opinion in on this, but that tends to extend match wait times. I've been sitting in completely full games in lobby for 5-10 minutes because the captains are hashing it out and changing loadouts to counter what the other guy is doing with crews rebuilding every minute or so. The strategy in GoI shouldn't be 'countering what they have', it should be, 'utilizing our ships as effectively as possible as a team'. It's a team-based ship combat game, and so each team needs to work with each other and not doing their own thing to counter X, Y, Z.

I agree with that.It's no fun when it turns into rock-paper-scissors in the lobby. I've had public matches where I pick a galleon, and the enemy captian immediately goes artimis mobula or carronade squid. I pick spire, they go pyramidion. Junker? Whelp, they bring out the carronade-fish or a long-range lumberjack galleon. Ugh. No fun.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Ultimate Pheer on July 24, 2014, 11:56:29 am
I admit I'm not very well versed in the deepest intricacies of the ammo and how they work, and what's been tried or not, but I had a few ideas, only some of them serious.

Serious Ideas:
An ammo that repairs the gun it is loaded in over time
A buff to Lochnagar so that it is actually useful for something, maybe gunners take like, half damage to their guns from it
An ammo that gets extra shots per trigger pull

Less serious ideas:
An ammo that returns a shot to the clip if a shot hits
An ammo that makes shots that hit deal damage and keep going through whatever they hit
An ammo makes all shots hit instantly
Halving the accuracy of non-gunners/Doubling the accuracy of Gunners (Probably my worst idea of the bunch.)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dutch Vanya on July 24, 2014, 11:58:05 am
I admit I'm not very well versed in the deepest intricacies of the ammo and how they work, and what's been tried or not, but I had a few ideas, only some of them serious.

Serious Ideas:
An ammo that repairs the gun it is loaded in over time
A buff to Lochnagar so that it is actually useful for something, maybe gunners take like, half damage to their guns from it
An ammo that gets extra shots per trigger pull

Less serious ideas:
An ammo that returns a shot to the clip if a shot hits
An ammo that makes shots that hit deal damage and keep going through whatever they hit
An ammo makes all shots hit instantly
Halving the accuracy of non-gunners/Doubling the accuracy of Gunners (Probably my worst idea of the bunch.)
Some nice ideas here, but just so you know, lochnagar is already useful. At least in the Heavy Flak, Lumberjack & Mine Launcher
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Ultimate Pheer on July 24, 2014, 11:59:44 am
I'm aware some people have found use for it...

I've just never had a captain suggest using it on anything over, well, any other ammo.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dutch Vanya on July 24, 2014, 12:33:41 pm
I'm aware some people have found use for it...

I've just never had a captain suggest using it on anything over, well, any other ammo.
If you're a gunner, you don't need to take it over another ammo. That's the one good thing about being a gunner and having three slots for ammo.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: CitizenFry on July 24, 2014, 05:37:40 pm
I'd like an ammo that improves the rotation speed of the gun. Yes, I'm aware Heatsink does this already, but it has some drawbacks (lower muzzle velocity is the one I'm most concerned with).

I'd actually take this as an Engineer pretty regularly: I often find myself trying to sneak in a quick burst from a side flamer at a target that is in front or behind the ship, but it takes a lot of effort to turn the gun (particularly with the Lesmok most people insist on, but even with regular ammo).  The reduced range from Heatsink is a huge drawback on the flamer.


Unrelated suggestion: would be cool if one of the gunner tools you could carry would give you an aim assist, such as a predicted projectile arc. Would be immensely helpful for long range guns.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on July 24, 2014, 05:56:55 pm
Roulette Clip.

Loads the gun with a random ammo.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on July 24, 2014, 08:29:16 pm
Autofire Ammo

Once loaded, will automatically reload and fire the gun. With no gunner, it will only fire straight out, relying on the pilot to aim the ship.

-90% rotation arc (due to the gun having to be 'locked' in place)
+20% gun health.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Canon Whitecandle on July 26, 2014, 10:34:01 am
Autofire Ammo

Once loaded, will automatically reload and fire the gun. With no gunner, it will only fire straight out, relying on the pilot to aim the ship.

-90% rotation arc (due to the gun having to be 'locked' in place)
+20% gun health.

Special ammo can only be loaded in by a player, making this kinda thing useleess unless the autofire can reload itself with autofire, otherwise it's pointless and you might as well have a real gunner on the turret.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on July 26, 2014, 11:56:02 am
The point of new ammos are to change the behavior of a gun. This would do that. It is up to the devs to decide if it is worth doing. They already have admin commands to continuously fire and reload guns with no one on them.

The point of this ammo IS to reload itself. That was implied.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on July 26, 2014, 12:11:07 pm
Okay suddenly the ammo sounds interresting

But i feel like its the type of ammo that encourages more engineer play than gunner play.
For example, on a goldfish carronade. Place that ammo. And the pilot does the rest. While engineers keep the ship alive.

Same with a spire.


Could be awesome for guns like the mine launcher where it always lays mines behind a squid, or galleon.
But it removes a player handling a gun.

Then i suddenly see that a gunner can now man 2 guns in a sense. Depends on the guns.


But would it LOCK it in place of where it was looking? Or where it originaly should stay? Because to lock it in place of where it looked is -100% rotation.
While -90% rotation arc simply denies where it can aim so its locked in its original view.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on July 26, 2014, 01:09:03 pm
My original thought was to have it lock in neutral position, since gun ammos only have an effect while loaded, thus it would swing back to neutral center during reload. It would be interesting if it would lock wherever you were aiming once it was loaded, and remain there during reload. You could create a one gunner trifecta.

What if we gave it +10,000% ammo, 50% rate of fire, -99% rotation speed, and full clip firing (like Injection). That would give it pretty similar characteristics to my original thought, with no added coding or mechanics.

Also, from that another ammo idea:

Drum Clip

+1000% ammo

-30% rate of fire.

-30 rotation speed.

-50% recoil.

Slow-firing standard rounds from an extended clip mechanism. Large clip weight slows the gun turning and helps dampen recoil.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on July 26, 2014, 01:40:52 pm
Yeah i kinda want that 1 gunner trifecta thing to happen. Then engineers can engineer while the gunner guns.

But the idea of itself seems interresting where a gunner can operate somehow multiple guns. That is a very good step in the right direction.
It just sounds like a new mechanic needs to be taken place for gunners if they want to be more flexible around guns.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Canon Whitecandle on July 27, 2014, 08:19:15 pm
Helix Ammo:
Fires three bullets in a spiraling trajectory, at the cost of halving damage. If all three bullets hit you'll do 150% normal damage.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dutch Vanya on July 28, 2014, 12:06:41 am
Ammo that does what some people think heatsink does. Increase arcs (maybe at the cost of damage)
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Echoez on July 28, 2014, 02:41:56 am
Ammo that does what some people think heatsink does. Increase arcs (maybe at the cost of damage)

Give me something that can mend the carronade's horrible gun depression and I don't care if you even halve my damage :P
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SaintR.L. on July 28, 2014, 09:46:05 am
I suppose someone has mentioned de-buff ammo somewhere down the pages somewhere. I really don't feel like looking for a few hours though.

Ooh ooh and someone probably suggested something about ammo that slows down whatever it hits (guns, engine, balloonnas).

It'd be pretty amusing if there was ammo that could intercept bullets or projectiles - not that it would make any sense when implementing.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: redria on July 28, 2014, 10:28:15 am
My original thought was to have it lock in neutral position, since gun ammos only have an effect while loaded, thus it would swing back to neutral center during reload. It would be interesting if it would lock wherever you were aiming once it was loaded, and remain there during reload. You could create a one gunner trifecta.

What if we gave it +10,000% ammo, 50% rate of fire, -99% rotation speed, and full clip firing (like Injection). That would give it pretty similar characteristics to my original thought, with no added coding or mechanics.
Oh god the Pyramidions you'll see. You mean I can have my gat-mortar with 2 flame-throwers constantly covering my whole front-left arc with noone manning them? ;)

This would certainly encourage engineer play. Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but oh man this would be so broken. :D
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Ultimate Pheer on July 28, 2014, 10:21:23 pm
So, this is probably going to sound ridiculously overpowered, but how about an ammo that disables any part it hits for a very short time?

Guns can't fire, Engines stop providing thrust, the and the Balloon gets them stuck at where they are height-wise. Probably for a massive decrease in damage per shot, admittedly, and maybe a range reduction because can you imagine this on Flamers? There would be a new meta. And it would be fire.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Hoja Lateralus on July 29, 2014, 04:58:17 am
How about ammo that makes ship heavier? Like some kind of sticky glue-balls that stay on ship when they impact? Then you could tilt (list) a ship in some way or even make it go down a bit? Maybe it's more a gun idea than an ammo idea...
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on July 29, 2014, 10:11:07 am
So, this is probably going to sound ridiculously overpowered, but how about an ammo that disables any part it hits for a very short time?

Guns can't fire, Engines stop providing thrust, the and the Balloon gets them stuck at where they are height-wise. Probably for a massive decrease in damage per shot, admittedly, and maybe a range reduction because can you imagine this on Flamers? There would be a new meta. And it would be fire.
This gives me a slightly less OP idea:

EMS - ElectroMagnetic Shock ammo.

-100% damage
-100% fire chance
+X% chance to apply a variable number of "shock stacks" to the target.

Number of potential stacks applied would be based on the damage dealt by the weapon, and extremely low-damage weapons could have slightly reduced chance to apply a stack in addition to only applying one per hit (to prevent the Flamer or Gat from being too easily abused).

Being shocked would put items on cooldown for the duration of the shock effect (preferably below 2s even with maximum stacks), and engines and weapons would have secondary effects. Engines would provide 0 thrust while shocked, and light weapons would be unable to fire, while heavy weapons would be prevented from both firing and turning. Both can be reloaded normally.

The Flamer's low damage would mean a small probability of causing a stack, as well as only one stack per shot, but the rapid fire and the wide AoE (unaffected by the ammo) would help to keep it viable with this ammo. Likewise, EMS Gats would be relatively minimal effect per hit, but could be used to put large portions of the target ship on cooldown and stall repairs for a couple of seconds at a critical moment.

Lack of damage means you're relying on bifectas/trifectas pairing with the weapon, making it a great utility ammo, but less viable for direct combat.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mr.Bando on August 06, 2014, 07:35:20 am
Passive abilities don't work? What about if it takes up one of the gunner ammo slots? Gunners might only have 2 ammo choices but the passive 3rd will make them useful on a gun in a way that an engineer cannot be since they only have one slot.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mr.Bando on August 06, 2014, 07:41:04 am
When you're bored, you are boring.

Fireworks ammo.
-gun does no damage but shoots out pretty sparkly fireworks
-Different fireworks effects depending on gun loaded.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mr.Bando on August 06, 2014, 07:49:37 am
Battery ammo.

-does -20% damage of normal ammo
-must be charged. Either by keeping the ammo loaded in or a gunner tapping R to charge it up
-can charge up to do +50% extra damage
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on August 09, 2014, 08:33:10 pm
When you're bored, you are boring.

Fireworks ammo.
-gun does no damage but shoots out pretty sparkly fireworks
-Different fireworks effects depending on gun loaded.

Paid DLC only. I'd buy it. ;D
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SaintR.L. on August 10, 2014, 02:56:31 am
When you're bored, you are boring.

Fireworks ammo.
-gun does no damage but shoots out pretty sparkly fireworks
-Different fireworks effects depending on gun loaded.

Paid DLC only. I'd buy it. ;D
Guaranteed way to crash everyone's game, drop their fps to -10, and cause everyone to leave the match? Yes please.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on August 10, 2014, 03:13:42 am
Guaranteed way to crash everyone's game, drop their fps to -10, and cause everyone to leave the match? Yes please.

Oh yeah, because I remember that happening all the time over the July 4th weekend when all the ships exploded in fireworks.

Well, if you consider "never happened once that I saw" to be "all the time", I did. That's close enough, right?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Virgil Seimoor on August 11, 2014, 04:27:01 pm
I haven't read all the 16 pages of comments, so it might be already suggested.

Tracer rounds: Embeds it self into the target and produces light for a short time. Helps to find targets at night, in fog or sandstorm.
Marks the enemy for 30 sec on hit (like the spyglass).
-20% clip size or -20% muzle velocity.

Dirty ammo: Ammo filled with all the nasty stuff (tar, glue, etc.). On impact it shatters and covers the components of the machinery, making maintenance a nightmare. How ever the ammo is prone to leaks, so it makes the gun's maintanace just as miserable.
After hit it applies a debuff that reduces repair efficiency by 15% on modules struck for 5 second. Further hits just refresh the debuff, they do not stack.
-15% clip size, -50% gun rotation speed + the same debuff on the gun after the shot.

Shredder rounds: Ammo designed to properly smash appart and shred modules. The rounds are larger and heavier then normal.
When a shot destroys a module it applies a debuff that lasts indefinetly, reducing rebuild power by 25% on that module. (Spanner: 5-->4, Wrench: 4-->3, Mallet: uneffected)
-20% clip size, -25% muzle velocity

Short fused rounds: For guns that use ammo that has arming time. Fuse set shorter, for close(r) range combat.
-50% arming time for shots that have it (not by reducing muzle velocity).
-20% rate of fire, -10% damage, -15% gun rotation speed
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Crafeksterty on August 11, 2014, 08:06:51 pm
Mhh... that sparks up an idea.

A different condition type (Like fire)
Just that it makes repair cooldowns longer.

So if a gun is affected, and it gets repaired while it is affected, the cooldown is increased by 50%.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Ultimate Pheer on August 14, 2014, 11:12:36 am
I think I may have suggested this before, but how about an Ammo that heals the gun it's loaded in over time?

Or ammos with REALLY GOOD upsides, but which negate the effects of the buff hammer while they're loaded?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: pandatopia on August 15, 2014, 10:27:05 am
I think I may have suggested this before, but how about an Ammo that heals the gun it's loaded in over time?

Not really a reason for a gunner not to pop off and just repair the gun. Light guns take only 1.2 wrench hits, heavy guns about 2.5-3.5.

You lose negligible dps if you do this while shooting, and you lose zero dps if you do this while reloading.

The only ammo that needs to happen imo is having heatsink work if it is being reloaded...having the entire reload cycle be vulnerable really defeats the purpose of letting the gunner shoot while being flamered. We can have the 3 stack removal only happen after reload, but reloading with it selected should preserve the chemspray effect.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on August 15, 2014, 12:09:55 pm
Heatsink used to work like that back in the day, but that was at a time when weapons that were preloaded with an ammo that you didn't have equipped would auto reload if you mounted them... Since then the reloading mechanic has been completely changed and adding heatsink protection during the reload would be extremely difficult to implement (according to muse).
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Replaceable on August 15, 2014, 12:40:20 pm
not ammo but:
give gunner an extra repair tool
gunner would surely be used at least a little bit more?

either that make engis pacificists who cant stand to damage other ships, and/or can only use default ammo,
and/or since they are unskilled make them more inaccurate on guns?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: obliviondoll on August 16, 2014, 07:52:10 am
The only ammo that needs to happen imo is having heatsink work if it is being reloaded...having the entire reload cycle be vulnerable really defeats the purpose of letting the gunner shoot while being flamered. We can have the 3 stack removal only happen after reload, but reloading with it selected should preserve the chemspray effect.

Easiest way I can think of to somewhat improve this situation is to set a fixed-duration fire immunity on reload when emptying the heatsink clip. Make sure that duration is equal to or less than most of the shorter reloads in the game, and only the longest reload times will be risking fire kicking you off the gun during the reload.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mr.Bando on August 25, 2014, 05:50:44 am
Fragmentation rounds/Stacked ammunition/[insert other name here]:
+50% ammo in magazine
-25% damage per shot
Weapon now has burst fire mode of (10% of default magazine size) shots* per burst
Shots fired under burst fire is at +300% normal rate of fire
Delay between bursts is 50% of default ROF
Can add recoil reduction to reflect burst shots being more accurate

*Different guns with different ammo capacity will fire different number of shots per burst

Good for guns with lots of rounds in their magazine. Gattling first comes to mind but double tapping with light carronade is possible. Could be fun on the hwatcha.

Didn't really do much of the maths in my head, but the numbers can be tweaked with
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Mr.Bando on August 25, 2014, 06:12:41 am
Reinforced Ammunition

+200% on time to live on rounds
-33% projectile speed

Gunners reinforces all his bullets with duct tape and nails so they don't break apart so quickly and they travels further, but the added tape and metal increases drag and causes the rounds to travel slower.
Rounds lasting 3 times as long but travelling 33% slower should equal to net doubling of range of said gun.

Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Sprayer on August 25, 2014, 07:28:31 am
Would that work on raycast/hitscan weapons? I think those don't actually have a shell life.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: GeoRmr on August 25, 2014, 07:54:42 am
Wouldn't have in the past the same way lesmok didn't, should do now/they can make it work if they were to add it.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on August 25, 2014, 01:26:59 pm
I mentioned this a while back:


Anti-gravity rounds:

+[whatever it takes]% lift to make arcing rounds go up instead of down.

"What goes up must take them down."


However, I do not recall if I or anyone mentioned its sibling:

Depth Charge Rounds:

-20% lift, causing shots to drop much faster.
-40% velocity

"They are passing under us... let's make sure they stay there."

Normally, the velocity reduction would be in red, but in this case it adds to the ammo's functionality.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Queso on August 25, 2014, 02:12:56 pm
Fun fact, flamethrower operates pretty much identically to anti-gravity rounds.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Richard LeMoon on August 25, 2014, 04:09:03 pm
So adding Anti-G rounds would basically make flamers shoot straight up.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: SaintR.L. on August 27, 2014, 09:16:37 am
So adding Anti-G rounds would basically make flamers shoot straight up.
That actually sounds pretty fun. And very broken.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Nietzsche's Mustache on August 27, 2014, 12:13:29 pm
I saw there was an update to the dev app this morning and I thought I'd take a look at what's in there, aside from matchmaking which is a whole other topic, there are some new engineering tools and ammos that I think can make gunners more useful. I like dragon ash and would like to see that make it into the game, but that's not necessarily going to make gunner more useful. Mostly I'm looking at the shield buff tools and "armored rounds", I think. I could be mistaken with regards to how the shield tools work, but it seems to me a gunner could use that on the main gun to A) help keep the main gun from going down during merc/art assaults and B) allow a goldfish to ram without losing the front gun or make the spire a little bit more survivable.

I also want to take a moment to reinforce the idea that was brought up earlier about passive gunnery equipment. Something like an adjustable scope or joint/bearing grease. Those could make gunners a lot more useful in a lot of situations where a light gun only really benefits from 1 ammo type.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Queso on August 27, 2014, 12:56:17 pm
Any discussion of ammos and stuff in the Dev App should be in the dev app forums.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Goldenglade on September 13, 2014, 04:41:34 pm
yeah not suppose to openly talk about the Dev app..... keep that in the desired place.....
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on September 13, 2014, 05:30:07 pm
Rule #1 about Dev App: you do not talk about Dev App.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: CitizenFry on October 15, 2014, 11:49:18 am
Ammo idea: increases firing arcs for the gun it's loaded in. Engineers probably aren't sitting on a gun enough to make much use of this, but particularly for the faster-reloading heavy weapons (i.e. not hwacha) I could see using this as a gunner on a goldfish or galleon.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Wundsalz on October 15, 2014, 12:18:34 pm
increases fireing arc? What does that mean? increased muzzle velocity, decreased gravitational force applied on the projectile or something entirely different?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on October 15, 2014, 12:35:03 pm
I think it means turn the gun further than it is currently limited to. This would dramatically effect game balance since blind spot dancing is one of the skills that separate good pilots from great ones.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Wundsalz on October 15, 2014, 01:30:49 pm
ah, sounds interesting
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: CitizenFry on October 15, 2014, 01:36:08 pm
Yes, I meant turn the gun more left/right or up/down than normally allowed.

I think it means turn the gun further than it is currently limited to. This would dramatically effect game balance since blind spot dancing is one of the skills that separate good pilots from great ones.
Anything that's good enough to be used will affect game balance, that seems self-evident? How much it changes balance depends on the numerical parameters - obviously if it lets a gun turn a full 360 on any axis that's insane, and if it only increases arcs by 1 degree that's probably useless. I imagine there's an in-between where it's useful but not overpowering.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: HamsterIV on October 15, 2014, 04:01:27 pm
It certainly would be an interesting change, however the turn arcs of guns is one of the constants that other game play variables are balanced around. Imagine if a mobula could have three Mercuries shooting at a target or if a squid could get an easy gat/morter overlap. Pyramidion side mounted flares could overlap with the front guns. Altering the turn arcs of guns would shake the meta significantly as inviable weapon combos become viable.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: CitizenFry on October 15, 2014, 04:38:43 pm
I imagine there's an in-between where it's useful but not overpowering.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Wundsalz on October 15, 2014, 05:30:01 pm
Sure it will be rather hard to balance as a lot of builds revolve around and are restricted by gun arcs. And I think such an ammunition has got the potential to turn into a must have for certain guns/positions (e.g. easy pyra trifectas, junker front (or dual arte + hades with this ammo type), galleon beacon gun, squid...) but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. It has got the potential to unlock entirely new guns for certain slots - that's interesting.

additional 5°-10° or something relative to the normal gun arc (e.g. 10-25%) paired up with a hefty malus (e.g. fire-rate reduced by 50%)... I could see something along the line blend in well into the existing mix.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on October 15, 2014, 11:37:44 pm
Gun arc changes have already been part of the gun ammo tweak tests. Not on new ammo, but on existing ones. We won't ever see an ammo specifically for something like that, but you might see things like -20% gun arcs on say Lesmok.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Queso on October 16, 2014, 12:05:10 am
Coding that modifier was fun, mostly because of literal edge and corner cases. :D
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Wundsalz on October 16, 2014, 12:50:22 am
Gun arc changes have already been part of the gun ammo tweak tests. Not on new ammo, but on existing ones. We won't ever see an ammo specifically for something like that
why not? Is there a thread/post about it in the dev-app section?
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Milevan Faent on October 16, 2014, 09:00:57 am
Gun arc changes have already been part of the gun ammo tweak tests. Not on new ammo, but on existing ones. We won't ever see an ammo specifically for something like that
why not? Is there a thread/post about it in the dev-app section?

We won't see a unique ammo for it because it's probably going to be on 3+ different ammo. Muse isn't going to make a special ammo for it when they're already going to have it on that many different ammo types.
Title: Re: Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas
Post by: Dementio on October 16, 2014, 11:32:11 am
Muse isn't going to make a special ammo for it when they're already going to have it on that many different ammo types.

I didn't know you were an employee of Muse.
Jokes aside, "probably" is not 100%, whatever is in devapp can still change or be entirely removed.

I believe it would help the gunner a little to have an ammo type that specifically increases gun arcs, helping the gunner be more useful on more ships with specific loadouts, while engineers profit more from ammo types that increase dps or somesuch.