Lochnagar Special Effects

[redria]

Lochnagar is an amazing ammo type. In about 4 weapons in GoIO.
In a heavy flak, you can deal one shot of amazing damage with almost no arming time. Lumberjack can wreck balloons even at close range with loch loaded. Heavy carronade shreds everything. Mines deploy at absurdly close range.
In just about anything else, it breaks your gun with little to no upside.

It seems silly to me that there is an ammo type that is detrimental for almost every gun in the game.
My thought, and one that others have mentioned/agreed with me on, is why not make lochnagar have unique properties per gun?

Looking at guns with little to no upside, and with all changes retaining the projectile speed, arming reduction, gun lock, and damage bonus, here are some potential changes to make lochnagar potentially useful in every gun:
         Manticore: Shoots a clip of 8 rockets, dealing a total of 75% damage to the gun.
    Flamethrower: Instant shotgun spray of 100 fire particles in a 90 degree cone before breaking the gun.
         Light Flak: Clip size of 2, dealing 95% damage to the gun per shot.
              Hades: Clip size of 2, dealing 95% damage to the gun per shot.
             Gatling: Instant shotgun spray of 40 bullets in a 45 degree cone before breaking the gun.
             Mortar: Clip size of 4, dealing 49% damage to the gun per shot.
Light Carronade: Instant shotgun spray of 2 rounds in a 45 degree cone before breaking the gun.
            Artemis: Clip size of 1, dealing 95% damage to the gun per shot.
          Banshee: Instant shotgun spray of 4 rockets in a 30 degree cone before breaking the gun.
          Harpoon: 250% damage increase instead of 150%, and does not attach a line from the gun to the hit ship. Single shot breaks the gun.
               Flare: Clip size of 1, flare illuminates clouds as it passes through them, but it is not stopped by clouds, allowing it to continue past a cloud. Single shot breaks
                        the gun. Gun does not begin reloading until rebuilt.
           Mercury: ...I can't think of anything right now.

Obviously this would make the game more complex for beginners. But it is a complexity that is less punishing than the simple statement right now that lochnagar on a light gun is almost always the worst possible decision.

Comment and let me know what you think. It will almost certainly not happen, but it is nice to dream and think up a balanced set of unique effects. ^.^

[Coldcurse]

Lochnagar in a flamethrower is a bit stupid indeed. As you suggested, making it act like a shotgun, it will be more usefull.

[The Djinn]

I rather like this idea, but I think you could standardize it pretty effectively.

Lochnagar

• -50% Clip Size (minimum 1)
• 150% damage per shot
• -60% arming time
• +1000% fire rate (gun empties completely upon first firing)
• Deals 250 damage to the gun upon use

This gives us the normal effect on the Carronade, Mine, and Heavy Flak while also boosting guns like the Gatling, Flamethrower, Hwacha, and...well...everything else.

It gives you the same return on every gun save guns with only 1 shot: 75% of the estimated full-clip damage, but as instant or near-instant burst damage. It is now useful for instant armor shredding, rapid killing of low-hull ships via the light flak or mortar, and several other niche uses.

Thoughts?

[Omniraptor]

We had something like this in dev app and it was deemed op.

[The Djinn]

We had something like this in dev app and it was deemed op.

I remember that. Without going into too much detail about Dev App things, I'll just point out that the ammo change I suggested actually deals less damage than a full clip would normally deal (coming in at 75% of a clip's normal damage total, with the only real advantage being lower arming range and burst over sustained damage), while, if I recall correctly, the Dev App suggestion dealt more damage over the course of the clip (among other things).

That's a pretty major difference.

[redria]

I rather like this idea, but I think you could standardize it pretty effectively.

Lochnagar

• -50% Clip Size (minimum 1)
• 150% damage per shot
• -60% arming time
• +1000% fire rate (gun empties completely upon first firing)
• Deals 250 damage to the gun upon use

This gives us the normal effect on the Carronade, Mine, and Heavy Flak while also boosting guns like the Gatling, Flamethrower, Hwacha, and...well...everything else.

It gives you the same return on every gun save guns with only 1 shot: 75% of the estimated full-clip damage, but as instant or near-instant burst damage. It is now useful for instant armor shredding, rapid killing of low-hull ships via the light flak or mortar, and several other niche uses.

Thoughts?

I really like that.
This would also make predicting your opponent's movements (and your own) as a gunner even more vital, since basically your entire clip is going into one aim. If you miss that shot, you miss your entire clip, have to rebuild your gun, and have to reload ammo.

The biggest danger would be to low armor ships, as a gat-mortar loch combo could insta-shred armor and leave you exposed to an instant burst of mortar damage. Mortars do enough damage in a single clip that I'm pretty sure the 75% damage from a full clip would still kill most ships.

Fighting a loch ship would be horrifying and fascinating. You die in seconds or they disable themselves and you get a minute to set up and destroy/disable them.

Attack squids would become more viable: rush in and loch down armor and hull.

I would love to test something like this. Maybe it would be OP. It just feels like lochnagar gets no love, and right now there really isn't any reason to give it any in game. It is mostly useless outside of a few guns. Hmm. Loch lumberjack would be horrifying.

[Spud Nick]

I like the idea of making lochnagar useful on light weapons but I'm not sure if every gun needs to be effective with every ammo type. Turning the gatling gun and flamethrower into shot gun blasts with loch sounds cool tho.

[macmacnick]

Attack squids would become more viable: rush in and loch down armor and hull.

I would love to test something like this. Maybe it would be OP. It just feels like lochnagar gets no love, and right now there really isn't any reason to give it any in game. It is mostly useless outside of a few guns. Hmm. Loch lumberjack would be horrifying.

Lochnagar lumberjacks are horrifying if used correctly.



Gilder would be ecstatic if he got his attack squid to be more viable.