Call for Gunner Ammo Ideas

[Neithrantulre]

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.

[Milevan Faent]

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.

[obliviondoll]

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?

[Neithrantulre]

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.

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

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.

[Crafeksterty]

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.

[Milevan Faent]

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.

[Crafeksterty]

I know i just threw in the idea D:

[Kestril]

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.

[Neithrantulre]

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.

[Milevan Faent]

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.

[Canon Whitecandle]

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.

[awkm]

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.

[Dementio]

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.

[awkm]

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.