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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Weapon Upgrades  (Read 2321 times)

alexwtb234

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Weapon Upgrades
« on: August 12, 2019, 03:39:15 PM »

add the possibility to upgrade any weapon on star sector with fire rate and damage upgrades, for a price based on the gun BASE PRICE   40% of the weapon price.
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Plantissue

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2019, 04:22:17 PM »

Why? What's the point? Whether you would choose to upgrade all weapons, or be motivated to upgrade only certain weapons, it adds nothing to the gameplay, but problems.
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SCC

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2019, 11:13:01 PM »

There are already many weapons that can serve as upgrades from other weapons, even if not direct, and they are separate, visible to the player weapons you can play around. Certain weapons doing more damage than others just because is not a good idea. In addition, guns are laughably cheap. Making them a little bit more expensive wouldn't stop everyone from upgrading them immediately. Sometimes less is more.

Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2019, 11:46:50 PM »

There are already many weapons that can serve as upgrades from other weapons, even if not direct, and they are separate, visible to the player weapons you can play around. Certain weapons doing more damage than others just because is not a good idea. In addition, guns are laughably cheap. Making them a little bit more expensive wouldn't stop everyone from upgrading them immediately. Sometimes less is more.
Not just that but we also practically print money with colonies so a credit cost is a no go.
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alexwtb234

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Re: Plantissue
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2019, 10:45:11 AM »

Problems? i dont see problems on being able to upgrade your weapons, it also adds another reason to get money, to make you small machine gun do a decent damage instead of just generating flux and doing miserable damage .
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Plantissue
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2019, 11:29:36 AM »

Problems? i dont see problems on being able to upgrade your weapons, it also adds another reason to get money, to make you small machine gun do a decent damage instead of just generating flux and doing miserable damage .
One of SS's strengths is that you can glance at a ship and weapon and, once you get to know them well enough, be able to decently gauge the threat. With ship weapon upgrades, all of that goes out the window.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #6 on: August 13, 2019, 12:29:55 PM »

The problem with fire rate and damage upgrades is that if they're significant enough, they fundamentally change the weapon (making other, unique weapons obsolete); if they're not significant, why bother with them? Would it change OP costs? Why or why not? Lots of design questions to answer for no benefit that I can see. Weapons in Starsector just aren't that linear; a Hypervelocity Driver isn't a straight upgrade of a Heavy Autocannon or a Railgun, even though it's pretty clear it's a 'better' weapon than either of them.

There are already skills that improve weapon performance on a per-ship basis; improving weapon performance on a per-weapon basis would make inventory management a nightmare. Which of these eight stacks of Heavy Autocannons had the fire rate upgrade? Which one had the damage upgrade? Which one had both? To what degree? The inventory clutter would be incredible.

Keeping stuff like this as hullmods and skills keeps it manageable. If you really think these sorts of bonuses make sense in Starsector, consider maybe writing a series of weapon-upgrading hullmods in progression 1-2-3 that require each other, each one offering another incremental bonus over the last, but I think the game has plenty to keep track of just with skills, it doesn't need to have you tracking that kind of information per-weapon.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2019, 05:18:48 PM by Soren »
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xenoargh

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2019, 10:56:43 PM »

I'm in agreement with the critique of this.  While, at first glance, putting a credit-buyable bonus doesn't seem too bad:

1.  Eventually, if you figure out the gameplay, you'll be swimming in Credits.  I usually end my test runs around 5 million and start over.  There are lots of ways to get there now; you don't even need a Colony to get there.

2.  Therefore, you're going to do it.  To every single gun on every single ship.  It's just a matter of grinding-time. 

Now your fleet has significantly more damage potential; maybe it's not really 40%, because weapons miss a lot, but it's a lot higher than zero. 

This is boring gameplay; the guns are all the same but now they're super-duper for no particular reason other than spending credits.  You don't have to figure anything out and you don't have to have as much skill to play, just money.

3.  Seriously, if you just want OP weapons, there are tons of mods here that offer that.  Download them and enjoy watching all of the challenge of the game evaporate.  This isn't Dark Souls; nobody will care if you've decided to play a mod and enjoy being a Space God.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #8 on: August 13, 2019, 11:21:35 PM »

-snip-
3.  Seriously, if you just want OP weapons, there are tons of mods here that offer that.  Download them and enjoy watching all of the challenge of the game evaporate.  This isn't Dark Souls; nobody will care if you've decided to play a mod and enjoy being a Space God.
Ok, I'll ask: WHAT mods do you consider to have OP weapons and or ships?
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xenoargh

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2019, 11:08:56 AM »

I generally don't offer specific critique for mods here.

The current iteration of my balancing algorithm is an excellent starting-place to do your own analysis.  Simply make a new Sheet based on that one and run the numbers on your favorite mods and see what's going on. 

Use the weapon_data sheet as a starting-place.  I apologize for the other stuff that's in there making it a little hard to navigate.

I think that, after nearly two years, various initial failures and gradual refinement, the system I've built is actually not bad for understanding most issues of weapon balance.  I haven't felt the need to re-tweak in the last few months of testing with the specific conditions I was interested in.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2019, 11:10:36 AM by xenoargh »
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Oodle

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2019, 06:25:31 PM »

I think it would be cool to use story points to change mounts to synergy from base.
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SonnaBanana

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2019, 09:29:09 PM »

No, what we need are Remnant weapons just like Remnant LPC's.
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xenoargh

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #12 on: August 15, 2019, 11:17:53 AM »

Maybe a gun that shoots bees?
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RedHellion

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Re: Weapon Upgrades
« Reply #13 on: August 16, 2019, 02:08:39 PM »

Maybe a gun that shoots bees?

Yes, I agree that this game suffers from a severe lack of bees. A sudden influx of bee-firing weapons should fix that!
- Brought to you by Dr Bees
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