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Author Topic: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition  (Read 24589 times)

arcibalde

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #45 on: March 20, 2013, 12:00:44 PM »

OR remove ammo counter so player can't see how much ammo he got left  ::)  (for ballistic)  That way he can't (effectively) abuse resupply mechanic because he wont know how much ammo he got left in all ballistic weapons.
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Psigun

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #46 on: March 20, 2013, 02:16:24 PM »

How about when a weapon reaches 0 ammo it enters an extended period of reloading during which it is disabled and does nothing. When it finishes reloading it has maximum ammo again. It could be varied weapon to weapon. Total ammo capacity would probably need to be lowered as well.
Already suggested - the issue with that is that then you'd have times when you need to "game the system" - namely, fire those last three bullets in order to start the reloading process.  Which just feels wrong.

I tried to think about the issue before reading all replies so I'd have an uninfluenced take on it which is why I suggested something already suggested- apparently I just had the same idea as someone else. :) If ammo storage capacity was significantly shrunk, and reload times weren't that long, then I don't think it'd be worth it for people to game the system.
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RawCode

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #47 on: March 20, 2013, 06:01:26 PM »

As for flux:

Any ship's core is special physics violating endless source of power, more energy you drain from it, more it produce, this explain how flux works.

As soon as it start to produce more energy then your ship can handle, ship go overload and core shutdown.

Ballistic weapons produce lot's of heat, without active cooling they will melt after very fer shots, active cooling require energy and any anergy consumption speedup ship's core.
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CopperCoyote

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #48 on: March 20, 2013, 06:41:26 PM »

In universe DRM dictates so many aspects of life; so why not have it dictate reloads too. Say for example there are 5 magazines per total ammo amount. Why 5? Arbitrarily chosen just like adding drm. Once 1/5 of the total ammo is used it is refilled and when there is a bit of a lull in firing it is added back to the total ammo count.

The small amount of missing ammo would hardly incentivise gaming the system, and if the lull was as little as 10 seconds it'd be easy to stay nearly full. It doesn't even have to be 1/5. Any sufficiently small fraction would do. 1/8 or 1/16 would play nice with the expanded magazines for example. So long as its smaller than a quarter.

Little off topic:
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There is a fascinating threshold between 4 and 5. Most people can easily understand and visualize up to 4 things at once, but once it gets bumped up to 5 the time and brainpower it takes to visualize becomes substantially higher. Not long enough to matter in day to day activities, but long enough that in a stressful situation its better to just round to the nearest 1/2 1/3 or 1/4.

The reason i suggest smaller than a quarter is because that's the amount people can relate to and feels like an amount worth worrying about. Some people may still want to have a perfectly full magazine for any fight, but so long as the ammo isn't displayed as a graphic (like the cargo capacity) then it will be less likely to play to anyone's bar filling tendencies.
[close]

How much is ammunition planned to affect CR in the first place? My guess is not very much. If each fight is planned on dropping your CR by about 20% initially then a few extra percentage points from fully emptying your ammo more than once will scarcely matter. Furthermore if the fight was that hard then you'll have probably suffered some damages any way.

My minor concern is the combat reloads will take some of the spotlight off of the big strengths of energy weapons: endurance. Perhaps limiting the combat reloads with direct supply usage (like with fighters) is beneficial. Possibly in addition to the potential CR loss after the battle ends. This would shift the strength of endurance to the campaign level instead of combat level, but if you're way out in the sticks using energy weapons has some strong incentives.
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zakastra

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #49 on: March 21, 2013, 02:44:21 AM »

My suggestion is a combination of several earlier posts, it runs like this:

Ammo counts can remain approximately the same as the current implementation or perhaps perhaps lower, but no less than 50% current maximum.
After 5-10 of seconds of not firing a weapon will have "Cooled down" and then begin a reload. After 1-2 seconds "Relaoding" a "chunk" of ammo 5-20% of max capacity will be added to the ammo count. This takes place regardless of how full the magazine is.
This will repeat until the weapon is fired, or max ammo count is reached. This is checked per weapon, independently of groups. Whilst the weapon is "reloading" it may still fire, and this will not interupt that particular reload, but no further reloads will take place until after the next "Cooldown". Reloading can take place when venting, but will take palce at a 50% slower rate

This should allow for a ballistics armed ship to fight indefinately, provided it has sufficient breaks between engaments, but if it is continuously surrounded or engaging the oposition it will run dry, forcing a loss of firing time to reload at some point, and making a retreat to re-arm a meaningful decision in large engagements, without encourgaing kiting to much, it would also allow say a conquest to "switch broadsides" to re-arm, if the enemy fleet is slow enough.
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RawCode

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #50 on: March 21, 2013, 03:24:15 AM »

window of opportunity shoud be at least 10-20 seconds, if enemy ship start reloading, this situation must be usefull, weapons must be disabled and no ability to cancel instantly shoud be provided.

If you noticed enemy ship start to reload it's main guns - its time to attack, if weapons still can fire or reload can be instantly canceled, no usefull tactical situation is created, only one more reason to kite like crazy
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VerifiedN

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #51 on: March 21, 2013, 03:24:30 AM »

Isn't all this getting a bit complicated?

I think ammunition for ballistic weapons should simply regenerate, but at a very slow rate (1 per sec for PDs, 1 per 3 secs for small, 1 per 8 secs for med, 1 per 20 secs for large?). That'd be balanced by the natural in-combat CR decay and not need any additional penalty. Possibly require zero flux at most.

Reasoning being that ammo-using weapons would come with a very small, self-maintaining autofactory that produces ammo and feeds it directly into the weapon's magazine.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2013, 03:54:59 AM by VerifiedN »
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Gabrybbo

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #52 on: March 21, 2013, 05:22:25 AM »

Isn't all this getting a bit complicated?

I think ammunition for ballistic weapons should simply regenerate, but at a very slow rate (1 per sec for PDs, 1 per 3 secs for small, 1 per 8 secs for med, 1 per 20 secs for large?). That'd be balanced by the natural in-combat CR decay and not need any additional penalty. Possibly require zero flux at most.

Reasoning being that ammo-using weapons would come with a very small, self-maintaining autofactory that produces ammo and feeds it directly into the weapon's magazine.

It's pretty much the same thing i proposed, but that has already been suggested and shot down:
Also already suggested. With that, you'd run into situations where you'd want to turn off 1 gun within a group for it to reload but not be able to- consider if you have 2 forward-facing PD guns and an enemy at the front. Both would run down at the same time- so ideally, you'd like to be able to reload 1 at a time whilst the other covers you. Same for if you have multiple forward-firing autocannons, say, and the break to reload them lets your opponents vent. Groups aren't really granular enough for that.

And i have to say that he's right, that situation will probably happen sometimes and you'll be annoyed by it.


This is all getting a bit complicated, do we really have to take out the current system? A simple "here's how many bullets you can fire, have fun!" is good enough for me, i don't think i really want a new reload mechanic to think about while a lot is already happening around me.
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theSONY

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #53 on: March 21, 2013, 12:17:14 PM »

This is all getting a bit complicated, do we really have to take out the current system? A simple "here's how many bullets you can fire, have fun!" is good enough for me, i don't think i really want a new reload mechanic to think about while a lot is already happening around me.
+1

& remove any handicap/penalty from the battle (balistic/missile) cuz this is getting more frustrating than ... umm ... i dunno well it be frustratig, Alex said that CR will bring more strategy to the gameplay , well to bad that only the player have to think about penalty (CR) not the Ai
as for me i like shooting rockets & its like arrows in medieval times ,so why i/you/we suffer from using them  ?

IF ammo must be reloaded make it full AUTO at 1/3 of magazines, so the ship can deffend itself but when kep on being preassure it will have some trouble shooting ( i know i know this was alredy brought up ;) )

the whole CR thing succesfully cool me down with the next release ,  i was thinking that will be next systems or new daiolog options or whatever, but this ? ;/

but i think i will hold up with my judgment till next ver (like we all )
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Psigun

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #54 on: March 21, 2013, 07:35:11 PM »

Isn't all this getting a bit complicated?

I think ammunition for ballistic weapons should simply regenerate, but at a very slow rate (1 per sec for PDs, 1 per 3 secs for small, 1 per 8 secs for med, 1 per 20 secs for large?). That'd be balanced by the natural in-combat CR decay and not need any additional penalty. Possibly require zero flux at most.

Reasoning being that ammo-using weapons would come with a very small, self-maintaining autofactory that produces ammo and feeds it directly into the weapon's magazine.

I think the issue with just straight regenerating ballistic ammo is that it is the same thing that weapons with charges do. It starts becoming redundant in my mind, when you have supposedly different weapons systems operating the same way in all but name.
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icepick37

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #55 on: March 21, 2013, 09:21:12 PM »

Well the main difference is in specialization of damage type. So everything else is just kind of fluff.
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Aethelric

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #56 on: March 22, 2013, 05:27:55 AM »

Exactly, there's no reason for ballistic weapons to be treated dramatically different than energy.

The key differences right now are damage type and the flux overload damage bonus for energy weapons.  Making using ballistic weapons more difficult to use is effectively a nerf; making them more complicated is making them less optimal or attractive.
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Aozora7

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #57 on: March 22, 2013, 05:38:30 AM »

Why not add a magazine system where ballistic weapons have XX rounds before they need to reload? This will differentiate them from energy weapons and add a new mechanic.
Regenerating ammo is just too lame.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2013, 05:44:13 AM by Dissentient »
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ValkyriaL

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #58 on: March 22, 2013, 05:48:27 AM »

Well, the guns in the game kinda reload themselves all the time, since they have gun feeders and auto loaders and such, they have a set supply of ammo and when its out, can't fire no more.
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Jovus

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Re: Ballistic Weapons & Ammunition
« Reply #59 on: March 22, 2013, 07:50:05 AM »

My other suggestion is just to jump on the bandwagon of infinite ammo. I like depleting ammo leading to another tactical choice, but it would be fairly easy to say that ships carry 'enough' ammo for 'any' engagement, and that the process of reload and resupply of ammunition between fights is adequately mirrored by the CR mechanic.

I'm very against something complicated. This game is already at the sweet spot of complications, and I think Alex has done a very good job weeding out complication for its own sake and recognizing the difference between getting to make a choice and being forced to manage something you don't care about. I hope (and expect) he will continue in the future.
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