We have always had a lot of requests to add more weapon types to 'fill in' gaps in the available loadout lineup.
Some of them eventually got added to the game, and became useful additions.
But what if such requests were no longer nescessary to fill in gaps, because the game gave you the ability to do so yourself?
What if you could make your coveted 800 range HE ballistic medium by modifying an existing weapon?
Consider the following:
In order to modify a weapon, the player would first need an example of that weapon in thier inventory (or storage).
Then they would need to apply a 'tuning package' to that weapon.
Such a package would be similar to a design spec for a hull mod except that it cannot be learned, only applied to a weapon.
They could be found in ruins, salvage, and maybe very rarely available in markets.
The package itself would indicate to the player which specific attribute of the weapon it will improve, but it
will not give any indication of what other attributes will be compromised in order to achieve that.
(The packages will have thier exact attributes determined when they are generated, so save scumming will have no effect.)
Possibly the biggest factor will be that such tuning packages can only be used once. They are consumed by the process.
Possibly the simplest way the player could 'combine' these two items is to drag one onto the other.
The resulting 'tuned' weapon would then have to be marked in some way so the player could identify it easily. A simple small coloured shape overlayed in a corner might work (also might look awful).
Such a weapon also needs to be identified when installed on a ship.
If the player drags a single item onto a stack (or vice-versa), a single instance of that weapon is modified.
If the player drags a stack onto a stack, the tuning process is completed repeatedly until one of the stacks is gone.
This leads a fairly major downside. Using this method of modifying weapons will require a seperate inventory/storage slot for each instance of a weapon, as they will all have different attributes.
The process works okay for a single use, but is less than great as numbers increase. Clutter is not good.
There could also be the possibility of recovering pre-tuned weapons from salvage, which might be a good way to attract the player's interest.
Possible tunable attributes:
- OP cost
- Flux Efficiency (only for weapons which generate flux)
- Shot Range (burn duration for missiles)
- Shot Speed/Beam Extend Speed
- Fire Rate/Cooldown
- Damage per Shot
Additional possibilities if this isn't enough:
- Traverse Speed (can only be increased - cannot be a dump stat for hardpoints)
- Tracking Speed (only for homing weapons)
- Recoil/Spread
- Charge Count (only for weapons with charges/ammo - more expensive if weapon doesn't have native regeneration)
- Charge Rate (only for weapons with charges/ammo - not applicable if weapon doesn't have native regeneration)
If this process sounds too arbitrary and random for your taste, there is another means to achive a similar result...
Dispense with the packages entirely, and instead have a colony building (either new or existing) enable some form of 'workshop' function which would allow the player to directly modify a weapon to thier tastes.
However, much like the packages above there will be an associated cost of improving one aspect of a weapon - other attributes will have to be sacrificed.
I imagine such a workshop UI would be a set of sliders, with the chosen attribute to increase separated & coloured green.
With all the other attribute sliders together & coloured red.
Increasing the green slider will create a number depending on how 'valuable' that attribute is.
The AI will then automatically adjust the red sliders to equal that number in some 'default' pattern that will produce a useful result. With each red slider having its own 'weight' depending on the relative value of that attribute.
The player will then have the option to alter this however they wish - so long as the numbers balance.
When satisfied, the player can then confirm and produce a single instance of that weapon to use however they wish.
Some usability suggestions might be:
- Being able to apply tuning to multiple weapons simultaneously
- Being able to give/show a weapon to the workshop in order to duplicate its tuning on another weapon of the same type
At this point, you could have the workshop produce blueprints for modified weapons. Which is a possibility.
But personally, I think having this ability be confined to what the player personally controls might make it feel a bit more 'special' than an addition to an opaque industrial process. I may be wrong tho.
In all probability, this is an awful idea that requires far too much effort. But its at least somewhat fun to contemplate.