I've noticed a couple of these come up in the past, but wanted to toss them out here again. Even something as simple as a 'template' released from official sources could clear up these issues really quickly:
BEFORE WE BEGIN, A WORD OF CAUTION!!If you are perfectly pleased with how Starsector is now and where it is going, please refrain from continuing further. Please. Don't even read it. Go elsewhere. Your purity, fervor, and unshakable dedication to the cause is.... well... better used somewhere far, far away.RECOIL - Not only does it need to be clear to the players exactly what this does, and which weapons do it, but I've yet to see it expressed graphically either.
- Recoil - (of a gun) move abruptly backward as a reaction on firing a bullet, shell, or other missile
Recoil is a rearward force
Muzzle rise is a CONSEQUENCE of poor recoil, and leads to instability.
Game already has 'accuracy' (with no stat attached, of course). So if we mean the weapon loses accuracy over extended firing... call it that, not 'recoil', please.
PROJECTILE - This word is craaaazy vague.
- Projectile - a body projected by external force and continuing in motion by its own inertia especially : a missile for a weapon (such as a firearm) 2 : a self-propelling weapon (such as a rocket) projectile.
Is a bullet a projectile? Of course!
Is a beam a projectile? Nope!
Is a blaster bolt a projectile? Ummm...
Is a missile a projectile? Well, yes, but...
How about lightning bolts?
Yeah. Gotta clean this up. Players should be able to navigate their bonuses, not have to guess.
ENERGY - Because this is used both to describe a CLASS of weapons (MOST of which fire something that does Energy Damage) and a type of DAMAGE (Mostly done by Energy Weapons) it can lead to confusion in technical descriptions and bonuses.
- Energy - the property of matter and radiation which is manifest as a capacity to perform work (such as causing motion or the interaction of molecules)
- or a degree or level of energy possessed by something or required by a process.
You don't ACTUALLY have to call the class anything at all. There could be 3 classes of weapons, or 20, as long as the hard points know the difference... the names are immaterial. They could be dedicated PD mounts. Or whatever. There's just no necessary reason to use the phrase twice without a purpose!
'Energy' as a DAMAGE type is then further subdivided by Beam or not. That part's not bad... odd... but it works. A damage sub-type? Buuuuutttt...!
The beam subtype seems to be able to be applied to anything!
So, a weapon that does energy damage may not qualify as an Energy weapon, and an Energy Weapon may not do Energy damage, or may do it in a modified Beam form.
..... yeah...
TRACKING - This one is a bit more subtle
- Tracking - follow the course or trail of (someone or something), typically in order to find them or note their location at various points.
"secondary radars that track the aircraft in flight"
Funny enough, we TRACK missiles, but missiles don't have 'tracking', nor do they 'track', they have 'guidance'... or turn rate.
PD weapons have turn rate, which makes sense as pure turret movement. But! When a turret is moving to specifically follow a target... we call it tracking! **laughs**
Now, this is definitely one of those jargon/English/weird ones. But there's enough tangled up in it... AND the stats in question are ALREADY suuuuper vague... there ends up being a stumbling over one's own feet. Still, I find myself surprised that these little artifacts are still lying around.
AND LASTLY!All of these issues would becomes LESS severe (it's up to you to decide their severity in the first place) if the weapon stats listed on pop-ups changed dynamically. Then there's an immediate feedback system of 'Oh, it says it increased tracking, but you meant turn rate? That's the only numbers that changed'. But without dynamic weapon stats, these little stumbling blocks have to be inferred, ignored, or taken out and tested individually.