On the other hand, this would be a really good tradeoff, to balance Energy weapon damage vs kinetic dmg. But it would require a restriction of Capacitors or Generators per size class imo. Apart from that, i think that idea could work.
maybe if different weapons looked different and not just resized same model with a different barrel but alphas gonna alpha, there is stuff that needs updates more like weapon system that makes sense
I don't know if this is still a thing, but i'd like to add a little input from my side regarding to Ships and amount of availlable Weapons. (Speaking purely as a builder and Single player, so PVP guys just don't read any further. ) Why not make the availlable amount of weapons (Turrets and fixed ones) depending on the ships size class? Also this could be combined with a more free weapon choice too. Let's use CVs for example. Size class 1 would have space for 100 points for weapons. Size class 2 has 150, size Class 3 has 200 and so on (numbers are arbitrary, it's just an example.) Each individual weapon has also a fixed price and can be installed if there's enough free points availlable. Let's say a plasma turret costs 50 points, a mingun Turret costs 25 points and so on (numbers are again completely arbitrary here). When building a ship, you could add weapons in a much more flexible way, instead of having to install weapon types you don't want to use anyway. Also a bigger ship would have a more suited amount of weapons, instead of having exactly the same restrictions as a ship with only the fraction of its size. EDIT: I'm sorry if this has been suggested before.
It'd be a better system than the current hard restrictions system, certainly, but I'm wary of tying the points to class size (given how similarly sized ships can have radically different classes). I'm more in favor of a physics-and-fire-control-computer-based solution, where the combination of the weapons' mass and size, and a pool of points made available by one or more fire control devices serve to limit the number of weapons, regardless of ship size.
Like the Idea but Ship Size can be artificially boosted. Make a Porcupine Ship. It would also mean a Large Cargo freighter that is totally hollow could have more weapons than a battle ship.
All I know is that I miss being able to tout 21 Rail Guns. Funnily enough, post-Weapon Rework it'd now be bullshit hard trying to keep 21 Rail Guns actually Ammo'd for any extended engagement. 21 Homers could be a awful sick puppy. Sadly Max Weapon Count band aid fix probably isn't going anywhere till the Devs figure out how to go about Homer countermeasures that'll tempt me to go back to Rail Guns... even though there's no point in them having a Max Range in Space of 800 Meters when I can't even see how to aim at something 800 Meters away worth a damn... Also it'd help if Rail Guns got to be Hit Scan.
Good point, but wouldn't that turn the freighter into a Battle ship? The freighter would be totally vulnerable compared to the battleship and way less maneuverable. Making it a giant glass cannon. Also what's the definition of a Freighter and a Battle ship to begin with? Where does one beginn and the other one end? The problem is not to find a good system for weapons IMHO. It is the nature of the game itself, where you can build basically anything, without having some sort of physical or technical limitations that distinguish between a freighter and a Battleship which also prevents ppl from building some sort of rediculus PvP abomination. The thing that comes to my mind would be Energy generation. Engines and flight control are way too cheap (energy wise), also Defensive systems should play a role in this. I don't think there's a way to prevent ppl, from trying to cheat or to exploit the game system by building rediculus creations. I think such a behaviour shouldn't be seen as a standart and the game shouldn't limit everyone's game and creativity just because of some ppl. most players will never see in their game. The problem are not the rules, but some players imo. To me such a system should make sense and feel natural. Tying Ship sizes with some sort of weapon pool would be my way to go.
How about a Fire control system. The default could be x weapons (defined by the cockpit, BA's would need a Command Center) This would be the soft limit of a HV/SV/CV/BA Different cockpits/command centers could have different weapons soft limits. Ship/BA Class Size,Block Count and Mass could effect this soft limit of a cockpit/command Center. Additional weapons could be added via a fire control system. More weapons means more fire control blocks, more weight and more energy consumption. Fire control block energy usage has an exponential power curve. (balance algorithm) This would also mean if a fire control block is destroyed the weapons assigned to it would become non functional. Usage Each cockpit/command center/FCB has X assignable weapon slots (balance factor) Each slot can have one weapon assigned to it Game Balancing The Mass and Size of FCB can be Adjusted as a primary option The Power Draw Curve can be adjusted as a secondary option IF power draw is exceeded weapons could become sluggish Additional cockpits Non main Cockpit can't have weapons assigned to them (No doubling the soft limit) Additional Cockpit do have access to change FCB weapons configurations Combat tactics This become a component that can be damages and thus you can loose partial weapons control. This May be Expanded to allow for weapon groupings on the hot bar. The more FCS blocks you have the more susceptible you are to loosing weapons. Bonus feature If a fire control block is destroyed a pilot or co pilot can reassign weapons to slots to get priority weapons back online.
Would there be still similar restrictions to each weapon like there is now, only expanded by fire contol units? Or would the system be flexible enough to use more laser turrets in exchange of Cannon turrets for example? Would it be more like a point /buy system, expanded with each additional fire control unit?
You would not have hard limits, totally Flexible. You would have Weapon Slots they can be assigned any Weapon system Fixed or Turret. You could limit some weapons by making them use more than one slot. So a T1 Sv Cockpit may be limited to 6 weapon Slots. These could be any weapons of choice. If I wanted to add more weapons I could add a FCS this may give me 4 extra slots at the cost of Space, Mass and Power. My Extra Weapons Would be assigned to it. If that FCS gets damages i loose the use of those weapons. This mean i added more weapons but gave myself a critical hit location in the process. EDIT The only real hard limit would be the system thats running it. This is why i added a multitude of balance options. These can be used to tweak a severs max weapons, The Exponential power curve of FCS gives the illusion that you can have unlimited weapons but its gets costly to exceed the servers recommended max.
So it would ultimately be a matter of how much power a ship/Base can generate. I like that! Finally some use for all the MW those T2 Generators produce.
Weapon kits. Dont like. Dont make sense. I want to be able to create my weapons without the need to find them. That being said, I still want to see rare exotic weapons that can only be found and not created. This rewards the player for scouting and exploring or attacking POIs. There finally needs to be a difficulty setting that allows both player and enemies to take more damage. That way I can play hard difficulty without having to spend 1 million bullets to kill something. Perhaps values that can be tweaked before starting a new game. Enemy health, player health. Basically I want to play a game that is hard but not requiring me to grind bullets all the time. Something this simple will add a lot to the game play for me.
I agree the weapon kits are a joke. They are a bad game mechanic to entice explorations. I would rather they encourage exploration through quest, story mission, vanity items(Bragging Rights, trophies that can be crafted and displayed, special textures, alien pet on a leash.). PoIs are a good place to put any of those. I disagree about Epic Loot it just invalidate anything you can build. I prefer different loot not replacement loot. Something Like Alien loot (Different from Human not Epic) Make alien tech that uses a general purpose energy pack. These pack can not be crafted by human technology. Alien booster need these energy packs to function in our human armor Alien weapons all use the same energy packs (no specialize ammo). Alien weapon are energy based and use a blaster type attack similar to Star Wars If you want to use alien weapons and booster you need to find alien weapons/booster/energy packs from dead aliens/drones/PoIs. Aliens do not supply any type of human ammo anymore. Alien pack have limited stack size. This means they will consume your personal inventory space As all alien tech uses the same energy pack you could run out quickly. Alien Tech can't be repaired and will eventually degrade slowly. ========================================== As for keeping things more rare fix the durability system First all human armor and weapons can be crafted. You Must use an armor locker to change armor (no magic wardrobe in your pocket) Higher tiers should be resourced locked. Loose the epic found in alien PoI's junk, See Alien Tech Above I believe there should be multiple methods of repair. Each with there pros and cons. Repair stations can be built on BA/CV fully restore weapons and armor to there current max durability. Does not fix lost max durability.(represents part fatigue) Weapon/Armor repair kits(can be crafted) can repair a weapon/armor while in the field but they can't do a complete repair these kits will cause durability max to drop. Limited stacks they can be costly to carry Each kit works for a specific weapon/armor. Durability loss could be reduce if skills were implemented, aka Field Mechanic, Weapon Maintenance or Armor Specialist So if you want to keep your weapon/armor in pristine condition never use a weapon/armor kit and bring it to a base for service. If you have extra weapons/armors they should be able to be converted into repair kits ( break down for parts and retrieved ammo from weapons, specific kits for each armor/weapon) This should be available to the player anywhere. Lastly and this is optional. When you die your equipped gear and the gear in your action bar takes a max durability hit.
Some great ideas here. I would only argue that an armor locker being the only place you can change armor doesnt make sense. Any safe atmosphere should be a decent location to take off the helmet and change the armor. Inventory space management would be a different discussion and I dont like the idea that you can carry a billion things. There are some great ideas out there on how to solve inventory management in a way that makes sense and doesnt create a pain for the player.
I agree if they ever implement a proper player combat inventory system then the armor locker would not be needed to change suits. I would still have the armor locker used to configure a suits subsystems if full Armor Customization was implemented.
Yep. If non-building materials had mass in player inventories, very few people would lug around multiple spare suits.
Indeed. It would give new meaning to leaving inventory in vehicles while pickout the loadout for the task. They would just need to find a way to make transferring loot to vehicles something easy and not grindy. I can think of a handful of ideas to solve that but in general the idea that I like best is to keep the large inventory at the vehicles while forcing the player to think about his loadout and what he wants to take from the vehicle and what he wants to leave at the vehicle.
I'd like to throw in some thoughts. I'd like to suggest the introduction of special heavy energy Weapons for CVs and BAs. As previously mentioned, they could be fed by energy capacitors. But instead of having their number limited by the size of the ship or base, what about have just two (on CVs) or three (on BAs) but with different strength (Bigger CV/BA = more capacitors = stronger beam)? I know this sounds like almost the same, but it would decrease strain on each players computer a lot, especially in multiplayer fights. Just imagine something like the late Stargate spaceship weapons. Have them very few big turrets that can fire every 3 seconds, for example at the enemies shield facing. With a little luck you can hammer one facing down to either disable or destory the enemy ship. The important thing about them would be that they have a much higher range and damage output, than the turrets we already have. (at least in space.) Their drawback would be their poor accuracy against SVs. They would basically be pure CV - CV and BA - CV weapons, but almost ineffective against SVs (that's when "conventional" weapons come into play). But Space should be where CVs and BAs rule anyway. HVs and SVs strength should be planetary atmospheres, but that's just my opinion, i guess many ppl. will love to disagree. Heavy Energy weapons on the other hand wouldn't affect that balance anyway, since they would only change how BA and CVs fight in space. The reason why i'm proposing this is because the current weapons in game seem to be ok for SVs and HVs in a planetary atmosphere but a CV - CV or CV - BA space battle at max 800m distance is just weird and somehow implies or suggests that the game is only about SVs (which i hope is not).
I like the idea of slower firing weapons that do more damage. This gives the SV a chance to dodge. The way that you balance out roles is to stop and think about the roles that these different class ships need to perform. For example, an SV shouldn't be expected to puncture through the hull of a CV. At most they can carry 1 torpedo that can do severe damage but to carry 1000 missiles is bizarre. The role of an SV should be well rounded or made specific to certain tasks. If there is ever a real economy, and real energy consumption vs weight you are going to see things fall into their proper roles. Ground vehicles would serve the purpose of carrying heavy luggage, packing a punch and mining, while SV would serve the role of strafe runs, exploration and infiltration. A CV is basically a floating base. Although a CV should be allowed to enter a planet's atmosphere it should cost a lot to do so. Some atmospheres should be absolutely dangerous to enter and therefore a specialized SV type shuttle should do the trick. An SV should also be allowed to carry ground vehicles. My thoughts on balancing these roles out, as you can see, has more to do with proper weight, energy, and economy.
