Rather than having a predefined 12 guns in the game, with 3 variants of an assault rifle, 3 variants of a sniper etc. you should implement a borderlands 1 style gun system where parts can be crafted and found. Each part gives modifiers to the gun attributes. A complete gun will need: - A gun body: this will define the projectile type, i.e explosive, bolt action, semi automatic, fully automatic, burst fire, or other futuristic types i.e energy, electricity, fire etc. It will also define magazine capacity. - A gun barrel: this will add modifiers to the accuracy, recoil, range, damage and stability. - A gun stock: this will add modifiers to the accuracy, recoil, range, damage and stability. - (optional): A gun sight: This will add range modifiers and certain abilities, i.e thermal scope, heart beat sensor, target lock etc. This gives you the option of expanding upon the guns in the future if you want to dedicate more development time and resources to it. i.e the body being broken down into the body, magazine and trigger. Pros: - An exponential number of weapon choices with an element of RNG and reward for creating powerful gun combinations from rare parts. - Adds more of an incentive to raid POI's and visit certain planets. - Adds more items to NPC traders. - Adds more loot options to NPC kills. - Gives players the ability to build and play the game as they want i.e sacrificing damage and range for insane rate of fire, or sacrificing recoil and stability for a high damage and high range weapon. - Adds new crafting recipes and options into the game and a new way to use rare metals and components. - Gives you the opportunity to add new technologies on to NPC's i.e fire resistance, meaning your amazing gun body is not very effective in this fight thus you need to have an alternative or lots of ammo and health. Cons: - Greater cost of effort to implement. (Would be easier in the long run to add new guns as one part would mean an exponential number of new combinations). - Players *can* create overpowered weapons, however I don't see this as much of a problem as if you're able to find several rare parts then you should be rewarded. (modifiers do also counteract this as you might make a really powerful gun body mean that no armour can be worn when using it). My gripe with the game in its current state is that its easy(ish) to obtain the upgraded weapons and once you have them, that's all you have for the rest of the game, there's nothing new. Its not very deep in that regard.
