Read by Schine Ammunition as an Alternative

[Keptick]

Ammunition should not have to be manufactured using resources. The use of resources is what makes the whole ammunition thing controversial in the first place.

So, have current weapon groups be used only for the manufacturing of ammo out of energy, like the current setup. But instead of only producing one projectile and then having to cool down, the weapon continues to produce ammunition until all cargo blocks linked to it are full. All ammunition can be expended at the highest rate of fire until there is no more surplus.

How would that be any different to the current system??? What you're suggesting would be almost identical to power regen and capacity...

 

[Broomsage]

It is balanced differently, It uses the same energy requirements but also uses cargo as a way to store excess munitions for immediate usage. Say you have a cannon pulse linked computer, you can store ammunition and fire it at the rate of a cannon cannon linked computer until there are no more excess munitions

 

[kookster]

It would be awesome if say at a station you could make 10 million damage missiles and then load them on a little strike fighter. Might just be a little over used if you could do this.

 

[starhaiden]

An extra shield could be added that is resilent against energy based weapons. Like some sort or deflector sheild.

 

[whooplaah]

I've said this before elsewhere, but I like to place my opinions in the currently active threads.

I suggest that:
All weapons use ammo. Cannons need a photon matrix, Beams need refraction crystals, Missiles need thermal-cores, and Pulse needs kenetic-resonators. The more damage a weapon does, the more ammo it consumers per shot. More thermal cores makes a more explosive missile, and more refraction crystals focus more light into the beam, etc.

All effect modules also need ammo. Ion clouds, kinetic dampeners/amplifiers, overclock modules, etc. which are consumed according to the size of the effect module system.

It is sci-fi, so we can make up cool sounding names for these things even if they don't really make sense, right?

Any effect module that runs out of ammo stops functioning. Passive effect modules either consume ammo over time or when used, depending on what they do. Any weapon that runs out of ammo stops working. Ammo containers can't be shared by weapon systems. So if the big missile system runs out of charges, it cannot borrow ammo from the small missile system directly - you have to use logic systems to move the ammo to the correct containers. Blindly firing is now no longer a good idea, meaning that there is now more benefit to having small and agile ships.

Resource management like this adds siege options to a game. A station and capital ship will eventually run out of ammo, making it a prime target for smaller ships. If you dodge long enough, you will have the advantage. If you cripple supply lines, you will eventually cripple combat ability (even for ships already constructed).

This can also be used in the discussion of immovable station vs. mobile station. If ammo counts are a thing to consider, and ammo can be crafted in factories, but factories don't work on moving ships, then a station has a huge tactical advantage when defending itself which might make up for the station's inability to dodge.

Of course, we have to decide if there will be a basic weapon that rely's on energy rather than ammo, for those few situations where you are completely out.

 

[Lecic]

An extra shield could be added that is resilent against energy based weapons. Like some sort or deflector sheild.

Wouldn't ammunition based weapons already be stronger? What's the point in making energy weapons even WORSE?
[DOUBLEPOST=1452214996,1452214742][/DOUBLEPOST]

It is sci-fi, so we can make up cool sounding names.

How about "no"? Devs have said they want people to make up their own lore, so how about we NOT go down the route of having a bunch of faux science mumbo jumbo again?

Resource management like this adds siege options to a game. A station and capital ship will eventually run out of ammo, making it a prime target for smaller ships. If you dodge long enough, you will have the advantage. If you cripple supply lines, you will eventually cripple combat ability (even for ships already constructed).

Unlikely. A larger ship can hold much more ammo, and would likely NOT run out.

I don't think ammo should replace the current weapons by any means. These days, the only ammo I'd be interested in is some sort of conversion of the warhead system into an actual weapon.

 

[whooplaah]

Unlikely. A larger ship can hold much more ammo, and would likely NOT run out.

Here's an example of how I think it would play out.

Let's take a Capital Ship with two sets of cannons. It has a large cannon array for dealing with other capital ships, and a small cannon array for dealing with fighters. Shooting from the Anti-Capital uses up 1,000 ammo every shot but shooting from the Anti-Fighter only uses 1 ammo per shot.

So when the Capital Ship is fighting another Capital Ship it will use the big guns. Because it is consuming ammo quickly and fighting a ship that has a lot of HP it is possible that the ship will run out of ammo.

When the Capital Ship is fighting a Small Fighter ship it might choose to use the big guns. If it does, then it will only take one hit to kill the Fighter. However, hitting a fighter is a lot harder than hitting a capital ship and every time it misses it throws away a lot of ammo. It could run out of ammo using the big gun just as if it were fighting another capital ship, and an agile fighter has a better chance of surviving long-term.

The other option would be for the Capital Ship to rely upon the smaller weapon systems. This will allow it to keep shooting for a longer period of time (effectively forever), but at the same time each shot will do less damage to the Fighter. This also gives the fighter a chance of surviving longer.

In both cases the relationship between capitals and fighters is more balanced.

 

[Lecic]

Here's an example of how I think it would play out.

Let's take a Capital Ship with two sets of cannons. It has a large cannon array for dealing with other capital ships, and a small cannon array for dealing with fighters. Shooting from the Anti-Capital uses up 1,000 ammo every shot but shooting from the Anti-Fighter only uses 1 ammo per shot.

So when the Capital Ship is fighting another Capital Ship it will use the big guns. Because it is consuming ammo quickly and fighting a ship that has a lot of HP it is possible that the ship will run out of ammo.

When the Capital Ship is fighting a Small Fighter ship it might choose to use the big guns. If it does, then it will only take one hit to kill the Fighter. However, hitting a fighter is a lot harder than hitting a capital ship and every time it misses it throws away a lot of ammo. It could run out of ammo using the big gun just as if it were fighting another capital ship, and an agile fighter has a better chance of surviving long-term.

The other option would be for the Capital Ship to rely upon the smaller weapon systems. This will allow it to keep shooting for a longer period of time (effectively forever), but at the same time each shot will do less damage to the Fighter. This also gives the fighter a chance of surviving longer.

In both cases the relationship between capitals and fighters is more balanced.

And then the fighter does... what, exactly? Its guns aren't strong enough to hurt the capital in any meaningful way. Hell, any smart capital builder probably has a beam or lock on missile weapon for taking down those pesky "look at me I can dodge you!" fighters, probably mounted on numerous small, agile turrets, anyway.

This doesn't change anything, except occasionally put two ships in an awkward situation where they realize they're both out of ammo and need to limp home in their damaged ships.

 

[Nickizzy]

Say you have a cannon pulse linked computer, you can store ammunition and fire it at the rate of a cannon cannon linked computer until there are no more excess munitions

Or you can shoot 10mil nukes 10x a second. Make a limit how many charges it could hold( a hard cap).

 

[Broomsage]

Make a limit how many charges it could hold

It is balanced differently, It uses the same energy requirements but also uses cargo as a way to store excess munitions for immediate usage.

So no you cant shoot 10 mil nukes a second , well you can but you can only manufacture them at the same rate as the missile's cooldown time.
AND you would need storage capacity for that many. requiring storage is why this post is in the ammunition thread.

 

[Deserea]

Surprisingly, i agree with Lecic here..it wouldnt effect anything at all, except for making people make bigger ships to store massive amounts of overkill ammo. Even if you put a limit on them, that limit would have to be for each individual computer, and players would just make more weapon groups, to store more ammo, thus changing...nothing..

depending on the server, if that server is set up so its storage allows for far more per block, cargo wouldnt effect anyone at all, so they could have unlimited ammo. My ships are covered in enough anti fighter turrets as it is, that pesky fighters /arent/ a problem, so in that scenario nothing would change, my beam turrets, which im assuming wouldnt have ammo to begin with, shred fighter, leaving my bigger guns still free to focus on the bigger ship.

 

[Broomsage]

You are right this changes nothing, it only adds a highly customizable feature that scales perfectly with current weapon systems
Ammunition shouldn't change anything regarding weapon power and people don't want to have to make ammunition in a factory.

-adds functional ammunition without disturbing balance and it is the only way to have weapons require ammunition without a huge logistical effort
-adds more options for customizing weapon systems which is something everybody enjoys

Are there any flaws in this idea? (I want to refine my argument and your input is appreciated)
Is this in the wrong thread, because I'm suggesting ammunition as an addition not an alternative?
Should I make a new thread for this? (This is basically research, I am making a new thread)

 

[Groovrider]

Ammo in starmade needs to be about systems that interact with systems. in light of that:

Ammo is 2 blocks: Ammo computer and module.

The module block has two states: filled and spent.

An ammo computer is a primary weapon block that can have slaves and tertiary effects.

When connected to a ship groups of ammo weapons appear on the hotbar.

When connected to logic systems the weapons can also be fired.

Firing an Ammo group cost significantly less power than the equivalent solid state weapons.

When fired, that weapon group is now spent and cannot be fired again until it is reloaded.

Reloading can happen with an on board ammo cargo blocks (one storage chest per computer) or when connected to a shipyard with a new Reload Ammo for entity X button.

___

Ammo blocks can be refilled with Ammo Material.

This comes in 3 types: Basic, Standard and Advanced.

Basic does basic damage, is easily crafted but easily resisted. it is the lightest ammo type

Standard does standard damage but is heavier and more costly to produce.

Advanced does advance levels of damage but weighs a crap-ton and is expensive to produce.
___

Thanks for listening.

 

[jgames666]

I'm somewhat against ammo because starmade is a scifi game. Why do we think that future civilization/s are going to use ammo instead of a more renewable resource? Logic dictates that ammo would be an outdated source for weapon firing mechanics. The only way I see adding this in is if it is a cheaper, and weaker form of firing than using energy. to make it cheaper than energy would be difficult, but I think if you let shields block ammo fire, and if ammo is very cheap the system outlined below may be a neat addition to using power as ammo. Also, this will allow for smaller vessels to have more shields or power by using ammo instead.

Ammo in starmade needs to be about systems that interact with systems. in light of that:

Ammo is 2 blocks: Ammo computer and module.

The module block has two states: filled and spent.

An ammo computer is a primary weapon block that can have slaves and tertiary effects.

When connected to a ship groups of ammo weapons appear on the hotbar.

When connected to logic systems the weapons can also be fired.

Firing an Ammo group cost significantly less power than the equivalent solid state weapons.

When fired, that weapon group is now spent and cannot be fired again until it is reloaded.

Reloading can happen with an on board ammo cargo blocks (one storage chest per computer) or when connected to a shipyard with a new Reload Ammo for entity X button.

___

Ammo blocks can be refilled with Ammo Material.

This comes in 3 types: Basic, Standard and Advanced.

Basic does basic damage, is easily crafted but easily resisted. it is the lightest ammo type

Standard does standard damage but is heavier and more costly to produce.

Advanced does advance levels of damage but weighs a crap-ton and is expensive to produce.
___

Thanks for listening.

 

[Shaker]

Another ammo thread...
If they waste their time on this, please oh please make it a toggle on the server options.

Making weapons use ammo and then wanting to scale ammo use with the size of the weapon is going to limit players to using the maximum size. Say your starting out and it turns out you use 1 ammo for cannons up to 10 blocks, your not going to make 5x4 lots of cannons to make a little xwing, your going to bolt on 10x2 cannons to use up less ammo.

Slowly taking the freedom of play that makes this game great

 

[MacThule]

+1

It will foster weapon balance; lasers & pulses clearly would be exempt from ammunition which would help compensate for their high power draw and limited range. Cannon variants would obviously require ammunition, but probably relatively small amounts, so that they could still fire pretty heavily. Missiles, rockets & torpedoes (Missile-pulse combos) are pretty storage intensive IRL & in other war-game systems; facing this capacity challenge in Starmade would seriously offset the current OP status of missiles (most OP of which beaing the super-fast, super-long-range, super-hard-to-PD, super-high-damage Missile-beam - unquestioned god of all Starmade weapons). Mega-nuke 5M, 10M, 30M dmg missiles would be far more balanced if they couldn't be spammed cost-free with infinite ammo.

I think using a modified version of current Cargo Space Modules would accomplish this very easily.

1. Make Ammo blocks generic, at least to begin, to streamline the dynamic and keep it simple. Easy.
2. Require all cannon & missile master computers be linked to at least one Ammo block to function.
3. Allow multiple weapon master comps to link to a single ammo block (as a feature of generic ammo), so a single Ammo group could supply all ships weapons if desired.
   
4. Give each Ammo Space Module a volume capacity identical to the cargo capacity of a single block.
5. Every shot fired by any cannon or missile linked to ammo drains a small volume of ammo based on the particular Master-slave combo, primary array size, and percentage of slave.
6. Prohibit weapon from firing if linked Ammo has insufficient current capacity.
   
7. In weapons window (formerly "T" now "G") show each weapon's current/max (remaining over maximum) shot capacity in addition to current stats. Or show an Ammo remaining percentage, or just show the current/max volume linked to that weapon - anything works as long as we can see it in Weapons.
8. Give Ammo blocks an effect maybe half(?) that of warheads - AOE explosion when hit with any direct damage (build armored bulkheads around those ammo containers, folks).

*This system would yield provide an additional edge to weapon effects, since they would require no additional Ammo to operate than would a non-effect counterpart with the same Master-slave weapon specs. I believe this is mete, since special-effect weapons require advanced production and engineering techniques and more resources to build at first.

What I don't know about is re-supply. Should ammo refill whenever a ship docks anywhere? Only at friendly stations maybe? Should it be a shop feature like armor repair? Should it be factory produced from materials? Many approaches to this would work - I think I'd favor manufacturing it from real materials over magic ammo bought at shops, but that might have to come in a later iteration of ammunition.

 

[kiraen]

It amuses me to no end that people want ammo, but become hostile at the mere suggestion of a hunger system.
Yeah, let's feed those guns. Wouldn't want them to starve or we'll be defenseless. :p

(The same goes for fuel)

 

[Shaker]

Haha, hunger would be a massive annoyance when the crews come out. Have to beam up some space cow's to feed the family

 

[Lecic]

Haha, hunger would be a massive annoyance when the crews come out. Have to beam up some space cow's to feed the family

Hunger would be a good mechanic for keeping NPC crew alive, actually. It'd encourage people to control planets or stations outside their HB, if crops had some diminishing returns on them as the fields grew in size.

 

[Nickizzy]

+1

It will foster weapon balance; lasers & pulses clearly would be exempt from ammunition which would help compensate for their high power draw and limited range. Cannon variants would obviously require ammunition, but probably relatively small amounts, so that they could still fire pretty heavily. Missiles, rockets & torpedoes (Missile-pulse combos) are pretty storage intensive IRL & in other war-game systems; facing this capacity challenge in Starmade would seriously offset the current OP status of missiles (most OP of which beaing the super-fast, super-long-range, super-hard-to-PD, super-high-damage Missile-beam - unquestioned god of all Starmade weapons). Mega-nuke 5M, 10M, 30M dmg missiles would be far more balanced if they couldn't be spammed cost-free with infinite ammo.

I think using a modified version of current Cargo Space Modules would accomplish this very easily.

1. Make Ammo blocks generic, at least to begin, to streamline the dynamic and keep it simple. Easy.
2. Require all cannon & missile master computers be linked to at least one Ammo block to function.
3. Allow multiple weapon master comps to link to a single ammo block (as a feature of generic ammo), so a single Ammo group could supply all ships weapons if desired.
   
4. Give each Ammo Space Module a volume capacity identical to the cargo capacity of a single block.
5. Every shot fired by any cannon or missile linked to ammo drains a small volume of ammo based on the particular Master-slave combo, primary array size, and percentage of slave.
6. Prohibit weapon from firing if linked Ammo has insufficient current capacity.
   
7. In weapons window (formerly "T" now "G") show each weapon's current/max (remaining over maximum) shot capacity in addition to current stats. Or show an Ammo remaining percentage, or just show the current/max volume linked to that weapon - anything works as long as we can see it in Weapons.
8. Give Ammo blocks an effect maybe half(?) that of warheads - AOE explosion when hit with any direct damage (build armored bulkheads around those ammo containers, folks).

*This system would yield provide an additional edge to weapon effects, since they would require no additional Ammo to operate than would a non-effect counterpart with the same Master-slave weapon specs. I believe this is mete, since special-effect weapons require advanced production and engineering techniques and more resources to build at first.

What I don't know about is re-supply. Should ammo refill whenever a ship docks anywhere? Only at friendly stations maybe? Should it be a shop feature like armor repair? Should it be factory produced from materials? Many approaches to this would work - I think I'd favor manufacturing it from real materials over magic ammo bought at shops, but that might have to come in a later iteration of ammunition.

Just make the ammo storage thingies simple storages, craft ammo in basic(?) factories with composite and mesh, and make it explosive and heavy on your ship, and I'll love it!(More)

Please make it configurable in server.cfg or something though.