Ammunition as an Addition

[Shaker]

Criss pretty much said it all, if these weapons have no power cost to attack it will bring the game down to alpha striking. Players and im pretty sure the dev team are trying to draw fights out. If your current idea for ammo comes in, your going to see stealth fighters with insanely huge missiles being carried.

To expand on what criss had said, a 4th slot for weapons would have to be added for ammo, all current effects are included and the ammo slot would need its own additional effect, it could still have limited shots by say having to link ammo blocks to the computer that get used up as you fire them.

But in the future would we still be using limited stock ammo? Id doubt it, we are at the beginning stage of 3d printers! Surely in 10-20 years we will have miniatured down the size needed so we could all walk around with ammo clips like judge dredd!

 

[Broomsage]

Extremely limited alpha strikes anyway, each extra shot should weigh as much as the weapon that manufactured it. Stealth fighters with massive missiles would be totally awesome! But impossible.

You can already do what I'm suggesting in starmade but this would make it possible to do it with less space.
Logic missile spammers are fun, but take up a lot of space. You also cant lock on when using logic.
[DOUBLEPOST=1452529513,1452529204][/DOUBLEPOST]Thanks for the explanation by the way. I cant improve the idea if people don't elaborate on their ideas.

 

[Deserea]

Also, you need to have an option for "No, i dont want ammo in game" , or something similar, in your poll, otherwise it only shows the people who want ammo, and not those who dont, so its biased, badly.

Logic missile spammers take up very little space, i know, i have one on each of my ships, Missile/Missile logic systems for decoy missiles, one block each, and Missile/Cannon set ups facing forward so i can fire two weapons at the same time. You shouldnt be able to spam high alpha weaponry, period. The balancing of those is the reload, and removing that makes them totally imbalanced. Oh, but you say it takes time to make that ammo? Makes no difference. In combat, it shouldnt matter if you have ammo or not, purely for balance reasons. There is no reason for ammo to have any advantage over energy if it was to be added, especially one that big.

 

[NeonSturm]

So many ammo-threads…

I'd just like ammo and fuel to come together because that stuff is not much different from each other (thrusters use "fuel-ammo" or weapons using "fuel").

Also if "clips" are implemented for fire-patterns, it should be considered before designing the system. Easy-to-use and extendible with few blocks.

I think alpha-striker's role should also be considered.

You shouldnt be able to spam high alpha weaponry, period.

e.g: ion to pierce shield if weapon-damage > 1/2 shield, damage counts for the array-salvo, not a single projectile

Then you would need continuous weapons to lower the shield and then hit a high-alpha weapon before running (Death-ray anyone?).​

If you split that array, it's shield penetration ability is reduced by 1/n while retaining alpha-weapon penalty.

But maybe not if you fire them at once at a single target from a single ship (broadside anyone?)​

And the cost of fuel.

If a weapon drains 100% of it's own cost|mass EACH 1 second, it's completely different as if a weapon drains 10% of it's cost|mass in 10 seconds.
First should be balanced like explosives and alpha weapons, latter like more weapon blocks depending on ammo cost.
​

Also I think we should not penalize weapon groups more than "property*(0.99^n)" per entity.
I like a low number (maybe 5-9 main turrets to and as many bottom which also cover sides), but I want to penalize min-max-spam rather than those who desire it for the look.

 

[Deserea]

So many ammo-threads…

I'd just like ammo and fuel to come together because that stuff is not much different from each other (thrusters use "fuel-ammo" or weapons using "fuel").

Also if "clips" are implemented for fire-patterns, it should be considered before designing the system. Easy-to-use and extendible with few blocks.

I think alpha-striker's role should also be considered.
​

Ammo and fuel are already merged together, its called energy >.> I could get behind clips for fire patterns, but theyd still use energy, and not ammo, maximum size of the clip would vary depending on the type of weapons system applied.

a Cannon/Pulse set up could fire a volley of five shells for example, but, it would use energy for each round fired, and then it would have a very long cooldown, longer than a non clipped Cannon/Pulse, by a longshot. Alpha strike ships would have massive magazines, with very long reloads in between their volleys. DPS ships would have smaller, or even no clips, with a very fast reload compared to alpha ships, Solves both issues i think. You get the effect of having ammo, without actually having ammo.

 

[NeonSturm]

Ammo and fuel are already merged together, its called energy >.>

Energy is unlimited and sometimes feeds as fast as you can spend it.
Ammo prevents you from using the thing that powers your thrusters for weapons. By giving each part of your ship separate more efficient puffers for energy, you encourage design variety.

 

[Deserea]

Energy is unlimited and sometimes feeds as fast as you can spend it.
Ammo prevents you from using the thing that powers your thrusters for weapons. By giving each part of your ship separate more efficient puffers for energy, you encourage design variety.

Thrusters no longer use energy once you get going, so you dont have to worry about that much, anyways. It encourages more design variety either way. My system is a midway point for those who dont want ammo period, and those who do. Its nice not having to worry about ammo supplies in this game, i *love* the way the game uses energy for ammo. This isnt a real life space simulator, ive said that elsewhere too. This comes back to the why are we going backwards? we have a system in place that works, and works well(Energy for everything, and with the threads floating around asking for different types of reactors that do different things we may see some changes there sometime). We even have devs saying that it wouldnt work, Why do we want a system, that takes a bunch of time to reprogram everything, when we still have major systems what arent in game yet, that should have been in game by now, in alot of peoples opinions?


Not having ammo is one of the big things that separates this game from being a SE clone, id prefer it stay that way..

 

[NeonSturm]

This comes back to the why are we going backwards? we have a system in place that works, and works well(Energy for everything

Because it is boring when everything can do anything.

For those who want it, there should be the opportunity to min-max for a specific role, not for just pure damage or RP.
There should be some scissor-paper-sone to encourage tactical thinking. Not too much of it though or newbies will have a hard time.
​

It can make players dependent on factories or encourage other RP-stuff.

It is a sandbox game, denying this option gives a bad impression on the "sandbox"-concept.
Children in a Sandbox build castles or play pirates. Youth and adult in SM build StarTrek and WW-2 things.​

 

[Deserea]

Because it is boring when everything can do anything.
For those who want it, there should be the opportunity to min-max for a specific role, not for just pure damage or RP.
There should be some scissor-paper-sone to encourage tactical thinking. Not too much of it though or newbies will have a hard time.

And my system adds that in, the real problem is the weapons should have been modified when they increased the power regen cap to account for its new maximum, makes it far to easy to constantly fire off large damaging weapons, IMO.

You would have all three with this system i think

Alpha-DPS-Support/jack of all trades/(rp?)

each would have its place, each would be different,. would it use energy, yes, but, it would change how that energy is used. Youd have to have enough energy for your alpha weapons to go through the entire clip otherwise it triggers the reload(which is already long), and if the ship is built around its alpha weapons, it can save space and use it for other things once it has enough to use its weapons, say more shielding for example. For the DPS youd just have to have enough power to keep its weapons firing constantly, and the rest of the space could be devoted to something else.


Right now any ship can mount maximum firepower, but with the magazine system, youd have to be more careful, it would use energy to fire the shots(say you have a cannon/pulse set up that uses 2 million per shot, x5 = 10million per magazine x however many outputs you have, energy usage would go up quite a bit), and it would use energy to reload the magazines, how much i dont know, enough to be felt however.(would work with the crew system too, so you could have a crewman trained in magazines to reduce the energy used)

Could an alpha strike ship have DPS weapons on board? yes, but remember, its got a massive power drain from reloading the magazine of its alpha weapons, and i mean massive, so its DPS weapons couldnt be as big or as damaging, otherwise it wouldnt be able to reload its main weapons.

 

[Broomsage]

So what you want is basically the same thing, magazines, but with a power requirement. This is the same thing as my idea

Ammunition doesn't come free of energy cost, you need the amount of energy it takes to fire the weapon to manufacture surplus for it.
That means you would need a ton of power systems to manufacture more ammo during a fight.

You can restock when you aren't under attack more easily, but you have the freedom to build as big as you want.
I totally agree, because your idea is what I was getting at in the first place. Yes!

 

[Deserea]

So what you want is basically the same thing, magazines, but with a power requirement. This is the same thing as my idea

Ammunition doesn't come free of energy cost, you need the amount of energy it takes to fire the weapon to manufacture surplus for it.
That means you would need a ton of power systems to manufacture more ammo during a fight.

You can restock when you aren't under attack more easily, but you have the freedom to build as big as you want.
I totally agree, because your idea is what I was getting at in the first place. Yes!

It is however, different from your idea. Mine doesnt allow for surplus ammunition, which is the biggest problem i have with your idea, but essentially the same! :D and with no massive storage requirements!

 

[Broomsage]

Thank you! you have helped me refine several points for my argument. It is always helpful when people give constructive feedback.
This went from a concept that simply tried to avoid all the previous pitfalls in ammo discussions to a really substantive argument for a different way for weapons mechanics to be done.

Mine doesnt allow for surplus ammunition,

Though I do think that the power requirement when reloading should be separate for each shot, making it more difficult/impossible for alpha weapons to reload fully over the course of a battle. That's basically what the surplus concept was meant to achieve.

A storage requirement was meant to balance how many volleys you could have. A person could go overboard with storage but you could do that anyway. And mass is plenty penalty for trying to carry to much. The cargo and thrust updates really hurt ships without enough thrust.

 

[NeonSturm]

Calculate when the pattern is used first or after leaving shipyards:

decisionPoint = AVG_COMBAT_TIME /2 //– can be adjusted depending on ship weight ratios
relativeReload = pattern.reload / AVG_COMBAT_TIME
secondPart = pattern.length - decisionPoint

alphaBalance = sum: pattern.damage[ t <= decisionPoint ] * relativeReload
burstBalance = sum: pattern.damage[ t > decisionPoint ] * secondPart / (secondPart - t) //– Div/0 if t <= decisionPoint

return patternDamageMultiplier = pattern.totalDamage / (alphaBalance + burstBalance)

The formula respects:

1. Alpha damage counts if dealth the first part of an "averagely timed" battle.
2. Burst damage counts if dealth in the second part of an "averagely timed" battle.
   
3. The second part of a battle can be longer (multiply decisionPoint by weight/time ratio).
4. Burst damage counts less the more toward the end of a patter it's dealt.

Now you can apply patternDamageMultiplier to all shots of a pattern and get a balanced weapon.

​

 

[Broomsage]

Two part battles would also make for good boarding, the first part crippling a ship with alpha then second part being more tactical and in depth.

I'm not sure I like it being based on time, maybe count what percentage of armor and systems has been depleted?
I admit that I know nothing about java scripting. I can barely hello world in lua.

 

[NeonSturm]

I'm not sure I like it being based on time, maybe count what percentage of armor and systems has been depleted?

This is not what I meant.

The "average combat time" I meant was how long you need to deplete an enemy ship's shield and kill or disable it with common weapons.

 

[Broomsage]

That would definitely drag fights out, but what about fights with multiple opponents?

 

[NeonSturm]

That would definitely drag fights out, but what about fights with multiple opponents?

The combat time only depends on "relative mass differences of opposing sides" and "their chosen combat strategy" (offensive vs defensive or hit&run).
It may also depend on weapon configs which give either big or small ships more offensive or defensive power. (evasion belongs to defensive for small ships, group bonus offensive or defensive for big ships)

 

[Aridhol]

I personally love the idea of Ammo vs Energy weapons, and think that a distinction SHOULD exist between them...

Also I like the idea of replacing the effect modules with different ammo types.. Ion bullets for shields, Penetrating Rounds, Homing Missiles, you get the idea..

But as much as I do like the whole idea of ammo...

I'm much more interested in the idea of consumable fuel. I think that is a much more interesting gameplay mechanic and should come first. But that's just me, I guess

 

[NeonSturm]

I'm much more interested in the idea of consumable fuel. I think that is a much more interesting gameplay mechanic and should come first. But that's just me, I guess

You are not alone! As long as you see "thrusters as weapons with no projectile and thrust by recoil/push-effect-on-self", you can implement both at once and consistently.

 

[starhaiden]

I would prefer having fuel or ammo that stores about 50,000 energy and costs about 75,000 energy to make. The ammo could be used when the ship doesn't have enough energy, allowing a small ship to fire weapons that consume more than it's power storage.