An effective and efficient replacement for slaving and active effects in weapons 2.0

[YamiHikari]

INTRODUCTION
With the release of Power 2.0, most of the effect modules were disabled, making them fairly useless at this point. The current weapon slaving system has its own limitations, with only a few options for weapon customization. Once the new weapon update comes in, a lot of aspects regarding weapons are going to be changing. I propose that one of these changes be the weapon customization system.

BASIS
My proposal utilizes the weapon computers (or possibly a new computer) to create an interface for weapon customization that draws inspiration from Reactor Chambers. However, this system will not require chamber blocks or use a tree system for the upgrades. Instead it will just use the computers.

COST
The first issue that should come to mind is cost. How is the game going to prevent players from obtaining super powerful weapons right from the get-go? Instead of requiring large-scale block placement, I came up with the idea to compress the system into an internalized storage system within the computers individual weapon modules. The number and type of items you store in the computer have available in your inventory determines what upgrades you can make.

ITEM CONSUMPTION
Each upgrade option will require a specific number and combination of items in order to be used, which will scale up proportionally to the number of weapon modules linked to the computer. This will, of course, likely require the addition of new items to the game in order to accommodate the feature. Upon selecting the option, the items required for its activation are "consumed." However, these items are not permanently lost, as they return to your inventory upon removal of the upgrade. The exception to this is on the occasion that the computer is destroyed. Should an upgraded weapon computer be destroyed, all consumed items are lost (makes for a neat penalty that prevents instant replacement of the computer). Thanks to NeonSturm, I now have a better option for the item storage. Instead of placing the items in the weapon computer and then consuming them for the upgrades, the items will be directly taken from the player's inventory and stored in the individual weapon modules. Then, upon destruction of those weapon modules, the items stored in the modules for the upgrades are permanently lost.

INTERFACE
The weapon upgrade interface will likely appear in the form of a list of icons, colored green or red to indicate whether item and available space requirements (discussed later) have been met, each of which with the following information appearing upon highlight: upgrade name, upgrade description, current level, max level, item cost per level, present amounts of required items. Each icon will also have a number in the bottom right corner of it to indicate the current level of that upgrade, with an absence of a number indicating no upgrade.

UPGRADES
The upgrade options would all be individual features, as opposed to the Weapons 1.0 bundled stat changes. The options would be things like "Increased Primary Damage" (to increase the damage amount of the weapon's main damage type) or "Multiple Projectiles" (I'll be mentioning this again a little later). There will also be various technical upgrades such as "Increased Projectile Speed" and "Decreased Recharge Time," as well as adaptations of the effect modules' functions.

CHANGING DAMAGE TYPE
There will also be some interesting new upgrades that stem from the introduction of damage types: repurposed damage. Basically, this new system would give the player the ability to re-allocate the type of damage a weapon causes. This would, of course, be within certain limits to prevent the player from just firing three sets of missiles that each do massive amounts of one of the three types of damage. My assumption is that the maximum re-allocation would fall around 20% of the main damage type's damage value. Whether or not this re-allocation will scale with damage upgrades, I am not sure.

LOCK-ON AND HEAT-SEEKING
In addition to the damage re-allocation, I also would like to separate some of the linked traits of weapons, mainly the lock-on and heat-seeking functions. First, the lock-on function will be separated into probably three levels, which will be mild homing, moderate homing, and then full-on homing. This would open up more options for other upgrades as opposed to always getting full lock-on. And then comes heat-seeking. Heat-seeking is nice with the swarmer missiles, but I feel it might be nice to have this option with single missiles as well (just for the fun of it). I also like the idea of traditional lock-on swarmers. So separating the heat-seeking function (which will also be separated into three levels and need to be mutually exclusive to lock-on) from the swarmer function would also be a nice change in this new system.

CAPACITY AND BALANCING
Lastly comes the balancing portion of my proposal, which will be the most difficult part to carry out. This is where the system is most like Reactor Chambers in that it has a set capacity, which is taken up by the addition of the upgrades. The Upgrade Capacity cost of each upgrade will need to be heavily reworked to find a good balance for the final system, and will definitely need a lot of feedback from the community, but if all goes well, this system could possibly become a huge improvement on Weapons 1.0 combat. The key to this is that there is no possibility for a capacity upgrade, so once you reach 100% there is no going over. The purpose of this is preventing exploits, because we don't want crazy people flying around with ridiculously-upgraded weapons that deal max damage at max speed with minimum recharge time and full lock-on capabilities. Like the chambers, the purpose of this is SPECIALIZATION, not the ability to upgrade as much as you can. If there is not enough space left for an upgrade, you will be unable to add or level up the upgrade.

CLOSING NOTES
I'm putting a lot of thought into this suggestion, and I want as much relevant and constructive feedback as I can get, because this could play out incredibly well if done properly. Please feel free to comment.

 

[NeonSturm]

With this suggestion, I'd like weapon modules act as storages for your items.
Computers would be indestructible and walk-through for projectiles.

However, I do like that you want to define weapon position and weapon type independently by storing items.

I'd do it with that both instant-hit and tracking projectiles have half the maximum damage.
The faster they go, the less the turn rate should be.

With a slow enough turn rate, you would need shotgun style weapons which split damage over an area.

 

[YamiHikari]

With this suggestion, I'd like weapon modules act as storages for your items.

So are you saying that you place the items in the computer and it distributes them to the weapon modules? If that's what your talking about, I think that sounds like a great idea! If you're talking about placing the items in the individual modules yourself, however, I can't agree with you. The problem comes with large or complex weapon configurations. You would need to be able to access all of your weapons, which would be a problem. It would be best if you just needed to access one spot to affect all the connected weapons.

Computers would be indestructible and walk-through for projectiles.

The thought of an indestructible anything in a ship (aside from the core) does not sound attractive to me. That kind of thing can produce a lot of problems if you're not careful.

However, I do like that you want to define weapon position and weapon type independently by storing items.

I don't quite understand what you mean by position (and I'm assuming by type you mean the damage), but I feel some extra customization is something we should have. This would also include things like the active weapon effects (which I forgot to mention) like explosiveness and ion, which would be a nice change to having to place tons of modules in a decent configuration.

I'd do it with that both instant-hit and tracking projectiles have half the maximum damage.

In regards to this, this is actually where the capacity limitations come in. If you devote capacity to full lock-on, you won't have as much capacity left over to devote to speed or damage, effectively putting a cap on how overpowered your lock-on weapon can be.

The faster they go, the less the turn rate should be.

I agree that this is necessary. This same kind of thing happened with the sniper vs nuke missiles. The sniper missiles actually had a slower turn rate despite having a faster speed than the nukes, which did give some extra balance.

With a slow enough turn rate, you would need shotgun style weapons which split damage over an area.

An interesting thought. Maybe this could get some consideration later on. I'm thinking that such a situation would be unlikely because of the limitations of capacity (and the fact that you can only make things go so fast), but in the case that such a thing does become possible, I suppose that should be taken into account.

 

[MacThule]

Are you sure about this? The extreme flexibility in building was my favorite part of building in this game. I am already a little sad to have all the passives reorganizef into a system that only accomodates 2 or 3 set levels of variation. Modeling updated weapons on the same principals is going to eliminate all the openness in system design.

We would essentially have a system where every system had very little to do with the actual voxels and more to do with levels/groups of voxels but still with the onus of building them voxel by voxel... when we might as well be building them out of pre-fab parts the way it is going. I am not keen to see the entire game go over to a levelled chamber-like system organized through GUI menus but built by hand voxel by voxel. I was really hoping that weapons would be different (in as much as staying relatively the same).

 

[NeonSturm]

Thanks for the review. I agree but want to elaborate following:

So are you saying that you place the items in the computer and it distributes them to the weapon modules?

Yes

The thought of an indestructible anything in a ship (aside from the core) does not sound attractive to me. That kind of thing can produce a lot of problems if you're not careful.

It would be just a decorative. The weapon modules are your functionals.
But I don't like that if a computer is destroyed your whole weapon array is too.

In regards to this, this is actually where the capacity limitations come in. If you devote capacity to full lock-on, you won't have as much capacity left over to devote to speed or damage, effectively putting a cap on how overpowered your lock-on weapon can be.

Yes, but it's difficult and to balance everything over the single value "capacity".

• Projectile count must be a divisor of damage.
• Speed must be accounted to accuracy (and thus increasing all negative effects of an accuracy-buff).
  
• Accuracy must be at the cost of something else
  
  • I wouldn't go against range because it makes shotgun-snipers and lucky shots.
  • I would put the penalty on reload to still allow alpha-strike weapons (make DPS a penalty of recharge-time instead).
• A high reload must come at the cost of dps

You may see, everything needs not just some penalty, but a penalty in exactly the right spot.

 

[YamiHikari]

Are you sure about this? The extreme flexibility in building was my favorite part of building in this game. I am already a little sad to have all the passives reorganizef into a system that only accomodates 2 or 3 set levels of variation. Modeling updated weapons on the same principals is going to eliminate all the openness in system design.

We would essentially have a system where every system had very little to do with the actual voxels and more to do with levels/groups of voxels but still with the onus of building them voxel by voxel... when we might as well be building them out of pre-fab parts the way it is going. I am not keen to see the entire game go over to a levelled chamber-like system organized through GUI menus but built by hand voxel by voxel. I was really hoping that weapons would be different (in as much as staying relatively the same).

One thing I did want my suggestion to revolve around was more freedom, such as using more than one active weapon effect at a time, and dividing the effects into more than just two or three levels. I was thinking of, aside from the feature-related upgrades such as heat-seeking, maybe 5-10 levels for each upgrade option, which would allow for some more detailed customization, as well as a gradual building and improvement of the weapon system. I understand that you feel uncomfortable with a shift away from block-based upgrades, but this kind of change may be able to improve upon the customizability of such systems.
[doublepost=1518460565,1518460370][/doublepost]

Yes, but it's difficult and to balance everything over the single value "capacity".

• Projectile count must be a divisor of damage.
• Speed must be accounted to accuracy (and thus increasing all negative effects of an accuracy-buff).
  
• Accuracy must be at the cost of something else
  • I wouldn't go against range because it makes shotgun-snipers and lucky shots.
  • I would put the penalty on reload to still allow alpha-strike weapons (make DPS a penalty of recharge-time instead).
• A high reload must come at the cost of dps

You may see, everything needs not just some penalty, but a penalty in exactly the right spot.

This is where I had a thought I chose not to include in my original post. I had an idea that would provide a little more flexibility to capacity, which stemmed from the actual penalties of the current system. What if we could do something like increase reload time, etc., that would put our weapons at a disadvantage in order to allow us to make better or more upgrades? Why not think about this a bit and tell me if you have any thoughts on it?
[doublepost=1518460715][/doublepost]

But I don't like that if a computer is destroyed your whole weapon array is too.

I actually like this function, because it gives your weapons an achille's heel. It also is a way to tie your weapon arrays together and designate them as a single group. It makes sense that you lose control of your weapons if the computer controlling them gets destroyed.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Hmmm... this idea could be brought further and just make it all computer functions built off of basic missile, beam, and cannon physical systems. For example. I could spend 5-20% on converting a missile to have a secondary effect such as Shot-gun, higher rof, lower rof, or even invest in multiple of those so you could make a cluster nuke for example. Then,you could add on a targeting system,: 10% for fly-by-wire, 20% for Heat-Seeking, 30% for lock-on, or 50% for instant-lock-on, etc. Then sink another 10-60% into making it a faster/longer ranged missile system. Then use my remaining points for "warhead" stuff more like current terciaries (explosive, pierce, punch, overdrive, ion, stop, etc).

Balanced right, it could lead to a lot more options than we have now instead of less; so, that things that are currently always useless, might find use through min-maxing and vice-versa. The same system could also be used to make beams and cannons more fundamentally different than one another if their options of upgrading are different. For example, give beams more options for controlling tic distribution and subsystem targeting priorities, and maybe cannons have more options for damage distribution and anti-defense-chamber options.

I suggested something similar this morning, and I do like the idea of breaking up all effects into a more "chamber like" system since it offers more customization options, but I REALLY hate the block storage upgrades because it introduces a new mechanic where an expected mechanic already exists. This is a major no no in the UI/UX world because it creates a more confusing interface. It will also mess with a ship's mass-to-volume relationship. Basically, if it lets you compress a 3000 block weapon into 1000 blocks, it's kind-of broken. It will incentivise only smaller "high-tech" weapons if your stored blocks confir durability or offset mass, or it encourages the opposite if all else is the same since "low-tech" tech weapon blocks can act as obliterators, and will get less gimped when shot.

Instead, you should either make it a balancing of total power like how thrusters can be customized, or make it reliant on chambers that you have to build like reactors.

 

[YamiHikari]

I suggested something similar this morning, and I do like the idea of breaking up all effects into a more "chamber like" system since it offers more customization options, but I REALLY hate the block storage upgrades because it introduces a new mechanic where an expected mechanic already exists. This is a major no no in the UI/UX world because it creates a more confusing interface. It will also mess with a ship's mass-to-volume relationship. Basically, if it lets you compress a 3000 block weapon into 1000 blocks, it's kind-of broken. It will incentivise only smaller "high-tech" weapons if your stored blocks confir durability or offset mass, or it encourages the opposite if all else is the same since "low-tech" tech weapon blocks can act as obliterators, and will get less gimped when shot.

Instead, you should either make it a balancing of total power like how thrusters can be customized, or make it reliant on chambers that you have to build like reactors.

You definitely have a point there. I came up with the stored item idea thinking along the lines of how some tech works. Depending upon what you put in it, it could do different things or have different effects. Bringing in the concept of weapon size vs power and such, there is a bit of a disconnect between weapons and what they can do. Maybe using actual chamber blocks isn't such a bad idea. I was initially against weapon chambers because I expected much of the community to groan at the thought of more space-consuming blocks like these, but I guess it does have its benefits. Would you recommend using some sort of conduit or simple C+V linking for connecting chamber blocks to weapon computers? Also, should there be one universal chamber or specialized chambers for types of upgrades?

 

[Nosajimiki]

My initial ick reaction at the idea of chambering weapons was that small weapons will become 50% conduits and tons of empty space, but then I started thinking about what weapons will look like if the weapon update is in fact aimed at eliminating small weapon spam. If "Acid" makes a cannon or a beam effectively act like a missle strike, then it stands to reason that direct fire weapons will begin to resemble missile 1.0 in scale (300-3000 blocks each with even bigger anti-shield lances).

IF this is the case, then I think chambers with multiple types connected via conduits would be good. It means big weapons would be more dense, and waist less space and materials than small weapons. My thought is that you have a "targeting computer" that serves as a logic activator for "weapon computers" where you attach whatever weapons computers via C+V you want to it with the power penalty per weapon output, but it will fire whatever you want together so that you can manually fire complex weapon patterns if you so chose. Then you make it so that each weapons computer must attached to chambers plus any number of weapon outputs via conduits. This way, you could make a single chamber configuration for 30 smaller guns if you so choose, or 30 guns each with a unique chamber configuration.

Then, to address AI power exploits, make it so that the AI must wait .5 sec between firing targeting computers, but that the computers will also have an AI priority list like system power. So, if you want an turret to fire 30 guns, you would no longer have the option of using 30 computers to exploit power, but you would not be deprived the option of using them to fire complex weapon groups so that a dedicated engineer could still squeeze a bunch of meta value out of a smart configuration.