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Astronaut weapon system proposal
Currently hand-held weapons in Starmade are limited. Suffering from under-use, no user customisation, and little to no weapon variation.
In a game where you can build ships in whatever shape you want, with whatever weapons you please, why are the handheld weapons, in contrast; so limited?
This document is to identify the current issues with astronaut weapons and tools, and provide possible solutions to the issues presented.
Issues.
Starmade has a wonderful weapon system for ships. It is practically infinitely customisable. You can create snipers, homing missiles, machine guns, shotguns, death beams, etc. All with different colours, fire rates, damage, multiple weapon outputs, speeds.
Sadly, handheld weapons are severely limited. You have 3.
- Pistol
- Rocket
- Sniper
There are no customisation options. Weapon damage, weapon range, weapon reload time, and speed are all pre-set. It feels out of place in a game such as Starmade – where the main focus is a player driven universe.
In short:
1. Limited weapon variation
2. Fixed weapon statistics
3. Feels out of place in the Starmade universe
The following solution will require the addition of more features.
Additions should include:
- Weapon recoil
- Ammunition
- Fire rates
- Reload time
- Projectile force
- Projectile accuracy (cone of fire)
- Ammunition/clip storage
- Weapon weight
- Dedicated astronaut weapon slots
Solution #1
The first solution to solving these problems is block-based weaponry. This is not a new concept, it has been suggested many times before, it has even been used in games before.
- Planet Explorers (mixture of prefab and voxels)
- Cube World (cosmetic)
While these games do manage to address weapon customisation, the implementation they used is rather limited.
Planet Explorers uses a mixture of pre-fabricated elements and voxels, while cube world used it primarily for cosmetic purposes.
The approach I’m proposing for Starmade is to instead take the building method we have in ships, and modify it for hand-held weapon creation. Adding more rules and requirements to balance and limit weapons to encourage varied design.
The construction of player weapons would be done either at a weapon workbench, manufactured as an extension to the factory system, or simply built the same way we build ships, just on a much smaller scale.
Weapon Construction
Weapons should require key components to work.
- Weapon grip (specified by entity origin)
- Secondary weapon grip (specified by a block for 2-handed weapons)
- Ammunition clip (also player built – must fit on/in weapon)
- Weapon Modules (practically the same used on ships)
Lets say the player wants to build a pistol. They would open the construction panel and the initial block (origin) will appear. The player then builds off this block to develop their own weapon.
The weapon group in the body of the entity will decide damage, accuracy and rate of fire.
X (Width) and Y (height) – Projectile size, also affects weapon recoil, larger projectiles kick more
Z (Length) Accuracy
Group size will decide weapon damage
Slave will decide effect of the weapon. Slave modifiers should be the same as ships.
They create the body of the gun, and fill it with cannon modules, with a 50% cannon slave. The player would then have to create the ammunition clip, which as mentioned earlier, would need to attach to the main body of the weapon. This entity would also contain the primary modules (in this case cannon)– the dimensions of the group within the clip will decide ammunition specifications.
Larger ammunition clips result in a longer weapon reload time
X (Width) Projectile force/explosion radius
Y (Height) Round/clip capacity.
Z (Length) Speed of the projectile
X and Z together would decide the recoil of the weapon
X and Y axis of the group decides the 'size' of each round, X must be divisible into Y. Rounding up to whole numbers.
I.e:
2W*8H*6L results in 4 ammunition units.
Taking this further, such as multiplying ammunition units by 3, results in a comfortable 12 ammo count for a handgun.
Weapon combinations should be usable with all weapon types, however going beyond a certain length will require the second hold point to be attached for stability.
Weapon weight will incur a speed penalty
Solution 2, and 3 coming soon!
Feel free to leave feedback/ideas.
Forgive any mistakes/spelling errors. It's been a long day.
Currently hand-held weapons in Starmade are limited. Suffering from under-use, no user customisation, and little to no weapon variation.
In a game where you can build ships in whatever shape you want, with whatever weapons you please, why are the handheld weapons, in contrast; so limited?
This document is to identify the current issues with astronaut weapons and tools, and provide possible solutions to the issues presented.
Issues.
Starmade has a wonderful weapon system for ships. It is practically infinitely customisable. You can create snipers, homing missiles, machine guns, shotguns, death beams, etc. All with different colours, fire rates, damage, multiple weapon outputs, speeds.
Sadly, handheld weapons are severely limited. You have 3.
- Pistol
- Rocket
- Sniper
There are no customisation options. Weapon damage, weapon range, weapon reload time, and speed are all pre-set. It feels out of place in a game such as Starmade – where the main focus is a player driven universe.
In short:
1. Limited weapon variation
2. Fixed weapon statistics
3. Feels out of place in the Starmade universe
The following solution will require the addition of more features.
Additions should include:
- Weapon recoil
- Ammunition
- Fire rates
- Reload time
- Projectile force
- Projectile accuracy (cone of fire)
- Ammunition/clip storage
- Weapon weight
- Dedicated astronaut weapon slots
Solution #1
The first solution to solving these problems is block-based weaponry. This is not a new concept, it has been suggested many times before, it has even been used in games before.
- Planet Explorers (mixture of prefab and voxels)
- Cube World (cosmetic)
While these games do manage to address weapon customisation, the implementation they used is rather limited.
Planet Explorers uses a mixture of pre-fabricated elements and voxels, while cube world used it primarily for cosmetic purposes.
The approach I’m proposing for Starmade is to instead take the building method we have in ships, and modify it for hand-held weapon creation. Adding more rules and requirements to balance and limit weapons to encourage varied design.
The construction of player weapons would be done either at a weapon workbench, manufactured as an extension to the factory system, or simply built the same way we build ships, just on a much smaller scale.
Weapon Construction
Weapons should require key components to work.
- Weapon grip (specified by entity origin)
- Secondary weapon grip (specified by a block for 2-handed weapons)
- Ammunition clip (also player built – must fit on/in weapon)
- Weapon Modules (practically the same used on ships)
Lets say the player wants to build a pistol. They would open the construction panel and the initial block (origin) will appear. The player then builds off this block to develop their own weapon.
The weapon group in the body of the entity will decide damage, accuracy and rate of fire.
X (Width) and Y (height) – Projectile size, also affects weapon recoil, larger projectiles kick more
Z (Length) Accuracy
Group size will decide weapon damage
Slave will decide effect of the weapon. Slave modifiers should be the same as ships.
They create the body of the gun, and fill it with cannon modules, with a 50% cannon slave. The player would then have to create the ammunition clip, which as mentioned earlier, would need to attach to the main body of the weapon. This entity would also contain the primary modules (in this case cannon)– the dimensions of the group within the clip will decide ammunition specifications.
Larger ammunition clips result in a longer weapon reload time
X (Width) Projectile force/explosion radius
Y (Height) Round/clip capacity.
Z (Length) Speed of the projectile
X and Z together would decide the recoil of the weapon
X and Y axis of the group decides the 'size' of each round, X must be divisible into Y. Rounding up to whole numbers.
I.e:
2W*8H*6L results in 4 ammunition units.
Taking this further, such as multiplying ammunition units by 3, results in a comfortable 12 ammo count for a handgun.
Weapon combinations should be usable with all weapon types, however going beyond a certain length will require the second hold point to be attached for stability.
Weapon weight will incur a speed penalty
Solution 2, and 3 coming soon!
Feel free to leave feedback/ideas.
Forgive any mistakes/spelling errors. It's been a long day.
