Dr. Whammy
Executive Constructologist of the United Star Axis
I can agree with this. We've been pigeonholed with regard to effective weapon options. Those which are effective, do not scale equally.I definitely don't have any "good" answers as to what the hell schine should do with their weapons system, only that with damage mechanics as they are now I don't think they have a lot of interesting options to work with, and true out of those we have a lot of them just really don't work very well in comparison. I do think range & precision is the main thing holding most "unviable" weapon combos back, as they're really the only clear mechanical advantages that can't be replicated to any extent on another weapon/setup, but definitely hard to fix the issue on a weapon that's meant to be a 'space shotgun'.
Fairly high minimum count of splits & a much tighter choke mechanic (and reasonably low max splits because lolstarmade) sounds like a good start to me, in the meantime i don't think many people are even going to bother testing it because it's got such clear issues, probably has a long way to go even if this 'fix' was made
Regarding shotgun/ missile secondary. AN IRL shotgun can rival a carbine or rifle at short to medium ranges with the proper choke and ammunition type. For a space game, close-in scatter-type weapons tend to be higher damage with a greater possibility to (at least partially) miss due to spread.
A few examples come to mind from past video games.
- The Megabolt Cannon (Master of Orion) Basically, a wide beam spread that is hard to evade but may not always hit at full strength due to spread. Very powerful at close range.
- Fragmentation Cannon (Elite Dangerous) Ship mounted shotgun weapon. Low damage per fragment but also one of the most powerful projectile weapons in the game if all fragments hit.
- Scatter Gun (Colony Wars Vengeance) A Gatling gun that increases its spread radius in a spiral pattern. The spread increases, the longer it fires.
- The Megabolt Cannon (Master of Orion) Basically, a wide beam spread that is hard to evade but may not always hit at full strength due to spread. Very powerful at close range.
- Fragmentation Cannon (Elite Dangerous) Ship mounted shotgun weapon. Low damage per fragment but also one of the most powerful projectile weapons in the game if all fragments hit.
- Scatter Gun (Colony Wars Vengeance) A Gatling gun that increases its spread radius in a spiral pattern. The spread increases, the longer it fires.
One possible option for StarMade's shotgun weapon could be to give it a damage bonus that scales as you increase the spread angle, to offset the lower accuracy/effective range. Leave the bonus smaller (or non-existent) on more focused setups which are more likely to hit at a distance; even if only partially.
What do you think?