Guns overhaul. Custom part, attachments and how to balance combat system

[Saint Porolonius]

WEAPON OVERHAUL FROM OSTPOL
Firearms are a major part of PvP systems in every game, especially with different levels of combat: Infatry VS Vehicle/Spaceship or Infantry VS Infantry. There are many ways how to improve this experience in both cases, for example adding more guns for every target (but this is unfunny and boring). So i have a great solution - Customizable weaponry! Main idea is to tune gun's performance to your personal needs and tune size and mass of weapon. And most important "No gain without pain"

1. Mounted weapon
Currently weapons consist of following parts:

• A hardpoint, which connects weapon mounts to the ship or station
• A weapon mount, which connects the weapon body and supplies power
• A mounted weapon body, which converts power into local power and supports all other parts of the weapon
• A weapon-specific struct, which converts ammunition stored in the magazine into active ammunition
• A magazine, which contains inactive ammo held in reserve
  • The rail cannon also requires four capacitors
• A barrel, which fires projectiles

So let's talk about 3 last parts and how they can be customized.

• A weapon struct. There can be 3 variations of them with different stats.
  1. The common one with basic stats.
  2. Fast struct. Higher RPM but decreased accuracy
  3. Precise struct. Higher accuracy but decreased RPM
• A magazine.
  • High capacity mag (more ammo, more mass)
  • Small capacity mag (lesser ammo, lesser mass).
  • Belt-fed receiver. Connects directly to cargo container and drains ammo from it.
• Barrels. Basically barrel's effects on gun's perfomance based on atmosphere but who cares about physics in Sci-Fi MMO Sanbox, right?
  • Short barrel. Decreases accuracy, mass, size and muzzle velocity.
  • Long barrel. Increases accuracy, mass, size and muzzle velocity.

2. Firearms overhaul.

Weapon classification depending on purpose.

1. Small arms: Pistols and Revolver.
2. SMGs: Whiplash, SMG (If will be added).
3. Assault rifles: Assault rifle, Battler rifle, Laser rifle, Antigel rifle.
4. Shotguns: Shotgun and maybe Auto shotgun (If will be added).
5. Marksman rifles: Gauss rifle, Long rifle and rail rifle.
6. Heavy weapon: Flamethrower, Bolter, Reaper cannon, Plasma rifle, Arclighter, Minigun, Grenade and rocket launchers.

Weapon sub-classes depending on firing mechanism.

1. Gunpowder: Long rifle, Assault rifle, Battler rifle, SMG, Pistols and Revolver
2. Laser: Laser rifle
3. Electromagnetic: Antigel rifle, Gauss rifle, Bolter, Rail rifle and Antigel rifle.
4. Plasma: Reaper cannon, Plasma rifle
5. Projectiles: Whiplash, Grenade and rocket launchers
6. Other: Flamethrower and Arclighter

Availability of attachments should depened on weapon class and sub-class.

Following classes of attachments: Barrels, Sights, Underbarrel, Rails, Magazines, Ammos, Stocks and Grips. Each attachments and combination of them can effect very drastically on gun's performance.

• Barrels.
  • Silencers, Muzzles. Affects gun's muzzle visual effect and sound.
  • Compensator/Condenser(For energy weapons). Slightly improves recoil but decreases HIP aim
  • Long/short barrels (See barrels in Mounted weapon parts)
  • Special barrels for guns. Drastically changes fire mechanism of some guns.
    • Experimental nozzle for plasma based guns makes projectile bigger but decreases damage. Low density projectile leads to less damage.
    • Focusing lens for laserguns decreases bullet spread
    • Different nozzles for Flamethrower. Changing Cone of Fire. Grades from wide but short range to thin but long range.
    • Choke for shotguns. Decreases bullet spread.
• Sights.
  • Closed scopes. 2x, 3.4x, 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x zoom.
  • Reflex sights. 1x, 2x zoom (Different dots?)
  • Special scopes (Pretty OP)
    • Nightvision scope. Nightvision stuff y'know.
    • Thermal scope. Highlights player and other specific stuff like guns, heated elements but decreases view range to 100-200m and makes other scopes' color grey
    • Ballistic computer scope. Removes bullet drop's effect (aka Zeroing stuff). 16x zoom, for sniper rifles only.
• Underbarrel.
  • Forward grips. Slightly improves gun's Aim recoil but increases mass and equip time
    • Comfort grip. Same stats but no equip time penalty.
    • Advanced grip. More impact on recoil but bigger mass and equip time.
    • Horizontal grip. Faster equip time only.
  • Bipods. Mounts gun to surface.
  • Underbarrel launcher. HE, Smoke and EMP grenades.
  • Bayonet. Poke your enemy with this wonderful thing.
• Rails.
  • Laser sights. Red dot and increases HIP aim
  • Flashlight. When headlight isn't enough.
  • Rangefinder. Shows you distance to your target.
• Magazines.
  • Already known. High capacity mag and drums. Increases equip time and mass
  • Low capacity mags. Small, light mags, with decreased equip time.
  • Fast reaload mag. Decreased reload rate.
• Ammos. Goal: Choosing right ammo type for specific target. Can improve Infantry vs Ships/vehicle combat.
  • AP, HP ammos.
  • Corrosive ammo.
  • Fragmentation ammo.
  • Special types of ammo for guns.
    • Dragonbreath bucks and slugs for shotguns.
    • Corrosive fuel for Flamethrower
    • EMP grenades/rockets for GL and RL
    • Incendiary grenades from them too.
    • Dumb-fire rockets for Whiplash.
• Stocks
  • Folding stock/no stock (if available). Decreases mass, size and equip time. Improves HIP aim.
  • Comfort stock. Improves AIM recoil but increases equip time and mass
  • Skeleton stock. Slightly improves AIM recoil but increases equip time and slightly decreases mass.
• Grips.
  • Similar to forward grips.
  • Grip-stock. Greatly mproves Aim recoil but notably increases mass and equip time. Kinda make your own Sniper rifle from Automatic rifle kit.

This system can remove need in adding tiered guns and other lazy-design stuff in-game (30 mil.$ guns with OP stats and cool skin are bad) and force people to make their own setups for different combat situations and basically attract gun lovers in the game. Some attachment

 

[<C:\AMWild✦>]

For the "struct" part, it might be better to have fast=less muzzle speed and damage and slow=more muzzle speed and damage. Perhaps fast generates heat too, which if not removed, causes temporary jams.

 

[Saint Porolonius]

For the "struct" part, it might be better to have fast=less muzzle speed and damage and slow=more muzzle speed and damage. Perhaps fast generates heat too, which if not removed, causes temporary jams.

I haven't get into mounted weapons yet. Muzzle speed and damage buff in one part would be op and as i understood struct is some kind of receiver it's only loads ammos from magazine to chamber and all. There can be only RPM changes coz of mechanics. And we have barrel for changing muzzle speed.

Originally this post was about gun's attachment but gone wild and now we have mounted weapon overhaul.
Tbh starbase is incredible game with weapon mechanics in and i trust devs won't stop on current system we have. So maybe more stats will be introduced to guns.

 

[Omes_exception]

I really enjoy the idea

 

[Groximus]

im mean yes, its a great idea, why we have modular weapons if you can´t choose different modules

 

[Ded_Abram]

Interesting idea

 

[ChaosRifle]

Before asking for/wanting changes I would like to get my hands on or (ideally) hear from Frozenbyte on their planned systems. They have come up with some lovey systems thus far and I would like to see what they can come up with.
With that said..

I like the infantry section, an escape from tarkov feel would be great. They could possibly use the existing voxel systems to make the mlok/picitini rails actually be as modular as they are in real life, down to the single rail segment.

I feel the ship section needs a lot of work though (and is likely already in planning from FrozenByte since they are already modular)

Spoiler: ways to change the ideas proposed here, very rough quick draft

Issue: Magazine sizes don't make sense to me with these buffs/debuffs, as a magazine is negligable in mass compared to the ammunition it carries. This makes it so all vehicles would automatically want the largest possible magazine to prevent downtime on the weapon. 2x mass in a mag for 1.9x the ammo is an obvious trade to make when the mass is loaded onto an already heavy armoured fighter.

Solutions:
Making small capacity mags get accuracy buffs? In real life hardcore high precision shooters hand load their rounds straight into the chamber of a bolt gun to make sure the round is seated the exact same way every time, because repeatability is key to accuracy. Maybe the small capacity mag is just more precisely manufactured, and made from superior materials for wear resistance, thus offer more repeatable feeding? Smaller explosion when destroyed because less ammo is contained.

Belt fed guns could be required to route the feeding system to your cargo system, making said cargo system more vulnerable. (as well as possibly the ammo in the belt being volatile too?)
Not sure how to give a good drawback to a belt weapoon as volatility doesnt really matter in an alpha-strike scenario as long as it is not so volatile it breaks itself.




Issue: Barrels having varried mass based on size doesnt sound like a huge issue for an armoured space figher. Muzzle Velocity in aircraft is a huge deal.

Possible solution?:
It is my understanding ship weapons are one of the more valuable parts of a ship currently in starbase, and war at the end of the day is a numbers game about depleting the enemy's wallet or assets first. Perhaps making barrels out of better materials to tighter tollerances gives them accuracy buffs for the exchange of being drastically more expensive, but I really dont know how to make this not just terrible.

A sort of bottleneck system, where given parts simply cant go over certain metrics may also be cool for mounted weapons, where a gun may require a multi-barrel to achieve the maximum firerate possible, but said barrel might bottleneck the accuracy. Extending this to all other stats to get a system with pros and cons might be interesting if balanced well.

Spoiler: example with made up stats:

normal barrel: Firerate = 50
multi-barrel: Firerate = 100
lightened bolt receiver: Firerate = 160
normal magazine: Firerate = 20
Belt-fed: Firerate = 150
normal receiver: Firerate = 30

So a belt-fed multi-barrel lightened bolt receiver would have a firerate of 100, because the lowest stat is multibarrel's limit of 100.
a pure normal gunhaving a firerate of 20, restricted by the normal magainze.

 

[Lionard Freezer]

Bayonet. Poke your enemy with this wonderful thing

Add a pickaxe head to your Gun. You are mining and some pirates attack you? Boom, shoot them in their legs, then pickaxe their head so you can put them on your ship as a trophy!

 

[Jasperagus]

Add a pickaxe head to your Gun. You are mining and some pirates attack you? Boom, shoot them in their legs, then pickaxe their head so you can put them on your ship as a trophy!

Even better have it as the stock and have it give some buffs.