What will Ship weapon ammo storage look like?

[Amos.37]

Unless I've missed something in the feature videos, it doesn't look like ammo storage has been shown, at least not explicitly.
Obviously it has been shown that ammo drums need to be attached to turrets, but what about when those drums run dry? Do you refill the magazine? Do you replace the entire ammo drum? I'm assuming that at the very least projectile weapons require you to carry physical ammo for them to use and don't just run off power.

Should spare ammo have it's own storage system separate to crates? Can you connect ammo storage directly to weapon systems for easier reload?
Would all ammo storage explode when damaged (like propellant and reactors) or only explosive varieties?

Has a feature video already addressed all this and I'm just totally ignorant of it?

 

[Lionard Freezer]

as far as i know they havent mentioned anyhting about this...
same with the overall inventory display or how crates will work... ik you can put stuff in them pysicly but what about the crates that compact stuff?
i would like if you could do both: change the whole ammo drum or just refill it (becourse of automation stuff)
and as far as i know they wont do anything with connection stuff unless its actually physically connectet by something (look at the cables in SB and how it works in SE to see the difference) so maybe... conveyorbelts for stuff like that? (rails?)

 

[Quinc]

At the moment it seems that you have to physically grab an extra ammo magazine, detach the depleted magazine, and attach the new magazine it its place. The videos thus far seem to indicate that most of the things you might need to move around will need to be treated like a physical object. It is like real life, but unlike most games. Of course this could get really annoying.
Hopefully they will add some mechanism to reload ammo magazines from another container. It might require a complicated mechanism and YOLOL script, but players should be able to add a "reload" button. Otherwise weapons that don't need reloading will become very popular as ships get bigger.

 

[Burnside]

Yeah, currently everything but the laser cannon needs its magazine unbolted, the mag replaced with a fresh one, bolt the new mag in, and go about your day. LC is the only thing that will quote/unquote "slowly recharge" directly from the power feed. It kinda puts a need on having railcannon or plasma caster turrets having an armored gunhouse crew can store extra magazines in and safely switch out expended mags in combat until the devs cave to popular demand and give us large ammo boxes that ammo feeds can be run from like pipes and make rearming a more "in-bulk" deal. I'm totally fine with having to run each weapon to its own ammo box separately, and reload them separately, I just want an option for increased capacity.

 

[CalenLoki]

I'm all for large capacity/bulk mags/boxes.
But.
If you can hook them directly to a gun, it should be an meaningful choice to use them or not. Their undoubted advantage should be well balanced with drawbacks.
More explosive, bulkier and heavily affecting turret rotation speed due to weight seems like good natural trade-offs.
Otherwise small mags can be just deleted right away.

 

[Verbatos]

What if they made belt fed weapons? It could be more explosive and would require a large ammo box but it would in turn increase the ammo capacity of the weapon, which could be useful for long fights or sieges.

 

[Burnside]

At the least, I'd assume that a broken ammo feed would spill out ammo much like propellant, and/or have a risk of sympathetic explosions along the feed line, especially for flak or plasma feeds, all the way back to the 'box magazine', whereas a single magazine attached directly to the weapon might just 'pop', internal explosions tend to be more dangerous just by virtue of happening inside of the hull. I also assume the weight of the box and feed, being mounted onto a turntable/turret with the weapon by necessity, would increase the strain on the turntable, but it's almost a non existant trade-off since you'd be carrying spare magazines in the turret anyways for ease of use.

 

[CalenLoki]

I gonna carry spare mags under the turret, in the hull.
They seem to hold enough dakka for 5 minutes, rather than 10s like hand held guns.
So little longer reload times may be less of a problem than bulky, slow and volatile turret.
But that's just personal preference. I'd be glad to have other, equaly valid options.

 

[Burnside]

depends on whether we ever get fed boxes and how well single/dual layers of turret armor will hold up under non-boosted damage

 

[Amos.37]

A very cool system that could potentially be made would be to make YOLOL controlled arms that can unbolt, replace and rebolt the ammo drum. Although, I don' t think this would necessarily be any more practically than just manually changing the drum, but it would be a great novelty.
I'm picturing a larger gunship with a hatch next to the turret. Hit a switch and the hatch opens, a machine arm folds out, removes the empty drum, grabs a new one and replaces it, then folds back into the hatch. As I said, while it would be awesome, I don't know how practical it would be.