About guns and ammo

[Omnires]

This thread is about guns and ammo and how they work. Going by what was said on discord there are few different camps on the topic. There are two main factions in the topic. There is the every weapon should be able to ammo types group and there are the people who think that every gun should only use one type of ammo only. There are subgroups within this factions but that is main difference between them.

• Realistic gun use - This group of people feel that if you want to use a different type of ammo that all you need to do is reload the gun using a magazine with that ammo type in it. For example, if you want your shotgun to change from using buckshot to slugs rather than having to carry around a different shotgun and having to switch guns all you do is replace the ammo in the gun. This why a player can load up on different types of ammo for their favorite gun and just switch out the what kind of damage it does on the fly by changing what ammo it uses.
• Traditional game mechanics - This group of people feel that the old game mechanic of guns only being able to use one type of ammo is best and that if you want to change your damage type you need to change your gun. Like most other games where you need to carry around multiple copies of the same type of weapon each using a different type of ammo.

So lets talk about how guns and ammo could work in the game. And how and why you are in favor of using them that way.

I'm in favor of the more realistic type of guns where if I want to change the type of damage I do I just change to a different magazine loaded with that type of ammo inside of it. So if I want switch my sniper rifle from using armor piercing incendiary rounds to proximity fuse anti-air ammo all I do is remove the armor piercing incendiary magazine from the gun and put in the proximity fuse anti-air ammo into the game. Allowing me to quickly and efficiently switch between different types of enemies while still being effective. For example, using my armor piercing incendiary rounds on heavily armored ground units and then noticing there are some fast moving flying enemies coming in to support them, so I change to my proximity fuse anti-air ammo to take them out the flyers before forcing back on the ground tank units.

I'm the kind of person who likes to find a favorite weapon in a game and use that weapon all the time just because I can. So it always annoyed me in games that I'm forced to carry around like 10 different versions of the same gun each using a different type of ammo just fulling up my inventory. When all I could do was just load up on different ammo types and use them as needed. It makes no sense that I can't take the ammo out of one gun and use it in another gun when they are the same make, model, and caliber.

 

[EvilKitten]

I would imagine that far in the future where we have molecular printing. I feel that physical "slug thrower" guns would have standardized ammo packs. Pretty much our omniframes should provide energy to either fire direct energy weapons, or to power a molecular printer which would print out the desired type of ammo.

If the above is the case, we could actually have a weapon design where you would load say 10kg of material into a slot, and the molecular printer would begin creating rounds for that weapon. As long as it was being fed with the proper material the gun would behave much like weapons in Mass Effect 1. If you fire faster than the gun can create ammo then you will run out and have to wait for it to make some more, but you wouldn't *actually* run out until the metal block was fully used up.

Combine the above with a rail gun design (I don't really see super futuristic weapons still being dependant on gunpowder) which would be powered again by your omniframe and you have the makings for a futuristic weapon designed intended for long term combat.

With a mini molecular printer feeding your gun ammo, it should be easy to change the type of ammo, provided you have the raw materials for the printer to craft it.

One thing I feel is important is to NOT have super limited ammo. This is supposed to be a wargame so if you are constantly having to retreat because you are out of ammo, then the game is broken. We do NOT want a Resident Evil game

 

[Pandagnome]

We do NOT want a Resident Evil game

Could make for a great side mission, i like resident evil

What if we had weapons with other ways to renew ammo
e.g.

Kinetic energy = Lets say you are a tank and you are getting bombarded with so much damage could this energy transfer to your weapon to use e.g. Shock cannon, High energy laser beam etc etc

Solar power = Say you are in the day cycle and the sun is bright hoping there is a sun perhaps 3 suns even a bright light source that was created by someone lets say it was an alien who likes to keep in the light like a moth.

Anyways the solar power could recharge weapon too e.g. Electrical type gun, pistols even charging melee weapons energy blade etc etc

Thermal energy = When firing a weapon from great distances lets say sniper rifles perhaps the heat generated could replenish could imagine also something like an energy efficient boiler on someone's back perhaps its for a flame thrower and the heat fired from the weapon goes into the tank to be reused.

Eventually it could run out as evil kitten mentioned

If you fire faster than the gun can create ammo then you will run out and have to wait for it to make some more

Chemical energy = lets say there is a toxic atmosphere even toxic aliens etc The weapon could obtain the chemicals from the various source and fire special chemical shots perhaps sleep gas, never gas, poison corrosive spheres that explode on impact etc

Just like certain weapons excel at certain things so could certain ammo types in certain environments or situations hmm

 

[Markolis]

I prefer traditional weapon and ammo uses. Even with-in the game mechanic/play, FF and other fps/rpgmmo's have refill pickups/powerups (FF had the deployable ammo/heal station pads..on timer delay ofc) which makes for a more realistic 'feel' of battle, but FF is not just a wargame.
Arcade style (endless fire/ammo) is ok if you want a simple 'pew pew' experience, but where is the fun in that one button 'smashfest' - in PvP play, I suppose infinite ammo might be the exception.

Having a '3D printer' stashed on board your frame for resupply purposes if a nice touch, IF its purposed in a frame design 'mechanic' - lets say an engineer type Frame, who can carry these 'printer' devices. BUT, the energy to power these devices has to be either incorporated in the frames limited operational power supply/build or comes with its own power supply...then it then must be a dropable module or similiar to a supply station or pad...then Im in favour of that !!

 

[Omnires]

I also like the idea of some guns, namely shotguns and sniper rifles because they are the only ones that make sense, use sabots for ammo types that are of smaller caliber. We already do this for specialized ammo types. Where rather than designing and making whole new gun, we just use an already existing gun and just put a sabot around what is being fired out of the gun. This is how sniper rifles (namely railguns and coilguns) can fire anything from normal bullets to long narrow spikes. And with shotgun it can let you fire small drowns and the like over a greater range than you could throw them (no all drowns fly. As some of them are designed to crawl and roll on the ground, or dig through the ground and walls.

And before someone says something like using a sabot to fire a smaller caliber round would make it do less damage. Just remember the caliber of a gun doesn't tell you anything about how much damage it can and can't do, it only tells you size of the rounds. What really tells you the damage of the round is the mass of the round, the speed at which the round moves, the shape of the round, and what the round is made of. Because of this smaller caliber rounds can do just as much, if not even more, damage than larger caliber rounds. Also what some people think of as a bullet is really a lot smaller than what they think it is. Because they are picturing the casing / cartage too. And the only reason some of them are so large is because they hold more gun powder so the bullet travels farther and faster but the caliber is still the same as the other bullet. Although this isn't really a thing with energy guns like railguns and coilguns because you don't need gun powder nor a shell to fire the round. And because of this using a sabot to fire long thin needle-like rounds made out of really hard and dense substances do a lot more damage than normal rounds when traveling at high speeds. For the up scaled version of it idea look up things like "rods from god" where just firing a large metal rod no bigger than a telephone pole can hit the ground with force equal to a nuke.

In fact. Make that one of my sniper omniframe abilities. I link to an orbiting weapons platform and fire things at the ground from from space. Going by what weapon I fire from changes the damage type and AOE. Laser cannon powerful but narrow beam, charged particle beam cannon narrow beam with noticable AOE at the point of impact, or kinetic bombardment fires a heavy metal rod towards the ground at super high speeds that hits the target like a meteor making a large AOE crater.

 

[Pandagnome]

here just firing a large metal rod no bigger than a telephone pole can hit the ground with force equal to a nuke.

I remember this scene its not a telephone but it looks effective!

 

[Omnires]

I remember this scene its not a telephone but it looks effective!

That is close but a real kinetic bombardment is mush more powerful. I was not joking when I said it is to think of it more like a meteor hitting a target rather than a bullet.

 

[Pandagnome]

That is close but a real kinetic bombardment is mush more powerful. I was not joking when I said it is to think of it more like a meteor hitting a target rather than a bullet.

Ah those are very dangerous rods of pain, and made me wonder how power if micro kaiju's were launched down from space.. hmm

i am glad the kaiju's do not have this they would pow many things!

 

[Drakin5]

That is close but a real kinetic bombardment is mush more powerful. I was not joking when I said it is to think of it more like a meteor hitting a target rather than a bullet.

Uhh... yeah. A kinetic bombardment...

 

[Biz]

Ammo mechanics should fit the game. If your game is fighting waves of monsters it wouldnt make much sense to have limited "special" ammo to switch to. Ammo selection should also be anchored in game mechanics, is there a damage threshold/armor mechanics? Are monsters weak against one element but strong vs another?. Think Fallout 1/2 - you had walking tanks in power armor as oponents - naturally AP rounds were used on those, then lightly armored targets would get HP rounds, there were also like 4+ types of energy damage resist (fire, plasma, laser and more iirc). If you did not have perception perk you would be guessing resistances by trial and error. It wouldnt be a best idea to shoot people in polished metal armor with lazers then.
For Ember, the way it feels now skills that are activated to give normal ammo added properties like AP, or AoE (explosive) or debuffs (bleed/poison) make most sense.

 

[Abyssalrider]

I'm actually opposed to ability based ammo swapping because it ties down the very limited ability slots for the sake of a little added versatility that might not be all that useful depending on duration and cooldown rate. i advocate for a module on the weapon itself we can swap on the fly when not "in combat" that we must research and craft on our own.

 

[Omnires]

I like the idea of the the different ammunition types being linked to the actual magazines to load into the guns themselves. So I'll just carry around in my inventory stacks of different types of ammunition for the gun I'm using and when I want to change ammunition type I just press a button to on my keyboard to scroll between ammunition types and then reload the gun with the new ammunition on the fly. Just like you would with a real gun. It is just not linked to any ability as it is just a normal function of all guns, just like how in some games you pressing alt-fire while using some types of guns will change firing modes from single, semi-auto, and/or full auto.

This effect would be different for energy guns like lasers, plasma, and charged particles, radiation, and sound (Yes, in real life we do have weapons that use sound-waves to do everything from long range communications, to causing disorientation and making people feel sick, to even death.). Where all you do, going by the type of energy weapon, is just change the energy output and/or frequency to get different effects. For example, changing the frequency on a laser gun will change the color of the beam and also how effective it at doing things. Like say you didn't want to kill or hurt a target to badly you can lower the frequency into the red range and lower the power output so that it would heat up a target but not burn it. This could be enough to make someone drop a knife in a hostage situation without risking burning the hostage. Or using a sound-wave gun to lower the accuracy of enemies because you tuned to the frequency to that of the fluid within their eyeballs making the fluid and even the eyeballs themselves vibrate, this has the effect of making them do everything from lose focus to seeing multiple stretched out images of the same target (kind of like trying to aim at something in really wavy water as the light within your eyes is being bent to land on different parts of your eye at random).

This way we can still use the limited ability slots on the omniframes for things that are specific to the omniframes themselves. And not have to wast abilities on doing something as simple as changing ammo types. I think omniframe abilities and weapon abilities should be two different things. Where weapon / ammunition abilities are linked to the objects themselves as part of their innate function. So let's say I press the "R" key on my keyboard to reload my gun. Just tipping the "R" key will make me reload the ammo I was already using, like normal. But if I press and hold "R" I'll start to cycle through the different ammunition types that only can used by that gun that I have in my inventory, and when I release the "R" key I'll start to reload the gun with the new ammo type I picked.