Specialized elements

[Vedemin]

Hello everyone!
In Firefall we had a (stupid IMO) concept of dealing elemental damage with every weapon. I have a new concept about elements. Why not make them specialized at certain roles? We would still be able to use elemental ammo for other weapons, but their main damage would still be kinetic and additional small elemental damage. But no electrical sniper rifles etc.

So, what's my concept? To specialize. For example like this:
- Thermal - AoE, fire, flamethrowers
- Electric - stun, arc, ignores metal armor
- Toxic - extremely effective vs unarmored targets, not dealing damage by impact, DoT and most importantly desolating ground = leaving toxin spills
- Cryo - freezing enemies, creating ice obstacles
- Beam - very accurate, burns holes in enemies
- Kinetic - penetrating armor and enemies


Each element would be strong in something and weak in something. And weapons would be restricted to categories, no toxic flamethrowers or freezing grenade launchers.

What do you think about it?

 

[DemonSlayer873]

(yes i did smile)

 

[Fac3man]

good idea but i would do some small changes like

- Beam - very accurate, burns holes through armor (like laser with high energy density)
- Kinetic - penetrating energy shields and enemies

 

[EvilKitten]

I am not a fan of having elemental "ammo". I feel it is something that fits into fantasy settings not sci-fi.

I can understand having a grenade type weapon that spreads fire, I can also see a stun type side weapon or add on that uses tazer technology to temporarily incapacitate (but do no damage) however it would not be a regular bullet you fire out of your gun. Cryo and Toxic are right out. As for beam weapons those would be lasers/mazers/plasma based weapons and they would not fire ammo and would be incompatible with a weapon designed to fire bullets. You can't simply switch out a magazine and go from shooting bullets to lasers...it simply doesn't work that way.

 

[DemonSlayer873]

I am not a fan of having elemental "ammo". I feel it is something that fits into fantasy settings not sci-fi.

It fits in sci-fi setting perfectly imo. You are x years in the future, your weapons are new and very advanced. It would make sense to have some sort of special bullets with special effects

 

[Fac3man]

true..but we are still at the point "how ff was supposed to be"..and as a part of ff i guess it will be like this anyway

 

[Bigspoondude]

Have to agree that beam ammo does not fit. It becomes a different weapon type at that point. Would make for a fun heavy weapon to have for a large frame but for ammo type you would need something that is more in line with science (highly acidic compounds corrode and melt metal targets while toxic compounds melt away flesh and carbon based exoskeletons).

Electric rounds have a chance to short circuit a robotic enemy, allowing you to run up and hack it. Also IMO Kinetic rounds should not be as effected (if at all) by shields while all the others are, particularly electric type attacks.

 

[Ronyn]

Science fiction is about hypothetical advancements in technology and strange discoveries. Consider that incendiary ammunition and high-explosive incendiary rounds exist, and that there have been folks working on creating a sort of "shock round" or electric bullets for many years. Not to mention what technology may come from the inherently unpredictable interaction with alien planets and species. One has to acknowledge that in the context of science fiction (theoretical advanced technology and alien tech) elemental ammo is not one of the more far fetched ideas.

The basic assumption of Sci Fi is that we have advanced beyond what we have now. The farther we go forward the more advancements we should expect. What we know now acts as a certain tether, a grounding ideal so to speak, but we have to expect that what is considered outlandish today will be commonplace in the future. History has taught us that.

Whether one likes the idea of elemental rounds or not is a separate issue of course.

 

[EvilKitten]

true..but we are still at the point "how ff was supposed to be"..and as a part of ff i guess it will be like this anyway

In beta there were no elemental weapons that I can recall. Fairly certain this was a The9 addon. As for it fitting into sci-fi perhaps I should clarify. I don't see that we cannot have elemental effects. I gave examples of grenades and tasers, but these are secondary weapon addon's not the main ammo you load into your gun. There is nothing wrong with burning or stunning or otherwise using "elemental" type effects in combat, I simply don't want to see it as an "ammo" type that you load into your primary fire in place of regular ammo.

EDIT: with one exception...the assault type weapons in Firefall beta fire "grenade" style weapons already and as such don't actually use bullets, this type of weapon could potentially be set to have an "elemental" effect beyond fire/concussion. However I think it should be a mod you add to the gun not a setting you can change on the fly.

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

i'm not exactly sure behind the logic of having toxic effective against unarmored targets and kinetic against armored ones or why electric is good against armor either since insulation coating is ridiculously simple to apply on armor (on the level that you coan literally spary paint it on) but i agree on general purposes.
Thought the majority of weapons could have 3-4 alternatives to switch in between, nothing too wild, obiviously we don't want toxic lasers/electric snipers but i don't actually see why freezing grenade launchers/toxic flamethrowers would be a problem, grenade style payload seems a good vector for liquid nitrogen payload and chemical throwers aren't that far out there (i've heard of a few countries far out there using diluited bleach/stinking chemicals in riot water cannons, that's pretty much how it'd work.)

Spoiler

here's how i'd reorganize elemental damage with resists

Cold \
Thermal ----- Bonus against armour
Toxic /

Kinetic \
Electric ------- Bonus against shields
Beam /

Also i just don't see why naked flesh would resist anything, if something loses all armor and shields or whatever protections are in place it should just die

In the end "elemental weaknesses" are totally arbitrary and it's up to the devs to make them work in a way that's balanced

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

In beta there were no elemental weapons that I can recall. Fairly certain this was a The9 addon.

so those elemental chambers came after the9 was brought in?

....Why not make them specialized at certain roles? We would still be able to use elemental ammo for other weapons, but their main damage would still be kinetic and additional small elemental damage. But no electrical sniper rifles etc.?

the ex-Red5 dev c0wb0y tried to re-introduce that. That got canned by Red5. they made it simplier for release.

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

so those elemental chambers came after the9 was brought in?

Regardless they were added in after constant pestering from the community, i'd admit that it was the most generic and bland implementation i've seen but we requested it, so it wasn't the9's idea

 

[EvilKitten]

so those elemental chambers came after the9 was brought in?



the ex-Red5 dev c0wb0y tried to re-introduce that. That got canned by Red5. they made it simplier for release.

Actually now that I think about it I do vaguely remember something that added an timed elemental component that you could craft right before I quit playing Firefall, but yes this was well after The9 had total control over the game.

 

[Yrkul]

Elemental prefixes were an abomination, and I sincerely hope they will not be present in Ember. I can easily accept that certain ammo types can add or modify the damage on projectile weapons, but I don't want to see silly contrivances shoehorned in, just because the devs were too lazy to create new weapons.

 

[Yrkul]

Actually now that I think about it I do vaguely remember something that added an timed elemental component that you could craft right before I quit playing Firefall, but yes this was well after The9 had total control over the game.

Yes. We had elemental chambers in beta, and even in 1.3 we could still craft melding chambers. Earned a pretty sum selling those for a while.

 

[Fac3man]

I don't really care what comes but I like weapons doing different kind of damage like for example in borderlands..

 

[Torgue_Joey]

I don't really care what comes but I like weapons doing different kind of damage like for example in borderlands..

Exactly what i thought, when it come to elemental dmg. Something like in borderlands with pros and cons.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

I don't really care what comes but I like weapons doing different kind of damage like for example in borderlands..

Yeah.
In borderland, the weapons are all designed so that individual parts give off different stats. That's how released their games advertising that they had billions of weapons.

So like Torque weapons all were explosive, throw in a Eridian body and now it fires purple lazers that explode on contact.
Add a scope rifle on that same weapon and it becomes more accurate.
Add a larger magazine ....

That weapon system is the reason I so want to play a Borderland style MMO.
Because they got a good crafting system in place. Granted that system wasn't accesible to players unless if they used third party software.

 

[Hybelkaninen]

"Partially, explain and propose"

I would like to see a mix of specialized weapons and ammo.

Electric:
Special weapon(s) like Tesla gun/cannon.
Single target attack but with a "chain lightning effect".

Fire:
Special weapons and ammunition.
Incendiary ammo for bullets and grenades.
Weapons like flamethrowers.

Ice:
Same as Fire, swap out napalm (or whatever) with liquid nitrogen (or whatever).

Toxic:
Same as Fire and Ice, swap out contents with a toxic substance.

Not so very fond of lasers and beams (except for Star Wars) love plasma though.....mmmh...plasma cannon

 

[Torgue_Joey]

Yeah.
In borderland, the weapons are all designed so that individual parts give off different stats. That's how released their games advertising that they had billions of weapons.

So like Torque weapons all were explosive, throw in a Eridian body and now it fires purple lazers that explode on contact.
Add a scope rifle on that same weapon and it becomes more accurate.
Add a larger magazine ....

That weapon system is the reason I so want to play a Borderland style MMO.
Because they got a good crafting system in place. Granted that system wasn't accesible to players unless if they used third party software.

Lol yeah, with all the suffix/prefix, elementals, mods component from various manufacturers randomly combined..... Borderlands has about 16 millions (?) weapons and borderlands 2 even more.