Energy weapon capacity rework

[Scheveningen]

So yeah I had this in the saved drafts backlog but actually cared enough to post it. Wild. This is a rework proposition that I think is the more measured response to some prior discussions on how to make energy weapons not feel like they suck so bad in terms of actually using them.

Preface: At present, the current status quo for energy weapons is this. You pick up a gun and shoot it, you then run out of shots, *click* goes the trigger. You figure the way to remedy being out of ammunition is to reload, but you're wielding an unspeakably terrible knockoff 'laser rifle' that has to be charged like a VSCO girl's phone every 5 seconds, so you have no other choice but to walk all the way to a recharger just to remedy this situation.

When comparing to a ballistic assault rifle, which can reload its 20 shots as quick as someone can manage their inventory, you can tell there are some major issues of logistics that makes the archaic lead-spitting machined rifle descended from other weapons designed over centuries, somehow superior to something that was meant to be a futurist weaponsmith's attempt to revolutionize a weapon or tool forever.

Rather than proposing energy weapons should have similar reload mechanics to ballistics, it would be much easier from an effort standpoint and a balancing standpoint to do the following.

The actual proposal:

* The shots indicator for energy weapons is removed, it is no longer possible to see how many shots an energy weapon can shoot. It is instead replaced with a heat gauge, determined by percentage. As a weapon fires, it is simulated to build up heat (the reality is that on the coding side, the system hasn't changed fundamentally, every laser gun will still have a maximum limit of shots they can fire), up to a maximum of 100%. If someone is to fire a weapon over or equal to the 100% heat limit, it overheats, dealing burn damage equal to the lethal damage that the gun's projectile possesses, to the hand in which the weapon is held. If the weapon is wielded when it overheats, the damage is halved but applied to both hands. A weapon that overheats is incapable of firing for 60 seconds until it passively vents. Weapons automatically overheat to 100% (but never over that amount) if EMPed, but retain their heat dissipation capabilities after venting. If a weapon is overheated this way in a holster or belt, it instead deals the projectile damage to the upper body.

* All energy weapons, after 5 seconds of not having fired a shot, dissipate (or 'vent') 5% of their maximum heat every 6 seconds. They do so even in a vacuum, due to a robust compact venting system. In an actual environment with an atmosphere, these weapons will slightly increase the room's temperature as they pass off heat during their ventilation proc. The antique laser gun, the advanced energy gun, and any weapon with a nuclear reactor or any existing passive charge have their heat dissipation effects doubled and tripled (and thus vent their heat to the environment at greater intervals), respectively to the antique laser and to the AEG/nuclear reactors for the prototype R&D energy guns.. This is intentionally a bigger buff to larger shot capacity weapons, and is also meant to be more balanced for small shot count guns that tend to hit incredibly hard. Likewise, I didn't want to invalidate the other energy guns that had interesting regeneration mechanics by not suggesting to have them buffed.

* The weapons rechargers no longer exist. Instead, 3 heat dissipation waystations are now mapped into the armory. Their mechanics are simple, much like portable flashes or barricades, they must be wrenched down to initially function. Upon doing so, a weapon at a time can be inserted into a HD waystation, and dissipates their heat at quintuple of the base rate (meaning, an AEG will always dissipate 25% of their max heat every 6 seconds no matter what). There are some drawbacks, however. They also possess ventilation that causes them to pass off their heat to the nearby environment, often increasing the temperature at a brisk pace if constantly functioning over the course of a few minutes. The HD waystations also are ultimately battery powered, and will fail to function if their battery is not paid close attention to and frequently replaced. Additional waystations can be bought cheap-o through cargo. Because you know what I'm implying here.

* Heisters and mercenaries get three waystations also, but they're upscaled versions with a better battery and more efficient ventilation to not heat up stuff as much.

* Waystations have 50 health and are permanently destroyed when shot at or struck with a powerful melee weapon. Don't worry, they'll spit out the weapon charged in them in a random direction when broken.

* While not recommended, any energy weapon can be forced to emergency ventilate, causing it to rapidly vent its already built-up heat in a pinch. It will deal burn damage equal to the weapon's projectile damage to the wielder's hand(s), multiplied by the percentage of heat build-up when commenced (i.e., weapon damage = 30, vent commenced at 75% heat buildup, damage is 22.5, divided by two if the weapon is wielded in both hands). The emergency ventilation will dissipate 3 of the maximum of the built-up heat over 5 seconds, and then can fire once again. Emergency ventilation has a multiplicative chance for failure per weapon after the first time this is done, referred to as the "grace emergency vent". The "grace emergency vent" charge is replenished after 5 minutes of not having fired the weapon.
* The failure chance for emergency venting after the first is 25%, 60% and 100% for the second, third and fourth/onward attempts. An emergency vent failure automatically overloads the weapon and deals the full overload damage.

How everyone might be expected to play around this:

* Ballistic weapons are regarded as the premium ranged option for all-out offense and heavy bursts of damage in a short period of time, but it has problems trying to defend spaces as well as most energy weapons, including beams and such. Inversely, energy weapons at present are regarded as more specialized (and much better at) defending and holding specific points, forcing stalemates or choosing to fight long engagements.

* Since rechargers are basically fucking g o n e/non-functional under this proposal, this means the average energy gun only regenerates their capacity to full over the course of two minutes. This is fairly slow, but the uptick is that ballistic users can't regenerate bullets, they have to reload and once they spend them, they're gone. This still plays out in the favor of the person with the laser rifle who picks their fights smart and doesn't die, since the value of their weapon versus that of the guy with the assault rifle increases over time, whereas the one with the assault rifle decreases as they continue to spend more and more ammunition that they cannot always get more of.

* So, what's the point of the way-station then? It's designed to enable security (and cargonia, obviously) to camp in chokepoints and be able to hold the zone for much longer without having to run downstairs 2 levels just to recharge their laser rifle. Alternatively they're very good as fallback positions for skirmishers to come back to and quick vent before running out to skirmish again. Obviously, if you have a combat shotgun you will be able to chase security off the way-station anyway.

* What's with the emergency ventilation? Essentially, it's for emergency situations where you have to use it to stay in the engagement or else you'll get shot in the back and die if you try to run. Encouraged to only be used in 'cornered lion' situations, it has much less value for using it to actually secure an incapacitation, because then you don't have the grace period to save your life with.

* Ion rifles and EMPs still counter energy weapons. You should only shoot someone once with it rather than resetting their weapon repeatedly just to burn their hands, since their weapon is going to be rendered useless for a bit anyway. Feel free to magdump to superburn their hands, but then you can overheat too.

Thots? Feedback, etc? Post in replies.

[DronzTheWolf]

As interesting as this is, how will this change the more unusual/niche energy weapons? Stuff like the icelance and the thermal drill?

[Scheveningen]

The thermal drill should probably charge as fast as the other caveats mentioned. As for the icelance, I think it should just work like the fallout crank rifle, and just have multiplicative damage fired in one shot. (With diminished returns, I suppose, don't want literal one-shot guns.)

[Carver]

So basically energy users are just Sienna from Vermintide 2? It's ok but I'm not eager to get insane burn damage because I spam clicked my laser 'til empty, would rather it clicks when it overheats (especially because I'd fucking hate to be using them at all vs EMP with these changes).

Ditch the whole 'overheat/EMP demolishes the wielder' and I'll like this.

After some discussion, I'd believe that the ideal replacement for hand-burning would simply be overheat slowing down the cooling rate. Effectively, taking the weapon out of action for longer but without directly killing the wielder.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Carver

[Wigglesworth Jones]

I'm mostly on-board with the idea, but would prefer overheating not directly do damage - perhaps a failed "emergency venting" could, but I'd rather not have ion weapons melt somebody's hands off. 

[Rushodan]

This is a fantastic idea to solve the problem that laser weaponry has in lore, in my eyes at least and I am mad that I didn't think of it.

I can take or leave the hand burning when overheating. If you wanted to be extra perhaps normally your laser weapon can fire 15 shots (the rifle) with failsafes applied, but if you smack it with a wrench you get 20 shots and the power to burn the hell out of your hand.

But yeah, this is an amazing solution to 'running away and finding a damn charger'.

I can take or leave the emergency venting feature, personally. The core idea of managing weapon heat with lasers is super neat.

[Sparky_hotdog]

Was wondering if there was still interest in this. I'd be interested in seeing this and willing to code it too, but I'm aware this is now over two months old and things may have changed.

[Cnaym]

On 24/11/2020 at 00:55, Scheveningen said:

The thermal drill should probably charge as fast as the other caveats mentioned. As for the icelance, I think it should just work like the fallout crank rifle, and just have multiplicative damage fired in one shot. (With diminished returns, I suppose, don't want literal one-shot guns.)

I like the suggestion and this idea a lot. The drill already auto recharges rather quickly and is not a weapon since it cannot really hit anyone or do damage. Having the icelance be more of an ambush weapon compared to traditional guns would make it a lot more useful as well. All in all a good idea to spice the weapons up and get a bit of a fresh wind into the shooting economy of things.

[Carver]

I'd be very disappointed if the Icelance went from an extremely reliable, low-sustain (in an extended fight) harassing tool to a fucking all-in 'you miss, get shit on' Fallout reference.

[Aphelion]

I like this.

It would be even cooler if every single gun was fully modular, and overheating could damage components and stuff. But I don't think people would enjoy that at all, and implementation would be a little nightmare.

Personally I've never had much of an issue with E-guns running out of power, though I can see it happening. 

If this is implemented, adding a few more warnings to a weapon nearing over-heat would be good like "The gun is getting hot in your hands" and maybe making it so that the hotter the laser rifle is, the higher pitched the sound of it shooting is.

Big changes are spoopy tho, maybe you could keep/make a few guns that have a gimick around being rechargeable for super-cooling circuits or somthat, then if they run out of charge you can still use them but they might explode or melt.

A part of me hates the idea of dissipating heat in a vacuum by "BEING SUPER ADVANCED" but there's not much we can do to stop that. The laws of thermodynamics have long since been burried and forgotten in the year 2463, so trying to explain it is useless. Just say something senseless like "The cell in the weapon has ultra-heat-reclamation tech" where basically a series of heat-pipes lead to very small thermo-electric-generators in the gun, and convert the heat into power.

[Cnaym]

On 27/01/2021 at 03:12, Carver said:

I'd be very disappointed if the Icelance went from an extremely reliable, low-sustain (in an extended fight) harassing tool to a fucking all-in 'you miss, get shit on' Fallout reference.

Oh yeah. The old mode needs to remain a viable option. But an added shotgun alternative mode would make it really stand out from the default arsenal

[Alberyk]

Still against making all energy weapons rechargable on the field due to reasons already discussed on other countless topics about this.

[Butterrobber202]

12 hours ago, Alberyk said:

Still against making all energy weapons rechargable on the field due to reasons already discussed on other countless topics about this.

I'm of this mind as well. Extending their combat longevity is fine in my book, but if you deploy rechargers in the field, you're basically giving Security infinite ammo.

[Carver]

20 hours ago, Cnaym said:

Oh yeah. The old mode needs to remain a viable option. But an added shotgun alternative mode would make it really stand out from the default arsenal

If the old function remains then I don't see why not, though I worry such a new mode would either end up as broken or worthless as the weapon in the game it references.