[2 Dismissals: Archived] Laser Weapon Ammunition

[Outboarduniform]

right , so heres the basic idea:

instead of having to recharge your laser weapons , i propose that we add in a more favourable magazine system.

Because everyone hates having your weapon go out of charge in the middle of combat ! so instead , i suggest that we have laser cartridges/magazines , so you can perform easier tactical reloads instead of having to go back and recharge. it would work by having the magazines be rechargable , but having the laser weaponry only take in the magazines/cartridges. i mean really , what is the fucking point of having a carbine as a Nuke Ops if you have to RTB or break into someplace to charge your laser weapon ?

[incognitojesus]

I like this idea. Maybe in the form of thermal clips, ala Mass Effect? It'd be a nice thing. Maybe even instead with a debuff to compensate? I don't know, mang. Just throwing ideas.

[canon35]

This would be nice. Having at least two clips per gun, they're effected by EMP. You have to charge the clips themselves. Another thing that would be cool is to have it be if you heat up a clip (With something like a lighter, weld tool) it'd heat up, and explode with the force of a IED. Just weak enough to not actually melt the floor.

[jackfractal]

Energy guns in the code already use power cells to handle their ammunition.

In theory, it would be trivially easy to allow people to pop the cells out and replace them. Cells are medium sized items, so people wouldn't be able to carry infinite ammo.

This would also give security a reason to interact with Science.

[Guest]

only if we get different cell/ammunition types.

[swat43]

FYI... there was a talk about this in November 2014. where i raised the nearly same problem.

http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=580

[Ron]

This is quite the old thread, but I'd like to revive this idea. Basically, all laser weapons have a special internal cell that needs to be recharged instead of the entire gun. It'd be quite inconvenient to reload during combat, but still possible outside of combat. The clips themselves would be quite hard to come by and would be large in size so you'd only be able to really carry 2-3 including the one in your gun.

[Fire and Glory]

I am a bit leery of portable reloads as a whole, especially considering laser rifles get something like 20 shots and are pretty damn dangerous. But if it is not possible to speed-reload like it's near on par with a damn magazine, then I am somewhat less leery.

[Doc]

I'm very supportive of this idea. It's a little silly, and perhaps even lore-breaking for supposedly combat-worthy equipment to only have a fire-fight or possibly two's worth of charge before requiring a specialized charging station hooked up to a facility power supply to recharge. Regardless of the lore, I still think this is a good idea, particularly for antags who don't have a reliable source of recharging unless they are lucky enough to work security or command. Even science, the highest-tech department of the station, doesn't have item re-chargers, only cell re-chargers (to my knowledge, at least- I don't usually play science personally). That all said, it is also very reasonable to keep this limited- the inventory size of a power cell sounds reasonable to me, as well as being able to place them on security or military belts and webbings. I also agree with the concept of limiting the reload speed somehow, and to that I propose the screwdriver, a reasonably small item that can be easily kept on even a kitted-out person's inventory, even on their ear. Using a screwdriver to un-secure the old cell and re-secure the new cell isn't a particularly difficult task, but still essentially doubles the actions needed to reload. While this may still be a little unwieldy for a supposed combat weapon, it's significantly better than having to completely disengage and return to base to reload your primary combat weapon. I'd also like to suggest that, like power-cells, higher-capacity weapon cells can be made by RnD, perhaps a level above their corresponding power-cell capacity. How many shots each level would grant is beyond me, however. Another interesting addition I agree with from earlier in the thread is the concept of ammo 'types'. They could be severely limited in actual shot-capacity, like down to 5 or so, but have effects like EMP or fire-setting.

[FlameCow]

I don't know what the best solution is for the problem, but I definitely think something has to be done about it. It's ridiculous marching all the way back to a charger to reload your gun. If things get really out of control (see: blob, large group of enemies, whatever) it is basically impossible to fight back with a laser gun.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

The benefits of laser weapons is that they go through windows and hit instantly. Being rechargable balances that out. Ballistics have the benefit of being portable and reloadable in the field, at the cost of not going through windows and having slower projectives.

[NoahKirchner]

I really like canon's idea. Making the magazines really fucking volatile would make laser guns not super OP. I think it'd also be neat to make them, instead of pretty hefty burn damage to anything besides ablative, really really potent against unarmored individuals but incredibly weak against anyone wearing anything with a bit of insulation. Right now lasers are in a weird middle ground where they're really good against ops and what-not but have weird recharge procedures and don't really seem to specialize in anything besides giving someone an infection.

[driecg36]

I do think it really odd to have to pull back all the way to a recharger to continue fighting in a prolonged firefight, and it really takes you out of the action while being honestly somewhat immersion breaking.

Sure laser rifles are powerful, but at the end of the day, any antag with ablative or even burn meds is gonna pretty much ignore anything but a massive amount of burst damage. However, fighting a large amount of spiders is a colossal pain in the ass when you have to pull back, recharge for a minute or two, then go back to keep fighting.

A simple reload system with rechargeable clips seems really beneficial here, especially for antags. It would make laser/energy weapons somewhat more logical ICly, and a lot more fun to use.

I'm not a fan of needing a tool like a screwdriver to reload them however. Simply having a one or two second delay on removing/inserting clips would be more than enough to keep the weapon balanced so you can't just insta reload and empty 40 lasers into an antag.

I think energy weapons have enough hard counters that this really wouldn't make them OP, since a single EMP completely neuters a sec officer equipped with energy weapon, and ablative/energy shields/eswords are all pretty strong against lasers so.

This would also give research things to do by producing more, better cells. Maybe even producing cells with specific effects, like incendiary or shotgun. That would make RnD a lot more useful/interesting in producing weapons for sec, if all they needed to do was make the cell imo.

[Scheveningen]

If we did this we could easily remove their hit scan effect and make them high-speed firing projectiles instead. The speed of light is still not instant.

[driecg36]

If we did this we could easily remove their hit scan effect and make them high-speed firing projectiles instead. The speed of light is still not instant.

 

I'm actually a really big fan of them being hitscan. Makes them feel like actual lasers, and laser firefights look dope as a result.

[whiterabit]

The speed of light is still not instant.

 

ajgioaphgaopiheongaopijoipajgag

the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s

pretty fucking irrelevant my man its basically instant for whatever range the crew would be using

[Wesmas]

Another option would be to add reloading, then reduce the number of shots per cell if the guns are too strong.

[Alberyk]

I am against it, needing a recharger is a feature that balances and make energy weapons more unique.

+1 vote for dismissal.

[Arrow768]

Hm, at first I thought it would be a interesting idea.

But this would turn laser weapons into just another reskin of ballistics.

I could see this implemented for a few special guns.

But not all across the board.

Therefore supporting the vote for dismissal