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Add a beam weapon to the uplink.


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With the recent re-mapping and re-work and re-whatevers have happened, I have noticed the station has become basically a glass dome, near every department is punctured with windows,windoors or doors that have glass panels.

Second, diversification, people have tought themselves that antagonists deal brute and nothing else which has resulted in plenty of options just going un-used because it's pointless to use them against projectiles.

Third, lasers will I think help (even if only a little) with the overall "Feel" of this being a sci-fi, primary antag weapons are a Revolver, a vintage sub-machine gun and a stetchkin, none of this really screams "Sci-fi" more like "1920's".


I don't really know what it could be, maybe just a laser rifle? Concealed laser pistol? Pulse pistol? X-ray laser rifle? X-ray laser pistol? Open for suggestions on this one and I frankly feel like devs would be a lot better at determining what should go there as they're more familiar with the precise damage metrics.


Now frankly I can see this impacting security meta a lot, as we know a large part of security are M'sai tajara (for their speed) and IPCs (Due to ressilience).

This will kinda flip the whole thing on its head, tajara will be at a disadvantage due to how lasers function and you can't really "Track the bullet" while IPCs will suffer due to burn damage against which they're weaker, same with vaurca.

If this is good or bad, can't really tell.

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I believe that the original reason for the lack of antag energy weapons was due to the fact that you'll only get so many shots out of them before you have to recharge, while "mechanical" weapons could just switch to a fresh magazine.

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I believe that the original reason for the lack of antag energy weapons was due to the fact that you'll only get so many shots out of them before you have to recharge, while "mechanical" weapons could just switch to a fresh magazine.

Again, that can be considered both an advantage and a disadvantage, perhaps energy clips would be viable? Portable charger?

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Again, that can be considered both an advantage and a disadvantage, perhaps energy clips would be viable? Portable charger?

I believe security would definitely approve of energy clips.

Portable chargers that draw from the local APC might be a thing as well since science can research such modules...

But yes, energy clips so that you could either charge a gun with an energy clip, or just the energy clip itself.

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Sure. Even without implementing energy clips an option to pick up a different wepon depending on preference is always nice to have. If you're dissuaded by the low ammo and difficulties in recharging you can always pick up a ballistic one.


Energy clips both for antag and general use would be very nice to see

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Battery packs to fit into energy weapons like bulley clips would make them extremely valuable for both sides.

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There was a previous suggestion to add "energy clips" that I initially supported, but have since changed my mind. It was denied, as well.


Simply put, energy weapons are generally more powerful, or at least more versatile, than ballistics due to their unique properties (hitscan, glass penetration) that would make the addition of energy clips an unquestionable and unreasonable buff to anyone with an energy weapon. The requirement of charging is the drawback to balance these advantages.


Instead, I suggest the addition of another item to the uplink, an APC jack that when attached to an APC effectively makes it a makeshift charger. It accepts both cells and any typically charged items. It drastically changes the sprite of the APC as to be immediately obvious. It can be removed by simply right clicking the APC and hitting a "remove charger" option. Both attaching and removing it takes a small amount of time and makes a screwdriver sound. Perhaps it only charges at a 0.5 or 0.75 rate as a real charger for balance reasons, but frankly I think it's fine as standard for an antag item.

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-death by a thousand snips-

 

How about a battery pack that would require to be charged instead of being spent?

Similar to basically lugging around a second energy gun (something people already do) with the exception of it being smaller (medium size?), besides it WOULD be an antag item, those tend to be somewhat unbalanced or on the stronger side as they're supposed to give the traitor enough leverage to be able to overcome your average armed security officer.



Thanks burger appreciated, just too lazy to quote your rn.

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I freaking love laser guns, so I really hope the item that gets added to the uplink is laser-based. Please.


On the subject of giving energy weapons expendable 'clips,' why not just make it so they use high-capacity power cells? This would make sense in-universe since the power cells are basically UPSs already, adaptable to tons of different devices, and it would be beneficial mechanically because it saves us from having to add some new battery item with no other use. This would give people the cool opportunity to salvage "ammo" for their energy weapons from scrapping stuff around them, like popping open APCs, or... as a janitor, even the janicart suddenly becomes another possible source of ammo. And that's baller as hell.


On the flip side (though I feel this would be employed much less often), it would also allow people to empty their energy weapons in order to power other things they need. If you're the warden and you've got armfuls of laser rifles you're not using, but your whole security wing is without power, suddenly you've got an opportunity to engineer some creative power solutions.


Bascially, making the role of the high-capacity power cell interchangeable in this way would be much more interesting than adding a new battery clip that just turns to garbage like bullet casings once you're done shooting.


+1

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I freaking love laser guns, so I really hope the item that gets added to the uplink is laser-based. Please.


On the subject of giving energy weapons expendable 'clips,' why not just make it so they use high-capacity power cells? This would make sense in-universe since the power cells are basically UPSs already, adaptable to tons of different devices, and it would be beneficial mechanically because it saves us from having to add some new battery item with no other use. This would give people the cool opportunity to salvage "ammo" for their energy weapons from scrapping stuff around them, like popping open APCs, or... as a janitor, even the janicart suddenly becomes another possible source of ammo. And that's baller as hell.


On the flip side (though I feel this would be employed much less often), it would also allow people to empty their energy weapons in order to power other things they need. If you're the warden and you've got armfuls of laser rifles you're not using, but your whole security wing is without power, suddenly you've got an opportunity to engineer some creative power solutions.


Bascially, making the role of the high-capacity power cell interchangeable in this way would be much more interesting than adding a new battery clip that just turns to garbage like bullet casings once you're done shooting.


+1

 

Using power cells for laser weapons would be very very cool.

Default cells could be normal cells, with larger cells providing more shots.

And if we go there, why stop, have a dial selector on the gun for energy use! More power per shot = Less shots. Less power per shot = more shots.

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And if we go there, why stop

 

Because then your weapon is deliberately overbuffed powercreep that leaves all other existing weapons in the uplink in the dust. I don't mind if you throw traitors an AEG they can toy around with that has a regenerating capacitor, but don't give them a gun that's superior to everything else in the game due to accepting ammunition, having a high shot capacity and basically can be instantly recharged in the field + shoots through an infinite amount of windows. This is kind of the tradeoff energy weapons get for being so versatile: You have to run away from the conflict to recharge your highly versatile weapon again. Ballistic weapons operate on the opposite principle, they're excellent close range and for quick/dirty encounters. You expend a little more inventory space with a ballistic weapon but their impact + higher potential to kill makes it totally worth it. Once finished, reload and continue with the next encounter.


Security exploits lasers better because they possess better armor against it (mercenaries get the most armor against ballistics to protect against friendly fire but are weaker vs. lasers) and generally defend the home field better due to their inherent numbers and departmental support. They're way weaker against ballistics (which is the good portion of the uplink weapons) and actually die way faster to them if a revolver is aimed either center mass or at their brainpan. I've seen Alberyk take a derringer from cargo (which has the same projectile statistics as the traitor revolver) and accidentally kill the chief engineer in a single shot to the chest because the bullet hit his heart for 60 brute damage.


The fact the station is a glass dome is really inconsequential. Whether you're armed with lasers or not, your positioning is arguably much more important for the weapon you have, so if you have a ballistic gun, it's not the fault of the gun for not being able to shoot through windows, it's your fault for not positioning appropriately, not that ballistics are underpowered.


Don't throw a laser weapon a bone that ballistics gets as its sole benefits for being inflexible. You end up creating a gun that is incredibly uninteresting because it has zero significant weaknesses and is good at everything. Most energy weapons are supposed to be weak in terms of capacity due to not having a reliable method of sustaining in the field after you empty it, because they're decent at dealing out damage, they shoot through windows and windowed airlocks which are two common forms of obstructions, and they deal out a form of damage that doesn't cause bleed out damage, so you can actually capture someone alive with a laser weapon if you shoot them into crit with it. No internal damage whatsoever from it. Lasers are super powerful for their own reasons. Don't make a gun that circumvents all of their weaknesses. Stick to the same formula that works.


Doc's idea of an APC jack is ingenious, though, and that compensates a bit for antagonists not being able to reasonably charge their guns in the field. That should definitely be a thing regardless if anything comes out of this suggestion or not.

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But I never said ballistics are inferior, I just implied it would be pretty neat to have more flexibility as an antagonist to diversify your equipment instead of relying on a single damage output.


Also the clips were never the point of the discussion, it was just a footnote.

Doc's idea sounds very fun and useful, searching for chargers can be annoying.

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I was just letting everyone else know that the balance factors attached to ballistics and lasers is there for a reason and there's no point in disrupting that balance. Since we had that discussion a year or so ago and it's not like that answer will change now. While it sucks that it's difficult to recharge energy weapons in the field, giving them magazines would be far too powerful.


You could add an AEG to the traitor loadout and I'd be satisfied with it.

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I would hope there's consensus that the title suggestion is good. The diversity is worthwhile mechanically (allowing a patient traitor to choose their weapon based on what armor security is geared up with, for instance, or deal the damage type you need), but more important to me, it seems completely necessary from a roleplay/flavor perspective. It's 2460. The bad guys need to have lasers.

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there is a ton of tl;dr in this thread that I can't be bothered to read, but in my KA overhaul I'll be introducing a traitor KA that shoots laser beams. It cannot be charged, however one could steal a miner's custom KA cell and replace it with it's jury rigged cell on the laser KA for the ability to recharge shots.

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It kinetically accelerates the photons :^)


Of course, it would make sense as just a laser rifle disguised as a kinetic accelerator. Since a crew member having a KA is no big deal, but having a laser rifle is.

EDIT: This traitor KA wouldn't only be for miners, right? I don't even know if Aurora uses role-specific traitor items tbh.

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