More types of Ammo / Bullets

[devout vine]

I think it would be interesting to have more ammo types and make ballistic weapons be able to use them. I know that Walt said that he didn't want it, but I need to tell it so that my soul can rest in peace.

• Penetration: High penetration. It has the special DamagePool mechanic from Railgun.
• Explosive: When the bullet spends all its penetration, it detonates causing AoE ~3m damage inside the target (it uses a ExplosiveDamage inside the FinishedPenetratingOperational)
• Incendiary: High chance of fire.
• Tracer: Lower spread, higher range.
• High impact: Higher damage and knockback (Impulse).
• Hollow: Higher damage but lower penetration. The bullet has ExplosiveDamage of 1m AoE in PenetratingOperational so that it kinds of create a hollow in the enemy.
• Emp: Cause extra damage to shields.
• Fragmentation (option 1). You shoot multiple projectiles at the same time with very low penetration. The total damage is quite high, but is very unlikely all of them hitting the same target.
• Fragmentation (option 2). When the bullet get closes to the enemy (DeathByEnemyProximity), it fragmentates into multiple projectiles (using SpawnBullets on OnDeath). The difference with Option 1 is that it is less penalized by longer distance due to fragmentating closer to the enemy.

Obviously, they seems like too many options, and in the roadmap the Cluster and Incendiary missile ideas are merged into a single weapon, so we could merge a few options to create:

1. Penetration: High penetration. Uses DamagaPool. No fire.
   Good against armored enemies.
2. Explosive: Creates a explosion with FinishedPenetratingOperational (this explosion doesn't scales with penetration). Has fire when exploding.
   Bad against thick armor due to AoE resistance. Good to damage enemy internal parts and mess with fire.
3. Hollow + Impact: High damage with ExplosiveDamage inside PenetratingOperational and higher Impulse. No fire.
   Bad against armor due to AoE resistance. Good against crew thanks to its area of effect.
4. Incendiary + Tracer: Has FireChance, lower Spread and longer Range.
   Average against armor, it isn't bad, but armor can't be set on fire. Good at long range (similar range to Laser Blasters).
5. Fragmentation: Any of the two previous suggestions for Fragmentation. No fire.
   Highest damage per shot, but due to its fragmentation, it is not focalized. Therefore, useful to damage shields due to their large surface but not to damage specific modules.

Maybe EMP no cause it is quite special and maybe unrealistic?

Railgun always uses Penetration. Flak Battery always uses Explosive. Standard Cannon, Large Cannon and Deck Cannon can use any of them.
Current values of the three Cannons are considered Incendiary + Tracer

[native anchor]

flak could use explosive or frag imo

[opal forge]

u can just add these to vanilla cannons yourself in theory...

[dawn mica]

I wouldn't exactly say it's just the ammo that makes a railgun projectile high penetration

[devout vine]

Flak cannon deals AoE damage and so it uses explosive ammo

[devout vine]

I know, but it might be weird using some of the other options

[devout vine]

Which of both suggestions for Fragementation do you prefer?

[dawn mica]

One inquiry, is this just a setting on the cannons, for Example the deck cannon's single fire, and double fire,
Or are these separate ammunitions that each take their own storage, costs and such

[dawn mica]

Also, I wasn't saying the railgun gets different ammunition, I just don't think a cannon should have nearly as much penetration as a railgun, since there's a lot more maintenance needed for railguns

[devout vine]

Separate ammo

[devout vine]

I never said that a standard cannon using penetrative ammo would have a similar penetration of a railgun. I was just suggesting a bit higher penetration and the usage of DamagePool mechanic

[native anchor]

cannons penetrate and start fires so they shouldn't use anything that doesn't, by that logic

loading frag rounds into a flak gun would make a neat shotgun

[dawn mica]

if you think about it, we already have all the ammo types, just as seperate guns, penetration is the railgun, regular is the cannon, and 'explosive' is flak

there's just more depth with them

[sage dune]

Rather than making new and new items for ships to lug around, a simple rename of missile parts to will do the trick.

I'm in favour of applying existing parts items as the alternative ammo, or even better to have both ammo and parts consumed to produce these effects.

Hi-ex ammo would blow up on collision.
Mine would blow up into more projectiles. (Fragmentation)
Emp, we know what it's doing.
Nuke would blow up at the end.

If we had a system like that we could easily apply it to the railgun as well. Using tritanium for more power and copper wire for penetration.

This leaves our storage and production simple. Makes the ammo and parts not optional for some new guns. Rewards looting currently unused resources.

[fiery isle]

I think this ais a great idea, but I think the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method may be well applied here, AP, Explosive and EMP ammo are all great, but some of the extras somewhat add extra needless complexity to the system that may make it overwhelming, although if really desired I think impact and tracers could be effectively combined into Incendiary, low direct damage and long range, but it starts fires on the opposing ships if you get a good hit (maybe only on hitting corridors?). Fragmentation is an interesting idea but I think it would be better served as a rare ammo or some other special ammo (maybe a alternative for flak guns? Low damage but high spread?)

also, awesome idea btw

[dawn mica]

one thing with this is that players, because you can only pick 1 type of ammo to have on your ship when you load it into a pvp match, will choose either the best non- standard one, or just the standard ammo, as if something is just better than standard, reduces the use of stanard ammo

[gusty zenith]

maybe just have an option on the turret to say which ammo it will use, and the shells will just turn into those when loaded

not sure what you would do to add cost to that though

[blazing charm]

This gets into the too complex to do at scale side of things.

A smart cannon would be nice where it automatically picks the right ammo type when targeting a component, but that isn't always straight forward either.

[gusty zenith]

i think the smart cannon would kind of take away the trade offs each ammo type might offer

and i don't think it would be too complex, it's just a few more clicks per cannon, and allows you to have more consideration into what the purpose of your weaponry is