Weapon differentiation based on range

[gaunt plank]

There has been a lot of talk about the overly nerfed range of the Lance Railgun, but I think it is only part of the problem.

Missile launcher excluded, all player weapons in the game have the same range of just under 1 km.

I find it not only immersion-breaking, but also a huge missed opportunity to add more varied gameplay and another dimension to ship builds.

Instead of the supposedly short-range lasers and fragment cannons, a medium-range not-so-rapid (the stats really need an update) pulse cannon, and a long range bolt accelerator being balanced on dps, ammo use, and plug size only, balance them also on range.

In fact, I would also go one step further and even add an artifact that boosts gun range depending on a certain condition. Wouldn't that be a fun dynamic?

Add the current effective weapon range stat somewhere on the screen both for pilot and the gunner and problem solved, should be pretty intuitive from that point forth. And if you really wanted to make it more fun, some weapons could have both an effective and a maximum range, like for example lasers could deal standard damage up to 1 km away and then gradually decrease over to 0 damage at 1.5 km. Could even add the reverse where lasers deal extra damage at close range, as one example, or slightly less damage due to target being closer than the ideal focal point.

The point is with dynamic weapon range and distance-dependent damage output the ship weapon gameplay would become more fun and varied, which I believe would be a good thing. At minimum please give us static weapon range differentiation so that not all guns shoot the same.

[lyric abyss]

I think this could be a really cool way to add depth to ship building and combat, though I suspect that short term, this is off the table simply because ships don't aggro when you shoot em from further away.

My immediate concern with both this (and the various "justice for railgun" feedback) is that currently, enemies like fighter and snipers really only do anything because they outrange us, and any ship can bring any gun, so we'd in all likelihood just see everyone bring a railgun and proceed to trivialize these enemies.

I think range variation can be super cool, but I think that we'd want to work with ranges where enemy snipers and fighters still outrange or longest range guns, or for those weapons be somehow limited in a way that isn't just the opportunity cost of choosing a different weapon.

Practically, there's gonna be a maximum range for guns where that's still fun. There's also a minimum range at which guns don't feel awful. To be able to use that full breadth of ranges, I'd be tempted to not have an artefact that modifies those ranges, or we might run into the same experience we have with the rate of fire of guns - starting off weirdly low to account for the growth through the artefact.

[gaunt plank]

Those are valid concerns, some of which could be addressed by improving enemy AI, balancing their numbers, and potentially also making them employ their own plethora of short and long range weapons, similarly to how their missiles and railguns seem to be better than ours.

And yeah, I can see what you mean about the artifact, so I'll leave that decision to the devs as they know best.

The way all enemy patrols are completely blind to a giant unknown ship running with all the lights on just 1 km away from them has long since bothered me too, so enemy detection and aggro as a whole needs a thorough rework IMO.

[lyric abyss]

I'd like to pretend that like the geth, it's because they don't have windows so they can't look outside. This is, of course, because windows are structural weakpoints.

Sadly, the legion ship models do have windows 🙁

[gaunt plank]

My best explanation so far is that this works only for our ship because of some top-level hacking and electronic warfare from Iris, making it super difficult for enemy AI to use their sensors to actually spot the ship. But even then 1 km always felt too low for me.

[lyric abyss]

I'm hoping part of the change to sensors on the roadmap is also a change to enemy sensors, but we'll have to wait and see.

Another option would be to intentionally start off the long range weapons at 1kmish, and have an artefact that boosts ranges, but only does so for weapons like the railgun and the bolt accelerator.

You'd only get full breadth of weapon variety with the artefact, but itd create an impetus to change up weapons based on what artefact you find in a run, and thats cool in its own way.

[gaunt plank]

Yeeeah, but that still leaves me scratching my head on why a giant railgun mounted to my ship can't outdistance my pistol XD

So maybe some sort of balanced combination of all of these could be nice. For example like you said, start off railgun at 1500 (at least for Mk 3), which would let enemy snipers outdistance you by at least 500 meters, and then with an artifact the range can go up to 2000 and at level 5 of the artifact match that of enemy snipers... Something along those lines.

[lyric abyss]

Exact distances notwithstanding, I would enjoy that sorta "if you invest deeply into this artefact and this gun, you can specialize and best an enemy at their own game"

[ionic yew]

Just on the railgun, does anyone else think the ship's railgun firing sound needs a bit more of a 'wind up' sound? Considering this compared to the handheld railgun that has a prefiring 'wind up' sound. The ship's does not sound right for such a powerful mounted weapon. Even the artillery cannons have a long 'wind up' before firing implying immense power.

[gaunt plank]

Maybe, but that would even further nerf it. Given how difficult it is to hit fast moving targets from a moving ship, the short range, and not such great damage, adding firing delay to it will only make it even worse...

So personally I am fine with it not having any wind-up if it means people can actually land their shots more frequently.

[ionic yew]

No firing delay, oh hell no. Just change the sound to have a projectile ready / charged droning sound like it is holding or contains the ready projectile - wrrrrrrrrr. or vvvvufffffffff. [ha, made you make those sounds]

[gaunt plank]

Ah, then yes, could do! Something to also help a gunner judge when the reload is done by playing a sound as the gun goes off cooldown. That would be useful.

We may want to raise that as a separate suggestion, will you do it?

[pearl stag]

I agree that recharge sound building up for the full time the rail gun is reloading would be awesome and practical.

Regards to OP - I like the idea of range and variations having some sort of effect. And agreed too on the railgun that its equal range to most other weapons is a disappointment. It should not be outranged by the missile launcher.

As I was reading this I was picturing the days of Xwing Miniatures table top game. Firing any ship you would use the range ruler. Some weapons only had a range of 1 or 2, some went 1 through 3, some only 2 or 3, long range weapons that couldn't even fire close range. And the attacker and defender each had opposite bonuses and drawbacks to firing at close or long range and defending at close or long range.

Gave me the thought that weapons could have different power/strength depending on the range of the target. Still rebalance the range of the weapons. And if you hit a target at the max range of the weapon is does weaker damage than its base. If you hit a target in the sweat spot middle range it does its base damage, and if you hit a target point blank close range it does more damage than its base stats. I think something like that in line with adjusting weapon range could be cool.