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Debate 10: Weapons modules


Wilks Checkov

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This idea came to me while I was eating a waffle downtown, so I figured I would post it as one of my debate threads and see how it goes, and what develops from it. 

 

Debate 10: Weapons Modules

 

This mainly stems from one of my previous debates as well as a few other current topics, specifically one about multi block weapons. While having multi block build-able weapons would be nice they are rather intensive to design and set up for the developers. "Correct me if I am wrong"

 

 

Hand Based Tools & Weapons

 

This started me thinking along the line of weapons modules, in this instance lets think about a standard pistol. The standard pistol is the base model that is produced en mass by your local market seller. However the pistol is modular, meaning you can replace the barrel, receiver, magazine, grip, ect. For instance if you wanted a full auto pistol you would switch the receiver module out with one that is full auto, or even one that is burst fire. While the pistol may look the same, "modules do not necessarily have to modify the appearance of a weapon" it does effect how the weapon performs, essentially making it a more specialized tool. Then if you wanted to turn that smg into something more accurate you could add a scope or a different grip module to it. The same applies to your standard rifle, you can modify its modules to turn it into a more specialized tool. For instance adding a longer barrel could increase your accuracy and range, and combined with a scope you would have a proper sniper rifle.

 

Ship Based Tools & Weapons

 

Along the same line of hand based equipment, your ship based equipment could follow the same line of thought. Everything could have slots for customization, everything from reactors, batteries, engines, ect. A great example would be that of a reactor, lets say for this example the reactor at hand has 4 slots available for customization, without those slots used the reactor will only produce a base x amount of power. Then you add in a fuel efficiency module into the reactor, meaning it uses less fuel to produce the base value x amount of power. Then you add in a generating efficiency module into the reactor, that boosts its base x production of power per cycle. So instead of producing 100% of power it produces 105%. There could be many other types of modules developed to add special features to your general items, and customize them to fit your exact needs. 

 

Ship turrets function in the same way, they have a set number of slots you can customize. Lets say for this instance the turret is a standard railgun, and has 5 slots available for customization. The first module added gives it a boost towards cycle fire rate, so instead of a base value of 100 fire rate its 105. You could make all 5 slots have cycle fire rate mods, or you could add in other special options. Module 2 and module 3 in this instance are capacitor boosters, which increase the amount of power the weapon can use to fire the railgun, increasing the speed of the projectile meaning instead of 100 its 110 damage. Then for modules 4 and 5, they are tracking computers. These tracking computers increase your turning rate on your turret. Meaning you can compensate and track your enemy faster. so instead of 100 it would be 110 boosted tracking rate. 

 

Economy

 

Having modules would also open up a whole new industry that players could focus into in producing modules for ships and weapons. And different quality modules would effect the stat that the specific module boosts. 

 

 

 

Anyway - If you have any constructive criticism or support to add to the topic feel free to comment below. Feel free to expand on the idea to your whim. 

 

Just keep it nice and clean - no flames

 

 

 

 

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They will not go for customizable weapons until MAYBE in some years.

 

For now it's "only" different, pre defined elements for hand, ship and base weapons and different armor pieces. 

With that alone you can already vary combat

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Total agree !

 

As JC said, he wants to see a system ,like IC2 in minecraft,in DUAL.

That means Energy > machine > products < alloys < rafinery < ore

In the same way, if i will build a radar, its components could lock a plane in 20 km range..To build a radar with 50 km lock-capability > so i will need alloys ( made with others rares materials)  to made electronics components of this radar.

 

I hope to see anti-aircraft missiles in vertical tube to protect my home base ... with 300 km range ! of course

 

Missile = Warhead + Electronic head (tracking/lock)  + Propulsion ( solid fuel ) ...you can mix Level 2 ..3..4.5..  for each section !!!

 

 

It will be fantastic to run a technology race

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Currently we have elements (created by NQ) that are used by players to create constructs. The player-built constructs can contain any number of elements of different types, and can have any shape that the builder desires.

 

Elements are crafted from recipes (defined by NQ) that require specific components and refined resources, and they have a unique shape (pre-defined mesh created by NQ). A player's personal weapons will be a special kind of element, because it will be the only type of element (that we know of) that will be directly usable by a player avatar.

 

To make the OP's idea work, NQ could create a new type of element template, where some or all of the components are placed in "slots" (pre-defined by NQ) during manufacture.

The owner of the element can then swap out slotted components as required. Using that template, any element (guns, turrets, engines, scanners, etc) can then potentially be turned into a "configurable" element. The functions of the element (and its mesh) would be exactly the same in both cases, but the allowed attribute value ranges of the configurable element would have to be wider. That will have implications for balance, of course, so components will have to have positive and negative modifiers as well.

 

NQ can then convert the "old" elements to the new configurable template whenever they like, and introduce the new version as part of a patch or major expansion.

 

AFAIK, the crafting system in DU is a complete mystery at this point. There's been no devblog explaining the design, and we've seen no examples of recipes or examples of the "components" that will be used in crafting. That makes it a bit difficult to judge what kind of impact this suggestion will have on dev time.

 

It will definitely require a whole bunch of new components. If that means a new 3D-mesh for each component, it will be a lot of work, but I suspect that components only have 2D inventory icons and will only ever exist in storage containers.

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when you see the map, each player has a hexagon ( 1 km from 1 side to the other one in hexagon) so 300 Km, of course, it was a little joke...(and my neighbors will be friends of my team)

All these things had to be balanced. That i would say : Shoot at foe before he could shoot at me.

 

Other idea : A team could be specialized in a type of warhead for example, or solid fuel at level 5 ...etc...and they could sell these elements ( or complete missile) to allies who haven t time to develop such long search...

 

For the interaction between players, it' will be powerfull...and very strategic

 

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Again, just to bring dreaming people down again:

AMA pt 2:

  Quote

 

 

At what point will the spaceship and the weaponry be customizable/programmable?

 

Weapons will not be customizable, they will come in various types and levels, and you will be able to improve them by learning skills. The spaceships however are entirely customizable, since you can build them entirely from scratch. The scripting inside the ship (based on LUA) is optional but will allow to customize certains aspects of piloting and possibly fighting (we are very careful not the break the game equilibrium by allowing this). There are a devblog about scripting that we recommend reading: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/09/18/lua-script-and-distributed-processing-units/

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37 minutes ago, Lethys said:

Yeah but ppl should know the facts too and not jump onto a hypetrain which doesn't exist

The point of this idea box is to suggest changes and additions and not sitting in silence and nodding to every decision and comment of the developers.

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10 minutes ago, gyurka66 said:

The point of this idea box is to suggest changes and additions and not sitting in silence and nodding to every decision and comment of the developers.

True and I never said people should stop arguing. I simply said that it won't happen in the next years, if ever.

 

Plus I see no real benefit. 

Let's assume customizable weapons are a thing. What would happen? PvP players will simply search for the best combination possible for each situation (facing armored ships, shielded shipsfrom, bases, people, fast ships, slow ships, cloaked ships,.... whatever) and use that as a standard doctrine to face those threats. It'll boil down to let's say 30 gun combinations. 

If NQ stays with the system as they planned right now, you'll have let's say 40 guns of which 15 do the same thing (read: counter the same ships) as the customizable ones. Because that's balance - to every armor, shield, base, cloak there needs to be a counter. 

So they, end up with a cool and shiny system which is ridiculously hard to balance in comparison to pre defined elements and eveyone will still be using only certain combinations.

 

That's the way MWO does it (somehow). Mechs have different hardpoints on different parts and there are hundreds of different variants of parts and weapons. Still 90% of the people are using the same loading withup the same variant. Because it works.

 

Or look at eve where you can fitevade your ship as you want. Standard doctrines are always the same and even people who fly solo use the same loadouts. Only the real pros (which are like 1% of the population) fly loadouts which aren't expected on that ship

 

So yeah, can't really see a benefit

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Despite what others have said, this idea is fantastic and I always love added customization. Plus I agree that it opens up an industry for players to take advantage of. You could even make some of these modules expire over time (say a month or a week or X amount of hrs of use) so that there is continuous demand for them.

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I think it'd be fun to have the NQ-set weapons available to use, but allow a bit of "cosmetic" swapping with them. Like you could have all the same weapons available, but perhaps you can change how they look depending on personal preferences, "manufacturer" or skill-improvement level or otherwise.  A lot of it could be as simple as a re-skin, but you could also, say, swap a dual-stacked automatic weapon with a visual of a minigun instead (everything should be available as a gatling gun, even lasers!).

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I am 100% with people being able to change the cosmetic looks of all the weapons but I don't think players should have control over weapons stats at least not this early in the game because it has great potential to unbalance the game unless NQ has a strict balance system in place to keep that from happening , so I would say for now the Dev's have enough to worry about so maybe in a later expansion but I would be 100% happy if changing the cosmetic looks of weapons is added at launch or a little later !    =)

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