Discussion: Guns & Ammo

[Ametha Tasia]

Can we have a sort of overheat function, Sared? That would limit the fire spam.

And Amone, it is really annoying to see it happen over and over (the whole ffa mentality when it comes to gunning), but it will continue to happen and it is severely inconveniencing for a mission director to stop the mission, round up no less than half the participants, kick them/reprimand them, and then continue with the remainder. Lol.

[Amoné Fayden]

No no no, I mean a three-round burst of regular bullets/shots/pellets/BB's, like in the original Jedi Knight. The equivalent of firing off multiple alternating barrels at once, in a wider spray, much higher inaccuracy.

Ahhhaaaaaaaaa! I see.
Sorry, misunderstood you there.

Yeah I'd say that was fair! (Even though it's not exactly what a repeater would do cannonically, but I can't best of both worlds)

It's like Seb said, at a far enough Distance, repeaters are just pretty.

Medium to Close range and you're a goner. Zeak also pointed out that Jedi don't kill or K.O oponents by looking at them angrily. Jedi need to swing their saber and within that 1-2 seconds you can be DESTROYED by a single repeater nevermind 4-5.

I'm down with burst fire with about 0.5 second delay between bursts.


@ Ametha, yes that wouldn't be very fluent at all.
But there's a lot of good people out there in the clan that can do it right.
All it takes it 1-2 people to make the scenario all about them and not know when to give in. If it were me in a director position, i'd call them on it with a warning. If they continued, I'd follow the three strike rule: Slap, Sleep, Kick.
I've yet to see that exercised and misbehavers are just left to keep doing it.

[Zeak Dystiny]

Repeating myself here but how much do you intend to increase the damages of weapons? Because I still don't think they should be upped too much.

@Zeak How much do you think would be reasonable? How much would be too little? How much would be too much?

Also this isn't my change (I'm not that possessive ), this is just a discussion thread to figure out what adjustments would best work.

Honestly it might depend on what happens with the classes. It's difficult to truthfully say what would right and what will be wrong. Then there's another problem of people not properly bursting so Jedi will get hammered even further.

The current damage of 20 per shot has downed quite a few Jedi so far, so I'm fine with it at the moment. Maybe a 5 point increase, maybe not. Though it's not that the current weapons aren't threatening -except for the pistol-, I think it might be due to the availability of Force powers, how easily they can be used and the 'little' regenerative penalty they have.

[Sebastin Creed]

Well, to be honest guys, I kind of LIKE the gun as it is. I'd prefer lower damage to making it slower or less like the repeater we know.

It's supposed to be heavy duty, and yeah while it's the member favourite for goofing around with, there are ways to use it effectively to make a situation difficult but not overly to the extent its impossible.

Again, down to people restriction/monitoring as said before. Not ideal, but neither is a complete over haul of the repeater.

P.S I'm not against a change in style/texture/model though for sure.

[Sared Kilvan]

@Ametha: I really don't know yet. Though I think if an overheat function isn't possible, just slowing down the overall rate of fire would accomplish the same goal of limiting fire spam.

@Amone: More like a full second delay perhaps? Plus, if the repeater's primary fire was reduced a tad, you would still be able to send a fair amount of ordinance down-range, but it wouldn't be effective unless you were at close-range.

@Sebastin: The repeater was originally designed to be a Jedi-killer, likewise the DEMP2 and the Golan (they all gave gunners in JKA a way to overcome the endless deflection of the lightsaber), and all the more reason the change them up. We need to break that, and re-form it into something more realistic, balanced, and suitable for role-play.

Unrelated: Taking an idea from more 'modern' shooters (COD being the best example, and no, I have no interest in making this into COD), what does everyone think of an 'iron-sighting' toggle for certain weapons? Similar to zooming in on the Tenloss scope, pushes you into first-person aiming (sans the zoom) with a view down the sights, increasing accuracy? While firing without aiming is much more ineffective and inaccurate.

[Zeak Dystiny]

Unrelated: Taking an idea from more 'modern' shooters (COD being the best example, and no, I have no interest in making this into COD), what does everyone think of an 'iron-sighting' toggle for certain weapons? Similar to zooming in on the Tenloss scope, pushes you into first-person aiming (sans the zoom) with a view down the sights, increasing accuracy? While firing without aiming is much more ineffective and inaccurate.

Sounds like a decent idea. Hell, maybe with every iron-sight shot taken, or two, (yes, taking this from MB2), a Jedi's force-points are decreased, and once it's at 0, they cannot deflect any more until it's regenerated. But I can see that not going so well lol. If it's coupled with the inability to hold down secondary fire and instead force bursts, it might be alright.

[Sared Kilvan]

Sounds like a decent idea. Hell, maybe with every iron-sight shot taken, or two, (yes, taking this from MB2), a Jedi's force-points are decreased, and once it's at 0, they cannot deflect any more until it's regenerated. But I can see that not going so well lol. If it's coupled with the inability to hold down secondary fire and instead force bursts, it might be alright.

We're also talking about Saber Defense being a much more active (versus passive, costVSnocost) ability, and may warrant a discussion all of it's own, but I do like the idea of an added benefit from iron-sighting.

[Ellana]

(Just to note, have not read all of the previous posts yet)

It sounds like a good idea overall! People don't play the roles correctly, and can't count on them to do so (Have been guilty in the past...).

As far as the reducing ammo thing, I would like to have it be a clip-based function.

For example, let's just say that blaster x would have 300 ammo capacity basegame. That could be changed to say 50 a clip, and a reload function could be added (That perhaps takes 5 seconds) in which they would have to load in another ammo clip.

The overheat function would also portray realism, although let's not overdo it. For example, I think OJP (At least it was called then) overdid it's overheat function. It made it very hard to shoot a gun correctly in general. I would like for there to be some sort of overheat function, but for it to not be a general occurance. ... This probably won't make much sense, but basically I'm asking to be careful not to overdo that if implemented.

[Sared Kilvan]

A clip or an overheat function have been suggested before, and if those are not mechanically possible, how else would you slow down shooting?

[Nira'kalen'nuruodo]

[EDIT]: I've realised this is somewhat tangential to the main purpose of the thread, which is focusing on the actual mechanics of shooting, but I'll leave this here as a few thoughts on how we implement gunner roles into activities. Specialised classes are a gameplay mechanic in their own right, after all.

A handful of thoughts off the top of my head...

Put the Role back in Roleplay
Encourage teamwork with more specialised gunner classes. Playing non-Jedi combat roles will be less of a chore if you're not just lightsaber fodder. It should also help lessen the overpowered nature of the Repeater without resorting to nerfing it if not everyone has one.

• Soldier - E-11, perhaps detpacks/trip mines
• Heavy Weapons - Repeater, ammo dispenser
• Medic - Heal Others, perhaps Protect 1

Given five players, three should be Soldiers, one a Medic and one a Heavy Weapons.

Make Death Matter
Never allow unlimited respawns. Keep the number of available respawns low to encourage people to focus on survival (this will make the Medic class particularly valuable) and also to discourage people from /kill when they run out of ammo, again making the Heavy Weapons class valuable for their ammo dispensers. Use "waves" to keep the pressure on the protagonists, if necessary - announce reinforcements and reset the respawn counter.

[Amoné Fayden]

What an interesting wee suggestion Akalenn!

I quite like that!
It boosts what I was saying about fixing the way gunner roles are tackled rather than changing the game mechanics we're accustomed to so their FFAing doesn't hurt us as much. I'd be willing to abandon my previous parley in favour of this.

I've suggested something very similar before in regards to dishing out weapon load outs but the same thing could be tackled with classes.
However, would this not clash with Tomoran's suggested class system?

If I recall correctly, was there not a limit to the amount of classes or was that simply a self-imposed limit?

My only one tweak that I'd do to your suggestion Akalenn would be to not give protect 1 to Medics. Heal Others, yes because it could be RP'd as a sort of combat triage (regardless of it's sound effect etc). I'd also suggest allowing them a Bryar or stun prod so they're not completely defenseless.

It is a bit of a side-step from what Sared was suggesting, but I definitely feel it could be an explorable alternative.

[Nira'kalen'nuruodo]

I'm using the term "classes" in a broad sense. Each of the roles could easily be set up using the existing Civillian class and simply having three accounts with different weapon loadouts, heath values et cetera.

[Elu Dako]

[iA handful of thoughts off the top of my head...

Put the Role back in Roleplay

• Soldier - E-11, perhaps detpacks/trip mines
• Heavy Weapons - Repeater, ammo dispenser
• Medic - Heal Others, perhaps Protect 1

Given five players, three should be Soldiers, one a Medic and one a Heavy Weapons.

EDIT: Soldier - E-11 + Standard DL-44 (Backup/sidearm), Thermal Dets (3), HP - 25
Heavy Weapons - Rename to Officer? HP - 35
Medic - Heal Others 1/2 - Protect 1, DL-44, Heal 2/3, HP - 50

ADD: Vanguard - Rocket Launcher, Det Pack(s), Trip mines, DL-44 (sidearm/Primary weapon), Protect 1, HP - 75
Swordsman - Sword (Vibroblade), Speed 1, Saber Offense 2/3, Saber Defense 2, HP - 90
Sniper - DL-44, Molecular Disruptor, Cloaking Device, Sense 2/3, HP - 40.
Spec. Trooper - E-11, Repeater, Brayr Pistol, Thermal Dets, Protect 2, Jump 2, HP - 120

Thoughts? Nice suggestion anyway Nira'kalen'nuruodo, thought I'd make a minor alteration to your 3 initial classes (HP-wise) and rename one, still, brilliant suggestion.

/rpsupport.

[Sared Kilvan]

The current class limit is 16, but I believe that is a limitation in RPMod that may be overcome in the future. Be that the case, I've been thinking about different 'civilian/gunner classes' as I've been looking into weapon behavior. Instead of giving someone X weapons with Y health and Z instructions, a pre-balanced, pre-existing 'loadout' would go a long way towards expediting this process, leaving more time to focus on writing, character development, and more interactive role-play.

@Elu: The idea of mixing force powers in as 'abilities/skills' for non-Jedi characters, while easy and quite tempting, isn't something I believe should be done. If anything, a completely different skill set would need to be implemented. This is possible, it just needs some time.

[Elu Dako]

You could alter the current exsisting 'Soldier' based accounts to meet the needs and a councillor could fix the 'Force Template' to meet the requirements with the correct XP allocated to the force powers, giving enough to forfill the suggested abilities but not enough for further editting (Adding more powers) like has been done in the past with certain accounts e.g. Wook/wook1 - Jump 2.

I was not aware of the '16 class limitation', it's possible I've overlooked that detail and I thank you for pointing it out to me Sared, I will rethink my initial suggestion