Idea for Allowing Multiple Ammo Types in the GUI (without too drastic a change)

[GizmoGomez]

So, basically, you know how the grenade quick-slot works? You right click it, and you can select which grenade to use.

Well, how about we extend that to ammo types as well?

Obviously, we can do that with the quick reload slot (for rockets, at least, right?) (If we can't, we should be able to. I simply can't remember at the moment. )

So, we have (or can have) the grenade quick-slot functionality in the ground combat GUI, simple right click popup box.

But then, what do we do for the main issue, equipping our troops with them in the soldier load out screen?

Simple, we do the same thing! Simply right click on the ammo in the equip screen, and you can select a new one that will then take the old one's place, until you right click it again and swap it for yet another one.

One idea, we should have the weapons in the load out screens be equipped empty as default (with a big red EMPTY sign over the gun icon so we don't forget to load it). This would allow us to load rocket launchers with whatever rockets we want initially, and if we have multiple ammo types we can select whatever ammo type we want to be loaded into the gun. Plus, this makes sense from an in-universe point of view, doesn't it? I mean, we don't store weapons in an armory with the magazines loaded in them.

[WalrusJones]

You can drag in the inventory screen to load alternate ammo types.

Its just making the quartermaster screen show more then one ammo type.

I have my own work-around...

But, you can wait to see what I am talking about.

[GizmoGomez]

Putting the alt-ammos in the "Other" tab? How's that coming along?

[WalrusJones]

I have the code in place, but I have yet to test it due to me waking up with very bad sleep drunkenness today (After my first day without having coded all night, this is understandable...)

[GizmoGomez]

Were you attempting to reach the Ballmer Peak to enhance your coding ability?

(http://xkcd.com/323/)

[WalrusJones]

Sleep drunkeness.

Not actual drunkeness.

Essentially, a pretty bad for you condition that is known to happen if you sleep for roughly more then ~10 hours.

It can spitball into an actual disorder if you keep oversleeping, so... Expect good mod progress tonight to put me back on a "Normal" sleep cycle.

[Sathra]

Unload button on the equip screen would be good too.

[GizmoGomez]

Ah, gotcha. Anyway, I like the idea of the workaround that you're working on, but how do you like my actual idea?

Also, yeah, an unload button on the equip screen would be awesome and totally necessary as well, thanks for pointing that out Sathra.

[WalrusJones]

I do want improved GUI for multi-ammo.

Of course.

[MisterLock]

I still don't know what this multiple ammo capacity thing is...I mean something so you can load multiple ammo in a rifle?The Rocket launcher already does that...

[WalrusJones]

I still don't know what this multiple ammo capacity thing is...I mean something so you can load multiple ammo in a rifle?The Rocket launcher already does that...

The issue is that rocket launchers are coded very differently from rifles.

[MisterLock]

Aaaa...Well...what would be the benefit to actually load multiple ammo types into a rifle?

[WalrusJones]

Aaaa...Well...what would be the benefit to actually load multiple ammo types into a rifle?

There are many damage types, and game balance.

Lets say I have a rifle:

<Weapon.AK103>

It has three ammos:

One which inflicts 32 damage, but is set to <Unlimited>

One which inflicts 36 damage, is <Normal>, but can be manufactured in batches of six mags every three man days of manufacturing effort for $300

One which inflicts 28 damage, has 16 armor mitigation, is normal, and is manufactured at a rate of three mags every three man days of manufacturing effort for 1K.

One which inflicts 32 damage, has 16 armor mitigation, is normal, and uses alien alloys.

One which inflicts 15 Incendiary damage, which reapers are weak against in my mod (Note, this may or may not be the case.)

ETC ETC.

ALL the sudden, you get a base management scenario where you stock up varying types of "Money bullets" to deal with various large threats, and an OK standardized ammunition for dealing with trash foes.

[GizmoGomez]

Personally, a pay-per-shoot system where you get simply straight up better, not different, bullets for money isn't quite what I'd want in the game. At least, not something as simple as 32 damage normal, pay $300 for +4 damage. That sounds too, I dunno. Too "level up" for this kind of game.

It'd have to be grounded in something realistic, for me. So, armor piercing rounds have more armor mitigation, incendiary rounds deal incendiary damage as well as (less) ballistic damage, hollow point (for those unarmored squishy targets) has no armor mitigation but deals a bunch of damage. Slugs and "xenoshot" for the shotgun, good armor mit and no armor mit respectively.

Obviously you can do whatever you want in your mod, I would rather it not be in the vanilla game, is all I'm saying.

But who knows, though. Maybe it'd work fine. I've not played it that way yet.

[WalrusJones]

Personally, a pay-per-shoot system where you get simply straight up better, not different, bullets for money isn't quite what I'd want in the game. At least, not something as simple as 32 damage normal, pay $300 for +4 damage. That sounds too, I dunno. Too "level up" for this kind of game.

It'd have to be grounded in something realistic, for me. So, armor piercing rounds have more armor mitigation, incendiary rounds deal incendiary damage as well as (less) ballistic damage, hollow point (for those unarmored squishy targets) has no armor mitigation but deals a bunch of damage. Slugs and "xenoshot" for the shotgun, good armor mit and no armor mit respectively.

Obviously you can do whatever you want in your mod, I would rather it not be in the vanilla game, is all I'm saying.

But who knows, though. Maybe it'd work fine. I've not played it that way yet.

Well, these things are transparent.

People are aware that P+ ammo is stronger, but how much stronger?

Barely, but its easy to make en-masse.

More importantly, while my mod does have an AK-103, isn't able to use most of the ammo types mentioned, this is just a basic explanation of what multiple rifle ammo would allow.

[GizmoGomez]

I get your point, alright. Personally, I still wouldn't put P+ in there (if it were my game, and it's not ) because it's not "different" enough, it's simply a straight upgrade from the normal ammo.

Instead of different-from-the-norm ammo needing money/materials to manufacture, I'd rather all the ammo be free (as it currently is) and just have different variety. Like, regular ammo, armor piercing, incendiary, etc. However, "money" ammo and "trash" ammo wouldn't there, since all of it would be free and much better than the others, except in certain situations.

For example, I like reapers being more susceptible to fire, that sounds cool.

Again, make your mod awesome, do what you want. I'm just saying that once (if) multiple ammo types are supported in the GUI we shouldn't make "money bullets" a part of the actual game.

Although, to make it a convincing argument, we need to come up with ideas for alternate ammos for tiers 2-4. I mean, ballistics is obvious, but having different ammos for lasers is much more difficult, since the ammo is just a battery, really.

[WalrusJones]

Well.

Some weapon classes would have ammo logistics be a major part of using them, some would use variety.

The issue I have with using large varieties of free ammo on every gun is that there are VERY few damage types.

While I do have some weapons that have very large varieties of free ammo, more generally flexible, does it all guns do have a more vertical ammo scheme (Shotguns and SMG's generally have horizontal free ammo sidegrades, Rifles generally use vertical ammo schemes (To restore some base management, strategies, effect on tactics.))

[GizmoGomez]

Okay, I get it more now. I'm just thinking horizontal ammos (to use your term; it's a good one) and no vertical ammos. Of course, I'm thinking all of this in terms of the vanilla game. My ideas were for the vanilla game, not your mod.

I'm sure your ideas are awesome for your weapons mod (looking awesome, just saying), but I wouldn't use vertical ammos in the vanilla game, or if I did it would be very little.

I really wouldn't want a ton of different ammo types, around four (for ballistics at least) would probably do it. Just having armor piercing, incendiary, hollow point, and maybe high explosive ammos would be all I'd want, really.

Armor piercing is the standard issue, working well against armor and unarmored alike. Incendiary deals fire damage, and is slightly less effective against armor, hollow point works really well against unarmored enemies only, and high explosive would make small explosions (duh?), making it more effective for destroying props but perhaps less effective against armor than armor piercing (but not to the extent of hollow point).

For the shotgun we'd have the normal slugs (armor piercing, basically), "xenon-shot" (hollow point), dragon's breath (incendiary, but much weaker against armor than normal incendiary) and high explosive (bigger boom, more like a mini grenade than a bullet).

I can't think of any different ammo types for laser, though. I mean, it's a laser. How different can you get? The only ammo is a battery, and it's just energy.

Plasma, we could have different "grades" of plasma in the clip, or something like that. Plasma's easier to make different ammo types than laser, definitely.

MAG would be pretty similar to ballistic, although they'd have to be somewhat different still.

The only real problem is lasers. Hmm... Maybe just having a single alternate ammo, which produces higher damage shots, but has less shots per cell? That actually sounds like a good idea, and it makes sense too (bonus points there ).

[WalrusJones]

Okay, I get it more now. I'm just thinking horizontal ammos (to use your term; it's a good one) and no vertical ammos. Of course, I'm thinking all of this in terms of the vanilla game. My ideas were for the vanilla game, not your mod.

I'm sure your ideas are awesome for your weapons mod (looking awesome, just saying), but I wouldn't use vertical ammos in the vanilla game, or if I did it would be very little.

I really wouldn't want a ton of different ammo types, around four (for ballistics at least) would probably do it. Just having armor piercing, incendiary, hollow point, and maybe high explosive ammos would be all I'd want, really.

Armor piercing is the standard issue, working well against armor and unarmored alike. Incendiary deals fire damage, and is slightly less effective against armor, hollow point works really well against unarmored enemies only, and high explosive would make small explosions (duh?), making it more effective for destroying props but perhaps less effective against armor than armor piercing (but not to the extent of hollow point).

For the shotgun we'd have the normal slugs (armor piercing, basically), "xenon-shot" (hollow point), dragon's breath (incendiary, but much weaker against armor than normal incendiary) and high explosive (bigger boom, more like a mini grenade than a bullet).

I can't think of any different ammo types for laser, though. I mean, it's a laser. How different can you get? The only ammo is a battery, and it's just energy.

Plasma, we could have different "grades" of plasma in the clip, or something like that. Plasma's easier to make different ammo types than laser, definitely.

MAG would be pretty similar to ballistic, although they'd have to be somewhat different still.

The only real problem is lasers. Hmm... Maybe just having a single alternate ammo, which produces higher damage shots, but has less shots per cell? That actually sounds like a good idea, and it makes sense too (bonus points there ).

Yeah, I am simply discussing this as to brainstorm as to how it would be best to do it in a mod.

I have a plan for lasers, but most of my ammo types need to wait for when chris moves some of the weapons stats to the ammo type. (As he has promised in one thread...)

(As I am changing the batteries to coolant cells.)

They will stay more or less the "So simple to deploy your dog could deploy it," weapons.

Plasmas need to use some sort of gas to work, thus, gases differences can justify changes in damage (And add some very obscure ammo types.)

- They would GENERALLY be horizontal ammo's, with a few alienium vertical ammo's (To compliment the Alloys vertical ammo's of the ballistic weapons.)

T4 will be a secret.

Chemically propelled ballistic weapons are going to be a mess of ammo types, much like real life, which if used properly can GREATLY extend the lifetime of ballistic weaponry in your game.

[GizmoGomez]

I made a thread in the Suggestions and Features Request forum detailing my plans for multiple ammo types, and my just-short-of-begging the developers to include multiple ammo support in the GUI when the UI gets fully updated. I mean, we're updating the UI anyway, why not make the change to add multiple ammo support now when it's being worked on anyway?

But, my ideas for multiple ammo types fell into five tier-consistent categories:

Armor Piercing (the normal ammo)

Hollow Point (high damage, low armor penetration)

Incendiary (incendiary damage added)

High Explosive (tiny amount of splash damage, good against cover and buildings)

Stun (deals stun and/or EMP damage either in addition to, or in the place of, regular damage).

Read the post there for (much) more detail.

[Gauddlike]

I have a plan for lasers, but most of my ammo types need to wait for when chris moves some of the weapons stats to the ammo type. (As he has promised in one thread...)

Got a link for this?

The only post I have seen suggested that he may move the round count to the ammunition.

I don't recall seeing anything about other stats going to the ammunition.

[WalrusJones]

Got a link for this?

The only post I have seen suggested that he may move the round count to the ammunition.

I don't recall seeing anything about other stats going to the ammunition.

Well.

My head registered that as a promise....

But then again. I am still somewhat out of my mind from earlier this week.