Argument for Including Multiple Ammo Types in the Vanilla Game

[GizmoGomez]

Hi all,

Firstly, and mainly to the developers:

I think that having GUI support for multiple ammo types would be awesome, and definitely should happen, if only for the modders to play around with. Everyone agrees that it would be very, very, very nice to have. Because we are having a UI change, before we implement the new UI support for multiple ammo types could be added (if it hasn't been added already ). But, seriously, if you take nothing away from this entire post, please add GUI support for multiple ammo types, even if you don't end up using it in the vanilla game. The entire modding community, and probably a great deal of the normal "non-modder" community, will thank you for it.

Secondly, I would actually like there to be multiple ammos in the vanilla, un-modded game. The original X-Com had it, and I liked it a lot. It made the player need to choose what to bring on the missions, and what to leave behind. In this game, it would become even more of an important decision, because there's no equipment storage in the dropships like there was in the OG. So, you will have to choose what to take and what to leave behind, not knowing what'll come in handy, and only having the room in your backpack and belt to fit it all.

I think it would add a TON to the ground combat (which is, of course, the main focus of the game; an awesome, immersive, enjoyable ground combat).

Because every tier has basically the same weapons in each, just upgraded, I kept all of the tiers ammo types into the following five categories:

-Armor Piercing "AP" (standard round, best armor mitigation available),

-Hollow Point "HP" (high damage, but very lacking in armor mitigation),

-Incendiary "I" (adds incendiary damage),

-High Explosive "HE" (small radius explosion, splash damage),

-Stun "ST" (deals stun and/or EMP damage in addition to, or in place of, normal lethal damage).

Ballistics:

These are the easiest to come up with multiple ammo types for, since we have these already in real life and can think of cool things to do with them. So, I'll simply stick with what we already have, since all of these are humanity-only, non alien (except for researchable) stuff.

-Armor Piercing: It's the standard stuff we have now. Has the best armor mitigation, good damage, an all around versitile round. (AP)

-Hollow Point: These do great damage against unarmored targets, but have almost zero armor piercing capabilities. Against Caesans they'd be killer, but sebillians would shrug them off and regenerate away the welts they'd receive. (HP)

-Incendiary: Has less armor mitigation, but deals some incendiary damage in addition to the normal damage. The normal damage could be dropped a bit to prevent it from being overpowered. This would make it good against cover, and good against any aliens with a fire-weakness (I vote reapers, it sounds like fun. ). It shouldn't light fires where it lands, though. (I)

-High Explosive: These would basically be super tiny explosions, so it'd have splash damage. A super small fire chance, maybe? (HE)

-Rubber Bullet: (Researchable) (optional) Very low range (so you still have to get up close and personal), these do stun damage, although not a lot. You'd have to pummel them with the rubber rounds to get them down. (These could be used to stun, and therefore get out of the way, civilians, leading to minimal or no relations loss, yet still taking the civilians out of the action. Personally, I wouldn't use them that much, hence the "optional" tag. Besides, we already have a stun shell for the shotgun, that would work well.) (ST)

For shotguns specifically:

-Slug: What we currently have; good armor mitigation, good damage, the standard ammo we have now. (AP)

-Xenoshot: Basically buckshot, but more deadly sounding. Like the hollow point, this would do even more damage in comparison, but also be much less effective against armor. A shorter range would also be good. (HP)

-Dragon's Breath: Lots of fire damage. Just lots and lots of fire damage. Very little to no armor mitigation, but if it's in the way and unarmored, it's toasted for sure. (excellent against any aliens with fire weakness. ) (I)

-High Explosive: This is more of a mini-grenade than anything else. Small radius explosion, maybe two tiles in diameter, dealing damage, blowing up stuff, yada yada. Splash damage. Longer range, because it's more missile-shaped and has little fins that pop out. (google shotgun grenade, you'll see what I mean). (HE)

-Electroshock Slug: (Researchable) These have less range than normal slugs, but deals good EMP damage and stuns enemies well. Similar to electroshock grenades, but no splash damage, and less powerful.

(These are actually a real thing, look it up. Pretty awesome, I think.) (ST)

Lasers:

These would be more tricky to have multiple ammos of, since the ammo is only energy in a battery, in essance. What we could do, is have the alternate ammo be overcharged, or undercharged.

(Because lasers deal damage through heat, an incendiary round doesn't make sense, since increasing the heat output would simply be making the laser stronger. If someone can think of a cool way to explain the increased heat without increased armor mitigation or whatever, then go for it!)

-Standard Beam: Normal laser cell, no different than what we have. (AP)

-Overcharged Beam: Higher damage output, significantly less ammo per cell, lower armor mitigation (but not as low as a hollow point, for example. Though this is the "HP round" for laser, it's balanced by the lower ammo count too).

(This could let you use a pistol that dealt the damage of a rifle, for example; it would just have a much smaller ammo capacity than either.) (HP)

-Pulsed Beam: The repeated heating and cooling of the same area causes it to expand violently, causing a mini explosion. (HE)

-Low-Energy Beam: Lower powered bursts, these deal less lethal damage but also deal stun damage as well. (ST)

Plasma:

This is easier to work with than lasers, since we could say that the actual gas being ionized is different for each ammo type. Still, though, it's ionized gas every time, so varying the amount of energy in the gas is the easiest thing to do.

-Standard Plasma: Regular plasma cell, normal. (AP)

-Overcharged: Same description as laser, just more energy/plasma in the bolt, so much less ammo per clip and somewhat (but not too much) lower armor mitigation. (HP)

-Ultra-Heated Gas: Heated beyond the normal definition of plasma, this creates immense heat and deals a great deal of incendiary damage in addition to the normal energy weapon damage. (I)

-Explosive Ball: Kind of like plasma cannons (I guess; those explode, right? ), but not as powerful. Splash damage. (HE)

-Ball Lightning: Deals less damage, and deals some stun damage and EMP damage. (ST)

MAG:

These would work much more like ballistics, since they're simply hyper-accelerated bits of metal and not energy weapons. However, they'd be much more ramped up versions of the ballistic stuff, simply because they're the best humanity gets (and who wouldn't want a pistol that can take out a modern tank? )

-Hyper-HEAT: Basically a high-explosive anti-tank round. Insanely good against armor, some incendiary (HEAT warheads don't actually involve thermal stuff to penetrate armor, it's all pressure, so HEAT is more of armor piercing than incendiary I discovered).

Because the "normal, standard" round ammo is always AP ammo, this would be the main ammo. It would just have an awesome name, basically, and have just a bit of incendiary damage added due to the large amounts of heat involved in creating that much pressure. (AP)

-Hyper-Fragmentation: Much like the hollow point, these do incredible damage to unarmored, and even lightly armored (by virtue of it being a MAG round it retains some armor mitigation) targets, but doesn't penetrate too much armor. (HP)

-Magnesium-Alloy: Super high incendiary effects, burns stuff right up. Obviously, less armor mitigation than HEAT rounds. (Uses an alloy of magnesium and alenium to dramatically increase the incendiary effects of magnesium alone.) (I)

-Hyper-Explosive: Deals splash incendiary damage in a tiny radius. Great at destroying holes in walls, obstacles, etc. (HE)

-Miniaturized EMP: Deals a good amount of EMP damage, with lower regular damage and armor mitigation. (Best against robots and the like.) (ST)

Some things to note:

-Not every type would/should be available to every weapon type. Only the weapons that make sense should get it, otherwise it'd simply feel cluttered, I think, and be a waste of effort.

-This would necessitate the moving of various weapon attributes, such as accuracy, effective range, etc. to the ammo itself. Otherwise we couldn't balance the different ammo's properly. This (in my opinion) should happen anyway, even if we don't include multiple ammo types in the vanilla game, since it would make modding multiple ammo types a whole lot easier too.

Now, these aren't the only options available. I just wanted my suggestions to be kept simple and useful; remember, I want to create a compelling argument for multiple ammos in the Vanilla Game (meaning not as part of a mod, but included in the actual game). A huge variety of ammo types would get too confusing, and be too difficult to balance. This is why I added that not every gun would, or even should, have all ammo types available for it. Only the ones that actually make sense should be made for it. Also, I limited myself to only five ammo types, and tried to fit each ammo into one of the types. Where it wouldn't make sense for a type to be there (laser incendiary, for example) I cut it. Also, any that didn't fit into one of the five times was cut as well. I made each tier;s ammo types continue to be more or less a straight upgrade from the one before it, because that's what the dev's are pushing for.

Anyway, what do you think? Which ones sound the most useful, which ones the least useful, how would it affect balance, is there one you foresee becoming the best out of all in all situations, any that are simply superfluous?

Please, discuss.

Thanks for reading my long post!

PS: If you have additional reasons for multiple ammo types to be in the vanilla game that I didn't cover, please post them below. I want this argument to be as compelling as possible. Thanks!

[TrashMan]

I don't really think everything needs ammo tpyes. I can see it for the ballistics, sicne different ammo types would allow them to remain usefull for a longer.

Lasers don't have ammot tpyes. They might have different modes of fucntioning or you might have different laser variants. But not ammo.

Same for plasma.

[thothkins]

really easy post to read Gizmo, so no problems at all in getting through it

I've quite liked how the weapon types have worked in Xenonauts. That every type has a function.

I've also been quite interested in each weapon tier having particular areas that they are better at than others. The result being that a new weapon tier isn't always a straight power increase.

The first one seems to be the way the Devs wanted things, while the second one does make things more complex (I say tactical), and seems much less likely.

So your post is a good, valid alternative way to get some individuality into the weapons that keeps the complexity down. My concern is though with my first point, regarding overlap. Like everything else it could all be tweaked an balanced, but is there a fundamental issue in blurring those lines?

For example, with such a variety of ballistic options, are grenades still worth having?

If each tier has stun options, do we need the baton?

Does the HE shotgun round get in the way of the rocket launcher to the extent of making them redundant.

While you'd expect the launcher to have much more damage and range, how much range and damage is required on a practical level on the map to destroy obstacles, aliens etc?

The same thing applies to a degree with the AP rounds against the Sniper Rifle. While the sniper rifle provides range and that increased accuracy, does the AP round in practice work better for other weapons.

Does dragon's breath get in the way of the Flamethrower? (what do you mean it's not there yet?)

So, lots of questions, most of which we may not be able to answer unless it was in and we could play with it

[GizmoGomez]

TrashMan:

I realized that lasers "ammo" is simply a battery, if you read closely I say that at least twice. However, leaving lasers out of the mix solely because it doesn't make sense didn't seem fair, since each tier is more or less an improved copy of the previous.

While the battery would still be simply a battery, my thinking was that it could have different meta-settings or whatever on a per-battery basis. We could simply say that because each ammo type could have a different number of shots, the scientists designed them for quick-changing the batteries instead of making the gun calculate if it has enough juice left over for another shot of X type, because if you try to fire with less than enough it'll damage the gun, or something. In addition, we could say that the soldiers are used to switching magazines to change ammo type, and the scientists designed it that way for ease of use.

As far as plasma goes, yes, that is mainly a battery as well, but it also has to have a reservoir for the actual gas being ionized into plasma, right? The type of gas being ionized can be changed. The same thing that I stated above for lasers also applies to plasma; the exact amount of gas and energy is needed, and for simplicities sake the scientists designed each cell to "know" how many shots it can fire, instead of further complicating the gun by adding an onboard processor to check how much gas/energy is left over.

As far as Thothkins' points go:

The Stun Rod would still be the best for stunning. IMO it should be a one-hit stun for a good deal of enemies (perhaps it can be upgraded midgame to extend it's usefulness, I'd go for that). The stun weapons would/should be more of a "softening" thing, so you can stun them completely with the stun ammo, but you risk killing them since the stun ammo does lethal damage as well as stun.

Grenades wouldn't be replaced, no. They are used for throwing over cover, and have different functions (grenades have smoke, stun gas, much more powerful EMP, etc). Again, as far as stun and electroshock goes, my idea is that if you depend solely on the stun ammo you will kill your target. The stun ammo simply makes it easier to stun/EMP your target with the grenade. This way the stun baton and applicable grenades won't be replaced, and will still be necessary. (Besides, it makes sense, right? You're still shooting them with a shotgun/laser/plasma ball/hyper-accelerated bit of metal, it should deal some lethal damage, right?)

Well, the way I planned it out, the Armor Piercing round is basically the exact same as the normal standard round we currently have. I just gave it a name to distinguish it. It'd function basically the same way.

I was thinking that the HE shotgun shell would be much less powerful, and have much less range, than the rocket launcher. This would be compensated by the fact that you could have several shells in one magazine. The explosive radius would be 1 tile, maybe 2 at the max. It wouldn't try to replace grenades, since those can (eventually ) be thrown over cover, whereas the HE shell requires direct line of sight. It could also be redesigned as more of a breaching shell, blowing holes in walls and doors with a couple shots (a one shot hole would be too powerful).

Dragon's Breath might replace the flamethrower, since I honestly have no idea where that particular item is development-wise. I think it'd be awesome, personally.

My goal isn't to replace anything, but to create more variety for the player, and to create more of a need to fill your pack with only what you think you'll need. I started a play through yesterday, and I realized that I have tons of empty space in my backpacks after I gave all my troops all they'd ever need. I didn't even hit their weight limit (granted, I didn't have armor yet, but the point's still valid). With multiple ammo types, we'd have more things to put in the packs, creating a sense of freedom. At the same time, with more stuff taking up space in the packs, and with more weight in them, we create a much needed sense of limitation, in that there can be stuff that we simply can't fit in our packs yet. Wasn't available pack space one of the balance points to counter unlimited ammo? This could help that happen.

[svidangel]

Would be nice, but I'd settle for just getting my AP missiles back... and some proximity grenades >.> Not that aliens in ships ever come out of ships at the moment.

[Anon_Spartan]

At this point, it seems like an overly complex task to add so many ammo types. Even the original one had the cannon and rockets featuring extra ammo types.

Although I have been pondering the scene from the post-Alien Invasion series Falling Skies and how much of an advantage the humans had when they realized they could make bullets from alien metal. Perhaps a one time increase to all ballistics with a research following alloy fabrication. Could be fun for players who want to beat the game with Human tech only.

[TrashMan]

TrashMan:

I realized that lasers "ammo" is simply a battery, if you read closely I say that at least twice. However, leaving lasers out of the mix solely because it doesn't make sense didn't seem fair, since each tier is more or less an improved copy of the previous.

And that is exactly the wrost type of balance ever.

I'd rather each weapon tier have difference.

Ballistic have ammo types.

Lasers have differnet fire modes (or laser variants) - continous or pulsed.

Plasma...well..plasma.

You really have to streth suspension of disbelief beyond the stratchign poitn to somehow try to justify and fit everything into some pre-defined mold.

It's better to go with what the weapons should logicly do and then create a system of balance and diversity from there.

[GizmoGomez]

I was trying to keep it in line with what the developers were doing, making each tier simply an improved version of the last, with some alterations.

I'd love to have more diversity in tiers, that'd be awesome. However, I don't see different firing modes (pulsed, continuous, etc) being possible without tying the different modes to the ammo loaded. This is from a game developing perspective.

The way it's set up, adding another shot selection area that changes so many of the properties of the shots into the UI, and into the code of the game would be tedious and frankly, a waste of time, considering it'd only be used for lasers. Ballistics, MAG and plasma to an extent all have good, logical explanations as to why different things coming out of the barrel with different effects come from different ammunition loaded. Lasers all simply come from the same source, energy, but there's an explanation for that as well.

The in-game explanation (that I wrote above, that I guess you didn't read (at least you didn't comment on it)) is that each shot (pulsed laser shot, continuous laser shot, etc) takes a different amount of energy, and that each laser cell is programmed to tell the gun what kind of shot to fire, and how many shots of it's given firing type it can fire before being depleted. I mean, say a cont. shot takes 1/5 of a cell. What happens when I fire a cont. shot, then try to fire a pulsed shot which takes 1/3 of a cell? It messes up the amount of shots left, and would take an onboard computer to calculate what kind of shots it can fire, which would add lots of extra cost to the gun, more manufacturing time, make it heavier, etc. Instead of doing that, the designers gave each laser cell a certain firing type, and a number of shots the cell has energy for. This is precalculated and preset on each cell, so it reduces useless calculations in the field. This way, you know that you'll have exactly enough energy for 3 pulsed shots in this cell, and if you want to switch to another firing type you switch the cell, because that cell "knows" how many times it can fire a cont. beam.

Besides, the soldiers themselves are used to switching magazines to change ammo types, they wouldn't have any issue switching energy cells, especially if it means they won't have to do mental calculations to see if they have enough energy left in the cell to fire a pulsed shot after firing a couple of cont. beams.

Does that make sense?

Oh, and about your comment about the predefined mould: the game is already mostly built. Adding entire new systems, like the laser-only fire mode selector, would not work because the game is at this stage already. We have to work within the bounds of possibility, so confining it to a "mould" is the only way to do it. Does that make sense?

Edited July 3, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[thothkins]

t wouldn't try to replace grenades, since those can (eventually ) be thrown over cover,

So used to having them bounce back and blow up in my troops' faces I forget that they;re supposed to have that function

[StellarRat]

It seems to me the best way to address this is to break out the all damage fields from the weapon xml itself and into a seperate xml for ammos then tie all the possible ammos back to the weapon. In other words, the ammo tells you what weapons use it, not the other way around. However, it sounds like a substantial amount of additional coding to me. So, I'm not too hopeful that we will see this in this version. Separate ammo xml would allow a great deal more flexibilty in load outs that's for sure. Then all you would need to do is add the weapon type to each ammo it was "allowed" to fire. That would also give weapons the ability to fire ammo that wasn't even of the same class. So, for example, if you wanted to add a grenade launcher to your rifle you would simply create an explosive ammo and add AR to it's "list" of allowable weapons.

Edited July 3, 2013 by StellarRat

[GizmoGomez]

That's a great way to go about it, StellarRat. Yeah, it would be a significant amount of work, but it would open up so much potential...