I think there should be a separate energy reserve for weapons, instead of sharing it with abilities. It could be a blue bar below the green energy bar that drains whenever you use a weapon, like a gun. The original green energy bar can then be used exclusively for techs and items like them. It's quite annoying not being able to use your techs because you're using your gun. What do you think?
The thing is, Weapons and Movement sharing energy makes for an interesting trade off: If you're using a ranged weapon, you're going to be significantly less mobile than someone using a melee weapon. Without that, there'd be no reason to use melee weapons. Of course, it'd help if guns didn't just lightly tickle people for now, but still.
Hm. Yeah, you have a point. Maybe the weapon you currently have equipped could affect your energy meter? But that could be too confusing.
A little bit. I think some sort of ammo system (either pixels as ammo or, god forbid, constructable ammo) should be used for projectile weaponry and perhaps Energy could be used for energy weapons like lightning guns or lasers.
Your character has infinite ammunition. It must come from something you're carrying on your person (akin to your power suit), which is why it is fueled by the same energy dynamo as your techs. As said above, it's the only expected longterm drawback to ranged weaponry (assuming ranged weapons don't still completely suck by the time beta is over.)
Why not have a nanites? Nanites could be used to create ammunition in situ, so it makes sense even for non-energy weapons. Your nanite bar would be blue. Using a weapon would drain your nanite bar. When it's low, your energy regeneration rate is decreased because your nanites are replenishing themselves. As such, using ranged weapons would reduce your energy supply, but not directly. Additionally, once separated you'll be able to change the capacity and regeneration of each resource independently.
The concept of nanites would raise questions as to why they can't be used to replicate other devices or heal wounds or what-have-you. In particular it would make the portable printer redundant - shouldn't your nanites be able to do that? Nanites are a sort of sci-fi mary sue that raise a lot of problems merely by existing as a tool of the protagonist, as the exact limits of their functionality and why are inherently wonky.
1. My question is this: Where does the ammunition for conventional projectile weapons come from right now? Does it materialize from pure energy? If so, why can't we materialize other things out of pure energy? I think this is a worse "Mary Sue". 2. Healing wounds is a great idea. Mediguns, anyone? 3. Handwavium: Projectiles are made out of recyclable nanites which return to you and reform, for energy weapons nanites are just carriers for the energy already produced by the suit. Gotta love that handwavium!
Your ammunition is energy. You're not firing actual arrows or bullets - just look at the damn things, they're clearly energy pellets. You're not using Mary Sue powers to make bullets. You're hurling the energy itself as a blunt object. Bandages, anyone? If you can ever describe a game element with the phrase "handwave" you need to go back and redo it. You have infinite ammunition because you are literally firing energy, the same energy that powers your techs.
For some weapons, this is true. For many, however, it is not. This is especially true for grenade and rocket launchers, which don't even have energy-based variants. Also, most of the weapons that look like energy-based weapons are actually plasma weapons, which fire plasma, which is a form of matter.
Matter and energy are not fundamentally different and can be converted from one to another. That's how batteries work. Rechargeable ones even turn the energy back into matter. Thus, it's quite feasible to use your energy reserves to generate raw plasma. Grenades and rockets though I have no idea what is going on there.
Plasma might act a little differently than the matter we're used to, and grenades and rockets might be quite complex, but they're still made of the exact same stuff. Well, it's possible that the "plasma" is actually an exotic form of matter plasma rather than our normal run-of-the-mill plasma, but that argument could be made for any form of matter. Point is, we can materialize ammunition from energy right now, why can we not do the same with other items, and why are nanites any different? If anything, they might make more sense rather than less.
No. You can materialize raw matter from energy. There's a pretty big difference between converting energy to a blob of matter (which we're able to do in our modern time) and converting energy to the Eiffel Tower perfect to the millimetre (which we are nowhere close to able to do.) It's like how you could take a hammer and mash a pure gold statue into a flat sheet or a lump, but you can't manipulate the lump back into the statue in the same way.
That's still matter. Why can I not make iron or titanium from energy? Please tell me why I cannot. We can make complex munitions from energy alone, but not simple metals?
Why can't rechargeable batteries fill themselves up with iron or titanium instead of whatever the hell chemical they use for electricity?
Oh, excuse me, I thought we were talking about Starbound here. Also, that's not how rechargeable batteries work. Hell, that's not even how batteries in general work. That is how fuel cells work, though. If it holds an electric charge, it's a battery. If it converts a chemical to provide electricity via chemical energy, it's a fuel cell.
