I think I figured out why guns are a bit too weak.

They are *already* compensating for the fact that they have range. It's called energy, and melee weapons don't use it at all.

 

Not a bad point. Do you think that melee weapons with secondary "effects" (like any of the legendaries) should also consume energy when swung?

 

perhaps for the same reasons there really isnt a melee centric military on earth today?

 

Clearly it's because we don't routinely face off against aliens in our day to day military drills.

Seriously, stop trying to bring current realism into a futuristic game. It's an exercise in absurdity.

 

Guns are almost always a swing and a miss for me:

- Assault rifles are the crappiest ones, even legendaries (bullet splits into three, so what? That is just asking for chaos). Damage too low, rate of fire vs. accuracy against a monster jumping around is just a drain on energy.
- Grenade launchers, cute and fun, but never used 'em in a serious situation. Yes, I can get srsly srs.
- Rocket launchers are nice on flat land. Pushes enemies back so you can have more opportunities to fire, splash damage helps, but high cost and low fire rate (even for legendaries and rares) is "optional".
- Plasma guns are cute in that you can use them as a cheap lightsource when cave-diving, but their blobby projectile has too little range unless you are in an enclosed space and spam it all around. Basically a cheaper, faster fire rate grenade launcher.
- RATATATATATAT Avian guns are cool, high fire rate, decent damage, low energy to fire, but again, with enemies jumping around and crap you'd be wasting a lot trying to hit the target.
- Found a Glitch crossbow that does some serious damage. Good for hunting for leather if you feel like making tier 1 armor after already making it to sector X, but hey, how you play is up to you.
- USCM Prisoners rarely drop Uzi weapons, but I don't even have to block them as they bounce off my armor, so I never used one in that regard.
- Sniper rifle, for when you want to spend a ton of energy just to miss a lot. Don't forget the barrel is so long, if the enemy is too close the bullet leaves the gun and doesn't harm them. Lame.
- Shotguns... found like two, ever, and they were crap.
- Pistols are where it's at. Usually the slower the fire rate, higher the damage, so I found a rare pistol with 2.2X- something and does 650 damage. Most importantly, it pushes enemies back. It even looks cool, like a gold revolver look. The fire rate is just good enough to make each shot count.

I like using the Avian gun and just firing into the air back and forth - attracts a lot of flying monsters to me that way. But still, my best/favorite gun takes at least a half-dozen shots to kill something, whereas my melee weapon requires one good whack. Since monster AI is so predictable to where I know what they'll do and swing where they jump to, its no contest.

 

I personally loved the mini shark and pistols in terreria. Have yet to find a gun that fun in this game also I will never like the energy system. It is beta so I hope the devs make guns more satisfying.

 

Why not just have the weapon drops completely random... Between -1 to +9999999 damage... Fun fun

I would love to have a melee weapon that functions similar to the Korean Fan from MapleStory btw...

 

I have a feeling that if aliens suddenly became a serious, frequent military threat to earth we wouldn't be throwing down our rifles and forging swords to fight them. Objectively speaking, guns are superior weapons. That's why the old saying about "bringing a knife to a gun fight" exists.

I think the thread's issue actually just comes down to the fact that crafted weapons are almost invariably superior to weapon drops in the same tier (even lower tiers), and we don't have crafted guns yet. So they're a little underpowered.

 

That's very true. In reality, right now, we don't have armor capable of deflecting bullets or ranged weaponry, nor do we have the defenses that can match current offenses.

However, we play video games for entertainment. Yes, that entertainment can come from realism. However, if things were the way they are in real life, the moment you find an avian pirate ship, you would stop using any melee weapon ever. Even a flintlock pistol has better stopping power than a hammer, and is hopefully reliable enough. So, there needs to be a balance between realism (guns > knives) and entertainment (guns and knives are both viable, for people that like only one of the two).

You bring up another good point, although it's arguably true for 90% of all melee weapons as well. Crafted Impervium weapons are simply too good, compared to the weapons that drop from T10 planets. It takes a long time to find a weapon that can beat 4133 dps of the axe, or 4000 damage per hit of dual shortswords. The further problem to this, is that those same crappy dropped weapons are the ONLY thing that exists for guns, right now. There is no readily-available gun comparable to the crafted Impervium weapons.

I'd also like to say that if there WERE craftable guns that were better than almost all the drops, it would just make the current situation worse, not better. The answer is not more over-powered stuff heh, it's balanced stuff.

 

i'm not. i'm demonstrating that "common logic" makes his statement counter-intuitive. you'll note i suggested no change.

wrong, both in starbound and reality.

let me tell you, bullet deflecting armor is heavy, and it sucks wearing it for any length of time.

 

I wasn't suggesting that crafted guns (that far exceed purchased/dropped ones) are the solution. I agree with your whole third paragraph (and it's basically the point I was making; that dropped items suck in general but they're all we have for guns). Balance is definitely needed. If anything crafted items should probably be middle-of-the-road. Better than the most common drops, but inferior to the less common, high quality drops. That's how it's balanced in most games I can think of, and for good reason. Crafting is still incentivized to make things you're not having luck finding or to "catch up" as you move up in difficulty tiers, but drops aren't automatically trash every single time, and are something to be excited about since they have a chance of actually being an upgrade.

 

The only reasons to use guns are
1- Fast bullets
2- Cluster grenades

 

Who the hell cares about realism. Game balance is the important thing. If it were realistic it would be a shitty game.

Anyway using a pistol+shield and blink is by far the easiest way to clear anything, so guns don't need a buff.

 

not till stage 3 it's not ;D

 

I just stick to a t10 bonehammer for everything now, I don't mod, and vanilla guns and other ranged weapons are literally useless.
I did enjoy my bow tho first 3 tiers ^^.

 

I would prefer guns using ammo, as opposed to energy.
Damage is crap compared to melee, and the energy cost cripples additionally, as you cant use techs effeciently.
So far guns only have one single advantage, and that is range, but since every single one i had still takes at least 3 shots to finish off a normal monster (tier10 gun, monster), and monsters are pretty annoying jumping around, bashing etc, AND often also have odd hitboxes, i often run out of energy trying to hit it, and then get hit myself because i cant use any evasive tech.
I do acknowledge that my aiming skill possibly is not really great, but guns are simply way too weak. The only guns so far i found a use for is a piercing sniper, against npcs that are somewhat in a row, and a crossbow, with some sort of slow effect, but most of the time i have to rely on melee weapons. Does work, but definitely not the playstyle i wanted to play :/

 

I see no reason why guns should not be more powerful. They drain energy (shouldn't some of them drain ammunition?), they're rarer than melee weapons, and lasers are pretty much cliche science fiction.

 

i like the way guns are just as they are. i use mine almost exclusively. you have to finally find the right one and then judiciously maintain your energy and use of your tech. the game is already easy mode. why does it need to be even easier?

 

a lot of problems in this thread can be solved with good aim. i love guns in starbound, i collect them and generally use them exclusively from alpha to x but late tier guns definitely need some sort of boost

 

Iv found guns that do over 2000 damage per shot, in level 10 Asteroid Fields (Biomes, not ones above the planet surface) in those Abandoned Space Stations, (The ones that use 2 Ship Doors as Doors), iv also just recently found a HUGE Rocket Launcher in it, this thing is massive lol