Revamped ammo

I've played the game for a while now and I'd like to say a few things about the ranged weapons.
Now, ranged weapons are really nice and work well with the energy bar at the beginning of the game but towards the endgame when you have access to techs. Now techs most of them use a lot of energy really quickly witch you need to fire weapons. Now whenever you are in combat but when you explore you use a lot of mobile tech powers, witch drain energy, and then you see something and you whip out a ranged weapon to kill it. now you've killed it, and you keep moving. now a different scenario is lets say your fighting florans. So you take out a ranged weapon and kill one. by the time you kill one depending on the weapon your at half or you've used all of your energy. And if you used a tech you probably have none. So now you switch to a melee weapon to combat the hordes of enemies and likely popping meds every few seconds. And your endgame weapon that you've grinded for only gets a couple shots off before the energy is depleted. On paper it doesn't seem that bad but in game you only have enough energy to kill maybe one thing before melee is involved. Witch is why I think they should add actual ammo. Because then Ranged weapons have a greater use in that you can fight with them for longer. Maybe add crystals under ground that you make energy cells from for ammo. Or have separate energy bars for weapons, Or have techs that recharge energy faster, Or the armor adds more energy in stead of just health.

 

Actual ammo would clutter up an inventory that already fills up far too quickly

 

That may be so, but in the grand scheme of things it would be better to have more efficient killing tools than a larger inventory but that is probably what differs in my play style.

 

So, Let me regale you with the tale of the last time CF thought about Ammo for weapons. There used to be a very popular mod that gave each weapon it's own ammo type and removed the energy component from guns. Lots of people used it and eventually CF was in talks to integrate the mod into the actual base game. Then stuff happened between CF staff and the mod creator (not going into the details or picking sides). Things got ugly and the original creator left the community and abandoned the project. Since that point, CF has been staunchly against using an ammo system of any kind.

Personally I'd wager it has something to do with red-tape and the deal gone bad. It might however just be a change of heart.

EDIT: Also please add an option to the poll for "None of the above"

 

Well, then that's not good.
however though the way the guns currently work makes them feel in a way useless as you for the most part only kill 1-3 things before you run out of energy.

 

There is going to be another energy re-balance with the next patch. Their goal this time was to encourage rationing energy rather than going all out and waiting for it to fully recharge.

Part of the problem with Ammo (as seen in Terraria) is that you have to go out of your way to stock-up between combat. If they could find a clever solution around that, ammo might be a viable option. For the time being it looks like energy is going to be the big thing. With the changes to techs, it seems like they're moving toward techs not using energy at all. That makes me think they'll probably use energy for special attacks on melee weapons as well. We'll have to see how it all plays out.

 

In Terraria 1.3 they released an item that acts as infinite Musket Balls and Wooden Arrows (although it was in hardmode, which is quite far into the game), so you have infinite low quality ammo and have consumable high quality ammo.

Although, I don't think that having to go back is that big a deal in Terraria. Much less so in Starbound with spaceships capable of making everything (including the kitchen sink)

 

Separate ammo inventory, or better inventory management features. Both counter your point.

 

Starbound's inventory is huge, but fills up incredibly quickly. I guess this is one of the disadvantages of randomly generated dirt...

 

There are only five or six different color possibilities for Dirt, but with better inventory management features it would not matter if it was six or seventy three possibilities.

 

If I recall correctly, the majority of sprites in the game have multiple color pallets specified in the config files. Either way, something that would consolidate dirt of all colors into a single space and let you pick (when adding it to the bar) what color you wanted would be nice.

 

What you are referring to is the painting system. I'm referring to materialHueShift, which affects naturally generated blocks like Dirt and Sand. And, like I said, better inventory management features would rectify the issue.

 

I was trying no to get too close to Terraria's system for ammo but this is a roundabout that would still make ammo a viable option.

Also inventory does get filled up but tossing out uselessly weak weapons and randomly colored dirt blocks isn't hard.

 

Whether pr not Terraria did it should be irrelevant. If it works, it works. There are many ways to distinguish Starbound's implementation from Terraria's that just require a little bit of imagination.

 

No it wouldn't. Management won't cut down on the gargantuan number of items you can stuff in your inventory. heck the weapon variety alone.

 

Its all the stupid petals/hardened monster plates/etc. used for furniture. They, along with the billion different types of food, take up so much space

If you got rid of anything you don't need, either storing or destroying, then I don't think inventory space is much of an issue.

 

It could if it blocked you from picking up items you don't want. and I only carry a select few weapons I actually use.

 

Am I the only one that likes the current energy system? I feel ammo is just unnecessary and only makes the game more terraria-esque for no real purpose. In the future tech won't use energy, so that won't be an issue. Guns have to be reloaded in real life too, and periodically taking cover/dodging should be an aspect of ranged combat.

 

I would love to see ammo/arrows used for gun/bow type weapons. High incendiary rounds, and arrows dipped in poison are just some ideas of many that could be implemented with it; each ammo and arrow type being able to be crafted with special properties.

 

The way I imagine an ammo system in Starbound is like this.

Basic ammo types:

Pistol Ammo
Rifle Ammo
Shotgun Ammo
Arrow Ammo
Rocket Ammo
Grenade Ammo (or just Grenades that can also be used as a weapon)

That's six items. Special ammo types would be limited in vanilla, likely to incendiary and poison ammo variants for the first four. Other modifications and varieties would be attached to the gun being fired. So, basically, fourteen new items. With a dedicated ammo inventory, there would be no issue. Heck, you could just organize your inventory once in a while to get the same effect.