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The art and science of gun balance

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Nerva, Dec 18, 2013.

  1. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    Okay. Lately I've been hunting guns in Starbound, and I've been... well disappointed to be honest, with the quality of the firearms I've located. Most have little or no value to me versus a melee weapon. This is partially symptomatic of a bigger problem with found weapons vs. crafted ones, in that found weapons tend to be universally pitiful unless it's Legendary quality and has a really awesome secondary effect (such as the bonehammer's bone spray effect.)

    The biggest culprit is the idea of energy cost, and the ratio of energy cost to damage inflicted. There's also a few issues with projectile collision, but I suspect those are more bugs than balance issues. I'll try to stay on the subject of balancing primarily.

    The vast majority of weapons, despite welcome balancing changes, simply do not do enough damage for their energy cost, especially at higher tiers. Energy has two uses - to serve as ammo for guns and to power Tech use. If you have a hammer that deals 4000 damage for no energy cost, and a sniper rifle that does 750 but costs as much as an Energy Dash in order to fire, which is more efficient? Energy-dashing to the target and hammering it? Or shooting it?

    Well, first glance would probably tell you "hammering it." And in the bulk of game situations, this is true. The only time shooting would be preferable is if you can trap an enemy's AI using the terrain, creating a situation where you can shoot them, but they can't shoot you. Another example would be situations where you can't physically reach the target to hammer it, and so shooting is the only option.

    Thing is, that reduces guns to "situational" weapons in the majority of cases. A gun won't be your primary weapon because melee is just more efficient. Since melee doesn't cost energy, you can use your techs either to gain mobility in the fight, or evade the battle if it's too risky. The greatest sniper rifle I've ever located deals about half the damage of a two-handed sword, which in turn means it inflicts about a quarter of the damage of a hammer, and it costs enough energy that I can only fire it about ten times before I run my energy bar dry. Why would I use this to kill an enemy in 5-8 hits, when I could simply use a hammer and kill it in one or two and save the energy cost?

    This is especially important when dealing with enemies, and particularly humanoid enemies, armed with ranged attacks. Enemies with guns do not have energy limitations. They can fire just as often as the cooldown on their weapon allows, and they tend to be pretty rapid besides. I can't use a gun to match their range advantage - it takes me as many as eight shots to kill them (and this is a legendary sniper rifle from a level 10 planet, mind you!), and that costs most of my energy bar. I will kill at most one enemy before running dry on energy, and then I'm all but defenseless without a melee weapon; I can't even use techs to escape the fight until my energy recharges.

    Compare, instead, to simply using a melee weapon. Yes, I take a few shots, but using techs to close the distance quickly I take a lot fewer shots than I do trying to dance around at a distance. Once I am in range, two or three quick smacks and that shooter is no more, and I still have plenty of energy to either close the distance and attack another foe, or retreat.

    Now you might be thinking - why not find a gun with a cost so low you regenerate faster than it drains? Or a gun so powerful that it outright kills what you aim it at as easily as your hammer? Well the problem there is that the former is not powerful enough to keep you safe. Assault rifles usually lack the kind of damage to be worthwhile, which means I'd be spending even longer on each enemy. Their high fire rate often means I tend to run dry really fast with them anyway, despite their low energy cost. My energy regeneration simply can't keep up. The latter weapons simply don't exist. The strongest ranged weapon I've found only does about 3.9k raw damage (still inferior to a crafted hammer at this tier), and costs a whopping 350+ energy to fire. I can only shoot it twice before my energy bar is kaput.

    This means that, in the end, Sniper Rifles are the only really efficient guns, and even they aren't quite efficient enough to be useful.

    In order to make guns more useful, I'd make the following suggestions:
    1. For Assault Rifles and Machine Pistols, I'd bring their damage up to be comparable to the DPS of a crafted two-handed or 1-handed sword, and reduce their fire rate or energy costs until you can fire them in short bursts of about 5-6 shots without significantly draining your energy. Holding down the gun full auto should drain your battery only after about thirty seconds of solid firing.
    2. For Sniper Rifles, their damage should be comparable to a crafted scythe or hammer, with fire rate being the primary limiter. Their energy costs should be modest - light enough that by the time the gun is ready to fire, your energy should have mostly recharged.
    3. Shotguns could stand to be slightly lower than sniper rifle damage, relying on multiple pellets making contact in order to achieve good DPS. Energy costs should be a bit heavier, and fire rate a bit increased to compensate; periodic shots won't drain you, but spam-firing it will leave you empty in a prolonged (45 seconds to a minute) fight.
    4. Rocket & grenade launchers should retain their somewhat vicious energy costs and snail-slow firing rates, but have enough raw DPS to scare the pants off any other weapon. When you rocket things, they die... but heaven help you if you miss because it's going to be a while before you can shoot again. Three to four rockets should drain you.
    5. Exotic projectile types (fiery projectiles, plasma projectiles, variable-speed projectiles, explosive rounds) shouldn't affect energy cost much unless they allow for secondary hits or assist in targetting.
     
  2. Guswut

    Guswut Ketchup Robot

  3. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    I'm well aware of the suggestion forum. I debated putting this thread in there, but decided against it for one reason - I want to open up discussion of gun balance, and see if there's others that may have insights regarding it that I'm not aware of.
     
  4. Guswut

    Guswut Ketchup Robot

    Interesting, as no where in your post did you even suggest to call for feedback. That aside, though, there are already a few open discussions for gun balancing that are not suggestion posts, so I'm not entirely sure why you think your suggestion post should be otherwise considered.

    Well, so it goes. Good luck!
     
  5. WalrusJones

    WalrusJones Space Spelunker

    Currently knockback is only tied to damage, making it so worthwhile guns are harder to find because a good damage gun may turn a worthy enemy into a ping pong ball.

    If we added force multipliers to weapons, we could probably give weapons better balance overall since worthwhile guns wouldn't knock enemies back as if they were a sword.

    Odds are, I would try to form guns into two classes:

    Efficient guns: Guns that can last a whole fight, but are worthwhile as a primary weapon: Submachineguns, pistols, and some shotguns would be here.
    - Pistols would fall into the further category of supplemental weapons, where just one isn't enough to carry you, but is effective enough to work with a shield. They would be weapons you use with your flashlight in tense moments, or paired up, obviously.

    Powerful guns: Guns that really are to empty and dispose of quickly. Some of the more excessively powerful examples may deplete your energy before killing the target, but inflict legendary DPS while they fire: Assualt rifles, Sniper rifles.

    Limited guns: Guns that are efficient, and powerful, but due to some odd property, are limited in their usefulness. Bullet hose LMGS, Some shotguns, and Launchers would be in this catagory, due to excessive range limitations, or potential for self hazard limiting their usefulness as guns.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2013
    Woden likes this.
  6. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    I'll admit, I could have probably stood to be more clear on that.

    Do you have anything relevant to contribute to the topic, besides critiquing my choice of posting a new thread in this forum?
     
  7. Guswut

    Guswut Ketchup Robot

    Indeed, you could have!

    Nope, nothing at all, as I've already posted at length in the existing gun balance threads. Your thread has added nothing to the discussion except your own personal suggestions, which are not needed in a discussion thread. Good luck!
     
  8. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    Then would you kindly stop posting here?

    If you feel that my thread belongs in Suggestions, and cannot abide the idea of it being here in General, then simply report the post and see if the mods agree with you and move it. If they do, I'll abide by their decision. Otherwise, continuing to critique my decision is spam, off-topic, and unnecessary.
     
    Yeezus, Kohl124, Snazzy Drew and 13 others like this.
  9. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    Honestly, I find knockback to be more of a help than a hindrance. Especially against melee enemies, a gun with knockback can keep an enemy from touching you entirely, much as a well-used bonehammer or a relatively-fast 2-handed sword with the Lightning special can. While it is possible to KB an enemy into a pit or into hard-to reach areas, or risk KBing them so much that you disturb more enemies and have a fight you can't win on your hands, it's a lot easier to control where you KB an enemy than to try and keep an enemy out of your face without it.

    Regarding your classifications of guns, I really like the three classifications you provide. What I feel we lack, really, are efficient guns that are also effective guns. You can have power, but you'll only get one or two shots with it. Or you can have efficiency, but kill so slowly that you'll take lots of unnecessary damage and have to struggle against every enemy you fight. There's not much middle ground save for a few hard-to-find sniper rifles, shotties, and grenade launchers.
     
  10. TheWalrusNet

    TheWalrusNet Phantasmal Quasar

    I agree with this, some great ideas about balancing. I've also never found a useful ranged weapon, at all. by the time i have my melee weapons have outclassed every single one anyway. making those situations where you "have" to use a ranged weapon, slightly tedious.

    Also, aren't personal suggestions the entire point of a discussion? i feel they are needed... threads like this should be encouraged
     
  11. Xanguine

    Xanguine Star Wrangler

    I feel like I'm playing call of duty when reading this.
     
  12. Rainbow Dash

    Rainbow Dash Oxygen Tank

    here a guide to melee weapons verses guns

    melees range
    >>

    guns range
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    i rest my case

    also rocketlanchers and flamethrowers
    try to use those they are fun =D
     
  13. TheWalrusNet

    TheWalrusNet Phantasmal Quasar

    The problem right now is that the advantage you gain in range is pretty pointless. Being far away doesn't help when you're doing almost nothing from far away. Right now it's far more effective and useful to just use melee on anything that isn't physically impossible to get within range of
     
  14. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    I addressed this in my opening post, actually. Currently, ranged weapons are only truly of value in two situations - when you physically cannot reach the enemy, or the enemy physically cannot reach you with their attacks.

    In any other situation, you will take less damage and finish fights faster by moving into melee.

    As for flamethrowers, I've not found a tier-appropriate one to play with - the one I did have was weak even by the standards of its tier, and was only useful for lighting up dark tunnels. For rocket launchers, I actually have several. Most of them cost 250-370 energy to fire, meaning I'll get two, maybe three shots out of them before running out of energy. Even then, they still do less damage than my crafted hammer, and have about the same radius of effect - the only difference is that I have to get within hammer's reach of an enemy to hammer them.

    That doesn't justify spending 1/3rd to 1/2 of my total energy, considering I can usually close the distance with Bubble Boost and spend maybe 1 pip off my energy bar. Heck, that usually regenerates by the time my hammer's ready to swing a second time.
     
  15. RynCage

    RynCage 3.1415926535897...

    That's Gus in a nutshell alright.
    On topic- everything sounds solid except for your idea on shotguns.
    IMO the damage should be the same or better as a snipers, with less or the same energy cost. Since the downside is that every pellet needs to make contact to match the damage.
     
  16. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    If it's all the same to you, let's keep this civil and on-topic, shall we? I wouldn't want this thread to get locked for personal attacks.

    I thought shotgun damage was calculated on a per-pellet basis, which leads to shotties having potentially seven times the listed damage if all pellets strike the same victim?

    Is that not the case?

    (I will admit that I have not used shotguns extensively - mostly owing to a lack of shotguns to use.)
     
  17. WilliamWallace

    WilliamWallace Scruffy Nerf-Herder

  18. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    There is something wrong with them, since I can hit with two 1h swords and get double damage, or hit with multiple bones from the bonehammer and get multiplied damage, but the shotgun always deals the damage indicated by one shot, even if I hit from point-blank range. I'm pretty sure this is a bug or something, and I hope it will eventually be fixed.
     
  19. Shadow86

    Shadow86 Pangalactic Porcupine

    Those are good suggestions, OP. I hope the devs at least keep them in mind when they get around to balancing guns. I feel they just haven't covered it yet.
     
  20. Full Metal Kirby

    Full Metal Kirby Phantasmal Quasar

    Nope, the damage shown on the tooltip is if every single pellet hits -- this also applies for any other special weapon shots that fire multiple at once, inherently making them utter garbage compared to single shot weapons.
     
    RynCage likes this.

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