<shameless reposting of what i wrote up for the diff manufacturers thread>
main thrust behind the idea is that even with different brands, there is no "best" brand as the ones with the most bonuses would nail you in the wallet. So it becomes a matter of balancing your priorities.
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it could be made relatively easily actually, at least i think so. despite this ridiculously long post
for example, lets assume most weapon functions are broken down into 8 modular stats
using ballistics as an example
damage per shot (higher the rating the more damage per shot)
rate of fire (higher the rating faster you shoot)
projectile speed/range (higher the rating the faster the bullet velocity/the farther your range/the less bullet drop you get)
accuracy (higher the rating the tighter groupings your weapon will be able to shoot)
ammo per ton (higher the rating the more rounds you have within a ton of ammo, this is modified by the damage per shot value however)
recoil compensation (higher the rating the less recoil you suffer)
heat efficiency (higher the rating the cooler the weapon runs)
resiliency (higher the rating, the harder the weapon is to break, jam, disable, or otherwise suffer problems)
Give each setting a rating between 1 and 10, 10 being the best.
Assume that there is effectively a pointbuy system in place where a limited number of points are distributed among the various stats
And influencing that pointbuy is a separate rating for Cost. The higher the cost rating, the more points there are to distribute.
So that a weapon with a cost rating of 1 (cheap trash) might have 20 points to allocate where as a weapon with a value of 10 (high end pricey stuff) might have 45, or something to that effect. So that no matter what, any given weapon that excels in one aspect has to suffer in another.
It should not be up to the player to allocate these points. Instead they should be able to buy them as is from the market. At most, if you can hire techs, depending on their skill they might be able to let you "tweak" a % of the point values a little bit, if at all.
The way this could work is that different manufacturers could release procedurally generated variants of a given weapon class on the market. Usually labeled as like ">Make< >model< >model number<"
So Ceres Metals might release a production run of Crusher Super heavy autocannons of varying performance grades and pricings, perhaps focusing on range and damage. While KaliYama industries has their own run of Kali Yama big bores of varying performance grades and pricings but catering towards a different focus, like say accuracy and rate of fire.
And for a little added uniqueness, you can have small perks/quirks that cost or free up points on the pointbuy system but don't really have a rating. Like having the AC only operate in burst fire, or having faster or slower ammo type switching, or having a larger than usual muzzle flash, or having more or less knock factor for its class, etc.
with energy it could be
Damage per shot (same as above)
rate of fire (same as above)
range (how far your weapon can reach)
Optimization (higher the rating, the less damage dropoff you get at range, and additionally in the case of PPCs, the smaller your minimum range)
Delay rating. (higher the rating the less of a charge delay you have between trigger pull and actually firing)
duration/concentration rating (higher the rating, the shorter the laser duration has to be to total up the damage, in the case of PPCs a higher rating concentrates the damage into a smaller area more)
heat efficiency (same as above)
resiliency (same as above)
perks/quirks might include: invisible to visual spectrum (lasers only) (nonstandard wavelength (different color than usual))
(poor insulation, suffer light EM fx each time fired)
Missiles
Damage per shot (ditto)
rate of fire (ditto)
range (ditto)
Missile speed (higher rating makes for faster missiles)
Guidance rating (higher rating makes for better tracking)
Stabilization (higher rating makes for straight direct flights, lower rating makes for squirrelly zig zaggy missiles)
heat efficiency (ditto)
resiliency (ditto)
perks/quirks might include top attack (missile flies high above target before dropping), visually guided, fire and forget style guidance, ripple fired, salvo fired, single fired, dumbfired,
gauss rifles probably need their own set of stats since they are a combo of ballistic and energy weapon.
Damage
rate of fire
Kinetic force (how much knock force you impart on a target)
projectile speed/range
ammo per ton
delay rating
recoil compensation
resiliency (higher rating in this also reduces capacitor explosion damage)
perks/quirks could include cosmetic variances in the projectile trail fx that make your firing position more or less obvious.
Note though, the +/- values should be tweaking a baseline for that weapon class. So that even an AC20 that only has 1 point in damage per shot is still hitting hard, and a PPC with a 10 in heat efficiency is still going to tax heatsinks, only that an ac20 with a 10 in damage is going to hit a lot harder and a PPC with a 1 in heat efficiency will run a lot hotter.
Edited by VYCanis, 28 December 2011 - 01:04 PM.
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