Firepower Update: Weapon Expansion (An update of a previous Suggestion)

I really appreciate the time you took to write all of this out. More weapons, and a broader variety of weapons, will always be better than being stuck with two. So miss me with the "Why do we need this? we already have rockets!" nonsense. Also, the "We don't need this because clutter" makes 0 sense when our build menu has sorting and search options. With those two major issues out of the way, I'll approach your arguments from the top:

>Too small, too spammable (imagine three on a boarding minidrone), and doesn't really have a useful niche.

You just proved the initial argument wrong in the same sentence. Use it for a boarding minidrone. Use it for a lightly armed security drone. Use it for basic defense on mining craft. 100% has a purpose and a niche. You could do the same thing with Interior Turrets as well, but having a turret doesn't invalidate a fixed version of the weapon.

>Probably the most useless thing here. Small ship vs. suit is dominated by turrets, as it's almost impossible to hit a suit by aiming the whole ship.

You clearly never put more than one gyro on your craft, huh? It also has applications in vs light armor/drone combat. Absolutely not useless.

>Would be an ok idea, but adds item/block clutter.

See the above dismissal of "clutter" argument. We have search and sort functions already.

>We already have rockets.

See the above dismissal of "we already have rockets".

>What's the role of this?

Read the description of the weapon (Flak Gun). This would create temporary particle effects that damage suits, projectiles, and small grids that fly through them. The fixed version of the weapons would be great for custom built turrets, as well as heavy anti-fighter craft and bombers.

>There are four types of explosives. This is by far the most pointless. Weapon/ammo clutter, no good role (When would you ever want to just touch all the enemy armor? When are you going to get close enough that it's anywhere near as efficient as the others?)

When the enemy has a lot of equipment on the surface of their ship/base and you want to damage it all at once. Its an area of effect/saturation weapon.

>Grid torpedoes. Kinda pointless.

Not in the slightest. Grid torpedoes cannot be reloaded via conveyors or armed via repairing the hardpoint with a welder. Might as well call the gatling pointless because we have rockets.

>Also, that's not how lasers work.

I guess calling them "plasma" would have been better. Forgot that people get picky about naming things. The Plasma Vulcan would fire small bolts of energy (Lower ROF, Higher spread, but greater damage than gatty, no impulse or recoil) While the Plasma Cannon would fire a powerful, high velocity bolt that can be charged up to be more destructive. The charge function is only present on the small ship mounted versions.

Now that you mention it, an actual Laser turret would be great for shooting down missiles and meteors, but would be completely OP against suits and possibly small ships.

>Pointless. Why have this when you could have a gatty?

Gattys aren't non-lethal.

>Same as small Autocannon. Unnecessary sidegrade.

Not so. Large Grids currently do not have a forward facing, rapid fire weapon.

>Again, I like the term "Railgun" to make it more distinct and sci-fi. But good idea.

Railguns would be their own weapon. Shell firing cannons are plenty sci-fi. Haven't you ever watched Battlestar Galactica? A Railgun would be overkill for most applications, since it would over-penetrate Light Armor, making it more useful against Large Grid Heavy Armor.

>See small rocket shotgun, but even worse because you almost never close with a large ship.

That's more your personal play style, my friend. And again, its more for area of effect. The turret version would also do well in defending the ship against fighters.

>Nope. Grid missiles are better for this, and you'd have to turn the whole ship for it to be useful.

So making something several times the size, at several times the cost is better??? I don't think you understood the description of the weapon. Missiles from the MML can fire straight, or vertically (Or sideways, depending on where you put it) and then turn towards the locked on target.

>Grid missiles.

Again, not an argument.

>It's like the small ship laser cannon, but it makes small ships obsolete because of how much power generation you can pack into a large ship.

Then Small Ships are already obsolete because of how many gatling turrets you can put on them. And see the Plasma clarification above.

>but weapon clutter is kinda bad.

Clutter is a non-argument since we have search and sort already in our menus. The Shotgun and DMR/Sniper would both fill their standard video game roles and give a better variety to person to person combat.

Of course I'm not holding my breath for ALL of these weapons, and I'd be more than happy with just a few being added, but I believe any one of these would have a place in our arsenal and make the game more fun. Variety is the spice of life and more ways to blow things up are important for a game about building things to blow up.

P.S. I really should have included a Railgun. No idea why I forgot. I'll add it here, since I can't edit my main post.

Large Ship

Railgun *NEW*

>A powerful ballistic weapon that uses energy to fire a solid alloy slug at great speeds, granting immense penetrative and destructive power against heavily armored ships. Over-penetrates light armor, making it less efficient against light armor and small craft. Would have a large 7x2x1 footprint, and use massive amounts of power.

Railgun Turret *NEW*

>Turreted version of the Railgun. Has a limited vertical angle, requiring you to angle the ship properly, and making it ineffective versus more mobile craft. Has a large 7x7x4 footprint.

The problem is that more weapons cause worse performance and make it harder for new people to get into the game, as well as taking up the devs' time. Adding multiple slight variants of a similar idea just takes up resources which could be used for other things. Additionally, more weapons without major differences between them create balance issues. We already have ridiculously OP small gatty walls o' doom. Without tons of effort, a complex weapon system simply degenerates into a small selection of weapons which are simply the best in their role, with other, weaker options that are useless for PvP.

Essentially, more weapons by themselves are mildly negative, and need to be pretty distinct to be worth adding.

> You just proved the initial argument wrong in the same sentence. Use it for a boarding minidrone. Use it for a lightly armed security drone. Use it for basic defense on mining craft. 100% has a purpose and a niche. You could do the same thing with Interior Turrets as well, but having a turret doesn't invalidate a fixed version of the weapon.

No worthwhile niche. If you just stick one on your ship for self-defense, it gets massively outclassed by more than one gatling gun on an actual attack ship. Barring a miracle, it's almost entirely useless in that role. If you spam them on a small drone, they're basically a direct upgrade to the gatling gun because of space constraints.

> You clearly never put more than one gyro on your craft, huh? It also has applications in vs light armor/drone combat. Absolutely not useless.

If you're outside melee range, a gatling gun is almost always better. If you're in melee range, you need truly ridiculous tracking and timing to land a hit. The suit's jetpack has extreme acceleration, and more gyros make it only technically possible to keep up.

> See the above dismissal of "clutter" argument. We have search and sort functions already.

If you want anti-large, you mount a rocket launcher. If you want anti-small, you mount a gatty. Generalists almost always end up OP or useless because it's too easy to simply use a specialized tool for any given job. And search and sort isn't the issue.

> See the above dismissal of "we already have rockets".

Above response. Having two very similar options isn't worth the effort. Which is why it needs to be extremified to the normal railgun concept.

> Read the description of the weapon (Flak Gun). This would create temporary particle effects that damage suits, projectiles, and small grids that fly through them. The fixed version of the weapons would be great for custom built turrets, as well as heavy anti-fighter craft and bombers.

I didn't think of custom turrets. That definitely pushes them over into "worth implementing" territory. I still think that this weapon would be superseded by gatties in almost all standard applications, assuming a minimum level of aim.

> When the enemy has a lot of equipment on the surface of their ship/base and you want to damage it all at once. Its an area of effect/saturation weapon.

In that role, it would be against tons of unarmored blocks. Essentially a newbie raiding tool. Which isn't great for balance, and implies that it would often be phased out in favor of more anti-armor weapons in actual combat. Given the limited roles and hit to sim speed when used, I still think it isn't good enough to implement.

> Not in the slightest. Grid torpedoes cannot be reloaded via conveyors or armed via repairing the hardpoint with a welder. Might as well call the gatling pointless because we have rockets.

They're printable and very effective, if you put some effort into their design. And have a very similar role to your torpedoes.

> I guess calling them "plasma" would have been better. Forgot that people get picky about naming things. The Plasma Vulcan would fire small bolts of energy (Lower ROF, Higher spread, but greater damage than gatty, no impulse or recoil) While the Plasma Cannon would fire a powerful, high velocity bolt that can be charged up to be more destructive. The charge function is only present on the small ship mounted versions.

So the Plasma Vulcan is a restat around the gatty and autocannon, with power instead of ammo. Still not worth the effort to make unless there's something radically different. And the Plasma Cannon is a corresponding variant of the heavy cannon. Also not very unique, especially given that we have rockets.

> Now that you mention it, an actual Laser turret would be great for shooting down missiles and meteors, but would be completely OP against suits and possibly small ships.

Which is why I love the idea as long as we keep it to fixed variants.

> Gattys aren't non-lethal.

And there's no reason to even have non-lethal weapons, given that at best you can make some sort of player trap which is about as fun as permastun mechanics in other games.

> Not so. Large Grids currently do not have a forward facing, rapid fire weapon.

Do they even need fixed, rapid fire weapons? If so, a large fixed gatty variant would be more different to the rocket launcher, and take less effort to implement.

> Railguns would be their own weapon. Shell firing cannons are plenty sci-fi. Haven't you ever watched Battlestar Galactica? A Railgun would be overkill for most applications, since it would over-penetrate Light Armor, making it more useful against Large Grid Heavy Armor.

The main issue that I have with it is that they're just too similar in many applications. While the BSG final battle was far too cool for the actual ending, heavy cannons are sandwiched between railguns and rockets, so they can't be a priority. Also, have you ever seen a PvP ship? Railguns being overkill against light armor just means that they're adequate against a player's main fighting ship.

> That's more your personal play style, my friend. And again, its more for area of effect. The turret version would also do well in defending the ship against fighters.

Large ships don't have the acceleration to close before the enemy can get away. Against fighters, it's horrifically inefficient and has to compete with gatties and flaks for the role. And, as before, newbie raiding isn't exactly a good thing to specialize in.

> So making something several times the size, at several times the cost is better??? I don't think you understood the description of the weapon. Missiles from the MML can fire straight, or vertically (Or sideways, depending on where you put it) and then turn towards the locked on target.

Honestly, that whole description is pretty confusing. I interpreted it as a missile launcher that tracks towards the pilot's crosshairs. From what you're saying here, it acts halfway between a rocket launcher and a grid missile with a basic AI. I suppose it could be kind of useful, but I'm not sure why it's different enough from a front-facing rocket launcher to be worth implementing.

> Again, not an argument.

Multiple, very similar weapons, aren't worth the effort to implement. Especially when there's a solution that requires actual engineering skill to be much more effective in doing. Why put effort into designing a self-rewelding warhead bomb when you can just spam a bunch of bomb bays on the bottom of your ship and call it a day? It's like introducing a cheap aimbot upgrade in a FPS.

> Then Small Ships are already obsolete because of how many gatling turrets you can put on them. And see the Plasma clarification above.

With that clarification, it ends up just competing for a place with the other generalist turrets. Minor stat and resource differences, but ultimately one's going to be meta while the others are unused.

> Clutter is a non-argument since we have search and sort already in our menus. The Shotgun and DMR/Sniper would both fill their standard video game roles and give a better variety to person to person combat.

I didn't really explain clutter clearly, but it's basically putting effort into things which don't have a defined enough role to avoid creating a meta. Like how the various higher-RoF turrets have some stat and resource differences, but not enough to have specific jobs. On the other hand, the Flak Turret and Railgun are different enough from the Gatty and RL, respectively, to be much more effective in some scenarios while much weaker in others.

Also, this game isn't about suit-to-suit. Spending much time on suit-to-suit combat isn't going to enhance gameplay by much unless there's something really unique about it. If people want gunplay, they'll go to CS:GO.

Large Ship

Railgun *NEW*

>A powerful ballistic weapon that uses energy to fire a solid alloy slug at great speeds, granting immense penetrative and destructive power against heavily armored ships. Over-penetrates light armor, making it less efficient against light armor and small craft. Would have a large 7x2x1 footprint, and use massive amounts of power.

Railgun Turret *NEW*

>Turreted version of the Railgun. Has a limited vertical angle, requiring you to angle the ship properly, and making it ineffective versus more mobile craft. Has a large 7x7x4 footprint.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Years into development. Several DLC's. "1.0 Release". Not one hint of ever adding anything more than the 3 weapons already in game. Dozens of previous posts about updating/expanding the weapon library, never so much as a wink and a nod from the devs.

At this point, does anyone really believe they are going to add more weapons?

Next you should ask for compound blocks and liquid water!

They added hinge rotors in the most recent update after years of them being requested. I get that you're tying to be smug but it isn't really an argument.

Smug or no... do you honestly believe they will be instituting more weapons after this long, after all the posts requesting it?

I didn't think they were going to add hinges. And then they did. There's no way of knowing what they will or will not add.

Fair enough.

To counter your argument some people like the pvp aspect and also some people who want to play PVE want better defense for their bases

You're entirely forgetting about things like enemy drones and spiders, as well as custom missions with their own drones and enemy ships. Space Engineers already has PVP aspects, and they can be expanded upon to offer more content and get more people playing.

I really do not understand why people think "clutter" or "getting mixed up" is an issue at all. You have a search bar for both your inventory and the build menu. 0 reason to think "muh clutter" is any sort of argument. The "Please no more PvP ever" people are in the small, but apparently loud minority. Not everyone is content with playing Space Engineers as a lifeless ship building simulator with extremely shallow and barebones combat. What is the point of building a warship if you're not going to actually use it?

They aren't going to break platform mirroring. That would be suicidal, and not even Keen's more questionable decisions are quite that bad.

You never know

If/when the combat update drops, it'll be the biggest event for the playerbase since planets. You'd have to go lobotomize the whole company for them to even dream of bundling it in with an old update and releasing it only on a secondary platform. "You never know" is about as inapplicable here as it gets with Keen.

It's applicable in some contexts. For example, no one suspected they would add weather or Hinges despite them being requested for years. I remember when they first started they were originally "We will NEVER add planets" and now we have planets. It's impossible to tell what decisions they will make, what they will or will not add to which version of the game.

As an artillery guy one thing I must add to this is an artillery piece, I'd say in terms of SE the most fitting and useful would be something akin to a heavy vehicle mortar akin to the ones found on the AMOS and NEMO. Slow projectiles 200-300ms with the explosive yield of lets say the small warhead and a total travel range in the region of 10km to account for their use as indirect fire weapons.

There could even be a large ship version with similar properties but the yield of a large warhead and even grater range for orbital bombardment. For ship to ship use the balancing factor would the the relatively slow projectile speed making them relatively easy to dodge