Weapons:

Originally from devblog:

"Ya'll can't see the forest through the trees:

...to fix balancing, the -combat triangle- needs to be taken a layer deeper, to the 'weapon design' of, in itself for Space Engineers 2.

We are the engineers...therefore we engineer the weapons. A new manufacturing block, a weapon foundry i.e., for three things: upper receiver, lower receiver, and ammo == 'This' is the triangle for combat.

We decide the upper receiver (barrel length, size, caliber, number of, rotary, optics, etc) with the accompanying characteristics(range, stability, heat management, weight, mobility etc). Lower receiver (cyclic rate, magazine type, ammo number, mounting type, etc), and finally ammo (energy type, airburst, penetrating, indirect, direct, etc).

How a game about engineers, that has less ability to create your own weapons than a game like Call of Duty has, creates balancing problems. You the engineer decides the 'balance' by engineering new counters to the counters, to the counter-counters, and so forth. The current method, of Keen essentially doing all the weapon engineering (design) decisions, when they release a 'completed' weapon design, means that we as the player are unable to 'engineer' a counter to the employment of them...

Which leads to players trying to essentially 'unbalance' the gameplay to get a counter...which leads to Keen doing all the 'engineering' of a new/old weapon all over again for a new counter to fix the 'balance'...leading to players figuring out a new way to counter Keen's design decisions on a weapon by unbalancing the gameplay again...

Cutting us, the Engineer, out of the loop creates balance issues since we are relying on Keen to do all the weighing of a complete weapons design decisions and engineering thereof, when it should be...us... doing the design and weighing and evaluations.

We the players engineer will the balance. Keen needs to just give the weapon systems to us to engineer. That -is- the gameplay loop ;) Add in shields (energy/kinetic/thermal/gravity etc), armor types, and so on..."

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So, in summery, there are three 'modules' that players can interact and design with. They generate a couple values that fluctuate depending on the design and employment:

The ammo generates Damage to target. On the weapon being used, generates Heat (can damage weapon components) and Recoil (can damage weapon components), and lower Stability(where the barrel is pointing after a shot) and has an inherent Accuracy rating (where the ammo used lands). Has a Weight value, which affects total Speed (impacts Stability and Recoil)

The upper receiver generates Accuracy and Stability. Mitigates Heat.

The lower receiver generates Stability, Speed. Mitigates Recoil.

Weight generates Accuracy, Stability. Mitigates Heat, Recoil. Lowers Speed.

Armor generates weight, mitigates external damage. Lowers Speed.

These will all be 'sliders' that you can adjust during designing. With a modular weapon component system, instead, they can be designed with these values, depending on how you slot the modules into the receivers chassis.