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Ammo Magazine

4Peace shared this feedback ago

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Weapons should not simply pull ammunition from any cargo container on the grid. Instead, we should have dedicated ammo magazine blocks that can store only ammunition, and weapons should draw ammo directly from these magazines.

The magazine and weapon should be connected with a conveyor tube, but the connection should be direct. No other cargo containers or other blocks should be allowed between the weapon and the magazine, not even another magazine. The weapon needs a direct conveyor connection to an ammo magazine in order to pull ammunition from it.

The empty magazines should be already a pretty heavy blocks. This is intentional. If you put too many magazines you have more ammo ready to be fired but a much heavier ship. You can still keep additional ammo reserves in regular cargo containers, but weapons won't automatically pull ammo from them.

This creates an important distinction between having ammo on your ship and having ammo ready to fire.

There could be 2 ways to load magazines. The fast way is to manually move ammo into them through the inventory UI. The other option would be using sorters, if we eventually get them. Sorters would be useful for automatically restocking magazines, but they should be relatively slow when moving ammunition.

This means that during a battle, relying on automated restocking from your cargo reserves would be slower than the firing rate of the weapon. Putting more sorters might help but sorters are not cheap PCU-wise, the same PCU you could have used for other things like weapons themselves. So it is possible to have fully automated ammo restocking but for the cost of additional PCU.

For bigger ships, especially capital ships, this could also give additional crew a real purpose. You might have dedicated crew members responsible for ammunition logistics, manually moving ammo from the reserves into the magazines and keeping different weapons supplied during combat. And we certainly need even more reasons for having additional crew on big ships, real players or NPC. (I have already in mind other ideas).

Right now, when weapons can simply pull ammo from generic cargo containers, ammunition is barely a consideration during combat or ship design. You can just fill a cargo container with ammo and forget about it. Additional mass from ammo magazines and related logistics changes this equation and becomes an additional dimension for the combat system.

We need some limitations and restrictions here so there is actually an engineering problem to solve. The basic solution is simple: put ammo into your weapon or magazine. Smart ship design can make it better. You might need to decide how many magazines to install, where to place them, how much ammo to keep in reserves, how to connect them to weapons, and how much additional mass you are willing to carry, whether to use sorters and how many. You still have a full flexibility for the creativity of the ship design, the line between weapon and magazine can be shorter or longer and take whatever shape, or you can decide to have exposed magazines, they will look cool. They have much bigger mass than regular cargo containers but they are also much harder to be destroyed.

The goal isn't to make ammo management annoying. It is to make ammo logistics matter. It makes ship design more interesting and challenging but you have ways to improve things by applying your engineering skills. A well-thought ammo logistics and additional crew members will now have a real impact on the combat.

There is one more game system that has to be tweaked for all the same reasons as described here - it is block repairing. But this will be its own topic ;)

Thx for reading, leave your thoughts below.

I like this feedback

Replies (11)

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4Peace ●

This ofc is very tied to NPCs. Having an NPC on board doing logistics will give you a real benefit and justify spending money on hiring them.

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Semtex ●

What about this option?

Weapons in turrets should have an ammunition magazine (storage block) that is part of the turret. I can refer to this as a first-level dedicated ammunition magazine/storage.

All fixed weapons should also have a similar dedicated first-level ammunition depots. The depot should be connected directly to the weapon. A weapon must have a designated storage unit from which it draws ammunition when reloading.

A dedicated first-level storage unit should have limited capacity, and there should be a rule that the automated resupply system cannot retrieve ammunition from the dedicated storage unit for other weapons. This should only be possible in manual mode or in manual ammunition depot control mode.

A “dedicated second-level ammunition depot” should be located near weapons, turrets, or fixed installations.

Dedicated first-level depots have designated dedicated second-level depots from which they can retrieve ammunition. The control logic instructs the dedicated first-level depot to always replenish itself to full capacity or to a set ammunition capacity.

In “automatic mode,” a dedicated second-level ammunition depot allows only dedicated first-level ammunition depots to withdraw stored ammunition. Other withdrawals must be performed in manual control mode. The control logic instructs a dedicated first-level ammunition depot to always replenish itself to the set ammunition capacity.

A dedicated second-level depots can store specified types of ammunition in specified quantities. There should be an option to set what portion of the warehouse’s total capacity each stored type of ammunition can occupy.

There may be a dedicated third-level ammunition depot (“central ammunition depot”). The logic governing the automatic replenishment of dedicated second-level depots should ensure that the dedicated third-level depot monitors ammunition stocks in the second-level depots and distributes the available ammunition “evenly.”

The dedicated third-level warehouse should be able to replenish dedicated second-level warehouses beyond a set limit, while respecting the types and proportions of stored ammunition.

Dedicated ammunition depots should have configurable settings for the types of ammunition they store and in what quantities. It should not be possible to store other items in dedicated storage units.

Dedicated ammunition storage units would not need to differ from normal storage blocks—the entire configuration logic could be handled in the storage block settings menu.

What about this option?

Weapons in turrets should have an ammunition magazine (storage block) that is part of the turret. I can refer to this as a first-level dedicated ammunition magazine/storage.

All fixed weapons should also have a similar dedicated first-level ammunition depots. The depot should be connected directly to the weapon. A weapon must have a designated storage unit from which it draws ammunition when reloading.

A dedicated first-level storage unit should have limited capacity, and there should be a rule that the automated resupply system cannot retrieve ammunition from the dedicated storage unit for other weapons. This should only be possible in manual mode or in manual ammunition depot control mode.

A “dedicated second-level ammunition depot” should be located near weapons, turrets, or fixed installations.

Dedicated first-level depots have designated dedicated second-level depots from which they can retrieve ammunition. The control logic instructs the dedicated first-level depot to always replenish itself to full capacity or to a set ammunition capacity.

In “automatic mode,” a dedicated second-level ammunition depot allows only dedicated first-level ammunition depots to withdraw stored ammunition. Other withdrawals must be performed in manual control mode. The control logic instructs a dedicated first-level ammunition depot to always replenish itself to the set ammunition capacity.

A dedicated second-level depots can store specified types of ammunition in specified quantities. There should be an option to set what portion of the warehouse’s total capacity each stored type of ammunition can occupy.

There may be a dedicated third-level ammunition depot (“central ammunition depot”). The logic governing the automatic replenishment of dedicated second-level depots should ensure that the dedicated third-level depot monitors ammunition stocks in the second-level depots and distributes the available ammunition “evenly.”

The dedicated third-level warehouse should be able to replenish dedicated second-level warehouses beyond a set limit, while respecting the types and proportions of stored ammunition.

Dedicated ammunition depots should have configurable settings for the types of ammunition they store and in what quantities. It should not be possible to store other items in dedicated storage units.

Dedicated ammunition storage units would not need to differ from normal storage blocks—the entire configuration logic could be handled in the storage block settings menu.

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4Peace ●

I mean, I would probably enjoy an even more complex system like you have described here. The problem is that it would make the game much more difficult, which seems to be the opposite of what the devs are currently pursuing :). And some players, tbf, seem to be enjoying 1-click do-everything solutions, basically creative mode with some extra steps rather than serious engineering or true survival.

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Semtex ●

What can I say... Unfortunately.

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Tael ●

"The empty magazines should be already a pretty heavy blocks."

-Why would a magazine block need to be heavy? I get that a metal box meant to limit ammo-explosions on a tank/battleship/anything that isn't concerned with staying light enough to fly is going to be beefy, but requiring an ultra-heavy magazine for paper-weight air and space-fighters that live and die on evading fire instead of tanking it is just silly.

"...Sorters..."

They exist already (I forget if they're functional yet). If you start telling people "You can either manually move ammo, multi-crew, npc-crew, or use sorters that cost pcu." people will still take the sorters, if you tell them "you'll need multiple sorters" they'll have them before you finish explaining. In SE1 turrets pull their own ammo, and people use sorters with them anyways to keep local magazine-containers topped up in case a feed line from a main container gets cut. PCU is not a balance mechanic, its a "don't overburden the game engine" mechanic, and I very much expect running on an engine that isn't a decade old and being pushed to do things it was never originally intended to do will allow much higher "pcu caps" for simple things like automatically moving stuff through a conveyor system.

"...ammunition is barely a consideration during combat or ship design. You can just fill a cargo container with ammo and forget about it."

-You and I design things very differently. I'm guessing you favor massive large-grids that push up against pcu caps? Backup feed lines, adequate storage without making a ship too heavy, and the possibility of ammo explosions are all important considerations in smaller SE1 combat ship design. That said I doubt things will change much, people will just replace the container named "magazine" in their designs with an actual magazine, small ships will make sure its the container closest to the gun and load it with a few sorters, and if there isn't some arbitrary cap on the distance from the magazine to the weapon then large ships will just make sure they don't interrupt the conveyor network with something else and will make 40K jokes about having to have crew manually reload guns.

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I can appreciate the intent, but this doesn't sound like it will do much aside from making lightweight ships heavier, and adding "ammo manager" to the list of jobs one or more npcs can have aboard a much larger ship.

"The empty magazines should be already a pretty heavy blocks."

-Why would a magazine block need to be heavy? I get that a metal box meant to limit ammo-explosions on a tank/battleship/anything that isn't concerned with staying light enough to fly is going to be beefy, but requiring an ultra-heavy magazine for paper-weight air and space-fighters that live and die on evading fire instead of tanking it is just silly.

"...Sorters..."

They exist already (I forget if they're functional yet). If you start telling people "You can either manually move ammo, multi-crew, npc-crew, or use sorters that cost pcu." people will still take the sorters, if you tell them "you'll need multiple sorters" they'll have them before you finish explaining. In SE1 turrets pull their own ammo, and people use sorters with them anyways to keep local magazine-containers topped up in case a feed line from a main container gets cut. PCU is not a balance mechanic, its a "don't overburden the game engine" mechanic, and I very much expect running on an engine that isn't a decade old and being pushed to do things it was never originally intended to do will allow much higher "pcu caps" for simple things like automatically moving stuff through a conveyor system.

"...ammunition is barely a consideration during combat or ship design. You can just fill a cargo container with ammo and forget about it."

-You and I design things very differently. I'm guessing you favor massive large-grids that push up against pcu caps? Backup feed lines, adequate storage without making a ship too heavy, and the possibility of ammo explosions are all important considerations in smaller SE1 combat ship design. That said I doubt things will change much, people will just replace the container named "magazine" in their designs with an actual magazine, small ships will make sure its the container closest to the gun and load it with a few sorters, and if there isn't some arbitrary cap on the distance from the magazine to the weapon then large ships will just make sure they don't interrupt the conveyor network with something else and will make 40K jokes about having to have crew manually reload guns.

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I can appreciate the intent, but this doesn't sound like it will do much aside from making lightweight ships heavier, and adding "ammo manager" to the list of jobs one or more npcs can have aboard a much larger ship.

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4Peace ●

Mass

Not ultra-heavy, but definitely heavier than other cargo containers. The additional "HP" and explosion resistance comes with a mass cost. IMO this is a positive trait rather than a debuff.

This also matters for the lightweight fighters you mentioned. Instead of covering fragile ammo storage with (heavy) armor, you can leave the magazines partially or completely exposed, which could actually result in less total mass.

Sorters

The idea here is not to force players into a specific behavior or design.

A turret + 1 magazine would probably be enough ammo for most combat encounters. The need for additional ammo would only really matter during prolonged fights. You should be able to automate magazine refilling with sorters if you want to.

I want players to have a choice. You can use hired NPCs or other engineers to refill magazines from time to time, or you can automate the whole thing with sorters, at the cost of additional PCU.

As you said, "You and I design things very differently". The same applies to combat preferences. One player might use sorters for complete automation, another might enjoy having a crew handle the logistics, or simply accept that their ammo will eventually run out. On specific servers you could even disable sorters and/or NPCs and therefore prefer one way or another that is coherent with server's theme.

And PCU is very much a balancing tool, even if it was designed for something else. It's similar to the population cap in games like Age of Empires. In the late game, you are not really limited by resources or production capacity, you are limited by how much stuff you can deploy at any given time.

You can ofc have a server without PCU limit, but most public servers will most likely have it on for obvious reasons. Now, if you hire NPCs to handle logistics instead of using sorters, you can spend that PCU on more weapons, thrusters, etc. and potentially gain an edge in combat.

Ammo considerations

Yes, generic cargo containers with ammo are already something you have to consider when designing a ship. Having armored ammo magazines does not mean their placement suddenly stops mattering. You just have more options and don't have to worry as much about leaving them exposed. That becomes a valid design choice.

But more importantly, magazines add another layer of gameplay around ammo logistics, especially during prolonged combat. Think about long duels between comparable ships or large fleet battles.

This applies to ships of any size. On bigger ships, crew can help sustain the fire rate of all your weapons for longer. Small fighters might need to return to the carrier to restock ammo. That's both realistic and adds interesting dynamics to combat.

Even enemy drones or NPC fighters shouldn't be able to shoot at you indefinitely. Eventually they need to return to their base and restock, giving you a window of opportunity in certain scenarios.

It also creates new tactics. You might not want to send all your fighters into combat at once. You could have two wings, with one fighting or patrolling while the other is back at the carrier refilling ammo.

NPCs could also refill magazines from a certain distance. A fighter wouldn't necessarily need to dock with the station or carrier. It could simply stay nearby while an engineer brings ammo over and loads the magazines. That's another advantage of having actual crew, as it makes this kind of logistics faster and easier.

And again, nobody is stopping you from automating docking and undocking for your fighters. If you design the system well enough, it might work just as well, or even better, than having a crew.

The important part is having a gameplay feature that gives you a reason to build those automation systems or hire crew in the first place. Without an actual gameplay reason and an inherent benefit, all of that automation and crew management loses a lot of its appeal.

The system should give you a slight benefit when you apply engineering and planning. Not a huge one. You should be able to live without it. But once you spend the resources, blocks and PCU to design additional logistics systems, you should get a small edge over an opponent who didn't.

This can also be easily balanced by changing the amount of ammo a magazine can hold. More capacity means longer fights without worrying about ammo logistics. Less capacity makes ammo logistics much more important during combat.

Mass

Not ultra-heavy, but definitely heavier than other cargo containers. The additional "HP" and explosion resistance comes with a mass cost. IMO this is a positive trait rather than a debuff.

This also matters for the lightweight fighters you mentioned. Instead of covering fragile ammo storage with (heavy) armor, you can leave the magazines partially or completely exposed, which could actually result in less total mass.

Sorters

The idea here is not to force players into a specific behavior or design.

A turret + 1 magazine would probably be enough ammo for most combat encounters. The need for additional ammo would only really matter during prolonged fights. You should be able to automate magazine refilling with sorters if you want to.

I want players to have a choice. You can use hired NPCs or other engineers to refill magazines from time to time, or you can automate the whole thing with sorters, at the cost of additional PCU.

As you said, "You and I design things very differently". The same applies to combat preferences. One player might use sorters for complete automation, another might enjoy having a crew handle the logistics, or simply accept that their ammo will eventually run out. On specific servers you could even disable sorters and/or NPCs and therefore prefer one way or another that is coherent with server's theme.

And PCU is very much a balancing tool, even if it was designed for something else. It's similar to the population cap in games like Age of Empires. In the late game, you are not really limited by resources or production capacity, you are limited by how much stuff you can deploy at any given time.

You can ofc have a server without PCU limit, but most public servers will most likely have it on for obvious reasons. Now, if you hire NPCs to handle logistics instead of using sorters, you can spend that PCU on more weapons, thrusters, etc. and potentially gain an edge in combat.

Ammo considerations

Yes, generic cargo containers with ammo are already something you have to consider when designing a ship. Having armored ammo magazines does not mean their placement suddenly stops mattering. You just have more options and don't have to worry as much about leaving them exposed. That becomes a valid design choice.

But more importantly, magazines add another layer of gameplay around ammo logistics, especially during prolonged combat. Think about long duels between comparable ships or large fleet battles.

This applies to ships of any size. On bigger ships, crew can help sustain the fire rate of all your weapons for longer. Small fighters might need to return to the carrier to restock ammo. That's both realistic and adds interesting dynamics to combat.

Even enemy drones or NPC fighters shouldn't be able to shoot at you indefinitely. Eventually they need to return to their base and restock, giving you a window of opportunity in certain scenarios.

It also creates new tactics. You might not want to send all your fighters into combat at once. You could have two wings, with one fighting or patrolling while the other is back at the carrier refilling ammo.

NPCs could also refill magazines from a certain distance. A fighter wouldn't necessarily need to dock with the station or carrier. It could simply stay nearby while an engineer brings ammo over and loads the magazines. That's another advantage of having actual crew, as it makes this kind of logistics faster and easier.

And again, nobody is stopping you from automating docking and undocking for your fighters. If you design the system well enough, it might work just as well, or even better, than having a crew.

The important part is having a gameplay feature that gives you a reason to build those automation systems or hire crew in the first place. Without an actual gameplay reason and an inherent benefit, all of that automation and crew management loses a lot of its appeal.

The system should give you a slight benefit when you apply engineering and planning. Not a huge one. You should be able to live without it. But once you spend the resources, blocks and PCU to design additional logistics systems, you should get a small edge over an opponent who didn't.

This can also be easily balanced by changing the amount of ammo a magazine can hold. More capacity means longer fights without worrying about ammo logistics. Less capacity makes ammo logistics much more important during combat.

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Wilhelm ●

Thinking about this, I wouldn't restrict ammo in normal containers, I would expect the magazine block to be an armored cargo block (itself more resistant to damage), plus with built in fire suppression capabilities to prevent catastrophic failure of the magazine's contents. Meaning even if damaged, it's less likely the magazine will go off explosively compared to a normal cargo.

That would be the tradeoff/benefit. You could store your missiles in a normal unarmoed cargo container but they could go boom if something hits the container had enough and if that happened it would be catastrophic to all the surrounding structure. Storing in a magazine would make it much more resistant to damage to surrounding blocks, and if it did go boom, it might be greatly reduced damage and designed to direct the explosion away from critical systems as is done on some magazines currently. It wouldn't go boom in a circle around it, it might explode out one panel of the ship towards external surfaces instead of critical systems.

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Semtex ●

In reality, ammunition depots are, surprisingly, very lightweight structures. Only in very rare cases—and only for certain types of ammunition—are solid reinforced concrete structures built. A lightweight structure is surrounded by an earthen or reinforced earthen embankment.

This trend is also evident in tank technology—ammunition boxes are being equipped with “blow-up”/"blow-out" panels.

So yes, your reasoning is correct

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4Peace ●

Indeed, having stronger containers specifically for ammo is already beneficial to the game. And this could apply to other categories of items too. Dedicated ore cargo could have a bigger capacity than a universal cargo container of the same size, and it also makes sense not to mix ore with things like hard drives :)

I like the idea of directional explosions too. That's another thing to consider when designing a ship. Things like this will further separate noob designs from what experienced players can come up with. It makes a lot of sense in a block building game. The outcome of combat should depend more on the quality of the warship design. We need more features like this to reinforce that concept.

Now about restricting ammo in normal containers. You can still put ammo into a "normal" cargo container. You can have a couple of them deep inside your ship, well protected, and then use sorters before the magazines to pull ammo from them. Or you can manually transfer ammo into magazines using the inventory screen.

If you have an NPC on board with a logistics task, they can do it for you automatically. They don't even need to physically carry items from one container to another. They can basically act like a universal sorter, adding ammo to all the magazines from your generic storage.

I'd say this won't be a big deal for most combat encounters. Most of the time, if you decide to engage someone, you expect to win relatively quickly without using too much ammo or taking too much damage. The ammo already loaded in your magazines should be enough for those common situations.

It starts to matter during prolonged encounters, like a duel between 2 comparable ships or a fleet battle. That's where logistics suddenly become another consideration and add another tactical layer to combat.

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Semtex ●

I still think the entire process of storing ammunition could be handled without having to create new building blocks—simply by configuring the properties of the storage block.

Something like this:

- Set the storage block’s property to “dedicated storage”—there can be multiple types of dedicated storage for different kinds of materials (ingots, ore, etc.)

- Next, the storage block’s property is set to “dedicated storage – ammunition storage” – this reduces the storage capacity by half, lowers the probability of ammunition exploding to 10% (1/10), and may (or may not) increase the storage’s durability and damage threshold.

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Wilhelm ●

I think we could up-level the concept slightly, and vs. focus on a specific 'ammo magazine', is it more an armored or tactical cargo container. i.e. you might have the same cargo container, and then a light armored one (perhaps stores slightly less due to armor), and a heavy armored one (stores even less) that has the highest durability to impacts. A blow out panel could possibly be an external entity of its own, simply mount it on a facing of a cargo container (of any kind) and it would function as a directional blow out for anything exploding from inside. In the above example, a normal cargo container with a blow out panel mounted would have 'minimal' benefit, a light armor cargo 'moderate' directional blow out benefit, and heavy cargo 'superior' as the armored container allows better directional control over the explosion inside.

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Semtex ●

It won't work. For it to work, the mechanics of the explosion would have to be changed.

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Wilhelm ●

that's what beta testing is for, to make changes to the game :)

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Semtex ●

I don't believe it.

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4Peace ●

Having a greater variety of cargo containers is a good thing and merits its own topic (TBD).

And we might need volume to be finally introduced to the game in order to limit their capacity by volume, not mass.

Shells require reinforced cargo containers. Each shell has to be properly supported and firmly locked in place for safety reasons. All that additional material adds weight and reduces the effective volume of your ammo. There can be big reinforced cargo containers where you can put your ammo, but they are not magazines. Magazines are different because they do not simply store things locked-in-place but organize them in a way so they are immediately available for being loaded quickly onto weapons.

Therefore, ammo placed into generic lightweight containers can explode on their own if the grid is accelerated too fast. You don't put your ammo into those on your warships, only on bases or slow-moving cargo ships, accepting the risk of blowing them up.

Magazines provide instant access to the ammo for weapon systems. Maybe they can still pull from other cargo containers but at a much slower pace. Sorters and manual loading of magazines ensure the highest possible fire rate.

Maybe the rule of having a direct connection between the weapon and the magazine is too strict. Weapons might be able to pull from any connected magazine on the grid. Putting the right ammo near the right weapons will be up to you for better availability in case you suffer damage and conveyor lines are compromised.

We also have different types of ammo in the game: shells, bullets, rockets and so on. There can be specialized magazines for each type. They would store more ammo of a restricted type for the same mass and volume, because they are not universal. Another benefit is that it would be much easier to fill them with the right ammo near the right weapon system for you or the NPC doing it for you. Or you might need fewer sorters. Instead of having a dedicated sorter before each magazine, you can have fewer placed on a single line connecting central ammo storage and more than one magazine. Because each magazine can receive only a specific type of ammo, the single sorter will be enough to push ammo items in their direction, and they will naturally "fall" to the right containers.

Having a greater variety of cargo containers is a good thing and merits its own topic (TBD).

And we might need volume to be finally introduced to the game in order to limit their capacity by volume, not mass.

Shells require reinforced cargo containers. Each shell has to be properly supported and firmly locked in place for safety reasons. All that additional material adds weight and reduces the effective volume of your ammo. There can be big reinforced cargo containers where you can put your ammo, but they are not magazines. Magazines are different because they do not simply store things locked-in-place but organize them in a way so they are immediately available for being loaded quickly onto weapons.

Therefore, ammo placed into generic lightweight containers can explode on their own if the grid is accelerated too fast. You don't put your ammo into those on your warships, only on bases or slow-moving cargo ships, accepting the risk of blowing them up.

Magazines provide instant access to the ammo for weapon systems. Maybe they can still pull from other cargo containers but at a much slower pace. Sorters and manual loading of magazines ensure the highest possible fire rate.

Maybe the rule of having a direct connection between the weapon and the magazine is too strict. Weapons might be able to pull from any connected magazine on the grid. Putting the right ammo near the right weapons will be up to you for better availability in case you suffer damage and conveyor lines are compromised.

We also have different types of ammo in the game: shells, bullets, rockets and so on. There can be specialized magazines for each type. They would store more ammo of a restricted type for the same mass and volume, because they are not universal. Another benefit is that it would be much easier to fill them with the right ammo near the right weapon system for you or the NPC doing it for you. Or you might need fewer sorters. Instead of having a dedicated sorter before each magazine, you can have fewer placed on a single line connecting central ammo storage and more than one magazine. Because each magazine can receive only a specific type of ammo, the single sorter will be enough to push ammo items in their direction, and they will naturally "fall" to the right containers.

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Semtex ●

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4Peace ●

I will break down this suggestion into a few key points that are mostly independent features and make separate comments about each one. So you can vote on them individually :)

Hers is the list of major topics we have touched in here:

Ammo storage and transportation
Dedicated ammo magazine(s)
Ammo Loaders/logistics

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4Peace ●

Ammo storage and transportation

Ammo can be stored in any universal cargo container, but it is dangerous. Shooting upon cargo containers with ammo inside, even with a simple pistol or rifle, has a decent chance of making it explode. The same can happen if you accelerate too fast. If you are going to transport ammo using regular universal containers, you need to be extremely careful. For warships, you will need dedicated reinforced ammo containers.

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4Peace ●

Btw, high Gs can also have an impact on the engineer piloting a ship. In order to protect the pilot, you might need a special control seat or cockpit injecting you with a liquid.

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4Peace ●

For @Tael

Generic cargo containers are dangerous for transporting ammunition because of 2 reasons.

The first is pretty straightforward. They are not armoured so you can shoot at them and your bullets can easily penetrate inside. In game, this will give you a chance of ammo detonation.

Second about acceleration. In order to safely transport ammo, in game or IRL, you need a proper containers with specific support, soft padding between shells or rockets, and firm fastening. In other words, you don't dump rockets into a wagon where you have transported iron ore a day before. For gameplay purposes, the chance of failure can accumulate with time rather than be sudden or caused by micro lag or angry clang (although you, of course, should not put your ammo containers on a piston or something).

I can partially agree that the second effect can cause new players some frustration to discover it experimentally :) As an alternative, cargo containers can just get damaged instead of exploding. Repairing is not a big deal. But during combat, you, of course, don't want it to happen.

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4Peace ●

Dedicated ammo magazine(s)

To securely store ammo, you will use dedicated reinforced ammo containers. There can be various sizes and shapes. They will protect ammo inside from exploding caused by shooting on them or high accelerations. The space inside is significantly reduced compared to universal cargo containers of the same size and their net weight is also bigger. This is due to having additional support and protection for the ammo stored inside.

The implications are obvious. Ammo reserves on your moving grid is now a real tradeoff. More ammo means more mass and size. Small-caliber ammo might not be a big problem due to their small mass/volume, but big shells and rocket/missile reserves are going to be a major factor now for ship design and warfare as a whole. At the same time, static bases will have a clear advantage; they can have practically infinite ammo reserves. Capital ships will gain an additional role of supplying other vessels in the fleet.

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4Peace ●

For @Tael

Lightweight fighters are called that way because they do not carry heavy weapons or lots of rockets/missiles. On the other hand, you can probably fit several Gatling ammo boxes in place of a single rocket or a couple of heavy shells. But in any case, ammo should be something you need to factor in. More ammo means a bigger mass or more frequent returns to the carrier to refill. And no, you would not use generic universal cargo containers for military ships of any size, including small fighters, otherwise you can expect all sorts of failures. It is not about them being slightly heavier and armoured, internal space is more limited. How much limited? This is, of course, a question that can be answered after testing and can also be a world option, just like we had cargo multipliers in SE1.

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4Peace ●

Ammo loaders and logistics

Ammo loaders are basically incorporated with weapons. Every turret or fixed weapon can automatically pull ammo from any connected inventory. This is simple and straightforward. Yet it leaves almost no room for any meaningful improvement you can make as a ship designer or during the battle.

Here are some ideas of how this can be more interesting.

One can easily load a weapon's internal magazine to its full capacity either by manually interacting with it or by using an inventory UI terminal. Once it is depleted, it should not be eagerly refilled the way it is now. It might take one ammo box or one shell at a time at a speed significantly slower than the weapon's fire rate, or simply have an additional cool-down before they can pull ammo. So it will not stop firing, but the fire rate will decrease.

In order to keep them loaded and ensure maximum fire rate, you can also use sorters. This is already what mindful ship designers were doing to ensure specific ammo type reserves nearby weapon systems, so in case of major damage, when a conveyor line is broken between central ammo storage and weapons, you will still have some ammo reserves in magazines nearby that are topped with sorters. The thing that gave you marginal benefit in those rare circumstances, now will be much more important for the damage per second (DPS) you can inflict on your enemy at all times.

Sorters are one way of solving this. Putting a sorter leading to every weapon or group of weapons is nice and automated yet requires an additional PC to be reserved for them, consumes additional power and makes the conveyor system more complex and with limitations (one way only). Engineers on board could do it instead. They can be real players, occasionally keeping an eye on magazines and toping them from time to time, or you could hire an NPC to do it for you. The crew can also do additional tasks on board, like repairs or increasing some stats of the grid and individual blocks. So you will not only save on sorters, but also have additional benefits. On bigger ships, having additional crew will make even more sense, of course.

Ammo loaders and logistics

Ammo loaders are basically incorporated with weapons. Every turret or fixed weapon can automatically pull ammo from any connected inventory. This is simple and straightforward. Yet it leaves almost no room for any meaningful improvement you can make as a ship designer or during the battle.

Here are some ideas of how this can be more interesting.

One can easily load a weapon's internal magazine to its full capacity either by manually interacting with it or by using an inventory UI terminal. Once it is depleted, it should not be eagerly refilled the way it is now. It might take one ammo box or one shell at a time at a speed significantly slower than the weapon's fire rate, or simply have an additional cool-down before they can pull ammo. So it will not stop firing, but the fire rate will decrease.

In order to keep them loaded and ensure maximum fire rate, you can also use sorters. This is already what mindful ship designers were doing to ensure specific ammo type reserves nearby weapon systems, so in case of major damage, when a conveyor line is broken between central ammo storage and weapons, you will still have some ammo reserves in magazines nearby that are topped with sorters. The thing that gave you marginal benefit in those rare circumstances, now will be much more important for the damage per second (DPS) you can inflict on your enemy at all times.

Sorters are one way of solving this. Putting a sorter leading to every weapon or group of weapons is nice and automated yet requires an additional PC to be reserved for them, consumes additional power and makes the conveyor system more complex and with limitations (one way only). Engineers on board could do it instead. They can be real players, occasionally keeping an eye on magazines and toping them from time to time, or you could hire an NPC to do it for you. The crew can also do additional tasks on board, like repairs or increasing some stats of the grid and individual blocks. So you will not only save on sorters, but also have additional benefits. On bigger ships, having additional crew will make even more sense, of course.

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4Peace ●

For @Tael

Indeed, sorter is a misleading name. But it is a name we used to call that device. Basically, it is an item moving device with filters.

For our use case it is perfect though. It can be used basically as a loader, topping the internal weapon magazine with ammo.

Whether you want to use them or not is up to you, of course. Read carefully all the pros and cons that I have already mentioned.

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Tael ●

-Protecting ammo from "high acceleration"

Explosives as sensitive as you seem to think ammo or warheads are to things like acceleration haven't been used since before World War 1. "Ammo may detonate suddenly during hard maneuvers (like trying to evade incoming fire)" is the kind of thing that gets an immediate fail from military procurement. As the game isn't supposed to be a parody, a space-faring society rolling back such safety requirements would just break immersion and annoy people who's fleet-tenders suddenly turned themselves and the ships they were docked in to space-confetti to because something somewhere in the universe bogged down the game engine just enough that a sub-grid-interaction briefly looked like 37.4g of acceleration.

-"This also matters for the lightweight fighters you mentioned. Instead of covering fragile ammo storage with (heavy) armor..."

...So its just a flat nerf to fighters? As was previously stated fighters don't rely on tank, they rely on evasion, trying to suggest that a new effectively mandatory extra heavy container means you don't have to heavily armor armor something you already aren't heavily armoring (if you armor it at all) isn't solving the problem, its just nerfing a build style that already sits at a combat disadvantage against most other build styles.

-"Sorters are one way of solving this. Putting a sorter leading to every weapon or group of weapons is nice and automated yet requires an additional PC to be reserved for them..."

...This bit is just confusing, and I'm not entirely sure what you're even trying to suggest here. It looks like you are suggesting you can automate things with sorters, but that someone must manually operate each sorter. At that point I'm not even sure why you'd call them sorters, as the NPC or player would be doing all the sorting and your only real use for it would be as a 1-way conveyor path.

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I like the idea of adding a bit of complexity to make the game more interesting, but this isn't that. This is a solution in search of a problem unintentionally nerfing things that don't need to be nerfed and creating a single unintuitive catastrophic-failure point that nothing else in the game shares or even indirectly suggests is possible. Sorry, I like the intent, but the idea itself is just bad.

-Protecting ammo from "high acceleration"

Explosives as sensitive as you seem to think ammo or warheads are to things like acceleration haven't been used since before World War 1. "Ammo may detonate suddenly during hard maneuvers (like trying to evade incoming fire)" is the kind of thing that gets an immediate fail from military procurement. As the game isn't supposed to be a parody, a space-faring society rolling back such safety requirements would just break immersion and annoy people who's fleet-tenders suddenly turned themselves and the ships they were docked in to space-confetti to because something somewhere in the universe bogged down the game engine just enough that a sub-grid-interaction briefly looked like 37.4g of acceleration.

-"This also matters for the lightweight fighters you mentioned. Instead of covering fragile ammo storage with (heavy) armor..."

...So its just a flat nerf to fighters? As was previously stated fighters don't rely on tank, they rely on evasion, trying to suggest that a new effectively mandatory extra heavy container means you don't have to heavily armor armor something you already aren't heavily armoring (if you armor it at all) isn't solving the problem, its just nerfing a build style that already sits at a combat disadvantage against most other build styles.

-"Sorters are one way of solving this. Putting a sorter leading to every weapon or group of weapons is nice and automated yet requires an additional PC to be reserved for them..."

...This bit is just confusing, and I'm not entirely sure what you're even trying to suggest here. It looks like you are suggesting you can automate things with sorters, but that someone must manually operate each sorter. At that point I'm not even sure why you'd call them sorters, as the NPC or player would be doing all the sorting and your only real use for it would be as a 1-way conveyor path.

.

.

I like the idea of adding a bit of complexity to make the game more interesting, but this isn't that. This is a solution in search of a problem unintentionally nerfing things that don't need to be nerfed and creating a single unintuitive catastrophic-failure point that nothing else in the game shares or even indirectly suggests is possible. Sorry, I like the intent, but the idea itself is just bad.

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4Peace ●

Hey @Tael, I appreciate your effort, but you better reply to individual features so we can focus on one thing at a time.

I feel like you did not quite understand several aspects of the ideas I have proposed.

I will try to address some points you mentioned under each of the 3 separate features. Feel free to ask more questions as a follow-up there.

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Matata ●

In real ammunition you have three components, bullet, casing and propellant(gunpowder). Obviously propellant and bullet is lost when fired, but the casing is for now just a cosmetic particle that is flung out of the ship. Cant there be a dedicated module attached to the weapon or the ammo block that catches the casing for recycling? Needing only to craft 2/3 components the next time you create bullets. Reducing ammo cost at the expense of weight, the weight of the would still be lower than the full bullet, but still. This would make smaller ships that cant support the recycling module inefficient by comparison, but wouldnt limit lighter aircraft that cant support it.

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Semtex ●

A cartridge case (as the unburned casing of the propellant charge) is an optional component that was used only during a certain period in the development of weapons and weapons technology.

Modern tank and artillery systems are moving away from the cartridge case concept; main-caliber naval guns have almost never used them anywhere.

To sum it up—we don’t even need traditional powder propellant charges.

For use on a spacecraft, the liquid propellant principle is much more advantageous.

A projectile is loaded into the barrel, a measured amount of hydrogen and oxygen (fuel and oxidizer) is injected into the combustion chamber, and the mixture is ignited by an electric spark or a laser pulse.

The energy content of liquid propellants is several times greater than that of solid propellants and explosives.

Additional advantages include high accuracy of the projectile’s muzzle velocity (because the injected volume of fuel and oxidizer can be controlled very easily and very precisely), a wide range of muzzle velocities, minimal risk of “powder charge” explosions, simple and safe handling, and non-toxic, non-corrosive exhaust gases.

It is practically impossible for a weapon to jam due to a cartridge or powder charge.

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Semtex ●

Let me just repeat:

- a dedicated ammunition depot = a standard depot with a whitelist of permitted materials

- the depot’s whitelist specifies the permitted materials and the depot capacity reserved for the permitted material type (as the total weight of the material type or as the number of calculation units of the material type)

- the automatic flow of material is controlled by the settings for the source and the authorized recipient

The solution is versatile and can be used for other types of materials as well, not just ammunition

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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