Grenades need a different effect entirely.

The default grenade fragment particles have FAR too long of a lifetime. Even in official weapons they're referenced with shorter lifetimes. Random spall from a grenade shouldn't hit someone a screen away (realism aside, that's a plain gameplay issue).

As more than one person has said, AirResistance and various other variables need to be taken into account MORE on official weaponry. And not just ♥♥♥♥ yellow glow coated dummy weapons.

By the way, I'm personally okay with the current grenade system; it doesn't make sense, but it's also better for gameplay. Unlimited grenades would be weird, and limited ammo would be weird. There's no system in place for the replenishment of either, but one makes more sense (?) to have limited.

I don't really care if it make sense to have unlimited grenades, as long as it adds to the gameplay. We have infinite ammo so why not grenades too? They really aren't that powerful to be limited.

And it gets annoying when the majority of your inventory is stuffed with grenades of the same type.

Now, a collapsing inventory of grenades, THAT would be useful.

Instead of Frag Grenade > Frag Grenade > Frag Grenade > oh god finally there's my gun

Frag Grenade (x3) > SMG

Wow, you don't say. I totally agree.

Data really needs to see suggestions like this.
Whatever happened to that suggestible to do list that never got done?

it got taken down.

i'd actually like it if you had to buy ammo for weapons too, but then were would we be with out gattling guns? out of ammo or immobile, thats where.
i'm all for collapsible grenades in the menu. heck, data could just make it handle a "count" variable in AddInventory.
and goddamn do grenades need a sensible buff, as well as less setting the ground on fire.

I recently PM'd Numgun thgat suggestion, didn't get a reply though.

This what I would do: Add much more power to grenades.

EDIT:

@Max: I sent that PM to Data. So chances are he probably has read it.

Seems like the simplest solution, if we weren't going to expect Data to code up anything new himself.

I think limited grenades are perfectly balanced because of cost, a effective gun costs upwards of 60 gold, while a grenade costs 5 or 10.

I say make more powerful single grenades, make grenades with a unit supply, (as I described earlier, buy one unit of grenades, get 3 or 5 or whatever the supply variable is set to) and make weaker grenades with unlimited supply.

Because variety is fun.


Optional limited ammo supplies for weapons would be good, for heavy weapons eg rocket launchers, but it's no fun remembering how many rounds you have in supply for all your regular guns for all your troops. That last bit is why ammo limits on everything in CC would suck. In CC you can play as upwards of a dozen characters, not just one character, which brings a new level of micromanagement over a normal shooter. To keep things from getting too meticulous, most weapons shouldn't have limits. But for gameplay, there should be some weapons limited in their ammo, because that's a fun feature that makes unique tactics etc.

If there is an ammo supply system integrated, it should be bought by the magazine, and that should be done by clicking a new ammo button with the weapon's magazine as the icon that extends out from the list. If it's null, show a generic magazine/ammo icon.

Upload reload, the remaining ammo would go back to the ammo count. It's unrealistic, since you're dropping the mag, but that's faster, and gameplay and visual appearance is more important than realism. This of course means that your last mag commonly will not be a full one.

When ammo is bought separately from an actor, it should be in a box form. The ammo box would be a type of device with an inventory of mags. When you first pick it up, it gives you all the ammo it has that you can carry. If that depletes it, poof, it disappears. If not, you carry the box. If you activate the box, 'pulling it's trigger,' it gives ammo. While you're holding it, another actor that needs that ammo can do the command to 'pick up' to take ammo from it, while it's still held by you. Even if it's an enemy, for epic surprise thievery.

There could be two means of battlefield drops/pickups, or it could be optional as per device, for more variety.
1) When an actor loses a limited ammo device, the remaining ammo supplies they have in their inventory are converted to an ammo box device.
2) Current ammo supply as a property of the weapon. If the device is dropped and picked up, there's no ammo box involved, the new user simply gets the ammo supply with it.




On the subject of mags, how about some interchangeability?
Basically, magazines would be categorized, and instead of a device picking one particular magazine it could use, it could work with a category of Mag. [EG 5.56STANAG, 6Shell12GaugeTube, Single40x46mmGrenade, etc] If the ammo were unlimited for the device, magazine type would be an option in the buy menu, with a price for each one, and the weapon would then reload that mag. If ammo were limited, you would be able to buy different mags that would all work with a particular weapon.


Also, HDFirearms NEED to have a firing velocity multiplier. Barrel length is a major contributing factor toward firing velocity, in addition to The Coalition Assault Rifle and Coalition Compact Assault Rifle and similarly similar weapons should use the same magazine, but with different firing velocities.
This would be essential to an interchangeability system for mags between similar guns.


Another great thing for HDFirearms would be a replacement for representing the firearm's action. Right now we have FullAuto, a boolean, allowing only full round bursts er trigger pull. I suggest that this replace it.
FiringMode = //0 for automatic, 1 for semiauto/slower, 2 for two shot burst fire, 3 for three shot burst fire, 4 for four shot burst fire, etc.

I also suggest official support for dual wield. This could be simple, or better done and more complex.
The very least needed for it would be DualWield = Boolean.
If yes, 1, the device uses the shield's method of offhand holding with a one handed device, which could be another DW gun.
--The top priority feature for official dual wield would be dual manual reload. If you reload manually with the pie menu, both should reload. This does not happen with current DWing.
--After that in priority, reloading in succession. Both mags should be released at the beginning, one mag should be replaced after a reload time average between the two guns, and the other mag should be replaced when twice that time has gone by. If you fire while the other weapon is reloading, you should get horrible inaccuracy due to the fact you're not aiming, the weapon should be facing from the aim angle to the angle to go to the holster offset, and back again, as you reload the other pistol, reaching down to get the mag, and pulling it back up.
Also, reloading non-DW weapons should take twice as long to reload if you're missing your BGArm, and four times as long if it's also a two hand weapon.
-- After that, AltFire = boolean.
It's not what you're thinking, it's alternating fire. When set to yes, 1, one gun is fired, then the other, and repeat, like you usually see in other media portrayals of DWing. When this is the case and the gun is being dual wielded, the firing rate is effectively doubled. If set to no, 0, then the firing rate is unaffected, and both are fired simultaneously, like how CC DWing currently works. Effectively this doubles the fired particles.
-- After that, DWShakeRange and DWSharpShakeRange. These would be an alternate set of shake ranges for when you're dual wielding.


I may make a mockup to illustrate some of these concepts later.

Terribly sorry for the suggestion dump, but my mind has been constipated
[toilet humor analogy with dump verb, not with noun crap for the ideas]
with them since there's been no official thread for it.
I'll format/explain this better and try to get it to Data some time. I can't expect him to do them if he doesn't want to, but I'd like them to be considered.

Nice ideas, but I think that is a bit too much to swallow.
Barrel lengths? Magazine choices?
Those all sound nice buy it would really complicate the process of buying items.


I like what Grif said, stack grenades and make them a little bit cheaper and lighter.
Easy solution.

But I also liked your idea of buying one grenade means buying a pack of (PackVariable).

A mix of the two would be really nice.

I guess my complaints come from the fact that when I look at most RTS's things are broken down like this:

-Primary attacks are unlimited, for the most part
-Secondary attacks and abilities are limited by cooldown or recharge times

It just seems to me that you never see an RTS where a unit can use something a limited number of times, and then that's it. There are a few notable exceptions with particular units, but overall it seems like you get the ability to use a special attack back after some amount of time. Grenades just seem like they would be one of those kinds of things.

Don't you just love hammerspace restrictions...

No, I don't mean make that customizable in the buy menu, I just mean make a longer barrel's effect on firing velocity representable in an instance of a HDFirearm rather than just in the round, so guns could use the same mags and rounds, but have different firing velocities and therefore different 'firepower'.
EG the terminal ballistics difference of similar 5.56x45mm NATO rounds fired from the same distance from either a M16 Assault Rifle or a M4 Carbine.

A velocity multiplier on guns would be handy for now, but downright necessary if there were interchangeable mags as I described.