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[Mercutio Valentine]

Okay, so I'm workin' on an expansion for LCS so I can earn some chops of the most righteous variety. So, with that in mind, here's the gameplan:

1) New weapons -- Under the assumption that the Arms Dealer is going to implemented fairly soon, I'm going to add in a handful of weapons for whoever adds him in:

-Desert Eagle : Badass pistol damage-wise, slightly inaccurate, comparitively v. expensive. (Yes, it realize it's strange to have an Arms Dealer that deals both Israeli and Russian arms. I chose to do this mostly because the Deagle's a recognizable gun, and we need another pistol weapon.)
-UZI : Crappier MP5, but it's also going to be more easily available due to being able to be bought from the Arms Dealer.
-Saiga 12 : Quality goddamn shotgun.

Also going to make changes to existing weapons:
-Shotgun divided into:
Ithaca 37 -- Carried by Yokel, Police
AA-12 -- Carried by Death Squads, and for use with whoever does the Military Coup forces
Saiga 12 -- Available from arms dealer. Like AK-47, automatic red flag.
- ".22 Revolver" changed to ".22 S&W"

Also guns for new enemies:
SCAR-L: Special Forces weapon-- Assault rifle, accurate
SCAR-H: Special Forces weapon-- Assault rifle, high damage, accuracy penalty

2) New Flavor Text
Giving a few expansions here and there to the flavor text-- More cases for wound reactions and such. Not much, we're talking maybe 20 cases across the board.

3) Other Changes
Upping the crowbar to max bonus against doors, (see if I can reduce combat damage? Gordon Freeman your characters are not) readjust armor a bit, (Mithril Armor should give 2. It's 10k and it's metal, even if it's not tested against firearms. After all, it's not that hard to stop a .22 bullet.) and readjust what weapons enemies carry at what gun control laws. (As it is, they only start packing a .22 at -2... Thinking about swapping to .22 at -1 and for blue collar type enemies giving them a .45 or .44 at -2. The reasoning for this is threefold: I want to make a Reaganized country f'ing terrifying and hard to recover from, I like the idea that your success or failure actually has a real effect on the gameworld, and at -2 gun control, even the real firepower would be flowing like water.)

So, your job is this: Give me feedback. Tell me what's a good idea to drop/change around. Suggest other things that are in the same line of thinking-- F'rex, I know I need to add another SMG to balance things out, but have no clue what it should be.

[beorn080]

Very nice additions. Still

quote:-UZI : Crappier MP5, but it's also going to be more easily available due to being able to be bought from the Arms Dealer.  

The only things the MP5 has going for it are the accuracy at low levels and multi hit.  Still "easy" access full autos would be nice. For the 3rd gun why not the infamous chicago typewriter aka Thompson submachine gun.  Large clips, maybe 51 rounds or 60, combined with horrendous accuracy maybe under 45% at 0 skill and topping out at 60ish for 30.

Couple of quick questions.  Which one would be the standard shotgun and how would they be different? How different are the 2 Scars going to be from the M16 and M4?    Other then that it looks like a great addition.

[Torak]

You could make a change to the Spraypaint by making it only damage characters by blinding them or suffocating them.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Sounds great. Have I mentioned that adding weapons was one of the first things I did with LCS? I probably have.  

Some suggestions:

Desert Eagle

Think about how to differentiate from the .44 Magnum, which is the current "monster" pistol in the game so far, and is in the same class in terms of damage. One big difference is that the .44 Magnum in the game now is a revolver, while the Desert Eagle is a semi-automatic, but that doesn't have a gameplay effect at the moment. Currently the .44 Magnum revolver holds 6 shots. A Desert Eagle chambered to fire .44 Magnum ammunition holds only 8 shots, just two more than the revolver we have now, and the revolver, as implemented, has no accuracy penalty. That alone wouldn't justify a much higher price/lower accuracy penalty for the Desert Eagle. Alternatively, you could bump it up to .50 AE and have it fire 7 shots of a new, even higher damage class of ammunition. It's up to you, really, just think about how you're going to work it in.

Note that the Desert Eagle shouldn't really be illegal before gun control 1, as despite its power, the regulation doesn't start to affect pistols until that point. Consider having different levels for when the pawn shop carries it (I would have them start carrying at -1 and below) and when you can get in trouble for having it (1 and up). That's just my idea though, again, you don't have to go with it.

UZI

SMGs are currently balanced (against other automatics) in this way:

1) Lower damage.
2) Much higher initial accuracy.
3) Lower successive hit accuracy.
4) Smaller clips.

Overall, they end up inferior. Lots of drawbacks. (3) is the most brutal one -- without it, the other drawbacks would be tolerable. The entire point of using an automatic weapon in LCS is to get successive hits, and SMGs are bad at them. If implementing an UZI with even lower accuracy, my suggestion would be to remove the (3) disadvantage, and give SMGs the same, or at least a less egregious, accuracy drop-off rate.

Don't worry if reducing the successive hit penalty means that in the end, you get a better overall accuracy for SMGs across the board -- they still have notably lower damage, and I'd keep the smaller clip, unless it's in exchange for some other drawback. Just keep an eye on the assault rifle and carbine class weapons, and don't let the successive hit penalty drop below the one used for more accurate rifles.

Ithaca 37

Keep this one legal even at gun control level 2 as shotguns are now. The US Constitution has a "right to bear arms", and allowing older hunting shotguns is the way this would end up.

AA-12

Don't let the player buy this, even from the arms dealer. It would be legal, but in terms of balance, having a fully automatic shotgun is just overkill for the LCS... unless the player has to kill the enemy using it first.  

Saiga 12

This should theoretically be legal at gun control -1, but it might be easier (and more fun) to tie it to -2 anyway and treat it like the AK-47, as you suggest.

SCAR-L/SCAR-H

Whatever you set the SCAR-H power to, move the AK-47 power to about the same, and reduce its accuracy to compensate.

Crowbar

Crowbar doesn't have to have a damage bonus against doors -- merely having one in your inventory will cause you to skip the bash attempt and simply auto-break the door.

[Mercutio Valentine]

See, this is what I wanted. Love this board.

Great ideas almost across the board, and I was actually already planning on doing what you said for the Ithaca 37 and the AA-12.

God willin' and the creek don't rise, it should be out by Monday.

[ March 08, 2008: Message edited by: Mercutio Valentine ]

[Little]

Cool. Good luck!

Is this like training for you? Will you move onto bigger and better LCS features?

[Mercutio Valentine]

Yes and maybe. I'm utter rubbish at programming. Frankly, what I'm editing right now already has almost all the framework in place, so it's pretty easy. I'd imagine, though, that there are a few other things I could expand upon that are within my reach. Not going to get ahead of myself, though.

[Fourth Triad]

Ya should throw in an m-60 too. You could always have an arms dealer and a member of the russian mafia to deal in the american and russian weapon types respectively.

[ March 09, 2008: Message edited by: Fourth Triad ]

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The stress lines of the way the game abstracts combat really show as you get more types of guns in. With a true machine gun like the M60, issues like rate of fire, range, and stability beg to be taken into account. At the moment, all automatic weapons fire three shots a round. This is based on the assault rifle burst model, where if you fire an M16, it assumes you're firing a gun limited to a three shot burst, and everything else is fixed to that. But the whole point of carrying an M60 around with your group would be to get around that.

At the same time, the M60 can't really fire more bullets in the same time period as an AK-47 can; the AK-47 isn't limited to three shot bursts, and the difference in rate of fire is a matter of military doctrine and the different magazine sizes. The point of the three shot burst is to limit ammo wastage, saving money, weight, and ensuring stamina in combat. The M60 carried around by a squad would serve to suppress enemies by rigging up a whole belt of ammo, or a large drum, and providing fire support. While the M16 is designed to shoot the bad guy when you can aim directly at them, and it should hit only them and hit only so many times as is needed to kill them, the M60 would serve to lay down continuous and serious punishment.

So it starts to open the question of how an M60 should be modeled. Giving it drum ammunition is obvious. Beyond that, should it fire more bullets in one round? Should it fire at more than one person? Should it cause some enemies to not attack that round? If you let the M60 fire more bullets in one round, what about the other fully automatic weapons that have the same or higher rate of fire? The existing M4 would fire bursts, but the closely related M4A1 and the AK-47 already in the game could dump more bullets per second than the M60.

Trouble is compounded by the fact that unskilled shooters would be more likely to waste ammo on a gun like the AK-47. Do we make it fire more bullets per second for less skilled people? Drop to three shots for skilled shooters, maybe pick up a few extra chances for elite shooters, just to amp up the killing power when they're actually capable of hitting with those last shots?

And then there's the environmental factor. LCS combat takes place primarily indoors, in mazey twisty corridors. The catch is that you don't fight with people down the hall, you fight when they get to you. It's very abstracted in this sense, but it makes shootouts strange. What range are you fighting at? Is there cover? Are your LCS folks just storming in and shooting from the hip? Are they moving in with precision? What about the enemies they're fighting? How long is one combat round? Right now it's just skimmed over, each round everybody starts shooting, they hit or miss one person, if they hit, they hit a certain body part, and they hit up to three times per round if firing an automatic weapon. But as more weapons come into play, it becomes more relevant, as many of the distinctions between guns relate to the tactical situation you're in.

At the moment it abstracts some of these by saying that lighter guns more tactically suited for indoors urban combat get accuracy bonuses, while heavier guns designed for outdoors use at longer rangers get accuracy penalties. But where do you fit a light machine gun? Is it just an even lower accuracy version of an AK-47 with a bigger ammo drum? Does it fire more bullets per second, even though the AK-47 can match its output? Should it have suppressive fire capabilities, even though combat appears to take place at closer ranges than that sort of thing is really realistic for? Where does it fit in?

I'd be interested in hearing people's feedback on this. The combat system just really wasn't designed to support such a wide array of guns, and it's taken some creativity to fit them all in. Heck, originally, it didn't even support multiple shots per round, and M16 and AK-47 both had the stats that the new AR-15 does now. That multi-hit potential was an add-on.

[a1s]

While AK-47 is capable of firing more shots than the m-60 (sort of... an M60 should be able fire 28 bullets while the AK unloads it's 30 round magazine. such differences can be caused (negated) by improper maintainance of the weapons, or slight differences in gunpowder composition) it is extremely inaccurate after the first half dozen of bullets, making this only useful for suppression fire if no SSW is available. M60 on the other hand is built to maintain accuracy while firing continuously (in fact through use of tracer ammunition M60 can be more accurate with later shots than with you opening shot). That is to say 3-round bursts are justified in AK-47.
However I don't think M60 fits into the setting really, it far too cumbersome to use in close quarters fighting, and setting it up on the opposite end of a long corridor (a situation where it's tactical potential would be realized) is not simulated in the game.
instead of adding M60s and SCART-Ms you should add explosives (one round, hits several opponents) to the game.

 

quote:Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG> Are your LCS folks just storming in and shooting from the hip? Are they moving in with precision? What about the enemies they're fighting? </STRONG>

here is an idea: all characters* have a skill called "tactics". the tactical level of a squad is determined by it's least skilled member. this changes flavor text, but also it gives you little bonuses to attack an evasion. also maybe have people with tactics  hit less people by mistake.

*)I mean all the cool characters   . Also SWAT teams, soliders, mercenaries and similar.

[ March 09, 2008: Message edited by: a1s ]

[BishopX]

I like the fact that there a wider variety of weapons around, if only for flavor. It seems like the LCS should be waving all manner of weapons around, no two the same. In this cinematic context it seems like the M60 should be more about intimidation that actual raw fire power. I imagine LCS members carrying machine guns would act more like rambo than a trained gunner.
   So rather than giving it separate combat mechanics treat it like a assault riffle with a larger magazine (say belts of 100 rounds). The only differences should be be in response, make using a machine gun increase the heat generated, and maybe add some text into the newspaper about the LCS be dangerous, militaristic or armed to the teeth. Another possibility is that the use of machine guns will cause the the locations to shut down for longer...

In terms of what the weapons system is lacking, I think a1s got it right, we need things that go BOOM  :eek: Code in grenades, RPGs (for the tanks) and conventional explosives to damage buildings with (I'm not thinking of something on the scale of the Oklahoma City bombing or the first WTC attack, more like that guy in new york attacking the recruiting station).

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by BishopX:
<STRONG>I imagine LCS members carrying machine guns would act more like rambo than a trained gunner.</STRONG>

Aye, (youtube) this is more what I had in mind for LCS using the M60. I'm thinking a chance of either firing five shots at one person or (less commonly) ten shots randomly (likely hitting plenty of bystanders, of course). Why so many shots in one round? They aim less. Plus, the 10 shots would involve the enemy taking cover while some lunatic sprays everywhere.  :roll: The gun would involve massive accuracy penalties. And I'm thinking it'd be a rare, possibly unique weapon. It spoils it if everybody in the LCS has one. Maybe you have to kill somebody important who's using it, so you can pick the gun off of them, like a mercenary boss or Conservative Crime Squad founder.

[beorn080]

Maybe it should fire 6 shots every round with only a 36 or 42 round clip.  Those 6 shots would each be "aimed" at one enemy a round. Regardless of how many enemies there are in the enemy squad it would still fire 6 rounds with only 1 chance to hit each one.  Starting accuracy should be at most 20% per target which gives around a 60ish percent chance of hitting at least once(i really hate multiple percents). At most it should have a 50/50 shot of hitting 4 times.  Damage should be low maybe around the 9mm range but with a chance of hitting with a tracer round doing burn damage at around the M16 damage or maybe even a little higher. Perhaps to simulate the keep your head down aspect of it the enemies it misses within a certain range would have an accuracy penalty that round.  Say 30-100% no penalty, 20-30% 10% accuracy drop, under 20% hits the target. Then once it hits it would have a 5% chance to hit with a tracer. Obviously these would require a revamp of the combat engine but it would make it an interesting addition to the weapon supplies.

Oh yeah while its fresh having the enemy always attack first can make defending your base way too easy and risk free. 300 liberals armed with 9mm can push 100000 conservatives back without taking any damage.
THIS .... IS .... LIBERALISM.

[Fourth Triad]

Could always make the ammo rare too but when you do find it it comes in large amounts(maybe it's at a military base or something), but yeah explosives and rpg do make more sense now that I think about it.

[viskaslietuvai]

I like it, but then again, I'm always happy when LCS gets updates. Who would be upset about more weapons? Also I like the crazy conservative society idea that makes people start to embrace the new gun laws like fanatics. It's just amusing.

My one idea for automatic weapons is to make them able to jam. That's the reason for still having revolvers is that they virtually never seize up. I remember hearing that the reliability factor is part of the reason that revolvers are enjoyed by professional killers when silence is not as important. As to the reliability of that particular comment, I'm not entirely sure.

Also, maybe include silencers. If you are able to kill someone with a silenced gun the conservatives won't be alarmed. But that may take more coding than it's worth.