-Basic weapons can be used as crafting ingredients, so I don't support removing them from shops. They can also be useful for shuffling gear around on autons.

-Yes, but I'm throwing most of them into my own mod as tinker recipes

-People tend to avoid specialised weapons and go for generalist weapons that get the job done, I feel. You may need to collect some data on this. Using weapon slots can be done better with multi-slot heavy weapons, I feel. (Edit: also my style of side-mounted weapons)

-Honestly I think early-game damage types should be fairly simple, so laser and kinetic might be best left as-is. No ideas on particle effects, unfortunately. Only thing I can think of is radiation effects and those wouldn't be very fun.

-The trident is actually fairly decent, it's just usually ignored because it's a spread weapon. The AK505 is hard to aim and has a very low range compared with the flenser, but hits incredibly hard when it does hit. It's more bad because the flenser exists than anything else. Maybe up the shell speed slightly and the lifetime a bit more? The other two aren't amazing, but are probably okay. Not every gun needs to be good, after all.

I think having basic weapons adds to the context of a weapon shop. Perhaps weapon shops could have a recommended section and if the player wants to craft, as the_shrike mentioned, then these can be in separate tab. This would lower the amount of items in the UI but maintain the context of a weapon shop. This could also be used to help guide newer players in what to upgrade to and not show them what they generally don't need.

I lean more on crafting and because instead of selling all your weaker/cheap weapons, there could be something you can make out of them. This possibility is quite fun. I can imagine the Tinkers having a side-grade recipe for let's say, an "Overcharged Turbolaser", where it deals more damage but at significantly higher power consumption. Speaking of crafting, most weapons of the same damage type should generally have one component you can always from breaking them down. I think this would simplify a possible crafting mechanic.

I love the idea of more specialized weapons but right now, there's no way to distinguish weapon effectiveness on an enemy without shooting them or knowing their armor composition. Perhaps targeting could reveal the armor/shield type of an enemy if you have seen that armor/shield before. Furthermore, device slots are precious so unless you have a ship with a lot of dedicated weapon slots, like aforementioned Wolfen, it's almost always better to choose generalistic weapons. If anything, if there were more disposable weapons that can be used to make a scenario much easier, I think that would be an easy way to specialize when you want.

Some ideas of the top of my head are that lasers generate heat that can lower armor effectiveness over time, afterall heat dissipates very slowly in space. Being hit with a kinetic weapon should knock you off angle. Particle could leave small damaging particle fields/trails in space that last for a few moments.

I agree with the_shrike that not all weapons needs to be good. Players have to discover what's best even if this may go counterintuitive to the specialized weapons concept.

Mods have done some neat weapons; it'd be worth pillaging them for ideas (with the mod authors' permission of course). One of the ones I came up with that I'm really fond of was a burst-fire howitzer -- it had a very high fire rate, and high spread, but builds heat rapidly and has massive recoil.

Kinetic weapons can have significant impact, knocking enemies around. Lasers could maybe "burn" enemies, though what that means is unclear. Damage over time, maybe?

For 2.0 I'd like to make weapons more interesting, particularly at the lower levels.
Since items up to system level + 3 can be generated at most shops, the player will usually get a level 4 or 5 weapon in the first few systems, so lower level primaries will never see much use if they're not the starting weapon for a player ship class.

We should decrease the availability of weapons that are only useful to enemies. For example, the laser cannon is useless to the player. Perhaps shops should not bother carrying it.
I think it makes sense (and is very occasionally useful) for shops to have them, but I wouldn't object to weapons that are ubiquitous on enemies having higher rarity anyway so they aren't common in shops and as random loot.

What other examples of relatively useless weapons can you think of?
(typFind "w +energyWeapon; -property:omnidirectional;")

We should create more unique/rare weapons and give them as rewards for missions (or as part of mechanics like crafting). Can you think of some ideas (particularly at levels 1-5)?
Again, these wouldn't be used much beyond Rigel Aurelius unless they're massively overpowered for their level.

Perhaps we should create more weapons that are optimized for specific enemies (but weaker against others). This would make more use of the weapon slots in the Wolfen, etc. What are some ideas?
Currently, damage type matters mostly against armor, and higher tier is nearly always better. If the armor resistance curve were less steep, but individual armors and shields had significantly better resistance to energy or matter, but not both, it would incentivize having both. Or if many of them were especially weak to one damage type, you might want more variety. This could be frustrating to have to memorize which weapons to use on what, so you might want the HUD to show which damage types would be particularly good or bad. It could be like Diablo, where you can see that information after killing a few of them. Or you could learn their current defense's resistance to a type as soon as you hit it with damage of that type.

Some damage types have special features. For example, ion weapons can have ion effects. What are some special effects for laser, kinetic, and particle? Are there other ideas for making the damage types more distinctive?
I'm not sure I want to deal with a huge number of types of status effects.

Some weapons probably need to be revamped or at least buffed. For example, the TK10 Trident, the laser cannon array, the slam cannon, maybe the AK505 Ballista (which is probably not as good as the Flenser). What do you think?
Slam and AK505 seem fine for their level. Spread weapons are not great beyond very close range, though it does make them harder to dodge at medium range. But the AI doesn't dodge deliberately. They'd probably be a bit more balanced and useful to the player if the spread were much smaller. They could start out more widely spaced if they aren't already, so they're not effectively a single shot at close range.

Anything level 1 is not useful to equip, except maybe as a backup weapon for some starters. Of course, there is crafting, but I tend to loot those from enemies. Even level 2 weapons are mostly ignored if the starter has a good level 2 or 3 weapon to begin with.

Some weapons are optimized by default given the defenses of enemies. For example, use lasers in New Beyond if you plan to do Korolov missions because stronger pirates resist kinetic. The most widespread example is more enemies that need WMD to scratch later in the game, and non-omni energy weapons are not useful enough to spare a slot for.

I would like to see tier 1 weapons at level 6-8, and maybe tier 2 weapons all to way up to level 10. Their lack of WMD is mitigated by the sheer damage they can do. It would also add more variety to damage types rather than the treadmill of energy or matter of their level.

It is kind of hard to make level 6+ kinetics when the description of dual Flenser says it is the ultimate kinetic. If I add level 6+ kinetics, I broke lore by contradicting the dual Flenser description.

As for weapons. Trident would be okay as a starter weapon, but unless I loot one as a Sapphire starter, I do not care about it (no better than most starter weapons). Laser array is rare, and turbolaser is common. It is unlikely I will use the array when I need it. Slam cannon is fine. No comment on AK505.

Another idea: omni weapons could be more specialized for short range (maybe by reducing the range of energy weapons across the board in exchange for more DPS), while tracking could be specialized for long range by significantly reducing turn rates.

You can differentiate weapons by making more swivel weapons, where they track enemies within a certain arc in front of the player. This can be a bridge between the current slew of fixed weapons and relatively smaller amount of omni weapons.

Differentiating with fire rate is also possible. It's rather noticeable that most weapons fire 3.8 times per second, for example.

And also more varients: like...the slam cannon isn't very good. But neither is the standard particle beam weapon. But the particle beam has a dual variant that's actually pretty useful, while the slam cannon doesn't (instead you have the heavy slam, which isn't quite the same in terms of utility). More omni, swivel, dual, quad, etc weapons help flesh out things nicely.

(Also also, this should really be on the forum, not ministry. Ministry really doesn't support discussions as well as the official forums)

 » I’m against the idea of removing weapons from shop inventories. (Hell, I don’t even like the NotForSale attribute.) If you stop carrying stuff like basic laser cannons at shops due to their general pointlessness for the player, you might as well stop carrying organic acid, autopilot ROMs, and most-to-all consumer goods. If it makes you feel any better about carrying weapons like that, just consider them to be vendor trash, just ones that coincidentally can be installed if you really felt like it — and carry that line of thought over to things like the A-class defender or ultralight titanium armor when the time comes to look at those.

 » I agree that there should be some quest reward stuff to carry you through the midgame. The only immediate suggestion I can think of would be for there to be a guaranteed drop of an Absolution cannon in the Eridani system (or insert starting system here) mission to escort the freighter to the Sisters.

» One thing I think is generally missing from your arsenal are more weapons akin to the fast-fire laser, weapons that don’t necessarily do as much damage per shot but have a higher fire rate. This is particularly true of omni/tracking weapons, where they could be useful as flyswatters. Even more fixed-facing fast-fire weapons would be worth considering, seeing as you can just hold down the trigger and hose down whatever you can turn your ship past in proper spray-n’-pray style.

» Adding special effects to weapons tends to turn them into gimmick weapons. While they can be fun to play with on occasion, they’re often less useful overall and are likely to be skipped for weapons that are better for more situations.

» I don’t think any of the example weapons need any work:
  — The TK10 and laser cannon array fall under the heading of “more useful to enemies than the player”, because they’re likely going to get at least one shot into you. They’re sort of like shotguns with they way they’re currently implemented.
  — The slam cannon is a serviceable, if unremarkable, basecracker for those who’d rather not waste missiles. The amount of disdain it gets from a lot of players (myself included, admittedly) is probably unwarranted.
  — The AK505 is almost entirely a gimmick weapon somewhat akin to a sniper rifle: Massive damage, horrible rate of fire and projectile speed. The range is a bit on the short side, but not unusably so. (Also it’s ridiculously fun to dogfight with if you can time the shots and please don’t change a single thing about it. ^.^; )

I'll take a moment to note that one problem the early game has is that it's pretty hard to compete with a SmartCannon with a cannon accelerator. You're guaranteed to have access to the former and the latter is common; with them together you have a homing weapon with light WMD, good damage and fire rate, minimal power use, and absurdly cheap ammo. I find that I only use other weapons if I specifically make it a conduct rule to *not* use the SmartCannon. It can easily last to St. Kat's.

I'm all for having a wider variety of viable loadouts...but that may mean knocking some weapons down, in addition to pulling other weapons up.

I do not think SmartCannon is a problem. It is useful enough to use in most games, but occasionally, I need the money more than the weapon when I find it, and even if I use it, I often replace it before I go very far.

SmartCannon does not have much WMD. What SmartCannon is good for is a pseudo omni weapon if player cannot find an omni weapon but wants one. In few games, I could not find an omni weapon when I wanted one.

That SmartCannon can be good for more than a few systems is good. Otherwise, it would be a junk reward good only as cash.

One weapon I am not fond of is Dvalin Ion9. I like that I can get it early enough in recent releases, but I do not like that I get it when the biggest reactor available is 250 MW. The weapon uses 200 MW. I cannot use it effectively until I find 500 MW reactor more than a few systems away. In the meantime, my weapon sits, tempting me to sell it for cash I want now (for other upgrades).

I sometimes deliberately use weapons that are rubbish, just for fun. Usually I can get away with it and still kill lots of enemies. Think I have tried every available weapon at least once.
So, keep the rubbish in the shops, it can be used as a challenge for experienced users, or for newbies to find out that not every gun is effective.
One thing that has always bothered me about the laser weapons is that I think they should be implemented as beam weapons, that might make them more interesting. As long as you have the fire button on, the laserbeam is emitted and moves with the ship (like a lightsaber perhaps?)

@ Ferdinand: Lasers like that would need to be hitscan. If it flashes instantly, it is FTL, and part 1 humans generally do not have that kind of tech. If you want the beams to extend slowly like normal lasers but spin them around like the beamers in current Drake Technologies mod, that... is not trivial (though not too hard) to implement. (I had to use some tricks during OnFireWeapon event to get my beamers working like they do.) That said, I would like to see how George would implement something like that engine side if he made weapons like those.

While rubbish is nice for world-building, there may be a limit to items spawned, and having lots of junk can hurt if it means useful stuff gets crowded out and does not spawn. Sometimes, I consider culling less useful items out of my mod so that they do not dominate item spawns, especially if other mods get included.

@megas: I meant the slowly expanding (well as slow as lightspeed that is) laserbeams.
Leave the hitscan weapons for vault of the galaxy, they are not human tech.

You could make lasers be lightspeed cloud weapons, with the idea being that the further away you get, the more diffuse and distributed the weapon hit is.

Laser clouds sounds like Dvalin Ion9. It may be fine for a brand's line of weapons, but for all lasers? I doubt I would want that. When I see lasers in movies or other games, I see beams or Star Wars' blaster bolts. Having laser shotguns be the default would appear... unconventional, and probably not in a good way (for me).

1. Since level 3 weapon could be found in early first systems, level 1-2 weapons would barely cought by player's eyes. Surely they became useless at that point. However, their availability can be used greatly for crafting stuff. If crafting recipe in vanila game doesn't requires them, perhaps modders might have idea on them. Allows some basic weapon such as laser cannon and recoilless cannon available in good number.

2. Unique weapon usually has a highest level on the region. In the New Beyond, the highest level that you can get is level 5 weapon. I don't think there is (actually) unique weapon in level 1-3.

3. I think current damage type resistance on armors is already play role good. But you could balance it better.

4. It is quite difficult than technical configuration (dual, tracking, high velocity, etc). Even on modding stuff, I almost have no idea to make low tier weapon have such special effect. The one effect that I made on one mods is a reflective laser.

5. Slam cannon is an entry for basic damage tier, such as Recoilless cannon and Tritium cannon. I don't think there is much good to change it, except there is damage balance. TK10 Trident is from my experience better than laser cannon array. I usually buy it early for Benedict tutorial. AK505 is good punch, but I usually prefer blast damage.

That reminds me. Quest rewards that are acquired earlier than their level should have lower than normal powerUse. Ammo weapons like SmartCannon or Qianlong use little power are fine. Lamplighter is acquired near the end of the game and uses only 200 MW (instead of 300 MW). Good when player has at least 500 MW (and probably has 1 GW). Dvalin is the only one with full 200 MW that level 9 uses, which would be fine if it was acquired late in the Outer Realm, but not late in Ungoverned Territories when player cannot get a reactor bigger than the SN2500 for a while.

A level 5 quest reward weapon acquired early in the New Beyond should not have 20 MW powerUse. If it is not an ammo weapon, it probably should not have more than 15 MW powerUse, maybe even 12 MW, just so players can use it when found instead of waiting for a 50 MW reactor.

• Early Game

I think early game reward weapons could just be rare regular weapons that are enhanced with ROM enhancements already - a fast-fire onmi x-ray laser could last a player a long time.

• Other Weapons

Another weapon type I think could be more interesting would be explosive pods, expanding on the current excavation pod idea. It also helps resolve another thing that always bothers me at certain points in the game - there is more ammo than I can ever do anything with. I think it could be interesting, albeit a little more complicated, if players could purchase pods, load them with missiles or explosives, then drop them and let them be triggered when enemies are close but the player is not - setting booby traps, basically. I can see areas where this could mess with balance, and how this might OP freighters that can carry lots of missiles, but I think it could be an interesting mechanic.
- Also related to this, I think it would be interesting if freighter players could tow something like defense turrets and drop them near stations or on freight routes etc? I can think of how this could be a useful mechanic for Korolev missions, Charon, base defense scenarios (Huari, random pirate missions) and finally, I'd love to be able to drop some kind of anti-pteravore turret in Heretic so I DON'T HAVE TO DO THE KATE MOREGENTAL DEFENSE MISSION (which is honestly the only part of the game I hate)

• Missiles

I think that missiles could be a spot where there could be more variety (albeit with more code and complexity) - missiles that skip shields, missiles that deal multiple damage types (AKA a missile that fires lasers before striking and dealing kinetic damage, then higher level is a missile that fires particle before striking and dealing blast damage), some missiles that are extremely fast and lower damage or are extremely slow and high high damage, defense missiles that are like Longreach/ICX, proximity missiles that work like mines in chase scenarios, missiles that swarm together (AKA launch six of them and they all communicate to hit the opponent at the same time), missiles that start out straightline then split to attack multiple targets at proximity/the end of a defined distance, missiles that specifically attack enemy weapons, etc.
- I feel like this missile concept could also be leveraged with the Tinkers to allow players to make a lot more varied choices (take 20 longbows and 5 laser cannons and get back 10 laser missiles, you could used damaged cannons but then you only get back 1/2 the missiles), and also potentially allow players to make an interesting choice on how they use missiles - do they just use the base missiles or do they go tinker and make improved versions? It could also bring additional variety to missile ship encounters - does this enemy have anti-missiles or laser-firing missiles etc?
- I think this mechanic could have problems in that it would potentially allow players to get some really OP missiles, frustrate beginning players who don't understand Tinkers or understand why they suddenly got fragged by a Corsair-II with just the right kind of missiles, and also lead to a bunch of grinding to get certain missile types. But I think it could also lead to players making some more interesting choices - enhanced ammo weapons are clearly *better* than non-ammo weapons, but rarer and so the player has to make more choices on how to use them? This would also handle some of the concern about optimizing weapons for certain enemy types.

• Crafting

As far as crafting, another, deeper and more complex mechanic is to have each weapon have *parts* and those parts can be mixed and matched in a type. So, say, lasers have a basic set of parts (just spitballing, mount, mirrors, power source, cooling array) and those parts can have multiple levels. Mount could be small fixed (takes one slot, max power source 5mw), large fixed ( takes two slots, max power source 15mw, maybe it could have an extra mirror or cooling array ) or omni (has a slip ring that loses some power plus power needed to turn the mount, so max power source) Then in a laser, Power Source would control raw damage (each laser bolt does X damage and consumes X MW), mirrors control how the laser comes out (one individual bolt, an array, a stutter fire like Hazno/Mining laser etc), and cooling array controls ROF + overheating chances. Then you can take a weapon to a Tinker/Raismesser etc, and they could dismantle it and give you the parts (damaged weapons could be dismantled to give back a random part or a damaged random part) which you could then craft into other weapons. So lasers, you can create a fast-fire XRay laser that stutters, but maybe it has a higher overheating chance because you can't get a good enough cooling array, etc. This would make crafting more complicated, but it could allow chances for a player to make a weapon that best suits their play style, or what kind of a run they wanted to have.

• Defensive Weapons

Finally, I think it would be fun to see more defensive 'weapons'. I would find it interesting to be able to try to make it through a game with weapons more like the Iocrym Repeller and maybe some Omni anti-missile weapons? Maybe some more weapons with EMP effects, or ammo that specifically dealt damage to enemy weapons systems? Weapons that were shield projectors or were chaff generators would be interesting. These weapon types could also make freighter escort missions more interesting - freighters could be given more defensive weapons, and players could try to mix their weapon choices to supplement them (for example, maybe some anti-missile weapons would attack all missiles, rendering the player's missile weapons less effective close in).

There's a "weapon labs" mod that allows for weapon crafting. It has a pretty laisse-faire attitude towards balance, e.g. you can take the Darkfire component off of a Penitent weapon in Eridani and stick it onto a normal weapon mount to get a weapon with reasonable damage output that nothing can resist. In principle crafting doesn't *have* to have that problem, but IME it's always a can of worms game design-wise and has a tendency to soak up a lot of dev time if you want it to really hit the right game balance.

Also re: Pteravore lairs, you can destroy them before starting the escort mission. They'll continue to shoot out Pteravores for awhile, but eventually they run out and then they're completely harmless. I do agree though that this mission needs some attention; as far as I can tell pretty much you either kill all the lairs in advance and drain their ammo, or you fail the mission.

Yeah, crafting could get way out of balance easily. It was the most straightforward way I can think of to add variety with existing systems. Maybe it doesn't work on 'regular' weapons, but it might for ammo weapons?

And Pteravores, even killing them beforehand is a major pain that I hate. It feels like the kind of thing that there could/should be multiple game mechanics around, instead it's a hassle that is not fun [for me].

Pteravores are targeted and shot automatically by missile protection gear, like the ICX or Longreach. But also helpful against them is a weapon with a spread pattern, like for example Ion flame cannon or plasma torch.

A few vague ideas.

Long range missiles used to target stations light minutes away.

A mine laying auton which can recover unused mines afterwards. Make it automatic somehow. Useful for ambushes.

Deployable sentinels. Leave them somewhere and they target any enemies. Useful for ambushes. Maybe recoverable. Maybe able to be restocked with ammo if necessary.

A tractor beam which immobilizes an enemy ship allowing sustained bombardment. Use ship weight and thrust to determine if this would immobilize the enemy ship or just slow it. Useful if fitted to a wingman in a heavy ship. Maybe two opposing beams would be needed to seize a ship.