Ammotypes in rpg?
Author
Hi
Doing a game in post-apoc world like fallout. I have loads of weapons but simplified calibers to keep down ammotypes. Guns are everything up until the 80-90thies and some hitech energy weapons. This is what i got so far:
1 9mm
2 ".45 caliber"
3 shells
4 7.62mm
5 5.56mm
6 ".50 cal"
7 arrow
8 "energy cell"
9 "40mm grenade
10 rocket
11 "Flamethrower fuel
Does this seem ok? Anything that needs to be added/removed? I know this is a pretty open question but share your thoughts!
Thanks
Erik
Add ammo pressing machines to game (in home).
Ammo press neads some bullets and scrap metal to work.
12. land mines (or trigger wires for granades)
13. rocks (very basic ballistic weapon :D )
14. flares / torches (light source)
15. gas/smoke granade (signal for heavy field artillery & to block visibility)
/Tyrian
Ammo press neads some bullets and scrap metal to work.
12. land mines (or trigger wires for granades)
13. rocks (very basic ballistic weapon :D )
14. flares / torches (light source)
15. gas/smoke granade (signal for heavy field artillery & to block visibility)
/Tyrian
I'd say that you MIGHT think about lowering your ammo type counts, or you are going to have to be doing trickery to make the player happy.
With 11 types of ammo, that means only 1 in 11 places can "logically" have the ammo I need for my gun.
Consider I have a 7.62mm rifle, and I go storming in and kill a bunch of guys with 9mm SMGs.
Well, look at all that ammo i can't use. Or, for some silly reason, everyone is dropping 7.62mm ammo when i shoot them with my rifle... how strange!
A few of my coworkers had complaints about Fallout 3 because of exactly this situation. Where they could only find ammo for the gun they liked in one small area of the map.
A lot of games lower the ammo types by gun type, reducing several of your bullets to either "pistol" or "rifle" class ammo. If you have many different weapons, there tends to be a trend towards just "bullets", "grenades" and "energy cells"
People are going to find a playstyle and a weapon they like, and if you allow them to upgrade a weapon, are never going to want to use anything else. You'll need to cater to this in your ammo choices.
With 11 types of ammo, that means only 1 in 11 places can "logically" have the ammo I need for my gun.
Consider I have a 7.62mm rifle, and I go storming in and kill a bunch of guys with 9mm SMGs.
Well, look at all that ammo i can't use. Or, for some silly reason, everyone is dropping 7.62mm ammo when i shoot them with my rifle... how strange!
A few of my coworkers had complaints about Fallout 3 because of exactly this situation. Where they could only find ammo for the gun they liked in one small area of the map.
A lot of games lower the ammo types by gun type, reducing several of your bullets to either "pistol" or "rifle" class ammo. If you have many different weapons, there tends to be a trend towards just "bullets", "grenades" and "energy cells"
People are going to find a playstyle and a weapon they like, and if you allow them to upgrade a weapon, are never going to want to use anything else. You'll need to cater to this in your ammo choices.
The general idea here is the ammo has to be universal some how. There are some subtle ways to do that though. Lets look at them from most obvious to least:
First, there is one ammo, it is the ammo, there is no other ammo, all hail Ammo.
Second, you can divide them into general categories as just mentioned. If you have very few weapon categories this will work. You are already moving past this though. You have pistol and rifle but also a scattering of other things such as rockets.
So far the first option is flavorless and silly and the second is nearly so but also gives us back a small portion of the problem at hand, you don't want to have a pile of ammo for guns you don't use!
So what we need to do is allow you to carry back all that ammo in full, pick it ALL up, and make it weightless. Next you need a way to convert one ammo to another. There are two ways I see to do that.
First, sell the ammo for money and buy ammo for the gun you like. You control value directly and availability through vendor stock and vendor availability. Its a very easy route and very sensible while still letting you have a thousand ammo types.
The second route was also mentioned easier. That would be having the ammo press which is for your purposes in the game, an ammo converter and maybe creator as well. It would take ammo, scrap metal, and other materials in different amounts, and make new ammo from that. For some things this doesn't make since and you may ahve to add in a few other machines so the process doesn't get stupid. I.E. no making rockets from bullets. You can though dissemble bullets and their cartridges and melt the metal, and cast rocket shells, and then rig the insides.But that's a furnace, not a press.
ANYway, point being, you can take the easy route here and just buy/sell ammo on a market so the player can "convert" what he gets to what he needs, or you can make all sorts of interesting machines in a system that is more involved than most alchemy systems and literally convert or create everything you find into what you need... or do both!
First, there is one ammo, it is the ammo, there is no other ammo, all hail Ammo.
Second, you can divide them into general categories as just mentioned. If you have very few weapon categories this will work. You are already moving past this though. You have pistol and rifle but also a scattering of other things such as rockets.
So far the first option is flavorless and silly and the second is nearly so but also gives us back a small portion of the problem at hand, you don't want to have a pile of ammo for guns you don't use!
So what we need to do is allow you to carry back all that ammo in full, pick it ALL up, and make it weightless. Next you need a way to convert one ammo to another. There are two ways I see to do that.
First, sell the ammo for money and buy ammo for the gun you like. You control value directly and availability through vendor stock and vendor availability. Its a very easy route and very sensible while still letting you have a thousand ammo types.
The second route was also mentioned easier. That would be having the ammo press which is for your purposes in the game, an ammo converter and maybe creator as well. It would take ammo, scrap metal, and other materials in different amounts, and make new ammo from that. For some things this doesn't make since and you may ahve to add in a few other machines so the process doesn't get stupid. I.E. no making rockets from bullets. You can though dissemble bullets and their cartridges and melt the metal, and cast rocket shells, and then rig the insides.But that's a furnace, not a press.
ANYway, point being, you can take the easy route here and just buy/sell ammo on a market so the player can "convert" what he gets to what he needs, or you can make all sorts of interesting machines in a system that is more involved than most alchemy systems and literally convert or create everything you find into what you need... or do both!
Author
well i basically have the system they had in fallout tactics but ive reduced the number of ammo-types (it has frikkin 21 types of ammo, plus variant vithin the types).
In that game you were often short on ammo, which i liked a bit:) But you always had some ways of making use of the ammo you DID have.
Yes sell-value for ammo will be high so you can trade it for other kinds of ammo you prefer more.
I kinda understand more and more that this is the max number... I might reduce it even. But acually its now:
2 types - handguns/smg
1 type - shotguns
2 types - rifles, assault rifles and LMB
1 type - heavy machineguns
1 type - all energy weapons
various special ammo for wierd weapons (might be reduced)
Only the first 5 types will be used extensivly.
So its hard to reduce... I could skip .45 cal but its silly to use same ammo for mp5 and revolvers... And the group rifles/assault rifles/LMG is so massive i want 2 kinds of ammo. I can skip .50 cal HMG rounds though. But they are mainly flavour anyway.
In that game you were often short on ammo, which i liked a bit:) But you always had some ways of making use of the ammo you DID have.
Yes sell-value for ammo will be high so you can trade it for other kinds of ammo you prefer more.
I kinda understand more and more that this is the max number... I might reduce it even. But acually its now:
2 types - handguns/smg
1 type - shotguns
2 types - rifles, assault rifles and LMB
1 type - heavy machineguns
1 type - all energy weapons
various special ammo for wierd weapons (might be reduced)
Only the first 5 types will be used extensivly.
So its hard to reduce... I could skip .45 cal but its silly to use same ammo for mp5 and revolvers... And the group rifles/assault rifles/LMG is so massive i want 2 kinds of ammo. I can skip .50 cal HMG rounds though. But they are mainly flavour anyway.
Why not just force the player to pick up different weapons because of lack of ammo?
The way I see it, if I am using my favorite weapon all the time, I could possibly get bored of it. I don't want to breeze through the game using just a couple of weapons, I want to use big weapons, small weapons, melee weapons, etc.
Tailor your missions around specific weapons so that players can be like "Dude that was hella fun! I wish we had that gun all the time". It will give your game a little more replay value as well because they get to go through that sequence that was super fun before. Have a super high powered sniper rifle, or a giant vehicle mounted multi round rpg unit.
Since its an MMORPG, I think it would be wise to have a variety of ammo/weapon types. You should be able to pick up ammo of different types and go to a marketplace to exchange for what you need like stated above. If you were to make the ammo weightless, there should be a definite limit to how many rounds you can hold. Personally, I would make it weigh down the player so that the player has to strategize on what equipment to take on each mission. So... you would also need a place to store all the stuff you pick up, such as a house or some type of storage place inside the game.
Say you get alot of 9mm ammo in the beginning of the game, but your dual barettas are weak sauce and you have all this ammo stored in your depot. A few hours later you find this really sweet as fully auto pistol that 'obliterates' at close range, Now you have the ammo to support its heavy consumption!
The way I see it, if I am using my favorite weapon all the time, I could possibly get bored of it. I don't want to breeze through the game using just a couple of weapons, I want to use big weapons, small weapons, melee weapons, etc.
Tailor your missions around specific weapons so that players can be like "Dude that was hella fun! I wish we had that gun all the time". It will give your game a little more replay value as well because they get to go through that sequence that was super fun before. Have a super high powered sniper rifle, or a giant vehicle mounted multi round rpg unit.
Since its an MMORPG, I think it would be wise to have a variety of ammo/weapon types. You should be able to pick up ammo of different types and go to a marketplace to exchange for what you need like stated above. If you were to make the ammo weightless, there should be a definite limit to how many rounds you can hold. Personally, I would make it weigh down the player so that the player has to strategize on what equipment to take on each mission. So... you would also need a place to store all the stuff you pick up, such as a house or some type of storage place inside the game.
Say you get alot of 9mm ammo in the beginning of the game, but your dual barettas are weak sauce and you have all this ammo stored in your depot. A few hours later you find this really sweet as fully auto pistol that 'obliterates' at close range, Now you have the ammo to support its heavy consumption!
Author
its not multiplayer.
Its good to make the player have to alternate weapons i agree. One way to do this is having different ammo. But i dont want to overdo this.
yes there will be a diablo style "stash" where to put stuff you might need later but dont have inv-space for right now.
Its good to make the player have to alternate weapons i agree. One way to do this is having different ammo. But i dont want to overdo this.
yes there will be a diablo style "stash" where to put stuff you might need later but dont have inv-space for right now.
You could also have different types off rounds in each ammo category.
For instance 9mm rounds: Poison Rounds, Explosive Rounds, Sleep Inducing Rounds, and traditional hollow points, etc.
That way you could have more types of ammo that work in multiple guns. That way you could make certain types of ammo expensive and rare, yet the game would seem expansive because of all the variety.
For instance 9mm rounds: Poison Rounds, Explosive Rounds, Sleep Inducing Rounds, and traditional hollow points, etc.
That way you could have more types of ammo that work in multiple guns. That way you could make certain types of ammo expensive and rare, yet the game would seem expansive because of all the variety.
You can also look at ammo "working" differently.
First type "traditional" you have a limited amount then need to collect more
Second type "collector" As you use it the ammo takes longer to fire. Something like a quarter a second getting all the way up to 1 minute between shots with use.
Third type "depletion" As you use the ammo it has a chance to not work anymore. Start at around a 150% chance to work going down to a 0 percent chance to work. If it fails the weapon just won't fire that round(essentially the player has to choose between conserving ammo at a risk, or using new ammo at a cost).
forth type "grid" as you get further from an "energy grid" the time between shots get weaker and/or take longer to fire
Fifth type "greed" ammo isn't "used" but the more ammo you have the faster the gun fires and/or does more damage. At the cost of some penalty like reduced maximum health, speed, inventory space, or similar.
First type "traditional" you have a limited amount then need to collect more
Second type "collector" As you use it the ammo takes longer to fire. Something like a quarter a second getting all the way up to 1 minute between shots with use.
Third type "depletion" As you use the ammo it has a chance to not work anymore. Start at around a 150% chance to work going down to a 0 percent chance to work. If it fails the weapon just won't fire that round(essentially the player has to choose between conserving ammo at a risk, or using new ammo at a cost).
forth type "grid" as you get further from an "energy grid" the time between shots get weaker and/or take longer to fire
Fifth type "greed" ammo isn't "used" but the more ammo you have the faster the gun fires and/or does more damage. At the cost of some penalty like reduced maximum health, speed, inventory space, or similar.
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