No, I solved all of that with my proposed values.
thereaverofdarkness wrote:Military 1: unlock submachinegun and shotgun, also let's buff shells from 12 to 15 pellets.
Submachinegun: 50 DPS, direct shot, burns through ammo rapidly
Shotgun: 75 DPS, collision shot, spreads, ammo-efficient
Military 2: unlock piercing ammo and combat shotgun
Submachinegun: 80 DPS, direct shot, better armor piercing vs. larger biters and worms
Shotgun: 180 DPS, collision shot, spreads, weak against physical resist, but high DPS = good against spawners and spitters
Military 4: unlock piercing shells and explosive magazines (explosive damage type, no radius), also remove gun turret damage research entirely
- piercing shells increased from 16 to 20 pellets, explosive magazine does 16 explosion damage and costs 1 explosive (plus other mats) to make
Submachinegun: 160 DPS, direct shot, explosion damage type is particularly good vs. big biters, and particularly bad vs. big worms, also gives type choices
Shotgun: 384 DPS, collision shot, spreads, very high DPS and doing okay against physical resist now
Gun Turret: new ammo type makes up for losing damage research, prevents gun turrets from becoming stronger than player submachinegun
Uranium Ammo: unlock uranium magazine and uranium shells (20x12)
Submachinegun: 240 DPS, direct shot, excellent physical resist penetration, burns through U-238 quickly
Shotgun: 576 DPS, collision shot, spreads, more efficient use of U-238 and good physical penetration
- shot spreads more than previous shells, both to enable better crowd control and prevent stepping on toes of uranium magazine
Gun Turret: uranium ammo turret heavily nerfed to put it in line with other turrets at the same research level
- there should be a research to increase gun turret range and health, so it can compete with other turrets in the late game
With my numbers:
At the start of the game, the shotgun is great for assaulting spawners if that's what you want to do. The submachinegun is superior for defending your base.
With piercing ammo and small biters, either weapon works great.
With piercing ammo and medium biters, the shotgun actually does more damage per hit (6) than the submachinegun (5), and so is still better for assaulting spawners, though damage research helps decrease the gap. Submachinegun is still mostly better for base defense because it doesn't damage your own structures.
Up to this point, most players probably aren't super interested in the shotgun because they aren't going after spawners. But if they were, the shotgun would have been ideal.
Soon the player will unlock the car, flamethrower, tank, and now they have better things for assaulting spawners. This is usually the point when a player will begin doing assault runs, or they will opt for turret creep. But the shotgun and submachinegun will come back into style later.
Military 3, no upgrades to either. It's probably just as well, the player isn't going to be using these weapons much at this point. The one concern is that gun turrets are beginning to fall behind when big biters come out. With plenty of bullet damage research they can get over this hurdle, but laser and flame turrets are also a solution. Gun turrets will also make a return, or if you're dedicated to them they never have to quit working in the first place.
Military 4, you can start assaulting spawners on foot again with anything but the flamethrower.
- Submachinegun shines in being able to shoot past the biters to hit the spawners and worms. You can hotswap between it and the flamethrower to mow down the wall of biters. This works well with great armor so you can stay alive, maybe a stack of fish too. You can also toss grenades over the biters; cluster grenades actually kill spawners, worms, and big biters really well. Just be careful they don't kill you!
- Shotgun can now cause good damage to the big biters. Submachinegun does too, but its DPS is too low to be worth shooting them during a spawner assault. You can use shotgun in tandem with combat robots and poison capsules to mow down all the biters and spitters as they spawn, allowing you to focus heavy fire on the spawners and worms.
So at this point both work, but I'd say the shotgun would work better on smaller spawner clusters, being able to keep up with the spawns and generally keep you from taking damage so you're less reliant on good defenses. The submachinegun/flamethrower method is a lot trickier and involves mixing in other weapons, needs a lot of defense, but can be effective against substantially larger spawner clusters. If they get too big, you should probably just use the tank. Of course, tank is probably superior to either on-foot option in terms of sheer power, but some players may prefer the improved mobility on foot especially with exoskeletons. If you can kite the enemies well at first, and keep the threats dead, you can make the exoskeletons pay off and not need shields much. Good when your equipment space is limited.
- This is probably also the best time to be using combat robots, and they will work best in tandem with submachinegun, shotgun, and flamethrower. They are killed easily by explosives. They are probably killed easily by shells, but it shouldn't be too hard to keep them out of your line of fire. Then again I haven't tried it. If they die too easily to shotguns, I would advise giving them a few points of physical resist, since they should work better with shotgun/submachinegun than anything else.
- Gun turrets start to make their comeback here, with the new ammo they can kill big biters easily again. Also worth mentioning: if you have to kill a big worm, shotgun will kill it several times as fast as submachinegun if you can get into close range with it.
But with uranium ammo and high level power armor and equipment, you might start to feel like the tank's defenses get a bit inferior to your own. You can still use it, certainly with the higher-end fuels you can make it kite more easily. It gets more range with uranium tank shells. The uranium ammo in the submachinegun can kill spawners almost as fast as you can drive past them. But you still have to agonize over rocks because those will get your tank killed. With high-tier armor and equipment, combat on foot can simply be less stressful even if you don't kill spawners quite as fast. Or some people might find it actually easier.
- Shotgun with uranium shells can kill anything you point it at. Submachinegun with uranium ammo can kill anything you point it at. Why use either? You'd use the shotgun for more total DPS, excellent when there's a ton of biters coming at you, trying to block your path. I'd say shotgun is the premium weapon in this case. It'll work on large spawner clusters as long as you watch your health and don't bite off more than you can chew.
- Why use submachinegun? Familiarity. Players who reached this point of the game preferring base defense, and rarely doing assaults, will have been using the submachinegun all along. Shotgun may be better, but submachinegun is good enough. As there isn't a need to switch, many players won't. Submachineguns will be adequate for smaller spawner clusters, and tanks/flamethrowers/cluster grenades/rocket launchers can fill in for anything larger.