Piercing shotgun shells cost

[splee]

Blue shotgun shells are now the worst value recipe in the game, and it doesn't seem close.

Recently red shotgun shells got a damage buff, but blue shotgun shells didn't. Then piercing magazines got a cost reduction, while piercing shells didn't. So relative to 1.1, measured by resources spent per marginal benefit, upgrading shotgun shells now "costs more" than upgrading bullet magazines, and improves shell damage less than it used to. Feels bad.

The shotgun & combat shotgun are commonly undervalued - especially by new players since they're skill shots in a world of hit scanners. Shotguns are already top tier weapons at their place in the development curve for engineers who can use them well (even before the shells damage boost). But for balance & feel would it be good to tweak piercing shotgun shells on their damage or their recipe cost or both or something else?

[KillingTimeItself]

i've always found it weird that there was uranium ammo for the the SMG, but no uranium ammo for the shotgun. I don't use the shotgun ever, but i would be far more tempted to use it if there was a uranium variant of the piercing ammo.

[crimsonarmy]

i've always found it weird that there was uranium ammo for the the SMG, but no uranium ammo for the shotgun. I don't use the shotgun ever, but i would be far more tempted to use it if there was a uranium variant of the piercing ammo.

If my math is right, combat shotgun + piercing shells deals more damage than SMG + uranium ammo by ~20%. If a "uranium shell" existed it would deal a huge amount of damage outclassing the SMG by a a huge amount. Maybe shotguns could use a buff (anything with flat resistance they are pretty bad against), but uranium ammo is too much.

[crimsonarmy]

Blue shotgun shells are now the worst value recipe in the game, and it doesn't seem close.

Does this matter? Unlike magazines, shotgun shells are only used in combat and only by the engineer, so their cost doesn't really matter.

Feels bad.

I can't say you are wrong about this, but strictly mechanically it is a reasonable cost. Combat shotgun + piercing shells is quite powerful and cost for personal use is low. You do bring this up in your last paragraph so I'll talk about this more there.

The shotgun & combat shotgun are commonly undervalued - especially by new players since they're skill shots in a world of hit scanners. Shotguns are already top tier weapons at their place in the development curve for engineers who can use them well (even before the shells damage boost). But for balance & feel would it be good to tweak piercing shotgun shells on their damage or their recipe cost or both or something else?

Piercing shells could use a damage boost; the unlock doesn't feel like too much of an upgrade. Also you need to compete with the rocket launcher which does about the same damage and is far easier to use.