Weapon Rebalance 2020 (Part 2 - Characteristics) (Live on PTS)

Hey runners,

Following on from part 1 of the weapon rebalance which focused only on raw damage numbers, this part will look at the behaviour and characteristics of weapons.

General Ideas
Weapon types have been tightened to feel more similar to other weapons within and more distinct to weapons within other types. Current stats between types can vary quite substantially to the point where some pistols have x2 range to others and 0.5 of the stamina use. Therefore now each type has been updated to have it's own "feel" which is different to others, but similar to other weapons within the same type.

Heavy: Medium / Long Range, high stamina use, slowest aim speed.
Range generally increased by an average of 9%
Stamina use generally increased by an average of 12%
Aiming speed generally improved by an average of 14%

Melee: Very close range, highest stamina use, fastest aim speed
Range changed to be the same across all weapons and reduced from sword range to knife range (max redux of 43%)
Stamina use generally increased by an average of 18%
Aiming speed generally reduced by an average of 24%

Pistol: Close Range, low stamina use, fast aim speed but slightly less dmg then rifle
Range generally reduced by an average of 3%
Stamina use generally reduced by an average of 12%
Aiming speed generally improved by an average of 8%

Rifle: Longest Range, moderate stamina use, slightly longer aim speed then pistol but slightly more dmg then pistol. Sniper Rifle projectile speed tripled.
Range generally increased by an average of 14%
Stamina use generally reduced by an average of 22%
Aiming speed generally nerfed by an average of 1%

Drones: Remote combat gives the body some safety (so long as not found) so damage is lowest from all weapons.
Kami drones damage increased, weight increased to 10 and health reduced by ~75%. Blowing up a kami before it reaches you is now a viable tactic.

Hacknet:
Hack-pool cost of attack software reduced by ~40% and now scales based on TL.



Low Tech VS High Tech:
Changes to dmg numbers make it so that a Low Tech only build is more viable then ever with no damage penalty (currently) between the Low Tech & High Tech - giving additional dex points which can be spent on more combat skill / agility / utility. However to incentivise High Tech still I have introduced other differences to still give High Tech a slight advantage for those points being spent:
- 10% Range on Low Tech
+ 10% Stamina use on Low Tech
+ 10% nerf to Aiming Speed on Low Tech



Final Note:
Some weapons may need individual extra tweaking which will mean they vary from their weapon type for the sake of decent usability. After these base changes are tested and settled any weapons needing further tweaking will be addressed.



Below shows changes:

Family	Change (Dmg Types)	Range: Change	Stamina Use: Change	Aim Speed: Change
Grenade Launcher		8%	-2%	-19%
Freezer Cannon		2%	-22%	-23%
Ionic Cannon Shotgun		-19%	-10%	-14%
Plasma Wave		5%	51%	-22%
Gatling Cannon		-7%	105%	-6%
Plasma Cannon		3%	-9%	-18%
Fusion Cannon		2%	-22%	-17%
Flamethrower		100%	144%	-26%
Rocket Launcher		-6%	22%	-6%
Raygun Cannon		1%	-11%	-13%
Laser Cannon		-1%	18%	-12%
Old World Rocket Launcher (Warhammer)		-1%	862%	-2%
Baseball Bat		-33%	-3%	25%
WoC-Claw		60%	3%	39%
Combat Knife		33%	3%	27%
Sword		-27%	-7%	30%
Stiletto		33%	0%	-16%
Junk Knife		33%	0%	-10%
Knuckles		100%	7%	36%
Tsurugaoka		-38%	-10%	35%
Electro Shocker		33%	-12%	25%
Claw		60%	3%	39%
Warbot Cutter	Switched to 60/40 Energy/Xray	-43%	-18%	28%
Laser Blade	Switched to 60/40 Fire/Energy	-43%	-18%	28%
Pistol (Wyatt Earp)		6%	-29%	18%
Submachinegun (Liberator)		11%	-20%	3%
Ionic Shotgun Pistol		-7%	-20%	-12%
Old World Automatic Pistol (SWAT)		11%	-34%	-3%
Plasma Pistol (Judge)		-6%	-20%	-17%
Crossbow Pistol		-3%	-24%	-17%
Automatic Pistol (Anarchist)		8%	7%	-17%
Freezer Pistol		20%	33%	-9%
Pulse Laser Pistol		-19%	18%	-14%
Laser Pistol		-36%	11%	-6%
Rocket Launcher Pistol		-6%	0%	-8%
Old World Pistol(Golden) (Freeman)		5%	-10%	-8%
Nailgun Pistol		3%	-24%	-13%
Raygun Pistol		-4%	-16%	-6%
Gatling Pistol		16%	-44%	-8%
Fusion Pistol		6%	-22%	-21%
Old World Pistol (BHG)		1%	-17%	-3%
Pumpgun (Terminator)		1%	-37%	-8%
Assault Rifle (Pain Easer)		17%	24%	-4%
Ionic Shotgun Rifle		1%	-43%	-1%
Raygun Rifle		26%	0%	-9%
Crossbow Rifle		0%	-26%	-7%
Freezer Rifle		24%	-29%	-7%
Old World Assault Rifle (West) (AK47)		11%	-17%	3%
Junk Rifle (Desperado)		10%	-40%	4%
Gatling Rifle		37%	-24%	5%
Fusion Rifle		3%	-49%	-3%
Compressed Plasma Rifle (Second Love)		15%	-43%	5%
Old World Assault Rifle (East) (Reaper)		16%	21%	15%
Laser Rifle		18%	-11%	-6%
Sniper Rifle		11%	-31%	2%
Plasma Rifle		15%	-17%	5%
Pulselaser Rifle		15%	0%	-15%
Old World Marksman Rifle (Ronin)		23%	-57%	6%
Laser Drone		-	-	-
Kamikaze Drone		-	-	-
Plasma Drone		-	-	-
Fusion Assault Drone		-	-	-
Fusion Cannon Drone		-	-	-
Rocket Drone		-	-	-
Ion Blaster Drone (Tech Angels)		-	-	-
Ion Blaster Drone (HEW)		-	-	-
Raygun Cannon Drone		-	-	-
Particlebeam Drone		-	-	-
Gatling Drone (AntiHeal)		-	-
Gatling Drone		-	-	-

I just want to say that some burst weapons like the CS and First Love suffer from misses even with closed reticle.

Link to video:

https://youtu.be/u6EQZnSvSjE

Maybe you need to accomodate slightly for these misses as I believe the dispersion on these weapons might be hardcoded.

Or you just take the dispersion completely out of the game since I feel it brings no benefit at all or makes the game more "attractive" to play.

Thanks for posting, it is something I am aware off and tried to change a couple of years ago but requires code changes.

For the time being atleast I have increased the dmg of weapons to account for these shots that go missing.

I seem to remember that each weapon category had it's own general specifics :

Pistols - Lower damage, High firing rate, High clip count, Low range, no AOE

Rifles - Higher Damage, Slower firing rate, Smaller clip size, Very long range, no AOE

Heavy - Medium damage,Medium firing rate, Medium clip size, Medium range, AOE
(but certain weapons had super long range like the Rav or Lasers)


All of this was re-shuffled with the 2.3 rebalance and we have things that don't make much sense like a judge with super small clip.

Maybe the old definition of weapon classes could serve as general guidelines to adjust clip size, range and firing rates ?


When I say firing rate, I mean the minimal time between mouse clics to fire the next shot. Some pistols like ROLH have good damage already, and buffing that damage isn't the best way to go in my opinion because just making firing rate a bit higher would do the same DPS changes and allow for a play-style that is funnier to use and much more in-line with what the old ROLH pistol-users were in this game.

I would also say : Don't be afraid to nerf raw damage and increase firing rates or clip-size and vice-versa.

New live PTS update includes:

Aiming:
- Hit chance for all direct fire guns improved slightly with open reticule (average +7%)

Damage Types:
- Devils Grace dmg types updated to be Fire (60%) + Energy (40%) from Energy / Piercing / Fire
- Warbots Bane dmg types updated to be Energy (60%) + Xray (40%) from Energy / Piercing / Fire

New live PTS update which alters range, stamina use and aiming speed. See post 1 for more details

Post #1 updated with new values:

- Ranges:
- Pistols ~ +12% (now more around current Titan values)
- Rifle ~ -7% (slight buff from Titan values)
- "Shotguns" ~ - 20% (around / little lower then Titan)

Post #1 updated: Sniper Rifle projectile speed tripled.

Post #1 updated: Kami drone weight raised to 10 (~x4) and health reduced by ~ 75%