Poll

Energy weapons cannot refill at the armory, bug or feature ?

You should not be able to refill energy weapons at an armory no matter how you do it !
14 (38.9%)
Better allow that than to implement some weird annoying rule to prevent it !
10 (27.8%)
Obiwan doesn't need ammo, he can kill a Tyrant bare handed !
12 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 34

Voting closed: May 10, 2006, 02:48:36 pm

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Author Topic: Energy weapons refill and the armory  (Read 10283 times)

Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« on: May 10, 2006, 02:48:36 pm »
So, as you know already, energy weapons cannot be refilled at an armory, unless you are yourself very close to a reactor or repetear, but you can always sell and buy back the same weapon or the battery pack to do it anyway. So, we have a bug here but which one is it ? Should we find a way to prevent the user from reloading it's weapon or should we just allow it and be done with it ?

The question isn't "Is that a bug or not ?" There is a bug and so it should be fixed. The question is what is the bug :)

In all cases, if you cannot refill energy weapons at an armory, then you should not have the option in there when using an energy weapon : it's too confusing. Also, we'll need to find a way to make the sell/buy trick not work anymore. I'm not sure if there's a good solution for that.
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Vector_Matt

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2006, 03:06:19 pm »
The armory is connected to a power suorce right, and it's desinged to dispense weapons, etc...? Duh. So why not give it the ability to refil energy ammo? It would be better that not being able to refill at all.
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stahlsau

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2006, 06:11:22 pm »
i think it makes the game more complex, which is good. Afterall, they could have made it the way that you can refill/buy/reload everything at every structure - and that would be really lame.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2006, 06:19:59 pm »
Quote from: "stahlsau"
i think it makes the game more complex, which is good. Afterall, they could have made it the way that you can refill/buy/reload everything at every structure - and that would be really lame.

Complexity for the sake of it is bad. And besides, bind users can refill any weapon at the armory, why ?
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

werepants

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2006, 06:35:59 pm »
2 real options:

1.  make it so that the energy weapons can only be recharged at a repeater or reactor, and come with either no or a minimal charge from the armory.

2.  make it so that the energy weapons can be recharged at repeater, reactor, or armory.

I am in favor of number 1.  Have a pulse rifle or lasgun or whatever come with either 10 shots or nothing, and then go to the reactor to charge.  Increases learning curve slightly, but I think adds to the substance and "real" feeling of the weapons and game.  Even better, make it take a little time at the reactor or repeater, kind of like charging health at a medstation.  A glowy charging animation would be cool too.  It would feel like pumping up your supersoaker ;).  Maybe it could happen automatically when you are in range of the repeater, and have some kind of electicity connection.  That would be awesome.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2006, 06:43:11 pm »
Lucifer Cannon. Batteries NOT included.

Well, I think it's stupid and add another layer of complexity for nothing. Minimal change to the armory you say ? Making half the weapons come with no ammo isn't a minimal change I say.

It's the kind of feature that serves no purpose except getting in the way.
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

phaedrus

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2006, 06:47:04 pm »
I voted for Obiwan (couldn't... help... myself...), but I think that allowing energy weapons to refill at armories, repeaters and reactors isn't a bad thing.  It's also the simplest fix.  I'm a *nix guy.  I like simple.

The semantics for "No! You cannot refill that here!" just don't seem worth it. You'd have to do something like:
 * save the weapon they started with and how much ammo it has
 * if they grab any other weapon, and then re-equip their original weapon, make sure it only has the ammo they started with.
However, that sequence has a hole.  Equip diff weapon, walk away, re-equip.  So, you'd really just have to move on to tracking the ammo level or all the energy weapons for every player, and start them with full ammo at the beginning of the match.  

I'm more of a C programmer and haven't really done any game programming (minimal Quake1 modding, just enough to get my feet wet, but no more), but this seems like it would be a major change in the game code for humans.  

Allowing energy weapon reloads at armory doesn't seem like such a bad thing, unless the devs are commited to "energy weapons are different, and this is one of the ways" (which is ok).  However, adding refil at the armory gives energy weapons the semantics of: can be refilled at main base, and can be refilled at forward fortifications.  Where kinetic kill weapons get the can only be refilled at base semantics.  

'xcuse the babbling.  I was just thinking through the problem aloud.  Devs, feel free to tell me I'm full of it.

Jeff
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OverFlow

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2006, 06:56:35 pm »
I don't think it'd be hard to implement a 'no recharge at armory' kind of change.  It would just keep track of what percentage of energy you have used, so if you switch energy guns after using half your ammo on the first, the new one has half the ammo it would normally have.  And dieing resets the value back to full.

Personally though, I think the armory should refill energy weapons.  If you want distinction of energy v. 'case based' weapons, I think there’s enough in that energy can be refilled at reactors and repeaters as well.
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Paradox

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2006, 07:11:23 pm »
I have it binded to buy some weapons. If i am using an energy weapon, and near an amory, and out, i just hit the binded key, works as good as reactor or refill.
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WolfWings ShadowFlight

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2006, 08:26:42 pm »
Quote from: "ERR:OverFlow"
I don't think it'd be hard to implement a 'no recharge at armory' kind of change.  It would just keep track of what percentage of energy you have used, so if you switch energy guns after using half your ammo on the first, the new one has half the ammo it would normally have.  And dieing resets the value back to full.


Well, the easy approach to make energy-levels carry over between weapon-purchases is to simply reset all weapon ammo types to maximum value on initial spawn only, and not every time you buy a weapon, then make the battery pack not increase your actual capacity but reduce your ammo consumption.
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OverFlow

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2006, 08:55:21 pm »
Quote from: "WolfWings ShadowFlight"
Well, the easy approach to make energy-levels carry over between weapon-purchases is to simply reset all weapon ammo types to maximum value on initial spawn only, and not every time you buy a weapon, then make the battery pack not increase your actual capacity but reduce your ammo consumption.


Isn't that pretty much what I said?
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WolfWings ShadowFlight

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2006, 03:02:15 am »
Quote from: "ERR:OverFlow"
Quote from: "WolfWings ShadowFlight"
Well, the easy approach to make energy-levels carry over between weapon-purchases is to simply reset all weapon ammo types to maximum value on initial spawn only, and not every time you buy a weapon, then make the battery pack not increase your actual capacity but reduce your ammo consumption.


Isn't that pretty much what I said?


I missed the "don't" between "I" and "think it would be hard" somehow when skimming over the board. :-)
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chompers

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2006, 04:00:20 am »
I don't think it needs 'fixing' but then again, I got rid of the 'buy ammo' bind, because it is superfluos once you're using "sell weapons; buy shotgun" style binds at the armory. You can still top up energy weapons at the reactor or repeater with the 'use structure' bind.

Tracking ammo usage or giving out half empty weapons from the armory would detract from the game, and this all seems to me like making changes for the sake of making changes.

If anything, the default binds should just include keys 1 - 0 for buying weapons.

Time could be better spent making a menu system for buying, building and evolving that didn't stop you from moving and seeing while you access it. OK, it's great that we can short circuit the clunky, mouse dependant, in-game menus with complex cfg files that rebind keys and echo to the message area, but that is really just a hack and the game would be more approachable to new players if we didn't have to do that.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2006, 01:00:51 pm »
I have the exact same opinion as you. Except that I think that since power users are freed from the constraint that you can't recharge energy weapons at the armory, then regular users should be free of it too ;) So I think something has to be changed, it needs fixing.
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

Teiman

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2006, 02:33:02 pm »
Newbies learn how to refill his energy weapons on generator and aux generators. This force newbies to learn other building other than the armory+health.

Dont change.
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b0rsuk

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2006, 02:33:28 pm »
Personally I dislike most implementations of energy weapons. People tend to have the attitude 'it's SF, dude, it doesn't have to be realistic !'. Result - conventional weapons are much more polished (because we all know how they should look, to a degree), and energy weapons look crude bt comparison.
I'm also a bit sick of energy weapons' fanboyism. I would gladly see some of ammo weapons' disadvantages reduced....

BUT this poll is pointless.
The impact on the game would be minimal. I have a key with ' buy ammo' bind anyway, and if I'm defending a base I use 'buy ammo' more often than I actually reload. It's much faster.
If a player can buy ammo from armory, this already means a reactor is near. Armory needs power, so having extra 'backup' building to buy armor won't work.
Long story short: if there's an armory, there's also reactor/repeater there. Short story long: anything by Dickens.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2006, 02:54:59 pm »
Well, that's the point I'm making here : restricting energy weapons like that is pointless, complex and has such a minimal effect on gameplay ( except for new users which get confused by all that ) that it just isn't worth it. Let's keep the energy weapon advantage and ditch the crappy "drawback" which isn't one.
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

Draconishinobi

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2006, 03:03:45 am »
I am Obiwan .... but I use a painsaw instead of my hands ... it's quicker :)
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MadMan2k

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2006, 12:55:34 pm »
I'd vote for throwing the energy weapon recharge at reactor/repeater away alltogether - it only adds complexity for nothing - armory for everything should be ok. Even if it wouldt need power to work - it sitll could contain batteries ;)

a much more critical bug is the instant reload at armory.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #19 on: May 13, 2006, 02:32:27 pm »
Quote from: "MadMan2k"
I'd vote for throwing the energy weapon recharge at reactor/repeater away alltogether - it only adds complexity for nothing - armory for everything should be ok. Even if it wouldt need power to work - it sitll could contain batteries ;)

a much more critical bug is the instant reload at armory.

Myself I like the ability of energy weapons to get cheap forward ammunition with repeaters. I would not like to see that disapear.
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

kozak6

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #20 on: May 13, 2006, 09:25:46 pm »
I think you should be able to get ammo for energy weapons at the armory and at repeaters or generators.
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Neo

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2006, 12:47:37 am »
i'd say repeaters and armouries, as I never saw the reason why you'd drain power from your central power point.

It would be like 'oh 2 tyrants, pity we have no power cos our entire team chose to recharge at the reactor at the same time' :D
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Vector_Matt

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2006, 12:58:09 pm »
Quote from: "Neo"
i'd say repeaters and armouries, as I never saw the reason why you'd drain power from your central power point.
Everything is powered by the reactor, so no matter where you recharge it would "drain" the central power.
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Lava Croft

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2006, 12:51:28 am »
Stof, repeaters > armory.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #24 on: May 15, 2006, 09:35:35 am »
Quote from: "Lava Croft"
Stof, repeaters > armory.

Would you mind repeating what you said just now, with a few more words please ? I don't understand what you are trying to say :)
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

Mario

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #25 on: May 15, 2006, 10:41:22 am »
Quote from: "Stof"
Quote from: "Lava Croft"
Stof, repeaters > armory.

Would you mind repeating what you said just now, with a few more words please ? I don't understand what you are trying to say :)


Repeaters are grater than the armory.
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Stof

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Energy weapons refill and the armory
« Reply #26 on: May 15, 2006, 10:53:47 am »
Quote from: "Mario"
Quote from: "Stof"
Quote from: "Lava Croft"
Stof, repeaters > armory.

Would you mind repeating what you said just now, with a few more words please ? I don't understand what you are trying to say :)


Repeaters are grater than the armory.

Sorry, it does not compute. What point is it anyway ? I know perfectly well that repeaters are much better than the armory when I need field ammo. If not the fact that a field armory cannot work without a repeater, the fact that you can build as many as you want would be enouth :)
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urphy's rules of combat
8 ) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
18 ) Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.
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