Gameplay: Ammo Converter

[Toppopia]

After reading through the Looting thread, i thought of an idea to get ammo from people. So here goes.

The item will be called an 'Ammo Converter'. It takes up a slot in your inventory. So maybe the utility slot. This allows you to scavenge ammo from the battlefield instead of relying on an ammo box or running all the way back to the spawn area.

How it works by lore is by breaking down the ammo that you find on enemy corpses into nanites that then create the ammo type that you have. So if playing as TR, and you run over an NC body and take his ammo, you deconstruct his bullets and re purpose them into your ammo type, and vice versa and same for VS.

How it works in game play: You run over to a body, you stand near it and press a button to activate. You see a stream of nanites from the dead body and go the device (Or instead you see a little timer fill up in your crosshair). Depending on how long you stay there is how much ammo you get, so maybe a minimum time of 5 seconds. But you can only get ammo dependent on how much the enemy had left. This could also apply to your deployables like grenades or mines, so if i was a Light Assault, and i run over an Engineer and take his ammo, i won't get mines, i will get grenades, and vice versa. So i can't become a Light Assault that has mines. I will only get grenades.

The device could have a cool down of maybe 30 seconds to recharge as it has to have enough power to deconstruct then reconstruct nanites to make your ammo/equipment. So it will be balanced.
Or instead of a cool down, just every 5 or so seconds you get half or a full magazine.

As a side note: I thought that maybe each faction gives a different ratio of ammo because of their ammo types. It could make things un-balanced but heres what i am thinking.

If i am TR and convert NC ammo, that gives me maybe 3 bullets per 1 NC bullet, because of bigger bullet size and such.
Now collecting VS ammo, because its energy based and more powerful then TR and NC ammo, i will get maybe 6 bullets per 1 VS bullet.
As NC i will get 1 bullet for every 3 TR and 2 bullets for every 1 VS bullet.
And as VS i will get 1 bullet from 6 TR bullets, and from NC i will get 1 bullet from 3 bullets.


That last part can be ommited if it sounds too complicated or un balanced. But feel free to discuss and add your own ideas.

(Any numbers you see are not the final numbers, they are just random numbers i thought of that sounded balanced, they can be changed at any point).

[Jinxsey]

Keep it simple, don't worry about counting bullets. Just give people an option to spend a few seconds "cannibalising" an opponents gear for some as yet unquantified logistical benefit.

[berzerkerking]

While I like the ammo converter Idea I would like it too be a seprate cert from weapon looting itself. I like the bullet size result ratio

[berzerkerking]

I edited my thread to link to this. It's a great idea that goes well with the concept.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by berzerkerking

While I like the ammo converter Idea I would like it too be a seprate cert from weapon looting itself. I like the bullet size result ratio

I hope they make weapon looting something that anyone can do defaultly, because then you can pick up a gun. but you can't get ammo unless you drop the gun and grab another one, or use the ammo converter to get more. So it would work well in combination with eachother.

[Saifoda]

+1 like this idea. The thread this spawned from showing the issues of running out of ammo I'm not particularly concerned about, but I feel like the game should allow as much freedom as possible for players (can u guess what empire I play?) and allowing ammo pick up has been pretty standard in shooters for a while now.

[berzerkerking]

/bump this is now a crucial part of my thread

[berzerkerking]

bop bop bop bop to the top.

[berzerkerking]

...........

[Rexdezi]

No. Awful idea

[Saifoda]

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

No. Awful idea

Cute, buddy. How about you be a little more specific there...

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

No. Awful idea

So are you one of the people that want weapon looting? Because lots of people want it and this is probably the only way of doing it. Because this means you don't steal enemy weapons because it seems the devs don't want that. And it lets people still be a good fighter even if they get separated from a Light Assault. And yeah, you need to elaborate why it is a bad idea, or else your opinion doesn't matter.

[Rexdezi]

NC weapons use NC specific bullets, TR weapons use TR specific bullets, VS WEAPONS USE VS specific... stuff :S

i think this idea fosters more individualist play.. lone wolfery.
We should nurture team play, working together. If you run out of ammo, run over the body of a downed teammate (of the same class/weapon) or go to an engi (LA are losing their ammo boxes(thank fuck))

[berzerkerking]

This doesn't take anything away from team play, prolonged siges will sometimes have a player out of ammo with no aid in sight. The conversion abilty IS AN OPTIONAL skill the takes points into the looting tree, with differing results depending on the type of weapon used, and the faction. Without this skill or the looting skill you only have the knife for emergencies.

[Saifoda]

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

NC weapons use NC specific bullets, TR weapons use TR specific bullets, VS WEAPONS USE VS specific... stuff :S

i think this idea fosters more individualist play.. lone wolfery.
We should nurture team play, working together. If you run out of ammo, run over the body of a downed teammate (of the same class/weapon) or go to an engi (LA are losing their ammo boxes(thank fuck))

How exactly would this foster "individualist play?" In my opinion, this would only give each person greater flexibility and an overall more enjoyable gameplay experience. Be careful not to confuse "nurturing team play" with restricting actions or abilities simply so "somebody else will have to do it for you."

Case in point -- mission system. There's no punishment for NOT going on missions or following orders; you can do that if you want to! BUT you will get bonus xp and maybe bonus resources if you do go on missions. See what I mean? There's nothing that takes away from the experience of the game if you're not participating in the "team play" aspect of things. And honestly, if somebody wants to go be a lone wolf....What's the problem?