We're going to assume vehicle weapon ammo is some finite amount. If you don't like that assumption, this isn't a good thread for you. If we have finite ammo, why do we need clips? For cannons, reload time is tiny and clip size is enormous. If cannons had a bottomless clip, their DPS would barely be affected and no one will notice the difference. Rail Gun would take a hit, but it's modest. Arty is a very similar case. Missiles are different. Salvo absolutely must have some sort of clip by its very definition. But the other missiles could be tweaked to fire continuously until their ammo is exhausted. Nukes are a very good candidate. Examples: To maintain the current DPS and damage, but remove reload time (i.e. clips), cycle time would increase. I've included a little chart using Steampires numbers: "Weapon" "Cycle Time" "Percent Increase" SC 1.433s 0.024% RC 1.5375s 0.025% HEC 2.5833s 0.033% PC 1.566s 0.044% RG 1.15s 44% ML 1.8s 50% UML 1.63s 63% BioML 5s 66% Nuke 12s 20% Guided 2s 100% Homing 2s 100% GL 4.25s 42% UGL 2.5% 40% HEA 2.875s 44% RAC 2.625s 31% Ultimately, I think this change makes a lot of sense for cannons (and nukes!) and might be fine for non-salvo missiles and other weapons. Comments?
bring back ammo for tanks, even if only for some weapons (for example only for missiles and mg's its too retarded to have bottomless ammo although i understand the sentiment of it originally
Magazines don't really make any sense for any weapon, other than machineguns. You load a shell, you fire a shell, you load a new shell. Unless the tank is seriously supposed to have a 30 round magazine of cannon shells in it, I don't really see the point.
Cannons basically already have a bottomless clip. The reload time is basically a formality. It's already in the game. And nukes would also be prime candidates. Instead of waiting 10 seconds 5 times and 17s one time, why not just wait 12 seconds indefinitely? Although I understand that the other weapons would be kinda meh on bottomless clip. But if you can switch magazines in less than two seconds, then we're basically talking about a rounding error if we're firing hundreds of shots.
Not going to weigh in yet, but for info, before the change to unlimited ammo: MLs, MGs and GLs had clips/mags. CNs and ACs did not.
Unlimited ammo is fun and stuff but so is finite ammo if we add some features. Im pro finite ammo if it has enough clips and ammo to not make you go back every min
At some point, I think the theory was that cannons were generally limited by heat while MLs were limited by reload time. Another possibility is that someone just wanted to rip off lasers vs. LRMs from mechwarrior. Either way, it became clear that MLs sucked in tank combat (because they're easily dodged and NF tanks can't aim downwards), and so we've gone down a long road to the point where ML reload times are barely any longer than their cycle times. Even so, it's nice to have clips on MLs since they use so little heat; without clips you'll just spam them without end.
