The main idea behind NS is that marines are supposed to be effective at long range, and the aliens are melee-range masters. My experinces in NS are somewhat different from that stated ideal, and I see this not only as a problem for NS, but as a place where the game could be made much better.

In order to fix this, I've gathered a list of changes to the marine guns and weapons that would - in my mind - make NS quite a bit better.

In essence, my changes to the marine guns center around three alterations:
1) Tightening the cones of fire. In NS all marine guns have a set cone of fire that does not change. (no recoil, etc.) By tightening the cones of fire on the LMG, HMG and shotgun they can do more damage at a longer range. Also, they would be less effective at close range, as spraying the ground at your feet would be less likely to hit a skulk trying to get some two-legged lunch.

2) Reduce the damage of marine weapons. With the cones of fire being tightened, a person who is a good shot would be able to rack up even more kills than he could now. To counter this the guns would have damage reduced so a good shot would not become unstopable.

3) Increase the precision some weapons require. This applies mostly to the shotgun and GL - I'll explain what I mean better in the weapon-by-weapon changes.


How each weapon is effected:

1) Knife: The knife just needs a slight nerf to range so skulks can bite a knifing marine with less of a risk of being stabbed.

2) Pistol: No change. IMO the pistol best reflects what the marines guns should behave like.

3) LMG (Light machinegun): The LMG doen't need a whole lot of tweaking - a slightly tighter cone and only a point or two of damage taken off per bullet.

4) HMG (Heavy Machinegun): The HMG needs a fair bit of tweaking. IMO it should be between 15-17 damage a bullet (currently it's 20) and a concurring increase in accuracy.

5) The GL (Grenade Launcher): The blast radius of the GL's grenades would be cut fairly heavily, to roughly 1/2 or 2/3rds their current size. This would require a marine to actually land a grenade where the aliens are, and not simply spam them into a room and get kills. This would not affect how the GL damages buildings very much, as buidings don't move.

6) The shotgun: I've saved the most heavily-affected weapon for last. The shotgun simply feels wrong to me as it makes a semi-skilled marine considerably better than an equally skiled alien in close range combat. Essentially when the marine should be at his weakest (when an alien is in melee range) a shotgunner is at his strongest - he can obliterate 3 out of the 5 alien lifeforms in just a few shots - often just one.

First off, the shotgun would recieve a hefty tightening of it's cone of fire. The pellets would become more effective at a medium range, but it would be more difficult to land a shot at a skulk biting your ankles. Second, the effective range of the shotgun would be limited (the B6 limit is 500 units for full damage and 700 units for 0 damage. I think boosting that to 700-900 would ba a place to start). After a certain distance, the pellets of a shotgun would do less or no damage. This would prevent the 'sniper shotgun' effect. Lastly, the rate of fire of the shotgun would also be decreased significantly. I have been unable to test this, but I beleive increasing the delay between shots by 35 to 50% would make it far less of a 'spam-able' weapon.
The next change for the shotgun revolves around it's ammo: I beieve it would be better if it only had the ability to store 6 shells in a magazine and a marine could carry 60 spare shells.
With all of those drastic changes, the shotgun would need little reduction of it's damage - I think cutting the damage from 17 per pellet to 13-15 per pellet would suffice.


Here are some of the pros and cons that I've thought up for my idea:
PROS
1) Marines become more effective at long ranges where they are supposed to excell.
2) Aliens have a better chance of killing a marine in CQC like they are supposed to.
3) This would make the marines require as much skill as the aliens do (or at least help even the ammount of skill required to play each side well).
4) This would reduce the 'overpowered' feeling that some guns have in NS.
5) Nadespam would be far less annoying/effective.

CONS
1) This would up the learning curve of NS a little more.
2) This would require a lot of balancing and playtesting.

What do you guys think?

hmmm...

first set- no all around... just makes it plain weird- we should, if anything, implement a random spread like real guns (have a small area in which it can affect, 1 shot being very accurate, 3-5 round bursts being good at range, and full auto being useless for anything more than medium range) and have the SG NOT have a spread pattern that is preset 0o'

Knife- do you REALLY think your arm is shorter than a skulk's jaw? Really now? My arm is about 2.5 feet long, or somewhere around there. I REALLY don't want to meet a skulk that has a lower jaw that long- just call him a dorkfish

2) agree

3) mmm... I dunno... we could try it...

4) no- simply no. the HMG's RoF should make it THE least accurate weapon in the game- it's firing cone should be horrible at range, but very tight up close (as at a short range the bullet going out at a 2* angle won't be very far off course anyway)

5) The GL should be made into either a High Explosive of a Frag nade- Why?

Look at the dynamics- a skulk SHOULD take less damage than a gorge or a fade. Simply put, it is smaller, and thus less of the blast, shrapnel, and thus force, actualy hits it. Thus it should require a DIRECT hit to 1 hit ko a skulk with anything less than a lvl 3 gl... cause who ISN"T tired of being killed as they spawn by a GL attacking the hive?

6) Dear god no... if you want to change the sg then why not"

Give it a MUCH higher damage (say 2x what it is now) but make it a PUMP action... that way, a skilled skulk can run in, dodge the shot, and get the kill BEFORE the rine can get another blow in! Now it's just BAM BAM BAM BAM! An SG fires almost as fast as a skulk bites! That simply makes no sense, as the recoil would 1) rip the marines arm CLEAR off, and, if not, then at LEAST compact his shoulder, and 2) reduce any form of aim to a mere laughable faccimily of point click boom boom... Now, this makes the SG a true fade / lerk counter in that it can do high damage fast- in close this damage would be less (say 50% total if les than 200 units ) because the pellets cannot spread and thus impact a small area, between 200-500 units they do 100% damage, and from 500-1000 they decrease to zero every 100 set by 20%. That would simulate the shed of speed by the pellets! Now, the onos should take 50% damage from the shotgun (as should any carapace alien IMHO) as their hard outer shell would deflect and richochet many of the small pellets, since there isn't much mass behind them!

WAIT WAIT A SECOND.

beta 6 - featuring aliens that don't need res to get upgrades!! 0 res upgrades for all!!

There might not be a need to nerf marine weapons, considering the fact that beta 6 is coming it with this 0 res alien upgrade bonus. It's going to make a huge hit on ns strats.

Some of the weapon nerfs, especially the shotgun would make killing higher lifeforms such as fades almost impossible.

Worst ideas ever. Shotguns and GLs now worthless.

Even LMG has a 10 or 20% reduction in damage. That's a lot over an entire clip.

You made it harder for marines to shoot aliens (because cone of fire is now smaller) AND you reduced the damage?

I agree that shotguns fire too quickly. 8 shells a shotgun is fine. The ROF should be halved, and the damage doubled. Skulks that dodge the first hit have a fighting chance to land some bites. The marine should still win most of the time because a shotgu costs RES.

Just remember, shotguns are only really good against skulks. Lerks don't ever need to come in close. Gorges shouldn't be going up against shotties anyways, and Fade has blink and Oni can take the hits. Only skulks lack a good way of dealing with the shotty, until hive2 comes and leap appears.

To be honest, for long distances (I am talking the length of ns_bast refinery hive) the pistol is dead accurate. I do not see a need to really change the other weapons when you already have a weapon capable of doing 200 damage per clip.

I can see you have put a lot of time into creating this thread, but I would have to disagree with increasing accuracy and lowering damage. Also, currently the LMG is plenty accurate and at medium to long range, just shooting at the skulk will cause most of the bullets to hit, and with the decreased damage you propose, it will pretty much cause the same amount of damage (More bullets hit at a longer range for decreased damage compared to less bullets hit for normal damage). The only thing that this would do is increase the time taken to kill skulks, making them very deadly at close range.

There are many tight corners on some maps and the decreased damage could spell doom for those styles of maps.

LMG should reduce the damage and cone of fire. Simple reason being, the LMG is the initial gun, and deals with lower lifeforms (skulks lerks and gorges) which are generally smaller in size. The only issue is hitting them, and thus precision would be a beneficial add-on.

Shotgun, is higher up, and therefore should be able to take out 2 or 3 of the aliens in a few shots (veterans can take em in 1, oh well). The problem is shotgun sniping with the "precise" crosshairs. Although this has been dealt with to an extent in the new build (after a certain distance, damage reduces) a better solution would be to make a random scatter effect to prevent sniping, but the allow the shotgunner to actually do something at long range. (if you were a shotgunner and couldn't harm an onos until it was stomp range away, you are pretty much a free meal)

HMG shouldnt be changed, it is the ender of all lifeforms. It has a high ROF and a large spray because it is the heavy duty killer of larger lifeforms (and small ones too). At current, the HMG has little trouble hitting an onos at any rooms length. Although hitting a fast moving skulk in a similar manner is a different matter, that is where the backup LMG and Shotgun cover fire comes in. Failing that, there is always your trusty pistol.

The GL statement, I can understand, it is technically the most n00b weapon on the marine side. Anyone can do it, even 4 year olds (I've tested, he got 5 kills GG). A reduce radius would make it require atleast a LITTLE bit of skill or tactics. I'm not sure if this is in already or not, but perhaps a "reduced damage to aliens, increased damage to buildings" would help?

and a note for skulks dealing with crazy knifers, most of the time they will look directly down, and stab while jumping, if they do this, move away from them, and time an attack, it works well.

I'm moving this because it is a legit idea, but holy cow that would take some work to balance.. Talk about revamping how every single player plays the game they have played for the last 2 years... YIKES!!!

As if the aliens team up as well?

Marines need good guns to take down higher life forms. Simple as that. Nerf their guns, and they are history. Skulks already get a boost in b6 becuase they get FREE upgrades now. Whereas before no skulk got upgrades when b6 comes everybody will get them.

Only lower lifeofrms needed some help vs marine guns. So, with actual upgrades, lower lifeforms will fare better. Fades and Onos already laugh at shotguns and grenade launchers. Why do you want to nerf it to the point where comms won't drop them?

fine, IGNORE my comment

I still think this idea sucks... requires a LOT of work for a little change really...

And all the CS idiots get a bonus... cause they all were headshot ****... and now will be DEAD accurate and pwn the skulks forever now!

What about the HMG- you REALLY want that thing to be able to nail a skulk across a long hallway? REALLY? Why? It is SUPPOSED to be inaccurate!

Nah, HMG is meant to be spray and pray- it is a fade / onos killer... not a skulk mauler. Heavy guns countered by small life forms, small guns countered by large life forms. Mix countered by Mix

The grenade could be made much like leap is- done by time exposed to the attack's connection, but with one change- the HITBOX would be the determinant. Thus, instead of a skulk /gorge/lerk (which, AFAIK use the same hitbox, with exception for the lerks wings) would take less damage than the medium hitbox of a fade / marine, and even less than the GIMONGOUS one of the onos / hive

I agree the Shotgun is currently too effective, and the GL too spammy. The changes proposed for the Shotgun seem a little too drastic (kinda like when nobody ever used the Shotgun) but nothing a little tweaking couldn't fix.
However, I don't agree with the suggestions for the LMG and HMG...

High-accuracy weapons allows skill to play a larger role (skill plays too large a role already, in my opinion). So, increasing the accuracy of the weaponry, also increases the gap between the two extremes of the player skill levels, putting more emphasis on individual skill (whereas NS was originally about teamwork).

This is similar to the situation with Fades right now. Its high mobility is the potential for skill. You'll have a bunch of people with an insane ability to kill (because they can react fast and aim accurately), and then you have the rest of the people, the 30-second Fades.

Tightening the cones of the HMG could be an answer... Onos are fat targets and a small cone would mean success in hitting the onos, but still allow skulks to counter hmgers. Shotgun would be the complete opposite doing spread damage that would not be as damaging as the hmg, but enough to kill skulks.

But making the game balanced is a whole other matter. I really do hope the BUS is some sort of player skill system similar to Warcraft 3 or Halo 2. This way it will lessen games where a few vets rape a team of nubs. Balance is not only within the game, but on player skill.

Either that, or allow weapons to be more user-friendly to bring noobs and pros closer to each other. It's funny as in other RTS games you have a solid counter to this unit, but in NS, skill can faulter balance. It's kinda like rock-paper-scissors, except your scissor is a chainsaw. Each should have a significant weakness right?

Yoj've soloed Higher Lifeforms by yourself when it wasn't already hurt? They must've been some CRAPPY players then. Besides that, the Shotty is very much less of a concern to higher lifeforms than the HMG, becuase the Shotty (especially in b6) has no range. The HMG can damage a Fade just fine from far away, but a shotty will have no chances at killing that fade as it is running away. Shotties only cause higher lifeforms to retreat temporarily. HMGs can KILL. An Onos can stomp you at a range where Shotties begin to be less effective anyways.

Actually what most commanders/combat teams fail to realise is a SG/HMG/1 Gl combo will do is amazing A fade come in for attack on an HMGer an SGer appears from no where and hits him twice in the back... his steadily declining health now has taking two great leaps down and he panics. If you don't get the fade then I dunno whats wrong (Espically a Gler predicts the course of a fade so it meets a gernade on its retreat)

Exactly! Even if 2 carapace fades come in and attack this group

lvl 3 guns
lvl 2 armor
welders all around
2 shotguns
2 HMG's
1 GL
2 LMG's

that is my standard NS battle group! They go, set a PG (the GL builds it while the others defend) and then attack! A fade blinks in, wham he's lost 20-50% hp from the HMg's at range, then as he blinks in to swipe or blinks past us, he takes damage from the SG's, normaly another 40-90% his HP! And then the Gl pops 2 nades at his entrance and exit so that he takes another 10% dmg! And all this time the HMG's and LMG's are sprayin him with lead!

I think the only rine weapons that really needs a change right now is the shotty. I agree with bullethead actually, make it higher damage, higher spread and a pumper. That would make it a MUCH better gun against oni and fades while reducing its effecttiveness against skulks and lerks. This is much closer to what it would realistically be, if ns could be called realistic.

what really dont understand is: why in a game based in the far furture, are marines STILL using guns with bullet rounds, and a knife for christ sake?

they have the ability to teleport, fly with jetpacks, see living creatures thru solid walls, and recivie ammo health, and any equip from 1 guy sitting in a chair, etc, etc.....but guns that seem to relefct somewhere in the 21st century.

come on people, where are all the real futuristic GUNS!!!!?

Hmm...I thought the weapon spread was a client-side effect. That is, the LMG and HMG are already 100% accurate, it's just that client renders it as a random spread. Did they fix that?

The randomization includes the SG as well...being only client side, but they are very accurate. you can get xhairs that show where your bullets will go with a SG. it has 5 bullets with a close spread, and 5 bullets with a very wide spread.

LMG and HMG have a set "cone" of firing. All bullets will land within that cone.

Meh, I still say this for SG-

make it do 10 dmg a pellet, with 20 pellets, for 200 dmg a pop, but make it only hold 6 shells and be pump action- also no shooting during reloads UNLESS you are doing it after one bullet load (to my knowledge, if you try to shoot a pump SG after you have more than 1 but less than full ammo load, it will jam because the shells are not positioned right- then again, I don't use a semi-auto or pump shotgun, I use a break-barrel double barrel 8 guage and 12 guage. *shrug*)

I fully understand why DragonMech started this post, and it's exactly what I want in a game.

SKILL!!!

No luck at all, zero ping for all, no recoil, no randomised stuff...the best player wins.
There is a "cone" effect in the HMG/LMG, not shotty and pistol.
Pistol is the best weapon in the game, thats (1) if the hit box is actually where you are shooting.

But about the thing about fades/onos becoming too strong, blah blah...

-Raise the skulk hp to 12 bullets instead of 8 or 9. (Not sure, even with perfect aim, at 10 ft half the bullets actually hit...again if 1.)

-Raise gorge to 180 hp?
-Raise lerk to 50 bullets lvl 0

My problem...You take it everyone can run NS at 60+ frames per secoound.I like the nade launcher or shotgun,becuase my FPS drops SHARPLY in fire fights.I can walk around the ready room and what not and not drop a single frame below 50 alot of times.I get 15 sometimes 20 in a fire fight with a single skulk.even less with something like an onos.I have the latest drivers and all for my crappy radeon 9200SE 128 pci card,and it still runs NS well not during combat,and like shat during combat...


so,think about it,a private is faceing a skulk who can rip him up in secounds.Privates are,normally,not battle experianced.Thus,he shakes his gun while fireing because he's scared...

go get a Radeon 9600 man... not expensive and I run NS at a smooth 100 fps all the way, cept when I see Sheena's high high omg WTH bbq smexy female fatale marine come on screen... then my PC dies from love XD

would be nice if I had the money to do so think I wouldn't have it anyway?! (btw,I only got PCI slots...)

Really, I think that the current Rine weapons should be innacurate. After all, look at what they are: Light Machine Gun, Shotgun, Heavy Machine Gun.
I think that instead of looking at changing the current weapons to be more accurate, you should think of 1 or 2 accurate weapons that could be added. The innacurate would need spray weapons to complement them, and vice versa. After all, wars aren't won with all rifles or all machine guns, are they?

(This would require a massive balance overhaul, though, so go on with current weapon changes )

DragonMech: You are my hero. Cant agree more.

These changes sound pretty good to me. I would like to see the shotgun act more like the pumpshotty in CSS if possible, as right now the gun just feels weird.

I think my favorate aspect that these changes would bring is that they would allow for more teamwork. With a tight cone of fire for the HMG and shotty, things like surgigally removing an offending skulk from your buddies ankles would be much more of a viable option, expecially if he has done his part and put a good few rounds into the thing as it jumped on him. Even LMG cover would be easier because you could snipe skulks away from your buddy while he is at the other end of the hall.

The other major pro is that when we convert to NS:S, changes like this could help downplay the lack of bunnyhopping, as they would force the skulks to think creatively and ambush more often in order to get in at the closest ranges possible on the melee nerfed marines. bunnyhopping would be less attractive, because open hallway rushes would be suicide to any type of triangulated fire whatsoever.

I dont like this, even though I see where your going...

My point is that a skilled marine today can kill in every range, while a skilled alien can close any range...

A new player playing alien will be gunned down by more experienced players as soon as he peaks out of his duct, while a new marine wont hit much at all against bhoping skulkorz of dewm etc.

NS is not like CS, in the way that the maps themselves play alot bigger role. And the knife must be nerfed. We shouldnt see knife kills in melee combat with both sides on 100% from the start.

in my view shotgun could act like grenade launcher to train aim of the player when u shoot the wall the bullets roll on and then blow after few seconds like greanade aluncher so player can shoot far structures like grenade launcher but les massive damage.

Practically all your ideas dont have merit, shotguns are designed for close range, not attach a scope and snype at long range. however i like your lmg idea. atm its impractical for long range, and pistol only works good against slow moving or still targets. Perhaps as an upgrade tho just change the model so it has a scope again! yay

no because this game has too many tight corners and ambush spots.


if marine weapons became less effective at short range i think it would seriously put aliens ahead.



no alien in his right mind rushes at a marine where this decreased cone of fire would actually be effective.

I like the idea on one exeption.

they just fixed the shotty to prevent shotgun sniping, and you want to make it better on range again? We just took that out.

I understand why you think this is a problem but imagine for a second ...

You are a skulky and you peak your head out of a vent and parasite two of four marines from a fair distance where only the pistol is of worry.

You feel gutsy and try to get at least one more. You peak your head out and get wasted in .1 seconds because the marines virtually have auto-pistols.

The HMG could use a little tweaking I agree. Its cone is too wide and it becomes a spray-n-pray weapon and is too ineffective at long range.

The shotty long range nerf was a very good thing. The shotty was ment to be a skulk shredder. Lerks should never been close enough for a shotty to be effective. Gorges will get wasted by anything. Shotties are fairly effective versus stupid fades.

The shotty is a great way to capatalize on a struggling alien economy. If the aliens don't have lerks and not too many RTS, drop shotties, get close to their hive, and choke them.

NS maps are full of ceilings, blindspots and vents. Skulks can easily get into ambush positions, or use bait to distract marines while skulks come in from other positions.

In B6 now, due to free upgrades, skulks have ABILITIES that let them close more easily.

DC - Carapace - Take more damage going in
MC - Celerity - Close the Distance - Silence - Silent Backstab
SC - Need I say more?

This means that, given a non-newbie Kharaa team, marines will be fighting at close to medium range, EVERY SINGLE TIME. With this change, marines will excel at long range. The problem is, long range combat is never going to happen.

There is a reason why the TSA sent in the marines equipped with 50-clip LMGs with a larger cone rather than 30-clip precision Assault Rifles against in-your-face skulk humping action.

so you make the lmg and hmg require more skill to aim and that allows to hit at longer distances but fail up cloase? sounds good. now why dont you leave the shotgun how it is so it gives it a purpose... killing up close. so now you have a choice of a long range or short range weapon. this will get rid of the feeling that the hmg is the superior choice all around when selecting a gun.

really think about it. you never want a shotgun when requesting from a commander do you? its always hmg or gl. with this it gives the choice of having short or long range damaging abilities so that the shotgun is still a viable choice when you have hmg's and gl's.

I actually prefer the shotgun half the time because the HMG takes forever to reload, and also it only does half damage to buildings.

the shotgun is the only weapon that needs adjustment imo. it's too powerful at the moment. i'd take a level 3 shotgun over hmg unless i plan on camping vents a lot, which is not right. the shotgun should be an intermediate weapon (or cheap, but weaker alternative) to the hmg, should should be the heaviest firepower. instead of tightening the cone of fire, it should be WIDENED A LOT. it should be widened to the cone like the shotgun in doom 3 (you have to be nearly point blank to hit a fade sized target with all the pellets. it should be impossible to hit a skulk, gorge, or lerk with all the pellets unless you're point blank. this would fix the overpoweredness of the shotty vs small aliens, but still be powerful vs the likes of the onos.

Well, put it this way. How many ns rooms are really big, and that you need to shoot taht far? I say keep the guns the way they are, and fix the shotgun from its buggyness.

I'd actually rather the shotgun over HMGs and GLs because of the reload times, and because it can kill structures faster.

But it's nice to have a HMGer cover my ****, or a GLer bomb the uber big wall of lame.

The shotgun is useful throughout, fulfilling both the HMG and GL roles very well, only at short range, which is the knockoff.

Well, here are my two cents:

I do not see a reason why recoil shouldn't be in a game. However, with every weapon upgrade you perform, performance of the gun becomes better. Smaller cone, less recoil.

However, the shotty cannot become a long-range weapon. It's a close combat defense for marines and cannot be made to take out structures at a good distance away. That's just not a shotgun (unless we implemented slugs, and I know we aren't going to do alternative ammo types for marines... in the FAQ).

But for the shotty, recoil can be reduced as weapons get better. I have seen upgrades to current shotguns that can reduce the kick and increase the distance, but the pellets still tend to spread.

As for gl spamming, the idea to reduce the splash range is something I can agree on, but it still needs balancing. We can't make the splash be like the panzerfaust in DoD. That would defeat the purpose.

Takes?

There is no recoil for a reason... play 1 game of cs and u will relize it. Try shooting bursts of shots at a bhopping skulk. If u dont miss all ur bursts (say 2 burests of 3 shots each) The skulk still has 3-4 bullets he can take and he is now on u.

The only weapon that REALLY bothers me is the shottie b/c of the glitched up dead on shots i fire that just role off the skulk... thats really annoying but its a hitbox issue i think D:.

beam i dont think they mean make the recoil as bad as cs. i believe there should be some recoil. make those marines work for that long range advantage they have, just like skulks have to work for getting close to marines.