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VP78 Range + ROF Buff #6267

Merged
merged 4 commits into from
May 15, 2024
Merged

VP78 Range + ROF Buff #6267

merged 4 commits into from
May 15, 2024

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Steelpoint
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@Steelpoint Steelpoint commented May 9, 2024

About the pull request

This PR increases the rate of fire of the VP-78 to something comparable, but slightly slower, than the Mod88 Pistol. Primarily this is significantly buffing the weapon's single-shot mode to be comparable to the rate of fire of the burst firing mode, it also very slightly increases the burst fire's rate of fire. The idea here is to ensure the single-fire is viable to use alongside the burst-fire, wherein currently the single-fire is objectively inferior to the burst fire.

This PR also increases the minimum damage falloff range from 0 tiles to 3 tiles, meaning the weapon will now experience falloff from 3 tiles onwards instead of immediately upon exiting the barrel. This is to make this weapon function on-par with almost every other firearm in the game.

Explain why it's good for the game

Born out of this discussion thread: https://forum.cm-ss13.com/t/make-vp78-not-dogshit/8028

In universe the VP78 is billed as the imminent replacement sidearm of the USCMC, and it is also the standard issue sidearm of the Three World Empire's Commando forces, and for the highly placed Corporate PMC forces.

In practice the weapon is completely unusable and is widely seen as being useless as a firearm. It suffers from a myriad of issues, such as noted above how the firearm experiences damage falloff immediately as soon as the bullet leaves the gun, meaning you will only deal the full, advertised, damage to a target if you are sprite-click point-blank shooting a target.

By the time your bullet is 2 to 3 tiles away from you, you are already dealing less than half your expected damage.

Its accuracy is suboptimal as it struggles to strike long range targets (even if you are already dealing 20 to 10 damage per bullet at this range) and its burst fire mode is prone to wild inaccuracy.

Furthermore, its rate of fire is so slow that assuming you are in a white room perfect testing conditions environment, you can spend at minimum of 20 seconds, often far longer, to kill a single, T2 offensive, xeno after expending multiple magazines wherein any other firearm has done so within 5 seconds and with only one magazine.

Because the weapon seems billed as a very powerful pistol, its resupply is constrained to represent this, meaning most Marine roles need to buy ammo from their personal vendor, and requisitions will not purchase, or even bother to send a, resupply crate or spare ammo.

The summation is that this weapons in-universe predecessor, the Mod88, is heads above a superior firearm in virtually every single possible respect to the VP78. Furthermore, the M4A3 pistol, a decidedly even more ancient firearm, is also superior of a firearm to this .

This change is aimed at making the VP78 an actually viable firearm. With damage output similar to some primary weapons, and at least a similar damage output to the other good pistols, but with a harsh ammo supply limit.

I am 100% open to making needed balance changes to make this merge ready, but I assessed this is a good starting spot as the weapon needs something to make it more than a fluff piece.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots & Videos

Put screenshots and videos here with an empty line between the screenshots and the <details> tags.

Changelog

馃啈
balance: The VP78 pistol has received a rate of fire boost, and it will deal full damage up to 3 tiles from the shooter's position before suffering damage falloff.
/:cl:

@github-actions github-actions bot added the Balance You need to be a professional veteran game maintainer to comprehend what is being done here. label May 9, 2024
@nerocavalier
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The rate of fire buff isn't needed, the 3 tiles before falloff is enough to make it into a solid pistol.

@Steelpoint
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Steelpoint commented May 10, 2024

The weapons burst rate of fire remains almost identical to its current version.
However, the single shot ROF is being made higher in this PR, closer to what the burst rate of fire is.

@HumiliatedGoblin
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Burst ROF is almost identical to prior Single shot ROF is higher so its closer in fore rate to brust

@Steelpoint what did you mean by this

@Steelpoint
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I said the PR provides a large buff to the single shot ROF and only a small one to the burst ROF. Burst always had a higher ROF but fairly poor accuracy. The single shot buff makes single shot actually viable instead of a bad choice

@Steelpoint
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Steelpoint commented May 12, 2024

For transparency I'll repost some stat testing I did on the forums


My personal design philosophy is I鈥檇 rather over-buff something to start with and work down during the review process, than be timid to start with and effect a change that has only a minor effect.

In either case, I can give you more raw stats about how the weapons functions.

Basically TL;DR, my proposed fire rate achieves a fairly balanced kill time, in white room conditions, compared to other mainline secondary and primary weapons. The VP78 will still suffer from the fact it has the harshest damage falloff of most guns in the game (even mod88 or M4A3 still deals most of its damage up to 7 tiles whereas the buffed VP78 will still lost half its damage by then) and that the VP78 is much harder to keep resupplied in a long fight due to its ammo being non-standard issue.


(all tests conducted against Warrior at 3 tiles distance, unless stated otherwise these all took a single magazine)

(I should note the VP78 still suffers significant damage reduction at long ranges, this becomes noticeable at 5 to 7 tiles where it is dealing around 25-26 damage versus 45 damage at 3 tiles, other pistols don't suffer from this)

VP78 (With No Damage Falloff to 3 Tiles but with current Rate of Fire)

  • Time To Kill Single Shot -: 13 Seconds
  • Time To Kill: Burst Fire -: 8 Seconds

VP78 (No Falloff plus increased Rate of Fire)

  • Time to Kill Single Shot -: 5 Seconds
  • Time To Kill Burst Fire -: 6 Seconds (Sometimes 8 due to accuracy debuff)

For Comparison to other weapons

M41A Mk2

  • Time To Kill Burst or Single Fire -: 5-6 Seconds

Mod88

  • Time To Kill Single Shot -: 7-8 Seconds
  • Time To Kill Burst Fire -: 6-7 Seconds

M4A3 (takes 1.5 magazines, speed heavily based on how fast you can reload, if you use macros you could achieve sub-3 second kill times)

  • Time To Kill Single Shot -: 4-5 Seconds

@Drulikar Drulikar marked this pull request as draft May 14, 2024 07:56
@Steelpoint
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I've lowered ROF slightly as requested, I did some brief testing and kill time is set to ~9 seconds, based on weapon accuracy, this presumes you are within 3 tiles of the target.

@Steelpoint Steelpoint marked this pull request as ready for review May 14, 2024 14:49
Steelpoint added 2 commits May 14, 2024 22:50
@Drulikar Drulikar added the Balance Approved This PR has had its balance and gameplay-affecting aspects approved. Cry to the Head-maint about it. label May 15, 2024
@Drulikar Drulikar added this pull request to the merge queue May 15, 2024
Merged via the queue into cmss13-devs:master with commit 41a1597 May 15, 2024
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cm13-github added a commit that referenced this pull request May 15, 2024
@Steelpoint Steelpoint deleted the vp78letsgo branch May 15, 2024 04:58
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4 participants