Give people a Melee AND Ranged slot

[Kaelent]

I think 2 equipment slots would be great. How would I handle it?

Equipment slots are 'primary' and 'secondary'. By default the primary weapon is what the AI will use (current behavior with 1 slot).
Some weapons/equipment cannot be equipped as the primary (rocket launchers as an example as they do not currently auto-fire and are single use).
Weapons and equipment get a 'weight' assigned to them.
Pawns have a strength value that determines how much they can carry based off background, wounds, bionics, and what not.
Pawns can exceed their weight limit, but are slowed and get the 'encumbered' negative moodlet.

So M24/Uzi, R4/Grenades, Pistol/Rocket Launcher, Incendiary Launcher/Club (yes, set them on fire then beat them to death. MUHAHAHA). Minigun/Nothing (it be heavy man). etc etc etc.

Honestly, having an additional equipment slot opens up a lot more possibilities like having a non-lethal and lethal weapon or even having non-combat equipment like fire extinguishers (still hate fire).

[Chibiabos]

I think its a bit silly that someone could haul around a minigun AND a longsword.  I think balance reasons, force folk to choose for most colonists between a big gun or a big melee, make my idea of creating an encumbrance system I think better (besides which it also makes some strong guy colonists better suited to hauling things, maybe able to haul bigger stacks or more than one chunk at a time).

[Eleazar]

After thinking about it, I'm going to come out against carrying two weapons.  An important ingredient in making a game fun is giving the player interesting and significant decisions. "Do I equip this guy as ranged of melee?" Is such a decision. And "how many melee soldiers do I need? How do arrange the two?"  It may not be the deepest strategy decision, but it is something, which would go away (partly or entirely depending on whose version you go with) and leave all the fighters less distinct, more interchangeable.

[Joshuasca]

Wouldn't it be great if you could give each character a ranged weapon AND a melee weapon to use?  That way when you tell your people to put down their guns and go at it tooth and nail, they're not going in unarmed.

I agree with your observation: one weapon per pawn is bad.

I just do not think, that "melee+ranged" is good enough replacement. How about grenades + assault rifle? How about sword (to kill) + club (to capture)? How about backup pistols? (we will have breakable weapons in next update, right?) How about pistol to carry with that tripple rocket launcher?

IMO we must have more complex system from tactical RPG like Jagged Alliance, X-COM or Project Zomboid. Some main features:
- Inventory for pawns to carry items
- Weight and/or size system to limit ammount of items
- Slots to assign items (both apparel and weapons); possible fast slots to switch between few weapons

+1  my sentiments exactly

[Vagabond]

Hrm... My ideas on this!

I would like to see the "Gear" tab altered to a more RPG look, with slots.

Head: Helmets/Hats
Shoulders: Cloaks/Shoulder pads; specifically shoulder mounted items.
Arms: Bracers
Hands: Gloves
Chest: Breast Plate
Legs: Greaves
Feet: Boots

Ranged Weapon Slot: Gun/Bow
Melee Weapon Slot: Pneumatic Pick/Sword
Shield Slot: Bubble Shield/Riot Shield/PLEADS
Accessory Slot?: Toolbelt?

Weapons are categorized as either one handed or two handed, and light or heavy. A heavy ranged weapon would be things like rpgs, bazookas, and miniguns; they are the only weapons where they can't be equipped with a melee weapon, and keep current weapon behavior.  A gun and a melee weapon can be equipped at the same time.
-One handed gun, one handed melee: can be used at the same time (space marine style)
-one handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in melee, the gun will be holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-Two handed gun, one handed melee: When engaged in melee, the gun is holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-two handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in mele, the gun is dropped and the melee weapon drawn.


In regards to clothing and armor, they can take up more than one slot, but can also be overlapped. As an example: A jumpsuit would cover everything except the head, hands, and shoulder, but you could wear power armor over it.

Two types of shields:

-Conventional shields are like riot shields, kite shields, and gungan-style energy shields. Conventional shields act as mobile cover with a chance to turn a hit into a miss depending on the size of the shield. Each shield could have a damage threshold that would allow things like high powered rifles to nullify the m

-Then there is the "bubble" shield. These shields work on a 'charge', meaning that each hit removes a charge that regenerates over time. It would be based off kinetic force, as in, it requires a certain amount of force to be applied to the shield in order for it to block entry/exit. Melee attacks and primitive ranged weapons could pass both ways through the shield.

-A final type of shield could be a "PLEADS", Personal Laser Energy Advanced Defence System. I named it myself! It is based on the Navy's LaWS. Basically, this is like a body mounted laser that tracks incomming projectiles and shoots a laser at it, either cancelling out another form of energy or vaporizing a conventional projectile. This would require a battery, that once depleted would have to be recharged or simply a new put in.

I also like the idea of a way to gauge each pawns strength to determine how much they can carry/their inventory space and an encumberance system with all items having weight. . .

I've found combat AI quite interesting myself. I've often tossed around the idea ammunition. Instead of specific ammunition types, why not have just four types?

Projectiles: Arrows, Bolts, *javelins, ect.

*In the case of hand thrown weapons, the last one is always kept so they can melee with it if needs arise. But you can order them to "reload" if you'd prefer them to continue throwing.

Light Rounds: Basicially any conventional pistol, rifle, carbine, shotgun, browning turret.

Energy Rounds: Used for energy weapon systems

Heavy Rounds: Ammo for rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and things like mortar turrets.

You would craft these, and they'd have large stacks. You could stock them in resupply caches near engagement zones. Enemies will have these same restrictions; if they come to your base to siege, they will bring extra ammo cans with them, it would take a certain amount of time for them to get more based on how far their base is. If they come to "raid", they leave when they all run out of ammo, but will resupply using your stock if they can safely path to it.

I also think that tactical orders, similar to Dragon Age: Origins would be interesting. Being able to sell your colonist with the sniper rifle to target the farthest enemy (who is most likely a sniper themselves) would be nice. As well as having your guy with the minigun target "groups" of enemies of three or more. Your dudes with pistols could be told to attack the closest enemies.

I think cover should be way more powerful. The chance to hit someone peeking around a corner should be very high. At the same time, weapons should be way more accurate. The first time my dad took me to a shooting range (first time using a gun; he's military so he felt it important I learned) I hit the target seven out of ten times. Four of the shots were kill shots. My brother (20) and I put bows into my seven year old son's and ten year brother's hands and had them shoot. By the end of the day, they were hitting the target reliably at ten yards. I won't get into bullseyes with them, because a lot of their 'hits' didn't penetrate the target (due to their strength, and the practice points).

A target standing still, or moving towards you can be reliably hit by even people new at shooting. Though I understand the difficulty of hitting laterally moving targets. A year later, my son took a fat rabbit down at about nine yards as it fled. With a bow. Good soup.

So...there we are. I think cover should mean a lot more. Increased accuracy against open targets. Make it so characters won't fire at an enemy if a friendly is between them and the enemy. Tactical options would be nice too.

There could be tactical presets based on weapon for AI controlled pawns. . .

I could see like...firing 'cones' when you select a pawn or object that fires. The length and width of the cone would show you where and how far they could fire. They could interact with objects so that the cone's path will "break" when it hits a solid object. In the same situation of a combative unit/object being selected, any enemy units can have a specific highlight color.

Ie: a green to red spectrum in which the brighter the green, the easier they are to hit. Then you'd have yellows/oranges and then finally reds which would be the lowest chance of hitting.

These points from my last post are ones I do stand behind:
-Cover should make it incredibly hard to be hit; obviously influenced by how 'good' the cover is.
-Pawns should elect to fire at another enemy if there is an ally in the line of fire; or not shoot at all.
-Enemies moving towards a pawn should be easier to hit
-pawns moving laterally, in relation to an attacking enemy, should be harder to hit.
-Generally improving the accuracy of attacks against pawns not in cover.

Cheers,
Michael

[hwoo]

Hrm... My ideas on this!

I would like to see the "Gear" tab altered to a more RPG look, with slots.

Head: Helmets/Hats
Shoulders: Cloaks/Shoulder pads; specifically shoulder mounted items.
Arms: Bracers
Hands: Gloves
Chest: Breast Plate
Legs: Greaves
Feet: Boots

Ranged Weapon Slot: Gun/Bow
Melee Weapon Slot: Pneumatic Pick/Sword
Shield Slot: Bubble Shield/Riot Shield/PLEADS
Accessory Slot?: Toolbelt?

Weapons are categorized as either one handed or two handed, and light or heavy. A heavy ranged weapon would be things like rpgs, bazookas, and miniguns; they are the only weapons where they can't be equipped with a melee weapon, and keep current weapon behavior.  A gun and a melee weapon can be equipped at the same time.
-One handed gun, one handed melee: can be used at the same time (space marine style)
-one handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in melee, the gun will be holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-Two handed gun, one handed melee: When engaged in melee, the gun is holstered and the melee weapon drawn
-two handed gun, two handed melee: when engaged in mele, the gun is dropped and the melee weapon drawn.


In regards to clothing and armor, they can take up more than one slot, but can also be overlapped. As an example: A jumpsuit would cover everything except the head, hands, and shoulder, but you could wear power armor over it.

Two types of shields:

-Conventional shields are like riot shields, kite shields, and gungan-style energy shields. Conventional shields act as mobile cover with a chance to turn a hit into a miss depending on the size of the shield. Each shield could have a damage threshold that would allow things like high powered rifles to nullify the m

-Then there is the "bubble" shield. These shields work on a 'charge', meaning that each hit removes a charge that regenerates over time. It would be based off kinetic force, as in, it requires a certain amount of force to be applied to the shield in order for it to block entry/exit. Melee attacks and primitive ranged weapons could pass both ways through the shield.

-A final type of shield could be a "PLEADS", Personal Laser Energy Advanced Defence System. I named it myself! It is based on the Navy's LaWS. Basically, this is like a body mounted laser that tracks incomming projectiles and shoots a laser at it, either cancelling out another form of energy or vaporizing a conventional projectile. This would require a battery, that once depleted would have to be recharged or simply a new put in.

I also like the idea of a way to gauge each pawns strength to determine how much they can carry/their inventory space and an encumberance system with all items having weight. . .

I've found combat AI quite interesting myself. I've often tossed around the idea ammunition. Instead of specific ammunition types, why not have just four types?

Projectiles: Arrows, Bolts, *javelins, ect.

*In the case of hand thrown weapons, the last one is always kept so they can melee with it if needs arise. But you can order them to "reload" if you'd prefer them to continue throwing.

Light Rounds: Basicially any conventional pistol, rifle, carbine, shotgun, browning turret.

Energy Rounds: Used for energy weapon systems

Heavy Rounds: Ammo for rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and things like mortar turrets.

You would craft these, and they'd have large stacks. You could stock them in resupply caches near engagement zones. Enemies will have these same restrictions; if they come to your base to siege, they will bring extra ammo cans with them, it would take a certain amount of time for them to get more based on how far their base is. If they come to "raid", they leave when they all run out of ammo, but will resupply using your stock if they can safely path to it.

I also think that tactical orders, similar to Dragon Age: Origins would be interesting. Being able to sell your colonist with the sniper rifle to target the farthest enemy (who is most likely a sniper themselves) would be nice. As well as having your guy with the minigun target "groups" of enemies of three or more. Your dudes with pistols could be told to attack the closest enemies.

I think cover should be way more powerful. The chance to hit someone peeking around a corner should be very high. At the same time, weapons should be way more accurate. The first time my dad took me to a shooting range (first time using a gun; he's military so he felt it important I learned) I hit the target seven out of ten times. Four of the shots were kill shots. My brother (20) and I put bows into my seven year old son's and ten year brother's hands and had them shoot. By the end of the day, they were hitting the target reliably at ten yards. I won't get into bullseyes with them, because a lot of their 'hits' didn't penetrate the target (due to their strength, and the practice points).

A target standing still, or moving towards you can be reliably hit by even people new at shooting. Though I understand the difficulty of hitting laterally moving targets. A year later, my son took a fat rabbit down at about nine yards as it fled. With a bow. Good soup.

So...there we are. I think cover should mean a lot more. Increased accuracy against open targets. Make it so characters won't fire at an enemy if a friendly is between them and the enemy. Tactical options would be nice too.

There could be tactical presets based on weapon for AI controlled pawns. . .

I could see like...firing 'cones' when you select a pawn or object that fires. The length and width of the cone would show you where and how far they could fire. They could interact with objects so that the cone's path will "break" when it hits a solid object. In the same situation of a combative unit/object being selected, any enemy units can have a specific highlight color.

Ie: a green to red spectrum in which the brighter the green, the easier they are to hit. Then you'd have yellows/oranges and then finally reds which would be the lowest chance of hitting.

These points from my last post are ones I do stand behind:
-Cover should make it incredibly hard to be hit; obviously influenced by how 'good' the cover is.
-Pawns should elect to fire at another enemy if there is an ally in the line of fire; or not shoot at all.
-Enemies moving towards a pawn should be easier to hit
-pawns moving laterally, in relation to an attacking enemy, should be harder to hit.
-Generally improving the accuracy of attacks against pawns not in cover.

Cheers,
Michael

I've been playing since day one and everything here has been well thought out and has very balanced counters to all the advantages so we wouldn't have to worry about our colonies becoming colonial marines in a instant.

This has my full support and I would love to have tynans opinions on this. He after all is our lord and saviour. Amen.

[Anduin1357]

It is based on the Navy's LaWS

more like it is based off laser CIWS.
Other than that, support.

[BetaSpectre]

Personally I don't like a carry weight system. Just cause its not that important IMO. The system as is works but if there are some tweaks it'll be awesome.

[Anduin1357]

Carry weight can decrease cell movement speed, compound terrain walk ineffectiveness...
Actually, I kinda is against the idea of generic ammo since ammo is vital to immersion.
Light rounds are the worst of the examples, "You found a cache of 1 light round" Ok, let's turn it into 7.62mm and fire one shot of that LMG, it's worth more than using it with a Saturday Night Special (Ultralight pistol)!"

When light rounds are so vastly different ie. .22 short (5.6x10.7mm) vs 7.62x51mm, having distinct ammo types can grant awesome advantages to those with lighter rounds to carry more of that specific ammo than that of the heavier ones.
Don't believe me? Check this out:

-Wikipedia

As you can see, just carrying 5.56mm ammunition rather than 7.62mm has allowed the soldier to carry 2.3x the ammunition.
This can and will add realism, common sense and actual balance rather than a one size fits all ammo. The hard truth is that LMGs(12.7, 7.62, 5.56) just do not use the same ammunition as maybe say, pistols (common 9mm, 5.6mm[.22])

Why am I so worked up about all this? SMGs and PDWs. They use pistol and rifle ammunition respectively. They have high fire rates which would eat through common ammo that might be better used on an LMG. It's ridiculous to simplify ammunition when it has ramifications on balance.

Nobody would ever use pistols and SMGs over Assault Rifles and LMGs AND HMGs on turrets. It's just no longer worth it. Immersion gone, balance gone and the carry weight and capacity would NEVER make sense. Don't talk about having LMGs eat multiple ammo per shot though, one bullet is one bullet.

[b0rsuk]

I don't think Tynan wants this to be Jagged Alliance with base building. Rather, it's a simulation game / story generator which happens to have somewhat interesting combat.

[DNK]

Regarding ammo... It's one of those micro things in Df that make the game a chore. At most, just have a colony wide ammo counter (what's in stockpiles) of one type that, if it runs out, guns stop being fireable. I don't mind it not being I. The game, though.

[Anduin1357]

It could just be something that colonists carry about automatically.
It's no fault of ours that Tynan made combat the single most prominent feature of the game above all. Raids are, after all, how you die.

[Joshuasca]

Personally, i really like the combat in RW, I find it engaging and an interesting vehicle for the story.  It forces you to adopt strategies with base layout and all that.  I don't really like killboxes, and prefer to engage the enemy in a combat zone i have designed to maximize advantage for my colonists.  However, half the weapons in the game are totally crap because if you use it it is all you get.  The most prominent example is frag grenades, which end up killing more colonists than raiders.  Stuff happens fast in combat, especially when everyone gets spread out.  I wish i could switch weapons so frikkin bad - i would be able to take on the raiders in a far more meaningful way, and also take advantage of the strengths of my colonists.  It also seems lame that a typical seasoned colonist has a good melee and ranged skill, yet you can only pick one of these to develope - and after having been assigned a weapon a colonist is only gonna shoot or only do melee.  It just seems like a major design oversight that there is only a single weapon, it makes any atempt to engage the raiders very one sided.  I also prefer to take down the enemy with melee, as it tends to be far less fatal than ranged and results in better colony growth.  However this is really hard cause you have to have a team of colonists who stand idle while the enemy approaches.  Idle brawlers and suicidal grenadiers break all logic to the combat story - 2 weapons fixes this.

[antibodee]

If we're handing out storage space, I think it should be used to allow them to carry a lunch with them.

[Kegereneku]

I wrote the following in another topic :

For the sake of "Rimworld isn't an RPG" and simplicity. I would limit the idea to the following :

- Each colonist has 3 slots
- Those slot are both equipment or weapon
- Equipment mean "can carry medipack/foods/beer".
- The third slot would give move penalty

Nothing else is really necessary or give cost-efficient improvement to the game.

I know many of us imagine "tools" to give more credibility but for now that's a way acceptable break from reality for the sake of gameplay.

It wouldn't be a "Melee/ranged" but I suppose that if a colonist get in melee AND have such weapon a script to switch his knife or trusty beer (yes they are weapon now) shouldn't cause problem.