Hi, I am galbatorix and this is my CIU weapon balance program in which I talk about current issues with weapon balance and I propose solutions for them. More info about what my deal is you can find in my original post: CIU weapon balance program by galbatorix I strongly suggest checking it out, if you haven’t seen it yet, so you will fully understand what my goal is. Today I want to talk about Vulcan Chaingun and Hypergun.
Hypergun and Vulcan Chaingun are two automatic weapons, that originally were very similar to each other, but thanks to Chaingun’s rework in CIU now there is a significant difference between them. Both weapons however are underperforming. Especially Hypergun, that unlike Vulcan Chaingun besides insufficient damage, has a number of other problems. As always, in my post i am going to present my thoughts on how it could be fixed. The issues with Hypergun are:
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Its damage output is low compared to meta weapons such as Utensil Poker and Neutron Gun.
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Hypergun has bumpy power level increases. Some transitions are barely noticable, other are very big. For example, DPS difference between power levels 0 and 1 is only 195. However DPS difference between lvl 1 and lvl 2 is 975, but between levels 3 and 4 it’s again 195.
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Hypergun’s automatic fire rate is surpassed or matched by it’s manual fire rate on all power levels except the last one. Because of that, Hypergun is usually more effective when used manually, despite looking like a fully automatic weapon. And then, after 11 power levels of manual firing, it suddenly becomes rapid-firing machine gun on max power. Such characteristics of a gun are unnecessary and confusing.
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Its time to overheat is also confusing and behaves wildly on various power levels. It is relatively long for power levels 0-10, even when the gun is fired automatically. For max power however, Hypergun’s time to overheat is 4 seonds which is the shortest in the game and on top of inssuficient DPS, makes this gun even more difficult to use effectively.
It’s safe to say, that Hypergun has pretty complicated set of issues, and unfortunately they can’t be fixed as easily as weapons in my previous posts. For example, Hypergun’s volleys are currently designed in a way that it is mathematically impossible to make the power progression smooth.(I can post an explanation for that if there is demand for it.) To fix listed problems, Hypergun needs total overhaul in pretty much all aspects. It wasn’t an easy task, but I think that I’ve come up with a rework that not only fixes all those problems, but also preserves Hypergun’s overall feeling in terms of gameplay.
Let’s start with issue number 2: the bumpy power increases. It can be fixed by reworking Hypergun’s volleys. I suggest to do that in the following way:
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Leave lvl 0 and max power volleys unchanged.
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Make transitions to power levels 2,3,4,6,7,8,10 replace one weak projectile with one strong projectile.
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Make transitions to power levels 1,5,9 replace one strong projectile with 3 weak projectiles.
End result would look like this:
Such change would vastly improve the power progression. (Especially with strong projectile being twice as powerful as weak one.) As a bonus, it would make the front (straight firing) weapon pod always active, so there will not be a feeling of “decreased accuracy” on certain power levels. (Currently power lvl 1 has this problem really visible.)
With that, we have the issue number 2 out of the way. To deal with the issues number 1 and 3, which are insufficient damage output and manual fire rate surpassing automatic, I suggest following steps:
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Increase weak projectile’s damage from 90 to 100.
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Increase stong projectile’s damage from 150 to 200.
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Increase Hypergun’s automatic fire rate on max power from 10,2 to 11,5 shots/s.
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Increase Hypergun’s automatic fire rate on power lvl 0 from 5 to 5,5 shots/s.
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Make automatic fire rate scale with 0,5 shots/s per power level on levels 0-10.
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Add manual fire rate cap for power levels 0-2. 5 ; 5,5 and 6 shots/s respectively. For other power levels standard 6,5 shots/s manual fire rate cap.
Such changes would give Hypergun 12600 DPS on power lvl 10 and 16100 DPS on max power, which should be enough to comepete with meta weapons. Such changes would also make Hypergun a fully automatic weapon , thanks to improved automatic fire rate scaling and manual fire rate cap for earlier power levels.
With that, there is only issue nr 4 left, which is messy overheat times. To fix that, I suggest simple solution:
- Change Hypergun’s overheat time to 9 seconds on all power levels, when automatically firing.
All that would make Hypergun a viable option to choose, even on harder difficulties and should also vastly improve its general feeling.
With Hypergun covered, it’s time to talk a bit about the Vulcan Chaingun. As it turns out, there really isn’t anything wrong with this gun except one really importand thing. The issue with Vulcan Chaingun is:
- Vulcan Chaingun is underperforming on high power levels and slightly overperforming on the low power levels.
It’s as simple as that. Straightforward damage change is everything that Vulcan Chaingun needs to become a really well balanced weapon. So to fix issue number 5 I suggest following steps:
- Decrease weak projectile’s damage from 140 to 100.
- Increase medium projectile’s damage from 180 to 250.
- Increase strong projectile’s damage from 240 to 350.
Such changes would give Vulcan Chaingun 14280 DPS on power level 10 and 17850 DPS on max power, which is very similar to damage output of Neutron Gun and Utensil Poker. It would also make Vulcan Chaingun and reworked Hypergun reasonable alternatives for each other. Vulcan Chaingun would offer more damage in exchange for shorter overheat time and losing accuracy due to gaining heat.
Here you can see results of my proposed changes:
To summarize, I think that Hypergun could be improved by:
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Increasing damage of weak projectile from 90 to 100.
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Increasing damage of strong projectile from 150 to 200.
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Increasing Hypergun’s automatic fire rate on max power from 10,2 to 11,5 shots/s.
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Increasing Hypergun’s automatic fire rate on power lvl 0 from 5 to 5,5 shots/s.
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Making automatic fire rate scale with 0,5 shots/s per power level on levels 0-10.
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Adding manual fire rate cap for power levels 0-2. 5 ; 5,5 and 6 shots/s respectively. For other power levels standard 6,5 shots/s manual fire rate cap.
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Changing Hypergun’s volleys on power levels 1-10 in a way that transitions to power levels 1,5,9 replace one strong projectile with 3 weak projectiles and transitions to power levels 2,3,4,6,7,8,10 replace one weak projectile with one strong projectile.
And Vulcan Chaingun could be improved by:
- Decreasing damage of weak projectile from 140 to 100.
- Increasing damage of medium projectile from 180 to 250.
- Increasing damage of strong projectile from 240 to 350.
Such changes would:
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Give both weapons enough firepower to compete with Neutron Gun and Utensil Poker. (Problems nr 1 & 5 solved)
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Make Hypergun’s power progression smooth. (Problem nr 2 solved)
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Make Hypergun a fully automatic weapon on all power levels. (Problem nr 3 solved)
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Make Hypergun overheat time constant on all power levels and more reasonable on high power levels. (Problem nr 4 solved)
So yea, that’s it for now. Remember to share your thoughts in the comments below. If you think, that I forgot about something, or you have a different idea, feel free to tell me. I am interested in all kinds of feedback. I will make a post about next weapon, so stay tuned.
You can also check out my previous posts:
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 1: Ion Blaster
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 2: Neutron Gun & Utensil Poker
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 3: Plasma Rifle & Positron Stream
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 4: Photon Swarm
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 5: Laser Cannon
- CIU weapon balance program - Part 6: Riddler
