OK, this is my first chance to reply and thereās already fifty posts - hopefully Iām not late to the party. Awesome to see a poll for a big feature like this before itās actually implemented.
Also, Iām really sorry, but this turned out to be a text wall. Please stick it out to the end, hopefully Iāve made it worth reading.
Iāll start by saying that Iām not polarised against any of these options. Theyāre all coming from a pretty good angle. However, I do have some thoughts:
This idea is interesting. I think it would make weapons with fundamentally extreme or situational mechanics (coughAbsolvercough) much more desirable, because it would allow you to cover their weaknesses with a second weapon. On that note, however, how would Corn Shotgun interact with this? I can only see that being confusing at best, and potentially problematic - it would be a shame for the one thing that weapon really has going for it to be taken away even further.
Additionally, what weapon do you begin with as a secondary? Being unable to choose seems like a huge disadvantage for short missions. I donāt see why, if this is a new spaceship model, it canāt just have two slots for weapons on the mounting screen - unless thatās a very gruelling technical hurdle with the code for some reason. This also encourages players to buy more guns and upgrade them.
That would mean, however, that atoms are pointless - because you can upgrade weapons past up to level 8, and so youād essentially start with both at the āmax powerā a Raven can hit. (On that note, would it still be able to get a āMax Powerā points reward? Thatās a significant boost thatās pretty important in competitive missions.) The way itās currently described, a fully upgraded weapon would be in your primary slot, and then all your pickups would feed the secondary.
Perhaps worst of all, I canāt see anyone flying a Bomber with two pylons if you can fly a Raven which has two individually-customisable pylons and no speed penalty. The least popular ship model would just become utterly irrelevant.
Soā¦
ā¦to solve all this stuff above, Iām actually going to suggest a fundamentally different way to run a Dual Weapons concept - patent pending. Have the weapons be selectable, rather than simultaneous. Theyād both draw from the same firepower pool (no limit necessary) but they would replace overdrive on the ship as a trade-off instead. āFiring with overdriveā (double-clicking) simply fires the secondary instead of the primary, which would be tied to regular fire - which also means that mobile players wonāt have any trouble getting in on the fun. Itād also prevent the inevitable visual weirdness of shooting two weapon types at once.
This change makes the Raven less of a kitchen sink ultrapower ship, and more of a versatile swiss army knife that can adapt to the situation at hand - which I think suits the sleek, stealthy visual design of the vessel much better, donāt you? It would be a ton of fun this way to play with.
This āre-workedā Dual Weapons, or something similar, is probably my ideal best-case for the new ship, but if notā¦
As they are described, I like this suggestion the most. Indeed, Iād be okay with this replacing overdrive on all the ships (as @1galbatorix1 semi-suggested), although that leaves the question at hand still open. In fact, my entire thoughts on this proposition (and overdrive just generally) are pretty much exactly as Galbatorix said.
In addition to the concerns that have been mentioned by Galbatorix and @Enhawk (about this essentially adding a feature that removes features) Iād also say something nobody has been talking about - it fundamentally would change the way ship selection works. Currently, thereās no ship (model) thatās just flat-out better in certain circumstances. Bombers are generally looked down on, but the fact is they do give you more firepower at all times, just with a trade-off. H&C is weaker but you get more money. Even if the choices seem pretty obvious to some, in no situation does a ships benefits/detriments ever make it a āwrite-offā bad choice in certain circumstances.
That would no longer be true with the Raven, if it had environmental resistance. There would just be no reason to use this ship on any non-environmental mission. Itās just a flat-out bad pick going into some missions. Not saying thatās absolutely a bad thing, but it does have definite drawbacks, and more importantly, it just changes that way ship selection will look going forward irreversibly from āWhat do I think is best to fly?ā to just āWhat is best to fly?ā and itās worth thinking about if that shift is a good one to make.
Two additional quick notes here. Firstly, the firepower limit is here again - not an issue, but it just reminds me to bring up @GgWw1175ās proposition (I think it was his?) that Mullers be the only spaceship able to hit level 20 (Max Power!) Iām still a big fan of this, because it gives players a much more tangible reason to move on from H&C and a way to tease the Max Power game mechanic in the ship description. Plus, that feels like a really fitting perk for the classic Chicken Invaders spaceship.
Secondly, Iām just going to chime in with @Recruit_75 and everyone else saying that it would be totally fine to stop making environments strictly, purely negative effects - regardless of whether immunity to them comes with the Raven.
Indeed, if enough of these ideas prove popular, it might be cool to see one or both of the ālosingā options return in future spacecraft, if any more are made.
Iād also be ok with this, even (perhaps controversially) if it didnāt buff the overall firerate by 15-25%, at least to begin with. Iād be happy for the Raven to replace these particular perishables, as theyāre rarely ever useful on a per-mission basis as opposed to per-wave.
tl;dr: Dual Weapons if itās rethought into a selection system rather than simultaneous twin-fire at a cost of power. Otherwise, Charge/Discharge is looking good (or what OneWingLunarian proposed).