WBP: further weapon balance suggestions (+ test excel sheets)

I’ve decided to break up this batch of reworks into two posts, since several weapons (Laser, Plasma, Positron, Absolver) will require more severe changes and I need a bit more time to cover them. Most changes in this post are simple value tweaks, with a couple of more involved modifications.


Neutron Gun

  • Damage: 330/660/990 → 300/600/900
  • Interval: 0.263 (3.80/s) → 0.240 (4.17/s)

Overall firerate increase.


Vulcan Chaingun

  • Damage: 160/300/420 → 125/250/375
  • Base overheat: 7.8s → 8s

Overall damage nerf (same as previously, but with a stronger Strong projectile), slight overheat buff (though mainly to round it up to .5).

In addition to the above changes, we propose reducing Vulcan’s maximum spread to around the same level it has currently when the player has two spread condensers equipped. Such a change would improve its overall usability and stop it from being a requirement for Comet Chase missions (bring its performance in line with other weapons).


Lightning Fryer

  • Damage:
    140 215 290 395 510 645 780 940 1100 1290 1500 1800

    160 280 400 530 660 790 920 1050 1180 1320 1500 1800
  • Base overheat: 8s → 8.5s

Overall revamp of the progression: mostly linear, stronger on low power


Plasma Rifle

  • AoE multiplier: 0.185 → 0.150

It’s possible that Plasma might need an extensive rework in the future. Lowering the AoE’s damage should make it a bit more balanced for now. The issue of its potential rework will be discussed in the next post.


Utensil Poker

  • Damage: 310/620 → 300/600

Reduction in damage on :zap:0-10.

Along with Laser and Riddler, Utensil requires an additional firerate increase on max power to satisfy the requirement of a max power DPS increase in the 20%-25% range. While in Riddler’s case this isn’t particularly noticeable, I’d like to eliminate this issue in the other two weapons. For this reason I made a new max power volley for Utensil, which makes the DPS increase exactly 25%.

Current volley:currentforks New volley: newforks

This is essentially a modified :zap:10 volley: the central carving fork is replaced with a regular fork, and two additional carving forks are fired from the front weapon pods. The latter two carving forks are fired at half the offset of the ones fired from the rear pods – identical to the two forks on :zap:1.

We’d also like to propose applying a general reduction to Utensil’s spread (similar to Vulcan’s mentioned above), to around the level it’s at currently with two spread condensers equipped. The reason for this change is that after Ion’s volley rework during the first stage of WBP, it became more focused in relation to Utensil, making it much easier for it to dispense concentrated firepower compared to its direct spreadgun competitor.


Boron Railgun

  • Damage: 110/180/240 → 120/180/240

Slight buff to weak projectile.


Photon Swarm

Firerate: 4/0.933 (4/s - 13.33/s) (interval: 0.25 - 0.075) → 4.25/0.936 (4.25/s - 13.61/s) (interval: 0.235 - 0.073)

DPS/firerate increase.
It’s possible that Photon’s high firerate will clash with technical limitations of multiplayer (as mentioned here by iA), but it should be fine for now.


Riddler

Interval: :zap:0-10: 0.100 (10/s) → 0.097 (10.31/s); :zap:20: 0.095 (10.53/s) → 0.092 (10.87/s)

Slight DPS/firerate increase

We’d like to once again suggest removing Riddler’s additional spread on low power as it makes the weapon practically unusable for the first few power levels. It reduces its performance artificially, and makes it a terrible starting weapon should a new player buy it as their first.


Corn Shotgun

Interval: 0.625 - 0.222 (1.6/s - 4.5/s) → Firerate: 1.75/0.25 (1.75/s - 4.25/s) (Interval: 0.571 - 0.235)

General rebalance, major firerate increase on low power, re-added the firerate formula to the Excel sheet.

Those are its final values for the foreseeable future. If implemented now, it’ll be a bit underpowered on high power until overdrive is reworked (and therefore can be applied to this weapon), but I think it should be implemented anyway due to the buff to starter firerate (which I’d argue is more important).


Moron Railgun

Damage: 110/220 → 110/165
Interval: 0.145 - 0.145 → 0.145 - 0.095
Overdrive: 33%

Made progression (both projectile damage multipliers and firerate) consistent with Boron, should be more usable overall due to the firerate increase (as mentioned here).

There are now essentially three levels to its progression:

  • :zap:1-2 - +110 DPV and firerate increase,
  • :zap:3-6 - +55 DPV and firerate increase,
  • :zap:7-10 - +0 DPV and firerate increase.

The addition of overdrive was discussed in the same thread, and may be a permanent or temporary measure depending on whether or not Moron will be replaced/removed or not.


Other changes

Most weapons had their low power overheat values modified. The boost was removed from weapons that have a constant hit rate across all power levels (Plasma, Positron), introduced to Riddler, Corn, and Moron, and made less severe on other weapons.


Excel sheet (missing changes to Laser, Positron, and Absolver): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/702487693636010054/866390831140569088/CIU-WeaponData-v85.override.xls


Edit: updated spreadsheet with missing Riddler buff.

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