# Foreword This PR is a *draft*. That means a lot of things are subject to change, a lot of things can be disorganized and a lot of things will be done unoptimally. Going forwards, do keep in mind, the decision-making process behind "remove entirely" and "virtually remove" will be entirely dependant on further discussion with maintainers. I simply am not a machine, neither are other people onboard this project. With different timezones, it was important to find what isn't working so I can relay it to people in working hours. As result, this is being constantly developed further as a draft. ## Data acquisition The default model I have used for my values and claims over damage is the head of security loadout on a human dummy, master branch, shot at a target on tile #4 from tile #1, comparatively measured from healthbar drop to beginning the crit drop animation, and for raw values such as TTK I have used a measure of muzzle flash to the start of the crit-induced drop to the ground. ## Goals - Allow lathes to print ammo boxes of ammo types that it can already print the magazines for, removing the need for ammo workbenches and unifying the two machines. All your ammo in one place. - Reserve all NRI guns for events, making them otherwise unobtainable (Kept for admin events and the bitrunning ruins alike) - Remove all crew-accessible/security burst-fire weapons. - Remove all non-mentioned skyrat weapons. This includes: The entire .35 sol caliber arsenal, the entire .40 sol caliber arsenal, the MCR weapons, the CMG weapons and the kiboko. - Replace said guns with fewer, more unique and mechanically interesting weapons. The kiboko is currently the first to be worked on. The gun ideas are still in development, however at least 3 are in store with 1 in the works on becoming real already. The security grenade launcher will definitely be changed to find a good spot in the game's current tactics between TG's near-uselessness and our rare debut of the kiboko. - Remove the m1911 weapons from crew and security access through cargo. - Rename ammunition types to their shorter, original titles ".460 Ceres" -> ".45". ## The case of the ammo types and workbench The ammunitions workbench is a machine that provides ammunition into clips, refilling them. The ammunition workbench is also the source of a multitude of alternate ammunition types. It has with itself brought several issues that at least would warrant a rework or heavy adjustments: 1. Contraband ammunitions. There is no real reason that the entire security department, or even a single crewmember should be accessing phasic weapons in the form of printable ammotypes. The argument of "the pipegun having it" can be made, yet it's incomparable. The way you get it is an 8% chance on crafting a junk round for a bulky gun and the only way to find out if you actually have it is checking each shell individually with a bandolier. 2. Complimentary with the removals. Most use cases for this machine are refilling the magazines you can order or get alongside your weapons. This collides with the protolathe, which sources most of our upstream-based ammunition instead. With the skyrat weapons gone, this machine becomes redundant. You may claim that it's still useful in saving on materials, where you would be right, agreed. However is it worth to have and maintain an entirely separate structure, with it's own mechanics, map placements, etc. to get a benefit equal to 1.6x more bang for the buck? At the end of the day, splitting ways of getting ammo across a single room for something so miniscule compared to the bloat it adds is pointless. # Why are we removing weapons at all? SS13's weaponry is unlike that of other games. We do not have a class division into snipers, shotguns, smg's, pistols by default. Instead, every weapon we have is unique and serves a specific niche and spot in the meta. Every weapon thus, has care put into making it unlike the others to play with or against, to give it mechanical depth and make it interesting visually, too. Almost all of the weapons presented here lack unique gameplay mechanics or roles. This leads to guns blobbing together, to the overall quality of the weapon modules being dragged down, causing a low mechanical distinctiveness and forming an isolated system of weapons which the design of does not interplay with the design rules other components use. A pattern you will see emerging is skyrat guns having these characteristic traits, traits that merit removal: - Skyrat sourced weapons usually have a time to kill around 3 seconds or lower, tend to deal bigger chunks of damage with less shots, have AP within ranges of security armour or more, have several options for ammo per gun, share ammo with several other variants of itself, share appearance in some extent and often have mixed-damage variants, as well as having large magazines. They are generally EMP-proof. - TG weapons have a generally higher time to kill, even if, they deal it in smaller chunks, with less wounds dealt, smaller clip sizes, they are usually vulnerable to EMP, almost always have a unique mechanic unless they are a founder weapon *(the WT for example, is the only orderable true ballistic with a few ammo options. It's uniqueness stems from there not being others like it and it's versatility, consistency and decent range. Keep in mind, the other option are the shotguns, which also have uniqueness in their differing firing mechanisms, sawing them off, firing delay between rounds, ammo types.)* If you take a look at the standard to which interesting design is kept on TG and then compare them, you will see that their philosophy is much different, exchanging weapon amount and customizability for a solid, easy-to-navigate and straight-upgrade-free metagame balance. No weapon is completely without use, no weapon is overshadowed entirely by another weapon, each weapon has a very clear advantage and disadvantage, and learning combat relies moreso on understanding weapon interactions with gear. Similarly, their weapons stray away from penetration at range and reserve it for melee, to account for the power of stun batons and stun combat in that range. All in all, it looks to be a "Yes, and, but also" school of thought compared to "Yes" that the other weapons embody. "Yes, this ammo type is a ballistic that is great at dealing with nightmares and can come useful against a few other threats, being tailored to face them. BUT it has it's problems, it doesn't ignore their strengths, rather letting them play around this new option" And that will be much healthier for game balance overall than "This weapon is a high damage dealer. It is not weak to armour. It wounds.", or "This weapon has no risk-reward element at all, it prevents disengagements, has the same TTK as other weapons, and it's weakness is neither visible nor is the gun engaging to play against." # The weapons, why should they go, one by one. ### RomTech Flechette rifles Compared to a standard laser gun, which is in all means our baseline of ranged damage in ss13 - being the default armoury weapon, the default laser for turrets and default laser for mobs. Better yet, let's compare it to that and the default ballistic option that we have from TG. What turns out, is that not only is the romtech carbine faster at killing than the laser, but also rivals the WT with a split second of difference in ttk in the favour of the romtech. Let's assume it's human error and the WT is better TTK wise, just as an experiment. Clearly, there must be a tradeoff, somewhere, right? One that balances them all out to be equal weapons in the grand scale of things, contemporaries! Well, no, not really. Not even close. The carbine can be folded to fit in bags, that's one thing. The carbine has more ammo, that's another thing. Bursts are harder to dodge than series shots since they cover more perpendicular ground when attempting to dodge projectiles, as is staple for ss13 combat. Burst weapons are advantageous in applying more damage quicker, as you can see on the videos - and initial damage, an alpha strike, applies movement slowdown, ensuring future projectiles connect easier and the target cannot run. It might be a coincidence that the only /tg/ derived weapons that fire burst are adminspawn ERT or the Nukie weapons. But it doesn't end here, no, the RomTech's ammunition alone would warrant a complete overhaul if not a removal. **steel ball** <p> Takes 9 shots to stamcrit, deals mixed damage - further increasing the amount of slowdown applied, and not only is it MUCH faster at stamcritting than a disabler is, it also leaves the target with 70 damage. Over half their healthbar. Severely overtuned with little counterplay availible, alpha strike monster that is better at disabling than disablers and better at stopping people dead in their tracks than rifles, and if you look at our anti-stun, we have less than ever on antagonists with Adrenal implants gone, Adreanaline Glands reworked, etc, etc... </p> **Penetrator** NT's answer to armour! The penetrator has 60 AP and otherwise the same damage as the AP WT rifle. Meaning it's a straight upgrade. Meaning this weapon invalidates it's predecessor whilst being orderable roundstart, and not only that, but it can fully ignore elite modsuits on nukeops. Not every mechanic has to have a counter, there's no direct counter to someone healing after a fight, there is no direct counter to having multiple shots, and there shouldn't be a full nullification of armour for such a low cost. There shouldn't be one for a crew that can mass produce these, ever. **Magnesium** Arguably fine, 12 firestacks per shot is still quite insane for a lower chance of friendly fire compared to original incediary hot turfs, **Ripper** Steel ball, but even worse. They don't embed a single time, ***this embeds every time***. It takes several seconds to take out. Actually, let's compare this gun's bullets to ninja stars. - 2 times the embed chance at 200 vs 100 - 8 times the jostle chance at 80 vs 10 - Comparable fall chance, at 1 vs 0 - More pain stam pct, at 0.9 vs 0.8, meaning more stamina damage - More pain chance, at 70 vs 15 - Less pain modifier, at 2 vs 5 - Takes longer to take out, 5 seconds vs 3 - Jostling pain is the same ### One problem. There's three of those fired per burst, cannot be caught either. And the armour pen is the same. in conclusion, every aspect of this gun is unhealthy for the game, from it's gimmick, to it's execution, to it's stats, to it's ammo, to it's consistency, to it's firing mode, to it being able to be currently worn on sec belts along disablers - up to 4, if I remember correct. No reworks. It has to go. # NRI weapons ### Plasma pistol + caster Better options exist that utterly outshine them. The caster has 16 shots, if you miss 2 you will not even crit a naked human. The plasma pistol has pitiful damage firing speed and projectile speed. Disappointment to use, serves no actual niche nor purpose currently. ### Derringer 0.75x multiplier on sakhno ammo does NOT justify a pocket rocket. Especially, since if you dual wield them you can instantly crit people faster than any other gun, really. Essentially a crew-side syndicate revolver with that in mind. To make a .310 pistol work you would either strip everything that makes it sakhno. Even if it doesn't kill, a pocketable gun that you can store in boxes goes against the notion of easily concealable burst weapons being exactly the thing antagonists use, a line exists separating gear and distributing it to crew, to sec and to antags. The design of this clearly belongs one place more than the others, and whether it is claimed to be a self-defense weapon or a security weapon, neither version really matches it's performance as what this is is an ambush weapon through and through. Keeping it as "self-defense" is no different than a self defense death nettle. "It's only 2 shots", same as a death nettle's first 2 hit dealing 40-ish damage and a tad lower. It can deal 70 damage to an officer if aiming for the head in it's magazine. As previously discussed, burst is unhealthy and reserved for hit and runners. The right idea was there when comparing to the mini energy gun, but when comparing the mini-e-gun and the derringer, it becomes apparent that in most situations against mobs, the mini-e-gun remains superior. Ergo, the derringer is by design superior at killing players, and we have discussed why it's way of killing players is unacceptable.