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title: Guns and Aesthetics

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# Guns and Aesthetics

## Abstract
Currently, guns suffer from a distinct taste of what I like to call "being fucking boring." They're generic, and when they're not generic they're copy pastes from the current generation.


## Goals
The goal of this document is: to allow spriters, coders, and general developers to have more creative freedom with visual and gameplay designs and mechanics; to have a unique, unified vision that is not riding on the coattails of pre-existing notions within the modern era; and to generally increase the amount of fun we can have guns in game.

## Non-Goals
Certain things exist for reasons, references are something we don't want to kill. Ideally we adapt them in a way to keep them synchronised with our new vision whilst also still keeping the reference around.

We also don't want to needlessly over-complicated things, and make things to over-whelming for newcomers. There is, of course, a comfort in familiar designs. An inherent value of understanding how a "gun" works.

## Content

### Ammo Re-Names and General Gun Fuckery

A core problem that exists right now, is our over-reliance on current... "things", guns; weapons; ammo. This, despite what some people like to claim, isn't what retro-futurism is. I'm not giving a dissertation on what retro-futurism is and isn't, but know that plugging things from the 80s/90s/2000s isn't what retro-futurism actually is.

.38; .45; 5.56mm; 7.62mm; .50; the only ammo-type currently in game that is actually unique, name-wise, to the setting, is the one used by the L6 SAW. This reeks of laziness, and un-creativity. A simple solution really, is to just make our own. Dragonfruits, already, did a version of this, a version I'm currently partially implementing with the Syndicate Visual Revamp.

As-well, I'm proposing a re-haul of how guns are generally presented in-game, mainly sprite wise. Guns at the current moment are all basically anagrams of existing weaponry. *(e.g. C20-r = F2000, L6 SAW = FN Minimi/M249, Bulldog = Pancor Jackhammer.)* This, in a practical-sense, needs to change. Whilst exceptions to this rules can and do apply, in a general sense, plugging weaponry from the 20th/21st century into a game set 500 years in the future is, at best, uncreative, and, is at worse, just plain lazy.

### Nanotrasen and Energy Weapons

NT should be delegated entirely to energy/speciality projectiles. But, we don't want to have all guns to have the same star-wars singular-beam effect. Which is why I'm proposing a new type of projectile to be used for NT.

#### Hardlight Bullets

Hardlight bullets function identically to regular bullets/ballistics in the current game, but with certain unique attributes (they're light blue). These types of bullets existing allows us to have the same sort of liberty we have with ammo types in current NT ballistics but with a more sci-fi tinge.

#### Detective's Revolver

The Detective's Revolver has always stood out to me as a particular atrocious example of: reference gone too far. Whilst also being bloated with needless re-skins, the gun itself is rather plain, with the exceptions of ammo-types.

I'm proposing changing the revolver to fit the new "hardlight" type, keeping it's standard mechanics, but changing it's general design to be more in line with NT = energy.

## What Would Changing All This Actually Accomplish?

I admit, this is a tad-bit of an undertaking. However, when and if this is completed, I think it will cause a drastic difference in how guns are perceived and coded in /tg/station. I think when we free our selves from the shakles of modern-era weaponry, and we allow ourselves to become more creative, we can see just how truly fun, and interesting we can make these weapons.

In fact, we've done this already, see the two magazines for the Bulldog. This is merely a tasting of unique, creative mechanics that specific weapons can have. Currently, our creativity is limited to ammo-types. But if we stopped thinking in the past with the actual, physical designs of these guns, the uniqueness of each individual gun can be amped up so much more.