Combat Balance

Ranged Combat Balance

Damage types

Ballistic/Railguns

Ballistic weapons are the most common. They offer the highest maximum range of all weapons, above average damage per projectile and are also the lightest. Compared to energy weapons they are more straightforward to use, with no marked weaknesses or strengths that should be worked around.

Lasers

Lasers are accurate mid-range weapons whose reduced projectile damage is compensated by their fast fire rates, lack of recoil and the ability to set foes on fire. Lasers are the most common type of energy weapon and also the most versatile. Their magazines are heavier than their ballistic equivalents, but are fully interchangeable between weapons. They excel at dispatching isolated foes, which they can do in the most resource efficient ways.

Another important factor to consider is that lasers are the principal 'renewable' weapon type, they require only energy to be fired and their power cells might be recharged using vehicles or by visiting active settlements.

Laser weapon damage stats

• Max damage per turn: 20 / 50 / 120 for light /medium / heavy weapons respectively
• Max ammo efficiency per unit of damage 2kj / 1.5kj / 1kj .
• Maximum range 15 /40 / 60
• Average volume 1.5 / 5 / 15 liters
• Average Weight 2 / 4 / 12 kg
• Minimum reload time 200/200/300 moves.

Plasma

Plasma weapons are short range and high damage, and might additionally produce low range explosions or fireballs. Plasma weapons should be bulkier and heavier compared to other weapon types and have relatively shallow magazines with slow reload times, and thus requiring well planed reloading . The high AOE damage should make them dangerous to use during close combat.

They excel at efficiently dispatching powerful or massed foes.

Voltaic-Electroshock

Voltaic projectiles might arc between close targets and produce clouds of electric fields. The electric fields generated by voltaics offer high utility AOE effects: they slow and stun targets that pass through them while also inflicting low amounts of damage, all without risking the item or terrain destruction of traditional explosives or plasma weapons. This utility comes at the cost, compared to other damage types, they have the lowest damage per projectile and the rarest ammunition.

They excel at dispatching groups of weak foes, robots or at slowing foes to create better escape/combat opportunities.

Explosive Projectiles

Rockets, grenades, smart bombs and all sort of things that are launched and explode. They offer the highest damage per projectile and deadly AOE damage, at the cost of heavy and expensive ammunition that is generally difficult to carry in good numbers, making them too specialized for general use. After voltaics, these are the second hardest weapon types to acquire.

They excel at dispatching very dangerous foes.

Weapon Categorization

For ease of balancing, all aftershock weapons are separated into three abstract and gamified categories: light weapons, medium weapons and heavy weapons. Where a weapon belongs among these three categories principally depends on its raw damage output per 100 moves, measured before any armor reductions.

Light Weapons

Light weapons have an maximum average damage output of 40 damage per 100 moves

Medium Weapons

Light weapons have an maximum average damage output of 40 damage per 100 moves

Heavy Weapons

Ranged Test cases

The balance of new weapons and monsters is best judged against these three test cases:

Start as an espatier (for the ranged bionics) set 6 to all skills and keep your stats at 8. The weapons to test are the following:

• Light weapon: Ump45 (25 round mag) .45 fmj
• Medium weapon: RM88 (50 round mag) 8x40mm
• Heavy Weapon: Milkor MLG with 40x46mm m433/ alien lune.

Each of these represents the strongest weapon that would be admissible in each category