Exotic Bullet Calibers

[WJohnston]

So with the introduction of remie's armor piercing PR, we now for the first time have the ability to create alternative types of ammunition that are more or less effective versus armor.

The obvious response to this is to make specialized bullets that excel in certain scenarios. For all calibers.

For example, you could have an armor piercing .357 round that only does 50 (down from 60) damage per shot, but comes with 50 armor piercing (reducing the value of bullet protection by 50, a bulletproof vest would have its protection cut from 80 to 30).
This would let you two shot specific targets such as the HoS, who normally takes 3 shots to take out. This also lets you 3 shot someone wearing bulletproof armor as opposed to normally taking about 9 with regular bullets.

Inversely, we can also have anti-personnel 10mm rounds that do MORE damage, say 40 (up from 30), but have NEGATIVE armor piercing (-50? this can be worked out later). This would make it able to crit an unarmored target in just 3 shots, but if security rolls around it's going to be like trying to kill someone in riot gear with a wrench.



Of course, in order to prevent everyone from constantly using armor piercing or anti personnel rounds over the default, these should be more expensive in telecrystals for uplinks, and a LOT more expensive as metal from the autolathe. If it's too accessible it could possibly be restricted to an R&D type of ammunition, similar to 9mm rounds normally meant for their prototype SMG.

What this basically boils down to is: If you're rich or don't care for your crystals and want to go on a rampage regardless of target, use armor piercing. If you're specifically going for an entire department you KNOW isn't going to have armor, like medbay, use anti personnel. If you're cheap, stay with the default bullets.

[Steelpoint]

You have to be wary of rendering bullet proof armour, or any bullet defence, obsolete when bullets themselves just start to ignore the actual armour.

[WJohnston]

Of course, this can all be balanced. I'm by no means presenting the best numbers available here.

[TheNightingale]

I like it. Do nuclear operatives get these special calibres too? The idea of a team of ops with tacticooly-chosen ammunition types appeals to me.

The AP (armour-piercing) rounds listed above do fifty brute and have fifty armour penetration (per the current armour's DR, not percentage), yes? If their armour is over 50 by default (bulletproof, probably deathsquad, and possibly HoS), that ~10 armour left over will decrease the damage taken by 10% per bullet, to.. about 45. Three shots to crit someone in bulletproof armour sounds remarkably powerful, especially if they can be found in the autolathe or R&D. Metal isn't hard to come by.

Hrm... (Also, have some numbers!)

Spoiler:

How about if the armour penetration value is, instead of a flat reduction on the target's armour, a percentage thing -and- a flat reduction? The AP value - for .357s, 50, let's say - reduces the armour by this percentage, and then half the AP value is subtracted from the armour.
Example: Someone with 60 bullet resist is shot once with an AP .357 round of penetration 50. {50% of 60 = 30, 30-25 = 5}. The bullet treats their armour as resisting 5%, not 60%, so they take 47.5 damage.
Example II: Someone with 30 bullet resist is shot once with an AP .357 round of penetration 50. {50% of 30 = 15, 15-25 = 0}. The bullet negates their armour completely, so they take 50 damage.
Example III: A God-tier bullet sponge with 100 bullet resist is shot once with an AP .357 round of penetration 50. {50% of 100 = 50, 50-25 = 25}. The bullet treats their armour as resisting just 25% [!], so they take 37.5 damage.

Imagine it the other way around this time: a 10mm HP (hollowpoint) round is being used. They have an AP of -50.
Example I: Someone with 5 bullet resist is shot once with a HP 10mm round of penetration -50. {- 50% of 5 = 7.5, 7.5+50 = 57.5}. The bullet treats their armour as resisting 57.5%, not 5%, so they take 17 damage. Contrast with a standard 10mm round of AP 0, which does 28.5 damage.
Example II: Someone with 60 bullet resist is shot once with a HP 10mm round of penetration -50. {- 50% of 60 = 90, 90+50 = 100}. The bullet plinks off their armour harmlessly.

If they were telecrystal-only (or maybe, for the 9mm prototype SMG rounds, Protolathe and requiring uranium - so mining), that might stop every traitor and their mother going on an AP rampage.

[Remie Richards]

Nightingale the way it works is the percentage armour (80% melee resistance means you take 20% of the incoming damage) is treated as a normal integer between 0-100 and lowered by the value of AP, and then the integer is then used in the normal calculations as a percentage again.

I feel this is a good system, and a percentage based reduction of percentages is just going to be annoying to balance.

[Scones]

If these are implemented, remove stam damage from nuke guns, seriously.

They should never be made from an Autolathe.

People don't need more ways to make already HEAVILY nerfed armor even more obsolete.

If you want to push a "muh guns muh spec ammos" sort of thing it's probably best that you seriously start to look into giving more ballistics to Security

[Steelpoint]

If we want to make armour all but irrelevant then just remove armour from the game already.

[Wyzack]

All I want is a decent lethal ammo chambered for 38 caliber. I don't care if it only does 20 damage and is R&D locked

[Scones]

All I want is a decent lethal ammo chambered for 38 caliber. I don't care if it only does 20 damage and is R&D locked

The joke is that the Detective's 38 is arguably the best gun on the station

[DemonFiren]

How so, Scones?

[TheNightingale]

It's an instant stun that also does heavy stamina damage (I believe two .38 shots is enough to take you down from stamina alone) and fair brute on top of that. Everyone loves the Detective's revolver.

[lumipharon]

15 brute, 3(?) sec stun, 50 something stam damage.
It is the best normally obtainable gun in the game.

Also if you do make this shit available, don't make it EASILY available, since armor is already shit.

[WJohnston]

I was hoping that perhaps the armor nerf could get reverted when this is applied so you actually have a reason to wear armor again, and a way to counter it as a traitor.

[Scones]

15 brute
3 weaken
50 stam

[Steelpoint]

What we need is to add a stamina defence to armour because right now stamina is just as effective against the damn Death Squad as it against the Clown.

[Falamazeer]

Something of note, 38s are a weird bullet and it might be too complicated to handle for a spessman game.
But there are many bullets to note here, I'll arrange them by ballistics to help, And I'll avoid the rounds like the classic 38 S&W, or the 38 short which the current one replaced, and does not interchange with the three rounds below. and the 357 sig, which is pretty much the same round but machined for clip based pistols (Dessert eagle anyone?)

38 special (A great all around bullet, Used by cops for years and in some areas to this day)
38 special +p (A souped up 38 special, Pretty much a 357 that looks better in court, "I then shot the suspect with my standard issue firearm" rather than "I then blew the suspects brains all over the highway with my 357 magnum)
357 magnum (The HOLY SHIT round of choice)

Now some oddities therein is that some 38s can load 38s+P and some can't, and no 38s can shoot 357 without consequence forever, you might get away with it and you might not, I'd never try it, because I'm afraid of shrapnel. The same applies for +p that isn't in a gun rated for it which I assume the detectives is, as most newer ones are, and this is teh foooture.

357s can happily shoot all three rounds without consequence, Except maybe a bit of fouling but that's neither here nor there.

Now that's just the casing, let's look at the technology in the bullets themselves, When buying for handgun, assuming you're not buying a bullet that's designed to work around a ban of some kind,(Like ballistic tip, which works like a hollow point, but isn't illegal) or for some special training purpose there are three main types that I would feel applies to this game.


-Full metal Jacket, This is your basic bullet, It's lead poured into a copper shell to reduce deformation and increase penetration over just a normal lead shot, Nothing special here.

Hollow point, Usually also FMJ, but not necessarily This is actually inferior at penetrating armor, but against an unarmored foe, the bullet deforms at the tip and enlarges, causing horrendous damage. You can tell if hollow point was used because the entry wound is small and the exit wound is much larger. These are known as "Cop Killers" but that's misguided, as I said, they are inferior at armor penetration due to less material at the front making it deform or tumble against resistant surfaces.

Steel tipped, it's an armor piercing round, Car door, bullet resistant vest, engine block, This bullet doesn't give much of a shit if you give it the power to work, This is the real cop killer, it's a dangerous round, you can't even use it at ranges because if it can't drive through it, it might deflect and ricochet. though that steel tip is bitchin good at going through things, the bullet doesn't deform and cause all the horrible damage on it's way through, so it is honestly a tradeoff.

tl;dr FMJ for balance, HP for damage at cost of penetration, ST for penetration at cost of damage

With all this in mind, I propose a change in bullets, I say the detective revolver should be able to
lathe 38 special FMJ Hack for the special HP or ST
38 special +p should be researched

and 357 should be divided into three bullets to pick from for the traitors FMJ HP or ST, and the gun should load anything the detective can.
and if the detective loads 357 there should be an RNG (Or just have it happen, whatever) of it exploding in his hands.

[Falamazeer]

These are the changes I'd try

Edit with a picture, because nothing lines up right before

Also, and while I realise this would make the detectives revolver much deadlier as you'd have to put enough bullets in someone to cause bleeding, I always though it was kinda retarded to try to put bullets any way similar to the tasers and such, Fuck, give em rubber bullets with a value of:
10 brute, 50 stam, 3 weak, 0 pierce if you disagree with that. with a +p of 15, 55, 3, 5.

Not wanting to purely inject my own sensibilites for what a revolver should and shouldn't be after all without leaving an alternative for those who like it.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The .38 revolver already does 15 brute, 50 stam (or more), 3 weaken. That would be a nerf to lethality.

[Falamazeer]

Well yeah, but I was proposing reducing stam damage to the FMJ