R&D Addition: Weapons Development.

[KnightofDark001]

The idea is a simple one, adding a weapons development and prototyping branch to the science department, which is responsible for creating, testing, and modifying weapons in the game. This also means possibly creating powerful, and newer variants of weaponry. This addition in my opinion, could greatly increase the amount of players doing R&D, so in a sense the station benefits from better weaponry, and a more active R&D users.

So, the start of weapons development is utilizing a bench which scans and analyzes the parts inside of each weapon, so depending on how the weapon is and what ammunition it takes, it could be upgraded in MULTIPLE ways. So for instance, we'll use a taser for this example. Say you wanted to make security have a better taser. The way you could upgrade the taser is simple, the power cell and the barrel, (or where the tazer bolt comes out of) so if we wanted, we could partially upgrade the taser to have a larger charging capacity, this meaning it could fire MORE taser bolts, and thereby decreasing the penalty for missing. As for the barrel, in this case we could modify it to where the taser bolt that comes out of it is more concentrated, and inflicts more stun damage so the person will stay down longer. (This is not to say that making the power cell better cannot increase this, but It will only be partial.)

Now this sounds all fine and good, hell, even AMAZING to some. But I believe some will say "this will cause alot of abuse and people will power game the hell out of it." Well, that is true, but there's a downside to upgrading the weapons. You see, in the early stages of upgrades, it's not so easy to say that the guns are "stable", as the guns themselves will become unstable. This means that when modified, it may have a chance of randomized effect. So for instance, firing the taser too fast may cause the power cell to over heat, causing the casing to explode, and thereby causing a unpleasant shock, or in worse cases EXPLODING violently, and causing the taser to simply become unusable (but still recyclable) trash. So what about the barrel? Well the same applies for this, now maybe not EXPLODING, but most certainly causing some ill effect. So, it could break the barrel, or the internal lenses connected TO the barrel to make the bolt accurate. Which could cause obvious issues, such as friendly fire. The damage will be obvious, and can be visually seen on the guns sprite, also in some cases bad sounds can be heard when firing the gun. This depends on the gun, and the part that is having issue however. So when you are firing a taser, and you hear a odd sound coming from the gun, like for instance *BZZZTTTTTT* or cracking noise, it usually indicates there is something wrong, and can sometimes determine which part is broken. Not to worry though, if R&D is maxed out, in late game these parts can easily have diagnostics done on them to find issues and flaws in their designs, which can be fixed.

I would also want to somehow include these types of upgraded guns as a way of profit for cargo, however, I currently cant think of a decent way of doing this.

Just an added tidbit, these upgrades are obviously going to get better as more R&D levels are raised, and obviously, less flaws will exist in the parts.

The idea itself obviously needs to be beefed up a bit more, and in all honesty could use a bit more creativity, especially with the cargo bit. I would've loved to have made sprites, but unfortunately I don't know how to, and franky I'm not creative enough to actually do it well. Please, do tell me what you think, and give input on whether you believe the idea would be a good addition or not. (https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/22654 basically someone else had the same idea before me.)

[Gun Hog]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/22654

[Deitus]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/22654

i forgot how triggered goof got from this (ha puns)

good times

[Reece]

Readd SABRE SMG's

[DemonFiren]

unironically this

[KnightofDark001]

Well shit. I didn't even know people had posted similar ideas. Welp, that is annoying.

[captain sawrge]

Stop