[BALANCE] Upgrading/Exchanging energy weapon cells!

[Gun Hog]

Today, I come to you, the players, with a controversial feature idea. The ability to exchange and upgrade power cells in energy weapons. The mechanic itself would be simple - screwdriver to gun to remove the cell, and adding a new cell would simply be slapping in a new one.

The biggest issue is balance. Adding the mechanic without altering shot costs would give access to nigh-infinite tasers, lasers, and other things, so I would have to re-work how energy weapons work with cells.

I am not a Security player, nor am I a particularly robust antagonist player. I need your opinions, the people who know this stuff in and out. Is this a good idea? What should the limits be for upgraded weapon power cells? Is this something you would like to see in the game? Please be constructive and civil in your responses, as this feature, should I code it, will be shaped based on feedback gathered here as well as Github.

What do you think? Please discuss.

[Scones]

AHAHAHHA I HAVE A BLUESPACE CELL AHAHH LOOK DO YOU SEE THE LASERS I HOPE YOU SEE THEM THERE ARE A LOT AHAAH

Kind of a bad idea for very very obvious reasons. Not only would Security weapons become obscene with upgraded cells, but certain R&D gear as well (See: Xray lasers, laser cannons)

Restrict cell-swapping from tasers and it'd be kind of interesting, I guess

[Miauw]

I feel like this would be insanely hard to balance properly, right when our balance is almost okay-ish. (hybrid tasers' disable mode is still nigh-useless, but even if you make it infinite as long as the taser has one charge it wont be used)

[Scones]

disable mode is still nigh-useless

[Remie Richards]

The original suggestion, and perhaps the only part that should be added is the replacement of cells.
this is because explosions permanently corrupt the cells of your guns, reducing their ammo capacity by half (how much ammo they have AND how much they can store)
with absolutely no way to fix this.

I (and cheridan agreed) that it should be like pins, probably with a tablecrafting recipe.

[drovidi]

I love the idea, but obviously changing cells shouldn't straight-up increase an energy weapon's ammo supply in proportion to the size of the cell. It would also have to be difficult enough to do that you can't swap cells on the fly, so simple "screwdriver the old one out, slap the new one in" is a definite thumbs-down. I'd like guns to be a system you can play with and find many effective strategies, and power cells could be a part of that. But as its own thing, the way I think you're proposing it, it doesn't seem like a good idea. There's a reason it hasn't been done already, and it's not that it would be hard to code.

[onleavedontatme]

Everything in RD is so easy to print (especially with the crusher) you may as well just increase the roundstart capacity of guns if you want to do that.

[Steelpoint]

Replace cells with specially designed gun cells.

Balancing guns around commonly found cells is too powerful, I could rush for tool storage at round start, nab all the powercells and be able to reload forever in the field.

Having a researchable, or a single item officers/antags have at round start, would be better.

[Falamazeer]

Make a few of them, and throw them in the vending machine, Make em work for non-lethal weapons only, Taser and baton, Eguns and lasers seem a bit much.
Make it a right click, remove power cell option to slow people down, and you're done.

[Reimoo]

Dedicated gun cells and a slower tactical reload than what ops get is what I would prefer imo

[phil235]

The original suggestion, and perhaps the only part that should be added is the replacement of cells.
this is because explosions permanently corrupt the cells of your guns, reducing their ammo capacity by half (how much ammo they have AND how much they can store)
with absolutely no way to fix this.

I (and cheridan agreed) that it should be like pins, probably with a tablecrafting recipe.

Agreed, making adding/removing the cell need tablecrafting will prevent balance issues. Also, as people said, it's probably good to only allow certain cell to be used in guns (only accept default standard cells or maybe special gun cells)

[Ikarrus]

Yeah, as long as it can't be used mid-combat, it can't be that bad. Not having to trek all the way to a recharger sounds like an awesome convenience (and a good way for traitors to recharge without one)

[lumipharon]

For the love of god don't let people increase the ammo count of guns.
The explosion thing damaging cells is retarded, but I would rather just revert explosions damaging items, since it's extremely unpopular.