OK, so get this. CM’s code was released to the public. Ofcourse, this has it’s ups and downs. Upside is more contribution and clarity with mechanics and all. Downside is powergaming and even distribution of weapon damage, ergo, most weapons in game that are available to the common marine will do a decent average of about 120 ish damage at it’s full capacity in one blast.
Summary
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A full blast of M41A burst fire will do on average about 100 damage to a xeno.
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Buckshot PB will do 230 damage, then at a slight distance do 44 damage per bullet, usually landing 3, then missing the last if not pb, 132 damage with 3 bullet, 176 if they all land.
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88 mod will do 90 damage armor pierced
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Magnum will do 55 damage with marksman, and usually you’ll land two before xenos run away.
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M39 bursts 3 bullets at 34 with no armor, 18 (?) at queen. Effectively better than M41A on some T1’s, one Rifle bullet at full burst.
So, effectively, with the exception of the Buckshot PB, they all do about 100-120 damage, and if you count DPS, the shotgun evens out with the rest of the guns. In fact, the BC added to the M41A effectively slows the dps down to Buckshot levels, but at a distance.
Why am I pointing this out? Because there are those who will make charts and try to formulate the highest amount of DPS/Burst that they can grab onto. If there are three marines, marines with boosted guns, they can wreck a group of xenos and turn the tide. And because a trend among powergamers will spread to the common player, devs likely flattened the damage to 100 per marine for this reason.
Overall, this is a bad call, and gives the illusion of choice to the marines. Weapons SHOULD do varied damage to xenos that are substantial, it gives players a feeling of adaptation when they have to pick up another gun, and attachment to a playstyle with a learning curve. But then there’s the issue, powergaming, and how to curb it so that the sweat gamer doesn’t ruin the fun without resorting to mechanics like “Mk2 with the same bullets but stronger pew pew” that the battle rifle has. For context, the battle rifle, PMC, chambers the same bullets as the MK2 but has a modifier that says “damage mod” and increases bullet damage.
Wouldn’t that get stale? Knowing that all your guns will do the same damage, overall?
Here’s my solution, and I’ll use the M41A for it then go into the details:
- Make a damage range with bullets
- Increase the firearms training skill range
- Give roles that are supposed to be more competent a higher fire arms training skill
The way it works is this, my M41A will deal a range of about 30-45 damage per bullet, and a PMC might do 40-55. Overall, he does higher damage than average than I do, however, there is a chance that I got lucky and just full bursted a xeno with 45 damage per bullet, whereas the PMC got unlucky and did a measly 41-43-40.
I just got lucky and outdamaged a PMC. This, however, was chance. A PMC who has combated xenos knows where to shoot it to hit the chinks in its armor, and it didn’t get the right spots because the xeno was running around, I, however, got lucky and hit it right where it hurts.
But why? Why add this mechanic? Because it adds more fun to the game and gimps the powergamer without gimping the common player. The game gains an element of chance, something that was lost when weapon stats became public. Before, players had to GUESS what attachments made their guns do more damage, they had to take chances and hope for the best, and inevitably they defaulted to, a gun is a gun.
Now, with damage range, the only things you truly control are your choices and the risks you take. But don’t get too cocky, the PMC is still better trained and will, on average, still deal more damage than I will. And that’s because of the next part of my solution.
Firearms training skill range. Well, how did a PMC have a range of 40-55 while I only had 30-50? Because he was trained to fight xenomorphs. A plain rifle bullet will deal around 50 damage, but because of xenomorph or human armor, it can be lowered substantially down to maybe 20, 15 on a bad day to a civilian. However, a Debbie Squad Synthetic has built in armor analysis and might know exactly where to shoot, and could end up dealing 70 damage with a gun, maybe 100, if they get the perfect shots.
So the range can be a 10 point range, where civilians (survivors, etc) have 0 or a few points and they can only get maybe a range of 10-35 damage, while a marine, who’s trained, has 3 points ish, and gets a damage range of 30-45, While an RTO has 4, and SL 5, slightly gaining more damage, to maybe 35-55 then the Death Squaddie can have 10 points, and maximize the efficiency of the bullet to a better range.
Now, this is all exaggerated to make a point, it could just be smaller ranges like 35-50 and add critical hits, but my point still stands.
Attachies can move the range one way, and move the average by standard deviations.
TL;DR
Give weapons a damage range so you can feel lucky if your character rolled a nat 20 in aim and devs don’t have to gimp every marine gun to do 100 ish damage per burst. Add luck so people can feel the excitement of good rolls and don’t power game to maximize output. Everyone should get a chance to feel like a champion.