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[Sean Mirrsen]

Presumably you run the risk of melting it if you try to rapid-fire it.

[Comrade P.]

Makes sense.

[Nikitian]

Spoiler: To Sean Mirrsen (click to show/hide)

5-sec sounds fine, and is as traditional as you say; the point is that Piecewise has to approve that for us. Now, previously I agreed with decreased clip capacity (those 20x5 as you mentioned against 24x5, etc.), but with syv bringing up the fact they're supposed to be cheaper and more efficient, I don't think I buy it anymore. Of course, it can be said that clip size is actually small, and the "real" price would be a fraction of token, thus bringing it up with rounding - but that's why I suggested increasing the batteries' "physical" size; if it cannot be done further, than so be it, but I want that to be a conscious decision we take, rather than "oh, let's say they're slightly less efficient for some reason and move on". The same goes for blaster rifle actually; though if it offers now 10 5-sec shots per token, I think I can buy it.

Also, I strongly disagree with the price being tied to danger alone, and not resources. There are three main reasons:

• There is a fucking nuke in the armory for mere 3 tokens (to say nothing of the manipulators)
• The tokens are actually more or less tied to resources spent - only it's not linear correlation, more like quasi-exponential
• There is such thing as power creep; and we are currently enjoying it (or "enjoying", if you're down on Haebi surface) - weapons tend to get more powerful for same token amount/cheaper for same power amoung, but so do the enemies grow in power

Between that, I think it's perfectly fine that new "laser rifle" replacement would be 1-token. If anything, if we also make a continious-beam variant, it should also cost that same 1 token because otherwise it would be not nearly as efficient and, as we discussed with syvarris, "different but inferior" and thus should rather not reach the Armory - but if it costs 1 token and allows laser rifle functionality "as it was" (more or less; in line with differences between lasrifle and plaspistol), it would be merely "slightly inferior but different" and thus tolerable (and arguable as useful).

Actually, really, let's make a laser pistol of identical size, powersource, cost and focusing array as blaster pistol and compare them. If the latter proves clearly inferior in power, then the "laser sweeps vs. blaster pulses" argument is over; if close enough, both could be used side by side - especially since they should share the same powercells. Finally a viable build for a gunslinger character!

Also, I just thought. If the main problem is cutting things for cheap, why can't we remake the cutting torch as 1-token bluerad-powered lasercutter? It could even come with pistol handle and tool handle variants, for Con and Aux users respectively. 

[Radio Controlled]

Aww! And then so little said to me, and so much to syvarris-kun.  This greatly disappoints me, Radio Controlled-san.

Ah, don't cry, I may have responded more to his things, but that's cause most of yours I didn't have something to add to! Don't worroy there's plenty of radio to go around.

(inb4 ER tinker harem comedy)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think it should have diffusion settings, if solely that when a full discharge is used, one could do so in a wide blast, for example. Also, unless I am misunderstanding the default diffusion amount, I think we do want to have the two "medium" settings discussed earlier (apart from precise one - not sure if possible, actually, but up to piecewise - and wide one - this should be easy to have). Basically, since the blaster weapons deliver short pulses and not laser beem sweeps, the damage will be done mostly through the hit area (plus maybe or maybe not tiny explosion). The "default" one (which I actually propose to make secondary), inherited from the laser rifle/handlaser is too small to cause much damage - and might be too powerful at that small damage area; so I still suggest a setting which would deliver moderately sizeable hit areas - say, fist-sized at medium, and two-finger-thick at close, maybe.

I understand that, but do you think pw will make a difference between them? Either way, if you feel that strongly about it, I'll reconsider it.

You can, if you want to, completely replace the current-gen laser rifle with the pistol form-factor. Have two versions of the same weapon - a 2-token one that can fire in continuous beams, and a 1-token one that's limited to instant pulses. The core of the matter is that tokens are not a measure of how expensive something is to make, or how advanced it is - it's a measure of how dangerous it is to give to someone. A laser pistol that's exactly as powerful as a laser rifle, should cost at least as much as the current laser rifle, because it's at least just as dangerous.

I think I'm gonna limit myself to the regular blaster, and maybe create something like this as a conversion kit as an after market option or something.

Presumably you run the risk of melting it if you try to rapid-fire it.

Maybe in theory, but I don't think it'll really be the case in-game. It'd be annoying to keep track of amount of shots fired to check overheating or determine thresholds etc.

laser sweeps vs. blaster pulses" argument is over

Remember that pulses should have higher power for same amount of energy compared to continuous, see article linked before.

Also:

18:46:38   piecewise  You could always ask them to come here. I'll need some number crunchers too look over this game

So get in there!

[Sean Mirrsen]

I absolutely do not agree with the notion that "different but inferior" applies to the continuous-beam laser, versus a pulsed beam laser of similar power. It's just different. It has different utility, and is not inferior in overall power.

I also do not agree that anything that is "different but inferior" has no place in the Armory. The Red Hand is inferior to the blaster pistol in almost all conceivable qualities, but it's still useful because it is different. Different form-factor, different type of damage, different utility. The Spektr is inferior to the blaster rifle in damage delivered, it costs more, it's heavier, but it's still far more useful for different sorts of engagement.

I compare the Blaster series to the Gauss rifle, where the Lasers are an equivalent of regular automatic firearms. Blasters put more power into one bigger punt of the same type of damage, but if you have a large number of targets to hit, a laser will be able to scythe them down with far more ease. Different utility matters a lot.

[Nikitian]

Spoiler: To Sean and RC (click to show/hide)

Remember that pulses should have higher power for same amount of energy compared to continuous, see article linked before.

It's just different. It has different utility, and is not inferior in overall power.

I know that theoretically it is somewhat inferior (unless we botched out blaster design); the question is, is it really that inferior (as, say, handlaser compared to laser rifle), or more or less comparable (gauss rifle vs. laser rifle)? Which is why we should field-test it (or run comparison tests past Piecewise).
If the latter, I can see them coexist. If the former... well, people probably simply would not buy it (if, let's say, we add the direct power comparison in the description so no misunderstanding).
Though I must admit that rapid-firing blaster shots is included in my personal utility comparison of laser rifle and blaster pistol; if that is not possible (the way things are with gauss rifle, for example), I would agree that it loses a bit in that, just as Sean put it. But that's not anywhere in the description, so I give it the benefit of the doubt.

So once again: let's make a laser pistol identical to blaster one in about everything (except the inner workings and, of course, firing mode - but including the 1-token price and using off the same battery) and compare them. If both are nice and comparable (and I mean it, not just "but it sweeps nicely, what's so it's way way much weaker!"), then I see no reason why we could not provide both - maybe even in the same Armory entry. (And it also helps with battery capacity calculations.)

On Red Hand: Well, given it's current price, I'd rather consider it "slightly inferior but different". It certainly was not true back when it was a prototype, but I must admit that inefficient token expenditure choices can sometimes prove true, if only because there are no efficient alternatives.
Now, Spektr is a tad expensive at the moment, I think, so that's why I suggest asking to lower it's price down to 4 tokens as well - to keep it more or less in check with blifle and Testament.

I understand that, but do you think pw will make a difference between them? Either way, if you feel that strongly about it, I'll reconsider it.

Nah, I'm just thinking of this situation that might happen in the future: "You shoot the beast with your blaspistol. Unfortunately, the wounds it leaves are rather deep and tight, so your fire doesn't seem to make any difference in this fight" - which we could exactly avoid by adding this fire setting. And, well, since, as it was mentioned, the pistol wouldn't have nearly enough focusing chambers for "precise" setting, I would suggest simply remapping the three blaster pistol settings: "focused" for previously default, "medium" (default) for what I suggest, and "diffused" for the wide close-range blasts; and the blaster rifle maybe could have your initially suggested precise setting as, well "precise" - fourth one, above the "focused" (so it would go something like this: P-F-M-D).

That said, we should run it past Piecewise and check of how much use (or handicap possibly) it would be; this suggestion rests on the idea of the (original) default setting being pretty tight, but that might not be the case anymore.

((@RC Not just ER Tinker harem comedy. ER Hephaestus OOC harem comedy! ))

[syvarris]

Why am I -kun?  I thought I was actually a peer, here.

Spoiler: Blaster Discussion (click to show/hide)

Yeah, I meant it more as 'we have wiggle room, so we can balance it so it makes sense, maybe nerf some other things as needed to keep balance'.

Bolded part is what I have issue with here.  I think it's a terrible idea to nerf some other weapon to keep balance. 

If, by entering into discussion we inadvertently find out that some other weapon is OP, even on it's own, then I can agree with nerfing.  For example, I could agree with a PSL nerf since it's pretty much universally the best weapon we have by a fair margin, with the possible exception of energy weapons like the Raduga and PEW.

*snip* Basically, as much as it sucks, I think people should have the choice of inferior things. *snip*

This is just a disagreement between us, then.

By the way, what's the answer to that last question? Didn't follow perplexicon extremely closely.

I put it in with an (abbr) tag, but the answer is Flux.  Yo-drell, despite being focused on defense, made you hard to kill, but couldn't prevent it.  Flux helped you become essentially immune to most attacks because you could dodge everything except black holes and mind control (which Yo-drell couldn't help with).  Blastel was primarily focused on offense, and I just added him as a third option.

If you're going to kill armored targets, you should get a Testament

And remember, I still kinda doubt the full extent of the power of the mini psl.

Please though, I already have quotes saying how powerful my gun is.  If you're going to discount my arguments by saying the Testament isn't as powerful as I say it is, could you at least convince PW to say so first?

I told you before: pw has outright stated that test results don't always neatly translate to equivalent in-game effects.

See, this doesn't feel like it means anything to me.  Every weapon is equally vulnerable to that effect, so if we're comparing things then it's moot.  I could be missing something though.  My brain is at 50% ATM.

Thing is, can we know every weapon is equally vulnerable? it's hard to compare weapon effectiveness with any real certainty if we don't have a sufficiently large sample pool of IC usage. If pw down-or upgraded all weapons equally when going from test lab to field, it wouldn't matter, but I don't think that's really the case. So one weapon might work perfectly as advertised in the tests, and another might not.

((Heavily snipped quote tree for context.  Abbrs for personal readability))

We can't know that any weapons aren't equally vulnerable.  There is essentially no proof for either side, which means that they have an equal chance of happening.  Therefore, any argument that relies on PW changing a given weapon's effectiveness while leaving another unchanged is pointless, because it is just as likely to be correct as it is to be incorrect.

My argument is that a testament has better AP effectiveness than the blifle.  We know from previous tests that this is true, at least in sterile tests.  We know from the above statement that both the testament and blifle have an equal chance of being upgraded or downgraded.  If nothing changes, or if the balance isn't tipped towards the blifle past a certain threshold, my argument remains correct.  If the balance, through raw chance, is somehow tipped further towards the testament, my argument remains correct.  Your argument is only correct if the balance is tipped severely towards the blifle, and only then.  Since all outcomes are equally likely from what we know, it is more likely the testament will remain the better AP weapon.

Now, if you have reason to believe that the balance is more likely to be tipped towards the blifle than the testament, then that changes things.  However, you have not provided any evidence;  You have only said that testing is unreliable, and therefore the blifle could be better, and therefore saying that the testament is already better is pointless.  I don't really see another interpretation for what you said, but honestly I'd be surprised if one didn't exist--you usually aren't one to miss obvious things like this.  I'm guessing you omitted a portion of the argument?  Some proof that the Blifle is a better anti-armor weapon than the testament already (which would reverse our positions)?

Perhaps we can. So, question becomes, should we make decisions for them?

This is a question of morality.  I believe that if one person is better equipped to make a decision than another person, and has that person's best interests in mind, it is morally just for them to make that decision for the other.

Of course, problems come into this where it's typically far easier to believe you are better equipped than another, compared to believing you are not.  Most people overestimate themselves.  Even when you are certain about being better equipped (like we are here), it can be somewhat difficult to convince other people to allow you to make their decisions.  We don't really have that problem, because we only need to convince PW, which is trivial, and then edit the wiki.  Most people wouldn't even notice, and therefore wouldn't dissent.  We are in a rare situation where we are nearly certain it's morally just to do, and are in a position to do it.

That doesn't sound like a bad way to do it... but tinkering in that way over irc, while several other people are asking pw questions and sometimes he misses things and others are just chatting... Yeah, you see the potential problems with this. If it were regular thread tinker, it might be easier to do it like this.

And Radio has discovered why I dislike tinkering over IRC.

Well, we're certainly seeing some potential pitfalls with this method. some sort of hybrid method might be ideal?

Sure.  Can you give me one?  I don't really know what a good hybrid method would be, although that could be my hesitancy to reduce the accuracy, which is... limiting.

Sure, but remember also that in this comparison, there's also the issue of weight and size. these bluerad bats are much smaller and lighter than cutlass bats. I'm sure if we went for bats of same size/weight, they'd have vastly more power for similar size.

Then why don't you?  The Testament has a massive magazine, and PW is fine with it not even requiring good strength.  The Spektr has massive magnetrons in it, on top of the same laser chambers that are in a lasrifle, and only requires +0 str.  Unless you're specifically catering to people with a strength penalty, why sacrifice magazine size.

You're right in the case of the pistol though, assuming you want it to be concealable.  I don't think a massive battery sticking out the back of a pistol would be an issue otherwise, though.

Sure. I think I can make 2 polls for that (unsure how to make 1 with multiple answers). How exactly should I phrase the question and options?

I was figuring you could have four options, like this:
1.I read the individual pages to decide which item is best, and prefer informative armory entries.
2.I read the individual pages to decide which item is best, and prefer entertaining armory entries.
3.I read the armory entries to decide which item is best, and prefer informative armory entries.
4.I read the armory entries to decide which item is best, and prefer entertaining armory entries.

If you can make multiple polls, doing two separate ones would probably make more sense.  This way only has the advantage of showing correlations.

How do you decide what to purchase?
1) go over the wiki items and try to make a careful decision, taking different things into account
2) go over the wiki items and choose whatever looks best at a glance
3) just pick whatever seems coolest or most popular

The first two options seem somewhat vague to me--the purpose is to find out whether people usually visit the actual articles for items, therefore telling us if giving purchase/comparative advice would be useful there.  I could see someone selecting 1, but meaning that they only compare what's said in armory entries.

3 is a good addition.

Hmm. I could live with that in principle, but would like more outside (non-tinker peeps, for example, and wiki gnomes) opinions before committing, and make sure we are all on the same page before continuing.

Okay, fine by me.  Another poll, I guess?  Or in-thread questioning?

(inb4 ER tinker harem comedy)

No.

I understand that, but do you think pw will make a difference between them? Either way, if you feel that strongly about it, I'll reconsider it.

Assuming you were talking about the diffusion settings part rather than the bit about exactly what diffusion level should be medium, I disagree.  It's all the power of a 5 second lasrifle pulse condensed into a burst, so 'shotgun' diffusion should be pretty effective, even if it's a pistol.  Plus, I think being able to easily hit at close range is a big advantage for an emergency sidearm.

I think I'm gonna limit myself to the regular blaster, and maybe create something like this as a conversion kit as an after market option or something.

Doing it this way will likely result in people buying a lasrifle instead of a blastol and conversion kit.  I think Sean's idea is better, although not as good as replacing the current lasrifle with an improved, blurad powered version.

Maybe in theory, but I don't think it'll really be the case in-game. It'd be annoying to keep track of amount of shots fired to check overheating or determine thresholds etc.

"Hidden feature: Has a switch on the side.  When flipped, allows gun to be fired without waiting the mandatory 5-second cooldown time between pulses.  Runs risk of overheating and melting weapon when used."

Simple enough.  If someone wants to use rapid-fire, they specify in their action that they flip the switch, and PW increases the damage they do, and rolls to see if they melt the gun.

I also do not agree that anything that is "different but inferior" has no place in the Armory. The Red Hand is inferior to the blaster pistol in almost all conceivable qualities, but it's still useful because it is different.

(bolding mine)

See, you contradict yourself.  If it's inferior in every way, how is it useful because it's different?  If I have a flintlock rifle, and a 7.62 battle rifle, they are very different, but one is inferior in every way.  If I were arming a military and letting people choose which gun to use, I would toss the flintlocks away, so that shmucks don't make a stupid decision.

Now, the red hand isn't inferior in every way.  Someone can wear armor that is reflective, and resistant to kinetics, but which isn't insulated- and the red hand will be superior.  It also has infinite ammo, which is useful.  It can be used to cut and weld, which is useful.  It can be used to stun, which is useful.  It can even be used as a punching weapon, which is a different skill than CON, and therefore useful.  This means that you are incorrect--I conceived of several qualities that it's superior in.

Now, if it were entirely inferior, I would suggest getting rid of it.  You don't provide a good argument for why I shouldn't, instead listing qualities that compete with your original statement.  Since you seem to think I don't consider those qualities useful qualities, I think you greatly misinterpreted me.

If I improved on the red hand design, by making use of a alien tech that would create a 'mind wave' effect which would occur where the laser hit, and could go through the same mediums as electricity, with similar settings of 'stun' or 'kill' (and would have a more predictable effect), AND all this resulted in a weapon that was one token cheaper... Would you argue that we should keep the old red hand in stock, because it uses lightning instead of mind waves?  THAT is different, yet inferior.  Not the red hand vs. blastol.

Nah, I'm just thinking of this situation that might happen in the future: "You shoot the beast with your blaspistol. Unfortunately, the wounds it leaves are rather deep and tight, so your fire doesn't seem to make any difference in this fight" - which we could exactly avoid by adding this fire setting.

This, well, I don't have any logical argument for why this wouldn't work... but it wouldn't.  Maybe if I were the GM, but PW is nowhere near that exact.  He likely wouldn't even remember that standard fire from the pistol is different from standard fire in the rifle.

[Nikitian]

Spoiler: IRC Logs, standing in for Syvarris edition! (click to show/hide)

19:33:33 <Nikitian> Because I'm here for Syv and I have to calculate the shit out of these batteries efficiency

Okay, I suck at sifting through IRC logs. Long story short:

Blaster pistol
1 token
Battery: 1 token; 400 TPU, 20 shots at 20 TPU (=5sec laser rifle fire; 40% more energy capacity than half-sized laser rifle battery)
Firing settings: Focused, Medium, Diffused

Blaster rifle
4 tokens
Battery: 1 token; 400 TPU (this is coincidental, really), 10 shots at 40 TPU (=5sec cutting laser fire, can steadily burn through Milonplate; same 40% more energy capacity than half-sized (1-token) cutting laser battery)
Firing settings: Precise, Focused, Medium, Diffused

Blaster bazooka
Already worked out by RC.
Firing settings: Precise, Diffused

Firing settings:
Precise - extra concentraded pulse, for long-range sniping and armor penetration ("long" mode by RC)
Focused - concentrated pulse, finger-thick at medium range, for medium-range sniping and basic armor penetration ("medium"/"default" mode by RC)
Medium - slightly dispersed pulse, orange-thick at medium range (2x area, 1/2x damage compared to Focused), for engaging unarmored and lightly-armored targets at medium range (the mode I suggested; Piecewise confirmed its viability against certain targets like the Haebi creatures of current mission, for example)
Diffused - majorly diffused pulse ("videogame shotgun" mode), for short-range blasts and dealing with crowds ("short" mode by RC)

[Radio Controlled]

One spoiler. One!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

((@RC Not just ER Tinker harem comedy. ER Hephaestus OOC harem comedy! ))

I'm preordering the dvd box as we speak.

Why am I -kun?  I thought I was actually a peer, here.

Because nikitian rhymes with chan, and san looks too much like chan. Don't worry though, there's no playing favorites here in Radio's Delightful Hephaestus OOC Harem.

Bolded part is what I have issue with here.  I think it's a terrible idea to nerf some other weapon to keep balance. 

I meant within the weapon, like cost or stat requirements. Not other items, that'd be a horrible idea!

This is just a disagreement between us, then.

I guess. Again, I'd agree IC, people making bad decisions leads to tragedy and failed missions, but OOC'ly, peeps making decisions so monumentally stupid they deserve a statue is a good part of the game. Dunno if it's our place, as fellow players, to hamper that, unless there's some community consensus. If there is, then sure.

I put it in with an (abbr) tag, but the answer is Flux.  Yo-drell, despite being focused on defense, made you hard to kill, but couldn't prevent it.  Flux helped you become essentially immune to most attacks because you could dodge everything except black holes and mind control (which Yo-drell couldn't help with).  Blastel was primarily focused on offense, and I just added him as a third option.

Ah, I sometimes miss those. But yeah, figured that dex would probably be as OP as it usually is, and hey, suspicion confirmed!

We can't know that any weapons aren't equally vulnerable.  There is essentially no proof for either side, which means that they have an equal chance of happening.  Therefore, any argument that relies on PW changing a given weapon's effectiveness while leaving another unchanged is pointless, because it is just as likely to be correct as it is to be incorrect.

Actually, since indeed we don't know if it'll be one way or the other, we can't conclude anything about the weapon's field effectiveness with any sort of certainty! We don't know the conversion factor, so the epistemologically honest thing to conclude when comparing possible field effectiveness is simply 'insufficient data'. That's my point: not that my thing might be more or less affected by it, but that, since we don't know, we cannot make any real conclusions. You assume here that the default would be 'equally likely', but that's a pretty big assumption. One that wouldn't fly in serious academic discourse (is my environment showing?). We can't say "If you're going to kill armored targets, you should get a Testament" and use that for field effectiveness comparison, the only thing we could say is "up till now, from lab tests, the testament is better at x" while fully acknowledging it might change, one way or the other, in the field. You are right that, if the lab tests say the testament has a possible advantage, that it has a higher a priori chance, but that's it, you still can't conclude with any certainty, unless the initial difference is gigantic. I fully admit this might be a big bundle of semantics for most people, but I think the difference between 'the testament has better AP' and 'from tests, the testament has better AP till now' is important.

(Also, there is a small thing that might lead, in this specific situation, to the testament being more subject to it I think, mostly being that the blasters started designing from a balance/in-game-effect point, while the mini psl started more from pw's hated physics startpoint. Pure speculation of course.
Oh, and the blifle was still actively being balanced at the time you said the previous, and the situation has changed, by now. It now has 10 shots, each one powerful enough to get a kill vs milnoplate. Still subject to council review.)

you usually aren't one to miss obvious things like this.

Never underestimate the full extent of both my stupidity and inanity!

This is a question of morality.  I believe that if one person is better equipped to make a decision than another person, and has that person's best interests in mind, it is morally just for them to make that decision for the other.

As you also say, there's the initial problem that we might not be as 'superior' as we would like to be. Next tot that, the base idea also is rather... paternalistic. Another way to look at it, is that instead of making decisions for other people, you try to help them out with things, but still leave them the agency and freedom of choice (without 'hiding' information in an effort to help them). Even if that means they make what you think is the wrong one.

Sure.  Can you give me one?  I don't really know what a good hybrid method would be, although that could be my hesitancy to reduce the accuracy, which is... limiting.

I'm honestly unsure. I do think however, we should focus a bit less on shoving the imaginary numbers around. That doesn't mean we cannot use a scientific or rational method for design and such, but it ensures we don't blow a fuse because 'these new generation batteries are only 11,5% more efficient ermagurd D:'

If I could redo it, I'd do it the same way i think, but maybe first ask some physics number questions to establish a baseline, then ask pw what is possible and explain what I'm going for.

Then why don't you?  The Testament has a massive magazine, and PW is fine with it not even requiring good strength.  The Spektr has massive magnetrons in it, on top of the same laser chambers that are in a lasrifle, and only requires +0 str.  Unless you're specifically catering to people with a strength penalty, why sacrifice magazine size.
You're right in the case of the pistol though, assuming you want it to be concealable.  I don't think a massive battery sticking out the back of a pistol would be an issue otherwise, though.

The initial idea behind the pistol was that it should be small and unobtrusive, so that you can conceal it easily and carry it in very tight spaces. I'm talking mini-shuttle cockpit small. However, you and nik basically convinced me that making a 4th entry in the blaster line, one that gives a couple times laser rifle power (about blistol power) in pulses but with a very large magazine, might not be a bad idea. If you want continuous, you can still make the bluerad magazine for the laser rifle if you want, so people have choice. Or maybe we can give a continuous fire option to this new item, and roll them into 1 thing. (eg say it'd have 60 shots, 1 shot is either a short pulse of 5x laser intensity, or 1 shot is a 5 sec beam of laser intensity. I think we might be able to add this as an addon to the pistol for a token, or a wholly new thing. Might be able to share ammo clip with the blifle).

Okay, fine by me.  Another poll, I guess?  Or in-thread questioning?

I'd say in-thread. Problem with wiki poll is that it is not a very representative poll due to a biased sample.

It's all the power of a 5 second lasrifle pulse condensed into a burst, so 'shotgun' diffusion should be pretty effective, even if it's a pistol.  Plus, I think being able to easily hit at close range is a big advantage for an emergency sidearm.

We were discussing the finger sized one vs the orange sized one, not shotgun mode.

"Hidden feature: Has a switch on the side.  When flipped, allows gun to be fired without waiting the mandatory 5-second cooldown time between pulses.  Runs risk of overheating and melting weapon when used."

Simple enough.  If someone wants to use rapid-fire, they specify in their action that they flip the switch, and PW increases the damage they do, and rolls to see if they melt the gun.

We solved it by saying you get multiple shots a turn sans overheating, but if you overshoot and have a bad con level, you might go full rambo and overheat it (not explody overheat, just waxy).

@nik: hey, you added an extra diffusion for the pistol! I'm on to you! But I can live with it, the council can still scrap it if they want.

Also, after rethinking, you might be right that a shotgun option for the blazooka might be a good idea. Gives it an instant crowd melting control feature.

[Nikitian]

Well, I still want to create a "blaster carbine" (to borrow a name): your original idea of "series of micropulses" in short succession, sort of a pulse-continious weapon. I'm not sure how it would translate into game details, but maybe we could make the pulses quite long - for a few seconds, even - so even the "cutting" use would be covered for this weapon.

But I still think we should bring Spektr down a token. New efficient generators, data from field use, or something. Just saying.

[spazyak]

If I get ahold of some stems cells, tissue, and organs and limbs could I potentialy make a Frankenstein monster?

[Toaster]

The science team on the Sword switched the bodies of two people for giggles.  I don't see why you couldn't, with enough good fortune.

[Sean Mirrsen]

But I still think we should bring Spektr down a token. New efficient generators, data from field use, or something. Just saying.

We should bring both it and Raduga down in price then. The Spektr was balanced against the old Laser Rifle, for instance, but the current trend seems to be to ignore the old weapons. With the low-cost mass-murder provided by the bluerad cells, "infinite" ammo in the FEL weapons is rather devalued, too.

It could be time for an updated redesign.

[Dorsidwarf]

But I still think we should bring Spektr down a token. New efficient generators, data from field use, or something. Just saying.

We should bring both it and Raduga down in price then. The Spektr was balanced against the old Laser Rifle, for instance, but the current trend seems to be to ignore the old weapons. With the low-cost mass-murder provided by the bluerad cells, "infinite" ammo in the FEL weapons is rather devalued, too.

It could be time for an updated redesign.

Except if we get an analogue to the Planetoid mission, but with more things to shoot which aren't a) invulnerable b) an endless sheet of rock ice or c) 200m high, formed of liquid crystals, and able to shoop da woop.

[Nikitian]

I just understood. The forcefields are the ultimate chemical-resistant armor, aren't they?