The Energon Pub

That's a good point. Best to get the current alt modes straightened out first (weapons too) before fancier stuff.

I've been conducting my own weapons research, this time into the original tech specs and who had what weapons. Working through G1 at tne moment and some are a bit surprising.
Megatron's fusion cannon for instance would be 10fp 9sk if we went by his tech specs.

Hopefully when combined with Bun's research we can revamp the weapons cabinet a bit and add a bit more variety to what people are using than the tried and tested favourites.

High Command wrote:That's a good point. Best to get the current alt modes straightened out first (weapons too) before fancier stuff.

I've been conducting my own weapons research, this time into the original tech specs and who had what weapons. Working through G1 at tne moment and some are a bit surprising.
Megatron's fusion cannon for instance would be 10fp 9sk if we went by his tech specs.

Hopefully when combined with Bun's research (which has been, frankly, amazing) we can revamp the weapons cabinet a bit and add a bit more variety to what people are using than the tried and tested favourites.

I think between you and Bun we have everything we need to finally overhaul and sort out some of the ridiculous situation we have with weapons.

The hard part now is the actual updating behind the scenes and the inevitable tantrums being thrown when X weapon gets nerfed to align with its G1 counterpart

Psychout wrote:

High Command wrote:That's a good point. Best to get the current alt modes straightened out first (weapons too) before fancier stuff.

I've been conducting my own weapons research, this time into the original tech specs and who had what weapons. Working through G1 at tne moment and some are a bit surprising.
Megatron's fusion cannon for instance would be 10fp 9sk if we went by his tech specs.

Hopefully when combined with Bun's research (which has been, frankly, amazing) we can revamp the weapons cabinet a bit and add a bit more variety to what people are using than the tried and tested favourites.

I think between you and Bun we have everything we need to finally overhaul and sort out some of the ridiculous situation we have with weapons.

The hard part now is the actual updating behind the scenes and the inevitable tantrums being thrown when X weapon gets nerfed to align with its G1 counterpart

Especially if we were to change them to their canon stat requirements. Spoiler alert there would be virtually no weapons below 5fp 5sk...

Arguably that makes sense that there be more choice the higher you get (encouraging upgrading). However practically, we have to bear in mind that a lot of people are occasional players and will remain at low levels for a while. Also I can ensure you if we used every canon weapon the list would be fairly incoherent and samey.
I still haven't come accross a single 10,10 weapon yet either which is interesting.

I guess what I'd like to see is a broader spead of interesting names with all stat combos covered. Stat requirements broadly reflect damage but with variety added via recharge times.

I figured some tweaking would have to be done for the sake of variety.
Also there are generic options for low levels instead of canon weapons.

We could always give sticks and gobot weapons to the n00bs.

Hard to say which would be a more effective weapon.

So many different options.

Pistol < rifles < missile < cannon < heavy artillery < orbital bombardment < death ray... and so on.

Laser
Plasma
Photon
Concussion
Ion

What about weapon quality for lower ranked weapons? Tagging like, Rusty Laser Pistol for a 1 or 2fp weapon, while the regular laser pistol is whichever version of the constructicon gun you go with?

Psychout wrote:So many different options.

Pistol < rifles < missile < cannon < heavy artillery < orbital bombardment < death ray... and so on.

Laser
Plasma
Photon
Concussion
Ion

I'd already thought of adding to my data a personal pick of the best ones (IMHO) but I can also make a chart than can be used to self-create new ones with adhectives and weapons types.

I'll include some of my thoughts non damage/recharge rates too.

Along the lines of:

Guns:
Pistol - low consistent damage - medium recharge
Rifle - medium consitent damage - low recharge
Machine gun - low to medium damage - no recharge
Shotgun - low to high damage - medium recharge
Cannon - medium to high damage - high recharge

Ordinace:
Missile - high damage - medium recharge
Rocket - medium damage - low recharge
Grenade - low to medium damage - medium recharge
Mortar - low to high damage - high recharge

Directed energy:
Laser - low damage - no recharge
Beam - medium damage - low recharge
Blaster - high damage - medium recharge

Melee:
Sword - low to high recharge - no recharge
Axe - medium to high damage - low recharge
Dagger - low to medium damage - no recharge
Etc etc

*Note I'm not using the current damage range descriptors, just generalisations to give an impression at the moment.

Then add some adjectives to make them a bit more varied:

Semi-automatic - lower recharge rate than standard
Automatic - lower recharge rate than semi-automatic
Double-barrelled - more damage than standard
Heat-seeking - more damage
Etc etc

I understand that there is some problem that only Ryan can fix with the Autobot alt modes and that he has no interest in doing so right now but can we do SOMETHING?

Proposal:

Addition of Temporary Core Alts for Bots.

Right now, due to an error that prevents the Common alts from rotating in, the Bots only have potential access to about 46% of their Alts.
That's bad enough but there are some alt classes that are completely cut off to us because of it:

Dangerous Land Animal
Fast Air Animal
Fast Insect
Ferocious Air Animal
Ferocious Sea Creature
Helpful Insect
Hovercraft
Opportunistic Insect
Repair Tank
Tough Insect
Velociraptor

In addition to that there are alt classes with no core alts and only a small percentage of rares thus unduly restricting access to them

Battlestation - 71% Common
Dangerous Air Animal - 75%
Helpful Sea Creature - 80%
Nimble Air Animal - 85%
Nimble Sea Creature - 75%
Space Shuttle - 80%

As I understand thing it should not be that hard to to set just one of the Common alts in each of those categories to be set to Core to allow access to those Alt Classes, if not for both lists then at least for the first one.

This would ideally only be a temporary measure until such time as the normal rotation can be reinstated.

Burn wrote:

Psychout wrote:Still technically single (custom) colour, but are you thinking more like this?

Yep.

Having them rare would give people more reason to keep an eye on the alt mode rotation. At the moment (if it were working), what's the incentive to keep an eye on it?

Is this a thing still being pondered on or considered? I know it was proposed afew months ago, but thought i'd ask cause i have a folder with a bunch of alts in this style that i did from all those years ago.(i also have several bot modes in this style too i think)

Raphael Prime wrote:

Burn wrote:

Psychout wrote:Still technically single (custom) colour, but are you thinking more like this?

Yep.

Having them rare would give people more reason to keep an eye on the alt mode rotation. At the moment (if it were working), what's the incentive to keep an eye on it?

Is this a thing still being pondered on or considered? I know it was proposed afew months ago, but thought i'd ask cause i have a folder with a bunch of alts in this style that i did from all those years ago.(i also have several bot modes in this style too i think)

Yes and yes.
[Referring to the high detail alts from a page back]

The issue here is that if we were to include these, and it worked, the rest of the alt art would need to be redone in the same style to avoid looking like a 90s MySpace site. Whilst Phasewing is capable of making these, we have over 1000 alone and so this is a huge undertaking so I won't ask a single person to do it. If we get more alt makers active again then we can look further into it.

I'd really like to see the ones you have though and after this CfC round is complete we can try one and see if they work with the current recolouring script.

Psychout wrote:Yes and yes.
[Referring to the high detail alts from a page back]

The issue here is that if we were to include these, and it worked, the rest of the alt art would need to be redone in the same style to avoid looking like a 90s MySpace site. Whilst Phasewing is capable of making these, we have over 1000 alone and so this is a huge undertaking so I won't ask a single person to do it. If we get more alt makers active again then we can look further into it.

I'd really like to see the ones you have though and after this CfC round is complete we can try one and see if they work with the current recolouring script.

I have about 50+ including all sorts of things(even some done for (crap) 'n giggle, like Bender lol.) Just let me know the file type they need to be(i'm guessing GIF still?).

As for getting more alt makers for this style, luckily enough, i made some tutorial vids back then that i actually just rewatched a few moments ago to refresh myself and try my hand at making a new one. So if anyone ever got interested in helping out, those vids could help.

Raphael Prime wrote:(i'm guessing GIF still?)

As for getting more alt makers for this style, luckily enough, i made some tutorial vids back then that i actually just rewatched a few moments ago to refresh myself and try my hand at making a new one. So if anyone ever got interested in helping out, those vids could help.

Yep, still .gif

And feel free to stare the tutorial, our link in the staff section is long dead although I don't know if that is to the same vid.

Psychout wrote:Yep, still .gif

And feel free to stare the tutorial, our link in the staff section is long dead although I don't know if that is to the same vid.

Alright. I'll do that when i get a chance this afternoon.

Here's a few of the older ones(not sure if they'll work or not, back then i was still a newbie at all the photoshop/gimp stuff)





Here's what i had from back then. I wouldn't doubt if it needs to be adjusted a bit either.
https://youtu.be/WH-CT1s5LEM

Are we doing that again... um... err... I don't know...

What if there were Special attacks that can be unlocked at certain levels or combos per alt mode?

For example an alt mode that has bite....could unlock a Mega bite attack
or a dragon could unlock breath weapon attacks like fire ice or electrical all doing damage per the upgrade level

or as mentioned before Jets could get a double strafe attack that deals more damage

There are other tactics in the system already, they don't work.

We only discovered Bite worked by accident.

We used to have robot mode tactics way back in the day. Could certain tactics be added to those.

KAMJIIN wrote:We used to have robot mode tactics way back in the day. Could certain tactics be added to those.

Sadly not, they were ripped out when OS ragequit back in the day.

Back to a previous suggestion we could work out. An alt mode shop is still a viable thing. No coding needed, but could potentially Create a boatload of work for Burn. Create a stickied thread alt-mode shop. Set and list prices for the alts. Designate an Autobot to serve as "saleaman", Burn serves as Decepticon "salesman". Energon is paid. Burn applies the alt to the chosen character. Might help with the rotator issue, encourage players to try new modes, and enable players to reset prizes alts. Just make the price prohibitive enough to keep you from getting flooded with requests, fair enough that it would be a reasonable consideration.

Regarding Weapons: I think thinning the herd would be a good temporary option. As Burn stated, there are over 600 weapons in the game. That's way too many options. As an example, there are 3 basic weapons that do light to heavy damage. Maybe Bun-Bun could channel his inner nerd and make a cut list for Burns final approval. Maybe a couple weapons from each bracket. And put out a warning before a cut, so players can sell off the junk weapons they have.

And I also don't mind being a low level guinea pig for anything you cook up. Including beatdowns by higher level test subject.

KAMJIIN wrote:Back to a previous suggestion we could work out. An alt mode shop is still a viable thing. No coding needed, but could potentially Create a boatload of work for Burn. Create a stickied thread alt-mode shop. Set and list prices for the alts. Designate an Autobot to serve as "saleaman", Burn serves as Decepticon "salesman". Energon is paid. Burn applies the alt to the chosen character. Might help with the rotator issue, encourage players to try new modes, and enable players to reset prizes alts. Just make the price prohibitive enough to keep you from getting flooded with requests, fair enough that it would be a reasonable consideration.

Not a bad idea tbh, and it's something I can do as well as Burn. Just don't expect it for a little while as IRL **** keeps getting in the way.

Regarding Weapons:<snip>

If I'm 100% honest, the work involved there would be phenomenal, so don't expect anything like that Any time soon sadly.

I already did the planning for a major weapons overhaul.
It's sitting in development hell waiting for anyone with power to have time.