The Energon Pub

Weapon Decay and Weapon Shelf Life

Weapon Decay - Constant use of a weapon decreases its usefulness (accuracy and/or effective damage). You can either then repair it or buy a new one. Repairs might be limited, such as you can only repair so much so many times or not repair at all. You then have to buy a new weapon. Decay should be based on use, so the more you use it the more it decays and not based on time. This will force people to buy more weapons and would prevent unlimited use of a weapon they purchase once and use for 3+ years. Having to buy a gatling gun every few months would be costly and for other weapons (like BB we can't get anymore) would force buying newer available weapons.

Weapon Shelf Life - Unlike Decay, this is based on time. With a limited shelf slots for unused weapons, you can't horde better weapons and not use them for long periods of time and then getting the full life out of them. Weapons will rust, etc., so use should be limited. The Shelf Life will be based on time since they are unused, but once used they will go by Decay. If put back into inventory, they'll go back to Shelf Life (after modification from Decay).

I came up with a system ages ago (having PMed it to Glyph, it was probably about two years back), where weapons lost accuracy based on their use. I can't remember the exact mechanics, though. Tam might.

I don't and I HATE this idea


it ruins weapons, which quite frankly destroys FRP and SKL usefulness and only encourages Brawling

if you have higher frp and skl to wield better weapons, you will be a higher level and thus pay more for CR, however with this idea implemented you have to pay even more and keep paying more if you've gone for the 10FP gun rather than 10 strength fist, and then what if you can't find that weapon again cos it's sold out, you either have to reset the bot( and lose armour and risk your alt) or you have stat point doing nothing.

secondly, if this is a destructable resource you better damn well make sure the missions are done fairly becuase you're balancing on a knife edge, you either end up with piles of excess stock no one wants(yeah we've got 17 thousand odd tonnes of aluminium in con armoury) or it sells out quicker than Iron did back in the Iron age.

and then we have the third problem that to balance things with energon cost is completly useless unless you have a viable in-game economy, which no MMORPG has managed to do ever(and i don't think any RL economy has either for that matter)

with all honesty brawlers should have been fixed already where they dont become the end all solution to everything.

also anything could be applied to non-weapons as well - such as battle damage to hands and feet where if youre going to punch through metal you should take damage as well and thus need to be repaired...or even punch and kicks do little damage and to get more damage you have to buy like upgraded hands and feet that need to be repaired or purchased again.

im sitting on weapons i bought years ago and 12 million energon. there is a new type of weapon in the weapon shop that no one will probably use. the game becomes too much who can buy the most and use the same weapon to its advantage: x-ray or nothing -> dol/sar -> bb/energon crossbow -> gatling gun.

not only does there need to be a weapon re-balance (a real difference between no recharge weapons and other types as well as more fp/sk = better weapons), but there has to be a balance to where there is a point in having weapons besides the ability to fit your character better because what it comes down to is (1) can i use this weapon as an rpg element or (2) can i use this weapon forever and nothing will replace it ever.

I despise this idea with a bloody passion as well. I was happy when this idea died a quiet death on the drawing board a while back.

You need to remember that not every player is always making energon... Many players lose energon, even under the current system. Adding another cost like this, particularly such a large cost, will break many players.

Plus it's just plain annoying. I now have to constantly worry about my weapons disappearing on me? And if the weapon I'm using isn't in stock, I need to find another, which likely won't have the same stats, meaning I'll either have not enough or too much stats, and either have my character be inefficient or be forced to reset him. Not cool.

Plus Tammuz is right. This will just give rise to the brawlers.

Plus, you have noticed that the weapons have been changed, right? For the most part, they do get better as you go up FP/SKL.

now i remember why i stopped coming to the board - everyone is so quick to dismiss ideas and attack everyone. 0 people have really supported this idea except a drunk jp and the two other replies bashed it 100%. did anyone bother to try to piggy back this idea? no. did anyone else have their own input about other methods or suggestions? no. there are valid concerns but there are other ways around things if you think things out. we all know this is likely something that would never be added but it was an idea and without ideas this game doesnt get improved but i guess everyone is happy with that.

I actually don't mind the weapon decay part. It is true to real life. As long as there is a warning and the costs aren't that great. I think ther should be unlimited repairs though. The weapon would go away if the user never repaired it. Like every battle would decay it my so many percent depending on how often it is used in battle. There would be a percentage next to the weapon stating how much is left. An example would be:

Battle Blades - 89%

This means that the effectiveness is at 89% and will disappear at 0%. To prevent it from breaking, you have to repair it. There should be some modifier in battle to see when there is damage taken.


Oh, I dont like the weapon shelf life thing.

crazyfists wrote:now i remember why i stopped coming to the board - everyone is so quick to dismiss ideas and attack everyone. 0 people have really supported this idea except a drunk jp and the two other replies bashed it 100%. did anyone bother to try to piggy back this idea? no. did anyone else have their own input about other methods or suggestions? no. there are valid concerns but there are other ways around things if you think things out. we all know this is likely something that would never be added but it was an idea and without ideas this game doesnt get improved but i guess everyone is happy with that.

I haven't bashed you, i've pointed out the MASSIVE FLAWS in the idea, you might be sitting on 12 million energon, and that is the precise reason why energon should not be used as a balancing factor, becuase quite frankly the economy is so broken that energon doesn't really matter at all to some/most players. i could buy 12 fusion cannons, and 120tons of electrum without even thinking about the price, but some can't so that unfairly disciminates against them. and then we have the donate fuction so pretty much everyone can afford everything with a little generosity, making energon COMPLETELY USELESS as a balancing factor.

OK. Thought I would chime in on this.

First of all concerning brawlers:
Last week I actually did tone down the damage given with punching and kicking. The range of damage they do is now a bit lower. They may need to be toned down even MORE in the future but for now we will just need to see how they work.

Concerning weapons:
Degrading weapons never made much sense to me. A more accurate scenario would be AMMUNITION. How many shots can a weapon fire in a battle before they run out of ammunition? This could be a very impactful and yet easy to implement new feature of the new weapons.

2 ways to do this:

1. Energon efficiency - Your weapon uses energon when it fires just like in the TF toons. You alot a certain amount of your energon to weapons and when a gun fires it uses some. Energon efficiency would be how much of a gas guzzler your gun is.

2. Ammunition Amount - Your weapon only has so many shots per mission/arena. Say a pistol has 10 shots and a rocket launcher has 5. Next time you are in a mission/arena the weapon is reloaded and you start again.

Either one of these could be huge factors in a weapon's cost, strategy and selection (and it wouldn't take me forever to code and test).

I think I prefer OS's suggestion.


Degrading weapons would only make certain weapons even more scarce- so players with more energon could simply buy up a load of stock and then just repair it every now and then.



Potentially, that could become alot like the minicon war. Where one side would horde all of the most effective weapons, leaving the other sides with nothing.



I would go with ammunition limit out of the two though OS. Energon efficiency, while a good idea, would all lead back to Tammuz's argument.

A limited number of rounds per battle is a lot better.






Maybe it could also lead to an upgrade chamber, where expanded ammo clips and add-ons could be purchased and built on.



Might be taking it a bit far with that one though

Why dont we balance weapons and unarmed first? I llike both ideas, but as 2 is defendant on number of attacks which varies wildly, 1 is a nicer option, and will tear a bigger hold in peoples pocket.

I don't mind either energon or amunition, maybe some weapons could use ammunition, other use energon and some use both and/or none.

Makes sense.


Weapons like Rocket Launcers, missiles could use ammo, energy weapons use energon, and uber weapons like the gatling gun could use both.

To be honest, I wouldn't be fussed whether these ideas made it into the game or not. What I will say, however, is that if the ammo idea was implemented then it may be necessary to allow us to have a backup weapon as well as our usual weapon or else battles between opponents with high armour and endurance could just turn into fist fights.

You mean like field survival pistols?



Maybe a small sidearm that every tf automatically has from the moment it is created.

(EDIT:- Maybe just create a new section in the weapons shop and on each character's profile page- so you can buy field survival pistols of varying degrees of power)

I dunno anything about code, but I don't think that would be too difficult to implement. It's basically the same as long distance brawling....



How I have just put it makes me think it's entirely pointless... Damn





I'd also like to suggest that the pistol's power be proportional to the FP stat or something similar, but I'm totally out of steam now...

While ammunition is an interesting idea, the ammunition number would have to be unrealistically small for it to actually have an impact in most missions/arena bouts. I also worry that while energon costs for weapons is fine for many players, it will make things even more difficult for many players out there to to continue to cover their CR costs. Though Mkall's idea to have certain weapons use ammo, energon, or neither could potentially give players more options and allow players who don't make a lot of energon to just choose a non-energon using weapon)

Also, I don't think it's a good idea to do anything further to decrease the power of weapons without either adding a bit to their power in other ways (is it possible to add a damage category about Incredible and give it as a top end to most of the high-end weapons that aren't the Gatling Gun? That would help balance that part out a bit) or weakening tactics a bit (because tactics XP costs are not affected by increases in other stats, like increasing your FP and SKL are by increasing any other stat, tactics are a far cheaper XP/Energon investment for attacks that auto-hit and do more damage. Also, weapons are defended against by many things - SPD, AVD, END and STR/RNK/Armor while tactics are only defended against by END).

Ideally, I'd like to see a higher damage category added to weapons, and tactics' accuracy start being affected by Speed (or better yet, Skill, cause that would allow Skill to do something useful).

I'll start playing with some stuff.