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[Ander Hammer]

Hmm.  units count as one square closer per agility mod?

Golly, that'd be neat. Agility mod your shotgun today and actually be able to do the listed damage if you're close enough!

[rekenne]

... Oh, huh, that's why sarges seem so much tougher now, they did get a buff. And, yeah, my strategy for Hell's Arena always used to be: Find Combat Shotty or bring as many shotguns as I can with me. It worked well enough, though not as good as the combat shotty. Now that the CShotty is down to dlvl6 ... I think *it* became useless. Unless I go AoShotgunnery, I'm dropping shotguns like they're hot for the chaingun, most of the time. The Combat Shotty gave you a decent weapon for a bit and maybe outstripped the chaingun for a bit, but now... it's "abuse the AI and sound mechanics" not a gun. I think this made shotgun type weapons less viable, on the whole, really.

[Sambojin]

I actually like shotguns as they stand, but they do have an overpowered->underpowered effect as you go through the game. The combat shotgun does entirely replace the normal shotgun, even more so with the tactical shotgun assembly being an easy to make weapon. Elephant guns are good, but a tac shotty is essentially a power-modded assault shotgun, making it THE thing to go for in almost any shotgun build. Between shottyman's full reload, less drop-off, tighter cone and using up a tech rather than power mod, I'll grab a tac shotty rather than an elephant every time. The single goes by the wayside, caught between the double for close range and the combat (or tactical) for distance, where you might just carry one through for Juggling purposes and still never really use it after the early game is over.

Here's my thoughts on how to make the shotgun more useful (and random thoughts on all the shotgun's play dynamics, with pointless real-life and scifi explanations in asterix text for no good reason).

#1. Slug firing alt-fire. Give it a slightly slower fire time, say 1.2 secs to account for aiming, with an 8d3 (or 12d2) shot at about +2 accuracy with standard bullet damage. Makes the shotgun a nice, versatile weapon being able to be modded in any way and usuable in any build.
* You don't know what type of shell Doomguy loaded, buckshot or slug, it's just loaded with a shell. Shells are shells. You just know what type of shell you're firing, not loading. *
* Sci-fi explanation. In the future, all shotgun shells are dual use. They are made up of a pre-shattered and re-fused depleted uranium slug with a micro-explosive detonator imbedded centrally in the shell, that can be set off in two ways. There is what we consider the standard buckshot form, where the micro-explosive is set off as the main charge of the round is fired, causing the round to break up into fragments whilst achieving muzzle velocity in the barrel. The other firing mode de-fuses the shell from the primary firing sequence and places it into impact-mode, firing the cartridge as a solid slug until it strikes a target, at which point the micro-explosive is detonated, causing massive internal injuries or shrapnel damage to the target. *

#2. More assemblies.
An assembly for combat shotgun like spread (AA), an assembly for DB spread (AB), a slug firing assembly (AT), a 3 shell magazine shotgun for mini-combat/high spread use (BB) or a plasma-blast-cutter wall-breacher(TB). It can be the non-whizkid, super-versatile weapon of modding choice. Whatever you find, you can slap it on a shotgun and make it your tool for the job.
* Over the years the simplicity of a shotgun has won over many fans. Whilst it's not great against modern armour, it's high reliability, large target circle, modifiability, excellent close-quarter abilities and tolerance to ammunition types (ranging from non-lethal/door-breaching/flares/electronic and pseudo-grenades all the way to the standard slug and buckshot rounds) has won over adherance in the military, police, criminal and civilian communties everywhere. A shotgun ain't just a shotgun. Is it a long barrel hunting gun, a sawn-off shotty, a mini-magazine non-pumper or has it just got a breaching charge loaded? It's your damn shotgun, you'd know. *
*Sci-fi explanation. The shotgun is the weapon assigned to all our Sergeants. They're the men on the ground, not only giving the orders and kicking arse, but damn well making sure those orders can be completed. The shotgun is their weapon. It makes sure those orders are not only followed, but that the mission is completed, regardless of the problems. Because of this, we have made their standard issue weapon both simple yet versatile. It can be modified almost indefinately to take a huge range of ammunition or to be altered into almost any configuration with all normal issue mod-packs. Grab your shotgun, fufill your mission. *

More to follow, my phone's almost dead :)

[Sambojin]

#3 On shotguns, agility/bulk mods and fire-cones.
There';s only three types of fire cones that I know of, DB/SB/combat. You could also have a slug shot(single heavy damage bullet) at the end of that sequence. Could you have shotguns use agility mods to tighten the fire-cone and perhaps bulk mods widening it. Perhaps changing the damage/drop-off/accuracy as you do. It would allow some alteration for all shotguns with mods that you don't often use singly on them and give them a wider range of uses. Whizzkids could get a DB all the way from normal to double-shot-slug with 3 otherwise useless agilty mods. Or an combat shotty to a mutli-shot DB spread for low damage, high probabilty cornering.
* It's a shotgun. Whether it's a single barrel, a double or a pump action, barrel length determines the spread more so than any factor other than ammo type. And lead slugs really do go better with a rifled barrel. Cut the barrel down for a sawn-off, high spread shotgun or have a long-barrel hunting shotgun. It's simple goddammit. *
*Sci-fi explanation. All standard issue shotguns of any class have standard calibre barrels and fire all standard shotgun rounds. It gives us a basic weapons platform that is reliable, customisable, gives excellent redundancy in squads and saves us a fortune on bulk-ordering parts from Sambojin's Shotgun Supplies. Because of this, barrelling systems and breaches are interchangeable between all shotgun classes, taking only seconds to swap out one for another using only a few simple tools. Guess what? You forgot your tools..... *

[Bloax]

Hm..

Code: [Select]

Agility mod - Tightens spread cone, decreases damage drop-off by 1% per tile, removes one of highest dice (8d3 - 7d3) and adds a constant +1 to damage. (?)
Bulk mod - Increases spread cone, increases damage drop-off by 1(1.5?)% per tile, removes one of highest dice and adds a constant lowest dice damage bonus. (?@Damage)
Power mod - Decreases damage drop-off by 1% (Kaboom! .. 0.5%?) per tile, adds one highest dice.
Technical mod - Decreases damage drop-off by (1.5?)%/tile, decreases firing and reloading time by 10% (?) (?Good candidate for assemblies?)
Perhaps 1d(MinDice-1)+2 for the bulk mod? (ATM what I have there is just damage maximization. (Eg. Shotgun B2 = 6-18+6))
That way said example would end up being (12-13)-(24-25) ... (ehh) Yeah, probably 1.5% increased drop-off for higher average damage. (And larger spread.)

And yeah, it'd be cool if ordinary shotguns were a "mainstream" weapon.

[Sambojin]

That was my thought on the subject. It also give a little more versatility to the other shotguns, without there being a clear winner in effective-ness. I'm having a devil of a time making a DB shotgun build that doesn't play just like any other shotty build, albiet with slightly less range. Or just going for the focused DB and using it just like a normal shotgun (with the combat/tac shotty still feeling "better").

Actually, while we're on shotguns, can anyone suggest a build for DB only use? Something slightly away from the normal MAD or MSh style? I've got vague visions of using a DB as essentially a close combat weapon, just one with a couple of extra squares of range, spread, auto-hit and knockback. Might actually be asking too much really. Too many AoB runs and wanting to do a similar thing with a DB. I guess MVm and Jug (or SM) would probably do fine anyway.

[GrimmC]

Honestly I don't have much issue with how the shotguns are now. Moving Combat Shotgun to dlevel 6 or whatever it is was genius. The early game plays totally different (in a positive way!) now. Very happy Malek's suggestion of removing vanilla shotty's altogether wasn't taken up. (No offense!) Now you have a legitimate choice of weaponry. My bigger beef is really with the Doomguy's inaccurate base accuracy. (i.e., shotguns can be used by any build effectively, but you have to specialize to make any use out of the accuracy-based weapons)

The shotguns are straightforward workhorses, as they should be imo. If you want variety in your shotguns, take one of the master traits geared towards them. Ever try using the elephant gun with MAD? It's nuts, archviles dying in two hits and all sorts of crazy stuff. Otherwise, just don't expect them to be too useful by the end game. I don't like the idea of slug fire, it makes shotguns even more powerful than they already are. They already rule at medium/close range, why make them effective at long range too?

The only change I would want to see is the dropoff rate. I actually instituted a dropoff for my own mod in Doom (surprise!) but it wasn't as sharp as this. Mine was extreme (2x damage, equivalent of 1 square away), full (1x, 3-4 squares away), half (0.5x damage, >4). Of course, in Doom the pellets spread out, so someone say 8 squares away would be only getting half the pellets too (especially with the doubleshotgun.) So how about something like:

1 square = 0% damage reduction (since shotties already are kinda extreme at close range)
2-4 squares = 25% reduction
4-8 squares = 50% (75% for dbshotguns)
>8 squares = 75% (90% for dbshotguns)

When you factor in armor which most late-game enemies have, it just becomes ridiculous to be hitting an enemy with 3 or 4 blasts and not even get them past "scratched". (Even the assault shotgun barely dents them towards the end.) The double shotguns are even worse. In my opinion, the dbshotguns aren't even worth it unless you're standing directly behind a door or corner and you know the guy's coming. There's no way to walk around with it equipped, because it just isn't effective unless the enemy is 1 or 2 squares away. There's not even any tactical advantage to fighting Demons with it...sure you might break even shell-wise but as soon as a ranged attacker shows up you have to fumble around to equip a different gun.

The extremely long reload time already discourages anyone but specialists from using it; why make the dropoff punishing to the point of futility? The double shotgun clearly wants to be used more, with the alt-fire and alt-reload; why not make it happen? I would be more than willing to take slight damage reduction for the possibility of unloading both barrels at once. But right now it's not feasible.

[raekuul]

I may be slightly out of date (not having played a dedicated Shotgun game since 0.9.9.2), but isn't the Combat Shotgun's cone the same as the Standard Shotgun? I know the Assault Shotgun had the tighter cone...

[Game Hunter]

I may be slightly out of date (not having played a dedicated Shotgun game since 0.9.9.2), but isn't the Combat Shotgun's cone the same as the Standard Shotgun? I know the Assault Shotgun had the tighter cone...

Use this page for shotgun missile reference. Combat and assault shotguns use the "focused" missile type.

[raekuul]

Ah, so I was out of date. Okay then

[Orbiplanax]

It isnt advised trying to balance two weapons for the same niche from the same weapon type. Either one is stronger, having a lower dropchance and/or being accessible later in the game, or both have are of the same efficiency and one could be removed due to redundancy. So trying to balance the normal shotgun and the combat-shotgun isnt really a good idea at all.

How about creating different niches for each type of shotgun (shotguns, double-shotguns and combat-shotguns).

Giving double-shotguns a much wider cone than that of a normal shotgun just like in the original doom. Or if thats better, the cone of normal shotguns could be reduced to make double-shotguns much better at fighting spread-out enemies. Because as it is now, the double-shotgun is only good when fighting on close-positioning and only if the enemy isnt knock-backed, which is a very rare scenario.

Concerning combat-shotguns, entirely remove the spread of all related shotguns and it make it have less damage drop-off than its brothers the double-shotgun and the normal shotgun.

With these changes, the normal shotgun becomes the allrounder for starters, at its best when fighting bunched up groups of enemies. The double-shotgun becomes the weapon of choice when encountering heavily spread up enemies. And last but not least, the combat shotgun becomes the shotgun for single target purposes. (Or fighting a line of enemies)

I presume it isnt really shotgunnerish to have no spread on a shotgun, but having more than one weapon from the same type for the exact same purpose isnt really great either, at some point people will just use the mathematically better gun. Thats where situational differences can make the decision which shotgun to use really meaningful.