Weapons & Equip Special Hitscan Bullet Weapons - Beamshot and Railgun

[SzGamer227]

I've been thinking... why don't Bullets get any special kind of weapon with a unique ability? There are Bows that transform ammo used into special projectiles. Every single type of Rocket-firing weapon is unique in some way. Why should Bullets be left out?

My idea is to add a new kind of gun to the game, but rather than going with ammo transformation like the Bows do, I thought about having weapons that enhance the bullets themselves. These two guns fire hitscan versions of the ammo used, like how the Shadowbeam Staff's beam works. Bullet damage is also doubled, so feeding them 10-damage ammunition actually adds 20 damage. Here they are:

Sprite by J-50N! (Thank you!)
Beamshot
*Mechanical-tiered. (Balanced against the Megashark.)
Hitscan technology enhances ammo used.
Damage: 70
Crit Chance: +5%
Use Time: 24 (2.5 uses/second)
Knockback: 6
Recipe:

Hallowed Bars (12)

Illegal Gun Parts

Souls of Sight (20)
@ a Hardmode Anvil.


Next up is the Railgun, which is a brutally powerful upgrade for the Sniper Rifle (which is UP and needs a buff anyways).

Sprite by Brutallama! (Thank you!)
Railgun
*Lunar-tiered. (Balanced against the Chain Gun.)
Hitscan technology enhances ammo used.
'Bullet-firing technology at its peak.'
Damage: 300
Crit Chance: +15%
Use Time: 43 (1.4 uses/second)
Acquisition:
I don't know. Either dropped by the Lunar boss or crafted with an endgame Lunar-tiered material.

This is the exact opposite of everything the Chain Gun embodies. In certain situations, the Chain Gun is better, but the Railgun is superior overall.


Now for specifics about the ammo enhancements:

Musket Ball: 14 damage. Orange trail.

Silver Bullet: 18 damage. Penetrates once. Light grey trail.

Meteor Shot: 18 damage. Bounces twice or penetrates twice. (Bouncing and penetrating are counted separately.) Purpleish red trail.
Hellstone Ammo: (Please go vote for the name.) 20 Damage. Penetrates twice. Inflicts "On Fire!" Flame trail.

Party Bullet: 20 damage. Enemies killed have a chance to drop Party Tickets. (Suggestion by @Baconfry.) Confetti trail.

Golden Bullet: 20 damage. Inflicts "Midas." Bright yellow trail.

Explosive Bullet: 20 damage. Explodes. deals insane knockback. Smoky flame trail.

Crystal Bullet: 16 damage. Explodes into a hexagon of 6 shards that deal 40% original damage. Blue trail.

Cursed Bullet: 24 damage. Penetrates twice. Inflicts "Cursed Inferno." Cursed flame trail.

Ichor Bullet: 26 damage. Penetrates once. Inflicts "Ichor." Ichor trail.

High-Velocity Bullet: 20 damage. Penetrates three times. More effective against enemies with higher defense. Brassy-orange trail.

Chlorophyte Bullet: 20 damage. Homes after enemies. Chlorophyte trail.

Nano Bullet: 20 damage. Penetrates twice. Inflicts "Confused." Cyan trail.

Venom Bullet: 28 damage. Penetrates once. Inflicts "Venom." Purple trail.

Spoiler: Technical elaboration on the way I imagine hitscan Chlorophyte Bullets would work:

Instead of adjusting the bullets position and then moving onto the next frame like normal projectile movement is handled, it instead marks an invisible point where the bullet would go, run another calculation marking where it would go after that, and then after that, and so on until a line of invisible points is drawn from the player to the target, all in the same frame. To cut down on the number of unnecessary calculations, it would draw its first point from the origin at the point where it would either enter the homing radius of the shot, intersect with a block, or simply derender due to being out of the player's range. From that point, it would only have to trace the curve towards the enemy's location, deal damage, and fill in the space between points with the Chlorophyte Bullet's particle effect.

A quick illustration:

A) From the origin, a line is drawn to a point meeting any of the above criteria (homing, blocking, or de-rendering).
B) A point is marked where said line first comes within range of a Zombie. This range is represented by that blue line.
C) From that point, multiple calculations are made from each successive point tracing the bullet's trajectory.
After that,
-) The lightly dotted green line tracing the path of the bullet is occupied with a particle effect.
-) Damage is dealt to the Zombie.

That's it for the suggestion. Feedback is appreciated! Let me know what you think.

 

[bad_news]

I like the idea, although with double bullet damage 70 seems too high of a base if it's mech-tier.

 

[SzGamer227]

I like the idea, although with double bullet damage 70 seems too high of a base if it's mech-tier.

It's balanced with the Megashark. I've checked the numbers, so don't worry.

 

[Isaac the Jester]

I like the idea, and the rail gun could be like the gauss rifle from fallout, in which it takes 2 ammo for every shot instead of one to prevent it from being too over powered(YES I know the gauss rifle really takes 4 and not 2, but 4 would be rediclous in terraria)

 

[bad_news]

It's balanced with the Megashark. I've checked the numbers, so don't worry.

In that case, I definitely support this!

 

[SzGamer227]

like the idea, and the rail gun could be like the gauss rifle from fallout, in which it takes 2 ammo for every shot instead of one to prevent it from being too over powered(YES I know the gauss rifle really takes 4 and not 2, but 4 would be rediclous in terraria)

I don't know about that. Ammo conservation is a plus of using slow high-damage guns.

 

[Isaac the Jester]

I don't know about that. Ammo conservation is a plus of using slow high-damage guns.

I'm only comparing it to the gauss rifle because it's the closest to a rail gun, but other energy weapons do this too in fallout. The only reason I can think of a weapon using more than one ammo per shot in terraria is kinda balance it out. The numbers are pretty good, but this might help

 

[Baconfry]

It always bugged me that when it comes to piercing, bullets stink. This is a great way to solve that without clogging our item list with bullet types. Thanks for bringing me here!

 

[SzGamer227]

Thanks for bringing me here!

No problem.

 

[Baconfry]

I'm actually tempted to ask Crowno or someone else about what to expect from the Lunar, a crafting material or boss-piñata. It would make obtainment less of a problem for us.

 

[bad_news]

I'm actually tempted to ask Crowno or someone else about what to expect from the Lunar, a crafting material or boss-piñata. It would make obtainment less of a problem for us.

Yorai's in the tAPI irc all the time.

 

[FlakMaster]

Just a small thing, if you can't hit anything with High-Velocity bullets I'm pretty sure it's your aim that's the issue (not directing this to anyone specifically).

Next up is the Railgun, which is a brutally powerful upgrade for the Sniper Rifle (which is UP and needs a buff anyways).

Railgun
*Lunar-tiered. (Balanced against the Chain Gun.)
Hitscan technology enhances ammo used.
'Bullet-firing technology at its best.'
Damage: 275
Crit Chance: +15%
Use Time: 43 (1.4 uses/second)
Acquisition:
I don't know. Either dropped by the Lunar boss or crafted with an endgame Lunar-tiered material.

The Sniper Rifle is under-powered because of the lack of usefulness for Alpha Damage. Like I said in another thread of yours, it would be nice to make Alpha damage more useful before balancing it against weapons that are designed to be DPS-machines.

Also, if the Railgun would be implemented then it desperately needs a charge-up mechanic. I'm surprised such a thing hasn't been introduced to the game yet. I have also yet to be told that charging up weapons would be a task that is too difficult to bother with programming-wise. I understand that suggestions are really easy to take in when the ideas that make it up are easy to implement (because the frame for the idea already exists) but I'd like to be surprised.

 

[SzGamer227]

The Sniper Rifle is under-powered because of the lack of usefulness for Alpha Damage. Like I said in another thread of yours, it would be nice to make Alpha damage more useful before balancing it against weapons that are designed to be DPS-machines.

Well, in this case, I balanced the disadvantages of alpha damage with penetration. Hitting multiple targets at once makes up for the surplus damage that is lost in finishing the enemy off.

Also, if the Railgun would be implemented then it desperately needs a charge-up mechanic. I'm surprised such a thing hasn't been introduced to the game yet. I have also yet to be told that charging up weapons would be a task that is too difficult to bother with programming-wise. I understand that suggestions are really easy to take in when the ideas that make it up are easy to implement (because the frame for the idea already exists) but I'd like to be surprised.

I don't see why, but I don't see why not, either...

 

[FlakMaster]

Well, in this case, I balanced the disadvantages of alpha damage with penetration. Hitting multiple targets at once makes up for the surplus damage that is lost in finishing the enemy off.

I guess so. A better idea would be to make enemies enact a behaviour similar to that of the Necromancer/Diabolist. But that's something entirely different...

Then again, you're only shooting constantly against bosses/the moon events. Roaming around in a dungeon with a high-alpha damage weapon reaps in usefulness because of the fact you can kill an enemy before it even approaches you. And then you can quickly recover from the slow use-time to quickly dispatch another.

I have some ideas on how to make alpha-damage more useful by changing the receiving end, it's just putting them up and up-keeping them.

I don't see why, but I don't see why not, either...

Best idea would be to have the charge up as an 'alternative', I guess. I don't mean to replace your idea wholly :/

 

[TMB50]

I noticed that, apparently, the Railgun is actually worse than the Chain Gun if using Ichor Bullets, even without taking the debuff into account, which indicates that, indeed, the Chain Gun still is better when using bullets with a high base damage. Ironically, it would also make it better when used with traps, as the gun´s damage won´t interfere with the traps (As can happen with those same bullets, as they pierce when used with the Railgun).
I noticed that, according to the OP, the Beamshot would `give the player a reason to kill Prime first (or at all)´. While the former is right, it is worth noting that it´s still necessary to kill it for the souls in order to summon the FM.

 

[FlakMaster]

I'll repeat that DPS doesn't mean everything. If you had a slow weapon alike the sniper that matched the Megashark's DPS, you'd be one-hitting almost every HM Jungle enemy.

 

[Lecic]

I'll repeat that DPS doesn't mean everything. If you had a slow weapon alike the sniper that matched the Megashark's DPS, you'd be one-hitting almost every HM Jungle enemy.

Being able to one-hit with a slow firing weapon is over rated. If you miss a shot with a rapid fire weapon, no big deal. If you miss with the slow weapon, you need to wait before you can fire again.

 

[FlakMaster]

I wouldn't say it's overrated. Being able to kill something as soon as you set sights on it grants quite a bit of time to do the same to the next target.

Not to mention these would be 'hitscan', and in a game like Terraria you have to be really bad to keep missing with hitscan. I have no trouble aiming with the touchpad.

 

[J-50N]

I really like this suggestion. I like hitscan stuff, and guns do need some ammo-changing types. Also, I like railguns.

Have some sprites!
Beamshot:

Railgun:

 

[SzGamer227]

Aww yiss! Thanks a lot!

Just a heads up, I may ultimately end up modifying those, but they're great for now. How can I say no?