That is quite some high praise, thank you! I can do something with these ideas perhaps at a later time. For the moment, the main focus will be on finishing up the mod to be fully playable from start to finish. Trance does fit into the whole risk vs reward factor with Psychosis, so that may see the light of day in some form. It has crossed my mind for utility psychic powers, like rocket boots like flight using Psychosis, similar to the very early version of rocket boots using mana.
Since you have suggestions, would you like to come up with a couple? For the next release, I want to introduce an ocean biome chest weapon. So far, my ideas for that have been a tsunami, whirlpool, and giant bubble. I rather the weapon not just be a combo of pre-existing psychic weapon archetypes. The tsunami was not flushed out beyond just it being a tsunami. No, I rather it not be a movable Duke Fishron Sharknado. The whirlpool would act like a black hole, sucking in any non-knockback immune mobs. Thing is, I also want a black hole like weapon as one of Moon Lord's drops. The giant bubble would cause suffocation, although even with Terraria logic, that might be hard to justify on something like the undead. Also, I'm working on a buff station for Espers, a mirror. Thing is, I'm not sure what the buff should be. I rather it not be something already covered by the potions and accessories.
I admit, I've been scared of setting up any kind of donation page. I suppose I could do something like an one time donation thing or a Patreon to give backers access to in-development versions of my mods. But at the moment, I'm iffy on the whole idea.
Thank you once again for your correspondence, and I'm honoured you'd ask! I actually had a couple ideas for ocean-themed psychic weapons beforehand:
-
Sea of Tranquility
Jar type weapon; while deployed it will create watery orbs at a set interval, that hang suspended in the air as long as you hold the mouse button. Upon release, these projectiles quickly fly towards nearby enemies, damaging and leaving a lingering "drowning-esque" damage over time effect on them.
-
Hadal Grip
Sawblade that rapidly circles the cursor as opposed to bouncing back and forth based on the direction of movement. Enemies stricken by the blade will be given a debuff that causes them to be pulled towards the blade's(cursor's?) position for a few seconds, but refreshes every time the blade hits them, causing a satisfying "ramping up" effect as they are pulled inexorably towards the gnashing teeth of the blade. (Alternatively, the debuff could stack with itself instead of refreshing, increasing the strength that the enemy is pulled with.) (Or, the weapon's knockback direction could just always be towards the cursor.)
-
Vision of Depth
Rift type weapon; projects a beam reminiscent of the Aqua Sceptre except in a straight line towards targetted enemy. This beam has unlimited piercing, but deals a bonus instance of damage if it only affects one enemy.
For the mirror buff:
-
Reflection of Self
Causes all of your telekinetic damage instances to echo themselves, at 50% damage from the original hit. Could also give the player (and/or their telekinetic weapons) a cosmetic afterimage similar to shadow set bonus.
-
Extraspection
Hunter potion effect, allows your telekinetic weapons to ignore collision with terrain- but you gain a Mental Strain debuff that lasts for a moderate duration (somewhere between 3-10 seconds? it could also be based on how long the weapon was inside of a wall for. hard to say.) after any time that your weapon ceases contact with terrain, that prevents it from doing so for a time, behaving as normal.
Now, as for weapons outside of the bounds of the existing psychic weapon archetypes, I could plausibly ramble for hours about different archetypes for psychic weapons, but here's a few ocean themed ones I've cherrypicked:
-
Hydrokinetic Spout
First click: Condenses ambient moisture into a single point, spawning a whirlpool style portal where you click.
Second click: Ejects a massive beam of water from the whirlpool's location toward your cursor. After activation, the beam will continue for as long as you continue to hold the mouse button with it equipped, or for a brief time after releasing it (during which it can be refreshed by reusing the weapon, to prevent accidentally ending the entire attack by inadvertently releasing the mouse button.) indicated by the beam thinning out and subsequently the portal closing. The beam will slowly follow your cursor, knocking back enemies along its length, piercing, and maybe slowing them down too as a general deterrant.
-
Hyperbaric Press < my personal favourite
Creates a very large circular zone centered on your cursor that deals light damage to enemies within. This zone will shrink as you hold the mouse button, ramping up in damage exponentially. At or near maximum charge, this will inflict "the bends", causing brief confusion every tick and reducing enemy damage output (and/or a damage over time effect). In addition, it is extremely difficult to leave the pressurised zone when it is nearing full charge, keeping enemies strongly held in place unless they can reach a high enough velocity to escape it, (
and maybe even allowing you to "force choke" enemies by slowly lifting them off the ground while crushing them with pressure?)
-
Hydrosyphon
Similar the first one, but you hold the mouse button to charge it up. By default, this will charge slowly by draining ambient moisture from the air, however- if enemies are nearby, it will pull the moisture straight from their living body; inflicting minor damage, but charging up the weapon even faster. Upon reaching full charge, release the mouse button to create a pressurised explosion of water that inflicts incredible knockback and significant damage. Can also be released early for a less impressive blast. (Could also have an alt-fire that lets you throw the condensed water ball like a grenade when it's at maximum charge?) (Alternatively: Creates a ball that in the air that charges up, allows you to move it around like a standard telekinetic weapon. This would give it more synergy with the "Extraspection" mirror buff idea earlier- and also letting you blast enemies into the air by detonating it beneath their feet from the ground below.)
Oh, and might I add, I desperately desire more and better armour sets. The armour selection feels very limited as is, and doesn't give you much more engagement beyond simply "upgrading" to the next tier until you get to the headbands. A couple ideas in this area:
-Use the mirror as a crafting bench, allowing you to combine a full set of one armour type into an "Engram", allowing you to equip the set bonus separately, either as an accessory or in its own unique designated slot. For example, combining a full set of Cambrian armour would give you a Cambrian Engram, which would in turn give you the free movement and unhindered TK weapons in water. This could simply only extend to the mod's own armour sets, citing that "your psychometry only works on psychically attuned armours." Of course, it would be infinitely engaging if you could memorise ANY armour's set bonus... hehe.
-Add more set bonuses, perhaps with the alternate headpiece mechanic from vanilla. Using the aforementioned mechanic with the alternate headpiece would give you an "Alt Engram" that gives you the other set effect.
-
heavily subjective opinion: Flesh out and condense the accessory selection. The vial necklaces are a good concept but I feel like they need more precursor upgrades other than only the terra necklace at very late into the game. Either give them a unique accessory slot in a similar manner to the previously mentioned Engram slot, allow individual vial necklaces to be combined into a new accessory that grants the effects of its constituent parts, or make vial necklaces a series of consumables whose effects you can change between at will with a relevant sub menu.
Hope these help! Let me know what you think, I'm excited to hear back from you.