Items Improving ammo made with Empty Bullets.

TMB50

Terrarian
Empty Bullets are available once Hardmode starts, and all of the materials it is crafted with are sold rather late into the game, but only 3 bullets made from it (High-Velocity, Exploding, and Confetti bullets) do anything other than inflicting debuffs, most of which are rather... lackluster, because either the debuff doesn't contribute to combat (Golden Bullets), are weak (Venom Bullets) or almost anything against which the debuff would be useful is inmune to it (Nano and Venom Bullets). Due to that, I have been thinking of a few new effects to those three bullets in particular:

Golden Bullets:
Their current effect is that they simply make enemies drop more money, which, in practice, isn't that useful, both because they are the most expensive bullets in the game in terms of money spent in it's materials (The cheapest being Confetti Bullets), and because they don't have any combat effects.
Proposed change: They would also deal damage directly proportional to the amount of money carried by the player (Up to a cap).

Nano Bullets:
They are rather lackluster because, apart from a debuff that, while useful, could be achieved more easily with the Dao of Pow and which doesn't affect any bosses at all (Or minibosses. In fact, it seems that Confused is only useful on crowds of weak enemies), effectively meaning that, in a lot of situations in which their debuff would be useful, it's also when they aren't better than Confetti Bullets because said situation involves an enemy that is inmune to it.
Proposed Change:
It wouldn't inflict Confused anymore. Instead, it would spawn small (About the size of the bullet itself) blobs of nanites (Think of them as grey goo, althrough it doesn't have cathastrophic effects on the environment, doesn't attack the player, and can be of several colors, such as blue, purple, or green) that would attack enemies.
They are spawned on hit (Each hit spawns more blobs depending on the damage dealt, meaning that highly-damaging weapons are better than weaker, faster-firing weapons at spawning them), are completely unable to be killed by enemies or the player, but despawn after 4 seconds if they don't damage anything.
If they kill something, they spawn additional blobs. If there are enough blobs, they can merge into larger blobs that deal more damage, jump higher (They behave like Fighter enemies, but they leap at their target) and despawn more slowly, making Nano bullets a good crowd-control and DoT weapon, as it effectively spawns temporary allies for the player that, in large enough numbers, can overwhelm even bosses.

Venom Bullets:
Currently, their only real advantage is that they deal the most direct damage of all bullets (Except Luminite Bullets), as their debuff is literally just Poisoned, but stronger (Meaning that, not only almost anything that can be actually dangerous is inmune to it, but, due to it's low DPS, it wouldn't even be much of a help at it).
Proposed changes:
1:
Venom Bullets would, apart from inflicting Venom, also cause enemies to throw venomous projectiles in a similar fashion to how Pinheads attack.
The projectiles damage and inflict Venom to enemies that are hit by them. If they hit the ground, they remain in it for a short while (Basically causes enemies to spawn venomous Greek Fire on death), making them a crowd-control weapon that is mostly useful at dealing with groups of both flying and ground enemies.
2:
Alternatively, they would spawn damaging venomous clouds, which would damage enemies and inflict Venom, making them more effective than Nano Bullets against flying enemies, as the clouds aren't affected by gravity.
 
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Formatting could be made more appealing. If you can't/don't want to make sprites you could try requesting them. I know this is a WIP but all I'm suggesting is how to go about working on it, way it could look, the options if you will.

Hello, and good day Sir/Madam
Welcome to another thrilling thread made by yours truly!


Today I'd like to take a few moments of your time to explain a prospect about bullets! Yes, though things you spend hours gathering resources for and collecting, but have you ever wondered about them? Questioned yourself why you choose the ones you do? Now many of you heartier rangers out there know from experience, you gather Crystal ones because there are easy to find/grow and do great damage, you build up Chlorophyte stocks to make your Gatligator and Chain Guns better in combat.

But what if I told you there were other options just as viable for damage...? Well, right now that'd probably make me a liar, however that's what you're here to prevent! The following are my suggestions to the ranger's repertoire of hard mode bullets.

Empty Bullets
These are available once Hardmode starts, and all of the materials it's crafted with are sold rather late into the game, but only 3 bullets made from it (High-Velocity, Exploding, and Confetti bullets) do anything other than inflicting debuffs, most of which are rather... lack-luster, because either the debuff doesn't contribute to combat (Golden Bullets), are weak (Venom Bullets) or almost anything against which the debuff would be useful is immune to it (Nano and Venom Bullets). Due to that, I have been thinking of a few new effects to those three bullets in particular:

Changes:
They would also deal damage directly proportional to the amount of money carried by the player (Up to a cap).
Their current effect is that they simply make enemies drop more money, which, in practise, isn't that useful, both because they are the most expensive bullets in the game in terms of money spent in it's materials (The cheapest being Confetti Bullets), and because they don't have any combat effects.

Changes:
No longer inflicts Confused, it instead would spawn small blobs of nanites about the size of the a few pixels (compare to the concept of grey goo, although it doesn't have catastrophic effects on the environment, it's a temporery minion, comes in several colors, such as blue, purple, or green) that would attack enemies.

Spawned on hit propotional to damage dealt (meaning that highly-damaging weapons "Sniper Rifle" are better than weaker, faster-firing weapons "Mega Shark" at spawning them). Despawn after 4 seconds if they don't damage anything. If they kill something, they spawn additional blobs. If there are enough blobs, they can merge into larger blobs that deal more damage, take longer to despawn, jump higher. They behaving like Fighter enemies, but are Slimes, making Nano Bullets a good crowd-control and DoT weapon, as it effectively spawns temporary allies for the player that, in large enough numbers, can overwhelm even bosses.
Right now these are lack-luster because, apart from a debuff that, while useful, could be achieved more easily with the Dao of Pow and which doesn't affect any bosses at all (Or minibosses. In fact, it seems that Confused is only useful on crowds of weak enemies), effectively meaning that, in a lot of situations in which their debuff would be useful, it's also when they aren't better than Confetti Bullets because said situation involves an enemy that is immune to it.

Changes:
Venom Bullets would, apart from inflicting Venom, also cause enemies to throw venomous projectiles in a similar fashion to how Pinheads attack. The projectiles damage and inflict Venom to enemies that are hit by them. If they hit the ground, they remain in it for a short while (Basically causes enemies to spawn venomous Greek Fire on death), making them a crowd-control weapon that is mostly useful at dealing with groups of both flying and ground enemies.
Currently, their only real advantage is that they deal the most direct damage of all bullets (Except Luminite Bullets), as their debuff is literally just Poisoned, but stronger (Meaning that, not only almost everything that can be actually dangerous is inmune to it, but, due to it's low DPS, it wouldn't even be much of a help at it).


And that's it! What do you think?

Since you're currently working on this thread, you might like this. Obviously this was made for my own but you could adapt it so it better suits yours.

Rules for commenting:
  • You Do Not need to read everything to make comments but You Must fully read everything above, in Rules for commenting and both Digest Version / In-Depth Explanations
  • Do Not make single line comments that only discerns things such as or similar to "I support/I don't support this", "I can't think of anything else to add" or "I like/I don't like this". Explain positives or negatives in detail
  • Do Not make comments that Only state opening thread is incomplete, it is still being worked on. If at any point I do not intend to continue this I will specify whether it's because I've ran out of idea for the time being or am completely satified with the current results, at which point I'll decide if thread requires being locked
  • If I comment that you or other people aren't contributing to the thread due to arguments; all your posts Afterwards that continue with the subject of disagreeing with said person(s) are subject to being reported
  • There are no acceptible excuses to breaking any of these rules, those of Player Suggestions: Rules & Guidelines or Rule Changes Regarding Suggestion Forum Behavior. Please correct minor infractions if you notice them

Anyway, about the rest of your post. It seems fine but I'm not fond of the Venom Bullet's effect. I think a separate damage instance dealt but a poisonous cloud trail left by bullets that does rapid weak knockback, fading over time would be better than mobs puking on each other. Puke is a gross theme and probably wouldn't look exciting in action, also I don't think it'd really concern flying mobs much since they don't cluster. If it were a trail it'd be better at air control when it came to crowds. That'd make it stand out more from the other forms of CC and give a niche purpose. Damage balanced however like.

I'm fine with this being implimented otherwise. No issues here.
 
Formatting could be made more appealing. If you can't/don't want to make sprites you could try requesting them. I know this is a WIP but all I'm suggesting is how to go about working on it, way it could look, the options if you will.

Hello, and good day Sir/Madam
Welcome to another thrilling thread made by yours truly!


Today I'd like to take a few moments of your time to explain a prospect about bullets! Yes, though things you spend hours gathering resources for and collecting, but have you ever wondered about them? Questioned yourself why you choose the ones you do? Now many of you heartier rangers out there know from experience, you gather Crystal ones because there are easy to find/grow and do great damage, you build up Chlorophyte stocks to make your Gatligator and Chain Guns better in combat.

But what if I told you there were other options just as viable for damage...? Well, right now that'd probably make me a liar, however that's what you're here to prevent! The following are my suggestions to the ranger's repertoire of hard mode bullets.

Empty Bullets
These are available once Hardmode starts, and all of the materials it's crafted with are sold rather late into the game, but only 3 bullets made from it (High-Velocity, Exploding, and Confetti bullets) do anything other than inflicting debuffs, most of which are rather... lack-luster, because either the debuff doesn't contribute to combat (Golden Bullets), are weak (Venom Bullets) or almost anything against which the debuff would be useful is immune to it (Nano and Venom Bullets). Due to that, I have been thinking of a few new effects to those three bullets in particular:

Changes:
They would also deal damage directly proportional to the amount of money carried by the player (Up to a cap).
Their current effect is that they simply make enemies drop more money, which, in practise, isn't that useful, both because they are the most expensive bullets in the game in terms of money spent in it's materials (The cheapest being Confetti Bullets), and because they don't have any combat effects.

Changes:
No longer inflicts Confused, it instead would spawn small blobs of nanites about the size of the a few pixels (compare to the concept of grey goo, although it doesn't have catastrophic effects on the environment, it's a temporery minion, comes in several colors, such as blue, purple, or green) that would attack enemies.

Spawned on hit propotional to damage dealt (meaning that highly-damaging weapons "Sniper Rifle" are better than weaker, faster-firing weapons "Mega Shark" at spawning them). Despawn after 4 seconds if they don't damage anything. If they kill something, they spawn additional blobs. If there are enough blobs, they can merge into larger blobs that deal more damage, take longer to despawn, jump higher. They behaving like Fighter enemies, but are Slimes, making Nano Bullets a good crowd-control and DoT weapon, as it effectively spawns temporary allies for the player that, in large enough numbers, can overwhelm even bosses.
Right now these are lack-luster because, apart from a debuff that, while useful, could be achieved more easily with the Dao of Pow and which doesn't affect any bosses at all (Or minibosses. In fact, it seems that Confused is only useful on crowds of weak enemies), effectively meaning that, in a lot of situations in which their debuff would be useful, it's also when they aren't better than Confetti Bullets because said situation involves an enemy that is immune to it.

Changes:
Venom Bullets would, apart from inflicting Venom, also cause enemies to throw venomous projectiles in a similar fashion to how Pinheads attack. The projectiles damage and inflict Venom to enemies that are hit by them. If they hit the ground, they remain in it for a short while (Basically causes enemies to spawn venomous Greek Fire on death), making them a crowd-control weapon that is mostly useful at dealing with groups of both flying and ground enemies.
Currently, their only real advantage is that they deal the most direct damage of all bullets (Except Luminite Bullets), as their debuff is literally just Poisoned, but stronger (Meaning that, not only almost everything that can be actually dangerous is inmune to it, but, due to it's low DPS, it wouldn't even be much of a help at it).


And that's it! What do you think?

Since you're currently working on this thread, you might like this. Obviously this was made for my own but you could adapt it so it better suits yours.

Rules for commenting:
  • You Do Not need to read everything to make comments but You Must fully read everything above, in Rules for commenting and both Digest Version / In-Depth Explanations
  • Do Not make single line comments that only discerns things such as or similar to "I support/I don't support this", "I can't think of anything else to add" or "I like/I don't like this". Explain positives or negatives in detail
  • Do Not make comments that Only state opening thread is incomplete, it is still being worked on. If at any point I do not intend to continue this I will specify whether it's because I've ran out of idea for the time being or am completely satified with the current results, at which point I'll decide if thread requires being locked
  • If I comment that you or other people aren't contributing to the thread due to arguments; all your posts Afterwards that continue with the subject of disagreeing with said person(s) are subject to being reported
  • There are no acceptible excuses to breaking any of these rules, those of Player Suggestions: Rules & Guidelines or Rule Changes Regarding Suggestion Forum Behavior. Please correct minor infractions if you notice them

Anyway, about the rest of your post. It seems fine but I'm not fond of the Venom Bullet's effect. I think a separate damage instance dealt but a poisonous cloud trail left by bullets that does rapid weak knockback, fading over time would be better than mobs puking on each other. Puke is a gross theme and probably wouldn't look exciting in action, also I don't think it'd really concern flying mobs much since they don't cluster. If it were a trail it'd be better at air control when it came to crowds. That'd make it stand out more from the other forms of CC and give a niche purpose. Damage balanced however like.

I'm fine with this being implimented otherwise. No issues here.
Actually, I didn't mean for Venom Bullets to cause enemies to puke toxic vomit, but rather than they secrete more venom (Which, now that I think of it, is somehow worse) because of some reason.
As for the formatting, I just cleaned it up a bit using your feedback.
 
Feathers + Empty Bullet = Vaccum Bullet

Pulls nearby enemies/targets towards/away the impact point.

A bullet that has a lot of utility to keep things interesting, however still useless vs bosses since it counts as knockback.
 
Feathers + Empty Bullet = Vaccum Bullet

Pulls nearby enemies/targets towards/away the impact point.

A bullet that has a lot of utility to keep things interesting, however still useless vs bosses since it counts as knockback.
The thread is about improving the existing ones, and it is very important (Which is what I don't like about Nano Bullets in particular) to avoid giving them effects that are useless useful effects (That is, they are only useful in situations in which it won't do much anyways).
 
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