De-obsolete rail rifles

[chaosvolt]

Summary

SUMMARY: Content "Re-implement half-obsoleted rail rifles"

Purpose of change

It was pointed out in the BN discord that metal rails still exist in vanilla as ammo that can even be crafted, but the actual weapons to use them are all mod-shifted. A real basic look through the JSON confirms this done in a real half-finished manner, not only is the ammo still 100% vanilla and craftable, but it's also still present in some itemgroups and the vehicleparts can still be seen in the install menu since they were obsoleted but not deleted/migrated.

Describe the solution

1. De-obsoleted the rail rifle and heavy rail rifle as vanilla weapons, now with inheriting from the guns_magnetic weapon class. Additionally, per feedback the heavy rail rifle has been reworked to be a bit heavier overall and uses the MOUNTED_GUN flag. Now with the following rebalances:

• Steel rail: Reduced damage from 65 to 50, reduced arpen from 40 to 30, reduced range from 50 to 30, increased dispersion from 0 to 100.
• Rebar rail: Reduced damage from 70 to 60, reduced arpen from 25 to 10, reduced range from 40 to 20, increased dispersion from 150 to 200.
• Heavy rail rifle: Increased UPS cost from 100 to 120, reduced range from 40 to 10, increased dispersion from 100 to 200.
• Ferromagnetic rail rifle: Increased damage from 0 to 20, increased UPS cost from 40 to 60, increased dispersion from 90 to 100.

Loadout	Effective Damage (Damage + Arpen)	Total Range	Total Dispersion	UPS Efficiency Vs Effective Damage
Heavy rail rifle (steel)	145 -> 120	90 -> 40	100 -> 300	145% -> 120%
Heavy rail rifle (rebar)	135 -> 110	80 -> 30	250 -> 400	135% -> ~91.67%
Rail rifle (steel)	105 -> 100	50 -> 30	90 -> 200	262.5% -> ~166.67%
Rail rifle (rebar)	95 -> 90	40 -> 20	240 -> 300	237.5% -> 150%

2. Moved the recipes for them from No Hope back into vanilla, with a couple adjustments. In particular I widened the skill gap between them, with the rebar rifle being level 8 electronics instead of 9, and lowered the craft times from a massive 6 and 12 hours down to 4 hours 30 minutes and 6 hours, respectively. Additionally made it possible to learn them a bit earlier via lab journal-Herrera.
3. De-obsoleted the mounted gun vehicleparts.
4. Obsoleted Aftershock's version of the makeshift rebar rifle and its recipe, now that craftable railguns will be back in vanilla.
5. Removed redundant recipe for rebar rails from No Hope since already present in vanilla.

Describe alternatives you've considered

1. Either axing computer skill requirement for heavy rail rifle or adding coding_standard to the recipe.
2. Rebalancing rail rifles and ammo to shift more of the damage from the ammo to the weapon, maybe towards a 60/60 split for heavy rail rifle plus steel rails, most likely buffing the direct damage of rebar rails accordingly and bumping up UPS cost of both weapons.
3. Possibly giving rebar rails an armor multiplier that makes them less effective against whatever their arpen doesn't get past, similar to how makeshift arrows and blunderbuss ammo have been balanced.
4. Making the recipes for rail ammo more granular, i.e. using only 1 rebar to make 5 rebar rails and 2 steel_standard to make 5 steel rails, in half the current time and and forging cost (for the latter).

Testing

Checked affected files for syntax and lint errors, along with poking around for references to the ammotype or items themselves in mods folder.

Additional context

[Firestorm01X2]

Old restore attempt for the reference:
#745

[chaosvolt]

Ah, wasn't aware of this. This looks like it got heavily changed to beef it up into even more of an anti-material rifle, when I feel that it could afford to potentially take a nerf to its top-tier damage in exchange for making the damage spread out better between the gun and ammo, and between different variants. Plus trying to introduce a bespoke new ammotype on top of that instead of reworking the existing one that hasn't even been removed yet seems like a recipe for trouble.

EDIT: So based on what was proposed in the PR, I feel like the following is probably a good pair of targets to hit:

1. Effective damage for heavy rail rifle plus best ammo comparable to .50 BMG antimaterial rifle, but
2. Ensure range and accuracy are nowhere near antimaterial rifle tier, probably in the range of between 20-30 tiles.

Will double-check stats and fiddle with it some more in the morning, unless I get waylaid by lack of sleep.

[Firestorm01X2]

This looks like it got heavily changed to beef it up into even more of an anti-material rifle,

I think it is not neccesary to follow exactly that path by itself - balance concerns are much more important.

#745 (comment)

version of the anti-material rifle for the endgame player: damage is 1.5 times higher, accuracy is increased by a third

That's a lot. Sounds like you're trying to give it a role of "takes a lot of resources to use, but kills everything everywhere", which is not a good way to balance things, as it can trivialize encounters for a cost in player time (crafting ammo).

Rather, it should have a more defined role, for example:

* Hits really hard, but at relatively short range (20 tiles), with pistol tier accuracy

* Hits hard and at range, but can only be used when mounted (`MOUNTED_GUN`, which allows using window frames and dirt mounds)

* Hits just as hard as regular .50, takes only half of the gunpowder to reload, but uses much more UPS power (500?)

* Weaker than regular .50, with lower range, but with lower recoil and 2 or 3 shot burst

More specialization, less "item x but better".

The idea to have it boost an existing cartridge is interesting. Consider allowing crafting it with as50, tac50 and bfg50 and not just Barrett. To solve the problems with magazines, it could just use an internal one, like bfg50, but possibly with more capacity.

[chaosvolt]

So, comparison:
Heavy rail rifle plus steel rail: effective damage of 145, dispersion of 100, range of Yes (90)
.50 AM rifle plus standard .50: effective damage of 139, dispersion of 250, range of Hell Yes (155)

Possible outline:

1. Steel rail: Reduce damage from 65 to 50, reduce arpen from 40 to 30, reduce range from 50 to 30, increase dispersion from 0 to 100.
2. Rebar rail: Reduce damage from 70 to 60, reduce arpen from 25 to 10, reduce range from 40 to 20, increase dispersion from 150 to 200.
3. Heavy rail rifle: Increase UPS cost from 100 to 120, reduce range from 40 to 10, increase dispersion from 100 to 200.
4. Ferromagnetic rail rifle: Increase damage from 0 to 20, increase UPS cost from 40 to 60, increase dispersion from 90 to 100.

Loadout	Effective Damage (Damage + Arpen)	Total Range	Total Dispersion	UPS Efficiency Vs Effective Damage
Heavy rail rifle (steel)	145 -> 120	90 -> 40	100 -> 300	145% -> 120%
Heavy rail rifle (rebar)	135 -> 110	80 -> 30	250 -> 400	135% -> ~91.67%
Rail rifle (steel)	105 -> 100	50 -> 30	90 -> 200	262.5% -> ~166.67%
Rail rifle (rebar)	95 -> 90	40 -> 20	240 -> 300	237.5% -> 150%

[Coolthulhu]

Heavy rail rifle plus steel rail: effective damage of 145, dispersion of 100, range of Yes (90)
.50 AM rifle plus standard .50: effective damage of 139, dispersion of 250, range of Hell Yes (155)

So the rail rifle is more accurate here?
With those stats, they're nearly identical, except for lengthy craft times for rail rifle vs uncraftable gunpowder for .50.

The statblock below is similarly un-different. The only notable difference is inability to snipe at huge range, which is not much.

Start with the role for the new item, then figure the stats out. "De-obsoleting" is effectively adding a new item, just that it's heavily based on an old one.

[chaosvolt]

So the rail rifle is more accurate here?

Those were counting up the comparison before the change. As for its current role, the idea here is it still hits decently hard but at a shorter range. It's meant to be a high-damage, anti-armor weapon that requires a good bit of investment tech-wise to build and to keep running, namely all the electronic costs and needing a UPS. Material cost per shot meanwhile is overall far less complex than firearms, being just some metal with an improvised option.

In addition, .50 has much better ability to pierce armor, so it's meant to still win out against armored targets, as the rail rifles can only really compete when they have the best ammo paired with the best weapon. The gap between the two is widened a bit at least, from 6 higher effective damage to 19 lower effective damage. And this was only comparing that combo vs. baseline .50 BMG, AP ammo will have even higher effective damage.

[Coolthulhu]

In addition, .50 has much better ability to pierce armor, so it's meant to still win out against armored targets, as the rail rifles can only really compete when they have the best ammo paired with the best weapon.

That's not a big difference.
It's still mostly just ".50 that's cheaper, but you have to carry UPS".
There needs to be a difference in combat usage. Shorter range could be it, but that only really starts mattering below 25 tiles or so.

There should be a reason to use the rail even if .50 is available. Even if we assume ammo costs the same.

[chaosvolt]

Hmm. The range has already been cut down a fair bit, and I'm not sure what else to add to it. Worth noting also that the different in effective damage jumps from 19 to 38 if you load that .50 rifle with AP, the previous comparison was only with best combination of rail rifle ammo vs. AMR with basic .50 ammo.

Anything else besides range that would make the difference meaningful? I feel like nerfing it so the strongest available rail rifle plus steel rails topping out at 25 tiles might look a bit inconsistent, given some crossbows will likely outrange that.

[scarf005]

Hits hard and at range, but can only be used when mounted (MOUNTED_GUN, which allows using window frames and dirt mounds)

Hits just as hard as regular .50, takes only half of the gunpowder to reload, but uses much more UPS power (500?)

these two options from #745 (comment) looks good

[chaosvolt]

Hmm. Making it mounted could work, moreso for the heavy rail rifle since that seems the most fitting, though the regular rail rifle logically would be better off staying shoulder-fired.

Second idea seems unfeasible because wasn't the entire idea of the railgun using UPS power and metal? That one only works with the preceding PR's somewhat weird attempt to mesh firearm cartridges with railgun ammo by making a new ammotype, instead of the current idea of giving ammo that already exists in the game was never properly dummied out a use.

[chaosvolt]

Aight, per the above suggestion I went ahead with adding MOUNTED_GUN to the heavy rail rifle, as that does seem like a fitting chance. Bumped weight up a bit from 12 to 15 kilograms to further justify it (the weight of components would allow us to afford increasing as high as 19 kg without breaking conservation of mass if desired) and updated description as well.

[scarf005]

now that heavy rail rifle is mounted only which is a huge penalty, maybe it could provide better damage, range and dispersion than AM rifle?

[chaosvolt]

Possibly? Though rails are overall much easier to keep fed once you've got a working setup to use UPS with, not sure if buffing the damage to be even higher would be good or not.

[scarf005]

True but as i think HLR should have better stats as it should be compared to other heavy mounted weapons like M2 browning HMG.

[chaosvolt]

I'll have to tinker with this when I get home I guess, not sure exactly what damage would work best in that case.

Should it lean towards closer to .50 BMG but still lower, higher, or...?

Solved

[Firestorm01X2]

Step in the right direction. No need to delay more. Somel balance correction can be done later.