Shotgun balance

[Eddie]

TL;DR: Reduce double barrel buckshot pellets and increase reload time for better balance.

I recently had my first Lokk'Narr mission and was figuring out what are the most useful weapons for that. Shotguns won by a large margin and among the shotguns the double barrel won by a large margin. Here is the summary of my tests, done with a 80 accuracy gal:

- Double barrel, 20x10 buckshot
One shot has a good chance to kill a ninja, two have about 90% kill chance (if they hit). I tested distance, and at 15 tiles you still have 7-8 pellets hit the target. Lowest count was 5, highest count was 10. With 80 accuracy, you can kneel and the autoshot has about 90% accuracy at that distance. Snap is only slightly more accurate and costs the same Tu, so only reason to use snap instead of auto would be to conserve ammo.
The two-shot ammo is supposed to balance the good qualities, but it is more of an inventory constraint than a time constraint. Reload is fast enough that you can get off two auto shots per round at about the same Tu and accuracy that the heavy can do two snapshots.

- Heavy shotgun, 20x7 buckshot
The heavy is quite similar to the double barrel at long range, but the double barrel lands 1-2 more pellets on target because of the higher pellet count. At short ranges the autoshot gives the double barrel double damage. Only advantage the heavy has over the double barrel is that it can fire three times in reaction fire because of the higher ammo count. Also, inventory space can be an issue for the double barrel.
The heavy still does enough damage that it can one-shot a ninja. The damage difference per shot to the double barrel is not that high that you would immediately notice.

- Heavy shotgun, 28x3 slugs
Ninjas have 20 armor, so intuition would say slugs should be a better option. From testing I can say that they are slightly worse than buckshot. They hit well enough that most of the time all three slugs land on target up to 15 tiles distance, but you need two shots to kill a ninja. One-shot kills can happen but are rare. Still performs better than a rifle/SMG in autoshot mode (tested: Assault SMG, Autogun, Tommy, Assault Machinegun).

- Combat shotgun, 22x5 buckshot
Can one-shot kill ninjas, but less often than the heavy with buckshot. So compared to the heavy, you get a little less damage but have a faster snapshot. The autofire is noticeably less accurate, so it's situational. High accuracy gals that can make the autofire hit get a definite advantage from choosing this gun over the heavy. I would say the tradeoffs and advantages are well balanced.

- CAWS, slugs
Needs 2 hits to kill a ninja. Compared to the other shotguns worse at short range, better at long range. Also less accurate, so needs skilled gals to use effectively.

- CAWS, scattershot
Does more damage than the other shotguns but is less accurate. Where the other shotguns have a 90% accuracy snap this gun has a 60% accuracy snap. The accuracy loss balances the damage.

- javelins, on a gal with 66 throwing and 59 strength.
Needs two hits most of the time, good chance for a one hit kill. At short range (8 tiles) as accurate as the shotguns (nearly always hits), but with a huge stamina drain. Fuso knives on the same gal needed three or more hits to kill a ninja.


Conclusion:
The double barrel could use a slight nerf, because it is noticeably better than your other options while also being dirt cheap. I would suggest reducing the pellet count of the buckshot by 1 or 2 pellets and to increase the reload time. You should need more time to reload this thing than to shoot it.

[karadoc]

Sounds like a decent analysis.

[The Think Tank]

From what I was told and have gathered, some of the shotguns are designed to be trash, but some of them (like the Combat Shotgun) could use a weight reduction or something of a similar matter. The DB on its own is relatively poor due to its massive reload necessity, but the sawed-off I find exceptionally useful as an auxiliary, but no need to Nerf it, I would suggest bringing some other shotguns up to its par.

[Eddie]

The DB on its own is relatively poor due to its massive reload necessity

What? I find the DB massively overpowered. Please describe a situation where any of the other shotguns performs better.

Edit:
If you say ammo is a problem with the DB, I guess you are using it wrong. Don't spray and pray, every shot should hit the target. Use auto only when the shot has >70 accuracy. If accuracy is lower than that: kneel, or step closer and kneel, or use aimed. Don't shoot at stuff that is too far away. I've found that about 18 tiles is the limit of shotgun effectiveness. Carry a pistol as backup to shoot at things further away than 18 tiles.

[Solarius Scorch]

Don't spray and pray, every shot should hit the target. Use auto only when the shot has >70 accuracy.

This. I learned this too on my first few missions with the new shotgun mechanics...

[Dioxine]

Make every shot count!

(also I will slow down DB's lightning-fast reload)

[KateMicucci]

Conclusion:
The double barrel could use a slight nerf, because it is noticeably better than your other options while also being dirt cheap. I would suggest reducing the pellet count of the buckshot by 1 or 2 pellets and to increase the reload time. You should need more time to reload this thing than to shoot it.

It's as much the DB and Heavy being good as the other shotguns being bad, and once enemies start wearing decent armor, all the shotguns are bad. And the  advantages of shotguns are that they are a little lighter than weapons of the same tier and give an accuracy bonus, but neither of these count for much past early game either.

Ol' Shotgun: 15x8. Even though it shoots "birdshot" it has fewer pellets than a single DB shot.
DB/Sawed off: 20x10. The highest pellet count and the ability to auto.
Domestic: 18x7 reg, 20 stun (ugh), 21x7 chem.
Military/Black OPs: 18x7 reg, 40x1 slug. A 40x1 close range shot isn't impressive. Shares basic ammo with the Domestic but can't use chem or stun rounds.
Heavy: 20x7, 28x3 segmented slug.
Blunderbuss: 24x6, 25x6 chem, 40x1 HE.
Kustom Blunderbuss: 33x4 gold ammo
Combat Shotgun: 22x5, 20x5 inc
Caws: 26x5, 50x1
Arena Flak Cannon: 38x10. Very wide spread means most pellets will miss.

This is a weird improvement curve. Overall damage increases a small amount, if it all, as the shotguns upgrade, and not enough to defeat armor.

Slugs don't do a better job than other guns that become available at the same time. Why would I bother with an unreliable Black Ops or CAWs slug when I can use a light cannon or boarding gun from a safer distance and do more damage? Or use a saber at a closer distance and do more damage?

Compared to SMGs and MGs, the math only favors shotguns if you use them on automatic. The blunderbuss is only an upgrade over the DB if you use them only on autofire. The combat shotgun is worse than other shotguns unless its used on autofire.

Of the currently available shotguns, only the arena flak cannon has a place among my mid-game team, and a big part of that is simply that ranged cutting damage gives some variety. Even so, enemies are usually picked off by my rocket launchers, death blossoms and lasers before the flak cannon can get in range. In a previous aborted playthrough I  got lucky with early access to flak cannons, but even then its wide spread and lower accuracy bonus made the DB or Heavy more reliable against unarmored humans.

[Eddie]

I did some more shotgun testing, this time I played around with shotgunSpread and shotgunChoke values. shotgunSpread is the parameter for ammo (less means less spread), while shotgunChoke is the parameter for the weapon (higher means less spread). I've found that varying shotgunSpread does less than varying shotgunChoke.

I used a DB (shotgunChoke: 100) with buckshot (shotgunSpread: 35) and shot at a target 16 tiles away with 100% accuracy. Going from shotgunSpread 35 to shotgunSpread 2 did improve pellet hits, but not by that much as the high difference would suggest. Using shotgunSpread 35 with shotgunChoke 200 gave more pellet hits. On the other end of the spectrum, shotgunSpread 95 was not as abysmal as I would have expected.

So to balance shotguns through accuracy, modifying shotgunChoke is the better way. From looking at the numbers, the DB should have more spread than the heavy (shotgunSpread 35 vs 25), but the difference is not noticeable ingame. On the other hand, that the sawed off has more spread (shotgunChoke 50) is very noticeable.

[ohartenstein23]

See here for what the different parameters do.

The choke and spread parameters modify the exact same thing, just spread is additive and choke is multiplicative.  The point of having both is so that you can have the difference between shotguns when they share an ammunition type - just like the DB vs. sawed-off.  The reason that most of the work is done with spread is because it's an easier number to interpret: pellet accuracy = 100 - shotgunSpread.  Doing it all with choke values instead makes it a bit more difficult to read what's going on when you're balancing the numbers.  Also, the seemingly small differences (spread 35 vs 25), are much more apparent when you sample a large number of results.  If you took a large number a 65% (100 - 35) auto shots at a target at 16 tiles, you'd pretty noticeably get fewer hits than taking 75% (100 - 25) auto shots.  The reason why the choke value difference is so apparent is because going from 100 to 50 choke with the .8g buckshot is like going from a 65% (100% * (100 - 35)) auto shot to a 32.5% (50% * (100 - 35)) auto shot.

[Eddie]

@ohartenstein23:
I see. Now let's apply that math to the pellets, and see if we learn anything. Last numbers are first ammo accuracy mod and then shotgun accuracy mod.

Ol' Shotgun: 15x8 x0.7x0.75 = 63
DB: 20x10 x0.65x1.0 = 130
Sawed off: 20x10 x0.65x0.5 = 65
Domestic: buckshot 18x7 x0.75x0.75 = 70,   chem 21x7 x0.6x0.75 = 66
Military: 18x7 x0.75x1.0 = 94
Black OPs: 18x7 x0.75x1.25 = 118
Heavy: buckshot 20x7 x0.75x1.0 = 105,   slug 28x3 x0.8x1.0 = 67
Blunderbuss: buckshot 24x6 x0.75x0.65 = 70, chem 25x6 x0.6x0.65 = 58
Kustom Blunderbuss: gold 33x4 x0.8x0.8 = 84
Combat Shotgun: buckshot 22x5 x0.75x1.0 = 82, inc 20x5 x0.3x1.0 = 30
Caws: 26x5 x0.8x1.0 = 104
Arena Flak Cannon: 38x10 x0.45x1.0 = 171

So this would be raw damage vs a target with no armor, standing far away and hitting it with 100% accuracy. At close range more pellets would hit, so these numbers give a feeling on how good a shotgun is at longer range.

Do we learn anything from that?
Appart from the obviously crappy shotguns, they are all quite similar at range. Blunderbuss sucks at range and DB is the best, only surpassed by the Arena Flak.

[ohartenstein23]

Yep, this is all by design.  Dioxine and I had some discussion regarding the initial numbers when the new code was introduced, and he's been tweaking it since.  The DB is indeed quite strong against unarmored foes, but as with almost all the shotguns, drops off dramatically against armor.

[Eddie]

My take on tweaking balance:

- DB
Damage: 20x10 x0.65x1.0 = 130    -> 20x7 x0.65x1.0 = 91
Acc auto: 125, Tu: 30%                  -> 120, Tu: 33%
Acc snap: 145, Tu: 28%                -> 135, Tu: 28%
Acc aimed: 165, Tu: 65%              -> 155, Tu: 65%
Aim range: 13                              -> 12
Reload: 10 Tu                              -> 25

- Heavy
Damage: 20x7 x0.75x1.0 = 105     ->  20x8 x0.6x1.0 = 96  (shotgunSpread changed from 25 -> 40)
Acc snap: 145, Tu: 36%                 -> 135, Tu: 36%
Acc aimed: 165, Tu: 66%               -> 155, Tu: 66%
Aim range: 13                               -> 12
Reload: 30 Tu

- Military
Damage: 18x7 x0.75x1.0 = 94       -> 18x7 x0.75x1.1 = 103  (shotgunChoke changed from 100 -> 110)
Acc snap: 135, Tu: 28%                 -> 145, Tu: 28%
Acc aimed: 155, Tu: 65%               -> 165, Tu: 65%
Aim range: 14
Reload: 30 Tu

The changes in words: The special of the DB is the 2-shot-auto, but you have to remain stationary to do autofire reload autofire in one round. The heavy can do only two slow snaps per round, but it packs the biggest punch. The military is the best at longer ranges and overall slightly more accurate.

The black-ops would need to get similar buffs as the military for consistency. Also, I would increase the choke accuracy of CAWS from 100 to 110, giving it 26x5 x0.8x1.1 = 114. It is harder to aim, so there should be more benefit to mastering it. Also, it should be better than the other early shotguns, since it is the hardest to get (you cannot buy or manufacture it, and it's less frequent in loot than the military).

To make slugs more appealing, they could get some armor reduction. And/or a better damage range (50-150% or 2-dice-roll).

[legionof1]

better dmg range would make sense for slugs. Slugs are not great at penetrating armor but pack significant blunt force.

[Starving Poet]

Slugs are an interesting armor question in terms of gameplay - On a firing range situation, they are very unlikely to penetrate armor even a basic vest, but very likely to cause massive internal damage to whatever is wearing the armor.

Maybe give them a wound and stun bonus - but in my head wounding correlates to bleeding.... what if they lowered your max hp for that mission, to sort of replicate that concussive trauma?  Or I guess armor damage bonus would have the same overall effect.

[Eddie]

When I was thinking armor piercing, I was thinking about the first Deus Ex game, where the shotgun had sabot rounds that were good vs robotic enemies. Now that I googled it, the wiki says sabot shells are used by police to penetrate cars.
Maybe this is something for the CAWS, as that gun would be the most likely to use any advanced ammo.