Really, looking at it now, my biggest beef with the LG is in its blinding. The flashing, combined with the electrical arcs and blood spatters make it too difficult to see anything once you're caught. Reducing the flashing and removing its blood spatter ability (I love the spatter too much to remove it outright, but it's far too much with the LG) would probably be enoug for me since electricity seems to be more about cooking things than cutting them. And I'm rather iffy on sneaking behind LG users since they could easily turn around. (like they have on me multiple times) I've been caught by the things by accident sometimes.

My opinion on the weapon might be skewed by the number of close-quarters maps I play in. Being a deathmatch server, most of the maps we use are fairly small. (although that might change with the addition of the other gametypes) And its range is plenty long enough IMO. Enough for the arcs to tickle you at 40 feet, which is enough on those rather cramped DM maps that we play. I rarely play Onslaught with these guns, especially since they kill vehicles so easily. EDIT: In addition, it doesn't seem to incur any movement speed penalties like the other "heavy" weapons.

Minigun dominates in nearly all gametypes though, especially Invasion. It eats Warlords and Titans like jelly beans.

EDIT: Exploding backpacks would be great for each of the backpack weapons. A nuclear meltdown strapped to your back would be quite hilarious.

You could also have the flamer's fuel tank either explode or rocket randomly when shot, for good risky fun.

The Minigun could have an internal ammo explosion, which would be funny as hell. All the bullets shooting off in random directions.

Dunno about the LG though. Have it shock the carrier for 2 seconds every time it's shot?

Probably make the primary fire of LG waste twice as much charge as before to stimulate people to use the more tricky secondary fire?

Twice as much is a real stretch there. You'll have about 4 seconds of shock-time before you overheat, and that would make the weapon pretty much useless for killing someone.

What would be nice is if the overheat rate was doubled, yet the cooldown rate was decreased accordingly, so while you won't be able to shock someone continuously for 8 seconds like before, you can still deal the same average damage over time as before.

I kinda like the lightning gun as is, but if we're bent on changing it, how about you click the fire button to do a 1 or 2 second burst, with a cool down time before your next shot. This would allow you to chuck people to their doom on maps like CTF-FaceClassic, yet still enable you to escape in a more closed-off area, encouraging more use of the secondary fire. However, I am partially against this idea because tossing around a manta with the LG is really fun!

I really dont want the weapons to be totally nerfed, but I am liking the idea of making the backpacks a weakspot in general for all guns, not just the flamer.

All our most powerful weapons use a backpack and as a balancing factor this could represent a vulnerability. A lethal one at that:

For the railgun:
Piercing the railgun backpack could trigger a coolant leak that quickly irradiates the user until they toss the weapon or die from radiation poisoning.
If that doesnt kill the user then the small nuclear explosion will. (A small one, like a green glowing RPG explosion)

For the Minigun:
Since the minigun wouldnt be so deadly if it werent for its ammo capacity. Piercing the minigun backpack destroys some ammo. One revolver shot could spill 600 rounds. Significant damage sets off all the explosive tipped bullets and shreds the user. (I assume they are explosive to explain how 5.56 rounds does damage so fast to solid powercores)

For the LightningGun:
Piercing the backpack disrupts the electrical coils and shocks the user with electrical discharge. Significant damage triggers a power surge that fries the user.

What do you think? Any ideas?

That's just because the damage percentage is hard-coded for ONS objects.

Even if the bullets themselves weren't explosive, there's still the powder charge in the cartridge to consider.

Im aware of that, I just like making these things up to make more sence to myself

That aside, the question is:
would adding a vulnerability be sufficient to balance the tilt of power for these weapons?

In theory it would be similar to shooting down the redeemer

Hmm..

You know, I would love to get the credit for any deaths resulting from exploding a G5 rocket with my guns (especially if it's the player who fired that rocket).

Oh, and it's very important that weapons remember their current states, as apparently you can just toss a Lightning gun when it overheats and pick it up again to reset the heat. I know this can be fixed by disabling weapon throwing, but it's a fairly significant exploit in servers that do allow them.

It can also be fixed with code, simply make the gun keep the heat info when it is a part of the world instead of the player.

And keep the cocked/silenced/firemode info while you're at it.

Also, another idea for the G5 and its laser. Have it so that the rocket can lose the laser dot if it moves outside a cone in front of it. The problem though, is what the rocket should do if it loses sight of the dot. Would it continue in a straight line until it sees it again, or should it continue turning in whatever direction it was going?

there not sopus to be balenced caues guns in real life arnt like norma lut weapons so there not going to balance them

What did he say?

WHY are you bringing this up here...!?

I understand this, but balance is far more important than realism in an online game. The lightning gun is incredibly hard to avoid or escape from in most DM maps, making it very overpowered. That might be more "realistic" to you, as if that word could be applied to a fictional weapon, but it makes for bad game design (no offense to the devs, of course).

Overpowered, no.
Unfair, maybe.

d you know how much the weapons will suck if they were balenced and theres an option to remove the
lightning gun you know this mod is sopos to be reilistick s oi you want fast paced play teh normal ut

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUTTA YOUR MOUTH~!?

I translated his post to English for you guys:

Unless this has actually been removed from 2.0, then this is already in the game. If you're lucky enough to fire at a player who is firing a G5 rocket at you at exactly the right time, you'll blow them up and get a kill for it. I've only ever done it once, but it did make for a very satisfying frag...

I've done it at least twice and it never gave me credit. Hmm...

This is the feature request forum is it not?

Consider what I brought up as a feature, one that could possibly (if done correctly) bring balance to the said weapons without altering their power

This is relevant because some people here such as TheTrunkMonkey have come to love the potent destructiveness these weapons possess. While other people are oppressed by them and want other weapons to have a chance against them.

An exploitable vulnerability is such chance, our superweapons have them so why not BW's heavywheights have one also?

Would you agree? If not then I am wholly open to alternate suggestions

Im simply doing my part to offer feasable gameplay opportunities and advice without splitting our beloved runestorm community into two sides: those who want it the same and those who want it nerfed.

I still miss and I'm not drunk.
Xavious is the hardest person to hit with a G5 that I know of.
Not only does he dodge them, he also detonates them early. Once he killed me by having a pineapple explode just within range of a rocket I launched.

On another note, I think that the minigun shouldn't have ironsights either.

I feel I should also note team damage was turned off on that grenade vs. rocket kill. He was on my team.

I bet I could get him easily. I can do better at long range even! Sniper rockets....

You just need to learn how to pull a HL2 with the rockets! Always works.... And you can make them turn very fast knowing how to use one XB!

In reguards to this weapon nerfing; It is not hard at all to use ballistic weapons as stock weapon replacements and still play in the same "spirit" as the stock weapons. For example, you could scale damage to 50-60%, disable reloading, long gun shifting, Inaccuracy=0%, recoil=20%. This makes the BW play kinda like UT stock weapons, if you really want. S, in that reguard, I don't exactly see how people can make the point of weapons being too strong; you can setup a weapon replacement scheme that uses weapons that fit your taste.

Please tell me, sirs... why the hell does LG have a grabbing ability? It's an electric gun, after all, one that has nothing to do with the gravity... I think getting rind of this feature should make LG fair.

If you get rid of that feature it removes a lot of its uniqueness. I think maybe nerf the power of moving people around would help better, but don't remove it entirely.

But in the end, all you have to do is just adjust your tactics if you know there's a LG nearby. Not really a hard thing to overcome.

Or, as said earlier, just remove it if you have so much complaints about it...

As Xav pointed out, it is a fun & unique feature. I'd never forgive RS if they removed that ability.

I think the best bet for now is to make them all super weapons. I, nor the bots I play with [Yes, I'm mainly offline] have much luck KILLING with the Lightning Gun as much as disrupting. I think it's fine, but maybe give less time before cooldown is required, perhaps? I dunno. It's not a superweapon for me, whereas the minigun and flamethrower are. This is just preference, though.

To agree/disagree with your other points:

Agree:

FP9A5: Though I've never really used it as a grenade, at least stop letting the bots think you can. Make it a weapon they avoid, because they certainly aren't gonna set up traps. I just pick them up when I see them.

M75-TIC Railgun: I think the damage should be adjusted based on what it's hitting. My biggest problem? Taking over, I believe, 20% or more on the main core of an Onslaught game, and 49% of a power node. Tone that down.

D49: Ah, this baby. Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with the super slow reload. Either make it faster with reloading [make it a much quicker bullet/wheel insert of some kind], or make it quite a bit more accurate.

RS8: Yes. One more bullet. What made you think to put 14 bullets?! =(

M806: While it sounds more powerful, it should really play the part. It has more bark than bite, in a sense.

Grenades: At least let us set the default throw distance [ie: Long, short, auto].

Disagree: [Majorly enough to bring up a point against you]

XK2: I've honestly had quite an easy time getting headshots with these. Just as much as the AM-67, which I won't disagree that there's a bit of an easy time getting headshots with 'em. Regardless, I think it's powerful enough, if used well.

Everything else I just plain disagree with, or just don't see eye-to-eye with you about.

Still, your opinion is welcome to be displayed. So, enjoy.