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[Deprecated] Charge Lance Reimplemented
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Mod, 1.4, 1.5
File Size
Posted
Updated
47.654 KB
27 Mar, 2024 @ 9:24am
5 May, 2024 @ 1:05pm
5 Change Notes ( view )
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J
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[Deprecated] Charge Lance Reimplemented

Description
⚠️ As of 1.6, the mod is retired.

This is a base game patch to make charge lances viable: they are worse than assault rifles in terms of damage output, but cost more to make than charge rifles—there’re zero reasons to ever make one.

Charge lance now comes in heavy and light variants that are rebalanced separately. The light version can’t be created and is exclusive to lancers—this also band-aids the immersion problem of being able to make lancers in Biotech before researching charge weapons.

The heavy variant is now comparable to the charge rifle damage-wise, but receives no increases to range—it’s not a sniper rifle and hasn’t been for 4 years since 1.1; if the developer thinks that range is a problem, it might be best to shape charge lances into something else instead.

The light variant is comparable to the vanilla charge lance damage-wise, because rebalancing against beam grasers (used by tesserons) is tricky. The damage is more consistent, though.

Lance
Vanilla
New (heavy)
Reason
Damage
30
18
Charge lances do too much damage to body parts.
Amount of projectiles
1
2
Charge lances do inconsistent damage.
Time between each projectile
0
0.1 of a second
To differentiate from automatic rifles.
Cooldown
2.7 seconds
1.8 seconds
To level the changes above with the output of charge rifles.
Stopping power
1.5
4
Stopping power staggers moving enemies with that value as body size. I never understood why weapons described as so powerful in lore can’t stagger big enemies. It’s a tiny thing that should help not only sell the power, but also carve a distinction without going overboard—it won’t be very useful against mechanoids, but you’ll see some increase in safety when fighting certain bigger animals.
Work to make
16.67 minutes
12.8 minutes
Since lances are now similar to rifles, they can take just a little bit longer to make. For comparison, charge rifles require 12.5 minutes.
Cost to make
60 plasteel, 3 advanced components
75 plasteel, 2 advanced components
Since lances are now similar to rifles, they can cost just a little bit more to make. For comparison, charge rifles require 50 plasteel and 2 advanced components.

Rifle
Vanilla
New
Reason
Stopping power
0.5
2.5
Charge rifles are fine and don’t require tuning. That said, it’s for consistency lore-wise and to underline the difference between charge rifles and assault rifles, especially when charge rifles are compared to assault rifles of +1–2 quality.

Notes:

All relevant text was changed for the sake of immersion, so unless you play in English, heavy lances will keep original translations, and light ones won’t be translated at all, so feel free to send me corrections.

Since it’s only an XML patch and I don’t expect much external input, I’m not putting it up on GitHub, but it’s published on Workshop under the MIT license.
11 Comments
< >
J  [author] 5 May, 2024 @ 1:19pm 
Updated the time between each projectile: 1.3 seconds→0.1

After more testing, 2 projectiles are here to stay, because it’s the best change that can fix inconsistent overkilling damage without increasing the fire rate to a level abnormal to this weapon type.

This time update removes the risk of committing to a lengthy attack and makes the 1→2 projectiles change more palatable, since it’s now an almost immediate burst—100 milliseconds is the lowest possible time for both projectiles not to feel like they’re fired simultaneously, yet still be different compared to automatic weapons.

Other stats, as well as the light variant, are updated to keep charge lances balanced, as per the original reimplementation. The only notable mention is the damage change (22→18) that sets it below the next health threshold, so you’ll start seeing fewer overkilled body parts.
8 2 May, 2024 @ 4:06pm 
I used the ranged dps mod to do quick calculations of the CL and AR while noting their max dps (assuming all projectiles hit, which even for the AR is very easy to do since quality raises accuracy substantially). All things considered, I think the current dps is still acceptable given the substantially higher armor pen and accuracy at lower qualities
8 2 May, 2024 @ 4:05pm 
I've finished one anomaly playthrough with the mod. I think the decision to change it from a single shot to a slow double shot makes it really hard on your end to solve the pawn self stun issue. I see that you've noted unreliable damage as the reason for the change, but I think unreliable damage from the charge lance came from the projectile sometimes blasting an unimportant body part clean off (like a nose or tail) and thereby making it seem like the damage is low(damage indicators will report this as a low number). Ultimately its your mod and I think you can try and approach it by tinkering with the rpm and cooldown.

Regarding trigger happy, I think that the impact of that trait is really negligible when applied to the new charge lance, as the trait only shortens the aiming time of the weapon (which currently sits at 1.4). The majority of the waiting time still sits between the first and second shot and the cooldown time.
J  [author] 2 May, 2024 @ 2:49pm 
1/2 @8:

>It still has 1 less range than an AR with a little less dps

That’s a weird one, my simulations told me the DPS should be higher, could be statistics vs how it’s actually perceived in-game. Perhaps, how the heavy variant is balanced right now makes it a good fit for trigger-happy pawns, but not much else—I’ll need to investigate.
J  [author] 2 May, 2024 @ 2:48pm 
2/2 @8:

>All in all, its still hard to use the heavy charge lance vs the AR. Any chance for further tweaking?

Absolutely. I’m waiting for a bunch of mods to update to 1.5 to get another thorough-thorough look at it in-game, maybe you can suggest something in the meantime, now that you played it for a bit? I’ve tried applying some additional on-hit effects when I was redesigning the rifle (e.g. stunning), but applying, say, a stun 100% of the time was too much, and introducing more dice/chance felt unreliable.

Maybe changing the base numbers isn’t enough to fix the lance after all and it needs some help with additional effects—thanks for the feedback, I’ll try something in the coming days to see if I can address the kiting issue, but I can totally see that a pawn having to commit to an attack for a couple of seconds might be a problem and should definitely be rewarded.
8 2 May, 2024 @ 1:21pm 
Nice Mod. I agree with your design philosophy of keeping the charged lance as a mid range option for the late game instead of turning it back into its pre release sniper role. But in its current state with the slow rate of fire double shot, the pawn essentially stuns himself while firing which makes kiting less of an option. It still has 1 less range than an AR with a little less dps, but higher accuracy and armor piercing. The accuracy doesn't scale well with quality as it caps out quickly.

All in all, its still hard to use the heavy charge lance vs the AR. Any chance for further tweaking?
CyrusJazzberry 13 Apr, 2024 @ 2:13pm 
Oh, I misread then. My bad. I saw lancers and got excited.
J  [author] 13 Apr, 2024 @ 1:57pm 
@CyrusJazzberry
>As a mechanitor main, this makes me very happy.

If I understood this correctly: the light lance used by lancers in this mod is almost identical to the charge lance from the base game as we’ve always known it—no major upgrades to effectiveness here.
CyrusJazzberry 13 Apr, 2024 @ 9:59am 
As a mechanitor main, this makes me very happy.
J  [author] 6 Apr, 2024 @ 12:32pm 
@yanwoo:
>how about create a player-only lancer mech that carry heavy charge lance?

I don’t think it’s needed balance-wise—it’s out of scope for this mod; I just wanted to plug holes in the design. If you want more firepower, consider getting Alpha Mechs or Machines of War . There’re probably even more options out there.