Using weapon mods

strude · Post by **strude** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 11:50

I'm not sure I'm doing it right. I find low, medium and high weapon mods in loot drops, and when I look at the weapon mods list I can see the ones I've picked up. I can go to a mechanic and install those mods to the weapons. That part is all taken care of.

In my inventory, I have low, medium and high weapon mods as craftable items. I've disassembled a few weapon mods from the list, enough that I can craft a weapon mod. Click the craft button, and nothing happens. The items required to craft the mod disappear, but I don't get an inventory item of a weapon mod, and I have no idea what needs to be done from that point.

Currently I have crafted a low and medium weapon mod. The items required to craft are gone, but what do I do to actually get the weapon mod? Does it appear as a random weapon mod in the weapon mod screen? I admit I didn't pay attention enough to see if that happened. I didn't get a choice of what weapon mod I would like, or what features are available, so is it a completely random weapon mod?

Other than installing mods I pick up randomly, I don't know what to do with the disassembled mod items, other than craft an item that doesn't seem to appear anywhere or be configurable in any way.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 12:22

strude wrote: Currently I have crafted a low and medium weapon mod. The items required to craft are gone, but what do I do to actually get the weapon mod? Does it appear as a random weapon mod in the weapon mod screen? I admit I didn't pay attention enough to see if that happened. I didn't get a choice of what weapon mod I would like, or what features are available, so is it a completely random weapon mod?

Yes is does appear as a random weapon mod in the weapon mod screen (or at least it should be).

strude wrote: Other than installing mods I pick up randomly, I don't know what to do with the disassembled mod items, other than craft an item that doesn't seem to appear anywhere or be configurable in any way.

Crafting and using or re-dissembling into a single part are the only options I am aware of.

Post by **j.harshaw** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 12:24

strude wrote:Does it appear as a random weapon mod in the weapon mod screen?

That should be how it works at the moment, yes.

edit: Ninja'd by Sparky! Can't believe it actually took me two whole minutes to type that.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 12:26

donzi · Post by **donzi** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 20:15

On some of the mods there is a projectile lifetime, does this equate to a proportional increase in range?

The other specs I have seen are fairly clear in meaning.

strude · Post by **strude** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 21:56

OK, probably working as intended then, and I just haven't been paying close enough attention

I guess once I start playing more combat (rather than exploring the new areas) I'll find enough weapon mods in drops that, breaking down 5 to make 1 will probably be a non issue.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Fri, 18. Mar 16, 22:13

donzi wrote:On some of the mods there is a projectile lifetime, does this equate to a proportional increase in range?

Both lifetime & speed lead to an increase in range (& heat buildup)

Post by **j.harshaw** » Sat, 19. Mar 16, 00:14

Snafu_X3 wrote:Both lifetime & speed lead to an increase in range (& heat buildup)

Just a quick correction, unless something changed and I didn't get the memo (which is possible): projectile lifetime and projectile speed do not affect heat in any way. There actually aren't any hidden bonuses nor penalties, although there are indirect bonuses or penalties that could result from particular changes.

Bullets lasting longer would increase resulting range, bullets moving faster same thing plus making weapons more accurate, damage bonus/penalty affects nothing but damage per bullet, etc. Heat is generated per bullet fired so the only things that would affect heat per second are reload rate (because you're firing more bullets per time), projectile amount (same reason), and, well, cooling rate.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Sat, 19. Mar 16, 02:37

TVM for the correction JH; that'll make my mod selection a lot easier!

hisazul · Post by **hisazul** » Sat, 19. Mar 16, 03:10

Rate of fire/reload and projectile count are the only things that affect heat build up. Repeater with 400% RoF increase instantly overheats and shotgun with 6 additional pellets also overheats fast. In same way charging speed when applies lowers heat... but that's mostly relevant to plasma mk3 since it takes a long time to charge... best I've seen basically lets you shoot 2 fully charged shots but that seems to be the very limit for the value range.

On side note, would not recommend crafting mods. After 100 or so attempts at crafting tier 3, not a single one was for weapons that I have, which are rail gun, charging plasma, hept 3 and shotgun 2. All of them were for mk1 rubbish. Random yes... but considering amount of resources needed it's not worth it at all. Take some xenon defense missions and you'll be swimming in mods. DV/HoL have plethora of xenon defense missions. Rest of the races aren't as... erm... generous at dropping mods. Kha'ak are "ok" but warheads and increased coolant drop rates dilute loot tables. Side note... Kha'ak drop a lot of coolant... I mean A LOT, double coolant from single kill isn't even all that rare. Wish I knew that when I was building jump drive...

Keep an eye on any mods for plasma mk3 and railgun. Look for damage and charging speed for plasma and range and damage for railgun. Plasma's damage is huge even a 25% dmg increase bumps the damage though the roof. You don't really need tier 3 mods for those 2... tier 3 simply come with 4/5 modifiers and not all of them will be useful, in some cases range of values is just too pitiful and sometimes they are outright bad like huge RoF gains on repeater mk3. Fun tidbit maser mk3 has huge range for cooling it's fairly easy to get a mod that makes it impossible to overheat it.

donzi · Post by **donzi** » Sat, 2. Apr 16, 13:37

Thanks for the clarification(s)!

I've accumulated tons of mods for Mk1+ although I am still only using Mk1 only. Better understanding of them will help down the road as I move beyond Mk1 guns.

Any thoughts on the mining laser mods?

I hardly ever use it except for dealing with lockboxes.

The mininig laser mods I figured were just a 'why not?' answer when mods got implemented.

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Sat, 2. Apr 16, 15:10

@hisazul: Thanks for the tidbit on the JD-Cool and Kha'ak - I still need a few (well, 3) of those for my personal JD, and was already thinking of paying a visit to my old triangular friends, but now I will be setting off immediately - I'd like to stock up a bit on the stuff for my own use afterward, not just for actual building of the drive.

Oh, and "hept"?

I sense a veteran, heheheh ^^ *nostalgic-sigh* I miss weapon configurations... And specialised weapons like the MD and the ID - now Ps carry something like a MD and Kyon Torps are supposed to be ID-esque, but it's just not the same

@donzi: Regarding your question of mining laser mods. I did a bit of mining of 'roids at first, mostly to get those genuine, authentic, home-baked spacefly eggs, as a HUGE early-game money-maker. To that end, I found the most useful mod to be the range (+100% ideally), as it reduced the amount of time spent repositioning myself after blasting the original big rock. Mining strength was secondary, but desirable when available, as it just meant cracking those boulders was quicker. Damage is pointless, as the mining laser is useless as a combat weapon, and cooldown wasn't needed, as I've never seen the mining laser rise so much as one pixel on the tempscale (heavy laser = very different story).

hisazul · Post by **hisazul** » Sat, 2. Apr 16, 15:40

HEPT is internal name

On mining lasers, mining strength is only relevant on lower grade. Their internal mining strength boost is already big enough. Heavy laser has tiny boost compared to mk1 mining laser but mk1 mining laser barely does any damage while heavy laser has huge damage.

Heavy laser is a really good weapon for breaking things bypassing shields entirely... shame you can't keep it and railgun at the same time.

If I'm not mistaken railgun while belonging to the mining slot doesn't have internal mining boost but mk3 plasma does... not sure why considering insane damage mk3 plasma has as it is.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Sat, 2. Apr 16, 22:28

RAVEN.myst wrote:I'd like to stock up a bit on the stuff for my own use afterward, not just for actual building of the drive

ATM the coolant required for the mission isn't /consumed/ by the mission, so you'll still have 20+ coolant once you have your JD installed. I'm not sure if this is a bug or WAD (to give the player a small happy feeling considering the time & effort required to obtain the stuff in the first place..)

mining laser mods. [...]

By far the best 'mining laser' for actually attacking 'roids is the PM3 IMO. Careful use of the Heavy Laser can be used on locks, but the PM3 with its superior range & DOT ('sticky' in game parlance) destroys huge 'roids quickly; with even a L1 mod for cooldown it can be used indefinitely to pick off the pieces..

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Sat, 2. Apr 16, 23:49

Snafu_X3 wrote:ATM the coolant required for the mission isn't /consumed/ by the mission, so you'll still have 20+ coolant once you have your JD installed. I'm not sure if this is a bug or WAD (to give the player a small happy feeling considering the time & effort required to obtain the stuff in the first place..)

Bonus! I'm just about to head back to civilization, having visited my purple pyramid pals and gotten over a dozen cans of JD-Cool (and a few, disappointingly few, kyon warheads). So given what you've mentioned, I'll have more than a full case of frosty goodness (and I don't expect to be a heavy "drinker", as I'm patient - jumps will already be saving me time, and I'm all about the journey anyway - so these refreshers ought to last me quite a while - at LEAST half an hour!

) ^^

I actually stocked up on all manner of things for the JD R&D, from a role-playing perspective. For example, I kept lots of the regular JD components, as well as cartography units (on the grounds that something that warps space to translocate you probably wants to know where you are and where you're going.) I pretty much knew none of this stuff would be needed, but I have no other use for it, so it's all good

(In fact, I haven't sold anything out of my inventory in a looooong time - of course, some stuff gets used up, like gifts, and metalchemy bits.)

Simoom · Post by **Simoom** » Sun, 3. Apr 16, 07:10

I think the implementation of the weapon mod system is a step in the right direction, but I definitely think the player should be able to have a bit more control over the attributes of weapon mods they craft (random drops having random attributes is fine).

My personal suggestions:

Expand on the crafting system so that weapon mods can be crafted for a specific weapon (of a specific MK tier). Higher tier weapons require more rare materials to craft.
Divide weapon mod creation into "base mod" and "attribute mod". A base mod is a mod for a specific weapon of a specific tier in its basic form, and costs a set amount of inventory wares to build. The attributes for the base mod are always the same, and are not very powerful. The player must dedicate more materials into crafting "attribute mods", which gets applied to the base mod. Attributes mods is where the expensive part comes in, and may require very rare materials to craft (and each time only granting a small amount of bonus, so maxing out a particular attribute of a mod is meant to be very time-consuming, but ultimately worth the effort. Think the ship tuning system in X3)

BTW for those who are curious, I was just looking at the codes for weapon mods today and the general trend seems to be:

Low grade mods change only one attribute, however usually by a large amount.
Medium grade mods change two attributes usually by a moderate amount.
High grade mods change 3 to 5 attributes usually by a small amount.

In other words, if there's a particular attribute you want and you don't care about everything else, low grade mods have a much bigger chance at providing the maximum bonus for you.

P.S. - For those who just want a weapon mod of their dreams without dealing with the silly RNG at the moment... it's actually extremely easy to tweak weapon mod attributes by editing your save game file. If anyone's intersted, comment here and I'll post instructions via a spoiler tag.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Sun, 3. Apr 16, 11:46

Simoom wrote: BTW for those who are curious, I was just looking at the codes for weapon mods today and the general trend seems to be:

General trends and other weapon mod info can be found within the 4.0/HoL guide on the wiki.

RAVEN.myst · Post by **RAVEN.myst** » Sun, 3. Apr 16, 12:53

Some good ideas there, Simoom. Basically, what your're proposing is an actual CRAFTING system, then, yes?

Because, as it stands at present, calling it such is a bit of an exaggeration (at least WRT weapon mods - with the other stuff it may be simplistic, but at least you know what you're making, and it's what you get.)

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Sun, 3. Apr 16, 13:15

It would be preferable/enjoyable to be able to select what attributes your weapons possess, different qualities and rarity of craft materials for different tasks .. Anything would be better than the convoluted random drops.

Simoom · Post by **Simoom** » Sun, 3. Apr 16, 15:04

Wrote a guide here for anyone interested in customizing their weapon mod's attributes:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=388978

Figured some of you may find it handy until a better crafting system comes along, or until some modders take a crack at it.

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Using weapon mods

Using weapon mods

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