Remove Ammo

[bcadren]

All this talk of ways to fix ammo. It seems to me that ammo conservation isn't much of an issue EVER; unless you start a Hunter and need to worry about it in the early D before enemies using the ammo type are common. Trying to keep a large stack of a particular brand can be an issue; but never enough to use the weapon. So why not just remove (most of) it? Specifically:

• Normal ammo is removed.
• Launchers work as if the player had an infinite 'basic' ammo stack. (Normal Arrows; Normal Bolts; Normal Sling Bullets; Poison Darts).
• Flame, Frost, Poisoned and Steel ammos are removed. Their brands are only available through branded launchers.
• Returning is also removed.
• Dispersal, Exploding, Penetration and Silver ammos; as well as all branded blowgun ammo (Confusion, Curare, Frenzy, Paralysis, Sleep, Slowing) always mulch.
• Throwing weapons are reflavoured into items such as boomerangs.
  • These have 'returning' stacked with any brand and always return.
  • These form stacks of one; repeatedly throwing a single weapon; rather than a large stack.
  • Dispersal and Exploding are no longer available with new throwing.
  • Basic stones can no longer be thrown (for Sandblast only; or removed depending on the Sandblast balance decision).
  • Large Rocks are no longer rocks after reflavour and can't be used for Sandblast anymore.

[Sandman25]

That would make ranged characters boring, personally I enjoy switching to different ammo for different monsters, this is basically what I am playing ranged characters for. Other characters cannot do it usually because melee characters are low on scrolls of enchant weapon and caster blasters don't train all element schools simultaneously. To me the suggestion is like "let's remove all summoning spells except Monster Menagerie and Ice Beasts".

[johlstei]

I don't think I would ever use melee weapons if there were weapons just like them that also hit 8 tiles away.

[Greyr]

Pretty sure the tavern is just the same four topics over and over and over...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13684&hilit=remove+ammo

[lessens]

I don't think I would ever use melee weapons if there were weapons just like them that also hit 8 tiles away.

You might want to use them because the melee weapons tend to offer equal or higher damage even in their 1-handed variants, that they offer exclusive brands (at least in non-randarts), that they have greater availability in the early to mid game, and so on. Right now ammo doesn't really function as a meaningful strategic limit on a 3-runer outside the early game so I don't think it would make a big difference.

[bcadren]

That would make ranged characters boring, personally I enjoy switching to different ammo for different monsters, this is basically what I am playing ranged characters for. Other characters cannot do it usually because melee characters are low on scrolls of enchant weapon and caster blasters don't train all element schools simultaneously. To me the suggestion is like "let's remove all summoning spells except Monster Menagerie and Ice Beasts".

Alright; what if the ammos were dropped in 'an enchanted quiver which produces arrows over time' [IE the 'quiver' has a max depending on how powerful the brand is and refills that max by 5ing]

[Quazifuji]

It seems like part of the debate here isn't just what to do with ammo, but what purpose ammo serves in the first place. Right now, ammo does three different things, at least in theory.

1. It is a strategic limit. If all your ammo mulches, you can no longer shoot your weapon until you find more (this is rarely a concern outside of early game, except for rare branded ammos and blowguns).

2. It is a tactical limit. If you shoot all of your arrows, you can no longer shoot your weapon until you pick the arrows up where they landed (this is also rarely a concern outside of early game, except for rare branded ammos and blowguns, especially since item weight was removed).

3. It adds tactical decisions by allowing you to use different ammo brands depending on the situation (this is definitely a major feature of blowguns, probably more highly debatable how often it comes up with other ranged weapons).

So the question, I think, is which of these goals are desirable? A lot of proposed ammo reworks remove one or more of these features, and no one seems to agree on which of these features are actually the goal of ammo and which are just side effects or annoyances that can/should be removed.

That would make ranged characters boring, personally I enjoy switching to different ammo for different monsters, this is basically what I am playing ranged characters for. Other characters cannot do it usually because melee characters are low on scrolls of enchant weapon and caster blasters don't train all element schools simultaneously. To me the suggestion is like "let's remove all summoning spells except Monster Menagerie and Ice Beasts".

Alright; what if the ammos were dropped in 'an enchanted quiver which produces arrows over time' [IE the 'quiver' has a max depending on how powerful the brand is and refills that max by 5ing]

That sounds a bit like Tome's reloading mechanic. Arrows are infinite from a strategic standpoint, but you have to equip a quiver that has a number of arrows and must be reloaded (which takes some time, but happens automatically while rested) when it is empty. The downside of this mechanic is that it makes ammo work nearly identically to mana, and I think right now the difference between arrows and mana is one of the biggest differences between conjurations and ranged weapons.

[lessens]

The strict early limit on ammo is actually a really bad thing because it means hunters/AMs, who are supposed to be about ranged weapons, spend the early game hitting everything with a 0 skill floor weapon because they don't have enough ammo

[Rast]

So start hunters off with a bit more ammo.

I'm OK with strategic ammo conservation being sometimes important in the early game, but balancing ammo drops so that by the time the player is at high levels of ranged skill, they will always have enough of their most vanilla ammo.

[Siegurt]

Hybrid suggestion from some of the above suggestions:

1. Each stack of ammo is converted to a "quiver of ammo", when fired, the amount in the quiver reduces, when it hits 0 you can't fire from that quiver any more.
2. The maximum of each quiver is increased by ammo you find/pick up from the floor, at a ratio of 1 per X* amount of found ammo fractional increases are remembered, but don't have an effect until you reach the next full point.
3. Ammo in the quiver regenerates up to it's maximum over time (or by '5'ing)
4. The maximum amount in any given quiver doesn't reduce or disappear, ever.
5. Ammo you fire never drops (always mulches)

*X is some amount of found ammo, this is diifferent per type, probably proportional to current mulch rate, I'd imagine, if we want to get really freaky, we could make it proportional to skill, which would be fun and strategically balanced, but counter-intuitive and weird.

This has the "always mulching" convenience advantage, while retaining (and potentially enhancing, depending on the rates chosen) the current tactical limits and flexibility, and adds a strategic depth to ranged weapons that it's lacking.

(I *think* this hits all the points that Qaz mentioned)

It'd get sort of weird with dropping and picking up quivers of the same type, but that's a technical hurdle that's surmountable.

[lessens]

I'm fine with ranged weapons not being usable in the early game as well, but if that's the system I don't think hunters should exist. You pick the class only for the benefit for being able to train bows/crossbows/whatever from D:1 while actually using the starter weapon as little as possible. If ranged is only supposed to be viable later, remove the class and let people start training bows when they meet their first centaur, rather than leaving in this weird class that starts with a ranged weapon primarily for skilling purposes and rarely uses it until the midgame.

Another option is to actually let hunters use their weapons, either by giving them a large stack of ammo or just removing ammo entirely. Either of these would be significantly better than the current system.

[The Ferret]

Ammo is one of the things that ToME4 does right, IMO. For those unfamiliar, in ToME4, ammo comes in the form of quivers with varying properties (described with a dizzying array of numbers, in typical ToME4 fashion). Each quiver has a set ammunition capacity. Wearing a quiver grants you the Reload ability. While Reload is active, by default 1 projectile per turn is replenished to your quiver; firing interrupts Reload.

It essentially keeps the tactical limitations of ammo - which, IMO, are the more interesting limitations - but shifts ammo into the same category as weapons when it comes to strategic limitations (choosing the appropriate quiver). As an added bonus, it lets ToME4 generate quivers randomly, including artifact ones, just the same as artifact weapons, jewelry, etc.

Now, obviously, ToME4 works quite differently from Crawl, so I'm not suggesting just ripping off their system. It's just an example of how another roguelike/roguelite/procedural RPG (not touching that silly debate with a ten-foot pole) handles ammunition pretty elegantly.

edit: X-posted with Siegurt, who suggested a similar system. Serendipity!

[Siegurt]

Ammo is one of the things that ToME4 does right, IMO. For those unfamiliar, in ToME4, ammo comes in the form of quivers with varying properties (described with a dizzying array of numbers, in typical ToME4 fashion). Each quiver has a set ammunition capacity. Wearing a quiver grants you the Reload ability. While Reload is active, by default 1 projectile per turn is replenished to your quiver; firing interrupts Reload.

It essentially keeps the tactical limitations of ammo - which, IMO, are the more interesting limitations - but shifts ammo into the same category as weapons when it comes to strategic limitations (choosing the appropriate quiver). As an added bonus, it lets ToME4 generate quivers randomly, including artifact ones, just the same as artifact weapons, jewelry, etc.

Now, obviously, ToME4 works quite differently from Crawl, so I'm not suggesting just ripping off their system. It's just an example of how another roguelike/roguelite/procedural RPG (not touching that silly debate with a ten-foot pole) handles ammunition pretty elegantly.

Note that this sounds fairly similar to my suggestion (Which is in turn mostly ripped off of Quazifuji's description of Tome's reloading mechanic)

[Lasty]

Hybrid suggestion from some of the above suggestions:

1. Each stack of ammo is converted to a "quiver of ammo", when fired, the amount in the quiver reduces, when it hits 0 you can't fire from that quiver any more.
2. The maximum of each quiver is increased by ammo you find/pick up from the floor, at a ratio of 1 per X* amount of found ammo fractional increases are remembered, but don't have an effect until you reach the next full point.
3. Ammo in the quiver regenerates up to it's maximum over time (or by '5'ing)
4. The maximum amount in any given quiver doesn't reduce or disappear, ever.
5. Ammo you fire never drops (always mulches)

*X is some amount of found ammo, this is diifferent per type, probably proportional to current mulch rate, I'd imagine, if we want to get really freaky, we could make it proportional to skill, which would be fun and strategically balanced, but counter-intuitive and weird.

This has the "always mulching" convenience advantage, while retaining (and potentially enhancing, depending on the rates chosen) the current tactical limits and flexibility, and adds a strategic depth to ranged weapons that it's lacking.

(I *think* this hits all the points that Qaz mentioned)

It'd get sort of weird with dropping and picking up quivers of the same type, but that's a technical hurdle that's surmountable.

What would you do about needles, where scarcity is a necessary limit on their power, or throwing ammo, where "quivers" make little sense?

If we found good ways to handle those cases, I think it'd be an improvement over the status quo, though it loses a little clarity/verisimilitude. It also makes ranged weapons much more like conjurations, since ammo is effectively MP in this case.

[tabstorm]

I think the targeting of direct-damage spells is what makes it a lot different from ranged, so even if you had a "reload" mechanic, it would still be pretty different from conjuration.

You could have "reloading" only for bows and crossbows, and treat everything else as "special" ammo. I don't think anyone even plays characters that mainly use throwing to deal damage, so I think you could treat javelins, tomahawks, etc. as "special" ammo without really affecting anyone too much. You could rename "bow" to "bow and arrows" or "crossbow and bolts" to justify it.

[duvessa]

throwing ammo, where "quivers" make little sense?

Couldn't you just have

  Code:

a - a set of javelins
b - a set of tomahawks
c - a pile of stones
d - a bag of large rocks

[Siegurt]

I think it's called "A brace of javelins"

I think rare needles don't mulch any more frequently than any other type of ammo that we have presently.

If you found "A stack of paralysis needles (1/1)" and were able to expand that to "A stack of paralysis needles (5/5)" by the time you were in extended I don't think that would be to crazy at all...

[Lasty]

Being able to use paralysis or curare needles in every fight would definitely be a player buff. That said, I'm starting to warm to the rest of the idea a bit.

[treerex5]

I still don't feel like this idea is good...


But then again, I just had a godawful Centaur game where I ran out of ammo a lot, and ended up frantically throwing rocks as gastronok closed in...

[acvar]

I don't think anyone even plays characters that mainly use throwing to deal damage, so I think you could treat javelins, tomahawks, etc. as "special" ammo without really affecting anyone too much. You could rename "bow" to "bow and arrows" or "crossbow and bolts" to justify it.

Almost every character I play has throwing as their primary attack by midway through the game. By Zot they almost never use their melee attack.

[Brannock]

I don't think anyone even plays characters that mainly use throwing to deal damage, so I think you could treat javelins, tomahawks, etc. as "special" ammo without really affecting anyone too much. You could rename "bow" to "bow and arrows" or "crossbow and bolts" to justify it.

Almost every character I play has throwing as their primary attack by midway through the game. By Zot they almost never use their melee attack.

Would you mind linking your akrasaic page? I'd be interested in seeing some of your logs; I very rarely come across throwing-centric winners. I have a couple of throwers myself, but they were Ogres who are already suited to hurling large rocks.

[acvar]

I don't think anyone even plays characters that mainly use throwing to deal damage, so I think you could treat javelins, tomahawks, etc. as "special" ammo without really affecting anyone too much. You could rename "bow" to "bow and arrows" or "crossbow and bolts" to justify it.

Almost every character I play has throwing as their primary attack by midway through the game. By Zot they almost never use their melee attack.

Would you mind linking your akrasaic page? I'd be interested in seeing some of your logs; I very rarely come across throwing-centric winners. I have a couple of throwers myself, but they were Ogres who are already suited to hurling large rocks.

Don't know what a akrasaic page is. I also don't play online. It is quite simple really. Just start as a berserker for the ammo gifts, turn off all skills except throwin upon entering the dungeon, turn on pickup for stones, tomohawks, and javelins, and train throwing up to 8 to start getting gifts. Then train melee weapon, fighting, and whatever defences you need to get you through lair. Then just turn fighting and throwing on and you are good for the rest of the game pretty much.

[tasonir]

I've definitely seen pure throwers, as mentioned, they were ogres...but other races could do the same. Ammo gifts help a lot if you can't use all the large rocks.

I like the quiver idea. I'd be curious as to the specifics - if I find a quiver of normal arrows, can I find another quiver of normal arrows? Their maximum would grow a bit more slowly than if I just held one? Let's say I have two quivers with a max of 20 each, find a stack of arrows on the ground, they now have 22 max each - one arrow quiver would have gone from 40 to 44? Seems like there wouldn't be any point to carry more than one quiver of arrows. Maybe let a second quiver of arrows merge with your existing quiver as if it was a stack of arrows of that size? So you'd still have a quiver of arrows and a quiver of fire arrows, but never two of the same type.

Don't throw your 200 arrow quiver into the lava or you're screwed. Of course you could do that with your stack of 200 arrows now, so that's not a new thing

Switching quivers would remain an instant action?

[WalrusKing]

While I'm not a particularly good player, it seems to me like allowing needles to follow a refill system same as anything else might make training throwing to be a pretty damn good bet on literally any character, which sounds like not too much of a decision. On the other hand, for all of the other ranged options, this change would make me hype for playing ranged characters. I cant think of a rationalle for non-merging quivers

[WalrusKing]

If quivers are a new category of generated item which is equipped, would they also generate with brands (egos?) bonuses and the like? Because if so, this proposal creates a new virtual jewelry slot. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but should be noted as a consequence, because I'm sure that even characters who have no intention of holding a bow in their life would take advantage of this new opportunity.

[Siegurt]

If quivers are a new category of generated item which is equipped, would they also generate with brands (egos?) bonuses and the like? Because if so, this proposal creates a new virtual jewelry slot. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but should be noted as a consequence, because I'm sure that even characters who have no intention of holding a bow in their life would take advantage of this new opportunity.

My intention was that quivers occupy the virtual slot which is currently occupied by the quiver "eqiupment" slot, and have no attributes other than the brand of ammo they contain (So "a quiver of frost arrows (15/17)")

I intended that the current mechanisms for quivering, cycling things to auto-fire, the "F" mechanism all stay the same.

The *only* thing I was suggesting was that the description for a stack of arrows in your inventory be changed to "a quiver of arrows" and that the stack have a maximum, and a current number (as opposed to simply a "current number of arrows in the stack") and that the mechanism for picking up loose ammo change, rather than it simply adding 1 to your "current number" each one would add a portion of the "maximum" available in the stack. Also that the number of items regenerates to it's maximum over time.

I'm pretty sure with a stack of 20 curare needles I can get a really really large number of curare shots off over the course of the game (to the extent that the limiting factor is only tactical, not strategic, and not very limiting tactically at that) If 20 curare needles became say, 3-4 shots max per combat, that would seem "about right" to me (particularly for the rarer brands, if it takes you an average of 4 shots to land a paralysis on a hydra, but you've only got 2, you've got a tactically interesting limit)

Similarly if your stack of 80 frost arrows was instead a refilling quiver of 8, you'd have a more interesting limit.

That's the intention anyway.

I'm not suggesting (nor am I really in favor of) various types of unique quivers (beyond the ammo brands that exist currently) nor am I suggesting "quivers" be found on the ground, you find stacks of ammo, when you pick them up, you use them to partially expand your quiver of ammo of that type (If you don't have any, you start a new quiver of that type)

I suppose if you drop a quiver, it should be converted to an appropriately sized stack of ammo (such that if you pick it up again you end up with exactly the same quiver)

If the ratio is (for example) 10 arrows per 1 max ammo in your quiver, and you pick up 97 arrows, you'd have a quiver of 9, and after firing 9 times you'd have to wait to refill, if you dropped your quiver, you'd see a stack of 97 arrows, if you pick up a stack of 3 arrows, then pick up a the stack of 97 arrows, you'd have a quiver of 10 max, then if you dropped that, you'd have a stack of 100 arrows.

That's the simplest and most straightforward way I can think of, and it probably works out the best balance wise (obviously the 10 arrows/quivermax is picked out of thin air, and the actual number would need to be set by ammo type)

This also retains the existing mechanism for gifting, monster ammo generation, etc. etc. without having to do any additional work.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Having Needles apply the quiver system would be a huge nerf to the more rare needles, since they generate very rarely even now.
If i had to choose between a stack of 5-7 confuse/paralyze needles and a refilling quiver of 1/2 i would always choose the stack.
And if all the needle quivers would hold 3-4 refillable needles, it would just become incredibly overpowered.
And if you choose to go the nerfed way (1-2 quiver), you eliminate non-magic stabbing-style of play completely(with the exception of dith, and even that is at best unreliable), which has already been unnecessarily nerfed to the ground

tldl; i don't think this should apply to needles.

[edgefigaro]

Have quivers drop off of enemies that use the weapon. Realistically you expect a quiver off of a centaur around d4-d6, a bolt quiver off of yaktaurs or orcs, sling quivers off of goblins, and you randomly might get lucky and find one on the ground. Preserves the early ammo minigame and makes it irrelevant midgame.

[Siegurt]

Having Needles apply the quiver system would be a huge nerf to the more rare needles, since they generate very rarely even now.
If i had to choose between a stack of 5-7 confuse/paralyze needles and a refilling quiver of 1/2 i would always choose the stack.
And if all the needle quivers would hold 3-4 refillable needles, it would just become incredibly overpowered.
And if you choose to go the nerfed way (1-2 quiver), you eliminate non-magic stabbing-style of play completely(with the exception of dith, and even that is at best unreliable), which has already been unnecessarily nerfed to the ground

tldl; i don't think this should apply to needles.

Well, my intention *was* to generally nerf all ammo slightly (in the tactical, but not strategic sense) 1-2 quiver means, effectively if you fail your first choice of rare needle, you'll have to go to your next choice, or run away and try again after resting. I don't think that eliminates "magicless stabbing" at all (in fact if anything, it's the opposite).

You seemed to have skipped the portion of the proposal where the quiver starts holding just 1, and grows as you pick up more ammo of that type, you don't start with a quiver of 4 confusion needles the first time you find a stack, you start with like 1 or possibly 2, (Where you would have a stack of maybe 5-8) and as you picked up more of that ammo type, you're refillable quiver would increase in size. You'd get a 3-4 quiver of confusion needles about the same time you'd currently get a stack of like 12-20 confusion needles

The intention here is to increase tactical pressure on ammo (by limiting it's short-term reusability) while retaining (and in some ways enhancing) strategic depth, while at the same time eliminating the optimal, but tedious micromanagement associated with ammunition.

[acvar]

I really have to ask. Exactly what problem are we trying to fix here? What is wrong with the current system? I play characters that start throwing stones as soon as they find them, and end the game doing nothing but throwing javs at enemies. I kill the screen, hit "o" a few times and move on. My only complaint is that I can't easily tell the game not to pick up normal tomahawks when I already have a huge stack of returning/steel and such.

[Siegurt]

I really have to ask. Exactly what problem are we trying to fix here? What is wrong with the current system? I play characters that start throwing stones as soon as they find them, and end the game doing nothing but throwing javs at enemies. I kill the screen, hit "o" a few times and move on. My only complaint is that I can't easily tell the game not to pick up normal tomahawks when I already have a huge stack of returning/steel and such.

1. The ammo limit is meaningless after some point, you collect enough ammo throughout the game that it ceases to be a thing that has any tactical impact.
2. Autoexplore, while fantastic, is often suboptimal, so players who want to avoid using it, but use ranged weapons, are therefore required to manually step on every square.
3. It's often also optimal to avoid certain firing patterns to prevent yourself from losing ammo, this results in tedious combat, as you have to carefully select the square(s) you want to fire at/through in order to avoid losing ammo in deep water or lava.
4. When trying to conserve turns (I know, I know) it's also optimal to fire to stop at a nearer square, rather than a farther one, however setting this as the default via options means you can't fire optimally when you want to fire at a critter, but hit the thing behind it when you miss. (This is also why you don't want to fire to the nearest critter and stop unilaterally for case 3)

[Quazifuji]

Another issue with the current system, although not one that most of the recent proposals have focused on, is that the large number of ammo brands often take up a lot of inventory space, resulting in inventory management that tends to be more tedious than interesting. This is especially an issue for thrown weapons.

The interaction between the flaming and freezing brands and flaming and freezing ammo is also awkward. It's a bit confusing that, despite flaming, freezing, and vorpal technically having the same effect on ranged and melee weapons, flaming and freezing are generally considered superior on melee while vorpal is almost always better on ranged.

[Sprucery]

1. The ammo limit is meaningless after some point, you collect enough ammo throughout the game that it ceases to be a thing that has any tactical impact.
2. Autoexplore, while fantastic, is often suboptimal, so players who want to avoid using it, but use ranged weapons, are therefore required to manually step on every square.
3. It's often also optimal to avoid certain firing patterns to prevent yourself from losing ammo, this results in tedious combat, as you have to carefully select the square(s) you want to fire at/through in order to avoid losing ammo in deep water or lava.
4. When trying to conserve turns (I know, I know) it's also optimal to fire to stop at a nearer square, rather than a farther one, however setting this as the default via options means you can't fire optimally when you want to fire at a critter, but hit the thing behind it when you miss. (This is also why you don't want to fire to the nearest critter and stop unilaterally for case 3)

Hmm. Points 1 and 3 are somewhat contradictory. If the ammo limit is meaningless, you don't have to worry about losing ammo in water/lava. Point 2, if really meaningful, could be solved by implementing an "autocollect mode" that only collects ammo but does not autoexplore otherwise. I use autoexplore most of the time but sometimes collect ammo manually anyway, if I want to make sure I get the ammo before moving somewhere else. Point 4 is not important imo.

Personally I think that the current situation is good enough. Ammoless Crawl could also work well, but is it worth the effort, I don't know.

[Lasty]

The main thing I want to solve is that ranged combat is almost impossible to balance in the current scheme: being able to attack at any range is extremely powerful and eliminates most tactical considerations, so if ranged combat does enough damage, it's almost always the best choice, but that best choice does not produce interesting situations or decisions. However, if you lower the damage past a certain point, it becomes much more effective (and less tedious) to just train melee and use LOS management to handle enemies at a range instead.

Basically, the current design of ranged combat does not have a balance point where it enriches the crawl experience. The goal of reform is to find a way to make ranged combat enrich the crawl experience.

[mps]

Try fiddling with brands. Move effects from spells to ranged weapons exclusively, e.g. remove inner flame and make flaming arrows apply inner flame status, remove corpse rot and add an arrow brand that applies rot and produces the corpse rot effect on kills. Introduce new brands that produce unusual effects, like an arrow that vaporizes monsters on kill and produces fog where they die. Better if the effects are potentially dangerous to the user.

If the damage is so high that ranged weapons are always the best option, as people constantly say, but actual online play doesn't seem to bear out, then do the obvious thing and reduce the damage a bit for unbranded ammo to increase pressure to use rarer branded ammo with potentially unwanted side effects.

It's worth noting that ammo effects that proc on death have no effect on the player, so you can introduce these effects with less worry about balance. On the other hand, they do effect players if they use a lot of summons, but that could be good.

[Sandman25]

I still believe it could be good to make ranged damage depend on distance in some way, it would fix tactics by making movement (or staying in place) relevant.

[Pollen_Golem]

make ranged damage depend on distance in some way

Simple slaying modifiers that depend on distance can go a long way in making ranged combat more interesting.
You could then even have launcher/ammo brands that ignore penalties due to distance. I know that doomrl does this.

[Rast]

I would suggest making it a flat percentage applied at the very end, after slaying.

[acvar]

The main thing I want to solve is that ranged combat is almost impossible to balance in the current scheme: being able to attack at any range is extremely powerful and eliminates most tactical considerations, so if ranged combat does enough damage, it's almost always the best choice, but that best choice does not produce interesting situations or decisions. However, if you lower the damage past a certain point, it becomes much more effective (and less tedious) to just train melee and use LOS management to handle enemies at a range instead.

Basically, the current design of ranged combat does not have a balance point where it enriches the crawl experience. The goal of reform is to find a way to make ranged combat enrich the crawl experience.

If this is your goal then playing with ammo is not your answer. The best thing you can do is make missle combat more realistic.

1. Ranged combat lowers your EV. (50% EV until next action)
2. You are more likely to hit with missle combat.
3. Ranged combat does more dammage then melee combat per hit.
4. Randed combat is MUCH slower than melee combat.

This would make niches for both melee and ranged combat. Ranged combat gets used for what it is good at: hitting things at range, but using it while monsters are close is suicide.

[bel]

There was a MUD I used to play where using ranged weapons in melee range would make you miss more often. I don't know if that matters too much here, since often people switch to melee weapon anyway.

[XuaXua]

Any reason we can't take the Legend of Zelda route (and make Gozag a good choice for ranged weapon users)?

Any ammo shot costs gold.

Branded ammo still exists; it's on the floor. If you pick it up, it takes 1 inventory slot, but gives you the option to spend gold to use that type of branded ammo in ranged.

Regular ammo (arrow, bolt, bullet, rock) - 1 gold, but must be carrying a launcher (or a rock).
Basic branded ammo (flame, frost, poison) - 2 gold/shot
Tough branded ammo (steel, confusion, tomahawks) - 3 gold/shot
Powerful branded ammo (penetrating, paralysis, javelins) - 5 gold/shot
Ultra branded ammo (curare, large rocks) - 8 gold/shot

Those are just guesses at costs and categorization.

Optionally, ammo picked up from the floor may come with a variable cost, which would make finding a less-expensive ammo of the same brand "worth it". You can find a "rare" flaming arrow (1 gold/shot) vs a "crappy" flaming arrow (5 gold/shot).

Does ammo mulch?
Well, the idea might be to have a 50% chance of 50% of the gold used (rounded up) appear in the targeted space.

A branded weapon that adds brands to ammo does not increase the gold cost of the ammo shot.

[ajon]

There was a MUD I used to play where using ranged weapons in melee range would make you miss more often. I don't know if that matters too much here, since often people switch to melee weapon anyway.

Which MUD was that?

[XuaXua]

There was a MUD I used to play where using ranged weapons in melee range would make you miss more often. I don't know if that matters too much here, since often people switch to melee weapon anyway.

In Crawl, melee distance is arbitrary. While you are in "adjacent" spaces, you aren't necessarily next to each other. Goes double for those with reaching weapons (pole arms) with a one-space barrier.

[johlstei]

In Crawl, melee distance is arbitrary. While you are in "adjacent" spaces, you aren't necessarily next to each other. Goes double for those with reaching weapons (pole arms) with a one-space barrier.

Huh? You're right about polearms but in crawl, monsters to your diagonal are next to you in exactly the same sense that monsters orthogonal to you are. They are the same distance away(one tile according to movement, spell targetting, etc, though not line of sight without squareLOS).

[Arrhythmia]

(though not line of sight without squareLOS).

about that...

[celem]

For what its worth I dont use any of the branded ammos, like ever. Im probably only gonna find 10 or so silver whatevers, they are excellent vs a specific enemy. Im not going to give up 1/52nd of my inventory to carry them around all game until that situation comes up, i'll drop them now in favor of a wand or something that I might use a dozen times.

You set these types to always mulch and i'll never even glance at them, they are already too rare to be useful (even with Oka I dont get much range to pick from)

Do we really need all the brands? We have launcher brands already...

I fire regular arrows/bolts from bows/xbows, fire stones from slings because bullets are too rare and throw plain stuff too. Only brand I seek out and use is returning because I dont want to trudge about or apport all the ammo back. To be honest I dont want to go through the Q menu each time, I'm loathe even to w for a new weapon, preferring to use ' for quickswap. You come up with a key lets me quickswap my quiver-slot and we can talk. (seriously, I want this for my throwers who cycle between weapons and nets plenty)

[tasonir]

( and ) will cycle through your quiver options. Some people don't like this because if you have 6 options, you might have to press ( or ) up to three times (and if you cycle in the wrong direction, it might be 5 presses away). But if you do it a lot in a game you'll remember the order of your ammo eventually, maybe?

[Rast]

Some people have won dozens of ranged weapon users without knowing about that

[tedric]

( and ) will cycle through your quiver options. Some people don't like this because if you have 6 options, you might have to press ( or ) up to three times (and if you cycle in the wrong direction, it might be 5 presses away). But if you do it a lot in a game you'll remember the order of your ammo eventually, maybe?

Ammo cycles in alphabetical order according to inventory slot (a-zA-Z), so you can control the order in which ammo cycles by reassigning the stacks.

[ajon]

or just use Q or F?