Collapse stones and bullets

[Siegurt]

This came up in a reddit discussion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... eneration/

Bullets and stones are both sling fodder, but since you can use (effectively unlimited) stones on regular combats and use bullets for harder combats, and since the difference between them is not large, and bullets aren't really especially rare, the distinction between the two is largely cosmetic, which makes swapping between the two, optimal, but tedious (and without any serious decision or strategy components, or any major impact). It's very tedious to swap all the time, especially compared to using any other launcher (throwing has it's own problems, but that's another battle)

I would advocate merging bullets and stones, making the new item do bullet-damage for all launchers, and be usable in sandblast, and throwable exactly like current stones (call it a "stone")

Also as an aside, I would also say that a hunting sling with bullets (or stones, actually) is a bit better than it should be for a D:1 weapon, and probably there should exist a lower-level sling that does, say 4 damage, has a base delay of 10 (min 5), an accuracy of +4 and fires this new stone, and that it should be the sling that stuff like goblins and kobolds get rather than hunting slings (where hunting slings start being common in the D:4-ish range)

[Shtopit]

A slingshot?

[petercordia]

I really like the bullet/stone mechanic. It allows dedicated sling users to never run out of ammo whilst still keeping ammo conservation somewhat relevant. As you say, the difference is minor, so there's only really a need to switch if you see a truly dangerous enemy or if you're on an especially dangerous dungeon floor. To me this is no more tedious than looking at the available consumables or choosing the relevant spell.

I'd actually advocate expanding the stone/bullet system to crossbows, to allow crossbows to be used as a main weapon before Vaults. (It makes more thematic sense for crossbows than bows, and bows don't really have an ammo problem at any stage of the game.)

The problems you describe could be solved to some extend by reducing the sling-stone damage (whilst maintaining the fustibulus-stone damage).

[Siegurt]

I really like the bullet/stone mechanic. It allows dedicated sling users to never run out of ammo whilst still keeping ammo conservation somewhat relevant. As you say, the difference is minor, so there's only really a need to switch if you see a truly dangerous enemy or if you're on an especially dangerous dungeon floor.

There is only a *need* to switch if the challenge difference is great, however it's *optimal* to decide on *every single shot* "Is it worth using a bullet or should I downgrade to a stone" because while not large, there *is* a difference, and it's always optimal to use a stone when a bullet is overkill (or just simply not needed because the threat level isn't high enough)

This is literally the least interesting of all possible decisions you could be forced to make on every single turn. Long term "ammo conservation" isn't an interesting concept preserve, particularly since there's other launchers to contrast it with which have no such long term tediousness-tax.

[Siegurt]

The problems you describe could be solved to some extend by reducing the sling-stone damage (whilst maintaining the fustibulus-stone damage).

Also I don't see how this solves the "it's tedious to constantly decide which type of ammo to use" problem (it does make the decision slightly more impactful, until you get a fustibulus, which is a really really weird dynamic at best)

[sdynet]

I've already pull requested it in May.
https://github.com/crawl/crawl/pull/1066