[2022] Siege Weapons Redesign - Automata and Remote Weapons

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Hi Nomads!

This week’s devblog will be focused on the upcoming changes to siege weapons in Last Oasis, balancing the ammo progression, improvements to the remotely controlled weapons system, and Automata, which are a new addition designed to enhance the capabilities of Walker pilots.
We will also be touching on balance changes related to the armor rating system and damage types affecting both structures and Walkers.

As was mentioned in our first announcement, a lot of old design decisions have been overturned in favor of following our new direction for the game - the upcoming changes to siege weapons, base raiding and Walker combat balance are no exception.

Some of this work required us to re-do the old armor rating system from the ground up, into what we believe is a much more intuitive one, which should also ensure the proper interactions happen correctly.

For this devblog, we won’t be talking about base raiding a lot, but the section dedicated to armor rating and damage types update is very much going to affect the meta there. Our current focus for base raiding changes is to go back to a much simpler iteration and let go of some arbitrary rules we implemented in the past. We’ll talk more about this in the future, for now we’re focusing on Walker vs. Walker combat balance and design, and of course, Walkers versus the environment.

Remote Weapons
The remote controlled weapon arsenal in the game has been updated with some new additions, in the form of Stingers, which are small, dart-shooting defensive weapons mostly meant for low level encounters. Early on there will be three different versions available, all with varying capabilities.

The earliest version being the smallest one, it comes in the form of a deck edge-built small ballista that uses dart ammunition. Better versions improve on the arc of fire and rotation, but will still use dart ammo, as these are not meant to be primary weapons for Walker fighting or base raiding.
Early versions of remote weapons are similar in functionality to our old Remote Ballista, but much more compact, and are buildable on every Walker class.

The main intention behind them is to provide players with defensive capabilities on the Walker decks, while we retain the ability to design and balance the larger siege weapons for objectives like hunting and fighting PvE threats, raiding, and Walker vs. Walker battles. This is not to say these small weapons won’t help you with these early PvE encounters and PvP fights at all, but remember that as you progress from the early maps to more difficult biomes, you will start to gain access to more powerful weaponry and tools for those purposes.

Armor Ratings and Damage Types System
We have completely reworked the armor ratings and damage types system into a much more straightforward and intuitive version. Below will be some information on the new armor ratings and the damage types as well as some examples of where they will be applied.

Armor Ratings: There will be 5 armor ratings, with essentially linear progression in their protection levels:

• Soft Armor - Meant for players, most of the smaller creatures (Phemke, Nurr, Killin, Papak), Small Walkers (Firefly and Spider Walker), Crafting Stations and Siege Weapons. Overall, this armor is dedicated to things that can be damaged with melee weapons and some of the earliest ammo available, dart ammunition, scattershot pellets, and early ballista bolts.
  
• Medium Armor - Medium Walkers (Dinghy, Stiletto, Mollusk, etc), Small Walker legs, Light and Medium wood structures.
  
• Hard Armor - Large Walkers, some of the bigger creatures (Okkam, Koa, etc).
  
• Reinforced - Capital Walkers, Balang, Clay and Stone Bases, Worm Scales.
  
• Solid - Concrete Bases, Silur. This is specially reserved and will see sparse utilization, as very few damage types and ammo is capable of efficiently damaging it.

Damage Types: There will be 4 base categories for damage types, which will also be used as a basis for special damage types like Gas, Fire, Insect, etc., for example making Fire Darts deal Light Fire Damage.
Below are some examples of ammo in the game using specific damage types:

• Light - Darts and Scattershot Pellets. Used by compact remote Stinger, and Scattershot Gun.
  
• Piercing - Ballista Bolts, high end Darts, and Scattershot Pellets. Used by early Ballista, higher end Scattershot Gun, and Repeater.
  
• Heavy - Larger Rock based ammo, smaller Boulders, and high end Bolts. Used by more advanced Ballista, Catapult, and Slingshot.
  
• Shattering - Strongest damage type in the game, fully effective against every armor rating in the game. Used by Rokker and Catapult.

Early on in the game, most ammo types are at their weakest, using resources such as stone, bone and chitin. They transition into more powerful versions when they begin requiring iron, obsidian, nibiran mineral, and ceramic shards.

This transition will be clear in-game once you can see the ammo recipes, but a shortened explanation would be that Darts, for example, cannot have Shattering damage type. Darts in the early game are crafted using materials like stone, bone or chitin, and have a Light damage type, but when crafting them using more advanced materials like ceramic and iron, they receive Piercing damage type.
On top of that, if it’s specialized ammo (i.e. Explosive Darts), they will show their special type next to their damage type, for example, Light Fire in the case of Explosive Darts, Piercing Explosive in the case of some bigger bomb ammo that create shockwaves of damage.

This system will also make it so that when progressing and acquiring better weapons with stronger ammo, the ones you already had can become more efficient and won’t be immediately outclassed by new ones. For example, a Ballista won’t be immediately outclassed by a Rokker from the moment you acquire one, since although Bolts start at Piercing damage type when crafted with low end materials, they can be improved up to Heavy damage type when crafting with more advanced resources and can continue to be efficient.

Automata
Fundamentally, our ranged weapons are either remote weapons controlled by the Walker pilot, like Stingers and the old Remote Ballista, or mannable siege weapons controlled by a player gunner.
Automata are an attachment which allows Walker pilots to turn every mannable into a remote weapon (or tool) that can be controlled from the Steering Levers of a Walker.

Although similar in functionality to the smaller remote weapons, an Automaton will allow the Walker pilot to control any deck weapons that would otherwise require to be manned by a Nomad.
They are meant to enhance the role of a Walker pilot during PvP and PvE engagements through more remotely controlled tools and options.

At the moment they are a pretty simple and straightforward mechanism, but we have a lot of considerations for future changes. For example, having ways to disable an Automaton on enemy Walkers, different types of Automata with different capabilities/stats (think rate of fire, accuracy, etc.), and more.

For now I will leave you with a few pictures of my mechanical friend and his best friend, the Ballista. You can get one too!



Don’t look at their legs.



Nomad and machine.



They sometimes like to dance.

Siege Weapons Design & Future of Walker Combat
When looking at our current arsenal of weapons in the game, we felt like something was missing between Ballistae and Catapults, and when it comes to breaking down massive walking ships, it feels really off to rely mostly on “burning toothpicks”, as one of our designers puts it. We actually intend to move away from the use of fire bolt design wherever possible.
With that said, we’re introducing a new weapon to the game, currently named “the Rokker”, it’s designed to be a good middle ground weapon for Walker to Walker combat, not quite like a Catapult or a Slingshot, and certainly not a bigger Ballista, this one would be more akin to a very early cannon. Overall, it’s meant to provide the heavy punch where the use of a Ballista does not feel right.

Do keep in mind that these are not the only things that will be affecting Walkers and combat, there is more that we will soon be talking about, but I’ll give you some hints - Pretty much everything Walker-meta related will be changed massively. Starting with limitlessly building stuff on Walkers and continuing with a new system we have for Walker building, you can expect almost everything there to be completely changed - and while everyone will have to relearn, we think that’s one of the most exciting things about it, the prospect of completely new mechanics and features.

There is still quite a lot to talk about and we’re not even halfway there with the changes, but we’ll continue revealing each part of the LOverhaul slowly so we can properly get feedback from you guys.
Most of these features are not set in stone, we want to make sure this is crystal clear, we are committed to working with you guys from the very beginning of our tests, and into the season.

We haven’t yet started showcasing the technology progression changes, but you can most certainly expect one of our future devblogs to go in full detail about it, as it’s one of the biggest changes we have in store for Season 5.

We’re very excited to hear how do you think Walker combat and gameplay in general will play out with these new additions and changes. One of our big objectives for next season is to properly bring rarity to the game, as in, a lot of things won’t be abundant by default and easily accessible - rather they will need to be sought after while facing great dangers in the form of PvE threats, and other players looking for those resources.

One final note: Our creatures devblog was not lacking in text and descriptions, but it certainly could’ve used a few more images, so I’d like to leave you with our Nurr Raiders. These agile Rupu Nurr Raiders live off desert lairs, they are very good at harassing isolated targets, and rather dangerous in large groups. Best to approach them with caution, and bring an Automaton or two for your front weapons.







—Neon