Weapons and Mechanics

[Yizz]

I made the following as a lengthy response comment on a discussion thread a few days ago, but I'd like to use it now to open up a discussion about what improvements you all think should be made in order to make the game better. =)

***

The ranged weapons need to have weapon recoil completely removed and their accuracy (and damage in some cases) dramatically increased, or enemies need to have their health/armor decreased. Tactical Dreadnought Armor is basically a humanoid-shaped tank, as such it's meant to be an extremely stable ranged weapon platform. The assault cannon specifically needs to be extremely accurate and powerful, and all the bolters need to have an explosion radius of damage as well as kill regular enemies in a single shot (or 2 splash damages).

Enemy ranged weapons need to do dramatically less damage. The hybrids' autoguns shouldn't be able to hurt terminators at all, and even the heavy stubber should be little more than an annoyance. The missles should be able to hurt termies ofc, but only hard-hitting anti-tank weapons should be able to hurt terminators with reliability. I suggest that you make stubbers, autoguns, frag missiles, etc. deplete stamina or hamper weapon accuracy in lieu of damaging terminators at all.

The flamer should either A) do more contact damage or B) ignore creature armor (thus more damage) and cause stagger/stun to everything except huge mobs (like a Hive Tyrant or Carnifex, the "brood lord" type models in Space Hulk). The terminator heavy flamer is an extremely devastating anti-tyranid weapon, and unfortunately it just doesn't feel like it in this game. Unless you're torching the basic enemies on the first couple missions, the heavy flamer is mostly useless and just makes it harder to see.

Terminator melee strikes on advanced and large enemies don't take them out fast enough, but they should. It shouldn't take 10 to 20 strikes with a thunder hammer or force sword to drop a big bug, even a Carnifex, so the defenses of enemies need to be negated (or damage increased) against all melee weapons. Melee needs to be challenging because it keeps you from firing your ranged weapon, not because it takes multiple hits to take out a single 'stealer.

Two things about defenses of players in this game:

1 - I think armor should be 15 to 20 times more durable in every location, maybe 30 for arms and legs, but the apothecary shouldn't be able to repair it, just your health. I know this isn't something easy to do, but it would definitely make the game feel "correct", and would allow players to gauge their "durability" over long term engagements, as well as feel scared when their armor starts getting worn (beacuse they'll take health damage worse as their armor values lower).

2 - Melee (aside from the swinging while blocking input issue) needs some serious work. Terminator armor is tough, but not against the rending claws of tougher tyranid enemies, so my above suggestion about tougher armor should apply to the small enemy melee attacks, but should function like it does currently for the larger types. The lethality of the big bugs' melee hits in this game seem as lethal as they should be to me =)

Psyker powers need to have better tool tips, be more useful/powerful, and the Librarian should be able to have more than just 3. Four or even 5 would be good in regards to number of powers, and lightning should either hit mulitple enemies or have an upgrade called Smite or something else setting appropriate that allows it to strike in a big radial area or a long line. As for tool tips, they should all say what they do, not just be alpha-stage filler.

Sprinting/Stamina mechanic needs to be split up into two things. Sprinting should be endless and only stopped by using heavy weapons or being impeded by enemies. Stamina should be like poise/stagger resistance, and the more you're getting shot and clobbered the less accurate you are with your own attacks, and perhaps could also slow down the recharge of psyker powers. Such as this: Stamina represents a % multiplier to psyker power recharge time, ranged weapon accuracy, and melee swing speed, and range from 25 or 50% when empty up to 150 or 200% when full.

All of my above things are to help you (the Devs) make players actually feel like they are playing a 40K Terminator, because as things are now they don't. The terminators move, sound, and look great, they just don't feel setting appropriate in regards to combat mechanics and gameplay. Terminators need to be slow, lumbering tanks with nearly unbreakable armor (except to anti-tank guns and claws) and extrordinarily deadly, lethally accurate ranged weapons that obliterate dozens of ememies every moment until they're impeded by melee and suppressive fire.

[Lagdemon]

im into it

[Blacklion]

Originally posted by Fyrscha:

I made the following as a lengthy response comment on a discussion thread a few days ago, but I'd like to use it now to open up a discussion about what improvements you all think should be made in order to make the game better. =)

***

The ranged weapons need to have weapon recoil completely removed and their accuracy (and damage in some cases) dramatically increased, or enemies need to have their health/armor decreased. Tactical Dreadnought Armor is basically a humanoid-shaped tank, as such it's meant to be an extremely stable ranged weapon platform. The assault cannon specifically needs to be extremely accurate and powerful, and all the bolters need to have an explosion radius of damage as well as kill regular enemies in a single shot (or 2 splash damages).

Enemy ranged weapons need to do dramatically less damage. The hybrids' autoguns shouldn't be able to hurt terminators at all, and even the heavy stubber should be little more than an annoyance. The missles should be able to hurt termies ofc, but only hard-hitting anti-tank weapons should be able to hurt terminators with reliability. I suggest that you make stubbers, autoguns, frag missiles, etc. deplete stamina or hamper weapon accuracy in lieu of damaging terminators at all.

The flamer should either A) do more contact damage or B) ignore creature armor (thus more damage) and cause stagger/stun to everything except huge mobs (like a Hive Tyrant or Carnifex, the "brood lord" type models in Space Hulk). The terminator heavy flamer is an extremely devastating anti-tyranid weapon, and unfortunately it just doesn't feel like it in this game. Unless you're torching the basic enemies on the first couple missions, the heavy flamer is mostly useless and just makes it harder to see.

Terminator melee strikes on advanced and large enemies don't take them out fast enough, but they should. It shouldn't take 10 to 20 strikes with a thunder hammer or force sword to drop a big bug, even a Carnifex, so the defenses of enemies need to be negated (or damage increased) against all melee weapons. Melee needs to be challenging because it keeps you from firing your ranged weapon, not because it takes multiple hits to take out a single 'stealer.

Two things about defenses of players in this game:

1 - I think armor should be 15 to 20 times more durable in every location, maybe 30 for arms and legs, but the apothecary shouldn't be able to repair it, just your health. I know this isn't something easy to do, but it would definitely make the game feel "correct", and would allow players to gauge their "durability" over long term engagements, as well as feel scared when their armor starts getting worn (beacuse they'll take health damage worse as their armor values lower).

2 - Melee (aside from the swinging while blocking input issue) needs some serious work. Terminator armor is tough, but not against the rending claws of tougher tyranid enemies, so my above suggestion about tougher armor should apply to the small enemy melee attacks, but should function like it does currently for the larger types. The lethality of the big bugs' melee hits in this game seem as lethal as they should be to me =)

Psyker powers need to have better tool tips, be more useful/powerful, and the Librarian should be able to have more than just 3. Four or even 5 would be good in regards to number of powers, and lightning should either hit mulitple enemies or have an upgrade called Smite or something else setting appropriate that allows it to strike in a big radial area or a long line. As for tool tips, they should all say what they do, not just be alpha-stage filler.

Sprinting/Stamina mechanic needs to be split up into two things. Sprinting should be endless and only stopped by using heavy weapons or being impeded by enemies. Stamina should be like poise/stagger resistance, and the more you're getting shot and clobbered the less accurate you are with your own attacks, and perhaps could also slow down the recharge of psyker powers. Such as this: Stamina represents a % multiplier to psyker power recharge time, ranged weapon accuracy, and melee swing speed, and range from 25 or 50% when empty up to 150 or 200% when full.

All of my above things are to help you (the Devs) make players actually feel like they are playing a 40K Terminator, because as things are now they don't. The terminators move, sound, and look great, they just don't feel setting appropriate in regards to combat mechanics and gameplay. Terminators need to be slow, lumbering tanks with nearly unbreakable armor (except to anti-tank guns and claws) and extrordinarily deadly, lethally accurate ranged weapons that obliterate dozens of ememies every moment until they're impeded by melee and suppressive fire.

On the point about melee..I understand why they made it feel clunky. It seems they wanted to emphasize the effort or power the suit is putting into the swing..

People have been complaining about the weapons not having any weight..but they wouldn't have weight if the suit is doing all the hard work from the synthetic muscle..

[Zero]

One point. they are using KRAK missiles against you which is the dedicated anti-armor missiles used for breaking apart tanks soo that part is about right.

and point two.
\

Originally posted by Blacklion:

Originally posted by Fyrscha:

snip

On the point about melee..I understand why they made it feel clunky. It seems they wanted to emphasize the effort or power the suit is putting into the swing..

People have been complaining about the weapons not having any weight..but they wouldn't have weight if the suit is doing all the hard work from the synthetic muscle..

it'd still LOOK like there was weight behind it. its not suddenly making the weaponry mass-less, or suddenly breaking physics and getting rid of momentum as well.

[Emmental]

None of this will probably ever get done, but I agree with the majority of the OP. Some of the things I'd like to see:

- Lore friendly weapons, they're nearly all wrong to a degree.

STORM BOLTER

It's essentially a semi automatic, double barreled, armour piercing grenade launcher. It fires 2 rounds per trigger squeeze, it's not a machine gun.

A penetrating hit from a storm bolter (either or both rounds) would kill most common genestealer variants with ease. The more heavily armoured ones would require more precise aiming (headshots and soft spots) harder to get a kill shot, but not impossible making the storm bolter alot more effective late game and rewarding player accuracy.

A minor thing in addition to this is the visual damage it does. A 'bolt' explodes after the round penetrates so a genestealer hit by one of these would literally explode where it got hit. A torso shot would probably leave a pair of legs and a load of meat on the walls and floor.

Any other storm bolter variants would still be storm bolters, only the ammunition would change. I don't even know what the redemption is supposed to be it's a shotgun with a storm bolter skin.

ASSAULT CANNON

It's not a minigun. It's an extremely high calibre rotating autocannon. The vengeance is closer to what an assault cannon is, but the regular one is ridiculously wrong. It should have a decent rate of fire, but nowhere near minigun speed, the rounds would easily pierce all genestealer armour with the exception of broodlords maybe so extra accuracy and headshots should be rewarded.

The rounds aren't explosive, but they are massive calibre so we're talking huge holes, bringing down all common genestealers in one or two hits. The downside should be an obnoxiously long reload time as an entire ammunition case needs to be fitted.

HEAVY FLAMER

In the 41st millenium flamers use promethium, it's like napalm, but 10x worse. It's like a sticky jelly that would burn for quite some time. It would do serious damage to all genestealer types and more importantly the fuel should stick and continue to burn either stopping genestealers from passing or doing massive damage or killing them if they try to cross over the burning fuel. This would easily make what the heavy flamer is supposed to be - an area control tool. Not much fuel per reload and long reload time for balance.

PLASMA CANNON

It's kind of lore friendly, but they overheat rather than jam, that annoys me. Definitely leave out the chance that it can explode and kill the user, that would be too annoying for an fps. Same goes for the assault cannon. I think the sound effect could be a bit more beefy it's sounds too wimpy to me. Other than that I'd like to see genestealers hit with it vapourise and or melt rather than explode, it's a ball of plasma that burns with the heat of a sun. It should definitely do alot more damage to everything than it currently does.

POWER WEAPONS

Fist, mace, lightning claws, thunder hammer. They're all amour piercing as they're all surrounded by a disruptive energy field that destroys matter at a molecular level. Whatever you hit you destroy - explosively so. Hammers and fists should be slow and cumbersome, maces and claws alot faster, but not as devastating. Claws and hammer should have alot more reach. I'm fairly happy with the hammer and claws, it's the fist and maces they messed up.

- I'd like to see an overwatch mechanic based on the board game for storm bolters and assault cannons. If you're stationary you get a recoil reduction and accuracy increase (and rate of fire for storm bolters) with the chance to jam.

- Genestealers should be alot more dangerous in melee on all difficulties. Squad Gideon is a pretty clear symbol of what happens when they get too close. Melee for ranged terminators is a desperate last ditch attempt to save yourself needing careful timing. A parry should not block as much damage, maybe also prevent critical hits.

For the melee guys the lightning claws rely on speed and reach, the thunder hammer and storm shield should be tanking hits with the shield followed up by timed counter attacks. If they get surrounded, hit in the sides or rear they should be dead as any other terminator.

[Yizz]

Extremely well-said Dave! I concur! I completely agree with what you said and I too wish for a good overwatch mechanic (not to mention weapons and ammo that actually represent what they're supposed to be).

as for how the melee weapons "feel" i'm A-ok with how they are now, I just don't think it should take 2 or 3 players beating a signle warrior with Terminator melee weapons to take it out quickly, and I especially dont think the big bugs would take 15 to 20 whacks with a Thunder Hammer or Force Weapon to kill. Melee damage for all Terminator weapons needs to be upped, or each enemy needs an assigned number of melee hits to kill, which should be in the 1 to 4 range, maybe 5 or 6 for "boss bugs"

in regards to the krak missile comment, yes I'm aware of that, I just haven't been able to tell if they fire ONLY krak missiles or not, so I phrased my sentences as if there might be other kinds in the game.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Dave:

None of this will probably ever get done, but I agree with the majority of the OP. Some of the things I'd like to see:

- Lore friendly weapons, they're nearly all wrong to a degree.

STORM BOLTER

It's essentially a semi automatic, double barreled, armour piercing grenade launcher. It fires 2 rounds per trigger squeeze, it's not a machine gun.

A penetrating hit from a storm bolter (either or both rounds) would kill most common genestealer variants with ease. The more heavily armoured ones would require more precise aiming (headshots and soft spots) harder to get a kill shot, but not impossible making the storm bolter alot more effective late game and rewarding player accuracy.

A minor thing in addition to this is the visual damage it does. A 'bolt' explodes after the round penetrates so a genestealer hit by one of these would literally explode where it got hit. A torso shot would probably leave a pair of legs and a load of meat on the walls and floor.

Any other storm bolter variants would still be storm bolters, only the ammunition would change. I don't even know what the redemption is supposed to be it's a shotgun with a storm bolter skin.

look at all of the space hulk PC games that came out recently, Ascension, and the other one. they all render them as full auto weapons. i do believe the tabletop, limited the shots based on movement.

ASSAULT CANNON

It's not a minigun. It's an extremely high calibre rotating autocannon. The vengeance is closer to what an assault cannon is, but the regular one is ridiculously wrong. It should have a decent rate of fire, but nowhere near minigun speed, the rounds would easily pierce all genestealer armour with the exception of broodlords maybe so extra accuracy and headshots should be rewarded.

The rounds aren't explosive, but they are massive calibre so we're talking huge holes, bringing down all common genestealers in one or two hits. The downside should be an obnoxiously long reload time as an entire ammunition case needs to be fitted.

yeah i don't know the difference since i haven't played the general WH40k board game.

HEAVY FLAMER

In the 41st millenium flamers use promethium, it's like napalm, but 10x worse. It's like a sticky jelly that would burn for quite some time. It would do serious damage to all genestealer types and more importantly the fuel should stick and continue to burn either stopping genestealers from passing or doing massive damage or killing them if they try to cross over the burning fuel. This would easily make what the heavy flamer is supposed to be - an area control tool. Not much fuel per reload and long reload time for balance.

performance issues would be WAY worse if they had to do the flames that did damage based on an area that the flames were, and as it is now.. if they did this it'd become unplayable to some.

PLASMA CANNON

It's kind of lore friendly, but they overheat rather than jam, that annoys me. Definitely leave out the chance that it can explode and kill the user, that would be too annoying for an fps. Same goes for the assault cannon. I think the sound effect could be a bit more beefy it's sounds too wimpy to me. Other than that I'd like to see genestealers hit with it vapourise and or melt rather than explode, it's a ball of plasma that burns with the heat of a sun. It should definitely do alot more damage to everything than it currently does.

if it just overheated instead of jammed it'd be almost the same. but yeah if they do an overheating system with a cool down before you can use it again it might just mess with the gameplay a little bit.

POWER WEAPONS

Fist, mace, lightning claws, thunder hammer. They're all amour piercing as they're all surrounded by a disruptive energy field that destroys matter at a molecular level. Whatever you hit you destroy - explosively so. Hammers and fists should be slow and cumbersome, maces and claws alot faster, but not as devastating. Claws and hammer should have alot more reach. I'm fairly happy with the hammer and claws, it's the fist and maces they messed up.

not sure haven't played with them enough.

- I'd like to see an overwatch mechanic based on the board game for storm bolters and assault cannons. If you're stationary you get a recoil reduction and accuracy increase (and rate of fire for storm bolters) with the chance to jam.

>.> you already kind of do get the accuracy increase when stationary, the recoil is generally the same when moving OR stationary in the board game. and the fire speed boost doesn't quite make sense.

- Genestealers should be alot more dangerous in melee on all difficulties. Squad Gideon is a pretty clear symbol of what happens when they get too close. Melee for ranged terminators is a desperate last ditch attempt to save yourself needing careful timing. A parry should not block as much damage, maybe also prevent critical hits.

this i think is mostly gameplay and difficulty curving, they might need to adjust it a little bit.

For the melee guys the lightning claws rely on speed and reach, the thunder hammer and storm shield should be tanking hits with the shield followed up by timed counter attacks. If they get surrounded, hit in the sides or rear they should be dead as any other terminator.

eh i cant comment on that since i haven't played with the thunder hammer/SS yet.

[Yizz]

In tabletop storm bolters are Assault 2, meaning they double-tap during the shooting phase, but in the lore all bolter weapons are capable of autofiring, even pistols (although with 40K lore the canon changes year to year, book to book, but I tend to base lore off what the website Lexicanum says).

Either way, the weapons need some serious changes to "feel" right, and the game itself needs lots of changes to make combat better and more appropriate

[Zero]

Originally posted by Fyrscha:

In tabletop storm bolters are Assault 2, meaning they double-tap during the shooting phase, but in the lore all bolter weapons are capable of autofiring, even pistols (although with 40K lore the canon changes year to year, book to book, but I tend to base lore off what the website Lexicanum says).

Either way, the weapons need some serious changes to "feel" right, and the game itself needs lots of changes to make combat better and more appropriate

is that the Space hulk rules or the Warhammer 40k base rules?

[M@ngouste Agile]

Have any of you ever played the Original Space Hulk ?!
God stop being so hard WH40K fanboys !!

Space Hulk is based on WH40K lore, for sure.
But it never had the pretention to be 100% accurate with lore in term of weapons or armors !
Go play the first Space Hulk guys, you could be killed by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ork, cause yes, there were Nids and Orks in the game, at the same time, on the same ship, not fighting each others, but both trying to kill you !

This game is labelled as " SPACE HULK " not : " Warhammer 40K 1000% accuracy and fidelity to the lore ".

Quit complaining about such details. Deathwing is about bringing Space Hulk to FPS dimension, not doing a WH40K game like Eternal Crusade was supposed to be.
If you were so on " details " so why the f*ck a Dark Angel / Blood Angel / Smurf would even team up ?! that's no lore accurate !

So quit whining about lore ! please !

[Blacklion]

Originally posted by M@ngouste Agile:

Have any of you ever played the Original Space Hulk ?!
God stop being so hard WH40K fanboys !!

Space Hulk is based on WH40K lore, for sure.
But it never had the pretention to be 100% accurate with lore in term of weapons or armors !
Go play the first Space Hulk guys, you could be killed by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ork, cause yes, there were Nids and Orks in the game, at the same time, on the same ship, not fighting each others, but both trying to kill you !

This game is labelled as " SPACE HULK " not : " Warhammer 40K 1000% accuracy and fidelity to the lore ".

Quit complaining about such details. Deathwing is about bringing Space Hulk to FPS dimension, not doing a WH40K game like Eternal Crusade was supposed to be.
If you were so on " details " so why the f*ck a Dark Angel / Blood Angel / Smurf would even team up ?! that's no lore accurate !

So quit whining about lore ! please !

You have to understand..lore is the blood of 40k but the development team comprised the lore for gameplay. There has to be a middle ground somewhere

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Dave:

None of this will probably ever get done, but I agree with the majority of the OP. Some of the things I'd like to see:

- Lore friendly weapons, they're nearly all wrong to a degree.

STORM BOLTER

It's essentially a semi automatic, double barreled, armour piercing grenade launcher. It fires 2 rounds per trigger squeeze, it's not a machine gun.

A penetrating hit from a storm bolter (either or both rounds) would kill most common genestealer variants with ease. The more heavily armoured ones would require more precise aiming (headshots and soft spots) harder to get a kill shot, but not impossible making the storm bolter alot more effective late game and rewarding player accuracy.

A minor thing in addition to this is the visual damage it does. A 'bolt' explodes after the round penetrates so a genestealer hit by one of these would literally explode where it got hit. A torso shot would probably leave a pair of legs and a load of meat on the walls and floor.

Any other storm bolter variants would still be storm bolters, only the ammunition would change. I don't even know what the redemption is supposed to be it's a shotgun with a storm bolter skin.

ASSAULT CANNON

It's not a minigun. It's an extremely high calibre rotating autocannon. The vengeance is closer to what an assault cannon is, but the regular one is ridiculously wrong. It should have a decent rate of fire, but nowhere near minigun speed, the rounds would easily pierce all genestealer armour with the exception of broodlords maybe so extra accuracy and headshots should be rewarded.

The rounds aren't explosive, but they are massive calibre so we're talking huge holes, bringing down all common genestealers in one or two hits. The downside should be an obnoxiously long reload time as an entire ammunition case needs to be fitted.

HEAVY FLAMER

In the 41st millenium flamers use promethium, it's like napalm, but 10x worse. It's like a sticky jelly that would burn for quite some time. It would do serious damage to all genestealer types and more importantly the fuel should stick and continue to burn either stopping genestealers from passing or doing massive damage or killing them if they try to cross over the burning fuel. This would easily make what the heavy flamer is supposed to be - an area control tool. Not much fuel per reload and long reload time for balance.

PLASMA CANNON

It's kind of lore friendly, but they overheat rather than jam, that annoys me. Definitely leave out the chance that it can explode and kill the user, that would be too annoying for an fps. Same goes for the assault cannon. I think the sound effect could be a bit more beefy it's sounds too wimpy to me. Other than that I'd like to see genestealers hit with it vapourise and or melt rather than explode, it's a ball of plasma that burns with the heat of a sun. It should definitely do alot more damage to everything than it currently does.

POWER WEAPONS

Fist, mace, lightning claws, thunder hammer. They're all amour piercing as they're all surrounded by a disruptive energy field that destroys matter at a molecular level. Whatever you hit you destroy - explosively so. Hammers and fists should be slow and cumbersome, maces and claws alot faster, but not as devastating. Claws and hammer should have alot more reach. I'm fairly happy with the hammer and claws, it's the fist and maces they messed up.

- I'd like to see an overwatch mechanic based on the board game for storm bolters and assault cannons. If you're stationary you get a recoil reduction and accuracy increase (and rate of fire for storm bolters) with the chance to jam.

- Genestealers should be alot more dangerous in melee on all difficulties. Squad Gideon is a pretty clear symbol of what happens when they get too close. Melee for ranged terminators is a desperate last ditch attempt to save yourself needing careful timing. A parry should not block as much damage, maybe also prevent critical hits.

For the melee guys the lightning claws rely on speed and reach, the thunder hammer and storm shield should be tanking hits with the shield followed up by timed counter attacks. If they get surrounded, hit in the sides or rear they should be dead as any other terminator.

Storm bolter shells are, at least according to canon, .75 caliber, that is about 19mm and Tryranids in general and Genestealers in particular are quite though organisms, designed to withstand or take certain weapon impacts in stride, so one or two bolter shells would only take them down if they hit the brain. Body hits, you'll probably need more hits on Genestealers, due to their chitinous carapace and muscle structure, as well as have back up organs just like Space Marines do.

Boltweapons also have a problem that they are both described as sometimes being extremely accurate when fired, especially by Space Marines in novels, and sometimes as being inaccurate and partially prone to jamming. The 7th edition Blood Angels codex even mentions this on normal bolters that the quality of manufacture of the Blood Angels artificers is so good on boltguns that they never jam, meaning that there are lesser quality bolters out there with some chapters. There is also the problem of how recoil compensation works, especially if teamed up with a powered armor. It certainly won't be able to counter recoil on the first shot and even if it is engaged it will only help to minimize the spread of the shots, but not have each shot landing in the same location. Guns, as they work in real life, always have a slight deveation of where the shots land, starting from the smallest calibers up to the highest one like those used on tanks or ships. It is faulty to just assume that recoil compensation equals superior accuracy of the guns, it only means that the shots will land in generally the same area and not be all over the place and will make it easier to keep an automatic gun on target, largely preventing the barrel from moving up.

The assault cannon is a 20mm-30mm rotating autocannon, but lore still describes it as having rates of fire of hundreds of shells per second, which would put it above things like the GAU-8 Avenger on the A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. The bullet spread should be somewhat thighter, but since the shells are basically slugs, they won't do as much damage as a bolter shell. It is the sheer volume of fire and amount of hits on target that make gatling type guns effective, not the caliber. Also, the GAU-8, with a slower rate of fire than the supposed high tech assault cannons in 40k, produces, when it fires at full rate of fire, enough recoil to counteract one of the engines of a A-10. Even if the ammunition would be lower recoil in 40k terms, it would still, even with a stabilized and powered platform like Terminator armor, hard to control. As for comparison of volume of fire, the Stormbolter in table top rules is Assault 2, whereas the Assault Cannon is Heavy 4 (and rending), meaning it puts out a lot more volume of fire.

Here a real world example of guns in caliber 7.62, which could very well give you an idea of comparison between the volume of fire of a stormbolter and an assault cannon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf9bCebm4aE

Be mindful that this video is just meant as an illustration for volume of fire, not for caliber comparison or effectiveness of the shells fired by the fictional 40k weapons.


It certainly would be nice if the Heavy Flamer would leave, for a short while, a carpet of flame, that Genestealers could only cross with high risk to them, would represent the rules of the board game a bit better. However, it only ever rolled one dice and it was ineffective against at least the Brood Lord in the board game, which means that you could not kill the Brood Lord with the Flamer. The bare minimum to have a change at range to kill a Brood Lord was the Storm Bolter, but the best bet was either the Assault Cannon or your Librarian while channeling Psi Points trough his Force Weapon in melee. Brood Lords are tough and don't care about petty little flamer weapons.

The jam on the Plasma Cannon might be fixed by just them chaning that text that an emergency cooldown is in progress to prevent overheating. As for weapon effects, the ball of plasma itself might melt any Genestealers it hits directly, but all the others would just have their bodily fluids evaporate very quickly due to the heat and the overpressure would more likely cause their bodies to explode (try an egg in a microwave for nice overpressure experiments). The sound effect is okay and there is this funny thing, some powerful infantry weapons in real life also don't sound like much, e.g. rifle mounted grenade launcher, which only have this little *plop* like sound, yet the grenade will have a kill radius of up to 15m in the target, due to the shrapnell it creates. Sound, however, is a very subjective thing. For example, I think that the assault cannon sound is mediocre at best, too much bass and not enough treble to really come close to real world gatling cannons being fired.

Here is a video of a test of the GAU-8 Avenger (30mm gatling auto cannon) on a static test stand, this should give you an idea of how the assault cannon could sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33teK7L4DM4


Concerning power weapons, I also found it strange that Thunder Hammers should be so much slower when used by a Terminator clad Space Marine, as they can easily or even move and counter the recoil of an assault cannon. The Terminator armor should give enough power to have them be able to swing it almost as fast as a sword.

Anyway, on lower difficulties you should be able to take some hits, due to it being a lower difficulty (and even there you can sometimes be two shot by lucky meleed hits to the head) and on higher difficulties there are quite a few Genestealer strains that will take you out in one or two hits. Melee, however, is very often an afterthought in shooter games and it doesn't change here. The only game that might get closer to real world melee combat, although in a medieval setting, is the up and coming RPG Deliverance: Kingdom Come, where they try to implement a combat system based on historical fencing manuals and actual medieval fighting techniques with melee weapons. It does make some sense there, as ranged weapons were bows and crossbows and they weren't really what you could call automatic weapons, so melee was what it ended up for those weathering the hail of arrows or bolts.

[BobbyGun]

Originally posted by M@ngouste Agile:

Have any of you ever played the Original Space Hulk ?!
God stop being so hard WH40K fanboys !!

Space Hulk is based on WH40K lore, for sure.
But it never had the pretention to be 100% accurate with lore in term of weapons or armors !
Go play the first Space Hulk guys, you could be killed by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ork, cause yes, there were Nids and Orks in the game, at the same time, on the same ship, not fighting each others, but both trying to kill you !

This game is labelled as " SPACE HULK " not : " Warhammer 40K 1000% accuracy and fidelity to the lore ".

Quit complaining about such details. Deathwing is about bringing Space Hulk to FPS dimension, not doing a WH40K game like Eternal Crusade was supposed to be.
If you were so on " details " so why the f*ck a Dark Angel / Blood Angel / Smurf would even team up ?! that's no lore accurate !

So quit whining about lore ! please !

You forget about chaos and necrons, and the game you mean is Space Crusade (Starquest). In Space Hulk, there are only Tyranids (Genestealers) and later Hybrids.

[Yizz]

Chainfists came up on another thread, and I need to add what I said in that thread here.

***

Chainfirsts are specifically for cutting through lodged debris and bulkheads in space hulks. There is no more appropriate game for the chainfist to be in, and I'm shocked that one of your team members doesn't have one by default.

You know those reinforced doors that are totaly stuck and you can't beat through? Those are a PERFECT opportunity to utilize a chainfist! You could use it to saw through the pistons and brackets that keep otherwise impassable doors sealed up.

[Yizz]

As for "stop whining about lore", my only retort to that is "40K is only lore, if it wasn't for that it wouldn't be anything". If it wasn't for all the 40K lore, Space Hulk would just be a generic "wear sci fi armor and use sci fi weapons to kill aliens in a sci fi building/ship" game. So the "feel" is -everything- to get a Space Hulk game right.

[JoeShmoe]

You want this to be 100% lore/boardgame accurate.. it wouldn't be all that fun 2shotting every mob and being 1-2 shot by every genestealer. Some things get sacrificed for gameplay. Stormbolters fire explosive rounds, but how bad of an impact do you think it would have on gameplay and performance to see nothing but mini explosions constantly.