Shotgun enhancement idea

[ciox]

Based on real events...

A unique feature of the SPAS-12 was the hook on folding-stock variants. This hook could be rotated in 90-degree increments, so it would fit under the user's forearm when the stock was extended. In theory, with the stock supported under the forearm, the gun can be fired with one hand; an example would be letting the user fire from a vehicle through the passenger-side window while driving.

This "Hook Enhancement" would turn a crafted shotgun into a one-handed weapon, which would synergize great with shielded Riot Gear armors which we can all agree are very underused. Riot Gear has great DR/DT and blocking vs melee while shotguns are short-ranged weapons that have a bonus (barrel stare) in melee range.
Another use would be making the shotgun easier to use while riding vehicles, or allow its use in the first place depending on how the vehicle mechanics might have changed.

The Hook could also be only compatible with certain weaker shotguns to help balance, but I doubt that would be necessary, since you already sacrifice an enhancement slot.

[Twiglard]

Question for you familiar with real-life guns -- are shotguns shot from the hip or ever aimed? Why do they even have iron sights?

[ciox]

Question for you familiar with real-life guns -- are shotguns shot from the hip or ever aimed? Why do they even have iron sights?

Depends, almost always aimed in real life, in movies and games - the other way around.

[Tygrende]

Question for you familiar with real-life guns -- are shotguns shot from the hip or ever aimed? Why do they even have iron sights?

Contrary to how they work in almost every single video game out there, shotgun's spread is not that wide in real life. The exact spread will depend on a number of factors like the barrel length, type of ammunition and the choke used, but the general rule of a thumb is that the shot spreads about 1 inch (2.54 cm) for every yard (0.9144 m) of travel. If you do some math you should be able to see this is not nearly wide enough to eliminate the need to aim, for reference the effective range of 00 buckshot is 50-60 yards at most.

The point of spread in real life is mostly to increase the likehood of hitting vital organs, or hitting at all in case of small and fast moving targets (bird hunting, skeet shooting, etc.) and to cause multiple wound channels per shot. There is a ton of other benefits that shotguns have over other firearms, but most of them simply don't translate well into most video games.

[ciox]

I can't imagine that one-handed idea happening, doubling the number of shotgun animations isn't really something that happens in Underrail. Styg would rather implement an entirely new weapon class with that animation budget. That's just the way things are with spritesheets. Well, maybe they could just add one-handed shotgun firing to riot gear sprites.

Jetski mechanics are pretty much as Styg outlined them in the jetski devlog. Stability is important consideration in naval combat and there are some ways to alter it other than just switching to entirely different jetski. Having stability bonuses on weapons seems plausible, maybe there already is something for that. Might be cool to have handheld weapons specialized for naval combat in the trunk of your jetski, but on the other hand swapping them around would get old after a while.

I did think about the spritesheet issue, yeah...
Basically I thought it wouldn't be a big deal because Shield Riot Gear has very few sprites anyway, you can only use the knife and the pistol with it, no SMG, no rifle, no sniper rifle, no sledge etc. So basically you would add just one weapon sprite set for the "one-handed long gun" weapon for Shield Riot Gear only, which could turn out to be pretty versatile and re-usable in the long run. No changes to the other spritesheets.

There is also another way which requires no extra sprites, which is to simply use the Riot Gear pistol graphic for one-handed shotguns.