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Since we're getting close to completion of the combat system itself, it's time to start talking about the content. So let's make a start with weapons.
Unlike the first game, which had four categories (Light, Heavy, Laser, Sniper), we'll differentiate a bit more along the lines of real life weapons this time.
The weapon types are all different in effectiveness, speed,equipment capacity cost, availability, magazine capacity and firing modes.

• Equipment capacity (EC) limits what items a character can equip, the higher the cost of the weapon the weaker armour and items have to be.
• Availability simply means that not every class can use the weapon category, trough there are two universal weapon classes.
• Magazine capacity limits how many shots can be fired before the weapons needs to be reloaded. Actions have different costs, which can become quite high for full auto.
• Fire modes limit what actions can be performed with the weapon. Only weapons with the full auto mode for example can lay down cover fire. The modes are: Single, Semi, Burst, Full, Special so far

With the terminology out of the way, let's list the weapon types.

• Handgun
  • Low effectiveness
  • High speed
  • Low EC cost
  • Available to all classes
  • Small magazine
  • Only semi automatic mode
  • Can be dual wielded
• SMG
  • Low effectiveness
  • High speed
  • Low EC cost
  • Available to all classes
  • Limited magazine
  • Semi and full automatic mode
• Assault Rifle
  • Medium effectiveness
  • Medium speed
  • Medium EC cost
  • Soldier exclusive
  • Medium magazine
  • Semi and full automatic and burst mode
• Sniper Rifle
  • High effectiveness
  • Low speed
  • Medium EC cost
  • Scout exclusive
  • Small magazine
  • Only single shot mode
  • Accurate from cover
• MG
  • Medium effectiveness
  • Medium speed
  • High EC cost
  • Guardian and Soldier only
  • Big magazine
  • Only full automatic mode
• Heavy
  • Very High effectiveness
  • Low speed
  • High EC cost
  • Soldier exclusive
  • Small magazine
  • Only special mode
  • Needs special ammunition

Energy weapons , like optical or plasma weapons, are variants of the basic kinetic groups and share the same characteristics. The only difference is the ammunition and damage type.
As you can see the soldier has access to nearly all weapon types with two exclusive types. While the assault rifle is an all round weapon that's usable in nearly any situation, heavy weapons are specialist weapons for the use against though targets. These two exclusive types are also the focus of the soldier class.
Guardians have the option to use the big MGs at the expense of heavier armour and medikits or to go with the smaller SMG and gain more durability.
Scouts have access to the sniper rifle, which is the slowest weapon group in the game but allows the scout to deal with foes that would simply ignore small arms fire. It doesn't leave room for much armour or items though.
Psionics only have access to the basic weapons, and not much focus on weapon use as a whole. Still, with a SMG they can offer support and ease the Guardians load.

We don't have any fixed values at the moment, which is the reason for the slightly unspecific categorization. And as always it's just a working scheme. I'm interested in you input before we spend the nights to hammer out the specifics.
PS: I know that these are tangential to reality at best, the current selection was mostly formed by gameplay considerations.

Seems good to me, and indeed the distinction between energy weapon and normal weapon didn't make much sense in the first game, since the only difference is the type of bullets that are fired

Is there anything that a guardian can do that a solider cant?
And guardians cant use heavy weapons now? Its the iconic weapons for guardians! Like the sniper rifle for the scout.

ValHallen wrote:Is there anything that a guardian can do that a solider cant?
And guardians cant use heavy weapons now? Its the iconic weapons for guardians! Like the sniper rifle for the scout.

Not in the weapons category. Though I've thought about making the MG a Guardian exclusive, since it's not that useful for the Soldiers role.
Guardians are a bit different in PS2 then in the prequel. They focus on defending the party, which requires full automatic weapons to lay down cover fire and drive enemies into cover. Heavy weapons do not help in that function, so they wandered to the Soldier class. Or more to the point the "Heavy Weapon" group from PS1 was split into MGs and the new Heavy group. The one half going to the Guardian and the other to the Soldier.

I can't point to any specific post, but somewhere jack and Aleema wrote that they would make the guardian the tank (heavy armor but not the top weapons) while the soldier would be the heavy hitter with less HP and not the top armor.

The reason (which makes sense, once you step away from PS1) is that the guardian is in front of a building/whatever which needs to be protected. He needs to survive until the reaction force arrive, so heavy armor is important. Soldiers make up the bulk of the reaction force, they need to kill the attackers, so better weapons for them.

Edit: ninja'd

Yes but that was AGES ago, even before I asked Anima to do the class design. Guardians now play a role more faithful to their class name
In the new engine there are many factors in play, is much different from the first game. The damage and battle outcome doesn't depends only on the weapon/armors, but on combat stances and various situations/effects. Once the playable beta is out you'll see what I mean

So Psionics don't use ampliers this time?

I'm glad energy weapons category was removed. Like the ampliers (although Psiconics real usefulness comes from their psionic skills rather than their standard attack), energy weapons in P1 were restricted to one damage type, which limited their viability against certain enemies. Besides, there were weapons from other categories that inflicted energy damage (including one of the best sniper rifles).

Also, what is the difference between single shot and semi-automatic mode?

No amplifier, psionics will also use normal weapons.
The fire modes change which actions can be used, single shot mode allows sniper type actions.

No amplifiers, psionics with normal weapons, better categories (laser pistol is a handgun, plasma cannon is a heavy weapon), cover fire. Yay! Very good, I like all this changes

Yes, the new RPG battle system is really coming along nicely, can't wait to show a playable beta