Standardize Weaponry

[Politus]

How does it destroy the diversity we have now? It allows for more diversity. I'm honestly not understanding how it destroys it. Not trying to say 100% it doesn't, it might. I just don't see how.

Diversity is defined on dictionary.reference.com as

–noun, plural -ties.
1.
the state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness.
2.
variety; multiformity.
3.
a point of difference.

If every gun, regardless of faction, has the same stats, so that a 4.0 IMG Vamp is equivalent to a 4.0 Lane Hacker Hellflurry, just for the sake of comparison, what that means is that they are the same gun with a reskin and a different effect. (I understand you also intend to have the various guns replicated to equal-stat versions with different refire rates, so that there will also be a 2.0 Vamp and a 2.0 Hellflurry, so to speak)

This means that, in the context of the Freelancer universe, you'll be given the choice of Gun A, with a 2.0 refire rate, Gun B, with a 4.0 refire rate, etc., and you get the choice of what color the gun is. In other words, difference is removed, because every gun will be the same. There will be no unlikeness that isn't either the difference between Gun A and Gun B, or a different color pattern.

In other words, you'd have Vampire Fast, Vampire Slower, Vampire Slow and Vampire Slowest, because a gun's identity is in how it works, its efficacy, its character, not just in the color of its projectile effects.

What this means is, in making all guns have the same stats, while it would reduce the tendency for peeveepee-horses to collect the best guns, it would reduce the diversity of guns considerably, because the diversity of guns would be limited to my Vampire Fast Blue versus your Vampire Slow Red, so to speak. They different colors, all still Vampires, with equivalent stats, equivalent DPS, equivalent everything, and that's not diversity.

Note: I know that Vampires will not be a benchmark, but you could replace every instance of Vampire in that post with Magma Hammers or Furies and the argument would hold true. Diversity is about more than just color and name, it's about the character and identity of the gun; some guns should be better, some should be worse, some should be more efficient, some should sacrifice efficiency for punch. It's their stats, not their color, not their names, that really make them different, and when you make their stats the same, then there is no difference between them, and that directly contradicts what diversity is.

TL:DR, standardizing all weaponry so that they're all essentially the same kills diversity.

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