ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

As discussed elsewhere, most artifact steamguns have ranges shorter than even an ordinary steamgun of the same tier — and since range is pretty much the most important property of a launcher, that ironically makes them basically pointless.

Easy enough to fix, though, by way of my new Actually Useful Artifact Steamguns addon. The few artifact steamguns with normal range relative to their tier remain unmodified (and I don't think there are any artifact steamguns with longer range than their tier peers, but if any are added, they will also remain unchanged); all the rest get an upgrade to par for their tier.

And yes, some will no doubt consider this cheating, so it will not be a candidate for addition to ZOmnibus.

[edit 2017-07-15: Technical info]

Is this mod still necessary? I know significant changes happened since this mod was published and there have not been recent updates.

Adventurer wrote:Is this mod still necessary? I know significant changes happened since this mod was published and there have not been recent updates.

[sound F/X: source diving] As of Embers 1.0.4 (which I think is the latest version), there are still artifact steamguns with ranges shorter than their tier counterparts (t4 artifact steamgun Glacia, for instance, has range 7, when a normal t4 steamgun has range 9), so yes, apparently this mod is still necessary.

A Steam user inquired recently about this addon as it relates to the artifact steamgun Titan, whose entire schtick is apparently a 175% damage multiplier, balanced by a severely reduced range of 3 — making it potentially overpowered when we jack its range back up with this addon.

Now, Titan is a tier-2 steamgun, so even with our changes, we're only increasing its range to the T2 default of 7, meaning that it will eventually be outpaced by higher-tier guns with longer range. Still, 175% damage is pretty powerful, so I could be convinced, as the Steam user proposes, to carve out an exception and leave Titan's range at 3.

What do folks here think on the subject?

Considering the presence of two classes that only use a single gun (thus making the range penalty much less of an issue), I feel like Titan's power definitely merits the shorter range.

That's two votes, counting the original Steam user, so I'm convinced. That's going out as v1a. And I'll add a FAQ on the subject below so that I can like back to it from the Steam page.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Hey! I found an artifact steamgun with a short range!

We do make a single exception for the steamgun Titan; pretty much its entire raison d'être is a large damage multiplier balanced by an extremely short range, so increasing its range back to normal would make it too powerful. If you've found another artifact steamgun whose range isn't being updated by this addon, that's probably a bug; here would be a good place to report that.