TL;DR- The reason why we can't have nice things is because Starbound's writing and lore is shit. This is my hopeless attempt to try and quell the "wah, energy weapons" arguments. There is a really simple reason why they don't work here, so much that I'm not sure how I haven't heard more people bring it up. Starbound doesn't explain how its energy weapons work, at all, ever, in the least bit. Canonically they deal damage to shitty bird creatures and make pew pew noises. Contrast with any Sci-Fi worth it's salt (and I'm using Starwars because it's what I'm the most familiar with so deal with that), and you'll see that most things have a pretty basic explanation. Ion weapons do this because that, lasers go pew and hurt real bad, lightsabres sort of just work but this is what they do to a person. If we were using SW lore then we wouldn't have a single problem with energy weapons. We'd all know how they worked, and why. Since Starbound explains exactly zero things about its energy weapons, all of us have to guess how it works. The chance that all of us end up coming to the same conclusion is exactly zero. Even if we had some godly superthread where we pooled our collective creativity into one box and then peeked inside, all we'd end up with would be a bowling ball of lore held up with toothpicks, ready to be shattered the moment Chucklefuck opens it's mouth about anything remotely related to what we thought. Also heavy prewritten server lore is booty, but that's more a personal opinion of mine. "But this is still science fiction" I hear you cry, and you're not wrong. It's just incredibly shitty science fiction that basically doesn't support energy weapons. And why can't we just make it up, or use some other lore's ideas? Because that requires consensus that we are just not going to reach. This server has always tried to fill in the blanks using extrapolation of real science, simply because reality is the only existing "lore" we have. Now I will admit my denial of the possibility of the server writing some science fiction to make energy weapons work is a little pessimistic, I mean theoretically that is a solution. I just don't see it happening unless we change the way we talk about this issue. Less "It's science fiction so we get teh lazors" and more "It's science fiction, and this is how lasers worked in a similar setting, maybe this is compatible with the rest of Starbound lore." Or both sides can just keep stirring shit, I'm not the boss.
I mean, I don't think it's really that large an issue. Future tech at large is certainly applicable to starbound, usually by stretching current understandings of technology a little. We already have types of energy weapons deemed viable by staff/gun nerds. To be completely honest, all somebody has to do is put together a write up of how certain energy weapons would work and their possible penetration/damage values and bam, that's pretty much established lore (after discussion hell, of course). While it might seem like people don't want energy weapons, that's simply because a select few vehemently argue against their viability or actual capability to function. If you can just appease that small group with a scientific/realistic enough blab, then energy weapons for all. tl;dr basically energy weapons are already doable we just need someone to write it up.
You're right Hap, this was more a product of frustration over non-constructive ways of approaching the issue. I wanted to show the source of the (real) problem being a lack of lore, and not people actually just disliking energy weapons. That's been my stance anyways, I'll keep knocking down ewep concepts until we have something in place that changes the way the universe works. The grapevine says that Angre and Forge are working on something, so as long as they don't dick it up (jk I love you both) we'll be in for a good pew pew lasertime time.
