JohnBWatson wrote:I agree that the projectile should be a bit more impressive. I'd also like it to be somewhat more powerful. At present, it does very little to justify its cost.
Passthrough and range. The Katana is currently optimised in a way that makes it good for long-range sustained fire....something the AI cannot do, and that gets very boring when players do it. It's actually balanced about right for its damage when you take the passthrough into account. It used to be more powerful, but was hideously overpowered as a result. It's still overpowered if you know how to use it, but not as badly.
The effect isn't all that bad either, considering. It's not really a very exciting weapon. You trade off damage for a gimmick effect which is actually quite powerful. The main problem is the lack of good competitors in vanilla with the same level of availability.
The issue with making the weapon effect too impressive is that weapon effects should ideally reflect the properties of the gun. The katana is a low damage, high epentration weapon....so big flashy effects may not be appropriate (although that is a nice effect). What I might try doing as a test (since I'm messing with the gun anyway for SM&M++) is adding a lightning-bolt effect to the beam, running along the boring bit.