Gunz are by far the least appealing choice to take. Kanonz, for their faults, have that hefty big hitting power. Zappas have long range, ignore Orks' terrible accuracy and with upgrades can slow and bypass enemy armor. Guns seem like a 'can't afford/can't kustomize anything else' weapon. They are unimpressive and unremarkable. I'd like to change that (note that I don't want to make them OP, nor make Orks too versatile, but rather make Gunz nice in an Orky kind of way.
I propose to change the properties of Gunz a bit. First, like they currently are, they would have a 'minimum' and 'maximum' number of shots. However, various upgrades and buffs could augment these.
Extra Shots: Turrets, prow gunz, and batteries each have a 'minimum' and 'maximum' number of shots. Turrets are more reliable, having a consistent range, while batteries are more swingy, occasionally only puttering out a few shots or belching out a ton of them.
Weight of Fire- Orks have terrible accuracy, but this could get somewhat mitigated by throwing a lot of shots in a general direction. Every turret, prow gun, and side battery on a single ship would impart a small bonus to base accuracy in that arc. So Kustomizing a ship around having lots of gunz would make them more accurate than if you had Gunz+Kanonz in an arc. The exact percentages could be tweaked, but it would mean if you were gonna spam gunz then obviously a Dethdeala is going to get a better benefit than just a Basha.
Drillin' effect- Ork gun shells are crude, but repeated hits in the same area can drill deep into a ship's hull to hit vital components. Their base crit chance is very low and can't directly be improved, but every penetrating hit on an enemy ship generates a 'debuff' on the ship that increases the crit chance of the next penetrating hit for the next 2 seconds, until it reaches some reasonable cap. This encourages you to focus-fire a single target with guns, raking its hull with fire until you reach the meaty bitz.
More Dakka- Passively gives +1 to the minimum and maximum number of shots in a salvo of all gunz weapons. When Lock-On is in effect, you always fire the maximum number of shots.
They could play around with the specific values to keep it balanced, but the idea here is that Gunz are still a middling secondary weapon, but if you're really willing to invest in them they can be an impressive medium-range weapon. Since many buffs increase the minimum number of shots in a salvo you can really maximize the dakka, and since gunz variants tend to be cheaper than other weapons you can make the most of how their crit chance works by focus-firing tougher enemies. They don't need any AP in this situation because you are throwing so much lead at the target; even a Battle Barge will get perforated eventually.
I built a bad moonz fleet around gunz that does pretty well in skirmish. Haven't been able to try it with multiplayer though. Moved recently and am relegated to playing on my laptop, which doesn't have the same power. If I activate all my lock ons with out tac cog active, my machine can't handle all the objects at once
Orkz is never beatin in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we legz it we don't die neither, so we can come back for annuver go, see!
malcontent333 wrote: I built a bad moonz fleet around gunz that does pretty well in skirmish. Haven't been able to try it with multiplayer though. Moved recently and am relegated to playing on my laptop, which doesn't have the same power. If I activate all my lock ons with out tac cog active, my machine can't handle all the objects at once
I keep 1 kroozer as a devoted defensive carrier and 1 Hamma with zzaps. No one else gets kustom points spent, so it's all gunz and torps. Upgrades are more dakka, more shields, shield recharge, extra turrets, and order duration (the zzap ship replaces more dakka and order duration with shield pierce and slow). The bad moonz extra upgrade is usually belt armour or extra bridge. It is definitely supposed to broadside. Skills are usually things like boost recharge, shield regen, stasis bomb, and waaagh. Playstyle is similar to kannons, in that you want to get in close to ram and board. Biggest difference is gunz start chipping away at the enemy shield from longer range and prevent a partial recharge by dealing constant damage. Get into that 3k sweet spot, hit lock on, and watch those hull points tick off like water through a sieve.
Edit: I give my light kroozers Goff favor and use them to disrupt formations like giant krooze-rokkitz