I would like to see weapon mode switches added to the game, both for ranged weapons and melee in order to increase gameplay variety and (hopefully) reduce reliance on RNG.
This crude mspaint mockup gives an idea how it could work in game:
Imgur link if the upload doesn’t work:
How it would function in-game
Using the above as an example, in the shop only a standard “accatran recon lasgun” would spawn.
During missions, when equipped and while inspecting the weapon you could press the movement keys [A],[S],[D] to switch between modes available to this weapon. The different modes would be what currently are different Mks of the Accatran recon lasgun. A different key could be added but for the sake of the argument I’m trying to limit this to functions existing already ingame (the inspect and movement keys)
The recon lasgun would have its 3 different rate of fire modes (like the existing Mk II, Mk VId, VIIa, they could be named differently), same for Kantrael and Lucius patterns. The same approach could be used for some melee weapons. For example there are axes that have different movesets that you could switch between as you go to better tackle different enemies or groups thereof.
In addition different perks and/or blessings could be tied to a specific firing mode/power setting of a weapon. Unlocking different modes could possibly be tied to crafting/salvaging different weapons.
You could even have different power settings for the chainsword, eviscerator, powersword, thunderhammer, force sword, shock maul (if it or something similar gets added). For those melee weapons the settings would be to trigger the chain or power field and keep them turned on so you don’t lose time for activating them all the time at the expense of maybe a heat/perils mechanic like the plasma gun/psykers have - keep it on for too long and it might either explode, stop working or disable its activation for a longer period of time to keep it balanced. You would still have the currently existing special action to activate them (if you haven’t overused the higher power setting and it isn’t currently temporarily disabled) just if you need the boost only for a few strikes.
The merits of the above
In my opinion this would result in greater in-mission gameplay variety as well as partially mitigate some of the flaws of the items shop.
Essentially you would have all Mks of a specific weapon available to you on a mission and you could switch between them as you wish, despite only having one lasgun equipped.
Due to limitation on amount of items shown in the in-game shop which is 12 and only 12, consisting both of the weapon and curio pools, it is possible players will not get to see certain weapon types for a long period of time. Further, due to randomized properties of a single weapon a player might not want to buy it due to its poor performance.
In addition I have never seen some weapons taken on missions at all due to how poorly they perform in comparison to others in their respective slots. Therefore useless redundancy would be reduced.
If you are restricted to a specific loadout for a mission consisting of 2 weapons giving them switchable modes would result in having the option of approaching combat encounters in different ways. Different weapon modes could have different properties (dmg, penetration, rate of fire, etc.) as well as have different blessings/perks associated with them. Here’s hoping those perks/blessings could also be switched out for different ones, so that you don’t need a weapon to roll 12 different perks and blessings on top of base stats. Number 12 comes from 2 perks and 2 blessings each for the 3 firing modes.
Lastly, it might be easier to add more “weapons” or firing modes/power settings if you will in the future. It could just be a modification of an existing weapon that would be done via the crafting system/shop. This way just the properties of a weapon would need to be changed in a text table somewhere without the presumably more costly process of creating new models, textures and animations.
The drawbacks
The total number of available weapons in the game would be reduced. New UI elements, sound effects, animations, item tables and loot tables would need to be added/updated for this to function.
Potentially if each firing mode has its own perks/blessings while at the same time perk/blessing switching isn’t added to the game or is only added in limited capacity it would make the RNG even worse since for example a single lasgun would be rolling so many different properties.
There’s probably more but these are the most important ones that came to mind.
Cosmetics and microtransactions
The existing models/meshes as well as skins for different Mks/variants could be moved to the cosmetics section and would apply to a specific weapon type. Using the recon lasgun as an example again, you could switch between the 3 different meshes/models and the 3 different paintjobs for each(default, the black/blue one and the red one). It might be easier to sell premium models/skins this way, as they wouldn’t be locked to a single weapon Mk anymore. Since a player can apply a purchasable skin/mesh to not one but three lasguns they would be more likely to buy it.
Lore/canon considerations
Lasguns canonically have different power settings for a single variant, done either in the field by its operator or in a workshop, therefore this idea does not contradict established lore/canon. For axes/swords there isn’t any lore obstacle to how a player should be able to swing/thrust them. This isn’t CoD style weapon modification either, since a lasgun would come right out of the gate (or the shop for that matter) with those 3 different firing modes/power settings. As visible on the example from mspaint, the recon lasgun already has a switch modelled on it. The autoguns (at least the one that showed up for me in the shop) also seem to have a firing mode switch modelled on them. Despite those switches being there they currently have no functionality in-game.
A kind of similar idea was raised before here:
by Astronomer.