Here are some balance issues, and other such issues I feel in A18 that need some adressing, some are simple others not so much.
First: Junk Turrets, for a int build these are fine, however, they are pretty overpowered in the hands of virtually any other stat build due to easy ammo, ability to drop down anywhere, and their very high knockdown chances. Not to mention they also borrow perks from whatever is in your main hand, so if you have a perked gun in your main hand.. its almost like you have the turret syndrome perk, as the weapon your holding's perk effects the junk turret (and blade traps, and the other gun turrets). Even procs like burning shaft mod and such will let the junk turret light things on fire when placed. Only ways I can see balancing this is: Removing the knockdown chance entirely, or, making it require turret syndrome level 1 or 2, before you can place them, if your a int build you'll most likely be getting that perk anyway so it won't hurt them, but it'll balance it for other builds so they cannot abuse it at no cost other than finding a junk turret in loot. The Iron cost doesn't count either, I got motherload 4 and a steel pickaxe on day 7, 32 iron ore blocks gets me over 6000 iron, thats 2000 junk turret ammo, doesn't even take 5 realtime minutes to mine either. The main problem is players are starting to depend on these turrets, because they are just that good. I myself, only allow myself the use of them on horde nights if I lack the turret syndrome perk. This keeps it balanced as on horde night you'd have turrets of some kind almost always. Not going to lie though there are some situations where using the turret cheesing would make poi raiding much easier. Thats what I call people who use them who aren't speced in turret syndrome perks: they are basically cheesing the game with the junk turret, its borderline a exploit imo.
Second: Supercorn is a level 5 perk in living off the land, the problem is, the supercorn poi doesn't spawn often in rwg, and currently in vanilla there is no other way to get the supercorn, turning level 5 of that perk and the schematic mostly worthless. Solution: have supercorn be sold at trader, or findable in loot, like every other crop. In trader make it be a min of a stack of 5 like normal corn that way you have enough to make one seed do not make it need better barter either please, for loot, it can be in shamway crates and any other place crops usually can be found. There just needs to be other sources incase the poi does not spawn, you guys are pretty good at providing alternate ways to get almost everything else, supercorn needs to join that list especially as there is one place in the entire game you can get it. Also I don't know if its just my bad luck, but everytime I get a nice rwg seed I like, it NEVER has a supercorn poi, I check the prefabs.xml and search for it. The RWG name/quest location name for the poi is: house_Old_gambrel_03
Third: I was not too happy with the shotgun ammo gunpowder cost doubling at first glance, nor with the pump shotguns spread being made almost double what it was. I do however like it fires 2 more pellets now, seems to hit a bit harder, and has a 5 block effective range where it'll do full damage instead of the 3 it used to be so it balances out after I thought about it so its fine. Not to mention next to the rocket launcher the shotgun has the highest per shot damage in the game for ranged weaponry it just has a short range to compensate. Also the change to slugs makes them much more attractive to craft now as they use the same gunpowder as normal shells, just 2 lead tips. Still hit for less than the combined buckshot damage on non-armored zombies thou, but then again, it does pierce like the other AP ammo now so that balances it nicely. I've never used them.. do they also have a much tighter crosshair by default as its basically turning a shotgun into a close range rifle? Guess I can check that next time I see some for sale at a trader for myself. Overall I love the shotgun changes, as someone who primarally runs str builds, it made me very happy.
Fouth: I feel machine guns need their own ammo caliber, think about it, Pistol, magnum, shotgun, junk turret, rocket launcher etc all have their own ammo's Machine guns share theirs with rifles. I was thinking of 5.56mm Rounds for the machine guns, 1 bullet tip, 2 gunpowder, 1 brass case for the normal ammo, 3-4 gunpowder per for the AP Ammo. Would just need icons and recipes pretty much, and a description change on the books that teach the AP/HP Ammos.
Fifth: It'd be nice if we could break down ammo into its base componnents, preferably with little to no loss of the gunpowder at least, I often have tons of ammo for guns I don't really use, that I end up just firing anyway as I have no other real use for it. Pistol being a main one, as I find agility worthless other than handguns, I actually mainly use a good pistol as my gun for poi clears, as I often have tons of spare ammo for it, and the ammo stacks to 300, its also dirt cheap to craft so I generally go HAM with the pistol as the ammo is easy to get.
Sixth: I'd like ammo stack sizes for 7.62mm to be the same as pistol ammo, its almost as common in loot, and its annoying it stacks only half as high. Either this, or allow us to box up 100 bullets into a box in the field, no discount like when crafting boxes though its simply to make carrying ammo easier, make boxing up 100 rounds not require a book or anything, but keep the recipe to craft boxes for the mats for 80 rounds as they are currently which is book locked.
