Balance: pneumatic weapons

[Tamior]

It takes a long damned time to build a hundred psi with a bicycle pump.

Ok, so upping the reload time of PBD to something like that of a heavy crossbow. Agreed, not a bad idea.

Most people lack the knowledge to actually make those things.

This reinforces the notion this should not be auto-learn recipes.

We do not live in a situation where factory manufactured goods like ammo, carbon fiber arrows, and premade bows and crossbows of excellent quality are scarce

For a pneumatic weapon to have decent accuracy it needs to be manufactured to just as high, if not higher standard. So it’s not a argument for pneumatic weapons somehow becoming MORE viable in SHTF situation. Your simple-yet-reliable craft-able from scratch weapons are bows/crossbows. Pneumatic rifles-type weapon that is competitive with firearms is largely just as hard to manufacture as said firearms.

Maybe pneumatic weapons are OP. Y’know what? It’s a single player game. Don’t use them if they bother you. If you have to min-max no matter what and it upsets you, mod them out or blacklist them. I’ve never bothered to make the damned things because melee has always been king in this game, especially in the last few months because the aim system is currently undergoing a massive overhaul.

"Don’t balance stuff in SP game, don’t balance ranged since melee is generally more practical for general chaff."
Really?
The MAIN difference between a good procedurally generated game and a “meh” one (once both are functional) is game-balance, btw.

I don’t consider the Pneumatic Bolt Driver an “Overpowered” weapon. I consider it a serviceable one, or just above average. I consider the Crossbow an underpowered weapon.

Ok, let’s make it simple: do you agree that PBD is more useful and powerful in practice than a good chunk of low/med caliber per-cataslysm firearms?

[Stelknecht]

I like the PBD and PAR as they stand.
The ammo is bulkier than bullets.
They’re better than archery, and I believe that’s as it should be.
They’re not as good as guns.
Just my 2 cents.

[Mantar]

PBD is actually substantially more powerful than a bow (at the same skill) and has MUCH higher armor penetration, but has a rate of fire HIGHER than a bow for the first 8 shots and only somewhat slower thereafter. (And that’s when comparing PDB to a bow that’s actually NOT an auto-learn recipe, it’s even more noticeable if you compare to just the longbow.)

I don’t agree. A steel bolt has armor pen of 10, a metal arrow armor pen of 7. That’s not “MUCH higher,” just three points. And nearly doubled reload times are more than "somewhat slower."
I’ll have to craft a longbow to test with that, but using both my reflex recurve bow and a pneumatic bolt driver against irradiated wanderers yesterday, they perform similarly in terms of damage despite my character having 5 in rifles and 4 in archery. The bow was noticeably faster though, and hence better at dropping enemies quickly – fewer got through to my companion’s awl pike when using the bow.
The bolt driver has higher theoretical damage in its stats, but the bolts themselves have a dispersion of 120, exactly twice that of the metal arrow, and that means more grazing hits, which lowers the actual damage you get.

I’ll admit it’s hardly a scientific test, though, I could have controlled things better. I also didn’t try tricking things out with a bunch of weapon mods which might change the results a bit.
Also the PBD should really be tested against the crossbow, as that’s closer to its niche. I’d say it’s probably a little overpowered considering the low cost of entry. At the least, the PBD shouldn’t be an auto-learn recipe, it sounds complicated to build correctly IMO.

[Tamior]

The ammo is bulkier than bullets.

Ammo is re-usable in case of PBD or can be acquired in the field for PAR.

They’re better than archery, and I believe that’s as it should be.

Why should they be better? Why would anyone bother to train archery if PBD is the same if not just flat better while still silent and all?

They’re not as good as guns.

Is that with or without considering the fact firearms use limited ammo?

[Stelknecht]

Bulky ammo consumes storage, which at least in the early game for me is at a premium. While it can be reacquired scrounged, you still have to carry it. I think a pneumatic weapon should be better, because it’s made of stronger materials, steel, etc, and uses a more energetic reaction than wood springiness. All firearms and bows use limited ammo; you can make all the ammo in the game except for a few exceptions.
All my mostly worthless opinions. I don’t find that archery is lesser, just different. If I want rifles, I make a PBD. If I want an archer, I use bows.
I honestly think the bows when maxed out (skill, mods, etc) are better than the PBD/PAR, although they don’t hit as hard. They’re faster and lighter.
I think it’s all pretty well balanced.

[Tamior]

All firearms and bows use limited ammo; you can make all the ammo in the game except for a few exceptions.

You need much more tools and very specific components to craft firearms ammo. You can’t craft gunpowder, for one. Unlike steel bolts that you can craft pretty much as much as you want from just one car worth of steel and quite basic equipment.

I don’t find that archery is lesser, just different. If I want rifles, I make a PBD. If I want an archer, I use bows.

Even if archery is more or less equal to PBD, that still means that archery is moot as you can emulate effect of archery wtih PBD. Think of it this way:

• with high rifle skill and PBD you can perform more or less as well as an archer in term of silent “infinite ammo” ranged weapon.
• with high archery skill you can NOT emulate rifle skill: you don’t get anything with burst fire, you can’t get anything with very high armor pen, you don’t get super-long-range weapons, etc,etc

Thus PBD makes rifle skill superior to archery. Without PDB each still would have had niche of it’s own.

I honestly think the bows when maxed out (skill, mods, etc) are better than the PBD/PAR, although they don’t hit as hard. They’re faster and lighter.
I think it’s all pretty well balanced.

See above. Rifles, crossbows and bows would have been quite balanced without PBD. PBD just tips the scales too much in favour of rifle skill in general and makes actual crossbows useless by comparison.

And that’s only HALF of the problem. The other half is that somehow home-made pneumatic weapons turn out to be on par with actual factory-manufactured low/med-caliber firearms.

Also the PBD should really be tested against the crossbow, as that’s closer to its niche. I’d say it’s probably a little overpowered considering the low cost of entry. At the least, the PBD shouldn’t be an auto-learn recipe, it sounds complicated to build correctly IMO.

Making PBD have the same power as normal crossbow (maybe slightly lower, but I literally mean like 1-2 points of damage lower), but with 8 shots AND with rather high noise would work. Because that way crossbow is still viable since it retains a niche as a SILENT weapon and PBD does not get into archery territory of SILENT weapons.

[psyxypher]

And that’s only HALF of the problem. The other half is that somehow home-made pneumatic weapons turn out to be on par with actual factory-manufactured low/med-caliber firearms.

9mm Handguns don’t do particularly good damage in game, last I checked. To force ALL homemade firearms under that line would make them completely useless. Why would anyone use a weapon that is completely inferior to one that can be found by lockpicking your way into a gun store? The Pneumatic Weapons at least have to be unlocked by having high Mechanics and moderate Marksmanship.

Like someone pointed out earlier, no one’s forcing anyone to use Pneumatic Weapons. If they’re such a problem for you, why not make a “No Pneumatic Weapons” mod instead of changing something almost everyone else seems to like?

[Tamior]

9mm Handguns don’t do particularly good damage in game, last I checked. To force ALL homemade firearms under that line would make them completely useless.

Are you saying that 9mm handguns are completely useless?

Why would anyone use a weapon that is completely inferior to one that can be found by lockpicking your way into a gun store?

Because that “inferior” weapon is not actually inferior since it uses much more available ammo and is silent?

The Pneumatic Weapons at least have to be unlocked by having high Mechanics and moderate Marksmanship.

Finding a gun store you can lockpick and loot is generally more risky than training mechanics at your home base. The latter just takes longer in terms of in-game time. And PBD does not require any Marksmanship.

Like someone pointed out earlier, no one’s forcing anyone to use Pneumatic Weapons. If they’re such a problem for you, why not make a “No Pneumatic Weapons” mod instead of changing something almost everyone else seems to like?

We’ve already been over this: it’s simply not how balancing in a game works. Default/vanilla game is being balanced to make sense as an overarching system, unbalanced stuff is then modded in on a player-by-player basics. Not the other way round.

[druidniam]

What you’re arguing for is a flat out nerf of pneumatic weapons to mark bows a superior option. Lemme break down the biggest difference between a PBD and a Longbow or Reflex Recurve bow: Engagement distance. You can effectively fire explosive arrows at a turret with a bow because those two bows hit out to the same distance as the Rivtech sniper rifle. The PBD, might do more damage per shot, but unless you’ve got godlike rifles and marksmanship, you still have to close INSIDE the range of a turret to get more than just a moderate chance of something beyond a glancing blow, and in that case, it’s better to just train throwing up a few levels and lob EMP grenades, or build a hacking laptop. My current character has archery, rifles and marksmanship all at 5. I carry both a PBD and a reflex recurve and a pair of large quivers. If I’m facing a large group of whimpy zombies, I use the bow and lawnmower the group before it can close to melee. If I’m facing a shocker, brute, mi-go or anything else above the chumm, I use the PBD and chew away at it as it closes distance. Then it’s back to the bow with non-aimed shots as I run away. If I’m actually using a gun of some sort, it’s a long range rifle with a suppressor, even if the damage on paper is inferior to that of the PBD.

[Solusphere]

Leaving aside the other matters of balance, I think the one element of the pneumatic weapons that is truly absurd is the fact that they’re so quiet. In my experience, any pneumatic launcher capable of firing projectiles at deadly speeds has been extremely loud. Probably not louder than mid-caliber firearms, but certainly louder or on par with a .22. I’m not sure if it would be more or less loud than a mid-caliber firearm with a supressor, as I’ve never heard one in person.

[kevin.granade]

Regarding actual changes instead of rationale:
I don’t think nerfing noise is going to have any effect, I mean it can be changed, but anythng less than 20 or so is still “effectively silent” as in it won’t call a horde, and I don’t think you can justify taking it higher than that.

I feel like a decent niche would be to emphasize the reload time requiring a lot of time to produce the pressure to fire.
Kick reload times up to something like a minute per shot (this is effectively doubling the current number) and possiby require an external air pump to do it (an integrated pump is TERRIBLE at this kind of thing).

Also, these things exist, maybe just base it on the existing ones…
http://www.topairgun.com/arrow-pellet-rifle-combos

[darktoes]

Sounds to me like the main problem here is that the PBD (Ignoring the PAR because I don’t use it ever) does a bit of everything too well. Seems like crossbows and bows fill the role of an early game ranged weapon since you can literally craft them with sticks and strings, while guns are all around superior at the cost of limited ammunition and noise. Bows also have awesome late game damage/ROF, but you need a lot of investment to get there.

Personally, I think the damage on the PBD is fine, but it sounds like it could use a minor nerf in the form of some noise, say 10 points? Enough to be dangerous, but not enough to make it worthless. This way it fills a slot between the silence of bows and the power of guns, since it is sort of a combination of the two.

I do want to point out that crossbows have been around for around about 2000 years, and again, can be crafted from sticks and string. The PBD is more powerful in a lot of ways, but it also uses more complicated resources and takes more skill to craft. Point being, it’s the logical upgrade from the crossbow, just like the reflex recurve bow is the logical upgrade from the self bow, and a steel rapier is the logical upgrade from a sharpened stick. It’s also not a bad thing to upgrade from archery to rifles, since a lot of skills essentially get progressed past, like bashing weapons or submachine guns.

Some things are simply better than others, that isn’t a reason to bring down the better things. However, I also think that perhaps guns should have higher damage, and perhaps add a more modern crossbow? A composite/compound crossbow made from some scrap, some pipes and such… Give it much higher damage without the ridiculous reload time of the giant crossbow.

(Most of this was written before kevin.granade’s new post) Higher reload time does sound better, but it could be worth putting a strength reload thing on it since more strength is going to let you pump faster. Maybe.

[kevin.granade]

Strength already reduces reload time.

[darktoes]

On the Pneumatic Bolt Driver?

[kevin.granade]

tl;dr, some quick math says doubling load time to one minute per round and requiring a bicycle pump seems fairly reasonable.

Also, we could add industrial-grade airguns that are way better, but uncraftable.

I can take a volume increase or leave it. I think it’s justified at the power levels we’re dealing with here, but it isn’t sufficient.

Some quick math:
Based on this gun: http://www.topairgun.com/50-air-venturi-wing-shot2-smooth-bore-air-shotgun-arrow
244cc air resivoir
3,000PSI
Based on a formula here: https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/4qxdr8/request_how_many_pumps_would_it_take_to_fill_this/
(0.000244 * 19275000 * 75) / (287 x 303) = 0.054kg of air
"typical" bicycle pump produces 0.00035kg of air per pump.
0.054 / 0.00035 = 154 pumps per shot

Reference says 60 pumps / minute, or about 2.5min or 5x the current pump rate (also assuming a lot more leverage, more like a bike/truck ump instead of a builtin pump).

One one hand, this is a super-powerful gun, capable of downing a deer or maybe even boar in a single shot.
On the other hand, this isn’t representative of the cobbled-together hardware of the bolt driver, I find it very hard to believe that a survivor would be able to build a pressure resevior and valves capable of handling 3K PSI.

Drop that by a third to 1,000PSI, and it cuts load time to roughly one minute instead of 2.5, drops power output to match the existing bolt driver, and adresses my concerns about the survivor being able to build a gun that can handle that pressure.

[darktoes]

Sounds fair enough to me, but I still wonder if the PBD shouldn’t have a little bit of noise just for realism.

Would industrial airguns still use bolts or would they use the bearings/pebbles that the PAR uses? Or a third craftable/findable special ammunition, like airgun pellets or something? Would these airguns take longer to load or just require a bit of UPS to run a compressor of some sort?

[Tamior]

What you’re arguing for is a flat out nerf of pneumatic weapons to mark bows a superior option.

Superior at what? At being a silent low-tech ranged weapon that can be made from scrap, uses arrows/bolt and and can maintain a good rate of fire for several shots? Well, yes. That’s the intention.

Again, one of the problems with PBD is that it’s crossbow 2.0, but for some reason it not only gets MUCH better damage stats, not ALSO gets 8 bolt mag. Remove that mag, and it would actually make sense as “improved crossbow”.

[druidniam]

Schedule 80 off the shelf pipe, dopped, taped and capped with a 3k psi rated air fitting can withstand 3k psi with off the shelf parts from lowes hardware and only requires a drill and a pipe wrench to assemble.

Ideally Electronic scrap and a pilot light should get added to the pneumatic weapons materials cost since we’re assuming one shot doesn’t completely empty the air tank.

[darktoes]

Superior at what? At being a silent low-tech ranged weapon that can be made from scrap, uses arrows/bolt and and can maintain a good rate of fire for several shots? Well, yes. That’s the intention.

Again, one of the problems with PBD is that it’s crossbow 2.0, but for some reason it not only gets MUCH better damage stats, not ALSO gets 8 bolt mag. Remove that mag, and it would actually make sense as “improved crossbow”.

I fail to see why a bow should be even comparable to a pneumatic bolt driver. Bows are simple, effective, and have been around for a damn long time. The PBD is complex and it takes a welder, fine tools and a number of parts to put one together, and that’s if you have the 8 mechanics and 3 gun skills it takes to know how to make one. Unsurprisingly, it outperforms a bent stick with some string tied to the ends.

Yes, it’s an upgraded crossbow, why do you have such an issue with it getting an 8 round magazine? (It’s integral too, so no quick swaps like on a gun) It’s an upgrade, it makes it better, that’s the point.

[Tamior]

Yes, it’s an upgraded crossbow, why do you have such an issue with it getting an 8 round magazine? (It’s integral too, so no quick swaps like on a gun) It’s an upgrade, it makes it better, that’s the point.

I have an issue because being one-shot is part of the niche/balance of a crossbow.
If crossbow is one-shot you can make it actually good at that “one shot” without making it superior to other ranged weapons.
With 8 shots mag you immediately make PBD not only an improved crossbow, but a weapon that makes the existence of good half of low/med caliber firearms moot.