Guns: Are the really worth it?

[detahramet]

Hello my fellow fetid soon to be undead creatures.
In my experience, guns have proven to be far too much effort to scrounge up and use.
Sure they do a decent amount of damage, but so does a crossbow. And I can easily make more ammo for my crossbow.
And then they are noisy if you haven’t found or made a suppressor yet.

Anyways, what do you guys think:
Are they worth it?

also, What do you use to fight the undead hordes?

[pingpong]

Hard to say, I’ve hardly gotten any far in the game. I do like a pistol, but it’s ammo is limited, and it’s like, oh, if I get a car i could kill 50+ zombies easy, or if I use up ALL the ammo I have I could kill like 30, assuming I level up in-between. Or I could just use rocks and extra time.

I’m not on the big guns though, but then they’ll require books if I want to get to use them before I consume all of the ammo I find.

[Williham]

I find that they very much are, if you happen to find an ammo cache or a well-stocked gun store.

Personally I like running around with my trusty Glock 19++ (suppressor + spare mag), keeping an FN Five-seveN++ in the same configuration on hand for tougher enemies.

If I happen upon a sniper conversion kit, I like slapping that on an FN SCAR-H, or, if I can find one, a Savage 110F.

In the early game, I like finding a solid melee weapon, the particular char I’m on right now has an expandable baton that dropped of a zombie cop.

[detahramet]

Personally, I found crossbows to be amazingly useful. All you need is a character with a few levels in archery and trapping (alternatively archery and mechanics) and you’ve got a character that is virtually unstoppable. If you’ve read my “When life gives you lemons” thread, you’ll understand just how insanely useful these weapons are.

[sting_auer]

IMO if you’re really going for a clearout without using the borderline exploit vehicles, fully-auto firearms are your go-to option.

[Zipo]

Personally, I found crossbows to be amazingly useful. All you need is a character with a few levels in archery and trapping (alternatively archery and mechanics) and you’ve got a character that is virtually unstoppable. If you’ve read my “When life gives you lemons” thread, you’ll understand just how insanely useful these weapons are.

Yeah I use a crossbow as well. But it’s still nice to keep a back up handgun ready. I stumbled into a cave the other day so many rats. In short they were coming faster than I could reload and fire and as they hit you stop reloading sometimes. So that was when the gun came in handy.

[Slax]

Suppressors up their value by a whole lot. Being able to take a horde of 50-100 monsters without taking a scratch seems worth it to me. Ammo’s only scarce until you learn where to look for it, even if acquiring it may be very dangerous. Plus, eventually being able to drop just about anything in one shot feels very satisfying.
Never really gotten into crossbows but I imagine they can do the same. Constant reloading just makes me cringe though.

Personally I like running around with my trusty Glock 19++ (suppressor + spare mag), keeping an FN Five-seveN++ in the same configuration on hand for tougher enemies.

Running around with a similar setup right now. Glock 19 with a suppressor and extended mag, Five-seveN with only a suppressor. Reloading is fast enough, I find. Takes care of just about any situation.

[Benedict]

I just get whatever .45 pistol I find and the game become a cakewalk. Guns are so worth it.

Failing that, though, I rely on ultraskill melee techniques like standing behind a bush or taking lots of drugs.

[KA101]

For me they’re Too Awesome To Use thanks to the whole ammunition thing: I tried handloading precisely once, saw all the ingredient requirements, and gave up on it.

The Flamethrower, on the other hand…

[ballfairy]

They are worth the effort, but more of a backup as opposed to a first option of attack, I usually primarly carry a melee weapon and a rifle or pistol for when enemys start piling up

plus reloading is not hard at all, really glad they added reloading presses and components to the game, it’d be nice if for rifles you could get a casing bag, so you dont have to pick up your brass.
like this.

plus silencers tone down the ridiculous ness of enemy attraction a little and they are EASY to make realistically.

IRL you can build a /decent/ silencer for $15-$20

Edit: And on the “too awesome to use” thing that KA101 mentioned, i find myself stocking up the rarer things like the M72 LAWS 40mm launchers and the 12mm H&K stuff, and only using it on rare occasions, same thing with the larger caliber rifles, i usually always have a FN FAL and a ton of .308 but only use it when i get ready to clear towns.

Edit again: Zipo mentioned the rats, THEY ARE OVER POWERED, a even 4-5 rats can OVERPOWER a character unless you prepare explosives of some kind a fallback option like traps on the exit.

[Sharp]

Guns are needed to kill things which cannot be killed by other things. Like Tanks. Turrets have lots of armour now so you need something with high damage or armour piercing to bust them down from range. Going close up and whacking it with a baseball bat is fun but dangerous while raining down arrows or bolts will be extremely ineffectual.

A shotgun can even take out a skeleton.

It’s always nice to carry around a hand-cannon for heavy firepower at close range.

[youtoo]

what else can do damage to zombie soldier or brute? my arrows bounce off the soldier. what melee weapons?

[Williham]

plus reloading is not hard at all, really glad they added reloading presses and components to the game, it’d be nice if for rifles you could get a casing bag, so you dont have to pick up your brass.

I’m thinking I might push a patch that’ll send spent casings straight to inventory.

[system]

[size=8pt][font=courier][size=10pt]I[/size] have not played enough of this build to say whether or not guns are or are not worth using. I think it really depends on your play style and preferences. What I do know is that I just Kung Fu’d a pack of wolves to death. Who needs guns when you have Fists of Fury?[/font][/size]

[Slax]

what else can do damage to zombie soldier or brute? my arrows bounce off the soldier. what melee weapons?

Try fire.

[KA101]

Combat Knife is the minimum I’d want, though Long Talons can work a treat if you happened to win a pair in the mutation lottery.

[TurningBreeze]

Of course they’re worth it…

I’m also fond of archery (though I use proper bows for stupidly fast and automatic reloads. Those rats people are struggling with? A longbow laughs at them. Laughs as it takes their lunch money and pushes them down a flight of stairs). I do a lot of vehicular skewering too, but that doesn’t mean guns don’t have a place in my arsenal.

The same arrows that one-shot your average zombie and two-shot brutes will bounce harmlessly off of wolf spiders, skeletons, and various other armored mobs. I could switch gears entirely, make a mad scramble for my car and try to build up ramming speed. I could drop my entire invo and strip off my kevlar so that I can effectively wield a hatchet. Or I could painlessly swap in a sawn-off or a Glock with AP rounds and have the delicious pleasure of painting the black top with the offending party’s giblets. And this is not to mention range issues… archery weapons are limited to range 10 (15 with fancy ammo that I’ve never found), while 30-06 AP rounds have a range of 90. Also, incendiary rounds. Also, explosive rounds.

None of which is relevant of course, because that’s not really the question you’re trying to ask. I think what you want to know is, “are guns viable in the long term as a primary method of dispatching foes? Is it possible to find or craft enough ammo to solve most of your in-game problems with bullets and if so, is that experience fun enough to offset the hassle?”

Seems unlikely. Maybe if you heavily target particular kinds of structures, or carry a flamethrower and a jerry of gas. I doubt that’s how guns were intended to be used in this game. If you want to endlessly pew-pew-pew, there are a large assortment of games available that cater to your taste.

[eternalflame]

Some guns are worth it. I have little experience with conventional rifles, because pistols bring in the same results at lower weight and volume. Automatic weapons seem to be a waste though.

Handguns I like, I prefer the former over the latter:

[ul][li]Glock 19 / USP 9mm: I can farm so much ammo from turrets. I need something else than 9mm to kill the turrets though. With suppressor they are viable to use in town.[/li]
[li]M1911 / USP .45: I use these to kill whatever 9mm cannot harm. In my opinion, the ammo is rare enough to not waste on basic Z and stuff. If I bring out these guns I do not care about the noise.[/li][/ul]

However, my preferred weapon is FTK-93 fusion gun. It has low ammo capacity. It is slow to reload. But the sheer power outweighs such problems. V29 laser pistol is a nice side arm to go with it, in case I need to get shots off quickly. They use the same ammo, which is small, light and easy to make.

[Asra]

I always end up going primarily melee, even against things like bees. Also throwing javelins and things. Though against things like triffid queens explosives are almost completely necessary. That being said, if I do find a gun with a lot of ammunition I usually try to get some use out of it, since against things like hulks they’re a lot safer than a machete or spear.

[Mr_Lolz]

in the current ‘noise has little consequence’ version, guns are king. Find a Saiga-12 and 100 odd ammo and you can kill at least 80 zombies even at skill 0. If you fire at point-blank only, each pistol shot is basically a kill. With ammo and a few pistols you can slay rapidly without taking damage, while ammo holds up.

tbh though, martial arts are super powerful and more reliable so I tend to just go on a spree when I find a gun/ammo, then discard the gun once the ammo runs out.