Guns, too many? Too few?

[GlyphGryph]

They have replaced most of the police, with the remaining police playing a much more limited role (primarily managing the robots).

Also, I would assume that the caseless firearms would actually be the defacto military firearm, rather than antiquated weaponry like the M4a1
and ACR.

[Binky]

[quote=“Dominae, post:168, topic:4531”]As with the “changing spawn rate”, look … the police department & military already have short-lists of weapons they use, and/or acceptable side-arms. I shouldn’t find a cop’s corpse with an Uzi or Wild-West 6-shooter; or a military corpse with some soviet bloc weapon that only appeared in 2 comic books because it never saw real-life production. So I totally agree there should be a “Guns: Police” “Guns: Military” type call list that corpses and their respective buildings pull from if that doesn’t happen already. That is what I assume is being suggested. Clean things up so Joe-Newb finds REALISTIC guns on realistic corpses and if he crowbars his way into a shack in the woods surrounded by landmines he finds some better, rarer stuff (and when NPCs are fixed he may have to have a shoot-out with the tin-foil-hat wearing nutjob in there before he takes the stash).

Drug dealer & criminal corpses should, IMHO, have a different list. Put the TEC-9, and Uzi on there, etc. I think this already happens, actually, to some degree?

Gun stores should carry the more common items. You don’t walk into Guns’N’Stuff and peruse a collection of unfathomably rare items, ESPECIALLY in New England, afaik (only been to a couple gun stores up there when I lived back east). Now since this is not-too-distant-future-ish where the gun laws were relaxed, I can imagine a bigger selection of stuff there but the list should be small, of possible items that spawn in there. I think a variation on the Gun Store should go in where theres a basement, or a small “back room - wink wink” where you have a chance at bigger things. It should be a rare occurrence.[/quote]

Nail on the head. Most police and military units only carry a primary, secondary and support weapon, so I’d say they only need 4-5 on each list (to take into account a few people having to use old stock or whatever), but no more than that (obviously with a few rares as well).

Griz lists: It’s looking good, with a I’d take the Uzi, mac-10 and tec-9 out of the gunshop list, even in uncommon or rare - I doubt any civilian gun shop would sell those, even with a relaxing of laws.
As my point above states, I think it’d be good to take one or two off the military list just as it’d be weird going into a military compound and finding 8 different types of rifles or loads of different handguns - after all, the whole point is to have similar weapons so you can all use the same ammo/kit.

[Dominae]

Oh … and as for realistic “gun cleaning mechanics” I’d hope we don’t go that route (even though its obviously realistic). I dread having too many “chores” all the time in game instead of actively doing “fun” stuff.

Reliability really is weird that it isn’t a bigger mechanic with firearms tho, you’re right. The damn things break or jam and sooner or later fall apart or rust. Hell, pistol-whipping a gooey zombie has to muck up a revolver something wicked.

I wouldn’t mind if weapons degraded through usage, even if it was a small percentage of it happening each time. Adding a “Firearm cleaning & repair kit” and making it craftable and limited in uses (like Med-Kits) that had a chance of fixing weapons would then be good, IMHO.

[ChristopherWalken]

While I can appreciate the idea of reliability (which should be pretty damn good for most weapons, and maybe be influenced by skill) I think "Firearm cleaning & repair kit"s being the only way to treat guns would be silly.

A character with high skills should be more than capable making do with tools/rags/etc.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

[quote=“Dominae, post:168, topic:4531”]I like the health-pool style simplification of the weapon stats ( The |||\ & ||| style) thing. I almost suggested it in my post earlier but was afraid people would go ballistic (pun intended) because they’d either feel it was “oversimplifying how awerzome guns are” or “making stats even more simplified” when we can all agree that the current stats are too same’y as is.

I think a variation on the Gun Store should go in where theres a basement, or a small “back room - wink wink” where you have a chance at bigger things. It should be a rare occurrence.

I think finding guns should be common, but finding ammo should NOT be. This is the end of the world … people grabbed their guns and fired off their ammo defending themselves. I should be able to fill a shopping cart with guns but ammo should be hard as hell to find. There should rarely be ammo on corpses really.[/quote]

Eh, I don’t trust bars- they tend to misrepresent weapons, or to miss out on fine granularity- (all small-caliber weapons would have 1-3 bars, most everything would be between 3-6, and the top 4 would be reserved for a handful of uber-guns). If anything it would just pronounce the ‘same-y feeling’.

I like this idea, a lot.

I’m ok with this so long as we can fashion our own- where there was ammo instead spawn shells, and be sure to include some primers & bits in gun shops.

- At the risk of being a double-poster, but since this is a separate thought:

Meh, I’d rather the former option. Only keeping the names would preserve the complexity/bloat, but get rid of the depth. Seems kindof superfluous compared to just ‘pistol, rifle, shotgun’.

Revisions!

.223
–M249
–scar-L

7.62
–M24
–M14
–scar-H

9mm
–mp5

12 gauge
–Benelli m4/1014
–Underslung mod

Explosives
–M320/underslung mod
–Grenades

[spoiler=Military/rare]
All caseless firearms

.50
–Barrett m95
12 gauge
–AA12

Explosives
–c4
–Milkor MGL
–M72 LAW[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Police/common]
9mm
–Glock 19

.38
–Taurus pro 38
–s&w 619

.40
–SIG pro40
–s&w 610

12 gauge
–M500
–Rem870

Energy
–Stun gun[/spoiler]

.223
–M4a1

9mm
–mp5

7.62
–M14

[u]12 gauge
–Benelli m4/1014

Explosives
–Non-lethal[/u]

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:174, topic:4531”]They have replaced most of the police, with the remaining police playing a much more limited role (primarily managing the robots).

Also, I would assume that the caseless firearms would actually be the defacto military firearm, rather than antiquated weaponry like the M4a1
and ACR.[/quote]
That eliminates progression- gameplay wouldn’t be helped by having experimental caseless firearms everywhere, not without additional changes.

@binky
They’re actually legal- they just require a license, tax, and maybe modifications depending on state laws.
-Also, there’re only 4 calibers present,(.223 ARs, 9mm pistols, 00 shot, 7.62 battle/sniper rifles), plus the rare .50 sniper & explosives.

@dominae
Yeah, a better instant-failure mechanic can spice things up for late-game survivors as well, for all weapons.
Also agree with repair/maintenance kits, and durability based on a % chance every attack to deal a tiny bit of damage.

@walken
Improvised toolkits, and have both feed off the ‘firearms’ skill just as medkits feed off ‘first aid’.

[Dominae]

[quote=“ChristopherWalken, post:177, topic:4531”]While I can appreciate the idea of reliability (which should be pretty damn good for most weapons, and maybe be influenced by skill) I think "Firearm cleaning & repair kit"s being the only way to treat guns would be silly.

A character with high skills should be more than capable making do with tools/rags/etc.[/quote]

Well when you sit down to clean and repair a firearm, you sit down with tools and rags and solvent. I just jumped to the conclusion that crafting the “kit” would be the process of getting that stuff together to use, and using the “kit” would use up those items.

We have to craft bandages to be able to (a)pply them, or craft Med-Kits to use them. A kit for firearms made sense to me by Cata-logic.

@walkin Improvised toolkits, and have both feed off the 'firearms' skill just as medkits feed off 'first aid'.

Yeah, that. lol

[Marduk]

The only common military pistol should be M9 i think. The rest should go to uncommon or rare.

BLR is pretty much a stand in for hunting rifles.

As for firearms getting damaged, they could be losing a durability level every time a misfire happens.

As for toolkits, that could work the same as sewing kits. You craft a toolkit (tools, some container). Then you craft repair supplies (rag, oil or some stand in, duct tape, superglue, piece of scrap metal etc.) of some charges, then load the toolkit with it. It would have some charges used to repair guns (maybye metal armor too?) exactly the same way you use sewing kit to repair clothing.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:174, topic:4531”]They have replaced most of the police, with the remaining police playing a much more limited role (primarily managing the robots).

Also, I would assume that the caseless firearms would actually be the defacto military firearm, rather than antiquated weaponry like the M4a1
and ACR.[/quote]

Heh, quoting you again:

I reckon Rivet would be able to come up with an equivalent alternative which utilizes caseless firearms in the military. She listening in?

-throw it in as a third alternative- simplified/nearfuture/less-nearfuture

–Oh hey missed this
@marduk
Even the glock? Eh, my memory/perception fails me.

Bah, BLR is a lever-action. How many hunting rifles nowadays are lever-action? I fed this site 50 clicks, and the results were 43 bolt-actions, 4 levers & 3 semis. Sure the top two spots were lever, but the volume of the other stuff…

I’m in no shape for durability discussion, so I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

[Binky]

Damaging weapons/durability - This has been discussed at length (there is a whole thread on it I believe, and someone made a patch which was pretty good). I think it came down to a lack of skill causing misfires, jamming and hurting the user being the main thing, with damage to ranged weapons being not favourable (according to a dev, can’t remember who).

However, I really would like to see damage to ranged weapons - they require a lot of maintenance in real life but I’d hate to have it tied to performance. I’d rather that skill was linked to performance, and they degraded (at a very slow amount) with use overtime. A weapon repair kit makes sense, and it could require special gun oil to make one (I know they don’t in real life, but otherwise it’d mean just rags and solvents which would be too trivial).

For the people who are about to say ‘much tedium, more shooting’ - I think it should be over a long period of time, say every 50-100 shots or something. It’d just mean that you can’t say ‘I’ve found the gun I’m going to use for the rest of the game’, which encourages more looting, exploration and the like - always something we want.

[Inadequate]

If you have to implement weapon degradation/maintenance, the weapon state should be clearly visible when looking at the weapon - I don’t think firing and keeping track of jamming/misfires would be a very good way of finding out.

And why shouldn’t weapon repair kits be crafted out of rags and solvent? If someone finds a gun, decides that it’s his favourite gun, and goes to every expense to upkeep it, why should we prevent him from doing so? It’s not like it’s the end of the world if people decide not to try new things. Personally, I’ve always been limited more by ammo than anything, switching around guns to match whatever ammo I have on hand.

[KA101]

PR’d a redistribution. Let me know what you think!

LMOE: focuses on Impressive weaponry, with some solid hunting weapons and some imports.
Police: Cop drops left alone. PD armories are now much more tightly restricted…but I’ve read that departments were procuring the P90 IRL so it and the Five-seveN can spawn there.
homeguns (the basement with beds): Dialed back: no more autoweapons. Added shotguns and hunting rifles, marginal chance for RM109c.
Behind_Counter: Low chances for Rivtech handguns–and like all guns there, they’ll come loaded.

Thinking I might put the antique guns in the Mansion art collection or something. . .

[infectedmochi]

I like it, gun spawn now will be less crazy and more coherent IMO. Also antique guns (flintlocks) in mansion make sense, when we have the museum in they can be spawned there too.

[Binky]

[quote=“Inadequate, post:183, topic:4531”]If you have to implement weapon degradation/maintenance, the weapon state should be clearly visible when looking at the weapon - I don’t think firing and keeping track of jamming/misfires would be a very good way of finding out.

And why shouldn’t weapon repair kits be crafted out of rags and solvent? If someone finds a gun, decides that it’s his favourite gun, and goes to every expense to upkeep it, why should we prevent him from doing so? It’s not like it’s the end of the world if people decide not to try new things. Personally, I’ve always been limited more by ammo than anything, switching around guns to match whatever ammo I have on hand.[/quote]

Agree with the top point.

As for the second point, I think the problem is that if it’s just rags and solvents (two very easy to find items) then it’d be almost pointless to have it as you’d be able to craft it without any consequence or difficulty and therefore render degradation meaningless. I’d prefer to have it so that gun oil is a sort of ‘top level’ resource, which you have to either have good chemistry skills for or find as prized loot. Weapon degradation would take a long time though, so it wouldn’t be something you’d need to constantly think about.

KA101, good work!!!

[DG123]

That would provide a nice use for the crafted chemistry set…

[Marduk]

My idea on the “gun repair resource” instead of hard to craft for some unrealistic reason gun oil, simply make it a complex resource.

Crafting requirements: Mechanics 3, Marksmanship 4

-100x duct tape
-2x scrap metal
-1x superglue
-1x cooking oil or 200x gasoline or 1x ballistic oil
-2x rag
-1x spring

Each of this item is easy to find individually, but finding all of them, especially in quantity, plus tools for the toolkit, will actually take some effort.

[John_Candlebury]

Why would you need ductape however?
And IIRC the springs we have on the game are the “heavy duty ones” aka the ones vehicles use as suspension. As far as the volume and weight indicate, it could as well not be a helical spring

[Dominae]

If you have to implement weapon degradation/maintenance, the weapon state should be clearly visible when looking at the weapon - I don’t think firing and keeping track of jamming/misfires would be a very good way of finding out.

Ever had a Spitter barf on a pile of zombies you’ve been killing when there is a gun in the stack? Weapons degrade in there (at least the text says so, they’ll become “damaged Glock 19” and the like). Having that type of obvious-fatigue on the gun just like clothing gets torn, shredded, etc would give straight clues that you need to fix your firearm. Wouldn’t want them to just vanish like clothing items do when they fall apart tho, obviously, but reaching a total “is unrepairable” state after a long while of wear-and-tear would work?

[quote=“Marduk, post:188, topic:4531”]My idea on the “gun repair resource” instead of hard to craft for some unrealistic reason gun oil, simply make it a complex resource.

Crafting requirements: Mechanics 3, Marksmanship 4

-100x duct tape
-2x scrap metal
-1x superglue
-1x cooking oil or 200x gasoline or 1x ballistic oil
-2x rag
-1x spring

Each of this item is easy to find individually, but finding all of them, especially in quantity, plus tools for the toolkit, will actually take some effort.[/quote]

I like it, but oh please not duct tape … that stuff is SO hard for me to find with the spawn rates turned down. LOL … plus I’m not too sure it makes sense, duct-taping my gun back together.

Hell, add “a toothbrush” to bathroom spawns and require that even, but please not precious, precious duct tape. I already need a pallet of it to make armor with

[Inadequate]

Nowadays I find it’s easier just to turn surplus bleach into superglue, and turn that superglue into duct tape, than it is to search for duct tape right off the bat. If you have an ant’s nest near I guess you could repeatedly harvest ant eggs too, although I never quite got the logic behind that one.

[Dominae]

Nowadays I find it’s easier just to turn surplus bleach into superglue, and turn that superglue into duct tape, than it is to search for duct tape right off the bat. If you have an ant’s nest near I guess you could repeatedly harvest ant eggs too, although I never quite got the logic behind that one.

Yeah that is the route I end up taking. Bleach->Superglue->Duct Tape.

Really, when you look at it, SO MUCH of the crafting material needs for things can be broken down from other things and recombined into what you want. That is neat, and all, but it makes scavenging for items often not needed. I find I never need “the right item”, just “a bunch of random crap” that exists everywhere to make what I want.

[Inadequate]

Well, it’s a matter of opinion. Personally, I like having as many items as possible be craftable from baseline materials. There’s always certain high-tier materials like kevlar, or stuff that is far easier to find than to create from raw materials, like bleach, which technically could be made with enough charcoal, I think. In fact it’s quite annoying when I can’t find the one or two electronic items that I can’t make with the stuff I already have. If the rest can be made, why not those?

Plus, nowadays most high-tier recipes are being shifted to books. Although I have my own issues with that, you can’t deny it extends the value of scavenging.