degrading - i see only degraded .22 casings.
well - in game maybe all casing be degradeable (i think so) - each shoot degrade casing to 1. i mean - casing can be loaded not more then 4 times. included factory loading which is “fifth” loading - we can load 4 times. not more. last time five us - let say after 100 fired bullet of this type (i mean caliber) and of this level of “health” we have in inventory one piece of junk metal.
Thats not how that works.
Guns dont degrade casings each time they fire (beyond ones with a delayed blowback action). That’s why headspace and such is very important.
Casing condition should depend on the gun’s condition, with a little bit of rng and a modifier for where the casing ends up. A casing bouncing around on a concrete floor has more chances of being damaged than if it ends up in grass or sand, and has no chance of being damaged if it ends up in a brass catcher.
Even then, bouncing around on concrete probably won’t hurt brass. I think it would be fairly hard to damage a casing under most circumstances. Maybe if you stepped on it? But even then…
Pretty much, but imo, it should be a “chance of damage”, e.g. 0.1% chance of being damaged on dirt or in sand and 0.5% chance being damaged on concrete.
At that point why bother? Just always give casings back and save the coding effort.
You have a source for that? Every reloading resource I’ve ever seen instructs you to examine your brass and discard casings that are visibly damaged as a matter of course precisely because brass IS deformed to some extent with every firing and every reload, and WILL eventually fail.
The physics of shell casings makes this obvious, before firing the casing is gripping the round, and is not sealed to the barrel. During firing the casing releases the round and seals against the barrel, which requires it to flex under the stress. After firing the seal to the barrel is broken and the casing is extracted, this is more stress. Headspacing issues, rough handling, overloaded rounds, etc will all just accelerate this process. This might lead to an indefinite lifespan if the casing were designed for it and if it were a gradual process, but neither of these is the case (heh). Casings are designed for reliability on first firing, not reloading, and this process is in reality extremely energetic and fast, which means the stresses are significant. Directions for reloading necked (rifle) cartridges instruct you to trim the casing for length with each reloading. You’re losing brass material, this is obviously going to eventually lead to the casing breaking.
Anecdotally the lifespan of a casing seems to be somewhere between 5 (high-powered rifles) and 50+ (pistol rounds, particularly if lightly loaded and carefully reloaded). Anecdotes retrieved from forum posts found by searching for, “how many times can I reload a firearm casing”. This article: http://www.massreloading.com/longevity.html presents a simple longevity test performed with .30 cartriges that line up with the anecdotal reports.
Just FYI, casing ejection is handled here https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/src/ranged.cpp#L1413, and there is currently no damage done to the casing on ejection. I assume if you see damaged casings in-game it’s because they got stepped on, shot, or run over.
Knowing what I do now, I’d probably set degradation to destroy cartridges after about 30 reloads as a stopgap, then look into scaling the damage based on round power to accelerate rifle casing degradation and allow weak pistol ammo to last longer. This isn’t a high priority for me though.
Luckily, having casings for more powerful rounds have a shorter lifespan is exactly what we want for game balance.
Out of curiosity, would that still be the case if you used a stronger material for the casing? Say steel or superalloy, maybe aluminium or something more flexible?
Is it really necessary to have this in game? It kinda seems unnecessary, IMO, considering reloaded ammo is already weak enough.
I’ve honestly never seriously used guns before. I’ve had a few quick jaunts with a rifle and used a shotgun for early wolves once, but melee is so much easier and bows/the pneumatic bolt driver/laser weapons are so practical.
I’m not a metalurgist or a firearm designer, but I’d assume there are good reasons to use brass.
There seems to be a recent development in this area https://www.ammoland.com/2016/05/first-new-technology-ammunition-cases-decades-shell-shock-technologies-llc/#axzz5603UA3OE
but I don’t know enough about the industry to evaluate whether this is a real improvement or marketing.
Minor quick research suggests steel casings are used and might even be more durable, but are apparently more cheaply made or might gum up the gun a bit? I dunno, something for someone with experience to comment on.
That linked thing sounds good, at least. I don’t know enough about it to really comment on whether it’s good or not.
One thing that occurs is that machining a steel (or maybe even brass) casing probably wouldn’t be that difficult if you had access to proper tools, say the kind of gear you’d find in an abandoned factory?
In fact, based on the technology level in the game, it might even be possible to have some sort of survivalist’s “auto-bullet-maker” which you pour gunpowder and scrap metal (and/or casings) into and get (crappy?) bullets out of. Handwavey, I know, but we might consider that there’s a limit to how complicated we should make things so they’re still accessible enough for the average person that doesn’t even know what casings and primers are.
Brass is used both because of its tensile strength and flexibility, allowing it to be reshaped easily (you have to resize the case to reload it) and because brass is softer than the steel used the make the barrel and chamber. Steel-cased ammo has to be coated in some kind of laquer, polymer, or sometimes softer metal coating (zinc is sometimes used) to make it useable in a firearm. This both keeps the case from sticking inside of the chamber and causing an ejection failure, as well as reduces damage from two steel parts rubbing against each other under high pressures. Even then, steel-cased ammo will degrade a firearm’s barrel more over time when compared to brass-cased ammo, and a lot of shooters don’t recommend using steel ammo for that reason, despite the fact it’s usually cheaper.
I think you’re grossly underestimating how complicated these things are to make.
No
No, I’m just saying if we went into, say, an abandoned factory that made bullets we could find a machine that could do it. Maybe hook it up to a vehicle or something for power and feed it some brass, let it sit and make casings for you.
It might be worth looking at for a mod, “Easy Reloading” or something. I’m of the mind that we should be careful not to overcomplicate things to the point that it’s just not worth doing anymore.
My cousin and I used an automated press to reload 9mm rounds. It’s similar to this one:
There is already a hand-press to reload ammo. Guys arguing about difficulty of producing new casings.