Weapon damage is out of balance.

[Asmageddon]

E.g. many meelee weapons outdamage law enforcement grade firearms, a handmade air gun with ammo made of smashed stones outdamages proper 9mm firearms, not to mention that nothing of that quality would in real life have the right to accurately shoot at 15m distance, and for the matter, neither do rifles made out of pipes, without a rifled barrel. Also, ammo capacity of >1 on guns made out of a single pipe, single spring, and two scrap metals?

In my opinion, all of those and much more necessitate a bit of rebalancing. Handmade guns need to be more material-costly, have higher damage/accuracy penalties, most cartridge types need some buffing, and melee weapons need some nerfing. Piercing and bashing damage are already differentiated between, so piercing damage of guns should always outdamage melee weapons, and instead, a NO_VITAL_POINTS flag on zombies or the like is needed, to reflect the fact that you can't kill them with a bullet to the heart/head.

[jokermatt999]

The newer homemade firearms are mine. I did my best on balancing them, but feel free to tweak as you see fit, recipes, damage, accuracy, etc.

However, this sounds like a total damage rebalance, which probably should be discussed more. Spec out some numbers?

[Asmageddon]

I'm not a firearm expert, and damage numbers should probably be, at least to an extent, relative to muzzle velocity and bullet mass. If they already are, then probably a % buff across the board would be in order. Additionally, even a slightly too big barrel would reduce accuracy by an extreme factor, I'm talking going from 300m range accuracy down to 30m or worse, due to the projectile tumbling in the barrel. Likewise, lack of rifling also reduces accuracy, even if the sizes are right.

As far as homemade firearms go, they seem for the most part fine, save for most of them IMO needing few more points of damage penalty, and much, much lower accuracy. From what I've checked so far, only the Pneumatic Assault Rifle seems entirely broken. The only way I could see it achieving the damage it achieves would be with properly shaped projectiles, and with a dedicated pump - no way a human can compress the air enough to shoot that far/accurately from a poorly fitting barrel, especially considering the fact that you cannot keep your aim steadied while pumping. In particular, I'm not sure how burst fire on it would ever work, or for that matter, how you would even give it an ammo capacity of 15.

All in all, I primarily wanted to point out that the numbers are IMO off, so people can discuss.

[ejseto]

But who would use them if they weren't better than real life, military grade firearms? >.>

You say "melee" but all your examples are makeshift ranged weapons. Do you mean both need rebalancing or just the Macguyver guns made out of sticks and stones? I agree that the makeshift guns need nerfs though. Why does the .308 pipe rifle have a 6 round magazine? It doesn't even contain a spring in its recipe. How is the ammunition loaded? What causes the hammer to strike the firing pin? From its ingredients it looks like it's supposed to be a zip-gun, not a self-loading rifle superior to commercial guns.

I'm pretty sure headshots are supposed to be fatal or near-fatal though. They have like an 8x damage multiplier.

[jokermatt999]

Again, feel free to nerf those as you see fit. I based the homemade guns off of military arms and then nerfed them, so if they need more down grading go ahead.

From the forums, the only ones I've heard being used are the Blunderbuss and .50 caliber rifle.

[KA101]

KA101 recalls the stopping-power problem which led to the M1911

Sometimes a melee weapon is more damaging than a firearm. It happens. Zeds can be dropped with headshots as that takes out quite a bit of the sensory and balance structures, forcing 'em down to rebuild.

You want a spring in the recipes, sure, that's reasonable, though the .50 is a cut-down M2 so it's already rifled and all that.

[kevingranade]

Just kind of a point of order here, please take super broad discussions to the forums. All issues should be things we can take some action to fix. "balance might be off maybe" isn't ever something we can call closed.

[Asmageddon]

That's a good point, though I suppose another failing of mine is that I sort-of put two things into this one ticket. First being how weak some guns are, second being how unreasonable the handmade firearms are. In that respect, even mentioning melee weapons was a mistake.

Well, I guess I could take a stab at rebalancing jokermatt's guns, but once I'm done with them, not a lot (of power) is going to be left. An idea that I am a huge fan of is being able to cut apart actual guns, and use their parts to make different/handcrafted firearms. E.g. welding an attachment rail onto your rifle, using a proper magazine, or a proper fully-auto or semi-auto mechanism. Honestly, as hard(nearly impossible) as full-auto weaponry is to make by hand, semi-auto is very far from trivial.

As far as relatively easy to make by hand mechanisms go, flintlock is quite easy, if requiring a bit of precision and unreliable in weather/action(as well as painfully slow to reload), bolt-action is trivial and quite powerful, but really slow to reload. Break-action is about as easy, though might require more durable parts, but is only usable for single/double/n-barrel weaponry, which is somewhat impractical for non-shotguns. Pepperbox revolvers are quite unwieldy, and a pain to reload, but essentially as good as a revolver while being really easy to make. Proper revolvers require significantly more precision for relatively little benefit - you can now use speedloaders, they can be holstered, they're lighter, but that's about it.

Now back to semi-auto and full-auto. They're both usually gas-operated, which requires industrial-level precision, certainly not something a survivor can muster, regardless of his or her equipment. It's possible to 3D print those with metal-based 3D printers, though you're making something vastly inferior to an industrially produced part. If someone(perhaps me) eventually implements reasonable(not OP, not worthless) 3D printers, I can certainly see that as being an option. Given the existence of the RepRap project, by 2040, we're likely to have open source schematics for 3D printers built completely from ground-up, which could probably be accessible to a character with high electronics/computers mastery and a recipe book. But back to the point - as it stands, the only way for a survivor to manufacture even a semi-auto firearm would be to use parts from existing firearms.

I guess either I, or someone else, will have to research a bit more about this, and come up with a reasonable gun disassembly/crafting model. I'm not sure I'm up to it(anxiety), but I'm willing to research and provide info for anyone who is, as well as assist in the endeavor. If no one is, I might get around to it eventually.

[jokermatt999]

If you do the research, I'll do the json. I did the homemade firearms mostly to fill gaps in being unable to use guns without scavenging. I'd be fine with seeing the totally from scrap guns getting nerfed heavily, and having adapted guns be more worthwhile.

Also worth mentioning, I have very little knowledge of firearms, so any info you can give me that we can translate into design/numbers is great. Thanks!

[Asmageddon]

I have knowledge about building firearms from the ground up, as I researched that out of curiosity a while ago, but my knowledge of military/law enforcement grade weaponry is much more limited. I don't know the muzzle velocities, or how the inner workings of gas-operated mechanisms look.

Also, two things I forgot to mention - pneumatic and electromagnetic firearms. Pneumatic firearms are extremely constrained by how big and weighty the gas/air canisters must be, and especially the fact that a human can't compress the air enough. You need a pump. Electromagnetic firearms are primarily constrained by power, which in Cataclysm is a much, much lesser issue, though I'm not sure if it's feasible for a survivor to make a particularly practical electromagnetic weapon.

Also, I feel like coding in a weapon/ammo failure rate could be fun. Weapons jamming is a real problem, especially with older firearms. Additionally, it could pave way to adding easily-made paper cartridges for arbitrary calibers, balanced out by their failure rates.

As for me, you can usually find me on IRC, under the nick of Llamageddon.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

Pneumatic firearms are extremely constrained by how big and weighty the gas/air canisters must be, and especially the fact that a human can't compress the air enough. You need a pump.

The Austrian military was using lethal pneumatic repeating rifles back in the late 1700s, which were light and quite easy to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_Air_Rifle

Also, I feel like coding in a weapon/ammo failure rate could be fun. Weapons jamming is a real problem, especially with older firearms. Additionally, it could pave way to adding easily-made paper cartridges for arbitrary calibers, balanced out by their failure rates.

There already is a system for this, for both failures on the part of the firearm itself as well as for ammunition.

[Asmageddon]

The Austrian military was using lethal pneumatic repeating rifles back in the late 1700s, which were light and quite easy to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_Air_Rifle

Wow, I had no idea that existed. It's fascinating. That said, the amount of time refilling the compressed air tank took is multiple orders of magnitude above how long it takes for the ingame pneumatic rifle, and projectile energy is not astonishing. I can't find accurate figures, but the stopping power seems to be around half that of an USP 9mm, whereas presently, bearings-loaded pneumatic rifle outdamages said firearm by a decent amount, and is capable of burst fire to boot.

The downside is that implementing pneumatic firearms properly would probably require multiple ammo types, non-item ammo(pressure), and probably a couple of other changes.

With that said, I probably should now go and read about pneumatic firearms, as well as other ranged weapons. I can't believe I never even heard of something as awesome as the Girandoni Air Rifle.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

There's times when the Rule of Fun has to prevail. Having to spend several in-game hours filling the gun's tank prior to use would result in a weapon that's less than useless.

[ejseto]

Rule of fun trumps realism, but consistency trumps rule of fun imo. Why even bother hunting for guns and ammo if you can make something better out of sticks and scrap? At the very LEAST the recipes should be modified to have more realistic requirements.

Wow, I had no idea that existed. It's fascinating.

You can buy something similar at any sporting goods store. It's called a BB gun. You could obviously make it more lethal by increasing the caliber and pressure, but that's not going to happen without a corresponding increase in stored energy that has to come from somewhere. If hand-pumping to a realistic degree isn't any fun, at least require a motor in the recipe, and batteries to power it.

[DavidKeaton]

Airsoft guns would be a good addition, at the very least to provide the parts you could disassemble and upgrade into pneumatic guns.

[kevingranade]

I'm not sure why realistic pumping times for pneumatic guns is un-fun, it just renders them incapable of being reloaded in combat. The player input to do a reload is the same no matter how long it takes in-game. Anyway, as pointed out, this isn't an issue but a discussion, because it can never be considered 'fixed', so it needs to be closed.

[funkmachine8090]

Pneumatic guns should really be used to fill a few niche uses I.E. a potato cannon thats loaded with pipe bombs or rocks.

But in general homemade guns should be limited to simple zip guns and crude open bolt blowback operated submachine guns.

[Asmageddon]

Tbh, an air-operated semi-auto firearm is not exactly out of reach of a survivor, it would just be really, really shitty, and hard to manufacture. I honestly think that handmade firearms should be split up into a very primitive group, a slightly more advanced(bolt-action, pepper-box, break-open double barrel depending on caliber), and a group made of cut apart existing guns.

As far as pneumatic firearms go, you do raise a good point. A pneumatic launcher is by all means doable, and truthfully more realistic than a rifle. And personally I still think that we need to revisit the coilguns a bit more. With futuretech I'd go as far as make an electromagnetic attachment that raises gun damage by a flat amount.

[kevingranade]

It's a little hard to accelerate a mostly lead projectile with an electromagnet, no matter how futurey.

[funkmachine8090]

I like the idea of those groups, it lets us have the crappy single shot pistols and rifles made from a bit of pipe, And have some better guns.

I think that something like the Northover Projector would be a likey heavy weapon for a survivor to make, it's really simple and used black powder.

[Asmageddon]

Lead is easy to melt down into bullets, but we have nails, bearings, and at least as of the moment, there exists a plenty of craftable,quite precise, steel components.

[Asmageddon]

And speaking of black powder, I'm pretty sure that the craftable gunpowder propellant is at least half a notch under industrially manufactured ammo, though truthfully that distinction might very well not be really worth making.

[DavidKeaton]

I would agree that at the very least a numbers re-balance would be lovely.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

We've already got hand-reloaded ammunition that's inferior to the industrially produced stuff.

[jokermatt999]

I would like a method of handloading that didn't require scavenging empty cartridges/shells. I looked to see how feasible making them by hand was, but mostly saw responses of "don't do that". Knowledgeable folks want to comment?

[kevingranade]

The most specific and informed comment I've seen on the subject was along the lines of, 'a shell casing requires 15 steps and 5 distinct industrial processes to create'. In other words very much not something a survivor would be able to replicate.

[Asmageddon]

Strictly speaking, non-gas-operated firearms that use cartridges with centerfire primers should /for the most part/ be loadable with paper cartridges. That said, most of the time that would be a bad idea. An issue is that you still need primers, though.Oh yeah, while they usually go together, magazines also don't play well with paper cartridges. Revolvers, break-open action, bolt action, pepperbox(ancient, probably only usable for handmade arms), etc. are candidates.On said note, most of those that are loadable with paper cartridges can be chambered with brass ones, so tbh, finding paper cartridges around is a bit silly. Even if a weapon originally used them, unless it's intrinsically unfriendly to cartridge extraction, brass cartridges are just better.

[DavidKeaton]

Not to mention paper cartridges + bad weather = bad news.

[kevingranade]

Paper cartridges slipped my mind, that's an option in some cases. Also agree that you'd pretty much never encounter them in the modern world, perhaps other survivors would have them though.

[KA101]

paper cartridges

They're currently in-game for the muzzleloaders and 1800s guns, IIRC.

[jokermatt999]

They could be craftable, no? Also, if someone were to make a huge 2x2 machine shop special with the proper equipment (that required to be hooked up to power), would that allow some more precision machining, such as crafting casings or proper firearms (but still not stuff like full grade power armor)? Ideally, I'd like it to require getting a power grid online or feeding a large generator to power, but I want to know if it's worth coding before starting in on it.

[KA101]

Folks: forums, please.