Flintlock Weapons?

[BattleReadyEagle]

So, I was thinking about what the maximum of technological advancement in the late game could be for weapons and I thought about this: flintlock weapons. If this idea was already suggested and/or was already planned/shot down, then I'm sorry. I haven't seen it before.

Anyhow, I think it would be cool if we could make simple gunpowder weapons like these.

Pros:

A) Does the most damage out of any weapon type in the game.
B) Is the most accurate out of any weapon type in the game.
C) Has the greatest range out of any weapon type in the game.
D) Customizable, but maybe only for certain classes like the Tinkerer. Such as crafting different barrel types to increase one of the A, B, and C aspects, but decreases the effectiveness of the other two. Maybe even be able to engrave or create decorative features for it?

Cons:

A) Quite expensive (either material wise, time wise, or both) to craft (both weapon itself and ammunition)
B) Slow to reload (you have to put dry gunpowder, wadding, shot/lead ball (maybe other types of ammo for certain classes?), and then use a ramrod to pact it before it can be fired again (maybe not EVERYTHING manual, but you get the idea)
C) If you are not a Tinkerer, and you put too much gunpowder, wadding, shot/lead balls in, the weapon will misfire and either do nothing, damage it, or just straight up blow up in your face (in that case, the weapon is destroyed and you take some nasty damage (possibly even outright die)). Put too little of those things and it either won't do anything or simply be ineffective/inefficient and won't do as much (if barely any) damage compared to when it's reloaded properly.

I think that certain classes like the Tinkerer and Blacksmith could have access to special types or variations of flintlock weapons. As mentioned in one of the points, these two classes, but specifically the Tinkerer, may also have access to special ammo types. For instance, a net/bola-type ammo where it makes it easy to capture or restrain any creature you hit with it. Unlike the other classes, maybe the Tinkerer gets a crude version of this technology much earlier in the game. There could be even a new class such as "Marksman" or "Weapons Specialist" instead of the Tinkerer having these things.

In any case, what do you guys think? I think it would be a fun end-game weapon(s) to craft. Even if there's major draw-backs to them to make you not rely on them, I think it would be a cool and fun weapon option. Plus, I think it fits the theme pretty well with the whole steam-punk-eldritch-horror stuff going on. Also, if anything, this could be a great mod idea if it's not something that's ever going to be in the base game. Any modders out there who want to use this idea, then feel free! 

Edited January 6 by BattleReadyEagle

[Entaris]

Combat Overhaul's author already has gun mod.

[BattleReadyEagle]

12 minutes ago, Entaris said:

Combat Overhaul's author already has gun mod.

Ah! I just checked the mods page and there's indeed a firearms mod with flintlock weapons already. Neat! It still would be cool if something like this was part of the vanilla experience though. Definitely want to check out his version of the weapons sometime though.

[LadyWYT]

13 hours ago, BattleReadyEagle said:

In any case, what do you guys think? I think it would be a fun end-game weapon(s) to craft. Even if there's major draw-backs to them to make you not rely on them, I think it would be a cool and fun weapon option. Plus, I think it fits the theme pretty well with the whole steam-punk-eldritch-horror stuff going on. Also, if anything, this could be a great mod idea if it's not something that's ever going to be in the base game. Any modders out there who want to use this idea, then feel free! 

https://mods.vintagestory.at/firearms

Honestly I'd rather see a Jonas tech contraption rather than something like this. The tech level for the game is the late Middle Ages, and while guns did exist at this time they were more simple "boomsticks" in the most literal sense than what we tend to think of as a firearm. That is, you're more likely to get a matchlock firearm at best, rather than a flintlock, and matchlocks are a lot more susceptible to moisture problems.

I will also note that balancing firearms is a challenge. The average player is going to see a firearm, and expect it to be this incredibly powerful weapon that almost one-shots enemies and doesn't take much skill to aim. Early firearms, however, were laughably underpowered, wildly inaccurate, and slow to reload in addition to being expensive to make. The main advantage that early firearms offered was that it was much easier and cheaper to train a soldier to use a firearm, than it was to train up an experienced archer.

Fun novelty weapon? Certainly, but it's also why I'd rather see some fanciful Jonas thing. Realistic? No, but in that case you can have a late game weapon that is as powerful as expected, with the crafting/maintenance cost being rather expensive in order to balance that kind of power.

[williams_482]

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I will also note that balancing firearms is a challenge. The average player is going to see a firearm, and expect it to be this incredibly powerful weapon that almost one-shots enemies and doesn't take much skill to aim. Early firearms, however, were laughably underpowered, wildly inaccurate, and slow to reload in addition to being expensive to make. The main advantage that early firearms offered was that it was much easier and cheaper to train a soldier to use a firearm, than it was to train up an experienced archer.

This is a bit of a digression, but even an "underpowered" primitive firearm was pretty near unrivaled in it's time for pure killing power if it managed to hit somebody. Most people have an exaggerated sense of how lethal and unstoppable arrows are from movies (which themselves are mostly porting tropes of gunpowder warfare to more primitive tech), which makes it harder to understand why anyone would bother with the oldest, clumsiest, hardest to use personal firearms. It definitely wasn't ease of use for minimally trained and disposable soldiers: crossbows were cheaper to build, easier to use, and much more reliable. That's assuming you needed ranged troops, and thus didn't want to turn to the old standby of giving them a twenty foot long pointed stick and training them to move in formation with it. 

A great archer can shoot a lot faster than that musketman, and under certain conditions might be more accurate, but his effectiveness and that of his fellows is coming from volume. Arrows could, did, and still can kill people, but against armored soldiers any given arrow was much more likely to go glancing harmlessly off a piece of steel plate. Those that did bite flesh were much more likely to do superficial damage than to disable or kill. The lethal effect of English longbowmen at battles like Agincourt was because they put so many arrows on their targets, from many different angles, that many lucky hits were inevitably scored through small cracks in armor. And putting that many arrows on target required time, which required some combination of clever planning and favorable battlefield circumstances. 

Some historians have argued that in most cases the value of archers on a battlefield was psychological: a sustained bombardment of projectiles which mostly don't hit anything, and when they do mostly don't hurt, and when they do mostly don't do real damage, and when they do mostly don't kill, is still a painful, miserable, and deeply unnerving experience. In a battlefield situation where everybody is under tremendous strain and yet sill required to keep firm and follow orders, that sort of psychological effect can easily be decisive. 

No, the reason you bother arming your troops with clumsy, heavy, slow-firing, not very accurate, weather-affected, occasionally explosive matchlock arquebuses is that they're incredibly good at punching through nearly any practical personal protection and delivering an incapacitating blow. Steel plates which will reliably stop an arrow can be punctured by an arquebus, and things like mail or a heavy quilted shirt which offered very meaningful protection against muscle powered weapons were totally useless against them. 

For a bonus, they replace the arrow swarm's slow, grinding psychological impact with something much simpler: these things are very loud and make scary clouds of smoke and if one does happen hit you, you're probably dead no matter what you're wearing or doing. 

If Vintage story were to add firearms, they should be expensive. They should be complicated to use. They should be slow to reload, and they at the very least shouldn't be much more accurate than bows and spears (although they should be easier to aim, because the projectiles will travel so much faster and drop is less relevant). But they should also do a whole shitload of damage if they do manage to hit a target. 

[Entaris]

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

snip, something about bows

Also, the bodkin

[Tabbot95]

On 1/6/2026 at 1:23 PM, LadyWYT said:

https://mods.vintagestory.at/firearms

Honestly I'd rather see a Jonas tech contraption rather than something like this. The tech level for the game is the late Middle Ages, and while guns did exist at this time they were more simple "boomsticks" in the most literal sense than what we tend to think of as a firearm. That is, you're more likely to get a matchlock firearm at best, rather than a flintlock, and matchlocks are a lot more susceptible to moisture problems.

I will also note that balancing firearms is a challenge. The average player is going to see a firearm, and expect it to be this incredibly powerful weapon that almost one-shots enemies and doesn't take much skill to aim. Early firearms, however, were laughably underpowered, wildly inaccurate, and slow to reload in addition to being expensive to make. The main advantage that early firearms offered was that it was much easier and cheaper to train a soldier to use a firearm, than it was to train up an experienced archer.

Fun novelty weapon? Certainly, but it's also why I'd rather see some fanciful Jonas thing. Realistic? No, but in that case you can have a late game weapon that is as powerful as expected, with the crafting/maintenance cost being rather expensive in order to balance that kind of power.

the cost of guns would be mostly down to the level of infrastructure necessary to produce and maintain them.. any variety of flintlock or wheellock will required carefully tempered spring steel whereas a matchlock will be a simpler affair but one that has a burning matchcord.

On 1/6/2026 at 9:16 PM, williams_482 said:

No, the reason you bother arming your troops with clumsy, heavy, slow-firing, not very accurate, weather-affected, occasionally explosive matchlock arquebuses is that they're incredibly good at punching through nearly any practical personal protection and delivering an incapacitating blow. Steel plates which will reliably stop an arrow can be punctured by an arquebus, and things like mail or a heavy quilted shirt which offered very meaningful protection against muscle powered weapons were totally useless against them. 

 

bows and crossbows are also quite effected by weather and humidity (the latter being the reason composite bows had a hard time taking off in humid Europe).. I think it was Agincourt where Italian Crossbowmen had their bowstrings so negatively effected by a torrent of rain (crossbows are not easily unstrung like longbows are) that said crossbows were made useless. so when the french heavy cavalry got stuck in the mud the english found it a turkey shoot without much in the way of return fire.

however bows, and longbows especially require a not insignificant amount of logistics in themselves.. arrows are not merely sticks, they are sticks with a lot of work put into them.. moreover longbows especially require a lifetime of training to physically use for any extended period of time.. a crossbow or a gun are much much simpler to train on because they're physically less demanding.. recurve and compsite/etc bows are also physically demanding though that's often because guys like the turks, persians, mongols, etc. were using them as part of a system of mounted archery.

 

Cannons Would be cool though, but like after carts and wheelbarrows and wagons

Edited April 21 by Tabbot95

[Broccoli Clock]

Anachronous, that's the problem. 

VS is set in the 1300s, flintlocks were not invented (or at least widely accepted) until the mid to late 1600's.

Cannons, sort of, as you can probably guess history is more a set of shades of grey (no, not in that way!) than it is black and white. Technically cannons did exist in the 1300s, but they were a very new invention and were pretty much restricted to Yuan dynasty China. Just for reference the earliest record of a cannon goes back to this image..

Which was what they called a fire lance, as it had originated from a bamboo tube stuffed with gunpowder. The first recorded use of cannons on a "Western-centric" battlefield, was during the Battle of Crècy in 1346, under Edward 3rd.

So yeah, imo... cannons, but not flintlocks, but pretty basic cannons.

 

Not that I have an issue with them being a mod, although for me introducing something like this "lessens the style of game" it is, but that's personal opinion and you shouldn't stop using such a mod just because some random on the Internet (ie: me) has a historically technical problem with them.

Edited April 21 by Broccoli Clock

[Emeal]

On 1/6/2026 at 7:23 PM, LadyWYT said:

Honestly I'd rather see a Jonas tech contraption rather than something like this. The tech level for the game is the late Middle Ages, and while guns did exist at this time they were more simple "boomsticks" in the most literal sense than what we tend to think of as a firearm. That is, you're more likely to get a matchlock firearm at best, rather than a flintlock, and matchlocks are a lot more susceptible to moisture problems.

I second this, It would be cool if a late game Story Location enabled you to make one.

Something that costs like a temporal hear for 6 shots and it just instantly sends any drifter home.

[Slam]

On 1/5/2026 at 10:58 PM, BattleReadyEagle said:

So, I was thinking about what the maximum of technological advancement in the late game could be for weapons and I thought about this: flintlock weapons. If this idea was already suggested and/or was already planned/shot down, then I'm sorry. I haven't seen it before.

Anyhow, I think it would be cool if we could make simple gunpowder weapons like these.

Pros:

A) Does the most damage out of any weapon type in the game.
B) Is the most accurate out of any weapon type in the game.
C) Has the greatest range out of any weapon type in the game.
D) Customizable, but maybe only for certain classes like the Tinkerer. Such as crafting different barrel types to increase one of the A, B, and C aspects, but decreases the effectiveness of the other two. Maybe even be able to engrave or create decorative features for it?

Cons:

A) Quite expensive (either material wise, time wise, or both) to craft (both weapon itself and ammunition)
B) Slow to reload (you have to put dry gunpowder, wadding, shot/lead ball (maybe other types of ammo for certain classes?), and then use a ramrod to pact it before it can be fired again (maybe not EVERYTHING manual, but you get the idea)
C) If you are not a Tinkerer, and you put too much gunpowder, wadding, shot/lead balls in, the weapon will misfire and either do nothing, damage it, or just straight up blow up in your face (in that case, the weapon is destroyed and you take some nasty damage (possibly even outright die)). Put too little of those things and it either won't do anything or simply be ineffective/inefficient and won't do as much (if barely any) damage compared to when it's reloaded properly.

I think that certain classes like the Tinkerer and Blacksmith could have access to special types or variations of flintlock weapons. As mentioned in one of the points, these two classes, but specifically the Tinkerer, may also have access to special ammo types. For instance, a net/bola-type ammo where it makes it easy to capture or restrain any creature you hit with it. Unlike the other classes, maybe the Tinkerer gets a crude version of this technology much earlier in the game. There could be even a new class such as "Marksman" or "Weapons Specialist" instead of the Tinkerer having these things.

In any case, what do you guys think? I think it would be a fun end-game weapon(s) to craft. Even if there's major draw-backs to them to make you not rely on them, I think it would be a cool and fun weapon option. Plus, I think it fits the theme pretty well with the whole steam-punk-eldritch-horror stuff going on. Also, if anything, this could be a great mod idea if it's not something that's ever going to be in the base game. Any modders out there who want to use this idea, then feel free! 

A gun would probably me more of alternate, rather then upgrade. It’s just a tube with some strips and nail. Not expensive, and guns back then were very inaccurate, it would be more of a quick pull out broomstick, rather then a bow replacement.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Tabbot95 said:

I think it was Agincourt where Italian Crossbowmen had their bowstrings so negatively effected by a torrent of rain (crossbows are not easily unstrung like longbows are) that said crossbows were made useless. so when the french heavy cavalry got stuck in the mud the english found it a turkey shoot without much in the way of return fire.

Agincourt was where the English beat up the French in the Hundred Years' War. It's where a lot of people get the misconception, I think, that the long bow beats armor with ease. The longbow is by no means a weak weapon, but part of what aided the English victory here was the fact that the weather had turned the battlefield into a muddy mess, so the typical cavalry charge wasn't nearly as effective as usual.

You're probably thinking of the battle of Crécy, with the Genoese mercenaries...which ironically, lost in part due to mismanagement by the French nobility that hired them.

2 hours ago, Emeal said:

I second this, It would be cool if a late game Story Location enabled you to make one.

Something that costs like a temporal hear for 6 shots and it just instantly sends any drifter home.

That's probably still too strong, even for a very late-game item. Killing lower tier enemies in a single shot is one thing, but I do think the higher tiers should remain relatively dangerous throughout the game.

 

2 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Anachronous, that's the problem. 

VS is set in the 1300s, flintlocks were not invented (or at least widely accepted) until the mid to late 1600's.

Cannons, sort of, as you can probably guess history is more a set of shades of grey (no, not in that way!) than it is black and white. Technically cannons did exist in the 1300s, but they were a very new invention and were pretty much restricted to Yuan dynasty China. Just for reference the earliest record of a cannon goes back to this image..

Pretty much, though I wouldn't mind a version of the Basilica cannon. Granted, that particular cannon came a bit late for the time period the game is set in, but...a huge cannon that does a lot of damage to whatever it hits(who said it was accurate), is difficult to move, very slow to fire, and expensive to make and use...

I dunno, it probably wouldn't be added, but it would be a fun toy if it was. Ineffective for most gameplay, but probably a beast for intimidation in PvP circumstances, and interesting to play with when trying to set up a monster kill box or something.

[BattleReadyEagle]

On 1/6/2026 at 12:23 PM, LadyWYT said:

https://mods.vintagestory.at/firearms

Honestly I'd rather see a Jonas tech contraption rather than something like this. The tech level for the game is the late Middle Ages, and while guns did exist at this time they were more simple "boomsticks" in the most literal sense than what we tend to think of as a firearm. That is, you're more likely to get a matchlock firearm at best, rather than a flintlock, and matchlocks are a lot more susceptible to moisture problems.

I frankly wasn't sure as to where the tech level that the devs wanted to stop at, so that's why I suggested something like flintlock weapons because I read somewhere about the POSSIBILITY of steam tech being the eventual stopping point. However, they very much may just stick to more medieval times instead.

So, if that's the case, then I think having literal "boomsticks" would be better! The idea behind what I was suggesting wasn't to eventually replace the bow and spear anyways! I was just thinking about a way to have a late game In-case-of-an-emergency-break-glass kind of item that could one-shot a high-tier enemy IF it hits it directly within point-blank range (basically, if you're trapped and about to die, you whip out your boomstick and hope to escape afterwards). Since the "boomstick" is expensive to make and reload (as well as a hassle to do so), your bow and spear are always going to be your go-to.

In any case, I actually like the idea some sort of temporal tech contraption that fits this niche more anyways! Like, you have to use a certain number of temporal gears and it'll yeet the enemy you are aiming at back into the Rust Dimension or something. Anywho, I think having a unique late-game contraption, that's expensive to use or you can only use it a certain number of times before having to make a new one, for dealing with high-tier enemies, would be the ideal solution.

Edited May 31 by BattleReadyEagle
Fixed spelling error and made an addition

[MKMoose]

On 4/21/2026 at 2:44 PM, Broccoli Clock said:

Anachronous, that's the problem. 

VS is set in the 1300s, flintlocks were not invented (or at least widely accepted) until the mid to late 1600's.

I was mostly in agreement with this a month ago, but as I've been looking into the features we have in VS, I've been increasingly disliking most arguments about anachronism. Restricting some features is naturally necessary to keep the game somewhat cohesive, but there is already quite the number of features that realistically have appeared around the time where firearms became common or even later, for example:

• bone meal, which wasn't really a recognized thing until the 17th century if I recall correctly,
• complete suits of plate armor, which only properly appeared in the 15th century,
• the cementation furnace, which comes from the late 16th century at the earliest,
• chromium tanning, discovered in the 19th century (this one really kind of baffles me).

If we were to also consider planned features - most notably rail transport (roughly 16th century or later, though initially only on wooden rails, whereas iron rails apparently come from the early 18th century and steel rails were first produced in 1857) and the atmospheric engine (invented in 1712), mentioned by Tyron as the highest tier that VS may reach (steam engines more generally starting from around the 16th century but initially simple and inefficient) - then it's easy to get the impression that the target endgame time period seems to be around the 16th century or later, which would make it possible to introduce flintlock firearms with little to no concern about anachronism.

And that's the flintlock, whereas earlier forms of firearms appeared in Europe at least in the 14th century, or in China as early as the 10th century.

[BattleReadyEagle]

39 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

If we were to also consider planned features - most notably rail transport (roughly 16th century or later, though initially only on wooden rails, whereas iron rails apparently come from the early 18th century and steel rails were first produced in 1857) and the atmospheric engine (invented in 1712), mentioned by Tyron as the highest tier that VS may reach (steam engines more generally starting from around the 16th century but initially simple and inefficient) - then it's easy to get the impression that the target endgame time period seems to be around the 16th century or later, which would make it possible to introduce flintlock firearms with little to no concern about anachronism.

I KNEW I wasn't going crazy when I was thinking that the devs could implement steam tech as a final stage of technology! It's why I thought of Flintlocks to begin with. Thank you for the confirmation!

Edited May 31 by BattleReadyEagle
Corrected wording

[DeanF]

I was pretty opposed to firearms in the game.  But then I watched some videos where players used the firearms mod that basically added smoothbore muzzle-loaders and I had to admit... it didn't seem discordant.  It still seemed primitive.  And heck, we have bombs already.  So I guess that now I wouldn't object, especially if reload times were appropriately long.

 

On 1/6/2026 at 11:23 AM, LadyWYT said:

Early firearms, however, were laughably underpowered, wildly inaccurate, and slow to reload in addition to being expensive to make.

 

Meh, those are all debatable.

Early muskets were practically small cannons.  .75 caliber was typical.  And no, muzzle velocity wasn't particularly high compared to a modern rifle, but it was still supersonic and that's a big chunk of lead.  You're thinking of things like the little .36 pocket pistols that ladies carried in their muffs when you say underpowered.  But muskets ended the age of the plate-armored knight, for heaven's sake!  Yes you could make musket-proof plate, but that was so heavy that they eventually only made them as cuirass rather than full suits.

And early firearms like matchlocks were certainly cheaper than swords- by a huge margin, actually.  But not cheaper than common soldiers' weapons like pikes or other polearms.  So that's a bit relative.

Accuracy, again, is relative.  No, smoothbores are not accurate by modern rifle standards, but nonetheless more accurate than most people think, especially when carefully loaded.  That's why commanders tended to save the first volley- "Don't fire until you can see the whites of their eyes!", and so on.  I won't get into it, but they lose accuracy mostly during rapid fire.  Which is what militaries cared about, so their bullet tolerances were loose so that they could be reloaded faster, for instance.  But a tightly-fitted smoothbore ball could be pretty accurate.  At least as much so as a bow or crossbow.  Here are videos of someone shooting a smoothbore and ringing the target like a bell, center of mass hits every time:
 

Seriously- when you see the target later in the video he had three shots stacked on top of each other.

If you are unfamiliar with Karl Kasarda, he's one of the more academic GunTubers.  (As opposed to the hairy-chested GunTubers.)  He is one of very few that I'm willing to watch any more, along with his old partner Ian McCollum.

And here is a relative firearms novice (see his awkward stance) doing the same:
 

You got the big advantage right, though- it was a hell of a lot easier to train a musketeer than an archer.  Especially at long ranges their trajectory is much more flat.  "To train an archer, begin by training his grandfather."  But firearms are better in many ways.  There is a reason that every culture that was ever introduced to them came to prefer them over their other historical weapons.  Yes, even the Japanese.

Edited June 1 by DeanF