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