Firearms+more mod Ideas I've been thinking about

[Forest Witch Reyna]

So I've been thinking about some mod ideas i'd like to implement, figured I'd post here to get some feedback, see what everybody thinks. So essentially it revolves around basic firearms, ie) matchlock muskets to flintlock rifles, as well as a lot of supporting stuff, like nitre beds, boring machine, smoke bombs etc. I plan to add a fair bit of compatibility with some of my favourite mods, like using dung from farm life for the nitre bed and asphyxia support for smoke bombs. A bunch of features or in depth crafting processes won't be in the inital release, as at the moment I just have no idea how feasible some of this is.

Nitre Bed

Brief Breakdown-

Make a clay plate flooring, up to 2x7, mix ash, straw, sticks, dirt, and rot/dung, layer it onto the clay up to 2 blocks high, leave it for 2-6 ingame months depends on how I want to balance it, dig it up, then shove it in a barrel with water.

Full Explanation-

Spoiler

So the Nitre Pit, a nitre pit is a primitive way of gathering potassium nitrate or saltpetre. This will be a slow but renewable way of getting saltpetre for making black powder and slow matches. I intent to use the pit kiln system as a basis for this, so for this you would use clay to make a compacted clay flooring through clayforming, this is used to line the bottom of the bed, then craft (dung if you have Farm Life installed) rot with straw, sticks, medium fertility dirt and ash (ash you'll get initially by cooking logs/firewood but I may dabble with the campfire stuff so you naturally get ash as a byproduct when using a campfire, or just add a separate object specifically for it) to make organic matter and then layer this on the clay flooring up to two blocks high (dimension limits will probably be around 2x7x2) with airblocks surrounding the heap.

After a certain amount of time, (IRL this process takes about 6-8 months where you gradually remove layers of nitrified earth, but I might balance it to around 2-6 in game months and just dig the whole thing up) it will have finished ripening, I'll mark this with a white top layer and white pixels through out. This will give you nitrified earth, and because I can't be bothered coding some sort of extensive leaching and purification system on top of this just for saltpetre, I'll make it so you just mix it with water in a barrel and seal it which will then give you saltpetre.

Firearms

As these will all be using black powder I intend to add fairly decent amount of smoke particles on firing, partly for immersion, partly for multiplayer balancing to make players noticable. Additionally I may add Apshyxia support so you can't just spam weapons in a closed room.

Handheld-
 

Spoiler

Will include a matchlock musket, slow to reload and fairly innacurate, can be made from bronze but will have a much lower durability if you do, maybe a rifled variant with longer reload and more accuracy. Potential Item lights integration so you're visible at night. I would like to slow match mechanics to it, so you have to keep it dry/relight it if goes out, but definitely a further down the road thing.

Breech loading flintlock rifle, faster to reload and much more accurate, needs steel to make, use a boring machine to rifle the barrel, maybe add a flint replacement mechanism, but also a further down the road issue.

Ammo will be paper cartrige containing ball and shot, so papyrus+blasting powder+ lead ball. Might make either a dedicated black powder recipe using charcoal, or just add charcoal to be usable in blasting powder. Lead balls can be made with a mold.

Cannons- (These will be later additions, as I'd have to figure how to actually move and aim a big arse stationary cannon and more aimed for multiplayer rather than single player anyhow)
 

Spoiler

Primitive log cannon- craft a few logs together to make the base, put it on the boring machine to hollow it out (larger bore head than for rifles), then reinforce it with copper/bronze fittings. Exceptionally low durability, 1-5 shots before bursting and damaging nearby entities.

Bronze cannon, can be cast, much higher durability and accuracy

Loaded with large black powder charges followed by the projectile, ignited via slow match.

Possibly multiple ammo types, so standard lead ball, can be recovered either as an item drop or as an in world object, carved stone ball for less range and damage but break on impact, grapeshot for wide range entity damage. Possibly add ability to fire smoke bombs and explosives/incendiaries.

Smoke Bombs-
 

Spoiler

Rather than being actual bombs, these will be ceramic containers containing saltpetre and charcoal (they actually usually use sugar but there's no sugar in the game, can use phosphor if you have more metals installed), that can be ignited by slow match or Primitve survival fuses. They will burn for around an in game hour releasing lots of smoke. They can be coloured using dyes, as well as using blasting powder to make an explosive smoke bomb for a wide area burst of smoke instead of slow release.

Smoke bombs can be used to scare away animals, signal/confuse other players, choke players if asphyxia is enabled and possibly to hide from drifters, I'll have to actually look at how player tracking works for them.

Bits and Bobs-

Slow Match- You make this by soaking twine in a barrel with water and saltpetre, primarily used for igniting stuff and making matchlocks. I intend to have it be placeable like Primirtive survival fuses, but much slower burning.

Boring Machine- This is a mechanical device for making rifled barrels and carving out the log cannon with different bit sizes. Mechanically powered, maybe have a much slower manual option.

Quick Ignite Torches- Just some torches treated with charcoal dust, these will can be quickly ignited as well as connected to fuses and slow match to light them. Purely because I want to be able to light up an entire cave system after coming back after a while by just igniting a fuse.

[Gerste]

Not sure if you already did but you should totally have a look at Zarkonnens Ranged Weapons mod. If I am not mistaken he is no longer actively working on the project, but it is released under open source license and might be the ideal starting point/ base for  what you are trying to achieve. He already had working muskets and crossbows I think so maybe it would be a good quick start for you if you used his work as a base.

Btw I am pretty sure that you actually are talking about a drill when you write "boring machine". 

[Forest Witch Reyna]

Yeah Zarkonnens was the inspiration for the mod ideas, I liked having a primitve firearm but I'd been having issues with the gammaweapon pack that caused crashes whenever I shot something with an arrow.

Kind of, drilling is making the hole, boring is widening the hole, and I wrote most of this with the intention of using said machine to rifle a barrel, honestly the log cannon was more of an after thought, so technically for the log cannon it would be using a drill bit and for rifling you would use a smaller boring bit.

[RobinHood]

We have allready bows, but what about a new type of arrow, an fire-arrow, it can even cause a wildfire via far distance ... 

Edited June 9, 2022 by RobinHood