A balanced and (somewhat) realistic way of adding firearms to the game

[MR_rondini]

I am aware that the devs have stated they won't add firearms to the game, however, in case they change their mind, I think i've found a good way of implementing them. To keep it balanced and in the late medieval/early industrial theme of the game, I believe there should be only muzzle loaders and their variants, but first let's take a look at the crafting materials:

Crafting materials:

• Stock: made by placing a hammer, chisel and 4 logs in a horizontal L shape on the crafting spot. For variation, each type of log results in a different color of stock (not really necessary but it would be cool).
• Hammer: Made from an iron ingot, either on an anvil or through crafting (dev's choice). Used to make the flintlock.
• Flintlock: hammer + flint. Used to fire the gun
• Barrel: Made from 2 ingots (Bronze, iron or steel. More on that on the guns), either on an anvil or through crafting (dev's choice). Better materials increases the durability of the gun.
• Short barrel: saw + barrel = 2 short barrels
• Rifled barrel: barrel + rifling tool/machine
• Trigger mechanism: Made from an iron ingot, either on an anvil or through crafting (dev's choice).
• Lead ball: the basic ammo type, combined with blasting powder and linen, fires a single shot out of the gun. 16 can be made from casting 100 lead units into a bullet mold (made from clay, like the other molds.
• Ramshot (buckshot irl): Made from hammer, chisel and a lead ball (not realistic i know, but pratical for the game). Combined with blasting powder and linen, fires 4 shots out of the gun in a small spread. Used for dealing more damage at a short distance.
• Foxshot (birdshot irl): Made from hammer, chisel and ramshot (not realistic i know, but pratical for the game). Combined with blasting powder and linen, fires 16 or 24 (dev preference) shots out of the gun in a large spread. Used to increase the chance of hitting small animals at a short distance (a quarter of the shots should be enough to one shot a rabbit or a raccoon).

Flintlock + stock + trigger mechanism + barrel = gun. The type of barrel determines the type of gun, which results in 3 types:

Blunderbuss (image for reference):

• Crafted from using a short barrel made of either bronze, iron or steel. The abillity to fire all 3 ammo types combined with the fastest reload rate (irl this type of gun is easier to reload due to the short trumpet shaped barrel) makes this the most pratical gun at the cost of range.
• Reload time: 20 seconds. (subject to change)
• Accuracy: Spread 1 block wide at 3, 7 and 10 meters of distance for foxshot, ramshot and leadball respectivaly. (subject to change)

Smoothbore musket (Gun for reference ):

• Crafted from using a barrel made of either iron or steel. It's a middle ground between the other 2 types by being able to shoot ramshot and have more range than the blunderbuss.
• Reload time: 25 seconds. (subject to change)
• Accuracy: Spread 1 block wide at 10 and 20 meters of distance for ramshot and leadball respectivaly. (subject to change)

Rifled Musket (Gun for reference):

• Crafted from using a rifled barrel made of steel. It's the best gun for long range shooting at the cost of reload rate (the rifling makes the gun harder to load) and durability (this gun should have less durability than the other two made from steel, since rifled barrels wear faster than smoothbore ones). Shoots only lead ball ammo.
• Reload time: 30 seconds. (subject to change)
• Accuracy: Spread 1 block wide at 50 meters of distance. (subject to change)

With these 3 types, there is a progression of technology while still making all of them useful in the late game. The long reload rate and high cost makes it so that bows and javelins aren't irrelevant as ranged weapons, but the high damage makes them a good option.

These items and mechanics should be enough to make firearms an interesting addition to the game. There is another thing that I don't think is necessary, but it could be an interesting addition:

Cleaning:

Blackpowder firearms produce a lot of fouling, to the point where the barrel becomes so thight it's impossible to load the gun, as a result they require frequent cleaning. This could be implemented as secondary durability stat which prevents you from reloading the gun if goes down to 0, that stat can be reset by "cleaning" the gun with a stick (or a cleaning rod), linen and 1L of water on the crafting spot. Not only this adds realism, it also further balances the 3 guns by making the "higher tier" ones require more frequent cleaning (IRL smoothbore muskets are less affected by fouling, allowing for more shots before needing to clean the gun).

With all of this said, since we already have gunpowder and explosives, I believe that by making them a high damage-low rate of fire weapons that are only available in the late game, this could be a good addition to the game without making it too out of place in the game. If this is still rejected by the devs, feel free to copy this for your own mod, I don't have the time (or patience) to add this to the game myself.

[Streetwind]

I've said my piece on firearms in other suggestion threads already (this should be a mod yada yada) so I'll just focus on one thing here: there's a potential imbalance in your suggestion.

If a quarter of the shots of a foxshot blast should be enough to one-shot a racoon, that means that this quarter must deal at least six damage, which in turn means that the full blast must deal at least 24 damage. This will one-shot a tainted drifter when fired point blank, and two blasts will kill any enemy in the game, including nightmare and double-headed drifters.

Compare to the single highest damage weapon right now, which is a thrown ornate spear at... 8, I believe? And that's a non-reloadable, single-use attack. Everything else does less damage per shot/hit. The best melee weapon does 5.25. A hunter-crafted bow would certainly out-DPS the foxshot, and at higher range too, but single-shot damage attacks are powerful in their own right, because they remove the enemy's ability to fight back from the equation.

As such, blunderbusses would completely replace spears and change the nature of cave exploration. Right now, the point of a spear is that you carry like three or four of them to yeet at approaching single enemies, which lets you kill most drifters before they can even take a swing at you. Should your suggestion be implemented, the player would take two blunderbusses and a stack of ammo instead. Each shot would realistically replace four thrown spears, so you've just doubled your ranged alpha strike potential while still using fewer inventory slots, and expanded the number of viable targets you can take care of in this way to include even nightmare drifters. The firearms will also more accuracte and reliable - it's easy to miss one out of four spears, but you just fire the blunderbuss at like 2 blocks distance where the spread doesn't matter. And they're reloadable without having to walk over to where your spears are lying on the ground, so you can just keep retreating instead of having to maneuver around enemies. On the topic of reloading: blunderbusses also reload the fastest out of all your firearms, so that makes them even better!

What you're missing is attack tiers for your ammunition types. Foxshot should be a tier 0 attack type, dealing full damage only against entirely unarmored targets, while someone in steel armor would pretty much ignore it. Buckshot could be tier 2. The lead ball could be tier 4 or 5.

Unfortunately that doesn't fix the PvE issue, though, because right now, only players use armor tiers. Animals and drifters use attack tiers, but no armor. So even if you gave your ammunition appropriate attack tiers, the game would first have to refactor how enemies are statted up for this to work.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Streetwind

[MR_rondini]

Another solution could be making it so that you have to stand still or have a massive speed nerf while reloading, making the strategy of run and gun unviable. Furthermore, as I saw in another thread, you could give guns a random missfire chance, ranging from not firing to the gun exploding, destroying it and hurting the player (albeit with a VERY small chance for the latter). When it comes to the ability of carrying multiple guns for multiple shots, it can be removed by making them work like bows and not allowing the gun to stay loaded in your inventory.

Quote

What you're missing is attack tiers for your ammunition types. Foxshot should be a tier 0 attack type, dealing full damage only against entirely unarmored targets, while someone in steel armor would pretty much ignore it. Buckshot could be tier 2. The lead ball could be tier 4 or 5.

Unfortunately that doesn't fix the PvE issue, though, because right now, only players use armor tiers. Animals and drifters use attack tiers, but no armor. So even if you gave your ammunition appropriate attack tiers, the game would first have to refactor how enemies are statted up for this to work.

I have to admit this would be the best solution overall, but a combat revamp is already planned and introducing "armor" to entities is an interesting idea even with the current weapons of the game. This makes it so that in order to kill higher tier enemies you need better weapons without giving enemies massive hp buffs.

[Aksyl]

One of the benefits of a blunderbuss was the ability to load random rocks and debris into them as munitions which would of course detract in damage output and accuracy compared to manufactured munitions.

[AngryRob]

On 8/27/2022 at 5:28 AM, Streetwind said:

I've said my piece on firearms in other suggestion threads already (this should be a mod yada yada) so I'll just focus on one thing here: there's a potential imbalance in your suggestion.

If a quarter of the shots of a foxshot blast should be enough to one-shot a racoon, that means that this quarter must deal at least six damage, which in turn means that the full blast must deal at least 24 damage. This will one-shot a tainted drifter when fired point blank, and two blasts will kill any enemy in the game, including nightmare and double-headed drifters.

Compare to the single highest damage weapon right now, which is a thrown ornate spear at... 8, I believe? And that's a non-reloadable, single-use attack. Everything else does less damage per shot/hit. The best melee weapon does 5.25. A hunter-crafted bow would certainly out-DPS the foxshot, and at higher range too, but single-shot damage attacks are powerful in their own right, because they remove the enemy's ability to fight back from the equation.

As such, blunderbusses would completely replace spears and change the nature of cave exploration. Right now, the point of a spear is that you carry like three or four of them to yeet at approaching single enemies, which lets you kill most drifters before they can even take a swing at you. Should your suggestion be implemented, the player would take two blunderbusses and a stack of ammo instead. Each shot would realistically replace four thrown spears, so you've just doubled your ranged alpha strike potential while still using fewer inventory slots, and expanded the number of viable targets you can take care of in this way to include even nightmare drifters. The firearms will also more accuracte and reliable - it's easy to miss one out of four spears, but you just fire the blunderbuss at like 2 blocks distance where the spread doesn't matter. And they're reloadable without having to walk over to where your spears are lying on the ground, so you can just keep retreating instead of having to maneuver around enemies. On the topic of reloading: blunderbusses also reload the fastest out of all your firearms, so that makes them even better!

What you're missing is attack tiers for your ammunition types. Foxshot should be a tier 0 attack type, dealing full damage only against entirely unarmored targets, while someone in steel armor would pretty much ignore it. Buckshot could be tier 2. The lead ball could be tier 4 or 5.

Unfortunately that doesn't fix the PvE issue, though, because right now, only players use armor tiers. Animals and drifters use attack tiers, but no armor. So even if you gave your ammunition appropriate attack tiers, the game would first have to refactor how enemies are statted up for this to work.

I think they would be fun, and the threat of missfire would make the early ones interesting. Now, i will let you into a secret that will balance muskets in caves: Firing a gun inside a building/cave, without hearing protection, will cause vertigo. Now, give them the ability to also act like bells in caves and we have a recipe for a crazy time. So a weapon, that does high damage, but makes you dizzy, makes you deaf for a little bit, and summons all the horrors of the dark would be fun. 

[JokerdaAce]

yeeeessss... muskets

[Maelstrom]

Look for mods.  Devs had stated that firearms will not be part of the base game experience.

[feetlebaum]

Sad to hear that devs will not make guns vanilla. Seems like a worthwhile addition if you ask me.

[Chickon_20]

There is a mod for this already.

[Dra6o0n]

Firearms are loud, and the horrors in the dark all 'love' company.

Pretty much they will never end if you keep shooting and making loud noises lol.