Give people a Melee AND Ranged slot

[Benny the Icepick]

You know how it is.  You've got your sniper out on her perch, picking off raiders, when all of a sudden they bum rush her with their clubs and knives and hairy knuckles. 

Unless you have an equipment rack out immediately at hand, your precious sharpshooter is now at a major disadvantage.

Wouldn't it be great if you could give each character a ranged weapon AND a melee weapon to use?  That way when you tell your people to put down their guns and go at it tooth and nail, they're not going in unarmed.

[MikhailBoho]

I would love it if my sniper would pull out a shiv and shank some tribals.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Would love this, though I think in general a broad 2 weapon slots would be better, perhaps with the pawn ai doing an auto-equip between long and short/0 ranged. Would be especially good if we could get tools. Not going to be picky though anything like this would be superb.

[Johnny Masters]

Slot 1 left hand (because i'm a leftie), slot 2 right hand, slot 3 backpack (might need a backpack item).

Voila, all sorts of combinations between weapons, tools and any other type of resources. Two pistols? Got it. One heavy weapon requiring two hands? Got it. A sniper a shiv and a medkit? Got it. Pickmeister 2000 deluxe and food to go? Got it. Having all slots available could even increase the amount you could haul, so you might have the tactical choice of having extra guns on your pawns or carry extra stuff.

[Anduin1357]

Support except that I would like backpack apparel that increases carry inventory too. How about ranged 2 slots and having rifles etc use 2 while pistols 1 to represent 2 hands?
A quick utility belt would also be a helpful addition.

[christhekiller]

Meh. Seems kind of cheaty. Unless it was limited to one big weapon, like M24s, M16s, rockets, grenades, longswords, clubs, etc etc, you can pretty much figure out the bigger weapons. And one slot for smaller weapons, pistol, shivs, and knives. That way you kind of have to pick what equipment fits them best.

Also, protip, if you send a sniper team out to deal with attackers be sure to send someone with close range weapons or even a brawler so you can defend your sniper from such attacks.

[Anduin1357]

Meh. Seems kind of cheaty. Unless it was limited to one big weapon, like M24s, M16s, rockets, grenades, longswords, clubs, etc etc, you can pretty much figure out the bigger weapons. And one slot for smaller weapons, pistol, shivs, and knives. That way you kind of have to pick what equipment fits them best.

Also, protip, if you send a sniper team out to deal with attackers be sure to send someone with close range weapons or even a brawler so you can defend your sniper from such attacks.

It is being realistic, soldiers can carry up to one main arm, a pistol and a knife or 2 PDW/MP, a pistol and a knife. It's not at all cheaty except that maybe it's a little too elite for non-soldiers to carry so much armament. Maybe the skillset could determine how much of which equipment can be carried and used?
Snipers can have a pdw/ pistol sidearm so it won't be so bad. Worst case scenario,  sniper drops rifle and shoots enemy with sidearm and run.
Also, you could technically carry weapons instead of a backpack on your back such as a sniper rifle or an RPG/Mortar.
This game urgently needs ammunition because there are many ways ammunition can change the game.
Ammunition comes in cases or tins which has either loose bags of ammunition or ammo magazines. Nobody calls these as "clips".
Ammunition has 3 components, the tip which can be anything really hard such as granite for armor piercing, steel for fragmentation or slate for laceration. The jacket which has to be something hard but not brittle and the primer... Early renaissance gunpower needs cotton for the charge, modern ammunition requires a good explosive which can be corrosive or non-corrosive. Russian ammunition is AFAIK a corrosive ammunition, weapons that do not have chrome lined barrels gradually degrade, losing accuracy.

You could stick some napalm into ammunition and make incendiary ammunition.
Maybe develop a capsule of acid to burst on impact for acidic ammunition.
A poison (ricin) stuck on cotton and swab-stuck on ball ammo to be shot as biological ammunition.

[Eleazar]

his game urgently needs ammunition because there are many ways ammunition can change the game.

I don't think so.  I don't want an incentive to micromanage every shot a hunter takes, or in general for the game to get bogged down in that kind of minutia, checking to see which guns have ammo, managing the different types etc.

[Anduin1357]

his game urgently needs ammunition because there are many ways ammunition can change the game.

I don't think so.  I don't want an incentive to micromanage every shot a hunter takes, or in general for the game to get bogged down in that kind of minutia, checking to see which guns have ammo, managing the different types etc.

Not exactly something you micromanage, it's more like something you assign to someone and make sure he does not run dry. This also balances out long, drawn out fighting, introduces reloads and generally deepens the game.
If you can't handle something that is a macro for something micro, I have very little to say to you.
While we are at it, where do you think the ammunition in game came from? The sky?
This is a little off topic so I digress.

[Johnny Masters]

For a game with such detailed systems, like food and a health system with over 20 body parts, it feels a shame in how it portrays gunfighting logistics (or lack of).

Reloading ammo could be as simple as the hunger system, when you are low they'd go to the nearest weapon cache/stockpiled ammo and restock.

As anduin pointed out, it would really offer a side for siege/ regular combat that we don't get in normal play. Long drawn out sieges and more tactical decisions. There's the added benefit that you'd probably need less enemies to provide challenge.

[Anduin1357]

Well, I was thinking about ammo in terms of inventory ammo so that you could carry stacks of ammo and have a quick reload pouch/belt. A nice stack for ammunition would be by the 1000s in a box, 80 for pouches and depending on the magazine size and caliber, up to 5 magazines for quick and 15 in a stack.
This would balance out the overuse of snipers since their ammunition is extremely precise and large.
Would help bog down those machine-gunners and actually make energy weapons run on something...
AA batteries, anyone?
This would also make melee a very vital part of combat in that if you run out of ammunition, you need that melee to get out of the situation.
While we are at it, we need shooting while moving and an actual draw cut than a simple stab.
An automatic combat stance would be boss too.

[Johnny Masters]

Yes, carrying ammo should also be possible. Caches would be essential for base defenses where you could lay some around in key points, because since we are outnumbered most of the time, even carrying ammo in inventory would not be enough to keep up with the hundreds of enemies we have to face.

To balance weapon power and simulate magazines, i think you should have ammo be considered exactly the same, except each weapon "drains" or consumes X amount of ammo per shot. So, for example, a high powered weapon like the sniper consumes 10 ammo per shot. A heavy MG might consume only one, but it eats through its ammo pretty fast (fast rate of fire).

It also builds upon post-apoc tropes of rationing ammo. It leaves guns a little further in the tech tree, so you can enjoy a little neolithic era for a while, or give your crafters something to do, unbloating the economy, and ofc, it gives melee its own niche.

p.s.:
yeah, like i said before there could be both kinetic ammo and energy ammo. But no more i think.
not sure what you mean by automatic combat stance (you mean aggressive, cautious, coward, stand ground?
Shooting as moving would be nice.
Draw cut you mean melee weapons like swords giving cut type of wound? Since there's only bash and penetration, i think they should give both types of damage. A sword would be like 4dmg bash and 6pntr. A mace 6 bash 2 penetration. Plus the game could use an armor piercing stat.

[Chibiabos]

How about a general revamp, give colonists a strength attribute that affects how much they can carry ... whether its hauling, wearing clothes and/or armor, and weapons.  Add to that a 'gear' set, and individual storage lockers that get automatically assigned to colonists the way beds do, so that when a colonist is drafted, they immediately proceed to the storage locker and put on their last assigned set of combat gear (clothing, armor and/or weapons) while putting in the locker anything they cannot simultaneously wear with their existing gear (call it their civilian gear).

The strength attribute of the individual colonist could then play off the encumberance of each and everything they would carry or wear.  The idea would be most colonists should be able to carry a moderate-sized weapon and a small weapon (like an R4 Rifle and a dagger, or a short sword and a Pistol) while wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, but only a few random elite colonists would be able to wear full armor and wield two moderate or larger weapons (minigun and longsword).  Some weapons, like the sniper rifle, should have so much encumberance that most colonists would not be able to wield any other weapon with it ... similarly some heavier armor should be so heavy that most (non-elite-strength) colonists would not be able to wield anything more than one small weapon.

This I think would make choices more difficult:  go with a 'glass cannon' colonist (has more weapons but carries less armor), or a tank without much punch but can take a lot of punishment (a lot of heavy armor but only small weapons).  Might be nice to have more armor options as well, such as light vs. heavy.

The encumberance system could also affect hauling; elite-strength colonists could maybe haul /more/ than one chunk at a time (or more in a stack at one time, such as more than 75 potatoes).   Conversely, there might be some colonists who are particularly weak and can't even handle a normal colonist's load.

[Utherix]

If you give colonists a claw hand or other bionic, they can use it as a melee weapon while still holding a rifle.

[Johnny Masters]

Meh. me wants it more slots