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People tend to build up a lot of guns. While it can be fun to have a big armory, it can also feel pretty micromanagey after a while.

How do we solve the problem where people get huge amounts of guns?

I've got lots of thoughts on this but I'm curious if anyone else has any specific ideas on how this design issue might be solved.

These could be:
-Economy adjustments (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=311.0)
-Changes in how guns are acquired
-Variations on gun degradation
-Other ways to get rid of useless guns
-New AI behaviors to dump/destroy useless guns automatically
-Changes in how guns are dropped or acquired
-Don't solve it, just let it happen, it's awesome!

I'm interested in your thoughts. Let 'em fly!

Not having played the game, is there some problem just selling all of them?  Will traders only buy a small limited number? 

Onto ideas...

Most logical solution to me would be to convert them into a useful material.  Maybe just metal.  Maybe a higher quality metal for a special purpose.  Just need a forge to melt them down.    I think converting excess goods into something useful for the colony should be always be the design-approach of choice. In a survival-colony game people want to feel like they're making it on their own, living off the 'land'.  Not just turning stuff into cash to buy other stuff.  That starts to feel like organized market society, which isn't very survivorly.  :)

I think weapon degradation/repair is nice too but only if its handled almost automatically since I could see that being pretty tedious.  This mechanic would only really make sense if there is someway to avoid combat/getting guns since degradation is only a threat if your gun supply/raiders are not infinite.  Non-lethal raids make since here. 

Well timber and stone has a great system where each character has a tab with an option to auto equip a tool from the stockpile and another option to auto equip the best.
So for instance if your colonist had no weapon and you selected auto equip he/she would grab a gun once one was available.  If he/she had a pistol and you selected equip best that person would trade it for a better one once its available.

Quote from: nomadseifer on October 22, 2013, 01:03:02 AM
Not having played the game, is there some problem just selling all of them?  Will traders only buy a small limited number? 

Onto ideas...

Most logical solution to me would be to convert them into a useful material.  Maybe just metal.  Maybe a higher quality metal for a special purpose.  Just need a forge to melt them down.    I think converting excess goods into something useful for the colony should be always be the design-approach of choice. In a survival-colony game people want to feel like they're making it on their own, living off the 'land'.  Not just turning stuff into cash to buy other stuff.  That starts to feel like organized market society, which isn't very survivorly.  :)

I think weapon degradation/repair is nice too but only if its handled almost automatically since I could see that being pretty tedious.  This mechanic would only really make sense if there is someway to avoid combat/getting guns since degradation is only a threat if your gun supply/raiders are not infinite.  Non-lethal raids make since here.

I like this. Perhaps you could melt them down or cannibalize them for use in a workshop to make higher-quality weapons. Reminds me of the Fallout 3 repair system, which worked very well in solving the classic RPG variant of this problem.

Here's another one... Grenades and Molotovs should be a secondary weapon.
So colonists can carry a gun and grenades

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 01:20:15 AM

Quote from: nomadseifer on October 22, 2013, 01:03:02 AM
Not having played the game, is there some problem just selling all of them?  Will traders only buy a small limited number? 

Onto ideas...

Most logical solution to me would be to convert them into a useful material.  Maybe just metal.  Maybe a higher quality metal for a special purpose.  Just need a forge to melt them down.    I think converting excess goods into something useful for the colony should be always be the design-approach of choice. In a survival-colony game people want to feel like they're making it on their own, living off the 'land'.  Not just turning stuff into cash to buy other stuff.  That starts to feel like organized market society, which isn't very survivorly.  :)

I think weapon degradation/repair is nice too but only if its handled almost automatically since I could see that being pretty tedious.  This mechanic would only really make sense if there is someway to avoid combat/getting guns since degradation is only a threat if your gun supply/raiders are not infinite.  Non-lethal raids make since here.

I like this. Perhaps you could melt them down or cannibalize them for use in a workshop to make higher-quality weapons. Reminds me of the Fallout 3 repair system, which worked very well in solving the classic RPG variant of this problem.

The Fallout 3 method also made it so rare weapons could not be used infinitely, which had a nice balance to it.  It could almost turn it into an 'ammo' parameter without having to get fiddly with actually tracking ammo.  So the gun itself has a lifespan, akin to running out of ammo.  Then you can just throw a pile of old guns into the re-gun-anator and get a few new ones or a single better one. 

Salt, I appreciate you contributing, but your posts aren't really on-topic. This thread is about solving a very specific design problem, not general suggestions about guns.

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 01:35:38 AM
Salt, I appreciate you contributing, but your posts aren't really on-topic. This thread is about solving a very specific design problem, not general suggestions about guns.

Sorry about that, I think I missed the point.  I removed my last post

My Solution:
1. Instead of every defeated enemy will drop their weapons, let some of them drop ammunition instead, as new type of collectible/ trade-able resources.

2. Or use a bit extreme method, make them all only drop ammo. Players will get weapon from military refugee (already equipped weapon), captured raider, and weapon trade from traders.
So less weapon available for everyone makes colonist's military skill (such as shooting) could be valued more.

We can use the way of 'general ammunition', that one pistol shot will cost 1 ammo, one grenade shot will cost 50; or we can use 'specialized ammunition', that weapon needs its own ammo to fire.

PS:
Instead of giving each weapon an ammo capacity (for example, pistol can hold a max of 10 ammo) and all the detail about refill magazine or sort, we can simply use ammo as we use metal and food.

Don't people need certain amount of shooting skill to use a weapon such as M-24 or rocket launcher? A colonist with shoot skill of 3 is OK for firing a pistol, but for a M-24 or sniper rifle is bit odd.

Quote from: salt1219 on October 22, 2013, 01:39:25 AM

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 01:35:38 AM
Salt, I appreciate you contributing, but your posts aren't really on-topic. This thread is about solving a very specific design problem, not general suggestions about guns.

Sorry about that, I think I missed the point.  I removed my last post

No worries, I clarified the original post (it was a bit vague).

Misunderstood the topic before.

Thinking about kenders idea more, what if instead of ammo some of the raiders guns are broken and broken guns can be collected as scrap metal for building?

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 12:41:38 AM
People tend to build up a lot of guns. While it can be fun to have a big armory, it can also feel pretty micromanagey after a while.

How do we solve the problem where people get huge amounts of guns?

I've got lots of thoughts on this but I'm curious if anyone else has any specific ideas on how this design issue might be solved.

These could be:
-Economy adjustments (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=311.0)
-Changes in how guns are acquired
-Variations on gun degradation
-Other ways to get rid of useless guns
-New AI behaviors to dump/destroy useless guns automatically
-Changes in how guns are dropped or acquired
-Don't solve it, just let it happen, it's awesome!

I'm interested in your thoughts. Let 'em fly!

Simplest one is gun barrels with general archetypes, in this way you can store tons of guns in a container and the container will simply read back

"Contains: Rifles x ### - Pistols x ### - SMGs x ### - Heavy Weapons x ### - Explosives x ###"

when you click a soldier or a colonist and want them to equip from the barrel they will simply pull out items from it fitting an archetype, if you wanted you could have a list of specifics on what is inside but that could be developed later. And even different characteristics could be added to each weapon with each different name of course.  You could even have weapon mods for each weapon which will just change characteristics of a specific weapon without changing its archetype so weapon mods could play into moddable characteristics already inherent to this system you see.

This would also be great in times of emergency since people could be assigned specifics archetypes and work into specific skill sets later on for different kinds of weapons, maybe bonuses for skills using the same weapon over and over (like traits gained due to having one colonist use only one type of weapon over another, familiarization. etc.)

I'm not sure that I can beat or provide half as good a suggestion as nomadseifer's.

A simple crafting idea might be for the colonists to strap two of the same weapon together to make them both fire together. This comes from my Warhammer 40k days where Space Marines used to use "twin-linked bolters" which were essentially two bolters strapped together.

I'm not quite sure this would work very well though. It would at best only halve the number of weapons on the field and I am not quite sure that the colonists could do something like that without a forge-like building/room item arrangement and some minor metal costs.

An extension of this, which I quite like and only thought of whilst typing, would be to strap together multiple grenades/Molotov cocktails and allow them to be placed like the breach charges or perhaps even as a hidden trap which automatically trigger when someone trips them (including your colonists if they forget it's there).

I also quite like Kender's ideas too, especially if there's a 'general ammunition' rather than specifics. As an offshoot idea, which I haven't used the search feature for, if there are ammo-based projectile weapons coming into the game, how about energy weapons with their own individual charge. They could be recharged in the armoury or in special armoury bays direct from your batteries/solar panels/theogermal power generators.

[EDIT]

Quote from: Noxmutagen on October 22, 2013, 02:01:01 AM
Simplest one is gun barrels with general archetypes, in this way you can store tons of guns in a container and the container will simply read back

"Contains: Rifles x ### - Pistols x ### - SMGs x ### - Heavy Weapons x ### - Explosives x ###"

when you click a soldier or a colonist and want them to equip from the barrel they will simply pull out items from it fitting an archetype, if you wanted you could have a list of specifics on what is inside but that could be developed later.

I like this too but after watching plenty of LP content from the testers I also think that the colonists should be able to carry multiple weapons simply for hauling purposes only. That way the layout ends up being cleaner, less items on the ground and generally enhances the feel.

Oh I'm HOPING he has a inventory system planned. Much like Dwarf Fortress, that was sick. Backpacks, etc.

Inventory is discussed here (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=177.0) and in this thread (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=187.0), which is about ammunitions, incidentally (hey GC13, I'm linking threads where I participated, even though the last posts are not mine... do I still get bonus points ? ;D ;)).

Back on topic, I like the idea of being able to deconstruct the weapons, that should give some metal.
I'm not a fan of complicating things with stacking, as I feel it might go against the ease of access (which does not equate to "dumbed down")... but I touched that subject already on the links I provided above.

Where I could see a use for stacking, though, is on the trading frame: having only one line per weapon would make it much easier to manage the sales... or maybe some way to sort the weapons.
That could be a temporary measure until a final decision is made.

As nomadseifer mentionned, gun degradation might be a pain to manage indeed, unless there's some kind of automation implied... but then, what would be the point ?

Gun degradation is already somewhat in place. Every entity has an HP level. Guns get destroyed by fire/explosions. Factor the gun's HP into how they act? The lower the gun's HP, the higher the chance of it jamming (causing an automatic 'missed turn' in combat), making it less accurate, or if the AI is feeling cruel and the gun is almost entirely broken, exploding in their faces.

Every gun could have a base metal value for meltdown purposes, and the Fallout 3 option could work with it too, where if you've got a pair of pistols that are in crappy condition, you could slap 'em together and make one pistol of slightly-less crappy condition.

Putting in a somewhat more detailed maintenance skill on colonists could help this also, where it affects the upper limit of how good the shape of your weapons are (and probably adds one more task for your little antfarm to worry about.)

Actually managing it should probably just involve a 'manifest' screen of your current inventory of weapons in the colony. Stick it in a colony UI tab and make it sortable by gun type when you start getting too many. Colonists already have a similar tab in place with the Overview, just put 'Armory' on another tab and you could see all the weapons you've got in the colony, their condition, and who is wielding what.

With a simple tab, it could mean less micro, and maintenance priorities could be a click away. Got a bunch of pistols that are all damaged? Click the one on the list and check the 'repair' tab. Other pistols will be prioritized over that one to be pieced out to fix that particular pistol (Because Skoodge the Assassin likes that one best.) with a checkbox that lets you mark which guns are allowed to be salvaged out and which ones are to always be maintained in the colony.

This way, it's both semi-automated but requires the player to do some work. Huge raid coming and your best rifle is looking rusty and you don't have any rifles to fix it with? Tough titty! But wait! Maybe you could slap it on a bench and use some of your scrap to enact some good ol' duct tape repairs at a cost of the weapons maximum durability?

I completely agree. The weapons tab should be the same as the normal trade window and should just say pistols * 12 or something like that.

I do like the fallout aproach for weapon.
I got 1 pistol and 12 spare pistols. I go to my workshop and construct them into 1 desert eagle for all i care.

Another more likely thing would be to make them into scrap (weapon parts) with enough weapon parts and research this means you could scrap a bunch of pistols get some research drop in some metal and build your own rifle.

Maybe really maybe we could make weapon traps. I loved those in DF making traps with awsome quality weapons and than using them on enemies.

I can see guns getting damaged in the fight when the owner gets taken out, especially if its by grenades or fire.

So why not use that and make it a chance that a weapon drops or if "story: the weapon is destroyed" a certain amount of money.

You would have less guns to worry about and can buy the ones you need with the money drops. Cuts out a lot of MM.

Quote from: CustodianV131 on October 22, 2013, 05:11:35 AM
I can see guns getting damaged in the fight when the owner gets taken out, especially if its by grenades or fire.

So why not use that and make it a chance that a weapon drops or if "story: the weapon is destroyed" a certain amount of money.

You would have less guns to worry about and can buy the ones you need with the money drops. Cuts out a lot of MM.

instead of destroying the guns. giving them a whole lot of damage wich can be repaired by combining multiple guns would be a good thing.

Quote from: Semmy on October 22, 2013, 05:18:40 AM
instead of destroying the guns. giving them a whole lot of damage wich can be repaired by combining multiple guns would be a good thing.

Possibly, but for this to be meaningful, the weapons would have to be very scarce.

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 01:20:15 AM
I like this. Perhaps you could melt them down or cannibalize them for use in a workshop to make higher-quality weapons. Reminds me of the Fallout 3 repair system, which worked very well in solving the classic RPG variant of this problem.

Whilst in reality you cant take two pistols etc and mix and match any working part ie barrel or firing pin but if your not too bothered about realism you could always combine two pistols to make a better one? Melting them down doesn't make much sense to me, with any current gen of weapon you wont get anything of benefit. If your talking about the sci fi weapons, then maybe you could take the power core out or somthing.

Quote from: Semmy on October 22, 2013, 05:18:40 AM
g them a whole lot of damage wich can be repaired by combining multiple guns would be a good thing.

Its very unrealistic though. Firstly weapons don't get damaged from firing (to any big degree) and you cant mix and match working weapon parts (Sure you can change the butt or magazine, but the internals all need to stay with the same weapon)


If you have any questions on weapons realism that you cant find out, im in the Military and would be happy to help.

Quote from: staffy50 on October 22, 2013, 05:32:17 AM
Its very unrealistic though.... ...you cant mix and match working weapon parts (Sure you can change the butt or magazine, but the internals all need to stay with the same weapon)

That's not entirely true, I'm an armorer certified for M16/AR15 and I work extensively with the AK47. While it is not recommended to exchange internal components from one weapon to another (it has to do with wear patterns and reliability/safety). It is not physically impossible. If I was stuck on a planet and I had two guns damaged by a grenade blast, and I could cobble something together out of them I'd use it. This is especially true of the AK which has very lose tolerances, and is often built form spare parts throughout the world. Also almost any AR pattern upper receiver, can be fitted to any lower; we switch them all the time.

So I'd support a system that allowed damaged weapons to be made into one. I'd also support recycling them. I've mentioned a Molecular Recycler before, that would turn guns and scrap into metal, and corpses into food.

Another solution would be a super rich trade ship event, that would allow you to sell dozens of guns at once. Right now the average trade ship can only buy one or two.

Of course making guns really rare would help as well, making raiders more melee focused would greatly reduce the number of guns a player has. To balance this out the turrets would have to become far more expensive, maybe even 1000 metal each.

Also grenades/cocktails should be limited use, maybe 5 or so and then their gone. That may also encourage players to use them. As using them will get rid of them.

If guns degrade individually you need a system to repair them... and before that to keep track of the condition of every individual gun.

Heaping on more micromanagement / maintenance is probably not a good approach to solving the proposed problem. =)

Besides, as has already been mentioned, while guns degrade with use, they remain operable for years with even moderate maintenance.
The degradation as seen in some action RPG (or even JA2) is overdone by a factor of ahelluvalot.

Turning guns into scrap metal (and ploughshares =) is probably the most logical and easiest to implement solution.
Can always find a use for metal...

Quote from: miah999 on October 22, 2013, 06:05:51 AM
That's not entirely true, I'm an armorer certified for M16/AR15 and I work extensively with the AK47. While it is not recommended to exchange internal components from one weapon to another (it has to do with wear patterns and reliability/safety). It is not physically impossible. If I was stuck on a planet and I had two guns damaged by a grenade blast, and I could cobble something together out of them I'd use it. This is especially true of the AK which has very lose tolerances, and is often built form spare parts throughout the world. Also almost any AR pattern upper receiver, can be fitted to any lower; we switch them all the time.

Fair enough. We are always told not to mix parts, as its will decrease reliability and may lead to a breach explosion. Maybe that could be a random event if you cobble weapons together, every now and then it blows up in your face.

Quote from: staffy50 on October 22, 2013, 06:59:24 AM
Fair enough. We are always told not to mix parts, as its will decrease reliability and may lead to a breach explosion. Maybe that could be a random event if you cobble weapons together, every now and then it blows up in your face.

That could be interesting.

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 12:41:38 AM
People tend to build up a lot of guns. While it can be fun to have a big armory, it can also feel pretty micromanagey after a while.

How do we solve the problem where people get huge amounts of guns?

I've got lots of thoughts on this but I'm curious if anyone else has any specific ideas on how this design issue might be solved.

These could be:
-Economy adjustments (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=311.0)
-Changes in how guns are acquired
-Variations on gun degradation
-Other ways to get rid of useless guns
-New AI behaviors to dump/destroy useless guns automatically
-Changes in how guns are dropped or acquired
-Don't solve it, just let it happen, it's awesome!

I'm interested in your thoughts. Let 'em fly!

A big part of the solution will depend on how you envision other aspects of the game, such as resources.  Mainly questions like "is metal the only resource that will be used for everything".  Also it would tie into your plans for Research and Manufacturing.

So...


Acquisition:
Currently, the only way to acquire guns are to buy them or loot them from pirates.  If you will be able to build them, then what will it cost to make?  Generic metal?  "Weapon scraps", gained from "deconstructing" owned weapons?  Tweaking the drop rate would be a balance issue, comparing what the player has versus what the raiders bring - both what you have to defend with/against, and what you can potentially gain.

Disposal:
Currently, selling is it.  Which is important, because the only resource (metal) is limited and you will eventually be forced to get all metal by buying from traders - if you have to buy, you need a steady source of money.  Otherwise, the colony will wither and die.  Which means the resource question above is a very big part of the weapon solution.

The easiest method to implement as the game is now would be to break unwanted weapons down for metal.  But that would seem odd, as you could not build a 5' section of wall out of one pistol.  So how useful would that really be?

If weapon tech is added to the research tree, then it would make sense to "consume" a weapon for the research.  Again, this is up to you; how robust do you envision the research system and any manufacturing system? 

Research could also be an answer to the "Turret Defense" problem.  You start with one pistol, and might be able to destroy it to research how to build them - but then you have no pistol until you build more.  Raiders show up, and drop a shotgun.  Again, research to build.  Destroy another pistol to research other "pistol improvement tech" ideas - range, power, burst, etc.  Eventually, along with other items in a robust research tree (sensor, etc), you can build a variety of turrets roughly equivalent to pistol, shotgun, rifle, etc.

Other:
As for gun degradation, ammo, or repairs...  I think I'd be against it in general.  I like the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid); buying, selling and tracking ammo or weapon "hit points", along with tracking skill & resource usage to repair weapons seems like it could get complicated for the player.  Yes, great idea in a single player game like FO3 - not so great in a sim like this (unless you go the overly complicated Dwarf Fortress route).


Personally, I would like to keep the drop rates & usage mostly as it is now.  On top of that, add in a robust tech tree with a variety of Weapon Tech upgrades that let you build or improve weapons, that "consume" weapons as part of the research.  This would let you choose to use the "crappy" raider weapons, sell them for cash, or destroy them for research.  But then you'd have to destroy more in order to build the upgrades.  In this way, dropped weapons would be a "currency" used for researching and building better weapons.  It would also affect other aspects of the game - what if you needed to destroy one "long rifle" to build a turret?

I am glad Ty is thinking about this. This is one of the biggest problems I have with the game right now.

I like Semmy's idea of the guns being combined to create better guns, but I think we could leave the names the same and give them a level bar. Say you need to combine 20 guns into one to make it max level of 10/10 (like all of the skills). The gun may have 200% recharge speed or something like that. It would give you a reason to think about what you are doing with the weapons. You could sell them to get the quick cash, combine them to make a better gun, or spread them out to the colonists. It would also alleviate the need for as many turrets and funnel points. Pirate leaders could carry leveled up guns as well.

I am not a fan of the degradation at all. I feel like it would be one more thing to micro manage.

I guess I am going in to the second big problem I have: repairing structures. If we created a workbench structure to combine guns, we could give the colonists another skill called technician (or something like that). The technician would be in charge of combining all of the guns and repairing the structures. This would make it so the builders did not prioritize repairing something on the other side of the map and leave his job to go do that.

Quote from: miah999 on October 22, 2013, 07:02:23 AM

Quote from: staffy50 on October 22, 2013, 06:59:24 AM
Fair enough. We are always told not to mix parts, as its will decrease reliability and may lead to a breach explosion. Maybe that could be a random event if you cobble weapons together, every now and then it blows up in your face.

That could be interesting.

How often would this happen? If weapons exploded all the time it would be pretty silly. Because they don't.
How many guns with breach explosions have been returned to you personally?

If it's a 1x in 20 hours of play event, it may just as well not be a feature at all.

Super low chances of something occurring sound good... on paper.
Alas, they make crappy gameplay elements.
You can't realistically plan for them so you can't make an informed decision.
Gameplay is all about making decisions.

I'm not a big fan of the scrap to repair mechanic since that likely means you need to keep track of gun maintenance. I don't want that level of micromanagement. However, scrapping guns is a good idea in general. I would add my voice to those who would have them scrapped into parts rather than just metal. Parts could then be used to craft better guns or upgrade existing ones, or also be a requirement for making turrets - it doesn't make much sense that you can make a turret but can't make your own guns. Parts could even be divided into types, (basic, heavy, advanced, etc.) giving you a new resource to manage.

Okay what to do about too many guns?

1) Solution: Spawn less guns
Implement some close combat weaponry. This way you would have less guns. Too simple though, as than you´d have the same amount of useless melee weaponry.
2) Solution: Implement wear and tear on weaponry
Have guns degrade by x% every time they fire. This way you get an itemsink into the game.
2a) Depending on how complex you want to design this you could salvage raider-weapons for parts to repair yours (Pretty much the same idea Gnomoria uses when Robobob switched the Goblins weapons from "normal" to "worn weapons" which are unusable by gnomes but can be smelted into metalbars).
2b.) Fallout 3 System: Dont use parts but "combine" two guns at 50% to one gun with 100% state
3) No wear and tear on weapons but salvage excess weapons for metal (and thus ending the problem with metal as a limited "map ressource"). This can currently be archived by selling the guns and buying metal from the funds.
4) Keep it as it is. Guns pile on and can be sold to traders.
5) Implement ammo. This way a pile of guns would be useless. If you would have the ammo only available by traders you could "force" the trade of weapons for ammo and thus lower the weaponstockpiles.

I would prefer the wear and tear with salvaged weaponparts for repair as well as the need for ammo. This way you could start implementing crafting elements in the game (who currently do not exist (Based on Youtube Let´s Plays)).

Quote from: Enjou on October 22, 2013, 11:08:04 AMParts could even be divided into types, (basic, heavy, advanced, etc.) giving you a new resource to manage.

A superfluous distinction IMO.
Who wants to build inferior guns?
Right. No one. As a result, the only thing you are ever short of will be "advanced" parts, meaning you have 2 resources in abundance which makes them pointless as gameplay features.

Instead:

• Scrapping any and all weapons gives you x "weapon parts".
  Scrapping an advanced weapons does not return a greater number of parts.
  
  
• 
  When building weapons, the cost in "parts" scales.
  A simple revolver takes 3 but an AK-47 requires 20.
  
  
• 
  You can achieve the exact same "shortage of materials when building advanced guns" with a single resource... and you don't burden the player with a lot of junk that has no purpose.
  
  
• 
  You can offer fancy weapons with small boni at outrageous "parts" prices... that the player will want anyway.
  That's how you create a shortage of the resource without offering a lot in return. =P

Q: Why not handle "weapon scrapping" as turning them directly into scrap metal?
A: Because "Weapon Parts" are a tech resource, not raw material.

An assault rifle doesn't take so much more metal to build. It takes a lot more technology.
That's what the weapon parts represent.
A mixture of research points and raw material.

With this approach I would not allow to build "weapon parts" from regular metal.
That wouldn't work because you couldn't easily enter "technology" into the equation.
Well, unless the output in weapon parts per unit of scrap metal changes with your "tech level".
Then it would all make sense again.
Early on 4 units of scrap metal get you enough parts for 4 revolvers or 1/2 SMG. Later on, 4 units of scrap metal get you enough parts for 2 SMG.
It's still not ideal because it mixes the wrong kind of concepts...
Makes a lot more sense if you buy complete weapons and the weapon parts are an unsellable commodity.

Quote from: Gazz on October 22, 2013, 10:21:16 AM

Quote from: miah999 on October 22, 2013, 07:02:23 AM

Quote from: staffy50 on October 22, 2013, 06:59:24 AM
Fair enough. We are always told not to mix parts, as its will decrease reliability and may lead to a breach explosion. Maybe that could be a random event if you cobble weapons together, every now and then it blows up in your face.

That could be interesting.

How often would this happen? If weapons exploded all the time it would be pretty silly. Because they don't.
How many guns with breach explosions have been returned to you personally?

If it's a 1x in 20 hours of play event, it may just as well not be a feature at all.

Super low chances of something occurring sound good... on paper.
Alas, they make crappy gameplay elements.
You can't realistically plan for them so you can't make an informed decision.
Gameplay is all about making decisions.

I've seen two lads who had breach explosions, not from cobbled weapons but rounds cooking off in the chamber, so not really the same.

However we don't cobble weapons together, which was the original point.

If you don't want a breach explosion, then a messed up/misaligned weapon would no doubt also suffer from stoppages. 

Quote from: Gazz on October 22, 2013, 11:37:08 AM

Quote from: Enjou on October 22, 2013, 11:08:04 AMParts could even be divided into types, (basic, heavy, advanced, etc.) giving you a new resource to manage.

A superfluous distinction IMO.
Who wants to build inferior guns?
Right. No one. As a result, the only thing you are ever short of will be "advanced" parts, meaning you have 2 resources in abundance which makes them pointless as gameplay features.

That could be solved in a number of ways. If parts are introduced as a tech resource, they don't necessarily have to be useful for only one thing. Parts could be required to build anything technical, like solar panels, food paste dispensers, etc. and possibly be required to do repairs on damaged tech. Basic parts could be required to make most stuff and repair any technology, but higher end stuff could require more advanced or more specified part types that are less plentiful to build initially.

Quote from: Enjou on October 22, 2013, 12:07:40 PM
That could be solved in a number of ways. If parts are introduced as a tech resource, they don't necessarily have to be useful for only one thing. Parts could be required to build anything technical, like solar panels, food paste dispensers, etc. and possibly be required to do repairs on damaged tech. Basic parts could be required to make most stuff and repair any technology, but higher end stuff could require more advanced or more specified part types that are less plentiful to build initially.

Drifting off topic, but I could see breaking various items down into generic resource types - Electronic, Mechanical, Weapon, etc., to be used for building different types of structures or items.

Back on topic, I think I like the idea of breaking weapons down into generic "weapon parts" that could be used to build any weapon or turret, once you have researched or gained the ability to make that type.  It doesn't make sense to break weapons down into just "Metal", to me.  However, scrapping 5 pistols and cobbling together a shotgun (with a few bits of metal) does make more sense.  (Relatively speaking, that is. :P)

Every raider should have a gun, unless you add in tools like nets that they use to capture your colonists (in which case by all means give a couple of raiders those). The problem is that right now you need to swarm us with raiders to challenge us, leading to gun spam. You have to turn off the spigot.

We need two things:
1) Reason to limit the number of colonists in combat. This will allow you to dial down the number of raiders. I recommend making is so combat skills not only make you more likely to hit an enemy, but less likely to be hit. If my four hardcore combatants, who have low colony-growth skills, can handle the five raiders and probably won't be seriously hurt, why would I risk the eight people who keep my colony running and are far more likely to be seriously hurt without doing much?

2) Raiders can sneak up on us. So long as they announce their presence, raiders will always be terribly unrealistic. At some point potential raiders will take note of the mass grave on the outskirts of the colony and figure that those probably aren't colonist corpses in there and decide to go somewhere else. Stealthy raiders will result in more fragmented engagements where raider casualties are less likelyâ€"exactly what they'd plan for.

Think of this:

Guns is still trade-able, but also can be tear apart and recieve scrap metal(yes, fallout). scrap metal is much cheaper than guns(or even cannot trade it with merchants), but it is the resource for building and maintain machines. Player should congsider it carefully before sell them and have nothing to repair a broken turret, or simply tear them apart and ramain too may useless scrap matel.

Quote from: GC13 on October 22, 2013, 01:32:48 PM
I recommend making is so combat skills not only make you more likely to hit an enemy, but less likely to be hit. If my four hardcore combatants, who have low colony-growth skills, can handle the five raiders and probably won't be seriously hurt, why would I risk the eight people who keep my colony running and are far more likely to be seriously hurt without doing much?

But then you'd be amplifying the problem you're trying to solve: if we need less colonists to take down raiders, then we either (a) need to be sent more raiders to make it interesting/challenging, or (b) stop sending raiders, as they're not a challenge/threat anymore...

The sneaking would be nice, but that probably won't work without a dreaded fog of war... or raiders with advanced technology like an invisibility field or somesuch.

There has to be a way to alleviate the abundance of guns without altering too much the way raiders are managed, though...

Quote from: British on October 23, 2013, 04:11:01 AM
There has to be a way to alleviate the abundance of guns without altering too much the way raiders are managed, though...

A part of the problem with too many guns is that the game seems to be throwing a large amount of pirates out pretty fast.  The reason we get so many pirates is because as it is now, they aren't too much of a challenge.  The reason they're not much of a challenge is because we can toss up a few turrets along with some generators to easily kill them.

Basically, the player has a lot of defensive power available almost immediately.  If the rate the player gains that is decreased, then the rate of attackers (and influx of weapons) can likewise be decreased.  Which doesn't get rid of the problem, but it would make it less of one.

Quote from: British on October 23, 2013, 04:11:01 AMBut then you'd be amplifying the problem you're trying to solve: if we need less colonists to take down raiders, then we either (a) need to be sent more raiders to make it interesting/challenging, or (b) stop sending raiders, as they're not a challenge/threat anymore...

Well, the idea is that if I have fewer people on defense, you can challenge me with fewer raiders. You're sending five raiders up against me, rather than the ten you would have sent otherwise. If people decide "lol twelve on five I like those odds" then you should punish them by making raiders attack the people they feel they are most likely to be able to hurt (i.e. the ones who look like they have no idea how to protect themselves in a fight).

Also, another thing to help turn off the gun spigot: turrets need to be less helpful. Maybe shrink their model and reduce their damage and range so they're used to protect the colony once the perimeter has been breached, rather than keep it from being breached in the first place.

Quote from: GC13 on October 23, 2013, 12:00:58 PM
Well, the idea is that if I have fewer people on defense, you can challenge me with fewer raiders.

Right, that was my thought too, with the idea of slowing down how quickly the player can put out turrets.  If you have to take some time to research and build them, which requires you to have guns to tear apart, then it takes longer to get a solid defense up.  Which means that the waves of attackers can be smaller, which limits how many guns (and recruits) the player can get.

I like being able to have a huge armory, so I hope the solution doesn't effect the drop rate. I usually sell off the cheapest guns to get all the money I can from the tradeships. But having 20 guns for every 1 colonist is basically just for show, I could probably sell them off if I bought tons of random stuff from the traders.

But again that huge armory looks cool (Maybe it could increase colonists happiness to see that they have so many weapons? I know it would make me happy if I was them, lol).

Having the option to break them down into metal would be the perfect solution though.

I think gun degredation from use is a bad idea... too much micro... no fun.  In fallout 3/Vegus it was just a chore... oh my gun has degraded for killing these bandits.  I'll just use these 5 guns to repair it and sell the other 30 for money.

Guns that are damaged should have degraded stats/price is a neat idea. 

Reclaiming metal from guns is interesting, would solve issue of useless weapons.

Being able to tell your people to grab the best pistol/rife/shotgun/rpg/etc, is a good idea.

Well, some ideas.

1. Reverse engineering to unlock a research which allows you to manufacture your own type of weapon (skill tree fashion), the more weapons you dissemble the more experience can be put into this weapon's skill tree.
2. Modified raider AI, instead of simply charging your colony they are more likely to shoot at you from a distance for a long period of time, raiders can now "run out of ammo" or "patience". Furthermore they could also be more likely to retreat if facing heavy resistance/casualties thus giving you less corpses but still a challenge. A further extension would be them hiding around in the "neighborhood" and setting up camps which forces you to clear/scout the nearby area if you desire safety.

I like melting down for metal. That would work real nice.

Quote from: Gazz on October 22, 2013, 11:37:08 AM
An assault rifle doesn't take so much more metal to build. It takes a lot more technology.
That's what the weapon parts represent.
A mixture of research points and raw material.

I feel like this didn't get enough commentary, and I want to expand on it a bit.

What if weapons research were to be made separate from the rest of your research?

Something that bothered me in general about the Fallout idea was that our people miraculously know how to disassemble any gun, replace its parts, and reassemble it into a working machine. This just doesn't really sit well with me, especially since technological levels are supposed to be so vastly different between worlds. Why does my potentially-Industrial-worlder know the inner workings of an AK-47 well enough to perform spot replacements? He shouldn't. However, after collecting a few and experimenting with them, he should be able to generally figure out how to create one from parts laying around.

So, the idea is that when you find a gun, and we'll use pistols as a general example for now, your colonists can pick it up and start using it immediately. When you find three pistols, though, you can choose to have your colonists instead break them down and learn how pistols work. This would unlock research into pistols, and from here we return to Grazz's weapon parts idea. Once you've unlocked a branch of research, weapon parts in general can be used to advance that type of gun. So, our colonists now know how pistols work and can reproduce them, as well as modify them for the better. Our plucky colonists aren't satisfied with merely having the ability to create pistols from repurposing parts, though, and instead want to make better pistols. Greater pistols. Pistols that can stop a rampaging Muffalo in one shot. So our colonists start using weapon parts to test methods of improving upon the base pistol design. This takes us further down the pistol research track, allowing us to upgrade inferior pistols (for a small weapon parts cost) and build new pistols (for a greater weapon parts cost)

As part of this, once a research track is unlocked, weapons start being categorized into two or three types. Inferior, normal, and possibly advanced. Inferior weapons can still be used, but are tagged as such in order to let the player know that he should probably consider upgrading them as soon as possible. Normal weapons are ones that are at the tech level the player is at and can only be cannibalized. Advanced weapons, if included, could be used normally and would provide combat boosts, or can be cannibalized if some number is obtained and used to advance the research track for that weapon type. If advanced weapons aren't included, say for simplicity's sake, then normal weapons would also include those above the current tech level. Normal and advanced weapon types should be exponentially more rare than the previous tier, especially as their research track advances, such that the player might only get a few advanced weapons over the course of a game. If a weapon track isn't unlocked, the colonists won't know the specifics of how the weapon works, and therefore can't gain the extra benefit from using advanced guns.

Included in the weapons research menu would be several options. One would allow for the automatic cannibalization of weapons in order to unlock research tracks. Another would allow either the automatic upgrading of inferior weapons so long as more pressing matters aren't at hand and the weapon parts stockpile is above a given threshold, or to cannibalize inferior weapons to increase the stockpile of weapon parts. A third option would be to automatically cannibalize advanced weapons in order to advance the research track. For players who wish to handle it manually, the tracking of the numbers of each category of gun would be available, and all players would also be allowed to unlock a new research track by expending a number of weapon parts.

If a research track is unlocked by cannibalizing guns, you're returned a random amount of guns and weapon parts. The number of guns would vary from 0 to the number required to unlock the track, which might be three, or five, or ten. The amount of weapon parts would be largely dependent upon how many guns you didn't get. The idea being that you wrecked a certain number of guns used to determine how they work, but you now have the knowledge to create more from the destroyed parts. If the track is unlocked through expending weapon parts, then you're returned one gun of the type of the research track you unlocked.

Advancing the research down a track could be as simple as "Pistol research X" and need not be an entirely new tree. Each weapon type could be given a specialty, and then be made generally better with each new tier, as well. For instance, pistols could be highly accurate, but low damage and moderate fire rate. Assault rifles could be a middle-ground of medium fire rate, medium accuracy, and medium damage. And so on. This would allow for the individuality of each type of weapon to be preserved, but if the track is advanced far enough, the pistols your people use could simply completely outstrip the assault rifles the pirates use in every category.

The economy aspect of what to do with the guns could be preserved, since your peoples' highly advanced weaponry would be worth a premium price to any merchant who knows how to value such things. Almost every merchant would know the value of having spare weapon parts around, though, and those who have no compunctions against selling weaponry would be willing to deal in parts.

The only reason I go into all this, though, is to provide the answer to the question: What do I do with all my guns? The answer: break them down into parts in order to fuel research into how to make bigger and better ones, of course!

There's only one last thing I want to cover, and I appreciate those of you who are still with me. Wear and tear on the guns is pretty needlessly complex. Guns that have been damaged, by explosives for instance, could be simply downgraded to inferior status and need to have some amount of weapon parts put into them to make them wholly operational. Is this realistic? No, but some amount of realism must be sacrificed for ease of play. Adding in a new, generic resource such as weapon parts shouldn't be too bad since there are only a small handful of resources as-is. However, requiring people to constantly lose weapon parts to repairs, or to have to keep the parts sorted out by weapon type, or any number of other minutiae that could be added would merely detract from the game. I think having a generic stock of weapon parts wouldn't overburden the player, and I don't think you would break suspension of disbelief for the majority of players by allowing a pistol piece to be repurposed into a shotgun piece. I do think, though, that having 1 metal be produced by breaking down a pistol and then being reused to construct a wall at least as wide and thick as I am is a bit much.

Woah, this got long, fast. Oops.

I feel that in a game there is a certain amount of abstraction that has to be made, otherwise you run the risk of making something way too micromanagey. So while having a vague pool of weapon parts from various firearms or a straight conversion to and from metal or other materials may be unrealistic the alternative may force the player to focus on an aspect of the game which may not be fun to manage.

Reverse engineering weapons is an interesting concept for early to mid game as it will act as a sink to dump your excess weapons into, but what about the weapons you don't use or no longer need to break down for research, sure you could sell them but seeing the current number of raiders chances are the influx of weapons are going to outpace the export of them.

Another point I am not a big fan of is the weapon part tiers as I think it would just encourage people to only have advanced tier weapons and nothing else.

Weapon addons or conditions I think would work better instead of tiers. These would be like traits the colonists have except for weapons.

For instance there could be a rifle that a raider dropped. It has a few positive and negative conditions like Cracked Scope, Rusty, Well lubricated, and Heavy frame. These conditions are persistent and do not need maintenance.

If you broke down a regular rifle with no conditions you have a low change of unlocking any of the positive traits possible for that specific weapon, but if you broke down the rifle with conditions on it then you have a grater or maybe guaranteed chance of unlocking that condition to put in future weapons you create.

I also believe that weapons that you acquire through any means other then making it yourself should always be better then what you can make. So when you unlock a few conditions for your weapons you should only be able to put one of those in your weapon. While weapons that you capture or buy will always have more then one trait accompanied by negative traits but is still overall better.

This opens up the field to unique weapons carried by pirate kings/queens or unique colonists and maybe even dwarf fortress style moods by colonists attached to their weapon.

Quote from: Vonriel on October 25, 2013, 03:02:30 AM
So, the idea is that when you find a gun, and we'll use pistols as a general example for now, your colonists can pick it up and start using it immediately. When you find three pistols, though, you can choose to have your colonists instead break them down and learn how pistols work. This would unlock research into pistols

Like Xanting I'm not excited about linear weapon tiers.
IMO, you should be able to "know" and use any kind of weapon immediately.

Some gating mechanisms may be useful so you don't build gatling railguns right away. =)
But that would be installations like the Advanced Workshop.
Pretty abstract like the "tech tree" in your average RTS. Build the Barracks and Lumber Mill and you can now build Axe Thrower Trolls.

Pistols and SMG: always
Rifles and AR: requires small workshop
Sniper rifles and machine guns: requires advanced workshop
You get the idea. =)


On top of that, you could make more use of this part:

Quote from: Gazz on October 22, 2013, 11:37:08 AMThat's what the weapon parts represent.
A mixture of research points and raw material.

While you could build any weapon (provided you have the right tools),
weapon parts would also be the currency to research weapon upgrades.
Pay 30 weapon parts to "research" the Uzi 9mm with extended magazine.
Then you can build that variant.

Upgraded weapons also demand even more weapon parts to build, creating a deep sinkhole for looted weapons. =)
With a system like that I could imagine players complaining about raiders dropping too few weapons. =)

Idea:
Gun lockets which may store one type of weapon multiply times for example:
Rifles 3 times
Pistols 5 times
Uzi 4 Times

And maybe an export system were the colony sell off guns.

Quote from: Evul on October 25, 2013, 08:26:08 AMAnd maybe an export system were the colony sell off guns.

How about a holding area for "stuff that is automatically sold the next time a ship is willing to buy any of it"?

Just dump all the leftovers in there as you come across them. No need to have it cluttering up your other management screens.
And people?
"Err, guys? You kinda closed the door! Hey! Let me out? GUYS?"

Strangely enough after reading through this forum I'm torn between proposing the implementation of Xanting's idea and Nomadseifer's original idea on the first page. I like the idea of weapon traits that could be discovered by breaking down the weapons, not into a micro-managey system of parts as others have feared but into basic metal. Combined with Nomad's FO3 style repair system I think it'd work great if Ty was willing/capable of using it.

(On a side note I like the idea of a mechanic's workshop area actually becoming cluttered with scrap metal unless it's regularly hauled, it would give the room a sense of... I don't know, as well as also instilling some more personality into the character)

Having too many guns probably would be helped if ammo became a concern and the raiders leave when they get low on ammo, as opposed to everyone having infinite ammo.   The raiders having another reason to call off the attack, would provide the player the opportunity to try to counter attack and/or deny the player the weapons they carried if he/she fails to defeat them utterly.

I'm not sure if the settlers should be carrying their own supply of ammo, or if they should just pull from a global pool when they reload.  If they have their own supply, they could go to an equipment rack to restock from the colony's supply of ammo (or have someone bring them ammo from an equipment rack).  The only downside is this would increase the micromanagement  :( of combat.

Either way, this would make people who shoot straight more important (they won't waste ammo) and would give further incentive not to have the guy with 2 shooting skill on the defensive line.  Instead he/she could be inside a building with a shotgun :-D, doing repairs, hauling the injured, etc.

I like this idea because there is very little micro as the player just has to mostly worry about the total ammo level, and not the gun degradation levels for each and every gun in the base (allot of micro  :( ).

Quote from: Ford_Prefect on October 25, 2013, 09:49:30 AM
Having too many guns probably would be helped if ammo became a concern and the raiders leave when they get low on ammo, as opposed to everyone having infinite ammo.   The raiders having another reason to call off the attack, would provide the player the opportunity to try to counter attack and/or deny the player the weapons they carried if he/she fails to defeat them utterly.

Tynan's already stated somewhere that he isn't going to do Ammo in Rimworld.

People keep suggesting it but it's unlikely to happen, Ammo would be difficult to implement and would require recoding the weapons' system from what I understand.

Not to mention it would encourage players to start stockpiling ammo just the same as they'd do with guns, except it would also mean adding a reloading mechanic and a special extra inventory space for shells, mags, etc.

Reloading is a useful mechanic because it can differentiate weapons.

Tracking carried ammunition doesn't make a lot of sense at the scale of the game.

"Heavy" weapons like a LAW can simply be a one-shot item that is used up and is then gone.

Quote from: Gazz on October 25, 2013, 10:25:34 AM
Reloading is a useful mechanic because it can differentiate weapons.

Tracking carried ammunition doesn't make a lot of sense at the scale of the game.

"Heavy" weapons like a LAW can simply be a one-shot item that is used up and is then gone.

I'm not sure of your meaning, but from what I understand you're in support of ammunition.

While I don't agree with the idea, both sides of the argument are moot as Tynan has stated that he's currently not interested in ammo.
You can try to change that if you want but as it stands ammo will not be a part of Rimworld to my knowledge.

Gazz supports ammunition as a governor of how long you are able to fire before taking a break to "reload", not as a supply constraint where you have to worry about keeping enough ammunition on hand like you already worry about food. Tynan has only said he didn't think ammunition as a supply constraint was fun or worthwhile.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I definitely agree that there is a problem of too many guns. It needs to be limited in some ways - and also there should be a way other than selling to make use of excess guns.

Just very quickly here are some ideas:

- Gun progression/combat progression in general.
It doesn't make much sense to me (given it's essentially a survival game at heart) that the game gets hyper-militarized so quick. Gun-turrets aplenty are basically essential just to survive out of the gate, and both you and your enemies gain access to advanced weapons very fast. Solution: Slow it down considerably and have a much smoother curve towards advanced guns. Add "non-gun weapons". Homemade and improvised melee weapons and bows and the like that will be the stuff you first get access to. At first guns should be somewhat rare, and these low-tech improvised weapons should have low to no sell value, at least to off-world traders. Raiders at the start should also be low-tech to start off. Gun-turrets should be much further down the eventual tech-tree, so that you actually have to use some tactics, flanking ect. to survive encounters rather than gunturret chokepoints as is the current metagame. The game seems to already have workable basics like coversystems in place and its a damn shame that you never really get to use any of that in some tactical squad-combat. Having gun-turrets later in the game and not essential in the start makes it so that they can be more expensive and more powerful and more of a supplement to defense rather than the primary factor. Taking down that one raider with a lee-enfield when all you have are bows and homemade spears could get really exciting :)

This can lead to many fun scenarios of asymetry, like a horde of poorly equipped raiders vs. your few survivors with basic or advanced weapons (a classic "swarm defence), or the other way around, a handful of very heavly equipped raiders vs. your slightly more more numerous survivors with hardly any real guns. This should be a lot more varied than the same old same old raider attacks where primarily the difficulty is only determined by the number of attackers.

- Broken weapons: Maybe it's a bit a of a "cheap trope" but a primary way to reduce guns should be that many of them get broken in combat when dropped. That way, you may get a gun or two in a big encounter, not 20. It makes guns that you get actually exciting and valuable, rather than "ho hum, my 200'th shotgun.... how many weapons racks do I really need to construct??"

- Recycling: Broken weapons should be recyclable for a little metal, so you feel that you get something out of the deal and that all those weapons don't just seem to "disintegrate" as that feels like an extra cheap mechanic in many games where enemy weapons just "don't exist" once the enemies die.

-Stigma

I like the idea of scrapping the guns to advance research.

What about Turrets requiring a gun or two for each barrel?  You want that five shot auto turret, sure if you can cobble together 10 pistols or 5 Rifles.

Quote from: FangoWolf on October 25, 2013, 03:32:02 PM
I like the idea of scrapping the guns to advance research.

What about Turrets requiring a gun or two for each barrel?  You want that five shot auto turret, sure if you can cobble together 10 pistols or 5 Rifles.

YES like you can upgrade turrets by adding guns and diffrent gun tyeps to them
also i support the scrapping guns to research idea.

If there isn't going to be an ammo system.  Then I'm in favor of the slowing down the gun progression idea that stigma posted.

Quote from: FangoWolf on October 25, 2013, 03:32:02 PM
What about Turrets requiring a gun or two for each barrel?  You want that five shot auto turret, sure if you can cobble together 10 pistols or 5 Rifles.

This would essentially nerf turrets though which ISN'T the topic at hand.. Honestly I don't see the big deal with too many guns, its not much different than literally any other game where guys drop guns...but if something needed to be done, my vote would be for a grinder, as it is an alternative to selling them (less efficient economically to selling, but available when traders aren't) AND it also provides the colony with another tool, perhaps used to grind down stones into small amounts of metal, while sucking up lots of power.

Compared to the other ideas, I think this would be a very good idea to solve this "problem" while also adding another element to the game.

Heck, you might even be able to add grinding up corpses for food in times of desperation =)

Quote from: stigma on October 25, 2013, 01:44:27 PM
- Gun progression/combat progression in general.
It doesn't make much sense to me (given it's essentially a survival game at heart) that the game gets hyper-militarized so quick. Gun-turrets aplenty are basically essential just to survive out of the gate, and both you and your enemies gain access to advanced weapons very fast. Solution: Slow it down considerably and have a much smoother curve towards advanced guns. Add "non-gun weapons". Homemade and improvised melee weapons and bows and the like that will be the stuff you first get access to. At first guns should be somewhat rare, and these low-tech improvised weapons should have low to no sell value, at least to off-world traders. Raiders at the start should also be low-tech to start off. Gun-turrets should be much further down the eventual tech-tree, so that you actually have to use some tactics, flanking ect. to survive encounters rather than gunturret chokepoints as is the current metagame. The game seems to already have workable basics like coversystems in place and its a damn shame that you never really get to use any of that in some tactical squad-combat. Having gun-turrets later in the game and not essential in the start makes it so that they can be more expensive and more powerful and more of a supplement to defense rather than the primary factor. Taking down that one raider with a lee-enfield when all you have are bows and homemade spears could get really exciting :)

I noticed that the first thing players often do in lets plays is build autoturrets, neglecting survival necessities like shelter. I think there should be some kind of progression with defense. For one, a more gradual curve in raider attack difficulty. The game should progressive from improvised melee weapons, to improvised ranged weapons, to manufactured weapons and then automated defenses. Autoturrets should have to be researched because like it has been mentioned before RimWorld feels a lot like a tower defense game as it is.

I think raiders should be using simple melee or ranged weapons (throwing weapons, bows and arrows, blunderbuss-type guns) at first. Then as the game progresses, they'll get rifles, machine guns, etc.

Also as it has been mentioned before, weapons dropped by raiders should break into scrap or metal every so often so that the materials themselves can be used even if they are not guns. There should be a type of structure that melts down scrap into a small amount of metal as to not flood the player with free metal.

I really think the importance of guns needs to decrease in the beginning of the game, as setting up shelter, food, water, etc. should be more vital than acquired weaponry.

Quote from: Reaver41 on October 26, 2013, 05:45:27 AM

Quote from: FangoWolf on October 25, 2013, 03:32:02 PM
I like the idea of scrapping the guns to advance research.

What about Turrets requiring a gun or two for each barrel?  You want that five shot auto turret, sure if you can cobble together 10 pistols or 5 Rifles.

YES like you can upgrade turrets by adding guns and diffrent gun tyeps to them
also i support the scrapping guns to research idea.

I think what might help would be start with this, but take it a little farther. As opposed to having guns be used to upgrade the turret, make guns a resource in their construction. That way, you limit the ability to build 400 turrets right out the gate and prevent every raider attack ever, and you also have a way of using up some of the excess gun pool. Perhaps you could also use guns to build tripwire traps, or something similar.

Quote from: nomadseifer on October 22, 2013, 01:03:02 AM
Not having played the game, is there some problem just selling all of them?  Will traders only buy a small limited number? 

Onto ideas...

Most logical solution to me would be to convert them into a useful material.  Maybe just metal.  Maybe a higher quality metal for a special purpose.  Just need a forge to melt them down.    I think converting excess goods into something useful for the colony should be always be the design-approach of choice. In a survival-colony game people want to feel like they're making it on their own, living off the 'land'.  Not just turning stuff into cash to buy other stuff.  That starts to feel like organized market society, which isn't very survivorly.  :)

I think weapon degradation/repair is nice too but only if its handled almost automatically since I could see that being pretty tedious.  This mechanic would only really make sense if there is someway to avoid combat/getting guns since degradation is only a threat if your gun supply/raiders are not infinite.  Non-lethal raids make since here.

+1 for melting down weapons.

Having read only the first page:

I think melting down weapons should be a last ditch effort to reduce stocks. Having a better storage system would reduce the annoyance of having hundreds of weapons that you could still potentially sell.

Also perhaps consider that the planet and environment seem very hostile to the fine machinery that is a gun. Without proper maintenance I suppose a gun would breakdown in a matter of weeks if not days. So perhaps keeping guns for spare parts that get used up to maintain/repair other weapons could work too.

Parts and broken weapons could also affect trading and economy though. So there is probably a larger side to the idea than I can currently see.

How about a weapon prefix system, similar to terraria?... Slight variations in damage, speed, and accuracy (and other stuff) between each. Raiders would tend to use slightly worse of weapons, but could also have better variations rarely.

A few stats I can think of are..

Speed to fire, speed to reload (please note, these are 2 different things) Damage, range, stun chance, handling(basically how much penalty is taken per block away the target is) Rare guns having larger bursts, piercing rounds (going through multiple targets if they line up), or countless other things (double barrel firing shotgun could be super fun.)

This way in addition to a MUCH deeper gun system, there will be guns which are worth much less to sell (and perform worse), and higher value guns which are worth more (and work better). Thus, if a bunch of raiders drop a bunch of rusty old uzis, you won't get as much for them than guns which have clearly been taken care of / tweaked for performance.

Besides that, I could see some other interesting effects...Perhaps if you get a very poor quality charge rifle, it has a small chance to light the use on fire from overheating. I could see all sorts of interesting effects coming out of this, besides addressing the "bulk" of guns giving someone too much cash.

Item based trade. We've already established there are low-tech civilizations out there, maybe even capable of space-flight on scrappy, traded vessels. They would show great interest in more advanced tech they would then study or use. Obviously on-foot caravans would be more in line with the tech level, but then again space-based ones would be easier on the narrative of this specific moon and it's inhabitants.

The problem here is: what ELSE can WE trade IN; and what can THEY give us in return. Maybe they have stockpiles of other different tech-y things they gathered over the years but are not quite sure what they do? Rare materials and plants? People?

using them for turret upgrades?

Hope this isn't repeating anyone's words (this is a long topic to just come in to!), but here's a couple of areas that may work:

Characters should have limits on the type of weapon they can use, potentially grouped into a Simple/Martial/Exotic style like DnD. Fixes the idea of a Medieval slave knowing how to work an incendiary launcher, and not just firing it less accurately.

I like the idea mentioned of gun turrets becoming a research based item. And also agree that the start of the game should be about survival rather than tower defence. However, I disagree that only low-tech weapons should be available at the start. The premise that many advancement levels of civilisations can be involved in this game at any one time conflicts with this idea.

In terms of actual numbers of guns, although I like the idea of sometimes dropping scrap rather than the actual weapon I think collecting a big arsenal from defeated opponents is cool. They make it too easy to become very rich though so just reduce the resale value with exception of really rare guns.

What is the exact problem?

Is it that the players need to micromanage the guns? -> There are only a number of gun types, set a colonists gun by drop down or inventory screen, he goes to fetch the gun from some location on his own.

Is it that there are too many guns and you need to have stores for them? -> Change the equipment racks to allow stacking of guns of the same type. For example so that one tile can accept 5 rifles and 15 pistols.

Is it that guns become the players primary income? -> Stop traders from buying them, or on ridiculous prices, and then allow players to cannibalize the guns for metal.

Alternatively and I think much more interestingly you could make guns a much more complicated data type, so they can be named, wielded and loved by specific colonists, they store their own killcount and develop "personality" traits after a while. Like "Always jams after an explosion" or "Damage increase after a kill" Weapons that have killed a colonist receive negative qualities. Reflecting that colonists don't like wielding the weapon that killed their buddy. These should not be considered magical qualities but rather the beliefs that colonists attach to these weapons.

It's psychological. But the consequence is that new weapons delivered by traders will not work as well as the existing well known weapons.

And then have the weapons degrade and require canibalisation of other weapons to retain their quality. Failure to maintain the weapon produces bad traits. Weapons will be maintained by a colonist with the existing repair skill and can be done on a workbench, which also gives you a reason to include a workbench. ;)

Quote from: willow512 on November 12, 2013, 07:47:41 AM

Alternatively and I think much more interestingly you could make guns a much more complicated data type, so they can be named, wielded and loved by specific colonists, they store their own killcount and develop "personality" traits after a while. Like "Always jams after an explosion" or "Damage increase after a kill" Weapons that have killed a colonist receive negative qualities. Reflecting that colonists don't like wielding the weapon that killed their buddy. These should not be considered magical qualities but rather the beliefs that colonists attach to these weapons.

It's psychological. But the consequence is that new weapons delivered by traders will not work as well as the existing well known weapons.

And then have the weapons degrade and require canibalisation of other weapons to retain their quality. Failure to maintain the weapon produces bad traits. Weapons will be maintained by a colonist with the existing repair skill and can be done on a workbench, which also gives you a reason to include a workbench. ;)

Sounds good to me!

A combination of reduced drop rates (sometimes the gun a raider is using gets destroyed when the raider gets taken out), being able to store more than one gun per tile (so that armories don't get painfully large and take up too much real estate), and being able to melt down guns into a small amount of metal (if you don't want an armory, you don't have to have one) would solve the many-guns problem.

It would also make building a large armory somewhat challenging, so if a player enjoys collecting weaponry and displaying it, that's something they can try to do and actually be challenged on, as opposed to how it is now where it kinda happens easily.

I think having something simple as having a % drop chance upon death that a weapon can be picked up and reused would contribute against stock piling weapons. If a person has a weapon, dies, and doesn't drop it would be considered destroyed.

Include that weapons can be purchased from traders, and have them be uncommon, would be a gentle infusion of weapons into the player's arsenal. These could also be at very high prices, and the trader may not carry everything that you want at the time (advanced weapons would be more rarely sold, as well as very expensive). On a side note, turrets wouldn't be something that you can build from materials, instead they would only be purchasable from merchants, and they too are uncommon and very expensive. The reason this is also important, is because turrets would no longer be easily replaceable based on available resources. If you lose 10 turrets due to a raider attack during a solar flare, or a few raiders have rocket launchers and knock your turrets out - you'll need to purchase them whenever a trader comes into range again, and the trader may not even have many or any at all in stock for you to buy.

This may make it so there is a 'weapon cycle of life'.. with making turrets more rare, person to person combat would be much more common, which would mean more deaths for both your people as well as raiders. With more people dying, more weapons are removed from the game because of the % chance of drop. Things you could experience would be dry spells of turrets, and dry spells of hand weapons. Your tactics may change dramatically because of this.

A visual Aid for those not familar with gun problem.
(http://i.imgur.com/k32HfD3.jpg)
There are well over 300 weapons on the ground outside my base.
(http://i.imgur.com/kC0VkAZ.jpg)
Raids are averaging 60-80 raiders. Each Trade ship can only buy 30-40 guns if i prioritize pistols and low end guns.  Thus, most of the guns are left where they drop, I simply do not have the space to store them. the only ones i pick up now are those in the way of building. There are enough dropped over my minefield that my stock never gets low even when I am actively avoiding picking up weapons.

A nice feature would be allowing guns to stack in the racks, say sets of 5? that reduces the space requirement quite a bit. Also Please please allow us to sort the buy/sell guns tab by either name or price. it doesn't matter which.  It takes 10 minutes to go through and sell just the pistols and such. I spend more time  sorting through the guns for sale than playing the actual game.

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 12:41:38 AM
People tend to build up a lot of guns. While it can be fun to have a big armory, it can also feel pretty micromanagey after a while.

How do we solve the problem where people get huge amounts of guns?

I've got lots of thoughts on this but I'm curious if anyone else has any specific ideas on how this design issue might be solved.

One thing I've noticed is that guns often have low durability left after my explosive minefields are done with them. I think weapons with low durability should be fairly shite - like, 1% less accurate for every 5% durability they've lost. So a gun which is down to 35 health should be 13% less accurate.

Now, the reason for this is that a gunsmith should be able to take multiple guns of the same type and strip them down for parts - say, adding 5% health to the one with the largest remaining health for every 10% or fraction thereof that a stripped gun has. So if he has two R-4 charge rifles at 35%, he could strip one down and add 20% to the last one - raising it to 55% health.

I think this would also be important if raider guns didn't spawn at 100% health. Raiders have been slogging through god-knows-what. Their guns should be a bit crap. Only guns which have been stripped and repaired by a weaponsmith, or sold to you by an arms dealer, should come at 100%.

If someone is equipped with a weapon and he notices a weapon of identical type but superior health on the racks, he should probably automatically switch to that weapon, too.

That won't solve the issue entirely... But it would at least be a reason to build a new workshop room, which would be nice. Also, weapons in crap condition would probably sell for less - a lot less - than weapons in pristine condition. You'd need to tweak the math on this so that selling a 100% gun is always a better choice than selling like, 5 or 6 crap-condition guns.

Or, as an alternative, let us smelt down guns for metal. Guns, and metal slag, but especially guns.

[e]I'd also like to pitch in my voice for letting guns of identical type stack on the racks, with folks told to equip a certain type of weapon from the rack automatically equipping the best one they can find. I'd say they should stack like, 20 deep, though, not five.

Also, to go along with gunsmith stripping, it would be nice if a gunsmith could work laboriously to create an extra-special gun every now and then. needing a lot of parts; perhaps an R-4 that sometimes sets people on fire, or a incendiary launcher that sometimes makes a burst of flame, molotov-style. But that sort of thing is best reserved for later, I think.

It has been mentioned already )probably a few times in this thread) But I think that there should be a way to recycle guns into scrap metal. I mean, I'm all for having a massive warehouse filled floor to ceiling with arms, but it would be nice to get some metal from them seeing as storing them requires 50 metal for every two guns, plus flooring, lighting, walls and defence. Even if it was just 5-20 metal per gun, nothing huge, just a nice small boost. Then you can build a nice recycling plant, and if you want then you can recycle some of your guns. Maybe you only recycle pistols. Personally I sell off any weapon that isn't an R-4, M-16 or M-24, I'd smelt the rest. Perhaps it's taken one step further, and akin to Towns, you can set how many you keep at a given time. So you set the limit at five which will keep five of that type of gun on hand for new settlers, and any new guns acquired will automatically be smelted down by your settlers. Just my opinion.

Also as mentioned above, not the same gun problem, but still a many gun problem, turrets should be bought from traders.

Going along the line of having weapons degrade, you could mark certain guns to be broken down into spare parts. To allow other guns to be repaired from said spare parts.
Or you can have the guns be broken down and added as metal to your inventory. It would have to be a small amount of metal to make sure it doesn't get exploited somehow. Maybe 10 metal per pistol, 20 for M-16s, 30 for M-24s and so on.

Another simple idea is have guns expire after x amount of time....but these are all extreme cases I think, in the pictures, I only have a few gun racks, and I just sell my guns to a trader when I can. Plus items being everywhere is a problem other games have, fallout for instance...only difference is they eventually expire, AND you dont hang around 1 spot all the time.

The guns you get off the raiders should have missing hp. Durability affecting the price with trades pretty sure that's been said already. If someone on your team has a low durability gun a little pistol picture, big as the ! pops up over there head or if there's the same gun somewhere on a rack with higher durability but only at 50% they well look for a better gun and it has to be much greater. To stop them from looping.

Grenades should also lose 34 durability per toss making them 3 shots or go for even 25 per toss.

Quote from: Workload on November 12, 2013, 03:47:58 PM
The guns you get off the raiders should have missing hp. Durability affecting the price with trades pretty sure that's been said already. If someone on your team has a low durability gun a little pistol picture, big as the ! pops up over there head or if there's the same gun somewhere on a rack with higher durability but only at 50% they well look for a better gun and it has to be much greater. To stop them from looping.

Grenades should also lose 34 durability per toss making them 3 shots or go for even 25 per toss.

This would only be acceptable if grenades were a secondary device. Having five throws before you're down to your fists wouldn't work unless your fighting position was backed by an armory full of grenades/Molotovs. Which, you know, is fine for the defenders! But the raiders might have a problem with it. (Then again, I wouldn't have a problem with the raiders being so limited.)

Grenades should probably lose 20 durability/throw, Molotovs should lose 34. It's easier to carry pineapple grenades on a belt than it is to carry whiskey bottles full of alcohol and flaming rags.

I don't think the too many guns is an issue, in fact I think having a crap ton of guns you can't use is better. Ammo is what should be a huge issue, specially for different calibers. After all what use is a gun with no ammunition? Ammo should be hard to make, and hard to obtain in large quantities.

I think that the rarer the gun, the rarer it is to find good ammo, maybe we can make some but they would be less accurate, and has a higher chance to cause a blow back and/or jam. We get ton's of pistols, that's a lot of pistol ammo... great! A lot of ammo for pistols and perhaps uzi, but nothing else benefits from it.

I think buying new guns should be very expensive, they are in good condition and not used, selling ours would be treated very cheaply, usually worth more to scrap for the metal than to sell it for cash.

I agree 100% with ya ShadowDragon

I'm with the guy who suggested the huge thing on gun parts and tech trees.

That seems like a really cool feature to me that solves all points nicely.

Quote from: lt_halle on November 12, 2013, 06:49:14 PM
I'm with the guy who suggested the huge thing on gun parts and tech trees.

That seems like a really cool feature to me that solves all points nicely.

This. And it adds depth to the game, which is sorely lacking at the moment.

Quote from: GC13 on October 22, 2013, 01:32:48 PM
1) Reason to limit the number of colonists in combat. This will allow you to dial down the number of raiders. I recommend making is so combat skills not only make you more likely to hit an enemy, but less likely to be hit. If my four hardcore combatants, who have low colony-growth skills, can handle the five raiders and probably won't be seriously hurt, why would I risk the eight people who keep my colony running and are far more likely to be seriously hurt without doing much?

I love this. It also makes colonists like assassins less useless; having dedicated fighters who can pretty much do nothing else is suddenly a lot more reasonable, and we get fewer weapons showered on us.

I would vote for a combination of this, and being able to salvage weapons for scrap metal and/or spare parts (if some kind of crafting is eventually implemented).

Even if we can manage to sell off most of our guns to traders, the only reason I do it is to save space in my armory... After a couple hours I never get slave traders, and the only thing I ever buy from traders is metal. And there's never enough available to make a dent in my mountain of money accumulated from selling guns.

Tinkering with weapons could also be a science thing: Scientists need some use after you got the research done they are pretty useless (My scientists have higher growing and construction skills after a while, simply because there is so little Science to do, and so much to grow/repair).

Tinkering/recalibrating weapons is a at least partly scientific. That, and researching vaccines for all kinds of new diseases and ailments...

I worry that if we are allowed to recycle guns into scrap metal that we'd be faced with one of two circumstances: guns either give an unrealistic amount of metal (remember how cheap very large objects are for material), or people complain that their gun yields less than one tenth of the metal that they could have sold it for. Guns aren't valuable for their raw material though, they're valuable for the machining that's gone into them. It's akin to melting your car down: you'll get a lot less metal out of it than if you had sold it (even to a scrap yard, but preferably to someone who wanted to drive it) and used the proceeds to buy metal.

Just adding to this how about, and this if just a if.

New race of raiders were to be made they could have guns that your people can't use at all so should be less guns.

One race could use bio weapons so they are part of them or a race that very high tech and when they die there guns blow up so no one can use them.
Sorry if this is off topic but I'm just thinking ahead and hoping there will be more then 1 type of enemy.
Still down for the mods,repairs, and so on :)

Quote from: Noxmutagen on October 22, 2013, 02:50:25 AM
Oh I'm HOPING he has a inventory system planned. Much like Dwarf Fortress, that was sick. Backpacks, etc.

never played dwarf fortress, but gnomoria: right boot, left boot,...
one piece of clothing is ok, 2-4 perfect, 10 way to much ;)

and to our guns: may-be there should be a "S-Bay Trading Company" that buys everything for 1/10 of normal price.

Weapons: Possibly make a resource for Ammunition... Not per weapon but in the top left... Whenever a weapon is fired, and maybe Molotov and frags take 2 "ammo" per throw, your ammo goes down... then when you get weapons and put them into a rack for the first time, you gain a certain amount of ammo... Or random ammo drops and eventually you get to Combat Suppliers and sell weapons to them to buy ammo... Since near-end game they become useless other than to fence your weapons. This would allow Ammo into the game without micro-management of ammo for each individual weapon.

   Also maybe some sort of Forge, Melt down weapons for metal at an expensive rate (not money but weapon cost -20%, avg metal cost +20%, conversion). so say R-4 Rifle is $1300, avg Metal is $10 (20 expensive) but we will say 130 metal for $1300. you can melt an R-4 Rifle for (-20%cost, +20% expense) approx 78 metal... You get deducted massively... but you do not have to buy and sell multiple traders just for metal. This can work the same for emergency ammunition. whatever a balance ammunition would be and same conversion.

Quote from: Workload on November 13, 2013, 02:50:04 PMJust adding to this how about, and this if just a if.

New race of raiders were to be made they could have guns that your people can't use at all so should be less guns.

Bugger that. Bugger that right up the jacksie with an overvolted cattle prod.

Quote from: GC13 on November 13, 2013, 12:17:55 PM
I worry that if we are allowed to recycle guns into scrap metal that we'd be faced with one of two circumstances: guns either give an unrealistic amount of metal (remember how cheap very large objects are for material), or people complain that their gun yields less than one tenth of the metal that they could have sold it for. Guns aren't valuable for their raw material though, they're valuable for the machining that's gone into them. It's akin to melting your car down: you'll get a lot less metal out of it than if you had sold it (even to a scrap yard, but preferably to someone who wanted to drive it) and used the proceeds to buy metal.

In my mind, let the people complain... There is no reason to listen to stupid complaints, and that would be a tremendously stupid complaint. As it is you simply cannot sell your guns fast enough to traders, nor is there ever enough metal to buy to bring down your mountain of cash by an reasonable amount. Being able to melt down weapons is something you can do for a little extra metal, instead of building bigger and bigger armories to store an ever-growing number of weapons.

If you don't have a big surplus of guns, don't melt them down - sell them instead. If you do, and you can't sell them fast enough, then melt down the excess. Everyone wins.

And I agree, if melting guns for metal ever becomes a think, it should be a small amount of metal. It just gives us more things to build, more diverse rooms, more stuff for colonists to do, a means of getting rid of excess weapons, and as a bonus, a nominal amount of extra metal. Maybe something like 1 metal for a pistol, 2 for an uzi, and 3 for rifles or something. Or just 2 for every gun, if we want things simple.

Quote from: Stickle on November 13, 2013, 07:56:22 PMIn my mind, let the people complain... There is no reason to listen to stupid complaints, and that would be a tremendously stupid complaint.

Oh, like the guys behind WarZ? No. Don't. I don't think Tynan would ever come close anyway.

And it is legitimate point. If your uzi melts for 2 metal, but sells for more metal than you could melt your whole 250+ guns collection for... then what is the point of melting again? That would be half-assed approach and would make players angry - and for a good reason. You would add a mechanic that cheats you into thinking it's somewhat useful (someone implemented it after all!) and turns out to be a huge waste of time.

How would you feel if you get the last gun in Doom, called Obliterator or something, and it doesn't work? You post it as a bug only to get a response from dev-tem: "Well, we had no gun to put under <9> so we added one!". You would only think - what a bunch of duck quacking, rubber packing ass-hats! And you would be right.

If we are to come at a solution, let it be a solution - and not a cheap way out because no one cared enough to actually see the whole thing through.

Alright. So lets look at the situation.

We have a situation where the following is true.

The game creates feedback such that the more lethal you are the more weaponry you will receive. Through standard escalation and by responding to a larger population the feedback of obtaining guns rapidly outpaces use for them.

People->Guns->Guns in a feedback loop. Exponential growth here.

The problems are many-faceted.
You are gaining a rate of guns, but only care about the static stock of guns.
This is a simple enough solution. Create a new competent used in maintenance.

Call it something sciency. Gears, cogs, advanced machinery, mechanisms, whatever.

All repair takes this stuff from your stores to some degree. Likewise, weapons degrade when fired, thereby making it function as a form of ammunition in a sense as-well. It would function as a single abstracted concept between advanced technology, bullets, and so-on. This can even be further achieved by having some weapons break down faster or slower to represent the increased 'wastefulness' of those weapons, further adding to interesting choices in the game.

Reprocessing weapons or metal would be the primary way to gain these components, there-by making an interesting carry capacity of weapons for your society.

Is stacking weapons on weapon racks an option? It feels like that ought to be an option, because there's no way you'd need eight square feet, or however much space a gun rack takes up, of a room's floorspace to store just two guns.

My solution: let each tile of an equipment rack store five weapons of one type instead of just one weapon. This wouldn't add visual confusion, since you could still see the weapon's icon at a glance. If it's too difficult to let one equipment rack store two different types of weapons, reduce equipment rack size to one tile or just bite the bullet and have each rack store just five weapons. Either way, it would be monumentally more sensible and space-efficient.

On the other hand, I'd really like to see a system with customizable and maintainable individual weapons, and if this solution got in the way of that I'd rather not have this solution. If there will be, I'd suggest a special building, a workbench, that can store many weapons, where a colonist can repair weapons and scavenge parts from other weapons.

This brings up the wider problem of stockpiles and storage. Storing a hundred guns on a workbench sounds kind of ridiculous. On the other hand storage bins/crates, that store lots of things but which are not convenient to pack and unpack in a hurryâ€"convenience being the point of weapon racksâ€"would probably be a good addition to the game for more general purposes, including for weapons.

Quote from: Galileus on November 13, 2013, 08:04:46 PM
And it is legitimate point. If your uzi melts for 2 metal, but sells for more metal than you could melt your whole 250+ guns collection for... then what is the point of melting again? That would be half-assed approach and would make players angry - and for a good reason. You would add a mechanic that cheats you into thinking it's somewhat useful (someone implemented it after all!) and turns out to be a huge waste of time.

You're missing the point. As it stands, after a few hours of playing you begin to accumulate more guns than you can use or get rid of. Traders only come once in a while, and they can only afford to buy a certain number of weapons from you. There comes a point where you simply can't unload all your weaponry. You can either leave it lying on the ground where it fell (but this interferes with construction and repairs) or you keep building more and more armories to store them all. Those are the only two options... Melting weapons down would allow us to get rid of all that excess, which is doing nothing but sitting in racks because you can't possibly sell them all.

It's not "you can either sell your weapons for cash, which you can use to buy metal, or you can melt them for much less metal." It's: "you can either use metal to keep building more armories indefinitely to store your exponentially increasing gun supply, or you can melt the guns that you can't use nor sell, getting some metal, saving some space, and losing nothing."

Traders don't have enough credits to buy all your guns, so it is not an either-or decision. Not to mention, selling as many guns as you can to traders will give you more money than you can ever spend on metal (this might be alleviated when other purchasable goods become useful).

And it makes perfect sense that melting a gun would yield less metal than the profits from selling a gun would buy. Of course a manufactured object like a functioning firearm would sell for more than its weight in materials.

How about we take the third way: simply turn off the spigot. Rarer raiders, encouraging us to fight them with fewer people, and fights with raiders that seldom turn lethal (for the raiders, anyway). Raiders raid because they don't want to work for a living, not because they want to commit Suicide By Colonist; if your colony is well-defended or is able to quickly mount a spirited resistance they should run away.

Giving us the ability to melt a gun down for three units of metal is a very unsatisfying experience that will make a player upset that the traders have so little money rather than thinking "well, it's three more metal than I would have had".

Quote from: GC13 on November 13, 2013, 10:17:24 PM
How about we take the third way: simply turn off the spigot. Rarer raiders, encouraging us to fight them with fewer people, and fights with raiders that seldom turn lethal (for the raiders, anyway). Raiders raid because they don't want to work for a living, not because they want to commit Suicide By Colonist; if your colony is well-defended or is able to quickly mount a spirited resistance they should run away.

Giving us the ability to melt a gun down for three units of metal is a very unsatisfying experience that will make a player upset that the traders have so little money rather than thinking "well, it's three more metal than I would have had".

I'd be happy with that. Thing is, in the long term I think raiders will become a smaller focus of the game, once more content and events are added in. Right now they're practically the only opposition we have, with some rare exceptions, so toning them down could easily lead to an uneventful game. That's not necessarily the end of the world, seeing as the game is still in pre-Alpha and balance should really be the least of concerns at the moment, but by releasing a version of the game to the public Tynan has opened something of a can of worms in that regard. If the pre-release version of the game stops being satisfying for a significant period of time while undergoing major changes, he's going to have thousands of angry voices yelling in his ear.

Melting metal objects, whether they're guns, metal slag, or other future objects, could make a good feature regardless. It could even be tied into reclamation in general (I'm hoping that the sell function is a place-holder for actually reclaiming/deconstructing objects). Implementing a forge or something to melt metal objects doesn't seem like a terribly difficult thing to do as far as new features/buildings go, and in the short term it could be used to solve the gun problem. In the long term it might be solved by toning down and re-working raiders so they don't mass suicide against a heavily fortified colony (and in turn give us a good reason not to use all our colonists in defense - the idea to make combat abilities affect ability to take cover could be a good change, for example). Either way the 'forge' or recycling center, whatever you want to call it, would still be useful, I would never support a stop-gap feature whose only purpose is to temporarily solve a problem during alpha/beta, only to be removed when the 'real' solution is implemented.

Well, how about letting weapons that lie in the dirt exposed to weather and the like just degrade? They already have health. Let them take damage if left lying around outside. More damage if it rains. More advanced weapons take more damage due to sensitive tech.

They degrade until broken and then can just be hauled to a dump, or sweeped up like filth?

(This should also apply to corpses, but i digress)

While I don't think gun melting is an answer to too many gun problem. It need to be there. The same goes with recycle in general. We need a way to get rid of excess gun, excess body, excess slag or any debris.

The fundamental issue with too many gun, however, is we get too many gun too quickly.
The direct solution would be getting less gun. This can be done by

1. less raiders in general
If raid is really not a focus of the game, It can stand to be less common.
Some player may be disappoint though. Raid is what make Rimworld feel dwarf fortress-ish especially if medical care system is added later on.

2. less lethal raid
Average raider should start running when thing start to go badly, taking too much damage or morale too low. They shouldn't fight to death unless they are veteran marine deserter. They should use hit and away tactic as a raider they are. Grab stuff they want and gone. Players should have problem chasing them down if they want to raid these raider stuffs. It is currently another way around. Raiders come to GIVE you stuffs.
I prefer this solution myself however I suspect it will need significant AI improvement to make raider act less sucidal first.

3. less gun drop
Death raider drop metal scrap instead of functioning gun. Working gun should be rare drop. Or only damaged gun is dropped which need repair. Or only gun part is dropped which need to be research and manufacture (AKA X-com) 
This should be an easiest approach. However, unless we have research&manufacture system in place, It may annoy some player though if they fend off waves after waves of M-16 raiders with a few pistols and all they got is some scraps of metal.

4. gun degrade over time
Gun become consumable resource and not last forever. Players is forced to get their hand on new firearm or scrap excess ones for repair.
A reverse solution. We don't get less gun. We still get a lot of guns and lost as many. More thing to manage. Some people will like it. However, I suspect it will be prone to micromanagement issue. Just like ammunition issue.

Assuming someone in your colony knows how to maintain guns then I doubt that degrading guns over time will be an issue. Life isn't like Fallout 3: guns don't degrade over a timescale of hours, as literally dozens of rounds are put through them. Since the game is only going to last for many months and not many years, gun degradation should never be an issue.

It's also kind of silly for a gun to be scrapped when it's dropped. Sure, X-COM does it, but there's a good story reason put in for why it happens. Real guns can survive being dropped from a few feet in the air.

I'm not a fan of over time maybe done like BoxofDoom posted or could add some little worms that eat metal and other things that are dead but only on dirt/sand. For the guns when you get them it makes sense that they can be damage cause the raiders could have used them before and during the fight vs you. Raiders have stories too

As for how much metals you gets back it should be less then selling it but good thing about it don't have to wait around for a trader and sometime you need fast metals.
Or make gun parts a different class off item     like food/metals/gun parts     
Already has crafting in the skills or repair could work but could mess up the priority. Gunsmith table could be made. Just don't know how to go about it. 1 idea I got is there's 4 or more slots on a GMtable kinda like equipment rack. Or instead could just pile up and go into a list, displayed by left clicking the table. Then a person set to repair/crafting or maybe a new one gunsmith.... I rather not tho. Anyways can repair them if placed on the table but there could also be a auto repair button that tells your people it's ok to haul guns if there gun is low hp. If off you just tell that person to haul it there like a equipment rack. I don't know about taking them apart, maybe a different item would be used for that or right click on a gun and pick scrap when on ground/racks/equipped and they bring it to the table.
Haha this sound like a lot of work tho

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 12:41:38 AM
People tend to build up a lot of guns. While it can be fun to have a big armory, it can also feel pretty micromanagey after a while.

How do we solve the problem where people get huge amounts of guns?

I've got lots of thoughts on this but I'm curious if anyone else has any specific ideas on how this design issue might be solved.

These could be:
-Economy adjustments (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=311.0)
-Changes in how guns are acquired
-Variations on gun degradation
-Other ways to get rid of useless guns
-New AI behaviors to dump/destroy useless guns automatically
-Changes in how guns are dropped or acquired
-Don't solve it, just let it happen, it's awesome!

I'm interested in your thoughts. Let 'em fly!

Multi-Part Suggested Solution:

Guns retain health per damage they receive.  Guns of the same style can be used to repair existing guns.  Energy can repair energy, rifles, rifles, etc.  Gun gets hit by too many explosions/fires then you lost it.  Why do you care about losing a generic gun?

Because guns should be 'owned'.  This is Bob's rife.  There are many like it, but this is his.  Make colonists gain small bonuses to sticking with a weapon over time.  Allow them to have a personal store of items in their rooms.  Make them use a new weapon and they have to get used to it, get to know all the little operations.  Why should guns be owned?

Because they should have to be maintained.  If you just fire a gun all the time and drag it around with you while you dig through rock, dirt, and sand then it will not work well.  Poorly maintained weapons should start to jam and misfire.  Why does this help reduce guns?

Because the maintenance of the weapons you want will need parts from the guns you don't want.  Now you are not selling every gun you come across because you need some to maintain your defender's preferred weapons.  How do i manage this new process?

Add a gunsmith station.  Colonists with high shooting will be more apt for this.  As colonists guns degrade they can drop them off to have them worked on as long as there are enough spare parts for that model.  Though this station you can manage your arsenal, assigning the number of a certain weapon to keep in stock or to take some of the existing stock to break down for parts.  High shooting skill?  Good change of getting stuff from the weapon that is being broken down.  All weapons will 'drop' a few parts for that weapon type that can be used to maintain/upkeep another weapon of the same type.  Better skills will usually get more of these parts than a lower skill would.  High enough skills and you start to get unique parts from different weapons.  Salvage pistol grips that can be added to other weapons for stability/fire rate.  Chances to get the scope to add to a different rifle, rifle stock to add to a pistol, clips to extend magazines, add bayonets, etc.

These special parts can then help you improve everyone's personal weapons.

Raiders need to have different behaviors.  They all just want to annihilate your people.  It seems odd.  They should have different objectives, either take some/all of your food, weapons, metals, etc.  Having raiders steal some of your weapons would help as well.

Don't arm every raider either.  Go Russian tactics.  As the waves get larger, have several unarmed that stick around their buddies to pick up their weapon when they go down.

Require weapon parts and special parts in order to create certain defenses such as the turrets, charges, traps, etc.

Idea of maintenance by "eating" other weapons of same kind starts to grow on me as best scenario presented - as long as it's highly automated and streamlined so that player can check it all out with few clicks and as minimalistic info as needed. Choose the colonist, hover over his weapon and a tooltip pops up with it's stats. Next to HP? Total HP that can be recovered from other weapons of the same type. So if you see 70 (230) then you know you can repair it to full and will still have 2 full repairs at disposal.

Owned guns? It feels very meh. What's the reason? And I mean gameplay reason and not RL reason. I do get (and aprove) skills in certain weapons (AR, pistols, SMGs and so on) or general aptitude (Assault, Sniper, CQC); but weapon ownership? I can see much more problems with it than it's worth. Want to change someone equipment? But it's not his gun, he's gonna learn it all anew! Want to test out new toy? Need to let someone learn it before you see it's full potential. Want to upgrade someone's weapon? He needs to learn it. Switch weapons in combat? He needs to learn it. Pick up weapon on ground when your rifle breaks? He needs to learn it. Want to have any kind of elasticity? Nope, because everyone knows exactly one gun and cannot be bothered to use any else. It produces a very rigid system that actually discourages player from experimenting and keeping his gameplay fresh. The game would slap him every time he wants to try out something new. It's like forcing someone to stay on the same level of Mario when he beat it 100 times already. Infuriating!

As for weapons parts - this seems way to robust. I'm a HUGE maniac of guns modifications. But this will once again force us to restrictions - namely in amount of different guns. Can't have too many types of weapons or too many models of weapons, because player will quickly be buried under all these different parts. Not to mention the scope seems off - again, any change in equipment and you have to go through all these modifications and crafting recipes like it was a jRPG. It would be much easier to create weapon variants with additional upgrades on them (like some SMGs come with red dot), but just one upgrade and kept under control (so that we don't change every single part). Maybe create unique weapons with these attachments? I would LOVE to see them in game, but not as a fully blown crafting system. Create them with metal? Buy them from traders? Fair enough. But strip three different weapons to then create one attachment to then strip other four to create a gun that can use it...

I would love some additions and depth to combat system (sprinting? changing fire modes or aiming stances?), but not too far. I believe there will be more than enough micromanagement in finished game to not want additional weapon management on that scale. Weapon attachments? Go ahead. Unique items from guns, stripping them for individual parts, crafting lists and recipes? Too far.

i think there should be degredation, but with that, there shouldbe some form of modifyng and repairing the weapon to keep it at peak efficeincy and to make it a better weapon. useless weapons should also be melted down for metal.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought I saw that guns have a health bar, so would it be reasonable to say that unless picked up they degrade overtime. Thinking of corrosion of the barrel etc
yes no ?

Quote from: Galileus on November 14, 2013, 04:23:43 PM
Idea of maintenance by "eating" other weapons of same kind starts to grow on me as best scenario presented - as long as it's highly automated and streamlined so that player can check it all out with few clicks and as minimalistic info as needed. Choose the colonist, hover over his weapon and a tooltip pops up with it's stats. Next to HP? Total HP that can be recovered from other weapons of the same type. So if you see 70 (230) then you know you can repair it to full and will still have 2 full repairs at disposal.

Owned guns? It feels very meh. What's the reason? And I mean gameplay reason and not RL reason. I do get (and aprove) skills in certain weapons (AR, pistols, SMGs and so on) or general aptitude (Assault, Sniper, CQC); but weapon ownership? I can see much more problems with it than it's worth. Want to change someone equipment? But it's not his gun, he's gonna learn it all anew! Want to test out new toy? Need to let someone learn it before you see it's full potential. Want to upgrade someone's weapon? He needs to learn it. Switch weapons in combat? He needs to learn it. Pick up weapon on ground when your rifle breaks? He needs to learn it. Want to have any kind of elasticity? Nope, because everyone knows exactly one gun and cannot be bothered to use any else. It produces a very rigid system that actually discourages player from experimenting and keeping his gameplay fresh. The game would slap him every time he wants to try out something new. It's like forcing someone to stay on the same level of Mario when he beat it 100 times already. Infuriating!

As for weapons parts - this seems way to robust. I'm a HUGE maniac of guns modifications. But this will once again force us to restrictions - namely in amount of different guns. Can't have too many types of weapons or too many models of weapons, because player will quickly be buried under all these different parts. Not to mention the scope seems off - again, any change in equipment and you have to go through all these modifications and crafting recipes like it was a jRPG. It would be much easier to create weapon variants with additional upgrades on them (like some SMGs come with red dot), but just one upgrade and kept under control (so that we don't change every single part). Maybe create unique weapons with these attachments? I would LOVE to see them in game, but not as a fully blown crafting system. Create them with metal? Buy them from traders? Fair enough. But strip three different weapons to then create one attachment to then strip other four to create a gun that can use it...

I would love some additions and depth to combat system (sprinting? changing fire modes or aiming stances?), but not too far. I believe there will be more than enough micromanagement in finished game to not want additional weapon management on that scale. Weapon attachments? Go ahead. Unique items from guns, stripping them for individual parts, crafting lists and recipes? Too far.

The point of the owned weapons is that it would present cost benefit analysis.  Pistols are crap right?  Not really, they fire fairly fast and acquire targets faster.  I don't want all of my colonists using 'the best' weapon because there isn't one.  But if you already have several experts with their weapons and you lose your short range guy in the last raid, it is a choice to force a replacement now for a long term gain in the ability to fill in your stopping power at short range or stick with your currently more powerful longer range expertise.

The parts salvaged from weapons would only be meant for repair/maintenance and should be placeable in stockpiles.  The unique salvages wouldn't be a bonanza of upgrades for all the items, they would be specific limited combinations.  For example, the scope wouldn't go on a shotgun but rather on other rifles.  An additional pistol grip would only be something that could be added to shotguns/smgs. This also wouldn't be a apply all possible but just an apply one.

I was also trying to get the point across that colonists could own several weapons through their personal inventory, so it would just be 'knowing' a single weapon at a time.

Creating new weapons really wasn't anything i was going for, only maintenance and slight modifier upgrades.

I honestly don't see how this is different that the current situation where your dedicated miner/farmer/repair colonist dies or is injured and you have to send in the b team to take over. 

My understanding of rimworld is that it was supposed to be a less forgiving experience where you have to scrap everything together to survive.  Not a game where you didn't mind losing  someone/something.

QuoteThe point of the owned weapons is that it would present cost benefit analysis.  Pistols are crap right?  Not really, they fire fairly fast and acquire targets faster.  I don't want all of my colonists using 'the best' weapon because there isn't one.  But if you already have several experts with their weapons and you lose your short range guy in the last raid, it is a choice to force a replacement now for a long term gain in the ability to fill in your stopping power at short range or stick with your currently more powerful longer range expertise.

But how is that better than specific weapon / aptitude skills or perks? It presents tons of hindrances and forces player's hand where it shouldn't. It forces power creep - because if the new weapon is JUST better than the last one, who would want to train his colonists in this new specific weapon? And if you have power creep you end up with picking best weapons for all your colonists anyway, just having to go through busywork and hindrance of training them.

There is a choice of mix-and-match already. Do you want more M24? Do you want to throw a shotgun in there? The addition of weapon owning system would actually work against it - your choices will be limited, because there is no free choice - ANY change in your loadout and you're punished for it. And the choice of long-term benefit? Throw in a shooting range, that is something player would enjoy instead of hating. He lost a guy? He'll understand - the replacement never held a gun before. He may not like it - but he'll understand. People being bad a shooting because of their stats for that kind of category - player will understand. A guy techno-magically becoming crap with his new, super-powerful pistol because it's the first time he holds this specific pistol? Player won't understand. His guy not being able to hit the wide side of the barn with another pistol of the same model? Enjoy the bitching. I'll join it :)

And there's another low kick in there, too. We are supposed to care for our colonists, and for that we need to grow with them. We need to feel and enjoy their progression, both economically-survival...ly...cally... and in their combat abilities. Forcing a downgrade every-time you change a gun will work against it! We will actually see our guys getting worse every time we want to help them out and make them better. It's almost as bad as world levelling up with the player in RPGs! And there's more! Enjoyment of getting new guns would be completely in shadow with the ownership system! Just imagine that:

<Player, mumbles> Darn it, Joe is dead, Alice is dead, half of my complex is burning... You better have something good in these crates, you stupid little raiders... As if, I can see it already, 20 food! I bet! Joe, I bet you died for 20 food! It wouldn't be worth it if it was 20 frelling million food! Let's see the shame, what do we... HOLY FRELLING MOTHER OF DRAGONS, M82A2!?!? Holy... Holy shit! Holy shit! Ok, ok, easy now... +10 damage!? WOW! Who can shoot snipers, now, come here! WHO CAN SNIPE!? JOE! Oh, yeah, he's dead. Who cares? M82A2, woohoo!

Now, imagine this:

<Player, mumbles> Darn it, Joe is dead, Alice is dead, half of my complex is burning... You better have something good in these crates, you stupid little raiders... As if, I can see it already, 20 food! I bet! Joe, I bet you died for 20 food! It wouldn't be worth it if it was 20 frelling million food! Let's see the shame, what do we... M82A2. Heh. Would be nice to use it. +10 damage? And let me guess, 10 days of training? Will find something better by then. I'll care if it's +20. Maybe. Joe, you died for nothing.

You want player to enjoy the game. You want him to beat it - not without a fight, obviously. But you need to convince him to fight. And what better way the developer has than to throw goodies at the player, when he wins some really tough challenge? Now, of course you could just go on with power creep and make sure every next model has this +20 or +200 dmg. And you now need DOZENS of raiders, and then tanks or whole fleets of spaceships to fight colonists when they reach over 9000 DPS. You tie even your own hands!

Now, weapon owning in a way where there is a chance that with X kills colonist's weapons "upgrades" into his personal firearm of choice? An unique version? That's neat. And player will understand it and appreciate it, at least if it doesn't happen too often. He'll feel badass and believe his men - the special few - are badass, and he will cry when he looses them to a boomrat. Or when Joe looses this M82A2 he loved so much and named Alice. Of course he can now use +999dmg one, but it was Alice! I love that idea - two, maybe three owned weapons per whole game? Hell, this is something you'll remember. And if someone calls his rifle after his lover you failed to protect? Damn, touching!

Global weapon ownage (and global suckage)? I'll pass, thank you.

QuoteMy understanding of rimworld is that it was supposed to be a less forgiving experience where you have to scrap everything together to survive.  Not a game where you didn't mind losing  someone/something.

There is a huge difference between hard and punishing. Hard is fair, punishing is just trolling. One of ways a game can be punishing is by not upholding established rules - and this is what RimWorld does by leveling shooting skill. It establishes a rule - this guy shoots goood! Maybe in soma later version it'll be - this guy shots goooood with pistols! Then you replace one weapon with another, the same model, and suddenly that guy doesn't shoot that good anymore. This is breaking the rules. And of course there can be some clause hidden in rulebook or even printed right under the title - RimWorld: Never Ever Change A Gun. Doesn't matter. You can write "rule #872 - sometimes you spontaneously die for no reason" and it doesn't make it fair or hard - because this is a rule made by a rulebook and not by the game and it's gameplay.

PS. Damn, I'll have to get into this idea of unique owned weapons. There is some frelling good stuff to be done with it!

That would be a complicated system, but it might not be so bad. However... If I were to implement it, and I'm not saying I would, here's how I would do it.

I would say that you should have three types of skills.
1: Shooting. Someone who's just plain good at shooting. Can pick up any weapon and fire it well. Levels very slow, but does level.
2: Divide into Long Arms/Automatics/Pistols/Thrown. Levels faster than the Shooting base category, slower than individual weapons. Anything can be fitted into those categories; if it fires once and uses two hands, it's a Long Arm. Lee-Enfields, M-24s, T-9s and Shotguns currently fall into this category, for instance. Automatics are things which fire repeatedly: M-16s, R-4s, Uzis. Pistols are things which are, well, pistols. Handguns and maybe, if they ever get implemented, revolvers, would fall into this - anything you hold in one hand and fire once. Thrown is self-explanatory, hopefully.
3: Divide into specific weapon types. This would level up fast.

Add up the total of all three relevant skills - Shooting, Subcategory, Specific Weapon - to determine how well a person shoots. This would allow for some more granularity, while still letting you move on to a different weapon in the category your guy is best at without losing too much ability.

I would probably enclose it into a separate "aptitude" perk (tree) gained automatically with enough shooting skill or that some classes start with. So Sniper (or marksman, rifles / pistols for first or rifles / assault rifles for second), CQC (shotguns / SMGs / melee), Assault (Assault Rifles, Pistols, heavy weapons), Support (Pistols / shotguns / thrown) and so on. This would be much simpler and tidy than whole new skill trees and allow for more "human" feel to pawns. We would think of a guy as a CQC specialist instead of "a guy with high shotguns skill" - and there would be a difference between trying to "force" an aptitude (by subjecting colonist to specific weapons) and people who already start with an aptitude.

Feel fancy? Add ability to gain second aptitude at very high shooting skill or even randomized perks gained every few levels of skill - like traits, but aptitude specific. A sniper that aims longer but shoots better, a CQC shotgun monkey who has a habit to double tap, an Assault who duct-tapes magazines together for faster reload or a fast-draw guy (no aim time on first pistol shot, penalty to aim). This would be out of players control of course - so that it's not a RPG levelling up system. Impact on characters customization? HUGE! ;)

Feel even more fancy? Add such systems to other skills ;) A crafter who always seems to have some parts left-over (build 3 for the price of 2! :P) or build faster but in lower quality (50% build time, 50% quality). A doctor with great bed-side manners or a potty mouth. A cook who makes better for more or one who's cooking is darn bad, but hey! He seems to be able to feed everyone with one serving of rice. Or maybe no-one wants to eat anymore after tasting it? A miner with a nose for ore! And so on :)

Eeeeh, another topic I need to work on :P

I went through the post and kinda pick what i think works nicely and not to crazy.

Degradation can work and makes sense. Being left in dirt/sand and rain would bring its HP down but no more than 50% because i can’t see a gun melting away from rain. When killed raiders drop their guns they should have random amount of HP, cause the raiders could have use their guns before and while fighting you. Grenades/Mines should damage weapons in people’s hands.

A gunsmith table would be needed for gun repairs pretty sure. Someone set to repair or crafting or construction would work the Gun crafting bench.

Wanna keep it simple as possible. Guns would only be auto repaired when someone is using that gun and if there’s the same gun on an equipment rack they go grab it. Can’t have them auto repair guns on a rack or they would fix everything and waste your Gun Parts/Higher Metals. Also drafted units won’t get their guns repaired. The crafting or repair skill would matter how much they could repair a gun, So every 1 skill point is 5% to the max they can repair it. So if you have someone at 10 ponits in the right skill the max they can repair is 50%. But if that’s to mean could have 30% the lowest it can be and go up with higher skill.

Now taking guns apart this you have to manage yourself a little unless someone can think of another way.
-One would be a gun menu list then check what you want like haul/repair/scarp. It would help people also find the start pistol and find other guns dropped by raiders without looking around.
-2nd would be selecting the gun it’s self and picking scarp this taking more work the first one and us but less work for Tynan

Gun parts/Higher metals would be one item type. Not pistol parts, Shotgun, etc. and barrels/stocks/etc.  That be a lot of work but if wanting to do it i can’t stop them haha
As for mods, I’m not touching that.
Remember most of this was picked out of this whole gun post.

I'm gonna chip in my 2 cents worth from a thread I created before I knew about this one. I can see that most of it is fairly common but I think there are a few interesting possibilities.

I've been playing around with Callie. At the beginning and middle I was struggling to arm my colonists with weapons that can defend from sniper wielding raiders. My most successful colony is well able to defend itself and I now have the problem that I have too many guns. I used to make money selling food but now I buy as much as I can from industrial and combat traders just to get rid of my excess weapons. My idea is pretty simple:

Weapon Crafting:
After some research a gun crafting station would be unlocked. The station is used for repairs to weapons and create them with metal after they have been researched.

Dismantling and Wear and Tear:
Being able to melt down the excess weapons into precious metal would give us some metal from the raids and a way to get rid of weapons without buying out every trader with them. Weapons eventually break down and their only use would be to get melted down. At 100% durability they would only give 90% of the cost to create them and goes down as durability goes down.

Guns can be repaired but it does not mean they last forever. They can be repaired less and less with each repair until they need to be melted down (task is initiated automatically at 0%)

I hate, hate, hate the idea of durability. However, I do like the idea of melting them down for small amounts of minerals. I also like hoarding hundreds of them, but can see how it might affect performance, and not everyone wants to have a Matrix-sized armory.

I don't want it to seem like the guns last a week, my idea is you would be able to use them for several bandit raids with no maintenance and then should consider upgrading your wares. But I think it would be good to have a small penalty for using damaged weapons (accuracy and the potential for jamming). This wouldn't be much of a problem until around 40 - 50% durability which is about lets say 6 bandit raids with no maintenance. At that point you would amass enough weapons of mixed durability to rearm your forces with the best there or melt them down and make some brand new ones. Now with maintenance their effective usefulness could be doubled.

Some interesting ideas for weapon creation is at the weaponsmiths bench he can dismantle weapons to make blueprints (could take several weapons) and there would be a chance traders have blueprints for sale.

Hi there,

I think every little enemies will drop all kind of misc stuff instead of the guns they holding. Those stuff could be foods, medkits, gun parts, and schematics perhaps? 8)

If you really wanna solve this issue, why not make the limit the enemies drops? Instead of one full & complete weapon. (Too good to be true in survival game as I am playing this game, I got M-24 at first wave of enemy invasion...) ;D

But this gonna be a lot more work for you since you need to define those parts and add in another system just for this. Gonna be more challanging for sure, at least it solve "too many guns" issue.

Nonetheless, if you played over a very long period of time, you still might able to craft out tons of guns, then this is where the melting your guns/parts into the big furnace and recraft into something better. Maybe from a blueprints/researches/schematics?

I am pretty sure you will develop those heavy mechanic enemies like robots or mammoth tanks etc later on (We are talking about space invasions & drop pod here, c'mon). Because I see the shells and missiles in the game which aren't much useful atm. :-\

Or even you can developed some quests system in the game later on? Some people will require you to give up some equipment so they will trade in some better stuffs.

Anyway, I am slowly getting out of this topic.  ::) ::)

Gnomoria has it so the goblin invaders drop "worn" items (many suggested that this would get another name, but that is far down the priority list) that cannot be equipped, but melted down for a fraction of what normal stuff can be melted down (its something down the line of 1/20 of what you would need to produce something of equal value (but not "worn")).

While not perfect (tbh, far from it), its a playable workaround that has "Gamelogic because of Balancing" written all over it. Its certainly better than drowning in stuff you cant get rid of.

Back to Rimworld: Smelting down weapons is hardly fitting, but should be a thing (and soon - clogging isnt fun). Make it something low, like 1-5 scrap per weapon - the "get rid of trash" is the main focus of this suggestion, not the "get rich quick" scheme (afterall, the colonies that suffer from this problem are already as rich as they get).

Maintenance, wear and tear would actually benefit the setting. Remember that in the Firefly-inspired world we play in, perfect gear is probably rarer than virgins in a pleasuredome. Probably not even weapons dealers sell perfect gear. Especially the old guns, which where invented 3 thousand years ago!
So it makes sense that we (colonists, raiders and weapon merchants) start with weapons that have 30-60 durability (heavily worn), and fix them up by switching out working parts from scrapped guns to a point where we have to research on how to get closer to perfect condition with just old parts (this could be a viable research field in my opinion) - or even better, how to overclock our energy rifles so they pack better punch but detoriate at an alarming rate (if the pulse rifle starts to glow and beep, its a grenade -> throw it!) for extra Fun.

dunno if this has been suggested already but can we have a weapon smelter to convert guns into metal? I hate to mine a mountain for that..

Quote from: deadbeat88 on November 20, 2013, 05:14:38 PM
dunno if this has been suggested already but can we have a weapon smelter to convert guns into metal? I hate to mine a mountain for that..

Just in the post right before yours. And one hundred others, too ^^'

If you think about it the guns you get off raiders they would have low durability so they sell for very low price anyways. also I agree with not like it melting down into metals rather something else. Gun scraps/Spare parts/etc
Even traders wouldn't have max durability weapons, most of the time.

If a Weapon repair bench is made maybe a Weapon Menu can be added also to aid in the least amount of micromanagement I can think of.

The menu would list every weapon on the map or just the ones you marked not forbidden/equipment racks, rather it be everything on the map.
1st Row would have the weapons name
2nd Next one to the right would be the weapons location, On the ground/equipment rack and if someone has a weapon on them it will say there name. Not raiders tho. If you click on the weapon name it will go to the spot.
3rd row has weapon durability
4th row - Haul this you check a box on/off
5th row - Scrap/Melt/Take apart    also a check box on/off
6th row - Repair also a check box on/off
7th row - Not forbidden button. this is only added if all weapons don't need to be marked/found by the player.

So it be           - Name -- Location -- Durability -- Haul -- Scrap/Melt/Take apart -- Repair -- Not Forbidden -

Let me know if this sounds nice and not too much micromanagement :)

Also how good your colonists are at making and repairing weapons should depend on how high there skills are.

I personally like the idea of using old/multiples of "outdated" guns to create better ones much like real life we didn't get to the M16 by simply interacting with aliens or that sort of thing we made it by wanting a machine gun in a lighter package, which we got to because we wanted a gun that could shoot more than 1 round with 1 trigger pull, etc. So why give our colonists the easy way on this although we should have that chance as well but it's fun to say that you got there yourself.

I just got here so I apologize. I like how Fallout 3 dealt with the issue, using other weapons to repair weapons. Maybe even have repair skill in research.

I'm not crazy about the idea of weapon repair and degradation- as has already been mentioned by others, some people won't like it (and regardless of how we personally feel, if a high enough number dislike it, it's probably not a good idea).

Being able to melt them into metal solves two problems at once:

1) Gets rid of spare guns, per Tynan's request, and

2) Helps solve the problem of finite resources on a fairly limited map without being at the mercy of traders, which seems somewhat of a stopgap mechanic to me anyways.

Maybe spare guns could be put to good use, making cheap and resettable traps(rigging a shotgun to a tripwire for example) or perhaps strap them to a large metal plate with some piping and have an improve man operated quad gun.(it's what I would do if I had loads of guns and too few hands to make use of them all)

Quote from: king komodo on November 20, 2013, 11:19:41 PM
I personally like the idea of using old/multiples of "outdated" guns to create better ones much like real life we didn't get to the M16 by simply interacting with aliens or that sort of thing we made it by wanting a machine gun in a lighter package, which we got to because we wanted a gun that could shoot more than 1 round with 1 trigger pull, etc. So why give our colonists the easy way on this although we should have that chance as well but it's fun to say that you got there yourself.

Not a machine gun. The M-16 is an assault rifle, a weapon type that was designed first by the Germans in WW2(stürmgewehr 44) to bridge the gap between a machine pistol(SMG) and the rifle, having the range of the rifle and the firerate of the SMG.

However the point stands, giving the colonists the ability to develop(destroying weapons in the process of reverse engineering) and make their own better weapons(like giving the M-16 an underbarrel shotgun for close quarters) would also be a nice way of dealing with the gun problems.

A smelter/forge combo solves both the problems of "too many guns" and "not enough guns" at the same time.

Make firearms into research items.  Give RP bonus points for "reverse engineering" captured guns.  I can smell the X-COM from here (and that's a good thing).

This is something I can agree with mostly because I liked XCOM

Quote from: NephilimNexus on November 24, 2013, 02:45:28 PM
A smelter/forge combo solves both the problems of "too many guns" and "not enough guns" at the same time.

Make firearms into research items.  Give RP bonus points for "reverse engineering" captured guns.  I can smell the X-COM from here (and that's a good thing).

[spoiler]

Quote from: Merry76 on November 20, 2013, 04:04:09 AM
Gnomoria has it so the goblin invaders drop "worn" items (many suggested that this would get another name, but that is far down the priority list) that cannot be equipped, but melted down for a fraction of what normal stuff can be melted down (its something down the line of 1/20 of what you would need to produce something of equal value (but not "worn")).

While not perfect (tbh, far from it), its a playable workaround that has "Gamelogic because of Balancing" written all over it. Its certainly better than drowning in stuff you cant get rid of.

Back to Rimworld: Smelting down weapons is hardly fitting, but should be a thing (and soon - clogging isnt fun). Make it something low, like 1-5 scrap per weapon - the "get rid of trash" is the main focus of this suggestion, not the "get rich quick" scheme (afterall, the colonies that suffer from this problem are already as rich as they get).

Maintenance, wear and tear would actually benefit the setting. Remember that in the Firefly-inspired world we play in, perfect gear is probably rarer than virgins in a pleasuredome. Probably not even weapons dealers sell perfect gear. Especially the old guns, which where invented 3 thousand years ago!
So it makes sense that we (colonists, raiders and weapon merchants) start with weapons that have 30-60 durability (heavily worn), and fix them up by switching out working parts from scrapped guns to a point where we have to research on how to get closer to perfect condition with just old parts (this could be a viable research field in my opinion) - or even better, how to overclock our energy rifles so they pack better punch but detoriate at an alarming rate (if the pulse rifle starts to glow and beep, its a grenade -> throw it!) for extra Fun.

[/spoiler]

hmm.. sorry for the necro. i agree with most of these especially about preventing players from using enemy dropped equipment (this was a huge problem with gnomoria since it was easier to just collect and use dropped gear, rather than actually crafting a new one. this used to make crafting weapons and armor practically obsolete before they fixed that). so i definitely agree about the smelter. (R4 and M-24 currently seems to be end game gears. yet raiders drop them like candy)

as for repairing owned equipment..

currently, equipment racks have become rather useless. while colonists are able to repair walls without using resources. so how about if colonists with the 'repair' priorities can also repair damaged guns or equipment that are stored on equipment racks? this should solve problems of weapon degradation since you can choose which items gets stocked for each equipment rack, and the option for colonists to drop their gear to an equipment rack is already coded in. 


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edit : er, spoiler tags ain't functioning?

I just pile them up in a warehouse and sell them in bulk of a weapon dealer appears. However, maybe you could a adjust the capacity of weapon racks to help fix this? One weapon per tile makes them kinda useless.

Quote from: Tynan on October 22, 2013, 01:20:15 AM

Quote from: nomadseifer on October 22, 2013, 01:03:02 AM
Not having played the game, is there some problem just selling all of them?  Will traders only buy a small limited number? 

Onto ideas...

Most logical solution to me would be to convert them into a useful material.  Maybe just metal. 

I like this. Perhaps you could melt them down or cannibalize them for use in a workshop to make higher-quality weapons. Reminds me of the Fallout 3 repair system, which worked very well in solving the classic RPG variant of this problem.

This idea is great. It's a classic, satisfying way to deal with the 'problem'. Possibly unlock various techs to open new gun types, maybe even mechanized robots to scout out the lands..or the ancient ruins (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2203.0") , Tynan speaks of.

I think a simple solution could be to have colonists haul unwanted weapons to a crafting table to break them down into metal. The whole system could work similar to the way butchering does in that the higher the skill of the colonist, the more metal can be salvaged from a particular weapon.

Degrading weapons and skill based maintenance ftw

Braking down guns into metal.
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2354.0 (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2354.0)


Packing lots of guns in one crate and ability to unpack them or sell the crate to trader.
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2680.0 (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2680.0)

i woud leave it, really it's fun to sell tons and tons of guns to a trader. And then let him go with nothing but one thing.

How about a colonist bringing one or more guns to the same research table (like food with the cook stove), and research it?
Research time depends on the number of guns, "complexity" of the targeted research and the researchers skill.

Possible outcomes:

Researching 1 gun:
* better aim for that gun type (personal experience or a colony wide buff?)
* faster reload (personal experience or a colony wide buff?)
* more damage (personal experience or a colony wide buff?)
* possible to recycle the gun into metal.
* chance to completely destroy the gun?

* If 2 or more guns are researched at the same time:
** possible to randomly combine some of the gun types attributes into a new gun type
** chance to destroy one or more guns to metal?
** chance to completely destroy all guns? (gets nothing but research xp)

Other stuff?

I usually only keep 3 types of guns. For those that I do want to keep I have a small say 3x3/4x4 stockpile for each weapon. When they are filled up or a gun drops that is not one of the 3 types I keep, they are delivered to the launch pad and will be traded for goods. With this set up I never have a massive pile of weapons.

Couple of questions you could ask here. Is it fun? Does it make the game harder / easier? Does it do that in a good / bad way? Does it actually resolve a problem?

Gun maintenance can be a fun mechanic if weapons are a precious commodity and you're taking care of your inventory. But the situation now is that there are too many guns. First, they would have to become a rarity. And then you would maintain them by spending an amount of metal on fixing them up. Breaking down weapons to maintain an abundance of weapons is completely pointless and tedious. Likewise smelting them for pennies is silly when you can wait for the next trader and sell them for cash money.

With the semi-removal of blasting charges and the current state of turrets, the game becomes very challenging later on, unless you play Randy Random and have a large number of colonists to defend. This is probably not an intended late-game scenario and I'd assume this to be fixed or at least downgraded somewhat.

Taking for granted that in future versions, raiders might be able to consistently outnumber you, having moddable guns could be a reasonable equalizer. Breaking down an M-24 could yield an improved barrel mod for better range. A charge rifle could yield a RoF mod for energy weapons. Magazine mods for +1 shot per burst. Better damage. And so on. So my suggestion would be that every gun has one or two slots for modding, mods to be unlocked by research (and guns to be dismantled for reverse-engineering) before you can later take them apart to craft mods.

Another very cool thing to consider is that you could take apart frag grenades for a batch of grenade launcher ammo. Or that some homecooked weapons could be researched, which would otherwise be very, very hard to acquire. Nothing too OP. And you'd have to take apart a bunch of regular guns to craft a single one of those.

'Course, the most crude and least involved solution would be to simply make weapon drops on death rare, as 'unrealistic' as that is.

Quote from: Incense on April 01, 2014, 02:42:53 PM
...
Taking for granted that in future versions, raiders might be able to consistently outnumber you, having moddable guns could be a reasonable equalizer. Breaking down an M-24 could yield an improved barrel mod for better range. A charge rifle could yield a RoF mod for energy weapons. Magazine mods for +1 shot per burst. Better damage. And so on. So my suggestion would be that every gun has one or two slots for modding, mods to be unlocked by research (and guns to be dismantled for reverse-engineering) before you can later take them apart to craft mods.
...

Quote from: Sion on April 01, 2014, 11:57:36 AM
...
* If 2 or more guns are researched at the same time:
** possible to randomly combine some of the gun types attributes into a new gun type
...

What I think here is that you research a combination of the weapons, and some numbers is randomly taken from each gun to make up another gun, you can then do the same thing again with the newly generated gun (if you don't like it or so), and eventually end up with a relay good weapon that is totally unique.

Aside from the resource compression mod I made, my preferred solution is for gunfights to be much more dangerous and for guns to be much rarer. IMO, gunfights should be tense, and getting enough body armor, helmets, food, and ammunition to survive really large conflicts should be a challenge.

How about a crafting table, that can turn guns into usefull scrap metal?

Quote from: mrofa on March 26, 2014, 07:59:10 PM
Braking down guns into metal.
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2354.0 (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2354.0)


Packing lots of guns in one crate and ability to unpack them or sell the crate to trader.
http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2680.0 (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2680.0)

i will just quote myself ...

sorry bout that, i didn't fell like reading the whole 10 page  ::)

- yes to ammo. Colonists would always try to stock up on a specific amount (I'd say 4-5 clips/magazines worth). Why define that by magazine size and not a single number? Because different weapons have different RoF and ammo consumption. So 60 bullets might be fine for  someone with a pistol, but it would be little for someone with an AR.

- guns can be disassembled and you get weapon parts (more specifically pistol parts, rifle parts, gunpowder, etc..)

- you can use those to repair existing guns, upgrade them or try and create new ones.