Ludeon Forums

I have finally decided to dip my feet into this modding community, and by dip I mean diving in head first.

This is mostly because I want to add a tiered progression of fire arms to the game, but in a way that the player will actually spend some time with the early era guns before moving on to bigger and badder toys. I also plan to keep the names to the more generic flavor that Rimworld employs.

The tiers are broken down like this.

Muzzle loaded weapons, basic and easy to craft, you only need some steel and wood to get your first lead slingers. What they lack in speed and range they make up for by packing one hell of a punch when they land their shots. I am debating between giving them long warm up times to simulate loading, or giving the pawn a hefty cool down period considering they shouldn't be able to run and load.

The kind of guns you can expect to see are the Matchlock Pistols and Rifles, plus the fearsome blunderbuss, would love to work in an actual shrapnel spread with that bad boy.

The late 1800's brought us the Lever, Breech and Cylander weapons, Lots of classic fire arms to be found here from just after the civil war. Fire power will drop but accuracy and the rate of fire will notably improve. There will be a small component cost with this tier since there are some more complex moving parts being employed.

Expect to see guns like a Repeating rifle, The long rifle, single action revolver and a double barrel shotgun.

After that would be around Turn of the 19th century fire arms, so Bolt action rifles, semi auto carbines and full auto machine guns. I really want the more rapid firing machine guns to be fully mounted weapons before introducing their more mobile counterparts. Damage will actually climb again because of the heavy cartridges that were in use at that time, but accuracy will remain about the same for this tier, but the rate of fire will be quite a noticeable boost.

The guns of this era are The wood stock bolt action rifles, those peppy first attempts at a rapid firing weapon, the clunky yet intimidating water cooled machine guns and the first pump action shotgun.

This takes us to World War II era tech, which is simply a more refined version of the previous, the bolt actions will be more accurate than ever, the submachine gun will make its debut, but so will its heavier cousin, the assault rifle. The machine gun will be able to leave its mount but also sport even deadlier streams of fire power, You can also expect the first Anti material rifle to show up to deliver 20mm rounds against those tough centipedes.

Next up we delve into the Cold War era of guns, the focus is rapid and accurate fire and the component cost of this tier of weapon will be much more significant than the others. The hard hitting days are not as important with this tier, instead it is all about saturating the target with bullets. The revolver will be joined by the standard semi auto pistol and the first semi auto firing marksman rifle rears its head to fill the range gap between the classic bolt action and the assault rifle. Though the assault rifle is not as clunky as its predecessor and can fire further with more consistent results. The light machine gun will join it as a more sustained fire option to punish anything out of cover, while the heavy mounted machine gun will pulverize anything foolish enough to enter its cone of fire. There will be a semi automatic shotgun for those pesky infestations.

Then we come to the 'Modern' tier of fire arms, this is usually where most mods stop, but I want to push beyond the 20th century with this mod. This tier has been so overdone that I cant really surprise anyone here, I am just gonna work really hard to make the textures pop all that much better. You are going to see weapon skins like the LVOA AR15 platform, the AA12 full auto shotgun, the barret semi auto 50 cal, the S&W magnum 500, the vector sub machine gun, the m240 machine gun, all that good stuff.

So that leaves me with the potentially game breaking future tech, which there are many ways to go about this, I am going to stick to kinetic kill weapons for the time being but maybe in the future when I improve with adding effects and I should be considering I am already looking at tracers and large billowing smoke discharges from black powder weapons. I just need to make sure my creations look unique and give you all something nice to see your pawns shooting with.

I do know that I plan to include a class of market/scavenge only high end weapons, the issue I have there is making it so they only spawn with a high quality, don't want to be seeing any good or lower variants of the 'end game' weapons cropping up.

TLDR: this is my ambitious road map so far, I am already working on the textures for the pre 1800 stuff and ill share those with you all later tomorrow!

I love your idea, and honestly I play with almost 200 mods but I only use ONE dedicated weapon mod. This is because I feel like 90% of the other weapon mods out there have either too much redundancy, are too imbalanced, have bad art, or just any other of a myriad of potential issues. That's why I'm using Armory Enhanced as my only weapon mod. It has I think 6 basic tiers of weapons. And each tier has about 4-6 weapons. Usually one pistol, an SMG, an LMG, an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a sniper. Honestly, that's all I ever really need myself, anyway. I have absolutely zero need for 10 different assault rifles that are going to all fill the same role with virtually no significant changes between them. I want all of my possible items in the game to feel like they have a specific role, and to keep redundancy to a minimum. Sure, maybe a little variety here or there, but nothing like what a lot of other weapon mods do.

Anyway, I figured you should know about this mod, if you haven't already. Because it sounds a lot like what you are proposing. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=37876.0

I agree with you on all accounts, I want this mod and each era of firearms has a significant difference in feel and how they impact the game. I want my muskets to project plumes of thick smoke and for them to sling lead ball projectiles. while the later iterations of modern military weapons will shoot smokeless with little flash but the bullet will streak towards its target with red/green tracers, tracers that I hope to actually make light up the area they travel over.

So its time to show that I am seriously taking on this project.

I opened up GIMP, turned on some mario paint music to get into the mood and for the first time ever I attempted to make some gun textures.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d28slpno9sy37q6/AAAtwMZXNrgKduwUsjaoucLza?dl=0

Those are the first era weapons, The Musket, The Matchlock Pistol and The Blunderbuss. Both the pistol and rifle have a cherry wood stock while the shotgun I went with a lighter chestnut color. I included a black outline to make the texture pop a little more so the look of the gun does not get too lost in the game.

in terms of the tech costs to get into each era of weapon, I am aiming for something rather dramatic so each tier will have its moment to shine and not just get steamrolled past. I am thinking the initial cost will run at around 3000, though it will be quite the slog for the tribal game mode just to break into the first era of firearm. The raw power difference between bow and gunpowder will be quite high to make it worth while.

I already like your style. But I might suggest maybe doing textures in 128x128, because a lot of us are using Camera+ now, and it is really awesome when you can zoom in and see a weapon's beautiful textures. I think it was XeoNovaDan, or Shotgun Frenzy, that redid all of the vanilla textures in 256x256. I didn't think it would matter that much, but I am being completely honest with you - those 256x256 vanilla textures look better than 95% of all the other textures I see from other mods.

Thanks! I am working in 128x128, i saw that other modders were already working with this larger format over rimworlds 64x64. I need that extra space anyway because the muskets are just such long beasts!

A little suggestion from my side.
Just don't name your weapons like realworld counterparts. Not everyone is a weapon freak and know that a Boomkatschov is more accurate but got less range then a D&D 56.
Maybe just Rifle MK1 to MK5, each tier just improve one thing to the previous.
At this way everyone know for sure a Rifle MK4 is better then a Rifle MK2.

At this way you can even start pistols and rifle with early tech and MK1 and don't need to find special names for them.
While other weapon styles like SMG, LMH comes first with later research.

Quote from: Canute on February 11, 2018, 05:17:57 PM
A little suggestion from my side.
Just don't name your weapons like realworld counterparts. Not everyone is a weapon freak and know that a Boomkatschov is more accurate but got less range then a D&D 56.
Maybe just Rifle MK1 to MK5, each tier just improve one thing to the previous.
At this way everyone know for sure a Rifle MK4 is better then a Rifle MK2.

At this way you can even start pistols and rifle with early tech and MK1 and don't need to find special names for them.
While other weapon styles like SMG, LMH comes first with later research.

I intend to keep to the more generic flavor that Rimworld already adopts, so you will not see a myriad of real world weapon names on your bill list!

Hrm... so this is a problem I encountered for my first time testing.

The texture names are spot on and so are the .PNG formats. The file path is also correct from what I have gleaned off searching to resolve this issue myself.

            <texPath>Textures/Things/Projectile/LeadShot</texPath>
            <graphicClass>Graphic_Single</graphicClass>

Is there something I am missing here?

Bear in mind, this mod is in the Mod folder of Rimworld, so is the command line supposed to be longer for this test segment like

Mods/Weaponology/Textures/Things/Projectile/LeadShot  ?\

(Update: Never mind, I'm stupid and over complicated it.)

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Alright then, the Matchlocks are working, now i know how to properly add the guns I can start fleshing out a proper list one era at a time!

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Quote from: Vellarain on February 11, 2018, 06:50:39 PM
Alright then, the Matchlocks are working, now i know how to properly add the guns I can start fleshing out a proper list one era at a time!

Awesome. I just want to say this one last thing to you: remember that weapon mods are fairly easy to make, so it's easy to have a lot of competition from the tons of other weapon mods. What will you do to make your mod stand out among the crowd? What will make it catch the player's eye better than any other weapon mod? I just don't want to see what you make get lost among the noise ;)

Well this is my first time doing anything like this, so I hope I can make an impact at all!

The big thing I always sought out in any weapons mod was a sense of progress, so that when I got that next gun tech, it would open up a new chapter of fire arms to give my pawns a fighting chance against the meat grinder of pirates and mechanoids. I want to make sure every era captures how their weapons handled and even the shape of their projectiles being fired.

The mechanics need to spot on and I plan to put much time into testing how each gun performs so that it feels right.

I am planning on adding custom sounds for the weapons as well, but that is something that will need to come once the base mod is fully in place. 

I also want to include some true futuristic firearms that just don't really exist in Vanilla outside the charge rifle, though I imagine the weapons I do have in mind in terms of late game tech might run the line of overpowered, especially the market/scavenge only models I am planning on working in.

I also plan on making manned turrets for the pawns to use for defense, right now I am considering adding a cannon for some stiff early game defense.

I would like to add other defense options as well like trenches and barbed wire fencing just to give players more options than sandbags and pillars.

OH wow, So the texture is much more compressed between 64X64 and 128X128. I made the matchlock with 64 and it looks so much more larger than the other two!

When looking at my textures in photoshop or even mspaint they look fine and their size is perfect for rimworld, the musket reaches from border to border on the 128 canvas as it stands.

yet when I spawn them in game, they are laughably tiny next to the vanilla weapons and all detail is impossible to make out.

is there something I am missing here?

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Probably overlooking something simple, so that when you find it, you will have that moment where you wonder why you had difficulty finding it earlier :P

I would try just looking at other weapon mods and see if they have anything different in their defs or how their texture files are set up.

Quote from: Harry_Dicks on February 12, 2018, 12:01:59 AM
Probably overlooking something simple, so that when you find it, you will have that moment where you wonder why you had difficulty finding it earlier :P

I would try just looking at other weapon mods and see if they have anything different in their defs or how their texture files are set up.

Been looking at a lot of mods about this, I noticed that many of them suffer from the exact same issue as well. It's crazy how I didn't notice this glaring issue before when I place the vanilla survival rifle next to someones Barret .50 cal texture and the vanilla rifle is glaringly larger.

I have seen something about <drawSize> that can change the size of textures, the catch is that it only works with Buildings.

You should look into the comp OversizedWeapons (might be altered slightly). I'm about 95% sure you can have it with JecsTools, but I'm not sure it requires that. If you download the mod Forsakens, I am pretty confident that a few of the weapons used in that mod had the comp for OversizedWeapons. If that's the case, you might need the dll associated with them. There was also a really cool "weapon glow" comp (I think?) that was in that mod that looked very interesting - something I have planned to check out in the future.

Anyway, this is getting into unfamiliar territory for me, which is why I highly suggest checking out how other mods, especially ones with larger weapons like you might be looking to make, and how they achieve these results.

One last thing - I think the mod Filthy Orc Invasion uses some pretty big weapons. That might be able to give you some more clues. Finally, make sure that you aren't making some mistake with your texture files and their format, either. Like you have extra blank pixels on the side of the image, or something. I am not sure of your skill level with all of this and what you already know, but I will say you should probably have the pixels for these big weapons going from edge to edge of it's image. I'm trying to imagine what else could be causing you issues with having your weapons be too small. Are there any other mods that have weapons about the size you are looking for? If you could name some and their respective weapons, I might be able to take a look at them later, and see if I can help.

If you still need my help, and I am available at the time, you can message me on Discord if you like. It will make rapid back-and-fourth-bug-squishing a lot easier ;)

Tried the Oversized weapon mod, nothing happens on the ground or when equipped. Didn't even get an error for trying to use it.

Textures are fine, no rogue pixels messing things up.

Checked into the Orc mod, nothing special there, many of the weapons are just drawn using up a large bulk of the canvas. but I cant just make my guns fatter so they appear bigger, it would throw everything into cartoonist proportions.

Either way, been messing around with it a lot, got camera plus working, the guns when equipped actually look pretty good in proportion to the pawns.

So I am going to keep plugging away at this and get all the base textures finished, maybe a mod will come that will allow me to reliably tinker with mesh sizes will come along, but I am not going to hold out for it.

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Just a quick progress report.

Early 1800's and Late 1800's weapons tech are all textured and can be spawned in the game, just need to link them to a tech and make sure they can be made at a bench.

Thinking the smithy will handle the Early 1800's stuff, but the Late 1800's will open up with the machining table.

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Three down, only one or maybe even two more left for WWI era weapons.

The Lewis was rough... lots of little odds and ends on that thing...

Might add the Tank Gewehr for some early tier anti Centipede options, still going to add those old school 20mm anti tank rifles from WW2 though, so might be kind of redundant.

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What would you think about having a thicker border?

Don't see why not, maybe something a little more grey rather than full black.

I fully understand that the arty style is up to you. But personally, I think with the very thin black outline like you have now, it makes your weapons stand out too much from the vanilla style. In my opinion, I think the weapons look a lot better with the thicker outline, not sure if this is called "vector style" or what, but if that's what the main game has, then that's what I like my mods to have too :)

I think the Metro Armory is a great example of how modded weapons will fit in perfectly with the vanilla art style. I pretty much want my textures to look like they could be a part of the vanilla game to an untrained eye.

Here's the link to the thread that has Metro Armory, also all of the mods made by this author are really nice. You can tell he put in a lot of really great work with DSYH, too bad it was a bit unnecessary now. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=30920.0

And check out these textures. Again, in my opinion, I think stuff drawn like this looks best in the game. Something great is the mod doesn't use "downgraded" textures in game either. What you see here is what you get in game. I've had issues before where an author has shown off great artwork and drawings, but then when you see the things in game it looks quite different that what the "previews" led you to reasonably expect.

Wow those textures are 300x300, I didnt even know Rimworld accepted them in such a size...

Quote from: Vellarain on February 14, 2018, 04:39:06 PM
Wow those textures are 300x300, I didnt even know Rimworld accepted them in such a size...

Hmm, but do they actually show up in game like that, or does RimWorld scale them down?

Nope, scaled down too, but you are right they do very much retain that Vanilla feel.

This is what mine look like in game so far with the new borders.

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World War One weapons are up and running!

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Very nice! I think the black outline helps a ton.