[A15] Non-lethal weapons mod (1.4) (formerly Blowgun) 10/12/2016

[Kapun]

                                 
Description:
This mod adds 2 new weapons to the game. They allow to reliably capture enemies. It is a heavly reworked blowgun from truemods https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26249.0 and its upgraded version-tranquilizer (tranq) pistol.

Features:

• Blowgun can be crafted at a crafting spot with wood, steel and herbal medecine. However it requires a simple neolithic research and decent medecine and crafting skills.
• It is quite inaccurate, shotranged and slow to fire but incapacitates an unarmored human in 2 hits (heavy armour makes most of the hits have no effect).
• The effect depends on target's meats amount-larger creatures require more hits then small ones.
• The darts have soporific effect that incaps organic pawns. Warning-overdose is lethal!
• You can also see it in tribal raids and you can buy it from tribal weapon traders.
• Tranq pistol is simular to the blowgun but requires addition research, is crafted on a maching table and is faster and more accurate than the Blowgun.

Download link (no version for steam yet )
dropbox (with sourse code): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4rbhujcz9ukm5c6/AAClvseeF0DVnj6nlvRn0Jgva?dl=0

Incompatibilities: Combat realism.
Adding to existing colonies: Should work fine.
Removing from existing colonies: May not work.
People who made it possible:
TrueDestroyer - the original idea
UnlimitedHugs - contributing code and helping me to make it work

Licence: Do whatever you want with it.

Code Select Expand

Update log
v 1.4:
Added tranq gun and a corresponding research
Buffed blowgun
Replaced soporific with paralizant - shouldn't change weapons' effectiveness

Feel free to post your opinions, ideas and feedback!

[Thyme]

Seems to be solid, will try it out.

Could you add known incompatibilities & if it's safe to use for running colonies?

[Kapun]

I doubt it is incompatable with anything as the mod just adds new stuff (soporific effect and the blowgun).
For running colonies: i am quite sure that all of the features will work, expect for that the research is already researched for the tribal scenario start but if you load it into an exiting tribe you will have to do the research (you won't get it for free as in a new tribe).
But you won't probably be able to remove it from an existing save so make a backup save.

[Canute]

What do you think to add a spacer tech variant of the blowgun ?
Narcojet pistol.
Can penetrate armor better then blowgun, but same effect.
50-100% more range then the blowgun.
Improved acc. and warmup.
Need Hightech research
Plasteel and medicin to build.

[Kapun]

I like the idea. There are 2 problems though.
1) To do this i need a texture of the narcojet pistol (i am no good at drawing). There is a guy who could probably help me with that.
2) Increased amor piercing withour changing the damage will probably require some C# codding.

Do you think this new pistol should incap a human with 1 hit or with 2?

[Canute]

Depend how accurate the pistol are.
With an accuracy of 50%+ for normal weapons on medium range i would say 2 hits.

[faltonico]

Hello there!
I'm guessing this is also affected by the death-on-downed roulette of the game right? or is it a 100% chance of downing?

[Wishmaster]

What do you think to add a spacer tech variant of the blowgun ?
Narcojet pistol.
Can penetrate armor better then blowgun, but same effect.
50-100% more range then the blowgun.
Improved acc. and warmup.
Need Hightech research
Plasteel and medicin to build.

That's exactly what I thought too when I read the topic !

Anyway trying the mod right now.

[Thyme]

Fabulous, more victims volunteers for my medical experiments!

I like the idea of high tech blow guns. Pirates  like to kidnap colonists too.

[Thundercraft]

Very interesting...
After trying it out, these are my findings:

• The blowgun is definitely less lethal than the approximately 67% death vs. incapacitate ratio the game rolls for each attack. I can only assume that the included .dll is responsible for that.
• While it is less lethal than vanilla attacks, there is still a 15 to 20% or so (roughly) chance of death. (Perhaps 1 out of 6?) The corpses seem to reveal that they were all subjected to "Soporific buildup (sufficient)". Can I assume that this is not intended behavior, since I never see a pawn with "(overdose)" or "(extreme overdose)"? For the record, I only had one colonist equipped with a blowgun to reduce the risk of an overdose.
• Sorry, but I must be honest: The accuracy of this weapon is quite atrocious. Most of the time, they can't even hit an animal at a range of 1, even when both shooter and target are standing still. Of course, as the distance increases, it gets worse. This was with a pawn with Shooting 12 and another with Shooting 14. The weapon is barely usable.
• The range of the blowgun seems quite short. It was far less than the GD tactical pistol (Rimsenal mod), for instance. This rather effectively limits usefulness, especially since the accuracy is so terrible.
• The firing cooldown seemed a bit long, considering the crap range and accuracy. But if the range and accuracy were improved, I'd say the delay would be more than fair.

All in all, this seems promising. I just wish that the lethality rate was lower and that it had much better accuracy. Because the range is so short and the delay so long, even if every shot hit the target dead on, it still would not be OP.

Do you think this new pistol should incap a human with 1 hit or with 2?

I agree with Canute that if it has decent accuracy, then it should incap a human in 2 hits. But only if.

Edit:

I decided to test how lethal the blowgun is after I installed the No more random death mod. By way of elimination, I figured this would tell me how much of that 15-20% death was a leftover from RimWorld's random death mechanic or whether my unlucky targets died of an overdose and the game did not report it as such.

I put No more random death last in my load order, after the Blowgun mod. Then I loaded up by old save.

After instructing my colonist to shoot at a target... it let loose a rapid mini-gun hail of darts! The stream was continuous and I had to unequip the Blowgun for it to stop!  I tried again and it did the same thing. Apparently, I forgot to exit RimWorld and restart so the mods would refresh, causing this glitch. Both targets died, of course. But, after examining the corpses, I saw that they both suffered "(extreme overdose)."

After restarting RimWorld, the Blowgun and the new mod seemed to behave. I then had a colonist shoot over a dozen targets (despite the atrocious blowgun accuracy), ranging from a small turtle to numerous deer. Each was downed safely. Also, I noticed that when the Soporific effect begins to wear off and they wake up, it reads as "Soporific buildup (moderate)", so that part seems to work as intended.

This leads me to believe that the 15-20% fatality rate must be bleed-over from RimWorld's random death mechanic that the Blowgun mod failed to completely compensate for. (Either that, or this is intentional.)

[Kapun]

Hello there!
I'm guessing this is also affected by the death-on-downed roulette of the game right? or is it a 100% chance of downing?

Hello!
The weapon itself is not lethal unless you hit enemies like 5 times to get extreme overdose (with is only possible if you shoot them while they are already incaped). I don't realy get how does vanila random death works. I thought it only happens if the target is getting downed from extreme pain. I used no more random death mod and i haven't seen any random deathes.

[Kapun]

Thundercraft, thank you from your feedback and ideas.

The blowgun is definitely less lethal than the approximately 67% death vs. incapacitate ratio the game rolls for each attack. I can only assume that the included .dll is responsible for that.
While it is less lethal than vanilla attacks, there is still a 15 to 20% or so (roughly) chance of death. (Perhaps 1 out of 6?) The corpses seem to reveal that they were all subjected to "Soporific buildup (sufficient)". Can I assume that this is not intended behavior, since I never see a pawn with "(overdose)" or "(extreme overdose)"? For the record, I only had one colonist equipped with a blowgun to reduce the risk of an overdose.

It should not be lethal at all (unless you die from extreme overdose). Vanila random death is probably responible for these strange deathes. What the .dll does is making the effect depend on target's meat amount. So if you shoot a rat i should die in 1 hit and you need about 7 hits to down a thumbo.

Sorry, but I must be honest: The accuracy of this weapon is quite atrocious. Most of the time, they can't even hit an animal at a range of 1, even when both shooter and target are standing still. Of course, as the distance increases, it gets worse. This was with a pawn with Shooting 12 and another with Shooting 14. The weapon is barely usable.

I was afraid to make it OP. An unarmored human may be standing after 6 hits from vanila pistol. The blowgun only needs 2 hits and the target will be greatly slowed after the first one making it a easy prey for hit-run tactic. It is intended that incaping a raider is harder then killing him.

The range of the blowgun seems quite short. It was far less than the GD tactical pistol (Rimsenal mod), for instance. This rather effectively limits usefulness, especially since the accuracy is so terrible.

Pistol is industrial age weapon and blowguns is neolitic. It is supposed to be better (have longer range). I am planning to add a industrial and spacer ages varians of the blowgun (tranquilliser gun and something for spacer age). They probably have higher accuracy, firing speed and range.

Anyway, if many people find it too weak i will probably buff it a bit. I am also thinking i could make have 0% to pass trough amour higher than some value. I will have to use C# for that.

I someone has time and wants to help he can find/make tranquilliser gun/spacer age tranquilliser textures or say if he can help me with C# (i am not good at it)

[Thyme]

I've used it once so far, was trying to down one of my chemical-fascinationbraindead guys before he could get to that flake some drop pods dropped on me against my will.
It was quite hard to hit him, because he crossed the max shooting distance in less time than my shooter needed to aim. He then broke LoS. Got another chance because I was hauling that flake around =)

I wouldn't say it's too weak, it's a mediaval weapon and might be dangerous when a tribe uses it against you. Has anyone encountered tribes with blow guns so far? Balancing problem might as well fix itself when you make us those fancy space-tech tranquiliser gun

[Wishmaster]

I was afraid to make it OP. An unarmored human may be standing after 6 hits from vanila pistol. The blowgun only needs 2 hits and the target will be greatly slowed after the first one making it a easy prey for hit-run tactic. It is intended that incaping a raider is harder then killing him.

So then, how about you balance it by making a blowgun limited by something like 3 or 4 uses only ? It would lose 25% of its hp on every use.

[Kapun]

I doubt it is possible without C#. Anyway i am working on trankgun (tranquilizer) textures. What do you think? (I am saking everyone, not just Wishmaker)

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