This is 3000+ years from now and we're still using projectile weapons?

[Mikhail Reign]

I dont get this argument tho.

The year is 3000. 'Backwater' planets still using that tech makes no sense. Thats like saying today 3rd world countries still use bow's and arrows'

Why would anyone still be using 1500 year old technology? Its not like half developed nations today use bow's and arrows. They use the old versions of current tech.

In 1500 years, why would the most common 'old' stuff be tech from today? Wouldn't it be tech from a couple hundreds years ago? So instead of everyone using M1911's and AK-47's as well as future Charge Rifles, they would be using top of the line Charge Rifles, and then the poor people would use outdated, old, crappy charge rifles?

Like if you were in a battle line, facing off against murderous automated robots, and someone was handing out Pulse Rifles, shoulder firing napalm launchers, wouldn't you be a bit pissed when someone handed you a 1500 year old gun?

Its not even a stat problem. Its an identity problem that the game has - this is space western - why am I wielding an Lee Enfield? Shouldn't it be a Rimvarment Hunting Rifle? Why is it a 'pistol' instead of a Frontier Protection Revolver?

Bascially the weapons as they stand feel so much like a 'stand in'. They have no connection to the world around them. Why are they mass producing UZI's a millennia or more into the future? We barely produce them now....

[CiceroThePoet]

Kinetic weaponry would be easier to manufacture, and provide the same general use as a Tokamak rifle, minus what is just a controlled small explosion.

It's just a matter of logistics. Realistically speaking, manufacturing Tokamak rifles would be an absolute nightmare for a normal rimworld colony. While they would know they exist, and they can engineer them around that idea, the level of quality control you would need to put into manufacturing one of those would be a nightmare.

It's simply easier, and cheaper, to arm a group of pre-glitter peoples with proven kinetic weaponry, than it would be to manufacture Tokamaks.

Logistics.

[Catastrophy]

Means of production limit the equipment available and ready to maintain.That means bullets are go and the robots can be watched through the TV tubes. However, what if der robots disguise themselves as survivors?

[Mikhail Reign]

Kinetic weaponry would be easier to manufacture, and provide the same general use as a Tokamak rifle, minus what is just a controlled small explosion.

It's just a matter of logistics. Realistically speaking, manufacturing Tokamak rifles would be an absolute nightmare for a normal rimworld colony. While they would know they exist, and they can engineer them around that idea, the level of quality control you would need to put into manufacturing one of those would be a nightmare.

It's simply easier, and cheaper, to arm a group of pre-glitter peoples with proven kinetic weaponry, than it would be to manufacture Tokamaks.

Logistics.

Why? Ballistic (bows and arrows are kinetic weapons) weapons require a pretty decent production base to make them of any quality. You have to be able to produce quality steel, work it, forge it, machine it. Its not quick and easy. If I was going to invest time/effort into making weapons production, I would make weapons that are current in terms of technology.

This is 1500 year into the future. I would look at ballistic weapons with the same eye as I would a bow and arrow. Old, ancient technology, long surpassed by current technology.

As you move away from technology, it becomes harder to recreate, simply because the general everyday usage isnt there. Everyday people generally can't make bow's and arrow's because the in depth knowledge of working wood (grains, veins, types, density etc) just isn't there. That said, they can generally make some form of explosive, simply because we exist in a time of chemistry, so there is a base knowledge in our society of how it works.

I don't see why in 1500 years there hasn't been a technology that came along and supplanted ballistic weapons.

To bring it back to the game, I dont see why a game set 1500 year into the future would continue to use boring everyday weapons names, when they could simply be renamed/reskinned something more fitting with the theme

[A Friend]

Because it's a game and not really a window 3000+ years into the future. If it works well with the theme and setting then why not.

Its not even a stat problem. Its an identity problem that the game has - this is space western - why am I wielding an Lee Enfield? Shouldn't it be a Rimvarment Hunting Rifle? Why is it a 'pistol' instead of a Frontier Protection Revolver?

But I agree with this though. Tynan, give us revolvers already

However, whether or not its a realistic depiction of the future is a different question.

[Bozobub]

It's simply extremely difficult to beat the efficiency of kinetic weaponry, and traditional chemical guns are reliable, low maintenance, and extremely effective.  Ever seen what a .50 cal. sabot (armor-piercing), explosive, or incendiary round can do, or seen how far they can accurately fire (2 km, on a tripod, for ball ammo =o)?  Do you understand how powerful a laser you'd have to field, in a small, man-portable package (85 lbs. for the old M2 but it's a real porker xD, you can easily field a 10-12 pound .50 cal. rifle), and how large a power supply you'd need, to duplicate this performance..?!  You already HAVE charge rifles, you know, which are essentially particle cannons.  Furthermore, any power supply that large IS a bomb; ever seen what happens when a fully-charged lithium battery is compromised?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMy2_qNO2Y0 <- this is a cell phone battery.  Think about how much power is in a single megajoule laser shot o.O' !

You can make traditional guns entirely via good machining and a bit of basic chemistry, and you can carry a ridiculous number of effective rounds for most (hundreds, easily).  These rounds generally are quite shock/damage resistant, humidity resistant, and most rifles can fire at least as far as you can see, even with optics.  They're cheap, light, tough, need no additional power to work, and can be field-maintained easily.  What more, exactly, do you want from a weapon..?!

Yeah, you could make a small, manpack-able railgun or laser cannon, say, with approximately the same tech level as charge rifles, but there's simply no damn reason to do so at personal combat ranges, and the costs and maintenance are inevitably going to be a lot higher for things that aren't any more useful, that also are going to break far more often in ways you cannot repair in the field =p .  Meh.

[taha]

The way I see this, tribes are natives from that planet, colonies are settlers who arrived there using non-FTL transportation (or 2-3 generations after them), and pirates are... well pirates.

That's why tribes have neolithic weapons, colonies have XX century guns and pirates have mixed techs depending of who they've robbed.


On the other hand I agree, for a 5000 years old civilization, they sure lack in weapon tech. As a matter of fact all their tech leaves a lot to be desired.

When you think at year 2100, you think matter replicators, energy weapon tech, climate control, enhanced genetics, solar system colonization.
2200? Planetary shields, antimatter, FTL, teleportation.
2500? true AI, gravitational manipulation, star core energy extraction
3000? psionics, mind over matter.

... And yet, in year 5000 we are supposed to research colored lights.

[b0rsuk]

I dont get this argument tho.

The year is 3000. 'Backwater' planets still using that tech makes no sense. Thats like saying today 3rd world countries still use bow's and arrows'

Why would anyone still be using 1500 year old technology? Its not like half developed nations today use bow's and arrows. They use the old versions of current tech.

This proves you don't know history, too. Many times in history an invention has been lost. Zero, crucial to proper math, has been independently discovered and lost many times. We use portland concrete, but there are examples of Roman exposed to harsh marine environments showing little wear and tear. Note there are many Roman constructions which stand well to this day. We still don't know how they made their superior concrete, although recent research shows presence of volcanic ash. Roman concrete was sturdier AND cheaper to make, you didn't have to use super high temperatures like our awesome modern concrete requires. I bet there are many more inventions that were completely lost. What about the library of Alexandria ? The Greek mechanism of Antikythera - it was only found in a shipwreck, but there are clues Greeks had more stuff like that. We know Greeks had steam engines, but they treated them like toys for kids.

More generally, medieval / dark ages started because of the fall of Roman civilization. Bronze age ended when major civilizations of the time were crippled by the Sea Peoples. Only Egypt survived, and it wasn't what it once was. It's common in history that a source of stability disappears, and - gradually, not suddenly - people lose ability to build, craft, lose their knowledge, know-how how to maintain or create advanced items. Sometimes it's deliberate - for example ISIS is destroying various ancient ruins because they were made by "infidels".

In fiction there are examples like "Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe, "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance (which inspired Dungeons&Dragons, which inspired nearly all computer RPG games we have today), and more. "Dune" by Frank Herbert, which Rimworld is influenced by (not as much as Firefly though), had all computers banned by a religious movement because there was a problem with sentient machines. The "Human Computer" and "Spice Miner" backgrounds of Rimworld are nods to Dune, as is Personal Shield. More recently there's the new Numenera setting, made for pen&paper RPG games, but also used in Torment: Tides of Numenera. It has no less than 9 (nine) civilization that rose and fallen on the same planet, and "magical artifacts" are simply items made by a civilization so advanced people barely understand how to use them.

Someone brought a great point about exploding cellphone batteries. I'd rather face an exploding pistol round, thank you. There's much talk about renewable energy sources, solar, wind power - but one of main problems is getting adequate batteries so a cloudy day doesn't ruin you. That's why Tesla cars are such a big deal. Now look at Rimworld and its exploding batteries. Would you feel safe with a colonist whose weapon can explode at any time ?

Why is AK-47 so damn popular ? It's not the greatest rifle ever, but its variants and successors are used WIDELY across the world, especially in developing countries. Sturdy, very little maintenance, rarely jams, hits hard, reasonably accurate. It loses to modern rifles, but those are nowhere near as reliable and require supply chain to work. Americans could rely on supplying their army by air, so they didn't care to make M16 - an equivalent of A47 from the time - particularly durable. Soviets could only dream of regular air supply drops, so they built AK-47 to last.

[Bozobub]

Funny, but your argument is possibly even better than you realized, because in the "Book of the Long Sun" series, long-forgotten AIs are also pivotal.  GOD, I love Gene Wolfe..! *fangasm*

+1 internet cookie, flavor of your choice, for the Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance shout-outs; props.

[b0rsuk]

Rimworld setting is a setting without Faster Than Light travel. We currently have a huge problem transporting cargo into orbit, so how do you build an advanced factory on another planet ? Space elevators are a potential solution, but even if made they would be very vulnerable to sabotage or war.

All modern satellites are the shape of an A-bomb! The rockets were developed to transport atomic bombs, not humans or their cargo. Similarly, research shows uranium reactors are inferior to thorium reactors, but thorium, while far more common, is much worse for exploding violently (and has no dangerous meltdowns). So they chose the research path to uranium reactors, because it's relatively easy to make atomic bombs with their help.

If there's something STOOPID in Rimworld it's the fact that uranium, not thorium, is the nuclear resource 3000 years from now.

[Fleurs]

After reading all the post here, i think of one thing, why bother improving handgun technology over and over to be more powerfull, while flesh body is still as weak a 2000 years before. A simple bullet burst can already kill a human in a split second, why bother creating a super laser rifle of the awesome death, that can kill a human body in "half" a split second? Oo

[Stormfox]

Rimworld is retro-futuristic.

Those settings NEVER make sense, especially not if the civilizations portrayed once had advanced computer technology.
But they are so much fun everyone tends to overlook that fact. It is one of the assumed base principles you just need to adhere to to be able to enjoy them.

It's the same with all variants of retro-futurism, be it steampunk, falloutlike, 40k, dune or rimworld.

About those sex robots, though: I guess in the glitterworlds they use tactile-genuine holobabes (and -dudes).

[Trylobyte]

Why would anyone still be using 1500 year old technology? Its not like half developed nations today use bow's and arrows. They use the old versions of current tech.

There's older weapons technology still in use today.  Crossbows are 2600 years old and some Special Forces units still use them.  You can suppress a gun, but it still sounds like a gun.  A crossbow shot is just as fatal and is nearly silent.  Yes modern crossbows are different than ancient Chinese models, but they're similar enough that you can look at one, then the other, and go 'Yep, those are both crossbows.'

The effectiveness of a thing determines whether or not we use it, not the age of the thing.  For a situation like a RimWorld, simple, reliable, easily-crafted projectile weapons just work.

Speaking of...  Why don't we have crossbows on Rimworld?

[LordMunchkin]

Borsuk has it right. It's all about energy density. A power cell with enough power to power a laser comparable to a modern assault rifle would basically be a bomb. And probably very difficult to manufacture even with future tech.

In the end, people like lasers because they look futuristic, not because they're a particularly good idea (when it comes to personal weapons). It's likely any future laser weapons used on a human scale would be specialist weapons (laser=high accuracy so maybe sniper weapon).

[Anaro-SunfireLP]

In a universe of spread out planets t seems ok that some would be in the dumpster for tech and a little wild