The many-guns problem

[Tynan]

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
-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!

[nomadseifer]

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. 

[salt1219]

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.

[Tynan]

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.

[salt1219]

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

[nomadseifer]

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. 

[Tynan]

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.

[salt1219]

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

[Kender]

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.

[Tynan]

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).

[salt1219]

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?

[Noxmutagen]

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
-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.)

[ElcomeSoft]

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]

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.

[Noxmutagen]

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

[British]

Inventory is discussed here and in this thread, 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 ? ).

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 ?