The many-guns problem

[Rathlord]

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.

[chaotix14]

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)

I personally like the idea of using old/multiples of "outdated" guns to create better ones much like real life we didn't get to the M16 by simply interacting with aliens or that sort of thing we made it by wanting a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.

[NephilimNexus]

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).

[king komodo]

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

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).

[keylocke]

[spoiler]

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?

[TimMartland]

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.

[daft73]

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 , Tynan speaks of.

[ITypedThis]

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.

[Serrate Bloodrage]

Degrading weapons and skill based maintenance ftw

[mrofa]

Braking down guns into metal.
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

[iame6162013]

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.

[Sion]

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?

[ApexPredator]

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.

[Incense]

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.

[Sion]

...
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.
...

...
* 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.