Machining makes most firearms useless

Started by SpaceDorf, July 24, 2017, 07:23:40 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

SpaceDorf

After thinking about how a  mod had some stupid research requirement for its items,
I realized how powerful and central  machining is.

After slogging through bows and arrows and swords, having to rely on traders and pirate drops for halfway decent weapons,
the best defense being the turret and a killbox .. finally you get to produce your own guns and armor.

All the guns but two. And the ability to break down mechanoids.
Which makes the decision which guns to build only a matter of how much ressources I have, Instead of what can I do
and therefore my point stands that machining makes most firearms useless.

---- Interruption ----

after just checking the research tab again I realized that microelectronics is no required for machining as I thought it was ..
this makes part of my argument moot, since you can reach machining earlier than I thought
and right now I can't tell if it's a Alpha-Version thing or mod related .. my research tab is really cluttered.
but I think the point is still valid

---- End of Interruption ----

My proposal I want to discuss here is as follows.

I would prefer if the abilities of the Machining Table were a bit more spread out.
Making Pistols or Revolvers, Shotguns and Bolt-Action Rifles at the Electric Smithy ( to have a bit of difference to Tribals )

And Modern Weapons finally at the Machining Table.
Spacer Tech takes extra research anyhow.

Disassembling Weapons for Parts should also go to the Machining Table,
while disassembling Mechanoids should go to the Electric Smelter.

Before I wrote myself in another emberassing situation I checked facts :

The crematorium and the electric smelter should change places in the research list.

A Crematorium today is gas powered and reaches only about 850 °C.
While Iron has a melting point of 1150 °C and Steel of 1200 °C and above. ( making steel from iron actually creates heat up to 1600 °C and needs cooling by mixing scrap steel into it )

For future Tribal Stuff .. starting with the simple fireplace pottery and ceramics use the same temperature ranges as above ..
( and as I just relearned the technique is about 30.000 Years Old .. )

Finally Electric Smelting can create 3500 °C  .. which in my oppinion would be about right the mechanoid material plasteel, which is made to endure space and re-entering a planetary atmosphere.

So Tribals get a cheaper smelter to use all the scrap metal that is lying around, while the Electric Smelter should actually require Machining as basic research, because a sustained arc of light needs a bit of know how.

I hope no one is to confused by my rambling .. whats your oppinion on this ?
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

Bozobub

IMO, it makes sense but doesn't really add much, in the end, to gameplay.  I wouldn't be offended at all by your change, but it really wouldn't change how I play the game in any real way, unless the weapons were also completely rejiggered ???.
Thanks, belgord!

SpaceDorf

well lets assume there will be a bit more content in the next few alphas ..
and lets assume it will take longer to reach machining ..
or lets assume a tribal start ..

I think those are all good reasons to not put all egg grenades in one basket.
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

BetaSpectre

It takes so short of a time to research, and so long to create quantities of weapons and so many resources it's better to just wait until you can make sniper rifles basically.
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░─╤▌██ |
░░░░░░░░─╤▂▃▃▄▄▄███████▄▃|
▂█▃▃▅▅███/█████\█[<BSS>█\███▅▅▅▃▂
◥████████████████████████████████◤
                           TO WAR WE GO

Canute

#4
SpaceDorf,
basicly what you describe is allready part of harcore-sk modpack, did you ever play this ?
Vanilia gameplay is for beginning, all is pretty simple, even with the most mods it don't change anything at the crafting process. Mosttimes they just add some new metal/ore types.
Rimsenal is a good way in that direction, but even there you just made the most weapons out of the ore,comp. and some extra drops.

But about the topic, i don't think it made it useless. You still need a very good crafter for good quality weapons. And you will need them at a higher difficult storyteller.

SpaceDorf

@canute : No I never played Hardcore-SK, I take another look at it, but I think there were some things about it, that I did not like .. although my current modlist is north of 200 mods ..

so it is nice that you mention Rimsenal, which was the mod that had me thinking :o
Mainly the number of power armors and the lack of other options than guns, but one led to another.

By the time I get around to craft my own weapons I usually have a lvl. 15 crafter or two .. that is not the problem.

What I meant was that some weapons just become a non-option to craft, because they are allready outdated by then.
Why should I craft a Bolt-Action Rifle when I can craft a Sniper Rifle.
Why should I craft a PDW or Pistol when I can craft an Assault Rifle ..
Why Assault Rifles at all, when I am through with Sniper Rifles I have researched charged shot ..

Maybe I should rename the topic from "useless" to "obsolete" ...
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

Canute

#6
QuoteWhat I meant was that some weapons just become a non-option to craft, because they are allready outdated by then.
Why should I craft a Bolt-Action Rifle when I can craft a Sniper Rifle.
Why should I craft a PDW or Pistol when I can craft an Assault Rifle ..
Why Assault Rifles at all, when I am through with Sniper Rifles I have researched charged shot ..

Maybe I should rename the topic from "useless" to "obsolete" ...

Hehe, i guess you arn't a big fan of weapons mods they add alot of nearly the same kind of weapons just with a little bit different stats.
Me either, very confusing when you could craft 10 kind of pistols which nearly are the same, just because people like to see their favoured colt/magnum/beretta/glock in the game.
2-4 kind of pistoles are enough, pistol, adv. pistol, pistol with fire effect.
I like it overall more simple then to have too much variants.

At the other hand, people would say:
bolt vs sniper, bolt got more DPS, sniper the better range.
same for SMG vs Assault, at close range the SMG got the better DPS, Assault is the best univeral weapon.
Personaly i would say, charge rifle for overall, sniper for mechanoid sniping.
And i never found a good use of LMG or miniguns, because of the long warmup, serveral targets are allread dead/down before they could shoot, you need to manual target something behind.

Even at Rimsenal you never would use all kind of weapons, but people would like to have choises and their personal choised weapons. Other people just want the best DPS weapon.

My personal suggestion, only play with 1-2 kind of weapon addon mod at once ! :-) And don't add medivial weapons when you play spacer races (Cat's vs. Tribals :-) ).

And the big point why some people need to craft weapons at the mashining table, they got much more people then raiders bring good weapons to the raids. Some people got 50+ pawns at their colonys.

SpaceDorf

Quote from: Canute on July 25, 2017, 06:36:29 AM
QuoteWhat I meant was that some weapons just become a non-option to craft, because they are allready outdated by then.
Why should I craft a Bolt-Action Rifle when I can craft a Sniper Rifle.
Why should I craft a PDW or Pistol when I can craft an Assault Rifle ..
Why Assault Rifles at all, when I am through with Sniper Rifles I have researched charged shot ..

Maybe I should rename the topic from "useless" to "obsolete" ...

Hehe, i guess you arn't a big fan of weapons mods they add alot of nearly the same kind of weapons just with a little bit different stats.
Me either, very confusing when you could craft 10 kind of pistols which nearly are the same, just because people like to see their favoured colt/magnum/beretta/glock in the game.
2-4 kind of pistoles are enough, pistol, adv. pistol, pistol with fire effect.
I like it overall more simple then to have too much variants.

At the other hand, people would say:
bolt vs sniper, bolt got more DPS, sniper the better range.
same for SMG vs Assault, at close range the SMG got the better DPS, Assault is the best univeral weapon.
Personaly i would say, charge rifle for overall, sniper for mechanoid sniping.
And i never found a good use of LMG or miniguns, because of the long warmup, serveral targets are allread dead/down before they could shoot, you need to manual target something behind.

Even at Rimsenal you never would use all kind of weapons, but people would like to have choises and their personal choised weapons. Other people just want the best DPS weapon.

My personal suggestion, only play with 1-2 kind of weapon addon mod at once !

Some people got 50+ pawns at their colonys.

You guessed right at the weapons, I have Rimsenal as Weapon Mod + Skullys Laser and Gauss ..and the Tribal Pack, some vanilla scented weapons I don't remember
And More Vanilla Turrets. I think thats it ..

Myself I use the GD Weapons from Rimsenal because I roleplay the 51st Greydale Scout Company ( 2000 years late and the wrong planet, but goddamn we have orders ! )

FashionRimsta for some more clothes .. everything else is either Q.o.L, Medicine, Tech or Monsters .. Toolbelts, Shoes, Gloves, and Simple Side Arms.. so my Elite is actually armed to the teeth. ( Melee, Grenades, Rifle and Handgun )


Even Apparello adds to much stuff for my taste .. though I love the Style

And I looked at Hardcore-SK again, it has all the features I don't like.
Fog of War, Darkness, to fucking many weapons and factions and fifty superfluous ressources. 

And I just ordered about 10 new knives, rifles and sets of clothes because a downed ship decided to join in whole .. ( damn myself, that I can't refuse children or family members .. )
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

Shurp

It would be nice if we had the ability to manufacture incendiary launchers, rockets, and personal shields, rather than relying on attackers to drop them or traders to bring them by.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

SpaceDorf

and grenades .. sometimes I would give a bunch of arms for a emp grenade.

especially since rocket launchers are one-shot items. I could think of no better ressource grave.
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

makkenhoff

If we assume the people who crash landed are space-tech; it seems likely they can build a 3-d printing machine, you can pretty much build anything that you've got the materials to do, if you've got that kind of knowledge.

If you are talking about a tribal start and then 'hard-lining' for machining research? Yeah, that's a stretch - but you've also got to remember it pretty much jumps from tribal to industrial ages with research. A good section of the game isn't fleshed out yet.

SpaceDorf

Thats one of the reasons why I started this discussion :)

Quote from: SpaceDorf on July 25, 2017, 07:58:07 AM
especially since rocket launchers are one-shot items.

Which alone is a thing that I do not like. A nice Idea would be if Shells could also be used to reload rocket launchers.
Maybe at a Workshop .. 2 Steps - Built Rocket Launcher Barrel, Load Rocketlauncher with Shells.
So once fired Launchers drop a empty Launcher again.
Maxim 1   : Pillage, then burn
Maxim 37 : There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.
Rule 34 of Rimworld :There is a mod for that.
Avatar Made by Chickenplucker

cultist

Quote from: makkenhoff on July 25, 2017, 06:39:34 PM
If we assume the people who crash landed are space-tech; it seems likely they can build a 3-d printing machine, you can pretty much build anything that you've got the materials to do, if you've got that kind of knowledge.

If you are talking about a tribal start and then 'hard-lining' for machining research? Yeah, that's a stretch - but you've also got to remember it pretty much jumps from tribal to industrial ages with research. A good section of the game isn't fleshed out yet.

Normal scenario is industrial, sole survivor is glitterworld (I think? Not sure what that actually means). No official scenarios start you off with knowledge of spacer tech.

about 30 midgets

        In my opinion, your view of obsoletion is exaggerated (resources DO need to be taken into account, it's a valid argument);
However, I agree that vanilla weapons lack advancement between each other.
While I do get what you're saying, using your solution with only the current vanilla guns would make advancing through them feel too cumbersome(?).

QuoteI would prefer if the abilities of the Machining Table were a bit more spread out.
Making Pistols or Revolvers, Shotguns and Bolt-Action Rifles at the Electric Smithy ( to have a bit of difference to Tribals )

Even then, there still are guns that are obsolete- you'd either make a bow or a bolt-action rifle given the choices.
I mean, why use a pistol/revolver when bows are more efficient?

I just think there should be more choices between tribal and modern, and past the modern tech (not just the Charged Rifle). I'm not demanding it though, I find the vanilla more balanced than anything I could think of without being engaged into more serious planning.

PotatoeTater

I've always wanted guns to be broken down into parts so you can manufacture each part then combine them together.

It would make weapon making a decent trade option and add diversity.
Life is Strange