Firearms?

[Potocobe]

That's my fault by way of Scotterius.

I originally posted in another thread the idea of arrow deflection. I never considered bullet deflection.
I could get behind some one vs one bullet deflection from a swordmaster/seriously fast person against an accurate gunfighter. I mean, they would have to know where the gunfighter was aiming and whether or not they were accurate and have the sword waiting 'just so' at the right spot and time. That is some Zen-slow-motion-in-the-moment-zone kind of reflexes. Not just anybody can deflect bullets given all that but there is the thought that practice might be necessary to hone the skill of bullet deflection. And how many wannabe swordmasters live through that? It should be an ultimate elite swordmaster plank-fighting skills or something. Or robotic arm (souvenir from the time you learned to swordfight) + Xbox 360 Kinect camera sensor + an old iPhone 10 found in a junked car's glovebox = bullet deflection. Just mount the camera on your nifty shoulder pad like a second head.

I don't know about bullet deflection with or without firearms but I stand by my suggestion of arrow deflection. Make it a .5% chance. For bad ass points when you are limping from a fight and turn around at the last second and smack that arrow out of the air 'cause you knew it was coming'. Bad ass I say! I know the next arrow plunges into my right eye and ruins the moment but that would still be cool...

[Ozark Tempses]

Seriously, about bullet deflection, I would prefer if you could deflect tons(well, maybe not that much) of these o rif you could not that just a single random one. Because having a single one parrried is more likely to provoke this reaction:
"WTF, I survived? How did that... Oh yeah, deflection..."
Than this:
My character is running toward a group of ennemies... Three of them grabs their guns, and they start shooting at me, I dodge one, deflect two others and jump into melee... My reaction?
"Fuck yeah that was awesome, let's do it again!"
Another point is when I see peoples who are afraid that the implementation of firearms may bring bombs... Yeah, but with "if" you could go anywhere... I mean, alright, you can bring power with a power plant, but what if peoples start asking for Tesla turrets
That would be just silly as hell...
You guys need to understand that if for any reasons there are firearms in this game, it won't be a fiery gatling gun of epic death. More like a musket. Yeah, a one shot gun that takes forever to reload. It's not about whether or not you hate guns you see,it's more about how it is implemented.
So about the original question of: Can you parry projectile?
Yes, many; or absolutely none.

[iSuck345]

Seriously, about bullet deflection, I would prefer if you could deflect tons(well, maybe not that much) of these o rif you could not that just a single random one. Because having a single one parrried is more likely to provoke this reaction:
"WTF, I survived? How did that... Oh yeah, deflection..."
Than this:
My character is running toward a group of ennemies... Three of them grabs their guns, and they start shooting at me, I dodge one, deflect two others and jump into melee... My reaction?
"Fuck yeah that was awesome, let's do it again!"
Another point is when I see peoples who are afraid that the implementation of firearms may bring bombs... Yeah, but with "if" you could go anywhere... I mean, alright, you can bring power with a power plant, but what if peoples start asking for Tesla turrets
That would be just silly as hell...
You guys need to understand that if for any reasons there are firearms in this game, it won't be a fiery gatling gun of epic death. More like a musket. Yeah, a one shot gun that takes forever to reload. It's not about whether or not you hate guns you see,it's more about how it is implemented.
So about the original question of: Can you parry projectile?
Yes, many; or absolutely none.

I was never thinking about muskets, and let's face it: it wold ruin the atmosphere of the game. When firearms arrived in Europe, they made heavy and medium armour useless, and people started using alot less melee weapons and wore little to no armour at all. And if we made them rare and hard to make, they wold be seen as not worth it since they take alot of time to reload and wold be too expensive, even if they were just personal weapons. And besides we already have harpoons.

[Bancheis]

Don't make the same mistake Mount and Blade made by their release of Fire and Sword. Adding guns into a game like this will break it. You may appease a small group of players by adding guns, but in the long run, the majority of players will hate them and find them too annoying to deal with. I think the harpoon gun is the only type of gun there should be. Bows and crossbows are perfectly fine to do the job of ranged weaponry.

[CalPal]

Nope.

I'm just gonna throw my opinion here, but firearms shouldn't really be a weapon in this game, even if they are single-shot. Nothing about this game says that people would be carrying guns around. If they were, they'd likely have just one bullet in them and are good only for offing yourself when there's no other option, but even that's not belonging in this setting.

So yeah, no guns is perfectly fine by me.

[iSuck345]

But if Kenshi is the result of a fallout, guns should only be relics, and other things being made and guns wold only be decoration and not fireable.

[elStrages]

i am quite happy with the state of affairs as they are, no guns.
crossbows though or bows of some description will be likely considering the bow is like 65000 year old which by my count is really old . cant have no ranges weapons what so ever, even monkeys throw rocks

[Tolwrath]

Considering we have electricity, what about railgun based artillery? ie magnetically propelled projectiles. For those of you not familiar with electromagnetic physics, running an electric current through something creates a magnetic force perpendicular to the current. So generation of powerful magnetic fields is actually quite easy. Using a railgun style launcher would remove the need for projectiles to use gun powder. Without using explosive shells, they would basically be glorified harpoons. I imagine you might also be able to use them to launch supply drops to troops.

[Bancheis]

Considering we have electricity, what about railgun based artillery? ie magnetically propelled projectiles. For those of you not familiar with electromagnetic physics, running an electric current through something creates a magnetic force perpendicular to the current. Using a railgun style launcher would remove the need for projectiles to use gun powder. Without using explosive shells, they would basically be glorified harpoons. I imagine you might also be able to use them to launch supply drops to troops.

Electricity and magnetism are two very different things. Plus, I believe you are missing the point. That would be just as effective as a gun, making swords relatively useless. Say for example you have a full squad of 20 people with these. You would mow down swordsman before they even had a chance to hit you. If I want to shoot people with guns I will play CoD, or for a more RTS setting, C&C. There is no fun and no point to making it easy to slaughter people.

Someone made a very valid point on this earlier as well. If people want guns in their game, let the modding community take care of that. Keep it out of the base game. Give us a choice.

[gamerphate]

I pretty much totally agree with the firearms issue. It would probably create quite a bit of OP issues. Although what about something like a Greek Fire jars? It wouldn't be explosive, perhaps would have area of effect fire damage obviously, and would mainly be used in ambushes on villages. Although it could be handy for large groups of enemies but would also be used carefully since the fire could hurt anyone that is standing in it. So friendly "fire" would be an issue. They would be VERY expensive and one use obviously.

Perhaps someone has suggested this already, but I could see this fitting in with the time frame, and perhaps would give those wanting some form of new combat options. Also I can see people picking this apart too, but just wanted to suggest this and see what people think.

[Tolwrath]

Electricity and magnetism are two very different things. Plus, I believe you are missing the point. That would be just as effective as a gun, making swords relatively useless. Say for example you have a full squad of 20 people with these. You would mow down swordsman before they even had a chance to hit you. If I want to shoot people with guns I will play CoD, or for a more RTS setting, C&C. There is no fun and no point to making it easy to slaughter people.

Someone made a very valid point on this earlier as well. If people want guns in their game, let the modding community take care of that. Keep it out of the base game. Give us a choice.

You're mistaken, electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin, magnetic fields can be used to generate electric fields and electric fields can be used to generate magnetic fields. In fact an experiment you can do at home to prove this: http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html. (Makes a nail magnetic using electric current)

Also: I wasn't thinking of an automatic weapon. I was thinking in early research trees they'd be large and heavy, having to be carried on the shoulder and only able to launch a metal spear about 1 or 1/2 inch thick. A glorified a harpoon launcher. But no need for gun powder, and the ammo would be recoverable and reusable. Making it an effective weapon for a resource starved society. However it would have to be either hand loaded for each shot and/or wait on a charge time before being able to fire another round. It would also mean a soldier would have to carry a battery pack of some sort, so the weight of the weapon itself balances its use. I was thinking that further research options would allow it to be lighter and more compact, perhaps speeding up refire time a bit.

Oh and early firearms didn't cause heavy armor to go obsolete. In fact, some flintlock rounds (especially from a pistol) can actually be blocked by armor entirely. When the mounted archer became a thing, did it remove the usefullness of spearmen? (The answer is no).

[Bancheis]

You're mistaken, electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin, magnetic fields can be used to generate electric fields and electric fields can be used to generate magnetic fields. In fact an experiment you can do at home to prove this: http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html. (Makes a nail magnetic using electric current)

Alright, I agree you do have a point about electromagnetism. However, since the in-game generator produces electricity in a way that is currently unknown by the general public, it is still too early to determine if they have the technology to make it work the way you are talking about.

Oh and early firearms didn't cause heavy armor to go obsolete. In fact, some flintlock rounds (especially from a pistol) can actually be blocked by armor entirely. When the mounted archer became a thing, did it remove the usefullness of spearmen? (The answer is no).

No, early firearms did not cause heavy armor to become obsolete, but they did cause light and medium armor to. You think I want to make every single one of my guys wear heavy armor? I am going to stand by what I said earlier and say if guns are going to be a thing, it should be added by the modder community, not packaged into the original game.

Lastly, the part you mentioned about it being a giant harpoon launcher, I do believe Chris plans to have a harpoon launcher in the game anyway. I can't say I agree with having it as a carriable weapon. I would say this makes perfect sense for a mounted defense artillery to walls. Making it large and heavy just makes it less and less likely that people would bother carrying it around. Sure, that gives a point for a counter-argument, but ultimately you would figure two things would happen. 1) The person carrying it would have to move very slow regardless of his strength, to balance the strength of the weapon being added to the game, slowing down the rest of the squad. 2) If you were losing a fight, you would most likely abandon it to move more quickly. Anyway, why do we need a mobile version of that when there could be crossbows and bows?

[SubatomicBroton]

It has been stated that there will be ranged weapons. You don't defend against a siege with your sword up on the walls. Knowing this, guns are purely an aesthetic/environmental choice - nothing more. Whether you are using bows, crossbows, throwing knives, javelins - or even guns, this is a game, every individual weapon is as strong or as weak as Chris wants it to be. Take bolas, nothing but weights and cord - make it a guaranteed hit that instantly disables - boom, bolas are overpowered, nerf bolas. We're not dealing with historical accuracy, and as has been repeatedly stated, guns were present along side other lower tech ranged weapons for centuries anyway.

Ok, you don't want to see firearms because they are overdone and a game without them would be a breath of fresh air. Fine, that's a pretty strong argument and I might even be inclined to agree to a point. It's also a relevant argument when you're talking about a game, but the "guns will be so broken!" argument is simply not a very good one, and people should stop making it. Crossbows were banned by the church because they were such a great destabilizer, allowing even a lowly peasant the opportunity to kill an armored knight. You could make the exact same argument that they are too powerful and will break the game... but no one is saying that, because they don't have to be too powerful if they're properly balanced for the purpose of the game.

I'd also like to give my two cents on the medical argument. Some people have been saying that it doesn't make sense to just bandage and heal from a gunshot wound, yet this is an incredibly inconsistent argument if you don't look at the flip side. Do you think it is easier to stick your intestines back in after being eviscerated? People actually survive head-shots with surprising frequency - show me someone who survived a decapitation. I'll wait.

TLDR; there are plenty of relevant arguments to be made against guns, their relative power in a GAME world is not one - that is why developers spend time balancing their games.

[iSuck345]

Won't the guns be then ridiculously underpowered?

[dovecoon]

Couldn't there be some sort of compromise, kinda like the Bowguns they use in Monster Hunter? They pretty much work like guns, what with a magazine and different ammo types, but they're essentially just mobile ballista. And I thought I saw a mention of a harpoon gun turret somewhere. What about a scaled down version of that instead of a flintlock? Kenshi has a really unique aesthetic, it would be pretty stupid to waste it and just make crossbows work and look like their boring, real world counterparts.

[Smiley]

I would go for a katana a nice hacker and a musket on my back Would be incredably annoying to walk with.

Well from a swordsman perspective i think an arrow and a bullet are just the same.

Ull need time to travel to the 1 shooting.
Only difference will be there rate of fire and damage.
Hmm bullet or arrow defection, i dont think either is that common in armies/battles.

Since when balanced properly its exactly the same.
They're here for the same reason to kill people from ranged.

The only thing that will change would be ow gunpowder lets make explosives.
YeY bombs, now thats a complete different story....
Actually i got the story wrong there where first primitive bombs(rockets) then firearms.

Well to make a long list of things short: Evolution of gunpowder BAD for swordsmen :-p....

[dovecoon]

Hmm bullet or arrow defection, i dont think either is that common in armies/battles.

The difference is suspension of disbelief. Arrow deflection, and even arrow catching is quite possible - if rare and unlikely. Bullet deflection suddenly breaks suspension of disbelief and the game becomes unrealistic. While theoretically they could both work exactly the same from a balance point of view, in practice, there are plenty of things keeping them from working the same. Inventory space and weight would also help balance arrows since arrows are bigger and heavier than bullets, which would help restrict max ammo carried.

In the end, I think this is going to be the one divisive issue in the whole game Either way, half the fan base will be less than thrilled.

The only thing that will change would be ow gunpowder lets make explosives.
YeY bombs, now thats a complete different story....
Actually i got the story wrong there where first primitive bombs(rockets) then firearms.

Now that would be fun. Bombs look like they fit in, and if you could blow up walls with them, that'd be incredibly useful.

[iSuck345]

Yeah, but bombs wold make swords useless.

Also, what about matchlocks? The japanese called them tanegashima, and they wold be less atmosphere breaking. There's a difference between a matchlock firearm and a musket.

Also, in my research I got confused: is there a such thing as a matchlock musket? I don't think so...

But still, it should only be a mod.

[Smiley]

Well this isnt an asian game so i can call it a musket cant i .
Since ive heared this is based on swordfights in a Mad Maxian style. (For those that doesnt know Mad Max is a movie(actually 3 movies where made) , bit like waterworld without the water)
So Hows it said in proper terminology: Post apocaliptic (without the spelling mistakes)
If u dont include the first 1 thats still before the apocalips(or whatever)

For the record in Mad Max they had fire arms but not that much bullets .

On a side note: if you havent seen the movies u should definatly watch em especially the 2nd and 3rd one, the first is just .... well if u wanna know what happened before.

[SubatomicBroton]

Yeah, but bombs wold make swords useless.

Also, what about matchlocks? The japanese called them tanegashima, and they wold be less atmosphere breaking. There's a difference between a matchlock firearm and a musket.

Also, in my research I got confused: is there a such thing as a matchlock musket? I don't think so...

But still, it should only be a mod.

Why would bombs make swords useless in any conceivable way? That's sort of like saying modern armor made ground infantry useless. They fill a completely different role.

1: Assuming low tech explosives - probably fairly bulky and inconvenient to use (lit fuse vs modern grenade). This would make them well suited to blowing a hole in a wall, not necessarily well suited for fighting soldiers on the ground.
2: They're explosives... if someone is on you with their sword, you wouldn't reach for the bomb in your pocket unless you had a death wish.
3: Ok, the bomber is in no immediate danger - you're still probably worried about friendly fire. You can't just throw explosives into a melee that includes your own squad, unless the games design doesn't include friendly fire.
4: Finally, let's say they're fast, deadly, easy to use, and your squad is immune to explosives leaving friendly hands. They STILL wouldn't completely trump swords if they were a limited (expensive) resource. I don't think anyone is advocating for vast, easily obtainable deposits of the required materials.

There, a number of reasons why bombs would in no way endanger the prevalence of swords. Seriously, it's kind of a must if you think about it. That or siege engines of some kind. I would hope busting through a wall with a few katanas isn't a viable solution in the final game.