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Wait for the next release. I want usable mugs damn it!

55 (71.4%)

We can use the current one. I like the big trees and slightly smarter dorfs.

17 (22.1%)

I'll take .34.11 thanks. I want to know I'll get to kill things for sure.

5 (6.5%)

Total Members Voted: 77

[Aseaheru]

Im gonna keep yammering on on this subject in the chat thingie.

[Amperzand]

Go ahead.

[Aseaheru]

Splint! What kind of railgun is our railgun? Basic, Helical, or something else?

[Nakéen]

Splint! What kind of railgun is our railgun? Basic, Helical, or something else?

They are Dwarven railguns of course.

Joke aside, we discussed a little in the discord chat with some lads. Propositions were made, ideas were thrown, you know the deal. I will list what was discussed upon and I would like to have your opinion about each of them :
-the addition of Titanium as a metal stronger than Steel
-the possibility of refining Aluminum from Bauxite at the Refinery (the building where Uranium refining will be made too)
-firearms as a weapon-tier below railguns/magnetic disc launchers, with their own reactions as a result
-M.U.G. weaponry as the last tier

Once I will begin modding, I will post my progress and ask questions on the go, to see if the reactions I add are too complex or not enough.
I suggest looking at Teh LOLmod railgun production process to get a rough idea of what I will make.

[Amperzand]

The two main sorts of firearms we considered are the aforementioned sten gun, which is basically just the best way of providing cheap automatic weapons to a low-level civilization, and some kind of breach-loading sniper.

Personal opinion on the subject; unlike the sten, a sniper is just a worse railgun, whereas a submachine gun fills a CQB role that a kinetic-slug railgun is badly unsuited for.

[Nakéen]

It is important to note that ranged weapons fire rate and range can't be modified.
So semi-automatic weapons can't be modded in vanilla DF.

[Amperzand]

Can you make them shoot more than one projectile?  If so, just make the ammunition be magazines.

If you can't make them shoot more projectiles, or give one funky-looking projectile more attacks, then I actually like the idea of a lever-action carbine, stylistically. Firing .60 caliber slugs at ten rounds a minute.

[Nakéen]

Can you make them shoot more than one projectile?  If so, just make the ammunition be magazines.

No sadly, only one projectile at a time. Which means that as you said, these firearms would roughly be bolt-action rifles.

[Splint]

Aaaaactually rate of fire is dependant on two things: Encumbrance and agility.

Having lots of heavy armor detracts from agility, and the lower your agility, the lower your rate of fire (presumably because using a bow or crossbow understandably gets increasingly difficult the more heavy lumps of metal one has strapped to their limbs,) hence why the default armor of marksmen is all leather.

At least that's how it is in the game last time i checked, with less heavily armored dudes firing two or three times as much last time I tested anything - though that was back in 34.11 and may not be valid anymore.

As to the type of weapons, for intents and purposes ours actually could be described as bolt-action railguns (there's proper armature, magnetized rails, and a lever that cycles the armature back into firing position and charges up the weapon from its battery, loading a new slug from a "magazine.") In contrast, most companies  were actually using coilguns instead. The design our dwarves would be using is based on Ballpoint's crossbow-like design, with the main difference being lack of rapid fire capability.

[Nakéen]

Interesting, never really tested the relation between mass and rate of fire. I always thought only the skill of the dwarf influenced it.

When I will have time, I will test this accordingly with hyper-massive weapons vs lightweight ones.

[Amperzand]

So we could make the Stens and battle fatigues weigh almost nothing for high ROF, and the higher-powered weapons and armor weigh more for less.

[Splint]

I think so. Rate of fire still more or less caps out based on agility regardless of encumbrance penalties or lack thereof (which obviously can vary wildly from unit to unit,) but if my old deductions are right, light gear should reduce the penalties to at least provide an illusion of higher rate of fire.

[Amperzand]

It's too bad Toady hasn't gotten to proper ROF systems yet.

Additionally, I had the thought of loading a railgun with a block of compressed iron oxide and aluminum powder instead of a solid slug. Thermite Cannon. Is there any good way of getting a weapon to emit dragon fire or similar?

[Splint]

It's too bad Toady hasn't gotten to proper ROF systems yet.

Additionally, I had the thought of loading a railgun with a block of compressed iron oxide and aluminum powder instead of a solid slug. Thermite Cannon. Is there any good way of getting a weapon to emit dragon fire or similar?

Theoretically, yes. But it requires DFHack's projectile expansion script - a good example of that was in Masterwork with the net guns and cage-o-matics that fired webs or caged the target - somehow.

A thermite cannon would probably work on the same principle, with the projectile turning into a fireball instead of webs.

[Nakéen]

Haha no, we can't make a weapon emit something else than a solid ammo. That's why I compared our railguns to slingshots

And trying to fiddle with materials so that they explode when lodging in the target is needlessly tricky and unreliable.

Coming back on the rapid-fire thing. If we consider RoF is indeed affected by agility and thus weapon mass, then the maximum RoF we could obtain is a regular crossbow one.

Ah. Got ninja'ed by Splint