a book about guns for authors
Ahem? Name?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089879370X/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1Those organic guns sound kind of like Tyranid weaponry from Warhammer 40K.
Where can I get one?
You'd have to be either a flesher, or get one second hand. Which has it's fair share of dangers.
As per Tyranid's I don't know enough about 40k to know for sure. But my influences could be described as more
Cronenbergian Those organic guns sound kind of like Tyranid weaponry from Warhammer 40K.
Where can I get one?
I assume that in order to get flesher guns you need to be a flesher. Seems to be shaping up to be a pretty big choice that will set "us" (players) apart for the rest of the game.
I do question whether it should be such a linear progression that it appears to be for different techs. I'm talking about:
Clockwork << Standard << Steam << Surface (With Organic to the side.)
I mean, especially when we're talking about sinking a lot of character skills into one of these specializations, and I would expect we would pick one or at the most two to specialize in. Since we're not sure yet how the game is going to run, and what exactly we're going to be doing in it, I can't really go into too much detail. But would it really be fair to have someone put points into something (Clockwork) that will see heavy use in the first few months of the game, but then will rapidly become useless as people are able to afford "better" techs?
Of course, once again, I may be wrong on this account. But that's what it looks like to me right now.
Using a clockwork weapon doesn't use a clockwork skill. It uses the weapon skill. Knowledge of the specific technologies will deal more with repairing or creating or using non-weapon technology. Plus the game world should be such that regardless of what you chose, you should find work, make money and be useful.
Besides, the way that skill and stat advancement works is such that you could literally just tinker around with the tech and gain an understanding of it. You advance skills and stats by succeeding at skill and stat checks that are above your current average (average number of successes = number of dice rolled/2) So if you work with the tech, you'll learn to use it.
That and the progression isn't perfectly linear. That list was of cost, not of effectiveness. No matter how heavily armored, you can kill a man with the weakest of clockwork pistols. It will just be harder. They're good at different things; the only ones that are really far and away better then any others are the surface tech. And they're like that for a reason.
a book about guns for authors
Ahem? Name?
I would be interested as well.
So, I wrote up a list of eight normal cartridges already, because it was actually sort of fun. They're semi-based on reality.
The 5mm cartridge is a very small cartridge favored by people who want an easily concealable weapon. It's very light, has next to no recoil, and is quite accurate, but it deals very little damage and is short-ranged. It is also naturally very silent, making it popular with assassins.
Spring and Arbor's very popular pistol cartridge, the 8mm's most notable feature is how cheap it is. It doesn't excel in any area, but doesn't really suffer either.
The 12mm is a very powerful pistol and submachine gun cartridge. It maintains much stopping power over a long range, but it's quite high on recoil and very inaccurate. Favored by professional soldiers.
A cheap, simple, rifle round designed by the Long Face Mob. It's a favorite of most criminal gangs, as it's easy to get and packs rifle-level firepower in a smaller frame. It's high on damage, but is very inaccurate and short ranged.
A very popular military cartridge, the .249 is a very balanced round. It's not as powerful or cheap as the 6mm Long, but it is a very balanced cartridge. How it performs depends mostly on the rifle that fires it.
A recent cartridge designed by Bishop & Keller intended be marketed to those who want extreme precision. It is amazingly accurate, and despite being less powerful than the .350 it has an even longer range. It's popularity has recently skyrocketed after Richard Valt famously used several snipers equipped with .232 sniper rifles to great effect on his airship.
A very old round, the .350 still dominates the high-power rifle market. Even though it does great damage it's still fairly accurate, if high on recoil. It's even occasionally used in large assault rifles, for those who want as much power as possible.
The .60 AMR is simply a very, very large round. It's most notable feature is it's immense power and range -it's been known to pierce airship plating from a mile away-, but it is also very accurate. It's primary drawback is it's massive amount of recoil, it is often called the "60/40", and has been known to break a weak man's arm simply from the recoil. Still, if you want long range and power, it can't really be beat.
Also, I've only now noticed you only really have four important stats for guns. Size, clip size, range, and damage. And I doubt most people will care about the first two. I suggest adding accuracy, at the very least. Say, some guns start their range increments at +2, or -2. Also, maybe different ranks of automatics? The "Buzzbox" for example says it has a high rate of fire, but it's the exact same as every other SMG.
Now that you mention all the tech levels, I think this would be too much. I wrote this assuming it would be built for thirty or so guns (Based off the number of SMGs you already have). But if there's four tech levels, this would just lead to way too much bloat. Four or five cartridges, max, would be what I suggest now.
Also, that bit about the steam weaponry cauterizing the wound is really silly. Most bullets in normal guns are pretty much liquid by the time they leave the barrel already, and they don't really cauterize anything.
Yeah, the steam thing is really just a way to explain how they do less damage organics then clockwork. Then again, clockwork fires miniture circular saws so I guess even normal bullets would do less damage. Ah well.