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We know how to make them and they're useful, mainline production.

4 (33.3%)

They seem out of place and run rather counter to a fantasy setting, avoid them.

2 (16.7%)

Get outta here, nerd, nobody finds guns that interesting.

1 (8.3%)

Go ahead and have the NPCs make em, but not worth player input.

1 (8.3%)

Support, but they shouldn't be the standard weapons.

4 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[Chevaleresse]

True,but properly constructed fortress defense can still make the task of repelling any infantry force, living or not, much easier.

I'll try to avoid metagaming after your mention of flying zombies; I wasn't planning on prepping for them.


Oh yeah; what kind of defenses already exist? Do we have drawbridges to seal access, any sort of standard weapon traps, etc?

[Dustan Hache]

Mass infantry tactics; an artillerist's genocidal wet dream.

Just you wait, i am not spoiling anything more about my army.

[Amperzand]

Okay, so my actions from the first year alone, before I was a GMPC and not allowed to do much, gave us good stone walls, thick iron gates, six marksmen's towers- two of them outside the walls as watch-posts, easily overrun -, about 30 or 40 standard-issue black-powder-and-round-shot cannons, probably something like 14 kilo balls, five big 350mm howitzers in gunlaying machinery entirely made from preexisting dorfy clockpunk, around a half-dozen 20mm repeating cannons, fed from 15 round clips {Clips, not magazines, there's a difference and I know it} and capable of being loaded with several cartridges, enough small, crude firearms to equip most of our infantry, and a considerable store of ammunition for all of the above, with the remaining four monthturns spent on less militant pursuits and much of the actual work done by normdorfs.

Our main weakness is in our people, who are both few and largely inexperienced, though trained.

The above is all common knowledge in the fort and easily visible from the surface, making it reasonably knowable by Hache and anybody else who gets a scout a view past the walls.

There's also a good amount that other people could have done, but I'm not sure if it was. Blaze, for instance, has 12 monthturns to negotiate with, and 4Maskwolf if he deigns to reappear.

Also, because this could easily be seen as overboard, I'm entirely willing to tune this down.

[Gwolfski]

quick question: can we make tiny and delicate mechanisms or is everything big and clunky?

[Amperzand]

That would depend on how small and what you want to do with it. Certainly if you collaborate with some of the local crafters or the mages, you could make some quite intricate devices, but you certainly couldn't make a tiny, delicate steam engine.

[TheBiggerFish]

That would depend on how small and what you want to do with it. Certainly if you collaborate with some of the local crafters or the mages, you could make some quite intricate devices, but you certainly couldn't make a tiny, delicate steam engine.

Maybe a clockwork/springs/whatever contraption.
Attach a small magic motor to wind it...
Holy crap perpetual motion.  In theory.
Although considering that magic is kind of...Eh, right now...Either way, it could still.
Hmm.
Got to think about that.

[Gwolfski]

whatever. big, clunky machinery for me!

[Amperzand]

Given that clockwork usually uses springs to provide rotary motion anyway, it makes more sense to just use the motor, springs aren't very efficient.

But yeah, it's possible. The magic isn't reliable enough just now, but it may get better, if y'all beat a few sets of insurmountable odds.

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh, those are my specialty.
;P

[Gwolfski]

clockwork repeater guns...

[TheBiggerFish]

clockwork repeater guns...

We don't even need clockwork to make repeaters.  We just need to make the right sort of barrel.
Would...
Hmh.
That would, no.
Augh.
If...Yeah, magic could, but no...
No.
Dang it, I neeed to figure this out now or it'll be eating at me all day.
How do ammo belts work?

[Gwolfski]

i have an idea for clockwork machine guns.

THe knockback from the shot winds up a spring which changes the barrel, ejecting the used shell and instering a new one.

[Amperzand]

The reason that was never done is that the modern method is simpler and more reliable. On the other hand, crazy clockwork guns are an amazing idea. Perhaps use a standard bolt-or-lever action, but with a crazy overpowered cartridge and use the recoil to charge a spring for a secondary function.

Also worth noting, the barrel has very little to do with a repeater's function, unless it "Repeats" by virtue of multiple barrels. In a recoil-operated, bolt, or lever-action weapon, the mechanisms are all in the area around the trigger. Actually, go wikipedia the Sten Gun, it's got a pretty great animation of how a very simple recoil-operated machine gun works.

[Gwolfski]

has multiple barreals and spins round. very prone to jamming

[Amperzand]

Gatling guns really aren't worth the trouble unless they either need to worry about overheating, or you don't have recoil-operated ones yet. On the other hand, if one gets made, it'll get used.

Another thing we could use is a reliable way of mass-manufacturing cased rounds, since right now we're on hand-load only, which restricts most forms of repeater's ammunition supply pretty badly.