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[Jetman123]

The standard knife gotten from the Oubliette is pathetic. We need combat knives! Stilletos! Pocket knives! Each of them would be for a different use.

Pocket knife = Equivalent to the knife we have now. Not very effective but cheap.
Combat knife = Costs 80-100$. More powerful than the knife.
Stilleto = A knife that's used for stabbing only. Gives a bonus when attacking in concert with the Stealth or Disguise skill, or if the Conservative isn't alarmed.

Which brings me to another concern - we need a new combat system, because spending an entire turn to stow your rifle/shotgun/pistol and pull out a knife when it runs dry is just flat-out ridicoulous. It should be possible to designate an alternate weapon, and have each individual Liberal switch between them at will. This raises some problems - it wouldn't fit with the current combat systems. Liberals would need to act individually.

As an extention on this (though not for it alone) I would suggest having each liberal able to perform an action individually in one turn if you would so like instead of everyone doing the same thing. As an alternative for this, make switching one liberal's main/primary weapon not end the turn.

[beorn080]

Why keep a knife as a backup weapon. A loaded shotgun is just as easily hidden in the extra dimensional storage space as a knife. Just pull a Neo and keep pulling out guns until the guards drop.

[Karlito]

Such features would have to be added with the added security that's planned for the future.  Xray machines, metal detectors, and pat down searchers at the door could all be added.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

This is likely some time off, but this is the way I currently imagine The Future of Liberal Combat might be:

- There are two weapon slots, one for the weapon carried openly, one for a secondary concealed weapon
- Weapons in the primary slot are seen by enemies. Weapons in the secondary slot are not.
- Large weapons, such as assault rifles, may be equipped in the primary slot, but not in the secondary slot.
- Small weapons, such as pistols and knives, may be equipped in either slot, as long as some form of clothing is equipped. The secondary weapon slot basically doesn't exist if you are naked.
- Medium weapons, such as submachine guns, may be equipped in the secondary slot only if the clothing equipped provides adequate concealment, such as a trenchcoat. Medium weapons may not be equipped in the secondary slot if a weapon is equipped in the primary slot.
- Weapons may be fired or used from the secondary slot while another weapon is equipped in the primary slot at a 1-hand penalty. In practice, this means you get to select which slot you want to use for attacks, but there is a penalty to use the concealed one.
- Weapons may be transferred from the secondary slot to the primary and back again at no cost, so long as either no weapon was equipped in the primary slot, or the weapon in the primary slot is sufficiently small to be swapped into secondary storage. In practice, this means: a) If no weapon is equipped as a primary, selecting to use the secondary weapon for the character's attacks will leave the weapon in secondary but not incur an attack penalty and will not expose the weapon. b) If a small weapon is equipped as a primary, selecting to use the secondary weapon for the character's attacks will automatically swap the two weapons and use the secondary weapon as a primary.
- Weapons in the primary slot may be discarded (thrown to the ground) at no cost.
- Weapons may not be kept in hammerspace. They will be left behind if not equipped when departing for a site action. If nobody can hold a weapon, it cannot be picked up.
- Small items stolen will be stashed in hammerspace as normal.
- Large items, such as television sets, must use the primary weapon slot.

[mainiac]

May I request that before you overhaul the entire system, you add the ability to reload a gun before it runs dry?  I've never run out of ammo or even desired to swap guns unless I've picked up a better one.  But my liberals get shot at all the time because they were too busy reloading.

[Neonivek]

Perhaps one kind of object could a bag or backpack of some sort that lets you store multiple objects or something.

[mainiac]

Or a cart which would be suspicious but which you could get away with if you were a good enough disguise.  Or add the ability to take loot back to your car and come back for more...

A guy once walked into my school, took a television from a classroom and walked off with it.  Tons of people saw him, but everyone assumed he was supposed to be walking around with a TV.  He returned nine times before calling it a day.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The ability to have wasteful reloads is already in the code, it's just disabled. I'll have the manual reload button enabled to do so for next release.

I had also thought about having a duffel or something you could use to conceal objects in, but wasn't clear on how it would work. Having a car trunk you can access outside the building (where large items can be stashed in squad inventory) is a good idea.

[EuchreJack]

Kinda makes me wonder what the equivalent of the car trunk would be for the unmobilized squad.

Here's one thought!

When you arrive at the evil Conservative site without a car, it's essential to bring a shopping cart and a blanket.  While the team is retrieving undeserved objects of greed from the Conservatives, they can store the items under the blanket in the shopping cart outside.  This of course works best if you recruit the aid of the illustrious Transient class.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not a real quote.

[Little]

Like assaigning a driver, except someone to 'Guard Cart' or 'Stay in Car'?

Stay in Car preferably your driver.

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, I would totally assign the transients to guard the cart.  Or maybe the crack heads for a change of pace.

[Jetman123]

Well, an interesting thing here would be that you don't HAVE to run out of ammo to go to the secondary weapon. You might be blasting away with a pistol at some conservatives, then surprise them, catching them totally off guard by whipping out a knife and stabbing one of them in the throat with it. You'd get a bonus to stuff like that.

I really would like more knives and better knife damage, though. If nothing more so that I could have my sneaky infiltrator use nothing but knives.

Oh! And this ties into something else! Conservative alarm shouldn't be generated if you surprise-attack someone with a "quiet" weapon, like a club or a knife, and take them down on the first blow. To enable this, you should get a large bonus for backstabbing someone. If your Stealth or Disguise skill is high enough, you might even be able to pull this off without other Conservatives in the same tile noticing! It would give us some reason to use subtle stuff, like silenced weapons or knives. ^_^

A final implementation of this would be for cops to use guns when neccessary and nightsticks when not - the gun would be their primary and the nightstick their secondary.

[mainiac]

The way the game is currently set up, you don't gain very much from killing people when there isn't alarm.  If I'm sneaky enough to avoid alarm, I don't kill people.

[Yanlin]

Yeah, I would totally assign the transients to guard the cart.  Or maybe the crack heads for a change of pace.

Obligatory TF2 quote:

WE MUST STOP LITTLE CART!

[Earthquake Damage]

- Weapons may not be kept in hammerspace. They will be left behind if not equipped when departing for a site action. If nobody can hold a weapon, it cannot be picked up.

I'm sure your reason for this is to prevent lone Liberals from carrying a mobile armory.  However, there are two problems.  First, it's inconsistent with your "small loot goes in hammerspace" rule (admittedly not a huge problem).  Second, it severely hampers the player's ability to bring looted weapons back to base to arm other Liberals.  If your method of arming your goons is looting fallen Conservatives, a two slot system greatly increases tedium.

If you absolutely must restrict the number of weapons a Liberal can wield, I recommend you allow weapons to fit in hammerspace provided they cannot be equipped until you return to base.  Also let the player stow equipped gear in hammerspace, as well as equip items off the ground (assuming player-dropped items still vanish without a trace and cannot be picked back up).  It's still an arbitrary restriction, but it prevents both weapon-gathering tedium and the mobile armory "issue" (personally, I don't see it as a problem).

I suppose another problem with hammerspace weapons is they can be sold for (potentially) a bloody fortune.  Reducing the resale price and preventing the sale of looted weapons (doesn't make much sense) are possible solutions.  I dislike the latter, since I figure if you're a bad enough dude to waste 300 soldiers in one go you damn well earned those weapons (with the possible exception of kills during a siege, since you might have over 9000 Liberals providing cover fire).

- Large items, such as television sets, must use the primary weapon slot.

Individual loot items are not worth the sacrifice of a sidearm (esp. if you go the firearm + melee backup route).  Money is too easy to obtain elsewhere to make the theft of at most 6 large items per squad (seriously, they aren't worth that much money anyway).  Besides, a loot bag of holding seems within the fairly ridiculous spirit of the game.