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[Arrkhal]

It was a pretty long time before guns were common and powerful enough to change armor much (late 17th century, I think).  But bullet proofed armor wasn't the same thing as normal plate.  By the time bullet proofing became fashionable, guns were powerful enough that a pistol-proofed breastplate would be about 2-3 times as thick as a sword/axe/arrow proof one, and a musketproof breastplate would be about twice as thick as that.  Usually, a full set of armor would come with 2 breastplates.  One pistol-proof, and then you could wear the second one over top of that for musket proofing.  Very heavy.

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PS3 EDIT: My pistol is definitely a howdah hunter in 58. Except mine looks like it was left to rot on the bottom of a lake for 50 years.

Probably some kind of off-brand, rather than a Pedersoli.  Almost definitely Italian, though, so you should be able to find proof marks on the barrels.  Sometimes they're under the wood.

[UristMcGunsmith]

I just said guns eliminated plate/chain armor. When did I specify a time?

[darkflagrance]

But at least we've established that time is indeed an important factor, and can now worry about placing a specific time period so we can calibrate our modded guns.

...wait, what?

[Fetus4188]

I don't see a gunpowder industry as being dwarven at all. Actually, its more of a goblin concept.


See, guns of this period were not things of 'skill' - they were meant to be quick and easy alternatives to spending years training with a bow. That was their advantage. They were not as accurate or as damaging as a bow, but anyone could use one and be 'good enough'. Thats not dwarven.


If I did gunpowder and guns, I'd only give them to humans and goblins, and make them cheap-ass range weapons.

Massed infantry using mass produced, relatively low quality muskets certainly isn't dwarven, but a finely calibrated rifled barrel beset with gold engravings and accompanied by a fine set of meticulously weighed shot and powder IS.  As are cannons.

[Reverend Josiah]

Smoothbore musket is accurate to about 40/50 yards.  If you want to hit something farther off you're going to have multiple people shooting, which is why they did massed volleys.  I find it a bit amusing that people are arguing that guns are not "period" for the game even though a lot of the features in it aren't "period".  I also find it amusing that people are referring to guns as cheap mass produced weapons and the dwarves wouldn't use them because of it.  Would you be surprised that most of the weapons used were cheap mass produced weapons through out history? Trust me, we have some VERY high quality guns made six or seven hundred years ago.  As was mention earlier a breech loading flintlock rifle, which is an absolute PAIN to make by hand, is VERY dwarven.  I'd also like to have a cannon loaded with grapeshot pointed down a tunnel.

[UristMcGunsmith]

Smoothbore musket is accurate to about 40/50 yards.  If you want to hit something farther off you're going to have multiple people shooting, which is why they did massed volleys.  I find it a bit amusing that people are arguing that guns are not "period" for the game even though a lot of the features in it aren't "period".  I also find it amusing that people are referring to guns as cheap mass produced weapons and the dwarves wouldn't use them because of it.  Would you be surprised that most of the weapons used were cheap mass produced weapons through out history? Trust me, we have some VERY high quality guns made six or seven hundred years ago.  As was mention earlier a breech loading flintlock rifle, which is an absolute PAIN to make by hand, is VERY dwarven.  I'd also like to have a cannon loaded with grapeshot pointed down a tunnel.

The only reason people are talking about correct period is because that is the exact reason TOady never implemented guns. He said they felt "Out of the period he felt Dwarf Fortress was in".

A cannon loaded with grapeshot shot down a tunnel would be rad, but I think we all forgot something here. Oldschool guns used oldschool black powder, which produced a LOT of smoke. If we had 15 Dorfs shooting hand cannons and a big ass cannon inside their fort, they'd all get unhappy thoughts from the smoke.

[Reverend Josiah]

That'd be something to think about.  Rifles and cannons would be mostly used on the outer defences, where'd they'd be the most useful anyway.  Fighting in the tunnels would probably involve some blunderbuss type weapons, but as you said they'd be limited, and the fighting would still be mostly hand to hand.  Kind of cool to think of dwarves fighting in the smoke after a volley, struggling hand to hand on top of the bodies of goblins that have been brutally ripped apart by shot.  Also cool to think about what the front of a fortress would look like with cannons sticking out of it.

[Bishop36]

I would think the average dwarf would get a happy thought from a black cloud the smells like burnt gun powder wafting down the halls.

[Firehound]

I see dwarves using hand-rifled muskets more then smoothbore honestly.

And Guns never truly 'killed' wearing armour, they just made it unrealistically heavy to carry around in a army for a long time. I mean, Several outlaws used Heavy plate to survive a good long time, till they were shot in the head after being really tired from running with it on after a robbery of some sort. Even in the Civil War, rifleproofed armor still existed, but was usually discarded after the user was called a coward, and was exhausted from carrying it.

And the main problem is that you may add all the reactions you want, until you can make it so that you can only get un-loaded ammo from the gun that can't immediately be re-fired, like said before guns are just renamed crossbows firing renamed bolts.

And don't quote me on this, but I believe I heard that blunderbusses had a problem with the powder falling out. On that one show... the ultimate showdown or something. It was a Knight with an arbelest vs a pirate with apparently an unending supply of pistols. Honestly, though, the fight was lackluster, I prefered watching them maim dummies.

[UristMcGunsmith]

I see dwarves using hand-rifled muskets more then smoothbore honestly.

And Guns never truly 'killed' wearing armour, they just made it unrealistically heavy to carry around in a army for a long time. I mean, Several outlaws used Heavy plate to survive a good long time, till they were shot in the head after being really tired from running with it on after a robbery of some sort. Even in the Civil War, rifleproofed armor still existed, but was usually discarded after the user was called a coward, and was exhausted from carrying it.

And the main problem is that you may add all the reactions you want, until you can make it so that you can only get un-loaded ammo from the gun that can't immediately be re-fired, like said before guns are just renamed crossbows firing renamed bolts.

And don't quote me on this, but I believe I heard that blunderbusses had a problem with the powder falling out. On that one show... the ultimate showdown or something. It was a Knight with an arbelest vs a pirate with apparently an unending supply of pistols. Honestly, though, the fight was lackluster, I prefered watching them maim dummies.

Ah, deadliest warrior. A kind of good show, the outcome is usually the more realistic one, but I hate how you can SO tell that the guys are factoring "Cool factor" into their weapon choices. I love how the IRA wasted the Taliban and how Spetznas owned the Green Berets.

But actually, guns did in fact kill the plate armor. Just because you saw a 5 minute clip on the history channel about three bank robbers dressed up in slabs of iron doesn't mean it was anywhere near common.
Nor was it practical. You hear enough as it is about how stupidly heavy platemail is, imagine wearing platemail made out of Half inch thick slabs of iron.
And the bullets of their time did NOT have a lot of velocity, and were small compared to musket bullets.

Gunpowder could fall out of a blunderbuss, but this was remedied by placing a patch of cloth between the bullet and the gunpowder, wedging it into the barrel. But that didn't become "common" practice until muskets.

[Jake]

I've actually been kicking the idea for a realistic and period-appropriate gunpowder mod around for a while. Here's the gist of it:
* Eight lumps of brimstone + two lumps of saltpetre + one bar/block of coke + fuel = ten bars/blocks of gunpowder, which has appropriate matgloss to make it very flammable and with a high material value; about equal to iron, perhaps?
* One bar/block of gunpowder + a hundred metal  bolts or arrows + one bolt of cloth + one reel of thread = one hundred metal 'rockets' in four stacks of 25. These would deal about 250 PIERCE damage.
* The actual guns would be based on the hand cannon, and be about twice as heavy as crossbows, but have the [CAN_STONE] tag, since real-life examples of cannon carved out of stone aren't completely unheard of. For that matter, you could carve a serviceable one out of wood if you had to, though it'd wear out quickly.

In summary, guns would offer a significant but not quite game-breaking edge in ranged combat, but a steady supply of ammunition for them would require a strong economy unless you happened to embark somewhere with brimstone. The workings of the actual gun are as close to real-life as I can get within the limitations of .40d, and I'm putting this one on the back burner until the new version arrives.

[Firehound]

I see dwarves using hand-rifled muskets more then smoothbore honestly.

And Guns never truly 'killed' wearing armour, they just made it unrealistically heavy to carry around in a army for a long time. I mean, Several outlaws used Heavy plate to survive a good long time, till they were shot in the head after being really tired from running with it on after a robbery of some sort. Even in the Civil War, rifleproofed armor still existed, but was usually discarded after the user was called a coward, and was exhausted from carrying it.

And the main problem is that you may add all the reactions you want, until you can make it so that you can only get un-loaded ammo from the gun that can't immediately be re-fired, like said before guns are just renamed crossbows firing renamed bolts.

And don't quote me on this, but I believe I heard that blunderbusses had a problem with the powder falling out. On that one show... the ultimate showdown or something. It was a Knight with an arbelest vs a pirate with apparently an unending supply of pistols. Honestly, though, the fight was lackluster, I prefered watching them maim dummies.

Ah, deadliest warrior. A kind of good show, the outcome is usually the more realistic one, but I hate how you can SO tell that the guys are factoring "Cool factor" into their weapon choices. I love how the IRA wasted the Taliban and how Spetznas owned the Green Berets.

But actually, guns did in fact kill the plate armor. Just because you saw a 5 minute clip on the history channel about three bank robbers dressed up in slabs of iron doesn't mean it was anywhere near common.
Nor was it practical. You hear enough as it is about how stupidly heavy platemail is, imagine wearing platemail made out of Half inch thick slabs of iron.
And the bullets of their time did NOT have a lot of velocity, and were small compared to musket bullets.

Gunpowder could fall out of a blunderbuss, but this was remedied by placing a patch of cloth between the bullet and the gunpowder, wedging it into the barrel. But that didn't become "common" practice until muskets.

*shrug* I never said it was practical. However, I'm no gunsmith, so I'll defer to your judgment.

[Shade-o]

It was a Knight with an arbelest vs a pirate with apparently an unending supply of pistols.

Well, it would be quite wise of a pirate to carry multiple pistols if he could obtain them. Reloading is hard under fire and impossible when in a swordfight, so many pirates would wear a set of pistols, so that they could grab one, fire, throw it or club the enemy, pull out another, and so on. Carrying other gunpowder weapons like primitive grenades was not unheard of, either.

As it was, the pirate kept unloading on the knight, but all he did was concuss him until he shot him in the face.

Of course, I'm not sure how many accounts there are of knights fighting pirates, but the simulation didn't seem too impossible.

[Funk]

black bead was famed for takeing a dozen of pistols to battle.
it was a time thing it takes 20+ seconds to load a hand gun.

[Tally]

black bead was famed for takeing a dozen of pistols to battle.
it was a time thing it takes 20+ seconds to load a hand gun.

Black beard also died by bleeding out while reloading a pistol. This should probably say something.