Equipment: how easy is too easy?

Watched some video on bullet physics and such. I definitely underestimated what high-calibre stuff could do.

I still stand by that plain bullets of up to 45 cal. from civilian firearms would sting, and mostly be annoying rather than damaging.

I give over my initial response at 50 cal. Big guns like that with high penetration would hurt. Maybe even lethal if in the right spots (eyes, face, throat). I switch my "airsoft gun" to "BB gun" here. And nobody wants to be shot repeatedly with a BB gun. As stated, most of the things large enough to seriously damage a predator are simply too heavy and cumbersome (assuming you don't have weight/size reducing tech) to carry around in the wilds.

So I would agree with rcs619. Get a base. Or at least carry around a lot of ammo and a modified M-40. And a Stinger RPG.

With anything lower than a .45 calibre pistol you might as well be carrying around a bottle of barbecue sauce.

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If you're in Felarya and see me run by, I would advise following me at high speed.

MrNobody13 wrote:

Watched some video on bullet physics and such. I definitely underestimated what high-calibre stuff could do.

I still stand by that plain bullets of up to 45 cal. from civilian firearms would sting, and mostly be annoying rather than damaging.

I give over my initial response at 50 cal. Big guns like that with high penetration would hurt. Maybe even lethal if in the right spots (eyes, face, throat). I switch my "airsoft gun" to "BB gun" here. And nobody wants to be shot repeatedly with a BB gun. As stated, most of the things large enough to seriously damage a predator are simply too heavy and cumbersome (assuming you don't have weight/size reducing tech) to carry around in the wilds.

So I would agree with rcs619. Get a base. Or at least carry around a lot of ammo and a modified M-40. And a Stinger RPG.

With anything lower than a .45 calibre pistol you might as well be carrying around a bottle of barbecue sauce.

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If you're in Felarya and see me run by, I would advise following me at high speed.

Handguns maybe; rifles have a lot more power behind them, more power equals more penetration and thus more damage.

MrNobody13 wrote:

Watched some video on bullet physics and such. I definitely underestimated what high-calibre stuff could do.

I still stand by that plain bullets of up to 45 cal. from civilian firearms would sting, and mostly be annoying rather than damaging.

I give over my initial response at 50 cal. Big guns like that with high penetration would hurt. Maybe even lethal if in the right spots (eyes, face, throat). I switch my "airsoft gun" to "BB gun" here. And nobody wants to be shot repeatedly with a BB gun. As stated, most of the things large enough to seriously damage a predator are simply too heavy and cumbersome (assuming you don't have weight/size reducing tech) to carry around in the wilds.

So I would agree with rcs619. Get a base. Or at least carry around a lot of ammo and a modified M-40. And a Stinger RPG.

With anything lower than a .45 calibre pistol you might as well be carrying around a bottle of barbecue sauce.

_______________

If you're in Felarya and see me run by, I would advise following me at high speed.

To repeat my analogy; It's like someone sticking a pin in you and twisting. In some cases it would be more like the tip of the pin breaking into shards as it's stuck in you. That will hurt. It's going to go all the way through the skin if it's a 50 cal.
Now imagine someone sticking 10 of those in you in one second. All piercing about 26 inches and tumbling through your flesh, tearing and stretching it.
You're a predator who has just been shot by a one second burst from an AK-47. That's not something you're going to brush off as a "sting."


We haven't even got onto explosive rounds here

hey, it's this thread again.

Bael is right, one again it's come to the people who know how ballistics work trying to convince the people who don't that they actually work that way.

What needs to be done is this: The people who know what's what when it comes to weapons should work out what X does to Y, then have it approved by Karbo so we can prevent this sort of thing from happening every time it come up.

What sad was that the purpose of this thread was to question when getting access useful equipment to deal with predators is considered too easy. I will repeat my argument that it isn't so much as being too easy to acquire as too powerful. If you have easy access to man portable railguns who can fire in full-auto mode without any chance of breaking down, you did something wrong. A weapon needs a necessary drawback if it is very powerful. Even establishing that the persons with advanced weaponry like gauss rifles only take care of their own business and have no interest in Felarya other than a great income in resources is good enough.

Sean Okotami wrote:

What sad was that the purpose of this thread was to question when getting access useful equipment to deal with predators is considered too easy. I will repeat my argument that it isn't so much as being too easy to acquire as too powerful. If you have easy access to man portable railguns who can fire in full-auto mode without any chance of breaking down, you did something wrong. A weapon needs a necessary drawback if it is very powerful. Even establishing that the persons with advanced weaponry like gauss rifles only take care of their own business and have no interest in Felarya other than a great income in resources is good enough.

Indeed however real world weapons, which is what we are using here as examples were designed to have few drawbacks as they ment to and have been used in a warzone, a place where drawbacks get you killed. The biggest problem for any weapons would be logistics; ammunition and spare parts, a gun with no bullets is little more than a melee weapon. I think the overall logistics and procurement of spares, ammo and possibly the weapon itself is going to to be the main drawback; afterall most Felaryan human communities are pre-industrial and Felarya itself has a limited industial base.

The second problem has already been covered by Cliff; heavy weapons and their ammunition are heavy and a real pain to carry, esspecially in an unforgiving climate.

On that note of spare parts, I believe primitive guns based on more advanced designs would be common among adventures. Especially shotguns, as they don't require equipment for rifling the barrel. These lower power rip-offs would be much cheaper, and while lacking the raw power of a modern shotgun they would still pack a mean punch at closer ranges. They would be very useful when a predatory is reaching for you. Not to mention shotguns are pretty easy to operate.

I of course know about real life weapons, I meant when a weapon is obscenely powerful, as a story element, it needs some kind of balance so it isn't overpowering. An example with my own advanced race, the Eddenians. Their standard issue weapons are gauss rifles. However, to make them more effective and less likely to break down, they had to reduce the power of the coils so they can fire safely in full-auto mode without risking breaking down every five seconds. The of course need to maintain it, but you get the idea that they won't shoot projectiles at Mach 3 velocity at a rate of 950 rpm.

It's mostly story element and doesn't make much sense in real life, but in literature, there's nothing worse than a group of people who can plow through everything because their weaponry is unreasonably powerful, void of consequences for abusing it, and thus kill all form of suspense or drama since the conclusion to a conflict is always a foregone conclusion.

Okay, I've got a question about something that might constitute as being too powerful - a character in my series, Felaryan Odyssey, is a high-tech golem who carries a cannon which can pretty much destroy whatever he shoots it at, but I tried to balance it out with the fact that he's a sociopath who's as likely to turn the gun on his fellow adventurers as the preds. So is this too powerful? Or does making him a psycho balance it?

Actually, it makes it even worse. Why? Cause being mentally ill means he'll go trigger happy with it and decimate everything.

EdgedWeapon wrote:

Okay, I've got a question about something that might constitute as being too powerful - a character in my series, Felaryan Odyssey, is a high-tech golem who carries a cannon which can pretty much destroy whatever he shoots it at, but I tried to balance it out with the fact that he's a sociopath who's as likely to turn the gun on his fellow adventurers as the preds. So is this too powerful? Or does making him a psycho balance it?

I'd say this is a question for the character discussion thread. A cannon that can destroy anything it hits... that's rather vague, but if we are to take your words literally then yes it is. As for being a sociopath, that depends on how you write him.

Most of my char. aren't combat oriented because while great preds aren't indestructible, they're hard as all get out to kill. There's plenty of other things out there that are less bullet-resistant and that you need to watch out for, though, so carrying a gun would definitely be good for your health, even if it won't do a thing to a giant naga.

How easy is too easy? I would say if it can kill a pred in 2-3 shots and has no real drawbacks (ie long reload, few shots, overheat, heavy, ect.) then it probably shouldn't be used in a story.

mega-cannon-armed golem=How about no.

Not to be harsh, but that is OP and if it showed up in Felarya, the gaurdians would most likely send somebody to deal with it. If it had a smaller weapon, it could work, but an everything-busting cannon is probably not going to fly.

But it's your thing, so do as you like.

MrNobody13 wrote:

so carrying a gun would definitely be good for your health, even if it won't do a thing to a giant naga.

But we've just been establishing that it would do something! A group of people armed with AK-47s are going to make a Naga think twice.

They probably won't be as lethal as a single shot to a human being, but a full magazine of lead is going to hurt. A lot.

Sean Okotami wrote:

They probably won't be as lethal as a single shot to a human being, but a full magazine of lead is going to hurt. A lot.

Yeah, you're not going to kill a predator, but you get a few people unloading on full auto and they will go away.

I meant a small pistol type gun, like a .45 pistol. AK-47s, now, that I agree is going to be hellaciously painful, even if it's probably not going to be lethal. My dad owns one and I've shot it. I saw it turn a shed into swiss cheese. I'd definitely take it if I went to Felarya.

Back on topic, I'd say that things like mid-calibre automatic weapons are going to be about the limit of what your average resident is going to be able to afford and have access to.

MrNobody13 wrote:

Back on topic, I'd say that things like mid-calibre automatic weapons are going to be about the limit of what your average resident is going to be able to afford and have access to.

I wouldn't even say "have access to", as the natives don't seem to utilize anything much more advanced than renaissance equipment - even those stated to be technologically advanced like the Followers of Oth!

Personally, I'd say it's due to propellent issues than material: We've seen people mine just about every material in existence on Felarya. Similarly, magic has been used to either supplement or out-right replace certain material uses in both day-to-day and less common activities / matters. However, there doesn't appear to be too much work in stuff like gunpowder, the effects of armies armed with weapons using such probably missing their minds as the mages focus more on the big things that can be done with gunpowder (detonations, rocket shows, etcetera), wherein Magic is simply so much more cost efficient. Add in that just because you're educated in magic and scholarly for a medieval / renaissance person, does not mean you're scholarly overall (ex: Do you think the average Felaryan Mage would get the concept behind the physics of a gun?), you get very few people who don't already use / have direct experience with firearms trying to improve to such.

As for melee weapons, the limit for how far you can advance such is much higher in Felarya than real-world: We can only make a blade so sharp with a forge and whetstone and the like. Eventually, if you want to increase killiness past the limits of current armor, you need to move beyond such items. Not so in Felarya, wherein new magical processes can keep leap-frogging armour and weapon technology to the point that the common solution to "it's heavily armored" is not "let's bring out the big guns" but "find Karl and his Sword of Sharpness +15".