Firearm Repair and Maintenance

[Squeak]

Took my muzzleloaders out today to play with and started thinking about COGG while using them. Despite the oversimplified use of the firearms in the game (which is enjoyable), I recall Rias mentioning before that he wanted to get a maintenance requirement for them. With that in mind, I offer this up for perusal.

The concept I have in mind includes two new mechanics (sorry, Rias) one for maintenance of a firearm and the other for repairs. For the first, and arguably more simple, mechanics, FOULING. As the firearm is used, fouling is increased at a higher rate than an equivalent weapon would be damaged, requiring a pistolier to stop and clean it or swap to a new one to continue on. Blackpowder is some really messy stuff and after a few shots of a decent charge, you’re looking at a barrel that is nearly impossible to feed another ball into. Not to mention the fouling from the ball itself (which if we were using lead, would be bad)

Minor Fouling - No noticeable difference in use (+/- 20 shots), perhaps the rare chance for an additional second of roundtime loading the ball.
Fouled - (+/- 50 shots) Higher likelihood of additional loading round time. Slight decrease in accuracy.
Heavily Fouled - (+/-100 shots) Will almost always have an increased loading time, perhaps increased in time. Decrease in accuracy.
Unusable - (+/-150 shots) Bore’s so constricted a ball can no longer be forced down the muzzle.

While pneumatics don’t use blackpowder, the ammunition itself will cause fouling in the barrel, so I suggest these still receive fouling but at a decreased rate of accumulation.

For cleaning, the fibers from crushed bark, water and tallow are needed. I suppose we could assume the pistols have their ramrod attached with a cleaning jag on one side, but if you really want to get creative, a {wooden} dowel and a {metal} jag could be attached together as an appropriate tool. Once you have all of them, “clean pistol” to take care of that pesky fouling.

And for the repair portion for flintlocks, periodically they will have a flint break, mainspring will snap, the hammer will lose its hardness and not produce sparks any more, etc. I don’t know how detailed you’d want to get with repairing them, but just a simple gunflint replacement would suffice, I think. Just repair pistol with the appropriately knapped “gunflint” in a container. For the appropriate pneumatic repairs … uh. Without actually replacing things (like air canisters, for example) I’m not sure how this would work. I remember Rias saying that the idea of removable canisters was a possibility, and if so, perhaps just replacing them because they crack from the pressure. Or the seals wear out. Maybe someone will have another idea for those.

For failure rate, perhaps rolling a 1 gives a chance to break and increases upon fouling “level”. Because of the fouling and constant maintenance for that, this should really be a relatively rare occurrence.

Hope you enjoyed reading!

[Squeak]

Was playing around with crossbows and thought (after changing out the bowstring) that the same process might work for changing gun flints.

Add a gun flint as a knappable recipe.

Attach flint to pistol

Watch flint wear down similarly to other flint tools.

Rinse and repeat, as necessary.

Still a fan of fouling build up and needing to clean them as maintenance, too.

[Taliaferro]

I've been thinking about this for a while, myself. These are pretty solid recommendations. I don't usually like it when games get too into the weeds with equipment maintenance, but black powder is REALLY filthy and not having to clean muzzleloaders in the game takes away their feeling muzzleloadery. I RP it sometimes, but I really think it should be a necessity.

The fouling rates suggested above are really generous compared to real life, but they sound about right to me, game-wise. Personally I think I would simplify the cleaning mechanic to just require a water source, and to assume we're using the ramrod and a cleaning patch or a bit of tow. Maybe require soap. There are lots of ways to clean muzzleloaders, but soap and hot water is one of the classics.

As for flints, in real life, getting a hundred shots on one flint is really good. About half of that is more common. I don't know how strict we'd want to get about that. I do think we should be replacing flints from time to time.

Also, even between changing flints, in real life, they need to be, or should be, maintained. You take a knapping hammer and hammer a fresh edge to keep them sparking well. I'd like to be able to do that, perhaps optionally, for a slight boost in effectiveness. Kind of like the way brushing a horse works. I guess we could require in-game hammers to do this, although a knapping hammer is an itty-bitty tool a few inches long.

[Verel]

I particularly like this degree of maintinence requirement.

I think that it could be a way to introduce a disadvantage with larger guns if or when they come out. Yes, there's more power in a larger gun but it uses more powder thus more fouling and more need for repairing the gun.

That, I think, would be a generous way to balance the power these larger weapons would have so that they aren't used as heavily by people and they don't make other weapons obsolete.