COGG BBS

With the Khaldean Summer Festival we've seen the release of pistol-class weapons! There are two types: Flintlock and Pneumatic. Both use the "shot" ammo type, and shot is not recoverable after being fired. (I'm working on making them bundleable and easily mass-castable, stay tuned.)

Flintlocks:
- Require gunpowder. This is an extra expense, extra inventory item with associated weight, and requires an extra LOAD action with roundtime. So they take longer between shots.
- Do more damage than pneumatics
- Degrade their durability faster than pneumatics
- Will occasionally need to be CLEANed to clean out the barrel and take care of all that grime and gunk from the gunpowder or risk misfiring

Pneumatics:
- Do NOT require gunpowder, and so have less time/fiddliness between shots.
- Do less damage than flintlocks
- Require pressure to fire, and less pressure means less damage. To get pressure, go to a steam hub (such as the Shadgard Steamworks, or the apparatus right outside the festival shop where they're currently being sold) and FILL the pistol. They also come with a manual hand pump to slowly, laboriously refill them up to about 75% out in the field. This is done via the PULL command (PULL PISTOL).
- Are heavier than flintlocks, thanks to that heavy sturdy pressure canister attached.

And the question on every Duelist's mind: Yes, they work for main-gauche. They will use the better of the Duelist's Melee or Ranged skill for a main-gauche occurrence, with Melee being available considering it's essentially a point-blank shot with the off-hand while parrying a melee attack with the main.

Shot and powder will be available for purchase in towns and select outposts soon. Steam pressure access will be a Shadgard-exclusive perk, meaning those without access to Shadgard will need to deal with hand-pumping pneumatics and dealing with the lesser damage output of not being able to fully pressurize them.

Pistols are deliberately meant to be less-ideal as primary weapons for those regularly engaging in combat. Not to say that they're meant to be totally non-viable for such things, but intended place is to be more a relatively light and convenient-to-carry self-defense/opportunist ranged weapon, or for specific scenarios like the Duelist gauche, or the non-combat member along on a group combat foray who's not usually doing combat stuff but happily taking pot shots from the back while along for the ride.

As always with new releases, feedback and bug reports are very much appreciated! I'm sure numbers and fiddly details will be tweaked as feedback comes in.

I greatly enjoy this even if it's not main for Baako. The damage doesn't feel over the top but packs just enough punch to blow a nice size hole in someone, plus you have to reload in battle and the RT feels natural. Thanks for the release!

I've enjoyed the brief testing I've done so far. Are there any plans for including ways of converting pierce damage on the firearms to puncture? Refined gunpowder, or perhaps larger more powerful versions of the current models? I love the concepts, and combining them with various loadouts, crossbows, slings, etc, is fantastic for a ranged user.

Powerhorns can be changed to be worn over the shoulder instead of on the belt. To do this, hold the powderhorn in your right hand and use the MODIFY command.

I think it would be neat to increase the chance for knocking targets down with leg shots using firearms. I'm not sure if it should be more based on damage done or the end roll percentage. Kneecapping someone just seems like a signature move for these types of weapons.

Dropping this here instead of reporting a bug. Powderhorns don't disappear when you've used them up. This could make it difficult for players to know which ones are empty and which aren't, since examining them doesn't given any indication of how much is left inside of them. For example, here are two examinations of one filled powderhorn and one empty.
You carefully examine a back powderhorn that you are holding ...
A horn of gunpowder for flintlock firearms. An adjustable strap allows it to be worn over the shoulder or on a belt.
It is a small item, mainly made of horn.
It can be worn in the shoulders inventory slot.
[Roundtime finished.]
You carefully examine a belt powderhorn that you are holding ...
A horn of gunpowder for flintlock firearms. An adjustable strap allows it to be worn over the shoulder or on a belt.
It is a small item, mainly made of horn.
It can be worn on a belt.
Can you tell? It's not the lighter one because they both weigh the same when using the weigh command. I think including the same indicators for liquid containers would be good here. I.E. half full of powder, a quarter full of powder, that sort of thing. Thank you!

considering their velocity, I think it would be reasonable to push down defenses of targets, when using pistols to fire projectiles. Perhaps negative 2 rerolls. I might also attach this to bows made of woods with material bonuses greater than 0. For example, ash bows could cause -1 rerolls to the target's defense when using a normal bowstring.

A cool fun thing would be to allow us to fire pistols, and indeed any gun, uselessly into the air, using up a shot and whatnot, of course.