Improvised Firearms, and some thoughts on night vision.

[yessaul robinovich 42]

Someone had mentioned spears and bows earlier.. These have been suggested as improvised weaponry going into the game, and while the ideas aren't necessarily bad, bows and arrows and spears are a comparatively ineffective way of killing people. Its reasonable to assume that while some types of ammunition are going to be extremely rare, other types are relatively uncommon and will continue to be much more widely available than weapons used to fire them (the opposite may hold true for some military weapons..) So here are some examples for items that could have some kind of a primary function as survival gear in DAYZ, while also having an an option to be modified into improvised weapons to use some more common types of ammunition.

 

I also noticed people complaining about the darkness at night, and remembered the solution of chem lights and flares that were present in the mod. These are by far better ways of tackling area-lighting than NVG, and also provide a more rapid solution to brightening an area than setting up something like a lantern or carrying a flashlight around to reveal your precise position.

So, without further ado:

 

flare gun.

• shoots flare rounds. useful for deploying flares at night to light an area.
• metal scraps (basic resource) + rubber tubing (basic resource) = 'craft flaregun insert' option
• add 'flaregun insert' to flare gun as attachment = modified flare gun
• fires shotgun shells, occupies 4 spaces. even less accurate than sawed-off.
• takes some wear/damage with every shotgun shell shot.

 

 

Nail Gun

 

• used in construction, fires caseless nail ammo, large mag capacity.
• Can be used in construction for boarding-up structures or vehicles.Can be carried in Toolbelt/Box
• Nail ammo can be used as weapon. Super short-range and inaccurate.

• Use metal scraps (basic resource) on nail gun to modify it into Improvised Pistol, chambered to .22 Still quite inaccurate and short-range, but there you have a basic firearm with decent mag capacity that can use existing ammo

• Takes a small bit of damage with every shot fired on account of not being able to safely handle ammo type.

 

 

 

Should night-vision ever be implemented into the game, it should use an improvised solution crafted out of Welder's Goggles (piece of glare-reducing eyewear) + Wiring + LED lights + Electrical tape and using batteries. Combining above items requiring pliers. Multi-step crafting involving both uncommon items and salvaged components of other items stripped using tools is a far better way of introducing items like that into the game than uber leet rare lootspawn for tryhard bros to spawnhop.

 

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[WolfgangErikson 127]

I like the nail gun idea a lot. The flare gun would be great to for lighting up massive areas. Maybe only found (or most likely found) on the coastal areas? docks?

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I like the nail gun idea a lot. The flare gun would be great to for lighting up massive areas. 

 

its useful in general - you can fire the flares into the ground to the same effect and have them burn on a timer. you can fire them into the air and have them light a large area without specifically revealing your location.

 

you can also just fire them at another person at near point-blank. Being hit by a flare round at that range is deadly. Or you can convert it using an aluminium liner insert into a 12-gauge improvised handcannon and use it for a sidearm. Coastal towns, industrial bases, shipping warehouses, lighthouses, shipwreck.  All valid spawn locations.

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[-Gews- 7443]

chambered to .22 (same as sks)

Huh?

[Deathlove 2286]

I would love if we can craft our own guns if we find blacksmith tools of some type. In fact i know they have something like this in 7 Days To Die atm with forging where you mine for clay take apart weapons when you find them, take a piece of the weapon and make a mold with the clay around it, than finally take the mold put it in the forge to create the weapon piece and once you do this with every piece you can create an exact copy of the weapon in full condition. Same with bullet molds to.

 

I would like to see something like this but with more crafting options like being able to adjust barrel length on guns, choose different stock types whether its a plastic butt stock or one made out of all wood, choose what kind of ammo feed it takes and whatever else your heart can come up with. Mind you if you create stuff thats to outlandish the weapon can do anything from overheat to explode in your hands when you fire the weapon. Some kind of weapon crafting system like this would be AMAZING.

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

The SKS does not (or shouldn't rather) use .22 LR.  I'm somewhat against Improvised firearms, especially just 'crafting on' some metal bits out in the woods and making it work.  Most nailguns have safeguards (admittedly by passable) to hinder them from being used as a ranged weapon.  Now placing one against a zombie/bandit's head and putting a, or several large roofing nail(s) in the brain however...  I really like the idea of flareguns not just as signaling devices but as weapons.  There are some 12 gauge flareguns out there (just saying, could also have the chance to shoot flares out of conventional shotguns as well).

[RebelCowboySnB 20]

[yessaul robinovich 42]

Huh?

 

 

The SKS does not (or shouldn't rather) use .22 LR.

 

Sorry, my error there.

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Franchi (DayZ) 146]

I would love if we can craft our own guns if we find blacksmith tools of some type. In fact i know they have something like this in 7 Days To Die atm with forging where you mine for clay take apart weapons when you find them, take a piece of the weapon and make a mold with the clay around it, than finally take the mold put it in the forge to create the weapon piece and once you do this with every piece you can create an exact copy of the weapon in full condition. Same with bullet molds to.

 

I would like to see something like this but with more crafting options like being able to adjust barrel length on guns, choose different stock types whether its a plastic butt stock or one made out of all wood, choose what kind of ammo feed it takes and whatever else your heart can come up with. Mind you if you create stuff thats to outlandish the weapon can do anything from overheat to explode in your hands when you fire the weapon. Some kind of weapon crafting system like this would be AMAZING.

As I posted in another thread improvised firearms dont have to be pathetic, and are not infact difficult to make, in most cases they are made with basic hand tools, as we already have propane bottles a torch end for brasing on them ,a hand crank drill and hand files would mean we have everything we need aside from the materials already in game to make them. They are most comonly made from lengths of square and round tube and solid stock. Everything you need to make one can infact be bought at a well stocked hardware store.

 

The one limiting factor in most casses is the inability to rifle the barrel. leaving you with a gun that is not much good past 10m. This would be an excelent way to balance them. They would be easily outclassed by any real firearm, but if you couldn't get your hands on a real gun do to server population or server hoppers etc you wouldn't be totaly out of luck. Also when crafting them they should be created starting at "worn and ending in ruined" with getting a worn one being incredibly rare. They should also deteriorate verry fast. They should also be limited to straight walled cases, so just pistol and shotgun rounds, because reaming a chamber for a shouldered cartridge is unlikley, and building a improvised gun that could handle modern rifle rounds with handtools is unlikley.

 

here are some examples

http://amodestpublication.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/loyalist-paramilitary-improvised-machine-guns/

 

I feel that such improvised weapons, be it these of the shotgun shell flare gun or just abotu anythign else would actualy cut down on the amount of PK's going on, most of the PK's currently fall into three catagories.

 

1: people runing into each other and shooting on instinct and people killing each other over loot,

 

this is as far as I am concerned as it should be, you come around the corner and see another guy with a gun in an apocalypse you are probably going to shot and so is he. You need that can of beans/medkit to stay alive? Hell yes you would kill for it.

 

2: People PVPing for the sake of PVP,

 

These accur mostly at the airfields and in major towns, no real way to end it, its a bit unnatural but whatever.

 

3: People cruising the beach to kill freshspawns and assorted bandits/KOS players.

 

Now bandits are a natrual part of this world, but killing freshspawns is not, people kill freshspawns because its easy, but what if freshspawns and people in that area were often carrying improvised fire arms. Playing as a bandit would be a hell of a lot more dangerous and therefore less apealing to all but the most dedicated.  Do you think the guys posting youtube videos of bambi slaying would hang around and risk haveing their pristine military loot ruined by some scared bambi with an improvised SMG?

Edited January 25, 2014 by Franchi

[yessaul robinovich 42]

 Most nailguns have safeguards (admittedly by passable) to hinder them from being used as a ranged weapon. 

 

Soviet-era nailguns from the 1970-80s (such as the one pictured in the modified version) do not.

They use separate blanks and nails, which could be abstracted into a 'gun nail' round. 

but could also be modified to actually fire from the gun using an improvised barrel such 

as what is seen in the image. I'm not suggesting we have some kind of advanced blacksmithing or CNC mills in the game.

That isn't the kind of improvised scenario i'm pointing at. But - take a look at that barrel. There's no reason why, for instance,

someone equipped with a wrench/screwdrivers and pliers (or something like that, again abstracting from existing) couldn't take the barrel

from a ruined magnum (otherwise useless item) and marry it to another item like the nailgun to produce a viable basic firearm from otherwise useless stuff.

 

 

I also like the idea of resource-gathering being a process of stripping and salvaging existing things into components that can have complex interaction between each other and be used to

construct either wholly-new items in several steps or modify/improve/repair existing items. Some items can produce unique components - revolver barrel for instance. Stripping them also 

produces more generic components - metal scraps or assorted weapon parts. Other items may produce insulation, rubber tubing, cloth yardage. other may yield more specific stuff like a revolver barrel, LED lights, an optic lens, etc.

 

You might be able to use this kind of system to manufacture a home-brewed silencer - something that may be quite vital in a setting where you've got hundreds of zombies shambling through a town instead of the paltry couple of currently have.

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[yessaul robinovich 42]

 

The one limiting factor in most casses is the inability to rifle the barrel. leaving you with a gun that is not much good past 10m. This would be an excelent way to balance them. They would be easily outclassed by any real firearm,

 

 

 

 

 

field-stripping barrels off of 'ruined' guns.

[Franchi (DayZ) 146]

field-stripping barrels off of 'ruined' guns.

For pistols and shotguns sure, not likley to make a huge diffrence on rifles tho, chamber pressure and headspace are likley to much to get right with hand tools.

 

Also to your other post, use a hacksaw to cut the revolvers frame, then use a drill bit the same size as the 357 case to "ream" a chamber.or you could just use two pipe wreches and unthread it, I don't belive the colt python has a pin in its barrel but even that is as simple as a hammer and punch.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Franchi

[crimsonbzd 247]

Someone had mentioned spears and bows earlier.. These have been suggested as improvised weaponry going into the game, and while the ideas aren't necessarily bad, bows and arrows and spears are a comparatively ineffective way of killing people. Its reasonable to assume that while some types of ammunition are going to be extremely rare, other types are relatively uncommon and will continue to be much more widely available than weapons used to fire them (the opposite may hold true for some military weapons..) So here are some examples for items that could have some kind of a primary function as survival gear in DAYZ, while also having an an option to be modified into improvised weapons to use some more common types of ammunition.

 

I disagree here. "bows and arrows and spears are a comparatively ineffective way of killing people."

 

You know throwing weapons are also to be implemented, which I'm personally excited for. I'm becoming pretty accomplished at throwing knives, axes and shuriken and if I can throw one half as accurate at a person as I can a board, I will never in this world need a gun.

However, I will ask you, what do you think would be the success rate of these weapons you've suggested, made from nearly random parts every time, when produced en masse?

 

Not good imo

[yessaul robinovich 42]

For pistols and shotguns sure, not likley to make a huge diffrence on rifles tho, chamber pressure and headspace are likley to much to get right with hand tools.

 

Well, this is something i was going to say also. It isn't that the player needs to do these actions somewhere in a forest clearing with basic hand tools.

If you recall the mod, certain actions needed to be performed in the vicinity of a certain object, or in a location that was specifically-designated.

the most obvious example of this is when chopping wood from a tree using the ax required you to be in a location designated as 'forested' - any tree

would not necessarily do.

 

Given that some locations in the game feature actual machine shops, there is no reason to say that certain object interaction for crafting purposes

could not be tied to those specific locations, giving them even greater importance in a setting where you have fewer functional firearms than people to use them.

Some types of crafting that basically involve making an attachment to weapon could work anywhere (put aluminium liner into flare gun, get modified flare gun that can use diff. ammo. same as attaching mosin compensator to the barrel in terms of how the game handles it..) other, more complex crafting is location-tied. This would go along very well to increasing the level of interaction the player has with existing structures in towns - ie: being able to start a fire inside of a fireplace, etc. further down the road it could involve stuff like reinforcing doors, boarding up windows, making barricades, placing locks on doors.  

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I disagree here. "bows and arrows and spears are a comparatively ineffective way of killing people."

 

 

 

I don't have a link off-hand, but someone had a great post illustrating the limited stopping power of bows and arrows - particularly the sort you'd be able to craft on your own in the wilderness. The example they used to illustrate 'the most realistic depiction of being killed with arrows' was the death of boromir. What i think makes the most sense is an increase in 'shock' damage to weapons across the board, because a good hit with an arrow or several of them would probably make the person experience excruciating pain. The same goes for a lot of melee weapons that currently take an uncountable number of direct hits to bring a person down. I think the amount of pain and shock inflicted by things like a single blast of a shotgun, even if only partially-hitting someone - should reasonably knock them unconscious or seriously disable them. But one-shot instant kills with an arrow to the knee would be a very weird direction to take. There's a reason why most bow-hunting enthusiasts carry a backup firearm.

 

Anyway, once diseases and infections are in, the definition of a mortal wound expands greatly.. something that may kill you a few days down the road as you frantically scour the countryside for some tetracycline antibiotics could very well have been delivered courtesy of an arrow or wayward buckshot fired in your general direction. 

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Deathlove 2286]

Soviet-era nailguns from the 1970-80s (such as the one pictured in the modified version) do not.

They use separate blanks and nails, which could be abstracted into a 'gun nail' round. 

but could also be modified to actually fire from the gun using an improvised barrel such 

as what is seen in the image. I'm not suggesting we have some kind of advanced blacksmithing or CNC mills in the game.

That isn't the kind of improvised scenario i'm pointing at. But - take a look at that barrel. There's no reason why, for instance,

someone equipped with a wrench/screwdrivers and pliers (or something like that, again abstracting from existing) couldn't take the barrel

from a ruined magnum (otherwise useless item) and marry it to another item like the nailgun to produce a viable basic firearm from otherwise useless stuff.

 

 

I also like the idea of resource-gathering being a process of stripping and salvaging existing things into components that can have complex interaction between each other and be used to

construct either wholly-new items in several steps or modify/improve/repair existing items. Some items can produce unique components - revolver barrel for instance. Stripping them also 

produces more generic components - metal scraps or assorted weapon parts. Other items may produce insulation, rubber tubing, cloth yardage. other may yield more specific stuff like a revolver barrel, LED lights, an optic lens, etc.

 

You might be able to use this kind of system to manufacture a home-brewed silencer - something that may be quite vital in a setting where you've got hundreds of zombies shambling through a town instead of the paltry couple of currently have.

Why not an advanced blacksmithing? To be honest this would add TONES of depth to both medium and end game scenes for players to do. This could be something really deep, complex and fun for survival.

[Franchi (DayZ) 146]

However, I will ask you, what do you think would be the success rate of these weapons you've suggested, made from nearly random parts every time, when produced en masse?

 

Not good imo

As I said when crafting your best possible out come should be worn, that being unlikley, and ruined and badly damaged should be likley, they should be inacurate and they also need to wear out FAST and fail horificaly, potentialy damaging the player.  the idea for me is they are weapons of desperation, not choice. This keeps the real guns valuable and desirable. It would however be kind of neat if you had a better chance to get a better one the more times you craft it, so say after your 3rd time making the same one you have a pretty good chance at worn this would also be realistic.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Franchi

[Space Milk 195]

OP doesn't understand what a flare gun is used for.

 

Flare guns and flares are used differently, for two different things.

Flares are thrown on the ground

Flare guns shoot flares up in the sky, which then detonate making a HUGE flash that can been very visibly for hundreds of miles.

Flare guns are used for help and emergencies, what ever, but not for lighting up the dark.

Flares can be used for what flare guns can be used for but less visible since it is on the ground, and not as bright.  But it can be used for lighting the dark.

 

Flare guns CANNOT handle the recoil of a common shotgun shell, the 12 gauge.  I do not know about the smaller 20 gauge.

I have fired a flare gun before.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, why would you find flare gun ammo but no flare gun, and must craft it???

Makes zero sense.

 

Now what would be really cool besides flare guns, would be grenade launchers.

Grenade launchers, which were once legal, did not just shoot grenades, nor was that their main use (civilian wise)

You could load up flares or detonating flare grenades (flares that detonate in the sky like a flare gun)

Would be really cool.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Space Milk

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I'll assume that you're acting in good faith here, but did you take the time to even read what I wrote, or in a paroxysm of knowing better on the internets, stab your fingers at the quote button, followed by the frantic scrabbling of fingertips on keys whilst hitting the "Post" button?

 

 

OP doesn't understand what a flare gun is used for.

 

Flare guns CANNOT handle the recoil of a common shotgun shell, the 12 gauge. 

I have fired a flare gun before.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

So have I. And you know what else? I've fired 12 gauge shells out of them.  It looks a little something like this - and you can buy it for $14, or make your own out of aluminium with basic machining skill.

 

Here's a link for you, knock yourself out:  http://www.keepshooting.com/12-gauge-insert.html

 

 

 

Also, why would you find flare gun ammo but no flare gun, and must craft it???

Makes zero sense.

 

Now what would be really cool besides flare guns, would be grenade launchers.

Grenade launchers, which were once legal, did not just shoot grenades, nor was that their main use (civilian wise)

You could load up flares or detonating flare grenades (flares that detonate in the sky like a flare gun)

Would be really cool.

 

 

 

I...do not know where you could have come up with crafting the flare gun. I said the flare gun should spawn in default configuration and be modifiable to shoot 12 gauge. the way it can be in real life. Obviously its not designed for that and would take some damage with every shot, but a viable improvised weapon for when you don't have something else and using a very common type of ammo available damn near everywhere. Pretty cool, I think.

 

Also, flares burn up to 20,000 candles for 5-10 seconds depending upon manufacturer/type. The upper bound of that is quite enough to illuminate an area you're aiming for, in addition to using them as a signal. you also have parachute flares which descend slowly and burn for considerably longer periods as well. So, again, thank you for your not-inconsiderable knowledge in all things flares-related and firms dismissals of stuff that is obviously confirmed within like a 5 minute long internet search. 

Edited January 26, 2014 by yessaul robinovich