Lo-Fi Games

I saw earlier in the thread pile here that someone had started, but then promptly given up after an outcry against it, a mod to create and integrate muskets into the game.

After some consideration and a little on-paper theorycrafting, I think I'd love to take this up.

As I see it, this mod has 3 rather simple steps:

1) Create the model and texture for the gun, figure out and work out the animations
2) Learn how to create new items in the CS and link it to a currently unused weapon skill (Harpoon Guns probably, renaming it to a more generic Gun/firearm skill and then link them into parties, merchants, etc. And of course get ammunition working right (creating a Weapon 3 item slot to hold ammo, maybe?)
3) Balance the main gun.
4) Create variants ranging from rusty blunderbusses to the Tanegashima-style matchlock, arquebuses, flintlocks, etc...maybe some semi-fantastical clockwork mutli-barrel firearms as masterwork-class weapons.

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At the moment, this is still very much just an Idea, but I expect within a week, it'll be something of a Work In Progress, and hopefully, depending on what the game in its current state allows, I might have something in 3-4 weeks, depending on what my schedule allows.

I saw that post too... What a wonderful idea!

might want to wait till ranged weapons are in use. i think this was also one of the reasons why this mod was droped

Watch out everyone, renaissance is coming to Kenshi after harpoon guns, crossbows and bows are avaiable!

Just felt like throwing this out here on the whole no guns thing people kept getting into in the first thread.

Most people have the preconception that cannons, firearms, and explosives are relatively modern European inventions, and naturally have no place in a fantasy, or otherwise "primitive" setting.
This is over on TV Tropes known as "Fantasy Gun Control".

The truth is gunpowder is deceptively simple to make. (It's just saltpeter sulfur and charcoal.)
It is commonly believed by most anthropologists the Chinese not only had gunpowder as early as the 9th century but also the first known ranged fire arms (AND ROCKET LAUNCHERS) by 1100AD.

100 years before that there were fire lances, (essentially a single shot shotgun tied to a stick) that were so cheap and easy to produce that poor rebelling peasants kept making the things, and blowing away soldiers all throughout the Song dynasty.

But these types of developments were not just limited to the Chinese.
Even without knowledge of gunpowder The Byzantine Empire had developed petroleum based incendiary grenades, and flame throwers around 730AD.

Japan in the Sengoku era; (16-17 century) one of the most well known and influential periods of Japanese history, where the vast majority of what the sword dueling samurai "is" in popular culture today came from, in reality was an era where match lock muskets, and crazy hand held artery called Ōzutsu that fired rounds the size of a baseball (or even bigger) were almost a given on a battle field, and gun smithing was considered an art almost on the same caliber as sword smithing.

So long post short, there is nothing inherently wrong thematically with a setting like Kenshi having firearms, or explosives for that matter and I doubt a modder adding some in would be completely immersion shattering.

. . .as long as they were not doing like a Glock 17, AK-47, or P90, that's just dumb.

Good luck to you with this mod. I agree that you may want to wait till ranged weapons are out, however--since it may save you a lot of work. Still, you can work out models in the meantime.

Just throwing this out there too (Because it would definitely fit in imho). The first gunpowder weaponry were more like flamethrowers. The Han infantry which were garrisoned in and around the larger cities would employ the use of "Fire Spears". These essentially held a canister of the gunpoweder fluid on the usual spear, and when brought to flame, spewed fire at charging horsemen (Or infantry, though this supposedly wasn't as effective).

I'm not really sure why exactly, but a fire-throwing spear seems to fit in the atmosphere of the game.