Reloading (Ammo Crafting)

[deimos790]

I find it a little odd that there is no Reloading in the game (I'm talking "crafting" bullets). Granted, this is Canada we're in, and not the US, and that might affect availability of such resources.

- If you can forge an arrow head you can cast a bullet.

- Reusing/recycling shell casings - this would still put a fixed rarity on the item. Cases only have certain number of usages.

- Cleaning shell casings (maybe empty coffee tin + sand)

- Only specialized equipment would be presses and dies, which you would need to find a bench for

- "Gunpowder" resource. If you wanted to be "hacky" you could also say Flares could be harvested for gunpowder (I know that's not how they work, I mean from a gameplay perspective it might make sense).

- "Primers" resource, unless you want to pretend everything is rimfired.

[akodo1]

It's been discussed before.

If you have gunpowder as a found resource and primers as a found resource and lead is a found resource, and then there's one place with the molds and presses mounted on a bench, with various dies, resizers, and other tools around that would be okay.

BUT for a 1 gun type game, it seems better to control the supply of ammo by controlling the supply of assembled cases, vs the much more difficult task of allocating 2 different 'raw materials' across a map in a way that both makes it unlikely you'd get players in the situation of finding a bunch of one and none of the other...which can only really be countered by having a high occurrence of both resources.  THEN you run the risk of making ammo too plentiful.

The one spot I could see reloading being actually a good angle to include in the game is if they introduce multiple guns vs just 1, then you can find gunpowder and reload for the one that your personal preference says you use the most.  Now, this can itself be a bit unrealistic, in that the primers needed for something like a handgun aren't generally the same as you'd use for a rifle.  Powders are generally not either BUT there's some that can be used either way, provided you are carefully following the recommended charges.

 

Note, it's a whole different ballgame if talking about 'crafting ammo' someone means crafting gunpowder and crafting primers.  Of course most people that suggest that don't even know about primers, or that smokeless powder is something entirely different, and Kirk's bamboo cannon from Star Trek is not realistic.

[EternityTide]

It is a commonly recurring request, and, while not unreasonable, isn't really achievable. Black powder is lethal to guns which aren't designed for it, as it's acidic properties will eat away at the internals of a Lee Enfield rather unpleasantly. Plus, smokeless powder has different burn characteristics compared to black powder, producing much higher pressures and therefore much higher muzzle velocities. A firearm designed to cope with smokeless powder hasn't got the right design to facilitate black powder. It will work, just not particularly well

[Rifleman]

This topic was already suggested.

The developers put my idea in the roadmap.

http://hinterlandgames.com/the-long-dark/roadmap/

@cekivi Please lock this topic.

[Scyzara]

If we locked down all threads about topics that have been discussed before, we would need to lock down 98% of all threads alltogether. I for one don't see even the slightest reason for a lockdown here.

Besides, one should be extremely careful to claim (let alone brag) a particular roadmap feature was added due to a specific suggestion.

(Just as a sidenote, the topic of renewable ammunition has already been discussed various times before you created your thread, @Rifleman). 

Apart from that the Devs also have their own internal roadmap ideas that might be the same as some user's suggestion just by chance.

[Rifleman]

1 hour ago, Scyzara said:

If we locked down all threads about topics that have been discussed before, we would need to lock down 98% of all threads alltogether. I for one don't see even the slightest reason for a lockdown here.

Besides, one should be extremely careful to claim (let alone brag) a particular roadmap feature was added due to a specific suggestion.

(Just as a sidenote, the topic of renewable ammunition has already been discussed various times before you created your thread, @Rifleman). 

Apart from that the Devs also have their own internal roadmap ideas that might be the same as some user's suggestion just by chance.

Are 98% of the community copying ideas of eachother or is it a coincidence.

[Scyzara]

Geez... there is no monopoly on ideas or suggestions here on the HL forums.

And I don't see a reason to believe that @deimos790 has "copied" any of your ideas on purpose. People often make the same suggestions over and over again here on the forums, that happens all the time. And it's not a sign of bad intentions at all.

So please be more polite towards other members and stop speaking badly of them unless you can provide clear evidence that they somehow violated the forum guidelines (which does NOT appear to be the case here).

Should you believe that someone indeed violates the forum guidelines, you may always report their comments and we'll have a look at it.

 

[Salty Crackers]

Renewable ammo is available. I've managed to find a few rounds while beachcombing (and even a flare shell!)

[Rifleman]

10 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Geez... there is no monopoly on ideas or suggestions here on the HL forums.

And I don't see a reason to believe that @deimos790 has "copied" any of your ideas on purpose. People often make the same suggestions over and over again here on the forums, that happens all the time. And it's not a sign of bad intentions at all.

So please be more polite towards other members and stop speaking badly of them unless you can provide clear evidence that they somehow violated the forum guidelines (which does NOT appear to be the case here).

Should you believe that someone indeed violates the forum guidelines, you may always report their comments and we'll have a look at it.

 

My mistake, I didn't know hinterland forums is a website that doesn't lock duplicate topics.

[Fluffy23]

4 hours ago, Rifleman said:

My mistake, I didn't know hinterland forums is a website that doesn't lock duplicate topics.

+1 I have never come across forums that don't lock duplicates.

[EternityTide]

1 hour ago, Fluffy23 said:

+1 I have never come across forums that don't lock duplicates.

It's likely that Hinterland doesn't believe in closing down a discussion because it has been brought up before. Or attributing a common idea to one individual.

[vancopower]

On 26.9.2016 at 8:36 PM, Salty Crackers said:

Renewable ammo is available. I've managed to find a few rounds while beachcombing (and even a flare shell!)

Yea? Great for you can you tell me what else did you find Scrap maybe, because all I managed to find so far is a piece of cloth and some painkillers.

Also I suggested gunpowder crafting in unusual way like in the civil wars, but this process takes time and a lot of "waste products" maybe at some point when they introduce domesticated animals like horse, or cow. 

[Boston123]

You can't really use blackpowder in a modern firearm, vancopower. How many times have we been over this?

[ElvisHunter]

3 minutes ago, Boston123 said:

You can't really use blackpowder in a modern firearm, vancopower. How many times have we been over this?

I don't see the need for more firearms in the game BUT all of my friends that hunt often use black powder firearms to extend their hunting season. There are many modern black powder rifles and they are (at least in the circles that i travel) quite prevalent and also quite deadly. 

examples: http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=12233618

[Boston123]

Those are firearms specifically designed for usage with blackpowder, ElvisHunter.

 Vancopower wants to use blackpowder in a firearm designed for use with smokeless powder.

[akodo1]

On 9/26/2016 at 5:38 AM, EternityTide said:

Black powder is lethal to guns which aren't designed for it, as it's acidic properties will eat away at the internals of a Lee Enfield rather unpleasantly.

Black powder is corrosive, but it's corrosive toward all guns not just guns designed for it.

And you can counter the corrosive nature of black powder by washing with warm water (now you increase the risk of rust..) Maybe you make the survivor boil up a bunch of water to clean the gun.  I hear mountain men used to pee down the barrel of their muzzle loaders to clean them.

[akodo1]

1 hour ago, Boston123 said:

You can't really use blackpowder in a modern firearm, vancopower. How many times have we been over this?

I think it's best to be phrased 'you can't use black powder in AMMUNITION not intended for it's use (with a few exceptions)'

For example, the 38 special was originally designed to be used with black powder.  If you load 38 special cases with black powder today, you can go buy the newest 38 special revolver like say the Ruger LCR (a revolver that is advertised as being mainly comprised of aircraft grade aluminum and polymer) and it would fire fine being fed black powder ammunition.  

[akodo1]

I did some digging and asking questions on some of the gun forums I know to supplement my existing knowledge.

There was a time in the 1880s to 1910s when the world was transitioning from black powder to smokeless powder.  Some cartridges like the 45 Long Colt and 38 Special AND THE BRITISH 303 were originally developed for black powder and then smokeless powder variants were developed. (This had to be done with care, some smokeless powder was more potent and you either had to load the ammo to less than it's full potential OR restrict it to new strongly built handguns or certain rifles) In other cases manufacturers specifically designed cartridges to be smokeless but also developed and designed them to be used for black powder as well.   

In many cases, even when there wasn't an 'official' offering of alternative black powder loading, people figured them out.

Also in that transition period from 1880s to 1910s, people were figuring out more and better ways of making smokeless powder.  Initially, by volume, smokeless powder was less powerful than black powder.  Sometimes this kind of powder nowadays is termed 'semi-smokeless' but later smokeless was more powerful by volume....and it continues to get more and more powerful by volume.   For many cartridges designed in the 1890s-1910 window, there wasn't a differentiation between pistol powders and rifle powders.  Even after that change, though, for convenience many reloaders used the same powder in both their handgun cartridges and their rifle cartridges, even if this meant they weren't getting as powerful of rifle shots as if they bought factory loaded shells or if they bought special rifle powders.

The brand of smokeless powder called 'Unique' was first marketed in the early 1900s.  That's a kind of smokeless powder that could be used for revolver cartridges that started out as black powder but transitioned to smokeless (like the 38 special and 45 Colt) or for early smokeless powder cartridges (like the 44 special) or for smokeless powder rifle cartridges (ike the 30-30, 303, & 30-06) although depending on what kind of powder the rifle cartridge in question was designed for, sometimes you had a roughly 10% reduction in performance vs other more potent powders introduced at the same time which weren't intended to be used across such a broad spectrum.

TLDR = TLD could realistically introduce 1 type of gunpowder that gets used for all sorts of different types of ammo...as long as they stick with guns that use cartridges invented at most shortly after 1900

 

 

[ElvisHunter]

20 hours ago, Boston123 said:

Those are firearms specifically designed for usage with blackpowder, ElvisHunter.

 Vancopower wants to use blackpowder in a firearm designed for use with smokeless powder.

I realize this. I just wanted to point out that these exist as modern firearms and would likely be available in a rural area such as this. I totally agree about the use of black powder in the rifle we have currently.