Hi

Im doing a tactical game about modern US after a fall of society and urban fighting between rival factions/gangs/civil war. So guns are important. I need to divide into 3 levels for gameplay reasons and this is not entirely realistic but seems ok to me.

level 1: older or civilian guns

level 2: commonly used today, army

level 3: "next gen" looking cool (hardest category to fill in a good way).

What are your comments on my new lineup (see below)? It would be good to replace beretta smg and springfield rifle with something else maybe... Any cheap/bad bolt rifle that is common? Same with smg? Maybe something civilian?

HANDGUNS-----------------------------------------------
Raven Vest	1911		Beretta 92fs
Colt detective 	Glock 17	SIG 229
HiPoint	380			S&W model 500		 				

MACHINEPISTOLS-----------------------------------------
Mac-10		Micro UZI	brugger & thomet mp-9
TEC-9		Scorpion	pp2000
					




SMG-----------------------------------------------------
Beretta m12	MP5		HK MP7 40round
		HK UMP45	TDI vector			
				

SHOTGUNS------------------------------------------------
Sawnoff		Remington 870	Benelli m4
Mossberg 500	Street sweeper	SPAS-12 8r
			


ASSAULT RIFLES------------------------------------------
AKMS		M4		FN SCAR-L
FN FAL		Famas		HK G36C
				
				

BATTLE RIFLES-------------------------------------------
ruger mini14	M14		Mark 14 EBR
		
		

RIFLES--------------------------------------------------
springfield	remington 700	AWM accuracy international warfare magnum
				HK PSG-1
		


LIGHT MACHINEGUNS---------------------------------------------
RPD		M249 SAW	HK MG4

 

It might be advisable to actually track down this type of information through the copious amount of websites devoted to guns, their history as well futuristic gun designs. I think on this website the answers you will obtain will not match the quality you could obtain elsewhere (unless you are lucky enough to stumble across someone who happens to know about such stuff).

i got some good gun info from this site before:)

But you are right in principle of course. The thing is its not only about knowing about guns, its for a game after all, and that kind of thinking people who hang out here have, while most dedicated gun forums give me a bit uncomfortable vibe...

Firstly, to use the actual names or likenesses of guns you'd have to liscense that from the manufacturer, and which they typically won't give you if your game doesn't paint them in a good light. More than likely, you'll have to go the GTA route, where you create look-alikes with names that invoke the real thing, but which are different--like they do with all their cars.

Another point worth making, is that you should be able to find out what the most common guns of each variety you need are. For example, the AR15 is by far the single most popular gun in America--with over 3 million in the country, that's basically 1 AR15 for every 100 people. If there ever were a breakdown of society, you can bet the AR15 would feature heavily. AK platform guns (47, 74) are also quite popular due to the abundance of cheap military surplus ammunition. The M1A is another popular battle rifle you missed. And there are also some old, WWII-era bolt-action rifles that have been cheap and popular, like old Springfields or the Mosin Nagant.

Why not link your previous threads on the same subject for background?
Otherwise people will just go over all the same stuff for no reason.

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/638390-number-of-firearms-in-adventurerpg-weak-to-strong-scaling-problem/
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/634495-guns-in-gangsurban-tactical-wargame/

SMGs, machine pistols, assault rifles and battle rifles have selective fire or full auto by definition, so your category labeling isn't quite accurate. For instance, a stock Mini-14 is not an assault rifle and a stock TEC-9 is not a machine pistol.

Many of the guns you list come both in semi-auto and auto varieties. The latter would of course be very rare in civilian hands. Certain guns (mainly older ones shooting off an open bolt) are easier to convert to automatic than others; for instance a TEC-9 modified to full auto would be believable. You might want to go through the list and mark with a * any guns you intend to be select-fire or full auto, to distinguish them from ones that you intend to only do semi-auto in the game.

If you ask me, you probably have too many select-fire and automatic guns on the list to fit the theme. Machine pistols in particular are a very marginal group. Realistically you wouldn't find many of them, and even if you did, you'd almost always want to use either a proper full-sized gun or a more compact handgun instead.

If you removed the Micro Uzi from the machine pistol tier, you could use an Uzi as the crap tier SMG without stylistic overlap.

The FN FAL is a battle rifle, not an assault rifle. Incidentally, you had this correct in the last thread's list.

Game will be hobby only. Never sold. If some company would complain in the end (by scanning the web for hobby projects?) i will change in that case.

yeah the categories above is a simplification, all guns will have their proper class ingame. I put them together showing what function they will have gameplay-wise (fal will have batter range/accuracy than AKMS is my idea). Ruger mini-14 is in the battle rifle group but will be called semi-automatic rifle (or carbine possibly, ive seen both names for it. Rifle suits better what role it will play gameplay wise, good range).

M1A is a civilian M14 right? I will not have both. Would it make more sense to use that gun? It will not have full auto anyway.

Machine pistols seems to be used by some drugrunners, mafia and such, this is why i also wanted them in the game alongside full sized SMGs (they fit the sidearm slot, gameplay wise).

Is the beretta m12 weird? I could add a full size UZI as a primary SMG of course... Maybe both?

Ill keep the M1903 springfield rifle (scoped) then as a tier 1 sniper. Seems possible enough.

AR15/M16 seems too similar to M4A1, dont want both. But i agree they are very common. Maybe skip M4 then?

AKM seems more in circulation in the western criminal world nowadays then original AK47, no? Also i wanted it with folding stock which i dont think old AK47 has.

Game will be hobby only.

then put in whatever you want, realistic or otherwise.

but if you're trying to do something realistic, pick the most common weapon of each basic type. there's no need for two guns with the same basic functionality, except for thoroughness sake.

and don't be scared of gun forums. a gun is a tool, just like an air ratchet or a toaster. if you have an interest, you'll find common ground with those on the gun forums. but do research, don't post questions asking other people to do your homework for you. game research will take you places you'd never normally go. right now for my current project i need to research the conditions that produce hail, and whether eating human flesh presents an unusual chance of illness - talk about weird and diverse!

for the futuristic weapons, you'll want to look at discarding sabot technologies, Gauss rifles, and plasma weapons. depending on how futuristic, you may want to check out particle beam accelerators, lasers, masers, and other "star wars" stuff scaled down to man-portable size. And don't forget the trend towards non-lethal with things like tazers, etc. If you got a can of food, and i got a tazer and a rock, pretty soon i have a can of food, and you don't have a life anymore.

and don't forget old fashioned weapons. aside from the recently banned AP rounds, the only thing that will go through body armor is still a crossbow bolt! especially one shot from an arbalest.

needs more kludged together guns or common consumer grade guns as in the US those will likely be the majority (and alot of those others will run out of ammo quickly enough and if civilization has largely fallen stockpiles will be gone sooner than later for the more high tech ones)

The humble revolver/pump shotgun would eventually take over before things got so bad that people will be using little more than clubs and rocks