Gun cleaning (weapon maintenance)

[BanjoOz]

I actually like having weapons and armor break down as it's used, but having the ONLY way to maintain it be hauling around half a dozen of the same items for "spare parts" seems a little unrealistic.

 

Would it be possible to encourage the player to clean his guns regularly by having a gun cleaning kit item - or, to keep things simple, maybe use the cleaning product "junk" item (I think it's called Abraxxo or something... hey, who says Fallout world household cleaners don't work on firearms too?), as something you can use to 'repair' basic (Small Gun, maybe?) firearms with too?

 

If possible, it could repair less than replacing parts (ie using a 10mm pistol to repair a 10mm pistol), but still be useful for regular upkeep-style maintenance.

 

I don't know if there are any other junk items that could be used to 'repair' armor or other weapons (maybe some of the electrical components for the energy weapons? Even 'meat' for some of the leather armors?), but just the ability to 'clean' your guns and repair them that way would be nice, I think.

 

Other folks' thoughts?

[mikekearn]

I don't know much about guns in real life, so this is a little over my head. I do want to point out that Abraxo Cleaner isn't just junk; it's also used in making Nuka Grenades once you have the schematics. There is, however, and over abundance of the crap in the world compared to the amount of Nuka-Cola Quantum, so you'd have plenty of extra.

[BanjoOz]

Yes, I don't think it needs to be "gun-nut real", just the idea that you can "clean" some guns to improve their condition as well as disassembling other guns to repair them.

 

The Abraxo Cleaner was just an idea since it's a cleaning product, would mean no new item need be made, and I like the idea of giving more/multiple uses to some of the "junk"/misc items in the game.

[joeiudi]

I agree that the repairing of weapons with other weapons should be expanded a little. I mean why the hell can't some of the parts from a regular assault rifle fix a Chinese assault rifle....and why can you only use Brotherhood power armor to fix the Uber Power Armor from Fort Constantine?

 

Its pretty weak.

 

And what happened to the Automatic .44 handguns from the original?

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Revolvers make more sense in a post-apocalyptic world than any type of automatic; there's less that can go wrong with them, fewer springs and levers and little bits of metal that can get lost or broken or worn down. Most people seem to know a bit about gun care in the Wasteland, but how many factories do you see making new slide springs and mag springs and all those other parts that have to function perfectly to keep an automatic in good working order?

 

Revolvers, for the most part, use older and more resilient technologies; a society with a 19th-century tech base could maintain and even manufacture revolvers. They're next to impossible to jam, simple to clean and operate, and can be made to fire a wider variety of ammunition (my own 5-shot accepts .38 Special, .38 Special +P, and .357 Magnum in addition to handgun-caliber shotshells, while my little 8-shot .22 accepts both .22LR and .22 Short). Automatics are extremely finicky; they can and will jam if used with lower power ammo, if not cleaned after every use, if the springs are even the slightest bit out of alignment or worn down... there are some incredibly robust and durable automatics (like the AK-series of rifles, the 1911 family of handguns, etc) but even those require significantly more upkeep than any revolver or manual-action (i.e. lever, falling block, bolt-action) weapon ever will.

 

IMHO, the revolvers ought to be more common than they are, and automatics more difficult to come by.

[Denamic]

Actually, we don't care THAT much about realism.

We just want our stuff to break down and not be forced to pack 5 combat shotguns just in case you have to use one.

And don't get me started on sniper rifles. They are good for like 50 shots when fully repaired before it's broken, and they aren't exactly common nor very light.

It's that what at least I want fixed up, because 'consuming' one weapon to repair another is just too arbitrary.

[BanjoOz]

IMHO, the revolvers ought to be more common than they are, and automatics more difficult to come by.

 

I was discussing this on another forum a while back... Fallout traditionally has had a few "less-than-suited-to-post-apocalypse-settings" weapons as their standards (eg the 10mm auto and smg). I'd actually love a post apocalypse "survival sim" style game with more realism in terms of maintaining weapons, etc. (simple guns = best and most common), and agree that realistically, revolvers and bolt-actions and shotguns WOULD be far more common than automatics, auto-shotguns, assault rifles, etc.

 

However, IMO, making the .32 revolver more common than the 10mm pistol would be less "Fallout-y"... but perhaps the answer is that the rarer but "simpler" weapons should break down MUCH slower, and be easier to repair, than the more powerful but sophisticated ones (I know this is sort of the case already, but I think it could be more so)?

 

You could even let simpler guns be repaired with a wider variety of other parts and weapons, while the sophisticated ones need the same kind, due to the parts used (eg a .32 revolver can be repaired with various scrap parts too, but the 10mm pistol can only be repaired with other 10mm pistols).

 

I'd still like to be able to just "clean" my guns, though! :)

[WrathOfDeadguy]

This is all true- and one could expect there to be a fair number of weapons of all types available, since there would be an abundance left abandoned in gun shops, police stations, armories and what have you. The Vaults would also be a source of sophisticated pre-war weapons; there are five Vaults in the DC area alone and all of them (presumably) had 10mm automatics as standard issue sidearms for their security teams. The 10mm is a bit of an exception; I get the impression in all the Fallout games that it was somewhat ubiquitous before the War- there must be millions of the damn things lying around all over the place (looks like it's all-stainless steel construction in F3 as well, so it would still be operable after 200 years).

 

Bolt-action hunting rifles are far more common than semi-automatic and fully-automatic rifles of various types, too... especially the sniper rifle, which is damn near impossible to find when you need parts to fix one. I guess I'd just appreciate if I didn't run into Raiders camped out in the middle of nowhere lugging around SMGs and Combat Shotguns when they obviously possess neither the spares nor the technical know-how to maintain them. Super Mutants and Mercs are a different story, since they have access to large caches of pre-war weapons, but average baddies? I dunno about you, but I didn't run into a whole lot of low-end bad guys with high-end weapons in Fallout 1 & 2; basic Raiders always had 10mm, hunting rifles, and the occasional sawed-off... maybe once in a blue moon you'd see one with a DE. In Fallout 3 at least one in every group seems to be carrying around something automatic with significant throw weight.

 

I know Fallout has always played fast and loose with realism, but I think I'd just like to see more of the right weapons in the right places. You're right about repairing; it should be harder to maintain automatics (especially the high-end stuff).

 

As far as cleaning goes- yeah, cleaning would be great, especially since guns in Fallout apparently use true black gunpowder (it is easier to make, but also more corrosive). I'm sure cleaning kits would be improvised. A cleaning rod made of a bit of metal; some patches torn from an old shirt, perhaps some oil to lubricate and protect... make it, perhaps, so that every few hundred rounds or so you'd have to clean or suffer an increased rate of CND decay. I'd actually make cleaning more effective at 'repairing' weapons, but just make the cleaning supplies harder to come by. Cleaning regularly could provide perhaps a 50% bonus to CND up to the maximum allowed by your Repair skill, modified by your repair skill... say, 50% base + 0.5% per skill point, which works out to 100% once you max Repair.

 

That way, players are given an additional incentive to put points into Repair, since they could keep even rare weapons like the Sniper Rifle and Minigun in top condition if they knew what they were about. Regular maintenance and cleaning, after all, is what we gun nuts do to prevent parts from wearing out and breaking on us in the first place. Folks with lower Repair skills could still keep their weapons functional by cannibalizing duplicates, but perhaps there should be a lower cap on that (say 75% CND- after all, most of the replacement parts won't be in prime condition either) until "master" level Repair is reached.

 

Now I'm interested in finding out what sorts of cleaning supplies were used for gun care before petroleum-based solvents came along- maybe there'll be an existing parallel in the game world other than Abraxo.

[BanjoOz]

I get the impression in all the Fallout games that it was somewhat ubiquitous before the War- there must be millions of the damn things lying around all over the place (looks like it's all-stainless steel construction in F3 as well, so it would still be operable after 200 years).

 

On reflection, I agree... I think the Colt 6520 (and whatever Bethesda "replaced" it with in F3!) is supposed to be the "new" Colt 1911... that is, a reliable old automatic that is very common. Given how the 10mm calibre seems to be Fallout's the equivalent to 9mm in "our" world, it also seems reasonable to me that there would be "tons" of these around in the US (as you would probably find lots of 9mm handguns - in the USA, at least - in our own post-apocalypse future).

 

I guess I'd just appreciate if I didn't run into Raiders camped out in the middle of nowhere lugging around SMGs and Combat Shotguns when they obviously possess neither the spares nor the technical know-how to maintain them. Super Mutants and Mercs are a different story, since they have access to large caches of pre-war weapons, but average baddies?

 

Again, agreed. Then again, in my own idea of a post-apocalypse game (Fallout or otherwise), I'd prefer to see more "desperate" raiders with mostly melee weapons and "basic" firearms, not military-grade high tech stuff! I know it's not Fallout, but I always liked in Mad Max 2, how rare and precious guns and ammo were.

 

I know Fallout has always played fast and loose with realism, but I think I'd just like to see more of the right weapons in the right places.

 

While I started off talking about a mod to just "fix" cleaning and repairing guns, I agree and think this is a very good idea for a mod. Whenever I play F2, I always struggle a bit at the start, when I have NO guns... I almost always feel like I'm really trying to survive! On reflection, I'd like to see the "right" weapons in the right people's hands in F3 too... perhaps even make ammo a bit more scarce and more expensive?

 

As far as cleaning goes- yeah, cleaning would be great, especially since guns in Fallout apparently use true black gunpowder (it is easier to make, but also more corrosive). I'm sure cleaning kits would be improvised. A cleaning rod made of a bit of metal; some patches torn from an old shirt, perhaps some oil to lubricate and protect...

 

One of the first things I tried to mod when I played the post-apocalypse RPG 'The Fall' was gun cleaning (it used "breaking weapons" too). I like the idea of having to maintain your guns, and that the "better" the gun, the more work it takes to look after it.

 

"Making" a simple gun cleaning kit with the bench (maybe use any cloth-clothing and some scrap or something?) would be neat... though I can see those less interested in realism getting annoyed by constant weapon maintenance! :)

 

That way, players are given an additional incentive to put points into Repair, since they could keep even rare weapons like the Sniper Rifle and Minigun in top condition if they knew what they were about. Regular maintenance and cleaning, after all, is what we gun nuts do to prevent parts from wearing out and breaking on us in the first place. Folks with lower Repair skills could still keep their weapons functional by cannibalizing duplicates, but perhaps there should be a lower cap on that (say 75% CND- after all, most of the replacement parts won't be in prime condition either) until "master" level Repair is reached.

 

I really like that concept... someone really good with repair gets the advantage of knowing HOW to maintain his/her gun without constantly replacing bits... someone less skilled has to use new parts, or just replace the whole weapon when it gets too fouled up. I think it'd be kinda cool if a REALLY low CND gun could explode in the player's hands... :)

 

Now I'm interested in finding out what sorts of cleaning supplies were used for gun care before petroleum-based solvents came along- maybe there'll be an existing parallel in the game world other than Abraxo.

 

Though Abraxo would be good for "cleaning" (maintaining/repairing) armour, perhaps?

 

Again, though, while I love the idea of making F3 more "survivalist", I understand those who prefer things to be more "fun" and - frankly - "Fallout".

 

In that case, I'd suggest two mods...

 

1) A small mods that allows scrap and home-made "cleaning kits" to repair some weapons, and Abraxo repair armour slightly

 

2) A "gun realism mod", with rebalances to enemy weapon loadouts and the need for constant weapon upkeep. would be for those of us who want more.

 

(I tell you, once the F3 tools get past having to know how to hex edit, I am dedicating myself to modding this game somehow!)

[Wreckless1]

Coming from an extensive background with firearms, there's a lot of things about Fallout 3 that really irked me.

 

The idea for maintaining weapons and the like isn't a bad one, but the way it was implemented is absolutely retarded. Such as a what's obviously a Kalashnikov (the "Chinese" Assault Rifle) in perfect condition that mysteriously degenerates into junk after firing only a couple hundred rounds, if that. Most weapons have such an unrealistically insane rate of degradation that I'm convinced it has more to do with Beth trying to do something with game balance than it has to do with anything resembling reality.

This also throws off the whole RPG aspect in that any character is virtually required to dump 100 into the repair skill just to get through the game - especially since merchants can't repair a anything worth diddly.

 

Furthermore, there's weapon designs that are more prone to failures than others - the G3A3 (which makes an appearance (literally) as the model for the 'R91 Assault Rifle') Will basically keep working forever so long as the receiver isn't packed with mud. The HK roller locked action it uses (also found in the MP5) has no dependence on a gas system whatsoever and thus doesn't start having failures to function properly after putting copious amounts of ammo through it like the M16/AR-15 system, for instance. The fluted chamber also allows for some amount of dirt/crap etc to work its way into the action of the weapon with no effect on functionality.

 

Look at the really awful parts of Africa and you'll see the same guns over and over again - AK's, FN-FAL's and L1A1's, and the occasional G3 make up the vast majority of the rifles you'll see, specifically because they require so little maintenance and take so much abuse before having functionality problems. Similarly, my time working at an indoor shooting range saw certain guns in our rent-to-shoot fleet regularly fail, and then yet others that kept ticking with little more than a few drops of oil every once-in-awhile despite use from hundreds of different and usually inexperienced users and upteen thousands of rounds through them - Glocks and Kimber 1911's damn near always worked no matter what, whereas our .50AE Desert Eagle was a cantankerous pile of crap that demanded perfect lubrication and a very strong stance to actually cycle properly.

So yes, to a large extent I believe in true post-apoc settings we'd see a rapid attrition of unreliable weapons whereas good designs would soldier on almost indefinitely.

 

 

As such, I'd like to see these aspects implemented, but from a game modding aspect some are much more difficult than others to do.

 

1) I totally agree that typical Raiders should be much less likely to use higher-tech weapons and even less likely to want to dump several dozen rounds of ammo in the course of attacking someone for loot. Melee and ambushes should characterize this, but I think it'd be very difficult to achieve even with a developers kit.

 

2) I'd like to see weapons overall degrade at a much much slower rate than they do, and I'd also like to see the rate of degradation depend on the starting condition of the weapon - a 100% perfect AK will fire for a *VERY* long time without a single performance problem of any kind, but a damaged weapon will often times continue to get far worse at a geometric rate once a problem develops.

 

3) I'd like to see the value system fixed considerably - I cannot swallow the idea of a Laser Rifle being worth less than a Lead Pipe, regardless of condition. Rare & high tech stuff should bring huge $$$$.

 

4) Merchants need to be able to fix most things to 100% - but I'd like to see some merchants do well in what they specialize in, like Moira could perhaps fix laser weapons to 100% but plasma weapons to only 60%, and Power Armor could only be repaired to 100% by the guys at the BOS, etc.

 

5) I'd make any weapon maintenance/repair dependent on its applicable skill. Anyone with "100%" in small guns would understand how to maintain and repair the vast majority of any problem encountered with a rifle or pistol - but just because they can replace a broken sear pin inside an AK's selector mechanism doesn't mean they know how to rebuild an engine or fix that hydraulic blast door in some sewer and vice versa. Similarly, the maintenance/repair of Energy Weapons, Big Guns, and Melee weapons would be dependent on those particular skills.

 

 

As far as using more in-game items for many different purposes, I totally agree. Abraxo or Detergent as a maintenance item isn't a bad idea, but I'd say only for conventional firearms. I actually use liquid Dawn and Brake Parts Cleaner when cleaning a particularly dirty weapon, as its much less expensive than so-called 'gun cleaner'.. though the smell of Hoppe's #9 is pretty awesome especially compared to Brake Cleaner.

 

Now for armor, getting ballistic armor wet is almost always a very bad idea (with the possible exception of Power Armor) as the stiffness of Kevlar and Spectra Vests is largely from the materials used to make them water resistant and not the ballistic armor component itself, since flexible ballistic materials are *much* weaker once they get wet. Trauma plates are obviously rigid already because many are based on exotic alloys or ceramics as well as flexible ballistic material like Kevlar or Spectra. So the idea of using Abraxo to 'repair' armor doesn't really make much sense to me.

 

That being said, armor is actually the one case I really agree with on cannibalizing a similar item to repair an existing one - it makes sense to patch a vest or other armor carrier with similar materials, given the skill to do so.. which in this case would be the repair skill.

Whereas taking two identical broken guns will seldom ever make a single 'better' gun because again, given weapon designs are usually vulnerable to very similar failures and the components that break are usually all the same - two M60's with bent topcovers are going to make exactly *zero* functioning M60's. Two AK's that both have damaged gas tubes make *zero* working AK's.. and so on and so forth.

 

In closing... here's a fun fact - there actually *IS* a Colt model 6520 - but its a CAR-15 not a handgun!