Hey steam, thanks for making this thread. I myself have been waiting for Minecraft to implement some sort of firearms for like um... 3 years now. (I'm getting so old...) Your efforts only raises the chance for that to happen, through your explanation of how guns could be justified in Minecraft, thank you. Thank you!
However, I have also seen a few flaws in your idea of a musket. If you're talking about a musket in the late 1700's, it's going to be very inefficient and inaccurate. That's why they used linear warfare Napoleon's age, where soldiers would dress up and stand in a line and shoot each other like men. This type of weapon would be close to useless in Minecraft, as hitting mobs would be a challenge, even from a few blocks away. Also, the best of the best soldiers serving Napoleon could only get 3 shot fired in one minute. There was also a good chance of misfiring before percussion caps were invented. If you wanna upgrade the rifles to the ones used in the American Civil War (Around 3 Shots/min) when they had good rifling and proper bullets, it would be fine, but there is a big problem. The American Civil War is 1861-1865. Ben Henry already made the first lever action rifle (As fast as you can flip the lever) in 1860. Right after the Civil War ended, another conflict in Europe flared up between Austria and Prussia. The Prussians got their hands on early bolt actions (Common in sniper rifles nowadays) . So yes, you can't make the weapon too modern without having a near future reasonable upgrade, while also carrying the risk of it being too useless if it's too old.
Right... uh, I think you're missing the fact that Minecraft weapons don't necessarily have to be realistic. The arquebus- the 16-17th century weapon (i.e. 1450-1650 or so) that the Musket is based off of- fired only 2-3 rounds per minute and was only accurate to perhaps 100 meters at most in single aimed fire. I don't care about those facts. The in-game Musket could probably get an effective firing cadence of around once every 6-8 seconds if you drilled yourself with reloading until you had it down to an art. It's arguably even less accurate than a real life arquebus, because the Musket can only really effectively shoot to 50-70 blocks, with shots at 100 blocks being lucky at best. Initially, the weapon DID misfire in the rain, but I removed this because it's simply bad game design (arbitrary events ruining your weapon are no fun).
Another flaw I noticed is that the Ammunition is too expensive. 5 ingots for 4 bullets? It's so expensive. I think that 1 iron or gold nugget should be reasonable. I guess. I think I will increase the ammo per crafting to 8 bullets (since, after all, you do need to craft Gunpowder as well to use said ammo, unlike a Bow...).
I have mixed feelings about it, mostly about it being available too soon in the game. What if it required ingredients from the Nether, and could be found along with its ammo in nether fortress chests? That would make it a reasonable mid-game weapon along with instant splash potions.
I have mixed feelings about it, mostly about it being available too soon in the game. What if it required ingredients from the Nether, and could be found along with its ammo in nether fortress chests? That would make it a reasonable mid-game weapon along with instant splash potions.
You see, the recipe for the ammo consumes LOTS of iron (40 ingots for a stack of bullets, plus 1 gunpowder each). You wouldn't have that much iron to spare until you reach the Nether.
You see, the recipe for the ammo consumes LOTS of iron (40 ingots for a stack of bullets, plus 1 gunpowder each). You wouldn't have that much iron to spare until you reach the Nether.
There's an issue with this, though: if muskets are useful and one of the few downsides to using them is the cost in gunpowder, then wouldn't that just motivate people to build simple mob farms which produce more than enough gunpowder?
There's an issue with this, though: if muskets are useful and one of the few downsides to using them is the cost in gunpowder, then wouldn't that just motivate people to build simple mob farms which produce more than enough gunpowder?
That can really be applied to anything farmable in the first place. It's part of the greater issue that resource collecting in MC is generally trivial beyond a certain point.
That can really be applied to anything farmable in the first place. It's part of the greater issue that resource collecting in MC is generally trivial beyond a certain point.
Yes! So much yes.
And annoying. Ever collected six stacks of sugar cane by hand? Boring. Making machine to do it is cool, but it looks and sounds out ofp lace after a while unless you've built yourself some technological wonder area. Minecraft doesn't look like a place where complex machines are possible, especially not since 1.6/1.7+ adding more to form rather than function.
The triviality is the result of appealing to people who are both logical and creative enough to use redstone to automate stuff. Redstone is a double-edged sword in that sense, because it's really fun and makes you intuit and plan resource spending, but also makes you crave more and more abilities to automate that can never be satisfied. The triviality is also the result of all these unnecessary end-game challenges and advance/achieve-ments. Beacons shouldn't need a million mining goods to make. Making the Wither rare and requiring dedication is easy enough by making wither skulls a rare drop and wither skeletons a semi-rare mob. The beacon metal is just grinding for the sake of increasing gameplay time and a waste of resources to boot.
Similarly for achievements like taming all x, visiting all x, eating all x, fighting all x, drinking all x, etc. and that one achievement where you have to get literally every status effect in the game for the lolz. Didn't Jeb say he wanted to avoid a 'chop 10000 trees' achievement? These achievements are literally it. If you want to make an achievement hard and time-consuming, make it unusual rather than comprehensive. While there is still inherent grinding in respawning the Dragon and finding Mansions, at least there you're doing a grindy thing ONCE and you're done with it, plus items you can keep like extra portals and huge mansions are worth much more than some extra experience and a power-up limited to a 8 by 8 chunk radius.
There is no real sense of progression with a 'x all the y' meme. See literally every popular game ever. A specific task that is unique rather than cumulative is more satisfying, especially when the game has subtle cumulativeness through endermen appearing in all biomes, needing to reuse tools, faint resemblances between structures in very different places, etc.
If anything, those advancements are anything BUT a chore achievement. They don't measure milestones, and actually incentivize experimentation and exploration. For instance, getting every single potion effect at once may seem like a grind, but the difficulty is with figuring out HOW to pull it off.
Yeah, there is good stuff in them too, but it's not worth hours of searching for Ghasts or Mushroom Island biomes.
We're doing a mod project, check it out:
Nice suggestion! There are a few minor problems though.
Ammunition: Like others have suggested, the ammo is a bit expensive. I propose 1 iron ingot + 1 gunpowder for 4 cartridges.
Reloading: Reloading by crafting seems too unwieldy. I think reloading should be done via holding LMB for ~0.2 secs.
Otherwise, 99% Support.
My suggestions: Enhancements - Throwable Fire Charges - On Phantoms and Elytra. Also check out The Minecraftian Language. This signature is not here to waste your space.
I have mixed feelings about it, mostly about it being available too soon in the game. What if it required ingredients from the Nether, and could be found along with its ammo in nether fortress chests? That would make it a reasonable mid-game weapon along with instant splash potions.
You see, the recipe for the ammo consumes LOTS of iron (40 ingots for a stack of bullets, plus 1 gunpowder each). You wouldn't have that much iron to spare until you reach the Nether.
My suggestions: Enhancements - Throwable Fire Charges - On Phantoms and Elytra. Also check out The Minecraftian Language. This signature is not here to waste your space.
There's an issue with this, though: if muskets are useful and one of the few downsides to using them is the cost in gunpowder, then wouldn't that just motivate people to build simple mob farms which produce more than enough gunpowder?
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
That can really be applied to anything farmable in the first place. It's part of the greater issue that resource collecting in MC is generally trivial beyond a certain point.
We're doing a mod project, check it out:
Yes! So much yes.
And annoying. Ever collected six stacks of sugar cane by hand? Boring. Making machine to do it is cool, but it looks and sounds out ofp lace after a while unless you've built yourself some technological wonder area. Minecraft doesn't look like a place where complex machines are possible, especially not since 1.6/1.7+ adding more to form rather than function.
The triviality is the result of appealing to people who are both logical and creative enough to use redstone to automate stuff. Redstone is a double-edged sword in that sense, because it's really fun and makes you intuit and plan resource spending, but also makes you crave more and more abilities to automate that can never be satisfied. The triviality is also the result of all these unnecessary end-game challenges and advance/achieve-ments. Beacons shouldn't need a million mining goods to make. Making the Wither rare and requiring dedication is easy enough by making wither skulls a rare drop and wither skeletons a semi-rare mob. The beacon metal is just grinding for the sake of increasing gameplay time and a waste of resources to boot.
Similarly for achievements like taming all x, visiting all x, eating all x, fighting all x, drinking all x, etc. and that one achievement where you have to get literally every status effect in the game for the lolz. Didn't Jeb say he wanted to avoid a 'chop 10000 trees' achievement? These achievements are literally it. If you want to make an achievement hard and time-consuming, make it unusual rather than comprehensive. While there is still inherent grinding in respawning the Dragon and finding Mansions, at least there you're doing a grindy thing ONCE and you're done with it, plus items you can keep like extra portals and huge mansions are worth much more than some extra experience and a power-up limited to a 8 by 8 chunk radius.
There is no real sense of progression with a 'x all the y' meme. See literally every popular game ever. A specific task that is unique rather than cumulative is more satisfying, especially when the game has subtle cumulativeness through endermen appearing in all biomes, needing to reuse tools, faint resemblances between structures in very different places, etc.
Yeah, there is good stuff in them too, but it's not worth hours of searching for Ghasts or Mushroom Island biomes.