Survival Guide - Dust Settles: Weapons

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

The entire purpose of weapons is to provide your army and militia better attack and defense power during battle. They will allow you the ability to attack more quickly and with more force than just fighting bare-handed or with makeshift weapons. Both your army units and militia will be able to use weapons of some kind, while special ops are trained to work without weapons. Officers use special pistols that are issued to them during training. You will have to research specific topics to open the ability to produce weapons and have fully quartered barracks as well. You can buy weapons off the Trade Market or merchant camps if you have the CEPs needed. All weapons listed on this page will be produced through the Barracks page.

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Opening Weapons:

When you first start training army units for battle, you will not have the ability to make weapons. Instead your soldiers will merely fight unarmed. In order to begin building weaponry, you will have to research Weapon Design. Your first level of weaponry, both long and short ranged, will open at 10. Researching to at least 20 will open the second set of weapons. The third level short-ranged weapon will open once you hit 40. Rails guns and heavy weapons will be the last ones that you can open. You must be at 50 to open them. For more information on opening Weapon Design research, please see the page on Basic Research.

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Weapons Stats Overview:

Below you will find charts containing some of the basic statistics for each weapon type, including unarmed. The following is a quick explanation of each.

Unarmed:

Whenever you do not have enough weapons to assign to your troops, the ones sent on an attack or used on defense who have no weapons will fight "unarmed" using whatever they can find. They'll pick up sticks, stones, clumps of dirt, old shards of metal, whatever they can or just use their fists and feet to fight when needed. Your militia, when there aren't enough close combat weapons in storage, will also fight unarmed. Though these units will be relatively weak, in high enough numbers they can do some, though very limited damage. Heck you get enough people throwing rocks at a single helicopter and you're bound to do something.

Unarmed
When you have no other choice, you fight with what you can.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	N/A	0	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	N/A	0 m	0 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	. 25 / 3	1 round	50 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	95%	0	N/A
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	0. 1	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Ranged Fire:

Ranged fire weapons are those weapons used by your army to begin firing at a farther distance than short-ranged or makeshift weapons allow. You will begin with the ability to produce basic bows and work your way up to rail guns. You can, of course, buy any level of weaponry available on the trade market that you can afford.

You will want to assign a larger number of ranged weapons to your defensive army than for an offensive attack. In an offensive attack, you will need long ranged weapons for the initial part of the battle, but you will also need plenty of close combat weapons for melee combat and fighting militia if your army breaks through the wall. Ranged fire weapons drop to 1/4 there initial attack power once inside their minimum range.

The following charts will give you the basic statistics about each ranged fire weapon.

Bows
The first long range weapon for humans is the first again. This time with nylon threads.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required:
	1 BS / 0 CEP	10	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	15	25 m	100 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	1. 5 / 3	1 round	40 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	60%	0	200
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	0.5	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Rifles
Pick 'em off from afar. Don't get too close or else this is just a fancy bat.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	3 BS / 0 CEP	20	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	10	25 m	200 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	2 / 3	1 round	40 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	70%	0	100
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	0.75	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Rail Guns
High energy, long range, beauty of modern weapons tech. Cuts through pillboxes like they were paper.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	10 BS, 3 CEP	50	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	5	50 m	400 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	2.5 / 3	2 rounds	25 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	75%	0	50
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	1	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Close Combat:

Close combat weapons are used by both army and militia to provide you extra attack and defense power. These are the only weapons that your militia will be able to carry. You will need enough to assign for attack and defense and to leave in storage for you militia to grab when your camp is attacked either by another camp's army or special ops.

Since these weapons will be used by an attacking army for both melee battle during the main battle against the camp's defensive army and to combat the militia once the army breaks through the wall, you will want to assign a decent number of close combat weapons to be fully prepared. You will want to assign a smaller amount of close combat weapons for your defense since your army are the only units that can carry ranged fire weapons. You must make sure that you leave some short ranged weapons in storage if possible. If you do not have any in storage, your militia will have no weapons that they can grab to defend your camp if the attacking army makes it that far.

The following charts will give you the basic statistics about each close combat weapon.

Swords
Fairly makeshift blade and handle. Fight up close with this.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	1 BS / 0 CEP	10	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	15	0 m	0 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	1. 5 / 3	1 round	50 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	90%	0	200
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	0.5	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Pistols
Makeshift handgun with a small clip. Great up close. Weapons are getting better again.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	3 BS / 0 CEP	20	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	10	0 m	20 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	2 / 3	1 round	50 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	80%	0	200
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	0.75	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Shock Pistols
This is a modern weapon again. It wreaks havoc in short range. There's nothing like directed energy.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	6 BS / 1 CEP	40	1
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	5	0 m	40 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	2. 5 / 3	1 round	40 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	80%	0	150
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	1	- Short Range - Long Range - Heavy Weapons -

Heavy Weapons:

Heavy weapons are used by army to attack vehicles and aircraft on the battlefield. You will need plenty of these for both attack and defense since either side can send AAVs, tanks, and choppers into battle. Both of these weapons require 2 army units to run each weapon.

You will want to assign a fair amount of these weapons for both sides, since these will have the strongest attack power against opposing vehicles and aircraft. In close combat, though, these weapons will lose most of their attack power. Because of this and the fact that these weapons will NOT fire at standard troops, you should never assign your entire army to carry these weapons. These weapons will only ever fire at the vehicles or aircraft they were designed to destroy.

The charts below will give you the basic statistics about each heavy weapon.

Recoilless Rifle
One holds, the other loads. You got tanks coming? This is the answer. One hit kills with this shelling weapon.
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	20 BS / 10 CEP	50	2
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	5	50 m	375 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	40 / 6	2 rounds	25 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	40%	0	50
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	2. 5	- Ground Vehicles - Battle Mechs -

Stinger Rocket
One holds and the other loads this portable surface to air missile. Bombers and jets are too fast, but watch out choppers!
	Production Costs	Research Level Needed	Crew Required
	20 BS / 10 CEP	50	2
	Max. Produced/Barracks	Min. Range	Max. Range
	5	50 m	400 m
	Damage / Armor	Reload Time	Run Speed
	15 / 6	2 rounds	25 m/round
	Accuracy	Fuel Required	Storage
	55%	0	50
	Alternate Damage	Preferred Target Types
	1. 5	- Light Aircraft -

Production:

You will use the Barracks page to assign weapons for production. You will only be able to produce weapons from barracks that are both staffed and fully quartered. You can check to see how many barracks are fully staffed, and thus available for production at the top of the Barracks page.

The Barracks page will be the place you will be able to check your weapons storage. You will be able to see the basic statistics about each weapons type on this page as well.

Finally, you will use the chart on the Barracks page to assign weapons for production. You will be able to see how many weapons each of your barracks can produce individually and how many they can produce in all as well as the costs to produce those weapons. Here you can manually enter a number that you want produced of each weapons type that you are able to produce or you can click the appropriate button beside the text box to either max. out or zero out production. If you have a minting license, you can set up ranged fire for production on this page. You will just receive a reminder in your end-turn display that you are not allowed to produce these types of weapons when you have a minting license. You can sell your license back to the Neutral Exchange Camp and build up a ranged weapon supply, then rebuy the license or just purchase them off of the Trade Market.

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Assigning Weapons:

You will assign weapons for your army through both the Attack and Defense pages. On the Defense page, under the box where you set your defensive formation orders, you will be able to assign the weapons that you want you army units to carry into battle. These weapons will still have to be stored in armories overnight, but will not be available for either militia units or an attack unless you change the weapons assigned. You can only assign as many total weapons as you have total army. On the Attack page where you set up the attack, you will assign up to one weapon for each army unit being sent out. These weapons will also come from your storage and will thus be unavailable for use elsewhere.

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Weapons in Battle:

Weapons in battle will determine a number of factors. The first thing that will be determined by the weapons you have assigned is when your army units can begin attacking. The farther your max. range the faster you will be able to begin attacking the opposing forces. Next your weapons will help determine your overall attack power as compared with the opposing force's attack power. If you have better weapons, you will have a better shot of defeating the opposing force with fewer losses. Your army competency and Weapon Design research, among other things, will help determine how effective your individual soldiers are with the weapons they are assigned, though.

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Improvements:

You can improve your weapons power, etc. in a few ways. First, by researching Weapon Design you can improve the weapons you can produce, thus giving you the ability to make more powerful weapons for use in battle. Next, you will want to keep both your overall camp's morale and your army's competency up since they have a major effect on the different units that you send into battle. Your camp's morale will improve your militia's abilities in battle, including accuracy to a slight extent. Your army's competency will affect your army units' accuracy and attack/defense in battle to a much greater extent.

Increasing your Weapon Design research will also have another benefit. Whenever you first open a weapon, your troops' accuracy with that weapon will be relatively poor since this is an entirely new weapon that they are unfamiliar with. As your research increases, you people will become more familiar with the weapon and gain an improved accuracy with that weapon. This means that if you stop researching Weapon Design right at 50 when you get rail guns, those weapons will never see their true base (listed) accuracy. If you continue to research the topic a bit, though, you will improve your troops' accuracy with that weapon.

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Limitations:

One of the primary limitations you will have regarding weapons is whether or not you have done enough research to open the ability to produce any weapons, much less some of the more advanced weapons types. Continue researching Weapon Design, once it is opened to access the ability to produce weapons.

You next major limitation will come in the form of staffed/quartered barracks. It makes no difference if you have 50 barracks that are staffed with 1 civilian apiece. If they are not filled with army/special ops (50 total in each barracks) you will be unable to produce weapons from those barracks. This means if 5 of those 50 are actually fully quartered, you will be able to produce weapons only from those 5.

Along with the barracks production limitation, if you do not have enough building supplies or CEP in storage to build the weapons you have assigned to build, you will not be able to construct the weapons that turn.

You will lose any weapons that your army or militia carry into battle if the person carrying the weapon is killed. This means you will lose 50 swords from your total number if 50 militia carrying swords are killed in a battle. You will not lose weapons due to death from a special ops raid.

Finally, you will not be able to construct any long-ranged weapons while you have a minting license. You can find other ways to acquire this type of weapon, but you will not be able to produce your own.

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