My futuristic setting still has swords because exploring vast tracts of weird and wonderful terra incognita is a major theme and travelers can't always expect to have a reliable source of ammo.
Also, their reach is better than that of a combat knife.
Fight my logic, scrubs.
And Moebius produces god-tier art.
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People who bitch about settings not having guns are dumb. If you make the aesthetic choice to not have guns, you're free to justify it however you like and quibbling over it is frankly meaningless.
Why not spears?
If you don't have guns, then spears are king.
Yeah well my futuristic setting has swords and I never even attempt to justify it anywhere. Your move, atheist.
Hol' up. Travelers still pack heat. Ammo is just a very precious resource, and they make sure to hone their skill with weapons that don't require ammo.
Maybe it's become a prestige thing as well. I'll see how things pan out.
I would guess because swords are easier to carry.
Why aren't modern combat knives shaped more like spikes?
Swords are choppy, stabby and thumpy. Spears are stabby and a little thumpy.
>Why aren't modern combat knives shaped more like spikes?
Cause they're utility tools first.
>Not justifying it with chinese cartoon magic
step up sempai
Spears are not hard to carry.
Spears can stab, slash and bash. Either don't be dumb or don't post.
>travelers can't always expect to have a reliable source of ammo
/k/ will just reply "making ammo is easy"
Which is true! ...with modern equipment and understanding.
>Spears are not hard to carry.
Okay. Try carrying a 7-foot pole around with you in your day-to-day.
>Stab
Well duh.
>Slash
In a very finicky range. They're not made to do this and certainly don't beat swords.
>Bash
Eh. Not necessarily better than a sword, either. Lower average density.
>Why aren't modern combat knives shaped more like spikes?
Trench Spike was a thing
You wanna see something REALLY fucked up? Wasp Knife
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A lot of things are easy to make if you're willing and able to spend some time and effort.
Explorers in unknown lands have other things to focus on. Carrying around the tools and raw materials to make ammo on-the-fly is not an efficient way to travel.
'Was' being the operative word.
>Okay. Try carrying a 7-foot pole around with you in your day-to-day.
Try hanging a sword from your hip all day. There's a reason why knives were worn in day to day activities instead of swords. And all spears are not 7 ft. Bringing a spear with you is as easy as using a walking stick or hanging it from your saddle.
>In a very finicky range. They're not made to do this
No, they are specifically designed to do that. You're a common retard if you think spears were just designed for thrusting.
>certainly don't beat swords.
They very much do thanks to the multiplied power afforded by leverage. Not to mention it can be done at various ranges and angles, something a sword since it's not a polearm.
>Not necessarily better than a sword, either.
Wrong. Extremely better than a sword. Once again, thanks to leverage.
>There's a reason why knives were worn in day to day activities instead of swords.
There's a reason why travellers and explorers carried swords instead of spears, especially if they also had firearms or other ranged weapons.
Throw in motorcycles and martial arts and I am ready to buy your premise, no questions asked.
>There's a reason why travellers and explorers carried swords instead of spears
Prove it.
>put emphasis on survival elements
>make ranged, melee, and unarmed rock-paper-scissor each other
>use good visual language when GMing
All you need. I ran a shitty homebrew of the Power Armor CYOA for a while, and one of my players had cloaking camo + claws + a plasma bow-- that's it. He was oft indispensable to the group. It's all in how you use it. Having an in-universe explanation is just cake.
No u.
>make ranged, melee, and unarmed rock-paper-scissor each other
How do you work unarmed combat into this? I'm inclined to believe it's inferior to any use of a weapon, ranged or otherwise. That's the whole point of using a weapon.
>motorcycles
Pleb tier, pic related.
>martial arts
Any setting that has swords also deserves fancy, acrobatic ways of using those swords. Gritty realism a shit, cinematic storytelling 4 lyfe.
>Any setting that has swords also deserves fancy, acrobatic ways of using those swords. Gritty realism a shit, cinematic storytelling 4 lyfe.
Mah nigga.
I'm reading The Night Land right now, and I think it handles the concept pretty well, though idk how well it would work in your setting. Basically it's not so much a resource issue as it is using guns can be loud, and it often attracts attention to the creatures outside of human civilization, so there's not really any point in taking out a creature far away if you are attracting thousands more to your location. That's not to say there aren't quiet guns and shit, but it's a pretty good excuse if you're looking for one.
In my setting, earth's military opted to use swords against the extraterrestrial menace for one reason and one reason only.
They don't like it up em
>cloaking camo, fuck, just plain camo and a slow and steady sneak
That's how. Pretty hard to shoot those rad guns with a punctured lung from a very close distance that you did not see coming.
My setting has strange, golem-like watchmen that roam around enforcing laws not one of them has ever bothered to disclose.
What is clear is that they hate guns and the people who make and use them with a passion, probably because high-velocity projectiles are the only way humans could conceivably threaten them.
>cloaking camo and a knife
>cloaking camo and a gun
Unless your camo M A G I C A L L Y makes all weapons useless when turned on, i see no reason being unarmed.
Why are they exploring on foot?
That's somewhat similar to the situation in The Night Land, though it's more implied that the large golem esque creatures are summoning monsters when they see humans leaving their refuge or using heavy weaponry.
Sounds bretty cool, user
Fun fact; when you don't have to mass produce things for millions of soldiers, you can choose other options.
For the sake of theming. Players don't tug on that thread if exploring on foot is F U N.
>travelers can't always expect to have a reliable source of ammo.
You mean the power cells for your most basic lasguns don't gain enough energy to vaporize a cubic meter of steel per shot for hundreds of shots just by leaving it outside in Terra-comparable sunlight for ten hours?
Get a load of this caveman who still believes conservation of energy is real!
Ugh. Don't.
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What if it makes the user intangible as well as invisible, but only works for a short time and works on a limited resource, so it must be used sparingly?
This fits in your pocket
As for
>modern equipment and understanding
If there are guns, theres gunpowder. If theres gunpowder, then SOMEONE knows how to make the holy black. It wouldnt be hard to teach everyone how to make it, its three ingredients, one of which is made in the human body, and one of which is trees. Sieve, corn, grind. Boom, you have blackpowder. Soldiers in the civil war cast their own projectiles.
>w..w.well /k/ says...
Yes, they did say it was easy, because it is. Stop being buttblasted you dont get to hang with the big boys.
The kind of projectiles you can cast yourself are not the kind of projectiles you use with that gadget.
And having two of the three required ingredients of a concoction is nice, but it's still not enough.
You don't even need to cast bullets. It was common for soldiers to carry a small length of lead bar and just cut it into bullet sized chunks.
Works pretty well too.
Spears are best in Mass formation, in a one-on-one or small group fight it is trivially easy to get past the tip of a spear, rendering it worse than useless. A sword is sharp along it's entire length, except the handle; even the pommel and crossguard can be used as a hammer head, if they aren't also spiked. Spears we're widely used because they are cheap to produce, use less precious metal resources, and are easy to use in formation fighting. In other contexts other weapons are superior, hence their existence.
Yeah, for relatively unreliable rifles of an entirely different type than you'd use with a loader like the one posted. Museum pieces.
>in a one-on-one or small group fight it is trivially easy to get past the tip of a spear
lol this retard.
Let me guess. You're gonna cut the tip of the spear off too, aren't you.
If you go for it for thematic reasons that's well and good, but realistically a sword wouldn't be too great for an explorer in most cases.
The first thing to consider would be what dangers there are. Are wild animals a problem, single humanoids/intelligent enemies or things like organised bands of enemies?
A sword would be the best solution only in the last scenario.
Another point would be price:
A sword is more expensive then an axe is more expensive then a stick
Then theres secondary uses to consider as well, which the sword lacks, too.
And then theres the fact of course the fact that guns do exist, and taking that into consideration i really can't make a case for a sword at all:
An explorer would be ten times better off not buying a sword but getting a pistol and ammo as backup for the situations were a sword could be useful and carrying a big stick the rest of the time. If you are frugal with your ammo it can last you a really long time.
Sci fi have zero issues with swords and other melee weapons. It's fantasy fags who REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE at the mere mention of guns
I'm not the user you've been going back and forth with but the average sword Is shit as a close combat weapon, they were mostly carried ceremoniously as a mark of honor or acheivement, only ever used as a backup weapon. It's a sharp metal stick, every other weapon Is a metal stick with sharp parts, as well as a hell of a lot of improvements.
If infrastructure wasn't there for cartridge firearms muzzleloaders would return.
Could a spear be used as a walking stick?
No, you deflect the tip and charge forward.
>Can a wooden pole with a spike be used as a walking stick.
Yes.
>deflect the tip
>of the guy with overwhelming leverage
>charge forward
>he's standing 7ft away and can adjust his grip instantly
>There's a reason why knives were worn in day to day activities instead of swords.
That's bullshit though, swords have been a common fashion accessory in quite a few cultures over the year.
Piece of advice: don't talk when you don't know shit
>deflect the tip
>he's using his weapon with two hand, have more leverage, and need a flick of the wrist to realign, attack you head to foot, left to right, and only need to slide his hand to close distance
yeah, just deflect it man, what can go wrong
Bullshit. People would just revert back to paper cartridges.
Paper cartridges were used for muzzleloaders for the most of their existence. Needle rifles a shit too.
>Paper cartridges were used for muzzleloaders for the most of their existence.
Yeah. Until breechloaders became common. Hurrrrr
I've been training with a spear for about 6 months and I would love to see someone with a sword/axe/1000 fold katana try and deflect my spear and charge forward.
Yes, but there were a few breechloaders that used paper cartridges; these were phased out quickly though as the metallic cartridge was used instead.
They were mostly used with muzzleloaders so I don't see why you're going 'Huuuuurrrr" when you're the one acting like a retard, implying that people would use needle rifles and such which are unreliable, especially if we're at such an industiral level that metallic cartridges can't be made and reloaded (the only component needed that would be hard to acquire would be the primers themselves; they're pretty light and easy to carry a ton of though, so I can easilly see someone with say, metallic shotgun cartridges and a revolver using blackpowder and cast slugs and a hand-loading die press).
>six months
Wooooooow six whole months! No one can ever best such a warrior!
It doesn't matter you retard. You said
>If infrastructure wasn't there for cartridge firearms muzzleloaders would return.
That's fucking wrong. If they couldn't make metal cartridges, they would just use breech loading paper cartridges. They wouldn't return colonial times and start pushing raw blackpowder down their barrel to shoot one shot per half minute. Stop being dumb. If that you mean you have to stop posting, then by all means.
Breechloading paper cartridges means they have the industiral base to make breechloaders and the parts for them; it's a very heavy industrial requirement to put out a breechloader due to the tolerances and the strength of the steel; to make them en-masse implies even more industry. Even more so for needle rifles, the most common paper cartidge firearms because they needed replacement parts constantly as the needles constantly broke. If they can make breechloaders well enough that they can make them the de-facto gun, they can make metallic cartridges and primers.
>strength of the steel and action
Fixed.
Also not all muzzleloaders are single shot, revolers, harmonica guns, etc all were muzzleloaders and all used paper cartridges
Also You do realise that paper cartridges were use for single shot muzzleloaders for centuries, right? It's not just used in breech loading firearms.
Also colonial times? Muzzleloading firearms were the de-facto military arm up until the 1860s.
That's hilarious; you don't know shit and you're telling him to shut up?
>Breechloading paper cartridges means they have the industiral base to make breechloaders and the parts for them
So? It's the same for any gun. If you think muzzleloaders are simpler enough to the point that you don't need infrastructure to make adequate firearms, you should stop posting.
No shit, dumbass. We're talking a fantasy world with limited gun technology due to decentralized civilization despite being futuristic.
Colonial times began in the 15th century.
You; should; stop; that; obvious; tick;
A fantasy world with limited gun technology that yet can develop paper cartridge breechloader as opposed to despite the fact that would actually require more expenditure and labour than making metallic cartridges which could be made once and then reloaded constantly as opposed to simple muzzleloaders which were what people living in decentralized civilizations used up until the turn of the 19th and 20th century where the proliferation and mass production of cartridge based firearms pushed them further ahead and many bought firearms from industrial powers.
You also have a hangup about blackpowder despite the fact that paper cartridges really wouldn't work with smokeless powders and need sophisticated chemical and industrial processes to make while anyone with time and know-how can make and mill blackpowder; it won't be fantastic, but it will work. Alternatively one can make guncotton.
Also 'colonial times' is mostly used in the US and commonly refers to the 18th century pre-independence period; other people would just say early modern. No one would refer to the 15th century as 'colonial times': that's the late medieval period,
So not only do you not understand industry, gunsmithing, metallurgy, chemistry, economic and firearms, you're also ignorant about history. Good to know!
Also I never said you don't need ANY infrastructure, only it is vastly more easier to make a muzzleloading firearm with much more primitive infrastructure and tooling; the proliferation of gunsmiths in the late medieval period show this, while breechloaders only got widespread adaption and commercial success as reliable firearms in the late 19th century.
>IF YOU CAN MAKE A MUZZLELOADER, YOU CAN MAKE A BREECHLOADER!
>BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE METALLIC CARTRIDGES
You are HELLA retarded.
Look at this idiot and laugh. Holy fuck.
>IT'S A LOW INDUSTRY SETTING! BUT EVERYONE HAS BREECHLOADERS! BUT NO METALLIC CARTRIDGES.
Just admit you don't know shit about how to make guns.
Depends on the sword. A large machete starts to look like a falchion-type deal pretty quickly.
In places where there's no infrastructure for a regular supply of cartridges, people haven't reverted to muzzle loaders. They simply make do with a smaller supply of ammo and stab each other whenever it's convenient.
>No shit, dumbass. We're talking a fantasy world with limited gun technology due to decentralized civilization despite being futuristic
This is OP. No we ain't. Guns are well-developed and widespread in civilized parts of the world.
It's just that, unlike earth, fantasyland still has massive (some say infinite) tracts of terra incognita, with no infrastructure or civilization of any kind.
Why not spears? Why not MACHETES? If you're crossing a vast tract of terra incognita you'll probably have vegetation blocking your path at least once.
Machetes are basically swords, bruv.
Jazz them up with a crossguard because it's fashionable or w/e and bob's your uncle.
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@57518821
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@57518857
If you have 18th-19th century level metals, then it is equally as feasible to create breech loading firearms as muzzle loading firearms. The setting is futuristic, there is no possible explanation for muzzle loaders except rule of cool. Stop spamming for (You)s.
You have to go back.
Why not bayonets?
wew please kill yourself jesus christ
You have to pick; either people have muzzleloaders or they have metallic cartridge breachloaders.
Wow, this reasonably pleasant thread got shit up pretty quickly.
I agree that spears would be more common, particularly considering that we're talking about hostile alien fauna here. That doesn't mean swords would go unused if you some here and there for flavor.
I think that hand loading would probably be important here as well and should factor in, possibly with weapons designed for such, but agree with the assertion that conservation would take precedence.
Thing is a spear is easier to train and be decent at. Swords take a lot of work to get good. Both are hard to master but one is easier to learn. Plus spear has a massive leverage bonus.
Bullshit. You can use black powder with breechloading so long as you can produce metal screws with basic machining. The only reason things were ever muzzleloaded was because they had difficulty making good enough seals without machining.
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The sad part is the writer of this bad post (You) doesn't know the first thing about Roman military of any time period. This is the historical equivalent of broscience.
I guess he forgot about the pilum?
Swords and muskets exploring weird alien landscapes with strange creatures and magic sounds great.
I think your idea is great OP, why do you care what other people think?
In my setting, everyone arguing over weaponry dies because none of them listened to the biologist about edible plant life.
None of you understand how spears actually work in practice. "Deflect the tip" guy is actually sort of right, except even he's thinking about a guy standing way back and poking at you, which is wrong. Fighting with a spear is actually the exact same as fighting with a staff (which is more similar to fighting with a sword than you'd expect), with the exception that killing your opponent once he's on the ground is much faster and more consistent.
I suppose you just deflect the tip, grab the pole and yank the spearman down to the ground for the finishing blow amirite
No, you just stand there and let him kill you because the spear is the ultimate killing machine and weaponlets simply can't compete.
You will never have anything to legitimately justify why swords are viable weapons anymore, the average soldier carries over 200 rounds of ammunition, a basic traveler who wouldn't have to use guns too often could make that last for months, more than enough time between ports/shops.
If you want a sci-fi setting with guns, just do it and stop pretending there's actual logic behind it.
Bouncing ideas off each other is usually productive.
If anal retentive assholes don't get bogged down with massively specific details about certain types of weapons based on incorrect inferences about a setting.
It feels like they're arguing middle-eastern insurgents and somalian pirates should be using muzzle-loading museum pieces in the absence of a widespread formal infrastructure for distributing guns and ammo, since they're apparently the easiest thing ever for DIY types to make themselves, even on the road. Pro-est of tips: They don't. They make do with what modern, cartridge-based weapons they can get on an unreliable black market.
>a basic traveler who wouldn't have to use guns too often could make that last for months, more than enough time between ports/shops
That would be a boring-ass adventure.
If a party of four with 200-300 rounds each could take down an alien beast in only one or two shots, they could last a long time.
Hell, even if they couldn't they'd still use guns primarily and keep melee weapons as a secondary at best.
I bet you could pierce slabs of solid steel with your spear.
I’d shove my sword right up your asshole you smug uppity-bitch
Deflect my tip, fagmo.
I solved that one with portable energy fields that can stop small stuff like bullets and arrows but cant do jack against something bigger like swords and maces, over time guns were relegated to tasks such as hunting and ceremonies.