The latest batch of gold order weapons was rather, well, boring. Visually the guns look neat, but gameplay wise they are mostly slightly worse versions of existing smgs, and seriously, why are all of them smgs?! I think it would also work to move beyond old or prototype military hardware for these things. They sort of represent found, rare, or personal weapons that soliders have, so why not fancy sporting weapons like the Italian Cosmi, or other random civilian weapons that have no direct military ties but would have been available at the time?
Would love to hear what other ideas people have for this, either general categories or specific weapons.
None of hte gold weapons are eral exciting - some of htem are a bit derp, occasionally useful (Pederson device ant rifle, RMN50) - mostly I don’t bother buying them
Do you have any specific examples of possible gold order weapons that would excite you, or some general benchmark for it? Personally there are a fair few I am plenty fond of, just not so much this last batch, so I’m curious if there is anything particularly cool that I am unaware of that could fit the bill.
The ones I find useful are exactly that - useful - like hte Pedersons and hte RMN50 - they provide a unique little capability that doesn’t exist elsewhere.
Things liek the Berdan and GW1888 are derp, but that’s never excited me, and as you have found the SMG’s are just more SNG’s.
Trouble with the gold weapon system is that it relies upon continually finding new weapons to supply - whcih means we are just going to get wierd and wonderful, with occasinally something that provides something a bit different in the game.
Lots of premium squad weapons would have fitted being Gold better IMO - eg the Charlton automatic rifle , the PPK - a couple of these for the British -
So IMO “Gold” should be stuff that only a few were ever made of and/or never issued - so you get 1 per army for interest sake.
Premium should be stuff that existed in small numbers but enough to be sent for trials or issued to 2nd line units.
Gold order weapons should be unique and rare prototype weapons.
I have a couple to name:
LAD machine gun
Grossfuss Sturmgewehr
AT-44 (AVT chambered for 7.62x39 - analog to the Gewehr 43 kurz)
Hyde 1944 assault rifle
Prilutsky-44
Walther Karabiner 45
Bulkin AB-44
And now my favourite the Ampulomet - an ampule thrower which launched a 125 mm incendiary projectile made of spherical glass at 50 m/s, the mixture had a similar effect to napalm.
i think gold order weapons should focus more on being truly unique, with less regard for being actually good/useful- berdan/rmn
while premiums can be more generic as long as they are actually good
Broadly I think gold order weapons can fall into three categories: Weapons that don’t handle like anything else in the game, but are realistically ineffective weapons; Weapons that don’t handle like anything else in the game and offer meaningful new capabilities that make them at least occasionally the best choice; and weapons that largely handle a lot like existing guns.
The berdan II I’d put in the first category, since its obviously a very silly gun that isn’t really the best choice ever, even if I think its properties make it usable. The RMN50, g43k, and penderson I think fit into the second, which I think is the ideal place for these guns. They are cool and distinct, and while not the best things ever, they have situations where they shine that other weapons don’t. Then there is the 3rd category, which is where I think basically all of the smgs go, as well as guns like the Pavesi.
The third one is I think the area that should be avoided when possible, since the only interest they can really provide is either visual, like the prototype ppd, or by just being generally stronger than the other options, like the Pavesi. Personally I also enjoy the category 1 weapons, because I like killing people with derp, but I can accept difference of opinion here.
The thing with a lot of the military trials weapons is that they tend to be in that 3rd category. They were trying to do the same thing as the weapon that succeeded, so they are going to have a lot of similarities.
Also, I don’t think real world availability is a great metric for premium vs gold vs standard. The Armageurra for example was produced in tiny numbers, with only around 100 or so ever made. But the italians didn’t exaclty ever mass produce any semi auto rifle, so it would be a shame to throw it behind a gold order or premium squad when it was an entierly reasonable weapon and the only real option to fill that niche in Tunisia. Personally I’d prefer the determination to be more “How weird to use is this gun” than “how many were made”.
my ideas for GO guns:
c96 carbine or schnellfeuer(maybe schnellfeuer carbine if those ever existed)
de lisle carbine- a fast firing bolt action that is more accurate when hipfiring
Tunisia-Axis-Breda M1935 PG. Italian models were semi only but the Costa Rican model had a 4–rd. burst at ~600 RPM. 20-round mags of i think 6.5 carcano.
Moscow-Allies-Maxim-Tokarev LMG, first domestically produced Soviet LMG with 100 round belts.
Moscow-Axis-Mauser M1916, 25-shot semi rifle from WWI era.
Better: Mad Jack’s claymore! I’m even ready to drop my primary rifle for it!