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A new weapon suggestion...


Icewind

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What you need to remember when you fighting a zombie?  That even, a slightest infected scratch may kill you. No matter how strong you are or how many you already killed or what a great fortress you have…. A single tiny scratch can infect you. And you finished.

 

So, the main goal when you fight a zombie is to keep him as far from you as possible. That’s why guns are so great! – but the downside of guns is that they loud. You easily kill one zombie but you calling 100 more to your location. And bullets of course… there’s never enough….

 

 

So, my suggestion is to create a SPEAR!

It is very easy to craft! I mean, all you need is a long enough stick, a simple kitchen knife and some bandages to bind them together. Any plank would work fine and there is so many knifes in game.

The advantage of this weapon, as I said, is its hitting range. I guess it will be twice greater distance than a normal baseball bat swing hit.

Oh, and there better be a different character animation for that… its not an axe slashing type of strike – it have to be some piercing lunge forward hit… It won't knock zombie to the ground (well, it can, but not that often like a baseball bat) but it will push them back, away from you. (and give them some damage of course) Good for a distance control.

The disadvantage of this weapon, is its low durability… The durability of all knifes is pretty low… But the advantage is that you can create many spears, easily from common materials.

 

 

Advantage:

1)      Easy to craft.

2)      The longest hit range melee weapon.

3)      Pushing zombies away from you.

 

Disadvantage:

1)      Low durability.

 

 

 

I am reading the forum now and I see that people have already suggested spears, many times… (sorry)

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for killing zombies, i would say a spear would be possibly the last "weapon" i would ever reach for. why would a zombie care if i stick him in the shoulder, stomach or even the neck and cause damage? he'll just keep coming until the brain is destroyed.

 

and an NPC that tries to get me with a spear won't be much of a threat as i break it with my bat, crowbar or axe...or just blow him away with my pistol. the problem , as i see it, with a long handled weapon is that once the target is close to you, the spear becomes pointless.

 

and by the time you magically switch weapons to one more suited for close range combat, you're already screwed.

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Spear in one form or the other was one of the most used weapons before the gun. In the middle ages army's ware mostly made up of spear men. It took training to learn to use a sword or a bow. But the spear is easy to use and it is realy the meaning of the pointing end goes in to the target. Now spears are easy to make but it be nice if they had better spears as you get better at making them.

 

Now the biggest down side to a spear is that zombies do not care that someone has pushed a spear in to them. They will just pull them self's down the shaft till they get to the meat at the other end(this means you). Now there was a hunting spear called a boar spear. that had a cross guard behind the point to keep boar from working there way along to the spear man.

 

Anyway spear is a good idea for a weapon that is easy to make and use by anyone.

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I disagree! Spear is a good weapon against a zombie. (yes, I agree that axe is much better) but, spear is good in a different way.

 

why would a zombie care if i stick him in the shoulder, stomach or even the neck and cause damage? he'll just keep coming until the brain is destroyed.

 

Well??  Why then you are aiming to his stomach?  Aim to his head!!

Zombies are slow and clumsy! They don’t even try to evade your hits – just aim and strike!

 

and an NPC that tries to get me with a spear won't be much of a threat as i break it with my bat, crowbar or axe...or just blow him away with my pistol. the problem , as i see it, with a long handled weapon is that once the target is close to you, the spear becomes pointless.

 

But I am not suggesting to fight with spear against NPC with other weapons… of course axe, gun or a bazooka is much better. I am suggesting to fight a zombie.

And the main purpose of this weapon is to hit him at the maximum (melee weapon) long range and push him back.

 

Of course, you have to choose the weapon carefully to each occasion… you don’t want to enter a narrow corridor or a tiny bathroom with a spear or a baseball bat... I always take a good knife when I am opening a bathroom doors… if couple of zombies jumping out on me – only a knife is fast enough to kill them with one \ two hits.

 

But when you outside on an open road, in my opinion - spear is excellent!

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for killing zombies, i would say a spear would be possibly the last "weapon" i would ever reach for. why would a zombie care if i stick him in the shoulder, stomach or even the neck and cause damage? he'll just keep coming until the brain is destroyed.

 

and an NPC that tries to get me with a spear won't be much of a threat as i break it with my bat, crowbar or axe...or just blow him away with my pistol. the problem , as i see it, with a long handled weapon is that once the target is close to you, the spear becomes pointless.

 

and by the time you magically switch weapons to one more suited for close range combat, you're already screwed.

What?

 

There's a reason why the spear has been the go to infantry weapon for centuries. That long reach is a huge advantage. Anything that comes within eight or nine feet of you is well within the radius of your reach or, as I like to call it, the murder circle. I also find it difficult to believe that the technique known as Readjusting My Grip On My Weapon™ is so difficult to master as to render closer range combat impossible. By the time you've gotten close enough to attempt to break the haft of the spear with your bat or axe, you've already given the spear wielder multiple tries at filling your vital organs full of piercing steel. Even then, you'd probably only succeed in breaking the spear if the guy holding it was stupid enough to hold it flat out and let you smack it dead center where you can apply the most force, instead of doing the more obvious thing and rolling the spear with the hits to deflect most of the force away from the haft.

 

The piercing attack of the spear is highly damaging against mortal foes. All it takes is one good stab in the torso and you're basically dead, thanks to the high odds of it hitting any one of the vital organs keeping you alive. Thanks to the larger murder circle the spear possesses in comparison to the bat, axe, or knife any attempt to attack a spear user within the range of your own murder circle is giving the spear guy multiple attempts at attacking you as you try to close the range, especially if he's mastered the highly difficult Readjusting My Grip On My Weapon™ skill that I mentioned above, wherein he places his hands higher up on the spear allowing him to attack you at closer range so you're always at optimal stabbing distance.

 

 

or just blow him away with my pistol.

If the other half of your argument is this, then you're basically saying that every melee weapon in the game is pointless against guns. While true, it's not a good argument against including more melee weapons.

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Actually I think there's another point to spears actually; yes, they might be ineffective in

direct combat, but they keep the enemy on distance, so a zombie might not be killed

instantly, but you can keep it on distance, and with a few more attacks it could be killed.

 

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What I want to emphasize is the distance aspect regarding defence, since you could use

spears to build whole walls and barricades out of it á la TWD and stuff

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Why were they slicing with it?! A spear is a stabbing weapon. If you're gonna be fighting a zombie, you gotta make a stabbing motion for the eyes. That knife is much too large. It'd serve better as a slicing weapon in its own right rather than taping it to a broom handle. They should have gone with something slimmer. And why the hell were they using a metal broom handle?! Those things are hollow and easily bent. Use an old fashioned wooden broom handle or go out into the woods and get yourself a sturdy stick. Split it at the end, remove the knife blade from the handle and place it within the split. Then tie the split end together with some good twine. You'd have yourself a perfectly good zombie murder pole if you did that instead of listening to these two.

 

These guys are idiots. They've wasted a perfectly good knife and duct tape.

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Why were they slicing with it?! A spear is a stabbing weapon. If you're gonna be fighting a zombie, you gotta make a stabbing motion for the eyes. That knife is much too large. It'd serve better as a slicing weapon in its own right rather than taping it to a broom handle. They should have gone with something slimmer. And why the hell were they using a metal broom handle?! Those things are hollow and easily bent. Use an old fashioned wooden broom handle or go out into the woods and get yourself a sturdy stick. Split it at the end, remove the knife blade from the handle and place it within the split. Then tie the split end together with some good twine. You'd have yourself a perfectly good zombie murder pole if you did that instead of listening to these two.

 

These guys are idiots. They've wasted a perfectly good knife and duct tape.

 

Good thing i am not the only one thinking that they should have taken a wooden broom handle and ask why the hell are you slicing it insted of STABING it.

 

I mean, if a screwdriver can kill a zombie in the game, a kitchen knife lets say strapped to a broom stick, should be able to stab a zombie thought the neck to the brain or just go for the head (this is more hard since you are not using all the force possible, maybe a more decay zombie type)

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I'd wager a spear isn't the best zombie fighting weapon possible, but it could still perform well if you're accurate enough to reliably hit the eyes. Or if you modded it and added a crossbar, you could stab them in the chest and hold them in place while a buddy moves in from the side and smashes them in the face with a hammer. Would be excellent home defense in that situation, as the zed being held in place would block the door or window it's trying to come through.

 

I think the area the spear would best shine in is anti human fighting. The length of the weapon puts its user well outside the attack range of other melee weapons and deals vital, organ destroying piercing damage. Disastrous to any living target.

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I think people are not seeing the point. A knife taped to a broom stick is not great and point out by the OP but it a great stop gap weapon. You could have a knife to fight zed's with or you could have a knife 5 feet in front of you. Even I can say in a pinch I would tap a knife to a stick for range. But later I would pull the hands off the knife use the tang to mount it in a bigger stick(like the poll they use to hold up small trees, a pip, or the bamboo poll off a tiki lamp.) with nuts and bolts. I may wrap it with wire as well as duct tap just to make it stronger. I would also sharpen it as well as add a cross guard to keep the zeds at range. But I am a tool user I would make a weapon out of it.

 

But this in game would take time and tools. this is why like the nail bat you need tool to make a bat better. It would be the same for the spear. Hall call the first one "a knife on a stick" call the later better made one a spear.

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I think the spear idea should be added but needs to be expanded to include different "grades" so to speak of quality and damage.  A knife duct taped to a broom handle will have the lowest durability, while a sharpened screwdriver welded to a metal pole will have the highest durability.  perhaps the spear idea could be based off of cooking food, and have different qualities and grades for the materials that one uses, but it could be too difficult to code in.  

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for killing zombies, i would say a spear would be possibly the last "weapon" i would ever reach for. why would a zombie care if i stick him in the shoulder, stomach or even the neck and cause damage? he'll just keep coming until the brain is destroyed.

 

and an NPC that tries to get me with a spear won't be much of a threat as i break it with my bat, crowbar or axe...or just blow him away with my pistol. the problem , as i see it, with a long handled weapon is that once the target is close to you, the spear becomes pointless.

 

and by the time you magically switch weapons to one more suited for close range combat, you're already screwed.

What?

 

There's a reason why the spear has been the go to infantry weapon for centuries. That long reach is a huge advantage. Anything that comes within eight or nine feet of you is well within the radius of your reach or, as I like to call it, the murder circle. I also find it difficult to believe that the technique known as Readjusting My Grip On My Weapon™ is so difficult to master as to render closer range combat impossible. By the time you've gotten close enough to attempt to break the haft of the spear with your bat or axe, you've already given the spear wielder multiple tries at filling your vital organs full of piercing steel. Even then, you'd probably only succeed in breaking the spear if the guy holding it was stupid enough to hold it flat out and let you smack it dead center where you can apply the most force, instead of doing the more obvious thing and rolling the spear with the hits to deflect most of the force away from the haft.

 

The piercing attack of the spear is highly damaging against mortal foes. All it takes is one good stab in the torso and you're basically dead, thanks to the high odds of it hitting any one of the vital organs keeping you alive. Thanks to the larger murder circle the spear possesses in comparison to the bat, axe, or knife any attempt to attack a spear user within the range of your own murder circle is giving the spear guy multiple attempts at attacking you as you try to close the range, especially if he's mastered the highly difficult Readjusting My Grip On My Weapon™ skill that I mentioned above, wherein he places his hands higher up on the spear allowing him to attack you at closer range so you're always at optimal stabbing distance.

 

 

won't try to argue against any of your points, you're absolutely right......but there's that one line there...... "The piercing attack of the spear is highly damaging against mortal foes"....see that's the one that makes a spear the last weapon i use when trying to kill an undead ZOMBIE. i know how effective spears have been in historic battles, and the Murder Circle is truth indeed. but against a zombie........i'd rather put some distance between me and him before i try to go thru the eye socket to penetrate the brain.

 

remember, we are not dealing with real life here, we are working with the in game mechanics. and when i said that by the time you switch to a new weapon i could have already killed you, it's true. weapons take X amount of time to switch over, which gives the other player time to administer the Killing Blow. and as we all know, there is no in game mechanic for readjusting the grip, only to unequip, equip with both hands, equip as primary or equip as secondary. i REALLY should have been more clear in my reply......but i failed at that.

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Fair enough. That isn't to say that the devs couldn't modify the combat a little bit so that the character holding the spear automatically adjusts their grip to compensate for range. Hold at the very end for far away targets. Hold at both ends for medium distance targets. Hold at both ends and across your torso for better defense when fighting against close range opponents. But that all depends on how the devs decide to handle the combat system and how in depth they wanna get with it.

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  • 8 months later...

Here is a very good use for spears. Your house is surrounded by zombies, and your heavy strong doors are bolted shut, so there is no risk of the zombies reducing them to a plank and hinges and knob. Your windows are barricaded so that the zombies cannot climb through, but you can still see them through the gaps. You pick up your spear, and thrust it through a gap into a zombie's head and pull it out again. You keep doing this until you no longer see any zombies standing at your windows. You then go upstairs and lean out of the windows to make sure. You then clean your spear, wearing heavy gloves for fear of cuts, and leaving it in a rack leave your house through your fortified porch to drag the bodies away.

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I can see adding such a spear, but not making it useful. Essentially you just ruined a perfectly good broom and knife to make a weapon that's pretty much guarenteed to break on the first thrust.

Not meaning to be disrespectful, but I feel a lot of suggestions like this and craftable bows are by people who haven't been scientific (stupid) enough to actually try it. Making any kind of hand to hand weapon that involves tying things together is a recipe for disaster. As soon as that knife meets a zombie skull, the first thing its going to do is wriggle its way out of its fastenings and come bouncing back at you.

Hell, even using a knife is a terrible idea. A knife is very much not a spear point, and WILL shatter if it experiences trauma. Go outside, sit in the street, and slam a steak knife down on the concrete like your trying to kill it (please don't actually do it) I guarentee you the knife (and you) will suddenly be having a very bad day.

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I can see adding such a spear, but not making it useful. Essentially you just ruined a perfectly good broom and knife to make a weapon that's pretty much guarenteed to break on the first thrust.

Not meaning to be disrespectful, but I feel a lot of suggestions like this and craftable bows are by people who haven't been scientific (stupid) enough to actually try it. Making any kind of hand to hand weapon that involves tying things together is a recipe for disaster. As soon as that knife meets a zombie skull, the first thing its going to do is wriggle its way out of its fastenings and come bouncing back at you.

Hell, even using a knife is a terrible idea. A knife is very much not a spear point, and WILL shatter if it experiences trauma. Go outside, sit in the street, and slam a steak knife down on the concrete like your trying to kill it (please don't actually do it) I guarentee you the knife (and you) will suddenly be having a very bad day.

 

Well said, kitchen or hunting knives are too flimsy to be used as spear heads. Strong vibration would break the tip very easily, just like dropping a kitchen knife on the floor.

 

Using these blades as spear tips is very ineffective as they're not directly connected to the stick/ staff like real metal spear tips. Even if the blades are super-sturdy, some of the thrusting power would be absorbed by the duct tape as the blade is attached to the side or the stick and it's not completely straight. 

 

Spears should be added to the game, but only as an improvised tool for fishing. You know, the shapened + fire-hardened tree branch kind of stuff.

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I think that there should be a new range of thrusting weapons. Basically weapons that you use with the spear stabbing action.

Sharpened stick

Improvised spear

Broom

Garden fork

Pitchfork

Chair ?

Sharp = more damage

Blunt = more knock back

They could generally have low damage but good range. The most important thing with this type of weapon is the speed at which you can thrust compared to swing. Thrusting is a lot quicker than swinging.

They would be used to push zombies back to keep them at range with multiple quick thrusts. This would keep you at a safe range. I would also make them not very good at short range.

(the chair would be picked up like a dead zombie etc)

I feel like this game really needs this type of weapon. They might be held up by animations and stuff?

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Well, I don't really know how effective a spear really would be, but I do want to reply to "you just wasted a perfectly good broom and knife".

 

1)  There are no current uses for a broom/mop, therefore you really can't "waste" one.

2) I have 37 knifes after 4 days of looting, I think I can spare...oh, say, a dozen for a spear.

3) We already have an option to craft a lance with tree material, so give us the option to create something with household goods.

4) Since it hasn't been said yet, here's a good use for it.  Use the "split wooden shaft with knife in the split" spear, with a rock or heavy weight attached to it, and while you're up on a crafted 2nd floor/platform, use the weighted spear to stab directly down into the Zed's heads.  I wouldn't even use a knife, I'd rather use a screwdriver or something with good skull-penetrating properties.  At least that way you have a way to get away when you're overrun with "homing zombies' and the "tremor zombies" (like in the movie tremors, where the worms could sense you so they stuck around and never left until you died.  The Zeds never leave your safe-house area so long as you're still there, zero migration)

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Why were they slicing with it?! A spear is a stabbing weapon. If you're gonna be fighting a zombie, you gotta make a stabbing motion for the eyes. That knife is much too large. It'd serve better as a slicing weapon in its own right rather than taping it to a broom handle. They should have gone with something slimmer. And why the hell were they using a metal broom handle?! Those things are hollow and easily bent. Use an old fashioned wooden broom handle or go out into the woods and get yourself a sturdy stick. Split it at the end, remove the knife blade from the handle and place it within the split. Then tie the split end together with some good twine. You'd have yourself a perfectly good zombie murder pole if you did that instead of listening to these two.

 

These guys are idiots. They've wasted a perfectly good knife and duct tape.

With that length, i think the blade would have just popped off and hurt someone. If a spear can't stand a slash, i don't think it's gonna make it past a lunge.

 

(Sorry for the late response :c)

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The biggest problem would be a miss, hitting organs that zeds don't need.

 

Here's why:

 

Facestab: Dead zed

Neckstab: Dead? I'm not sure. Either dead or paralyzed.

Cheststab: Spearbreak, or worse, get it caught in the ribs.

Stomachstab: Ouch. Zed just works it's way down the grip to eat your face.

 

Here's what would make it awesome:

 

Adding a cross-guard. These were added to boar spears in the middle ages to prevent non-lethal thrusts against dangerous animals turning into a lethal thrust for the hunter. If a boar is speared, but not dead, they can and will gore you by just powering along the spear. They don't f**king care. Hunters added a simple bar to prevent this from happening. It's pretty simple.

 

This would prevent chest stabs from getting stuck, as they don't go in deep enough for that to happen. It also prevents zombies from moving down the grip, unless they're rotted so much that the skin just "peels" away. It would only take a tiny bit of extra duct tape and wood.

 

My added extra  :-D .

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If I was going to make a spear that I was planning on using for some zombie slaying, I'd put a LOT more effort into it than those guys on that video did. At the very MINIMUM, I'd find a long slender trunk and carve it into a sharp, fire hardened point that I could use to stab into the zombie skull. That alone would be far more effective than the "knife+broom" that they did in the video.

 

If I had time to prepare and the proper materials, I'd put a lot more effort into it. I'd go out and find myself some manner of metal. Preferably eighteen inches long. I would then grind the first six inches to a point slim enough to pierce an eye socket but still thick enough to maintain its form under stress. I'd then take the file and grind a number of notches into the remaining twelve inches. I might go for anywhere between three or six. I will then carve an equal measure of notches into the slender trunk I mentioned above. If I'm going all out, I may even carve a slight, twelve inch long groove into the opposite side for the metal to rest in. I'd then take some twine and, lining the notches in the trunk and metal up with each other, fasten it together as tight as possible. THEN I would apply the duct tape, if only as an added measure to help absorb shock and hold the spear head in place. If I didn't have the duct tape, I'd likely apply an extra layer of twine over the haft of the spear from the bottom of the metal all along the twelve inches where it meets the wood.

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