Flashlight Attachment

[Viceroy]

An after-market flashlight attachment or a duct-taped flashlight to a shotgun. It is ridiculously simple to do and something EVERYONE would think of at some point.

 

Simply shining light upon a target is already a massive boost to your aiming ability in darkness at short range.

 

The means of attaching it would certainly fall inside the 'Everyman' theme of zomboid. And without having to overcomplicate things, duct-tape is a good means of strapping a light to something, and arguing the size of the flashlight when the game concedes to giving it only one battery is besides the point, apart from that you do get flashlights designed specifically to be mounted on weapons, and flashlights are certainly more abundant than shotgun chokes or fibreglass stocks.

 

I feel it will be a worthwhile addition to the game, one that could bolster a weapon in the darkness and aid in exploration and looting in the dark. It could even be used to flash on and off to signal other members outside a building without speaking and alerting those within. Adding to MP night raids.

[RoboMat]

As long as it comes with a slight decrease in long range accuracy I agree.

[ElBugbeeto]

I'm sure the devs have something in the works for this. It's easy enough conceptually and probably easy programming-wise.

[Viceroy]

As long as it comes with a slight decrease in long range accuracy I agree.

 

Totally agree. I don't know how darkness affects your own visibility concerning zombies at present, but if it is something that is simulated, I can also see that it would make you easier to spot by them as well.

[Guest]

As long as it comes with a slight decrease in long range accuracy I agree.

Yep, I can't see any reason against it, with a few little modifiers such as that.

Just . . . just don't tape it so that the concave portion overlaps the part where bullets come from, OK?

[Rathlord]

I'd be okay with this on a few conditions.

 

1) It modifies your hit chance negatively due to the weight of holding the gun up increasing a bit. This is sensible, because having a brightly lit target at night doesn't make you any better at shooting said target than you would be during the day light; the bonus you're receiving from the light is that you get the light and you're able to see the target at all.

 

2) It's taped nearer the trigger than the end (-;

 

If it worked like that, I'd be fine with it.

 

As a counterpoint, I'd just like to mention that I still think possibly simpler solution would be to allow the player to hold offhand items in the offhand at all times (even while wielding two handed weapons) but either losing the effect or losing a bit of effectiveness to the combat capabilities of said two handed weapon. It could accomplish the same goal and also be useful in other situations, making it a slightly more versatile solution in my humble opinion.

[DirectorPr]

They do make cheap lightweight flashlight attachments that barely throw off your accuracy. Only problem is batteries and keeping them charged.

[Croak90]

Best case scenario: Find a laser pointer in an office.

[ApolloDiaspora]

I think the only problem with using a flashlight-taped-to-a-gun in Zomboid as is, is the flashlights themselves. The sprite seems to indicate it's one of the big chunky 'lantern' torches that takes a big 6V battery to operate. Even though it uses generic-cylindrical-battery. Perhaps adding in another flashlight with a different sprite, that weighs less could be a way around that. Make it only the smaller torch-like flashlights can be taped to guns.

 

Better yet, do horrible things to a helmet/hat you can find, and tape the torch to that. Or make the slim-torch-flashlight holdable in one hand when using a pistol. It's entirely possible to hold a pistol and flashlight at the same time, just look at any police pictures - One hand hold the torch, the hand holding the pistol goes on over the top, and you brace both wrists against each other.

[Rausheim]

Duct-taping a flashlight to a gun won't work, after 2-3 shots it will fell off. Only way is to mount it on a gun with a clamp and picatinny rails.

 

Anyway, I like the idea as this is one of the few attachments I would put on a gun if I had to move around in urban areas with zeds crawling around.

[DirectorPr]

It'd be cool to see like miniature maglight flashlights that don't have as bright of a range as the big bulky ones do.