hi

im designing a tactical game where you control soldiers/fighters in an urban, criminal/gang setting. Mafia, gangbanger, police, survivalist militia. Think of it as a civil war in the nineties.

What firearms would you include if you could pick

5 handguns
5 smg
5 shotguns
5 assault rifles
5 slow firing rifles
(skip heavier weapons and handgrenades)

Base it on commonness on the streets/in homes (im thinking in usa, or brazil or europe, go nuts!) but also try to have some differences that could be used to differensiate the guns when it comes to gameplay (clip size, damage, accuracy etc)

Thanks a lot for your input.
Erik

At least in USA cities, hand-guns are a huge problem. They're all over the place, and are very common. Definately the easiest things to come across would be a variety of modern pistols in cities, and maybe some hunting stuff in less urban areas.

After the first few days of a civil war fighting-in-the-streets event though, I'd bet the far more limiting resource would be ammunition. In that case, the range of weapons actually seems pretty obvious, which would mostly just be 1 or 2 things for each type of bullet, since more than that would quickly render you unable to fuel whatever weapon you're choosing. Ignoring the ammunition capacity, the variety of weapons for a specific ammunition don't range much in terms of accuracy/damage/etc, at least compared to the differences when you start varying over ammunition type as well.

So I guess the choice would be small/large capacity for each round type that is common for that class?

Im not looking for a post-apoc feeling,
but given some kind of economy where this would work, ammo is still being produced etc,

Like how does the crimescene look? What is used by real gangs if they swell into paramilitary groups? Something like this could be seen in rio de janeiro, but im looking on it at bigger scale (for my fictional game that is)

what specific models etc would you imagine in each gun-class?
E

These guns will be the only guns available to every faction? Everyone uses guns from the same roster?

Handguns:
Police Sidearm - Modern 9mm like a Beretta, Sig Sauer or Glock. Good performance, common ammo.
Large Sidearm - Some kind of .45 ACP, probably a 1911 of some kind. Higher power, smaller mag, ammo more expensive.
Gang-Banger Pistol - Cheap pistol like a Bersa Thunder or HiPoint 9mm. Less reliable, easy to come by.
Small Revolver - Colt Detective Special, S&W J-Frame, etc. Concealable.
Magnum Revolver - Taurus Raging Bull, S&W Model 29 or 500. Specialized ammo, powerful and expensive.

SMGs:
Machine Pistol: Glock 18, Beretta 93R
Heavy Machine Pistol: Mac-10, TEC-9
Compact SMG: TMP, Uzi
SMG: MP5, P90
Heavy SMG: Thompson A1, UMP

Shotguns:
Basic Pump: Mossberg 500 "Persuader"
Fancy Pump: Remington 870 Tactical with fancy doodads
Basic semi-auto: Remington 1100
Fancy Semi-Auto: Benelli M4
Obligatory Side-by-Side: Boomstick

Assault Rifles
AK variant
M16 variant
M4 variant
M14
M1 Garand


Rifles:
Hunting Rifle of some kind, maybe a nice Weatherby.
Sniper Rifle, like the Remington-based M24
Heirloom rifle, like a Mosin Nagant or Lee Enfield
Lever-action rifle, maybe a Marlin or Winchester
Plinker, a .22LR single-shot

excellent answer iron chef, thanks
if anyone else wants to add plz feel free

about ammo i might cut some corners and lump some guns together. I dont want to much focus on juggling to many variants of ammo for the player so im planning on doing some kind of "gamey"-simplification like all handguns use 9mm (or just call it pistol ammo). Handguns will not be focus of the game anyway (backup sidearm only) as its coming along rather military-like.

I would like to separate ammo for assault rifles (shews up large amount) and long-range rifles for gameplay reasons. Any good way of doing it?


erik