DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

I'm a bit confused with the damage codes on the Heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine. They both use the same size bullet but the carbine should take a greater powder load and has a longer barrel, so why dose it do less damage then the heavy pistol?

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Which book are you looking at? I'm eyeing Low-Tech, and the only "Rifled Carbine" there is a breechloader, but I'm unsure which pistol you're calling a "Heavy Pistol"; the one pistol with the same or very similar caliber designation to the carbine is the Highland Pistol. Damage in Low-Tech is 1d+2 pi+ for the Highland Pistol and 2d pi+ for the carbine.

That said, if the carbine you're looking at is a breechloader, early breechloading designs weren't able to fully contain the blast the way barrel-loaders were, leading to less propellant force despite using more powder. You might even say they needed more powder just to get the same force.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Pyramid #3-36

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Because early rifled weapons (late TL4) lost a lot of muzzle energy to deforming the projectile in the name of accuracy. Doing that efficiently was a challenge through late TL5. Just blasting away with things like Acc 2, Range 60/630 weapons and then drawing steel was pretty much the norm for a long time. Tactics needed to adapt to using things like Acc 3, Range 550/1,650 weapons before any real effort was made to make those weapons efficient.

So early musketeers have to decide whether their priority is getting close to people in cuirasses and killing them with pistols, or hanging back and sniping unarmored people and turned backs. Of course, they could also carry weapons suited to doing both.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

This is part of the problem, yes. Note how the "rifle carbine" has Shots 1(20) while the "heavy pistol" has Shots 1(40). That means the former was a breechloading design that wasted a great deal of its energy.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

The weapon stats in the DF musketeer article are basically all taken from or based on stats in Low Tech. The heavy pistol is equivalent to the petronel and the rifled carbine is equivalent to the breechloading carbine. I didn't write that chapter of LT, though, so I can't say where those numbers come from.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Why are the reload times on those weapons so different then? The LT breach-loader has a reload of (10) the rifled carbine in the musketeer article is (20)

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

That would be an erratum.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

Early musketeers were as proficient with melee weapons - longswords and spears - as they were their guns. There is a lot more swordfighting in The Three Musketeers than there is gunplay, mostly because no one wants to take 20 seconds to a minute to reload their weapons except in big battles when everyone in the (2 to 4 line) formation was reloading at the same time. They'd fire, reload, fire again, affix bayonets or draw swords, and either brace for a charge or charge into melee themselves.

Re: DF Musketeer heavy pistol and Rifled Carbine.
 

He mentioned drawing steel earlier.