[Low Tech] Slightly Earlier Guns Pricing

[acrosome]

So for my next odd question- I'm working on a setting in the far future of a terraformed venus, a millenium or so after the technological civilization that did the terraforming destroyed itself.

I'm aiming for something like a mature TL3, since I want to avoid suits of full plate armor. But I'd like better guns and especially cannon than the canonical TL3 examples, and I find it hard to imagine not preserving the basic knowhow to build a matchlock fer gawdsake, so I'm considering adding the very early TL4 stuff, and probably also limiting to things that use serpentine rather than corned powder.

So the gunpowder list might look like:

TL3 Gonne 2d+1 $240
TL4 Arquebus 2d+2 $150
TL4 Teppo 1d+2 $170
TL4 Tantsutsu 1d+2 $122 (removed the +4CF for styling)

TL3 Small Bombard 13d+2 $21000 fires stones
TL3 Large Bombard 6dx5 $220000 fires stones
TL3 Crapaudeau 1d+2 $440 fires stones
TL3 Veuglaire 4d+2 $9600 fires stones
TL3 Lantaka 1d+1 $400
TL4 Rabinet 5d $4000
TL4 Falconet 7d $6700
TL4 Falcon 10d+1 $9400
TL4 Saker 15d $19000
TL4 Culverin 6dx4 $66000
TL4 Cannon 6dx5 $80000

For comparison:

TL0 Longbow thr+2 $200
TL0 Regular Bow thr+1 $100
TL2 Crossbow thr+4 $150
TL3 Composite Crossbow thr+5 $950
TL4 Military Crossbow thr+5 $750
TL4 Siege Crossbow thr+5 $900

I know that one reason that firearms supplanted the bow and crossbow so completely is that they were actually cheaper... but that's generally at TL4, under the assumption of things like water-powered foundries and triphammers, etc.- the same things that lead to widespread munitions plate. (Of course it also helps that they dealt more damage and were easier to train on.)

But I'm trying to figure out PRICE. Specifically, what these things might cost if made with TL3 methods.

The brutal little TL3 Gonne is significantly more expensive than a TL4 Arquebus- presumably for this reason- and that example might imply increasing price by 63%. But a gonne is also much simpler than an arquebus. The Wall Gun description says that adding a matchlock costs about $25, and if that is removed from the cost of the arquebus it looks like the multiplier might be closer to 100% but take into account the $25 matchlock. (So subtract the $25, double the result, then add the $25 back, which results in about $275 for the Arquebus.) And why is the teppo more expensive than the arquebus? Grr.

However, a veuglaire looks to be about the same size as a falcon... yet they cost nearly the same despite the TL difference.

So what might be a reasonable multipiler for these early TL4 firearms if they are produced at a mature TL3? If it is significant, it might be one reason that the more primitive weapons remain in service, along with the fact that these very early serpentine matchlocks don't deal nearly as much damage as the latter ones.

Oh, and if there are any other appropriate firearms with stats hidden in Pyramid or other places, I'd be interested in being pointed at them. Thanks.

[awesomenessofme1]

I'd say the absolute minimum is double the normal price, which is the guideline for having gear of one TL higher than the baseline. Probably somewhat more.

[Tyneras]

Anachronistic Devices (Basic p.478) gives double weight and cost per TL difference. Which makes sense, one of the most direct ways of dealing with technology and principals you don't quite understand yet is to overbuild your tech, which tends to increase both weight and cost.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by acrosome

And why is the teppo more expensive than the arquebus? Grr.

I've read before that Japan had pretty awful iron - hagane (sword-quality steel) wasn't really any better than European crucible steel, but there was far more difference between hagane and common Japanese iron than there was between European crucible steel and common European iron. Perhaps common iron was good enough for most weapons, but firearms required something better, and the Japanese armourers tended to overshoot the mark a bit (using something closer in quality to hagane/crucible steel than common European iron)? That is, the teppo was more expensive because it used higher-quality materials. There could also be other differences in manufacturing, of course.

...

Honestly, in your shoes, I'd be inclined to use the firearm design system from GURPS Classic: Vehicles. Low-Tech is good for historical firearms, but I wouldn't expect the differences between European and Japanese firearms to have any relevance in a far-future, post-collapse campaign set on a terraformed Venus. You want something more unified. Given you're working with a single TL, you can simplify the equations markedly, such as replacing several of the variables with constants (the TL variable you'd probably set somewhere between the values for 3 and 4 - those TL's were the same in 3e - and you could probably just use the muzzleloader values instead of needing a variable that changes depending on loading mechanism). Let me know if you already have that, and I may be able to dig up an old document that simplifies things as above (and for TL DF, which I feel is actually fairly close to what you're suggesting). For price, I'd suggest finding a value per pound that is somewhere intermediate between what you see for TL3 and TL4 firearms (maybe something like 1.5x the price per pound of most TL4 firearms).