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[Catastrophic lolcats]

I could see Goblins using really really archaic handcannons. The type that had about a 60% chance to blow up and take out the gunner. After all, life is cheap in goblin society.

It does seem a bit Tolken however. The Hobbit had goblins (later renamed orcs) which love gunpowered. Using it to kill prsioners or if I remember right a form of funeral for high ranking gobbos.

The idea of goblin petards/sappers is interesting though and having a whole bunch of young naive gobs charging to your walls and attempting to blow up the walls only to be "holsted upon their own petard" hee hee.

Blast mining could be considered. Though it comes down to what kind of Dwarves are Toady's Dwarves.
Are they the kind that embrace technology and enjoy having things done for them by simple machines. Or are they the traditional kind that have to do everything by hand.
Guess this is where the culture generation comes into play.

Still simple firearms such as carbine, rifles and pistol don't really have a place in the game as I see it.
They really changed the battlefield and even more they're just not fun.

[Vattic]

It does seem a bit Tolken however. The Hobbit had goblins (later renamed orcs) which love gunpowered. Using it to kill prsioners or if I remember right a form of funeral for high ranking gobbos.

I don't recognise that but then it's been a while since I read any Tolkien. They did use something like gunpowder against the walls of Helm's Deep. I'd imagine something like this would fit nicely in sieges and perhaps part of alchemy or magic.

Edit: The main problem with firearms is that, as people have said, they completely change the way battlefields work.

[stabbymcstabstab]

the mines at helm deep were more magic then gunpowder and weren't the powerful there was tons of them need to blow up a drain hole and the wall around it

[Vattic]

stabbymcstabstab I was confused by your comment so I went and reread the Helms deep chapter of the Two Towers. Unless I have missed it there is no detailed mention of what caused the explosion and the blast comes as a surprise to those inside. Aragorn shouts out "Devilry of Saruman!" and little else. I also went and checked the film to see if you meant that and as this clip shows it's one large object they place in the culvert. So I'm not sure why you think "tons of them" were required.

As for it being more magic than gunpowder I'd have to agree given the themes in the book and that Saruman was the source of whatever they used. This is why I suggested something similar might be appropriate as a form of alchemy or magic. I would say that it acted much like something including gunpowder and I brought it up because DF was, according to Toady, originally a Moria simulator and so some kind of explosives would fit with the style he is trying to establish. I'd imagine his magic system will have some kind of explosions in some shape or form.

[FallingWhale]

There is a reason guns weren't in wide use in Europe at the time; they sucked.

Forget rate of fire: it took more than a minute to prime, load, light, and aim the thing.
Forget armor piercing: an archer or crossbowman could make a kill through more than an eighth inch of steel, a gun could maybe do that to copper.
Forget accuracy: the barrels weren't rifled, add to that that the gunner held a very heavy gun in one hand as he put a match to touch hole.
Forget useful: any rain and you're done, every part of the gun is useless damp.

The matchlock was invented 75 years late.

Explosives are fine though. We've been blowing each other up for as long as we've had oil.

[612DwarfAvenue]

The Hobbit had goblins (later renamed orcs)

It's my understanding that Goblins and Orcs are seperate?

[Vattic]

It's my understanding that Goblins and Orcs are seperate?

Not to completely turn this into a discussion of Tolkien's works but they are the same thing. In his early works they are used synonymously and in the Hobbit he explains:

Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds). Orc is the hobbit's form of the name given at that time to these creatures, and it is not connected at all with our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind.

During and after LotR he stops using the word goblin at least for the most part.

[612DwarfAvenue]

It's my understanding that Goblins and Orcs are seperate?

Not to completely turn this into a discussion of Tolkien's works but they are the same thing. In his early works they are used synonymously and in the Hobbit he explains:

Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds). Orc is the hobbit's form of the name given at that time to these creatures, and it is not connected at all with our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind.

During and after LotR he stops using the word goblin at least for the most part.

Hrm, guess i'm confused since LoTR: Battle for Middle Earth (the second one at least) has Orcs and Goblins as seperate factions to play as.

[Draco18s]

Hrm, guess i'm confused since LoTR: Battle for Middle Earth (the second one at least) has Orcs and Goblins as seperate factions to play as.

Because as we all know:
1) It's faithful to the book
2) Tolkien himself oversaw its creation

[Rowanas]

Tolkien, or TK117, as some may know him, was an avid gamer.

[FallingWhale]

Tolkien sometimes, particularly in The Hobbit, used the word "goblin" instead of "orc" to describe the same type of creature, with the smaller cave-dwelling variety that lived in the Misty Mountains being referred to as "goblins" and the larger ones elsewhere referred to as "orcs".[2] Later in his life he expressed an intention to change the spelling of "orc" to "ork" in The Silmarillion[3] but the only place where that spelling surfaced in his lifetime was in the published version of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, in the poem Bombadil Goes Boating ("I'll call the orks on you: that'll send you running!"). In the posthumously published Silmarillion, the spelling "orcs" was retained.

[UristMcHuman]

Forget useful: any rain and you're done, every part of the gun is useless damp.

Exactly. I intended to say that the powder charges and paper cartridges, when rained on, would be as useless as wood bolts against adamantine armour. The charge in the gun or artillery piece would be unharmed though.

Same thing if a dwarf (that could swim) dodged into water. His cartridges and the powder in the gun would be useless.

Should dwarfs care about fire in later versions and their bag or horn of powder caught fire, it would explode destroying the relevant item, ALL powder in it, and will badly burn the dwarf. If they were cartridges, then the bullets in them would fly in random directions, hitting anything in their path.

Or should we just go ahead and implement skill trees for each fortress where you have to research different technologies for your dwarves to use?

I like that idea.

[Draco18s]

Or should we just go ahead and implement skill trees for each fortress where you have to research different technologies for your dwarves to use?

I like that idea.

Dispite Toady explicitly saying he'll never go that route?

[theothersteve7]

I think explosives seem quite Dwarven.  I think covering a mountainside with TNT bristles with Dwarf Fortressness.  Firearms, not quite as much; also they'd feel more shoehorned in given the setting.

Definitely worth putting in once alchemy is a thing, in my opinion.  Main issue I see is that it's very nontrivial to implement.

[mister Zalli]

I'd like to see some gunpowder barrels but not firearms. Barrels could be handy mining "tool" and a fun way to kill your opponents or to have some "dwarwen fun".