Question for Developers (but everyone´s opinion is extremelly welcome!!)

[carlostex 38]

I would like to know how different the hitpoints system is today in Arma 2 from OFP and ARMA. What i want to know exactly is if for instance the m16 bullet (5.56x45 NATO) is stronger or weaker now than it was in the OFP and ARMA days.

I´m asking this because i feel it was stronger in ofp. With an M16 i could immediatelly bring down (kill) an enemy soldier at 300 meters distance. This does not seem to happen in Arma 2.

In Arma 2 i put a target (even a civilian) 250 meters from me and i´m shooting him on his upper torso (lungs area) and this only makes him injured. I know that this wouldn´t kill a person right away but on this area injuries are very dangerous, a bullet can hit your spine here or your lungs your heart, which are very important organs. A shot in this area should in Arma 2 (for simulation purposes) immediately kill. Espeacially at small medium distances about 300 meters. I also had a peek to the 5.56x45 hitpoint value which is 8 and i believe it should be a little stronger 9 minimum.

I would like to develop a good conversation around this question i ask everybody to participate.

PS- BTW, even though this is my first post i have been playing this series since OFP demo back in 2001. I used to make missions for OFP just never released them.

[cartier90 0]

I believe your quite right - ofp rounds seemed to do more damage than ARMA2 ones. I believe it is down to bullet velocity which is lower than it should be.

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/8219

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=93262

Not only this , but the number of rounds to drop a soldier seems to differ on an almost random level - at 200 m , sometimes 2 rounds is enough , sometimes as many as 4 are required. Whether this is body armor being taken into account or not is something I'd like to know.

[nkenny 1057]

2011, Body armor.

-k

[Smurf 12]

2011, Body armor.

-k

In Arma 2 i put a target (even a civilian) 250 meters from me

For a 5.56 its OK I think...

[meade95 0]

OPFOR - especially in OA sholdn't have body armor - Not something that would be typical for such units -

I to believe it takes to many hits to kill enemy more often than not. As it with A2/OA.

[polar bear 10]

The right solution is to have a probability of damage rather than an absolute hit point value, representing the odds that you hit a major organ.

So a hit in the torso should be a kill based on the odds that it hit a vital organ. Probably way to expensive to model the vital organs but some simple probability like random chance roughly representing the % of bullets that hit a vital organ would be better than nothing. It doesn't really matter which vital organ, if you hit any of them it's unlikely the guy is going to be shooting back at you. Similarly a hit to the head would almost certainly kill but there's a possibility of it just going through a cheek and not actually taking out anything important.

This would be a more realistic simulation.

Another suggestion is that a hit to the torso should knock you down even if it doesn't kill you. So you should find yourself spun around and proned, if you're not actually dead. Maybe you'll get back up again, but it's unlikely you would keep on walking as though nothing happened. Or maybe that should be a probability too--I've heard of cases of people being shot in the torso and they keep on coming, but it's rare. Maybe that should also be an effect based on the power of the round so a low velocity 556 round might not knock you down but a 338 lapua from a high powered rifle should send you flying.

Edited August 25, 2010 by Polar Bear

[carlostex 38]

Thaks everybody who answered.

I think PolarBear suggestion is great.

@NkenNy

Well i thought in body armor also, but do civilians wear body armor also?? Because the problem also happens in that situation. I tried a russian soldier vs Takistani vs civilian and it is the same thing. A well placed shot with an M16 (which i think delivers 5.56 rounds with great accuracy and velocity at a distance of 300 meters) should kill or immediately incapacitate at least 90% of the time.

@cartier90

I totally agree with you round velocity is so much lower on A2 than in OFP or the first Arma.

I think i will mod the config for my personal use but i can´t get the kegetys tools to work on W7 i tried several times on dedicated threads about this subject but i can´t make it work.

But it would be cool if BIS could put some more investigation into how this bullet velocity, impact, hit power shouldn´t be reworked. Because sometimes it doesn´t feel right.

I´m pretty shure a round in your torso would immediately incapacitate you.

[scruffy 22]

In contrast to Arma, OFP had Laser weapons. I think the dispersion was only a tenth of what it is now, you can try the ACEX_PLA mod weapons to see the difference.

How about air friction? I think I remember it was deactivated in A1 and NWD ballistics enabled it. Did the bullet even slow down in OFP?

And when not using FDF or other mods, was your aim more steady? It's too long since I started up OFP (and even OFP vanilla) to remember ;)

So it's not only the damage and velocity that were different. Would be interesting to compare the exact values though between 2001 and 2010 :)

So a hit in the torso should be a kill based on the odds that it hit a vital organ. Probably way to expensive to model the vital organs [...]

Soldier of Fortune 1 already had 30 or something different hit zones. So why not use them now inside of our current 4? And then combined with modeled armor and penetration for the different sections, as with tanks. That would be great and you could expand on the medical system too.

Would that already be possible with an addon now?

SLX already has your suggestion implemented, so you can test it, knockdown in SLX_Wounds and variable damage in SLX_ModWeapons_c.