Bullets appear to be woefully underpowered

[ak1287 1]

Even the civilians?

I wouldn't know. I generally don't shoot civilians.

But, of course, there are the people who have survived multiple gunshot wounds even without kevlar.

[Inimical_rize 1]

Sorry Inimical I think you mean Max Power there.

Sorry, yes I did lol, me and ipads won't mix well.

Yes, Ballistics and weapons are always at a debate, any one who's used weapons will know a lot about their own, they may be the same make but they can be incredibly different meaning everything that goes with it will be different.

It does seem that some people want nothing more than to debate black and white, and use the grey area to name call or just be generally obnoxious, It's part and parcel with the gaming world now, and we just need to pick our way through lol

Edited July 16, 2013 by Inimical_rize

[trent 14]

I wouldn't know. I generally don't shoot civilians.

But, of course, there are the people who have survived multiple gunshot wounds even without kevlar.

No one's denying they exist, just that they're exceptions. It takes 3 bullets from the Scorpion EVERY TIME to kill someone wearing no armor. Something is clearly not right there.

And A3 civis wear t-shirts. Use your noggin on how much protection that should offer.

[ak1287 1]

No one's denying they exist, just that they're exceptions. It takes 3 bullets from the Scorpion EVERY TIME to kill someone wearing no armor. Something is clearly not right there.

And A3 civis wear t-shirts. Use your noggin on how much protection that should offer.

With a 9mm bullet? That actually sounds fairly plausible. I mean, getting shot with a 9mm is traumatic, but it doesn't equate instant death, even a good portion of the time, and even without armor.

Theoretically, there should be a better wound animation, and ideally there would be specific results if you shot certain areas, but I think it'd be stupid to have people die every time with less than three shots.

[trent 14]

The thousands of handgun deaths every year would disagree with you. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that in real life people just shrug off getting shot a la the "flesh wounds" in action movies.

[Primarch 10]

With a 9mm bullet? That actually sounds fairly plausible. I mean, getting shot with a 9mm is traumatic, but it doesn't equate instant death, even a good portion of the time, and even without armor.

Theoretically, there should be a better wound animation, and ideally there would be specific results if you shot certain areas, but I think it'd be stupid to have people die every time with less than three shots.

When a hollow point explodes in you, you'll very likely be uncapacitated nearly instantly.

[ak1287 1]

When a hollow point explodes in you, you'll very likely be uncapacitated nearly instantly.

That's simply not true.

I've seen someone shot with a hollowpoint. Hell, I HAVE shot someone with a hollowpoint. They were definitely in pain, for sure, and they definitely weren't 100%, but they were still alive, could still move, and didn't die or get incapacitated immediately, or even quickly.

[max power 21]

Becubed, I wasn't quoting an FBI study HOW EVER! interesting stuff I googled it and it opened the eyes, I can almost understand what it's trying to say but personally and through experience I believe that a 9mm round can strike with the force of a sledge hammer full into the chest, I believe this to be the reason 90% of targets 'Drop' (as soldiers say) If you couple multiple shots to the sternum from any type of handgun repeated blows with that force can and will kill.

There was some incident that made the FBI rethink their choice of handgun, so they did a study to see what the replacement should be. I think we're referring to the same chain of incidences, but I am not entirely certain.

---------- Post added at 15:22 ---------- Previous post was at 15:20 ----------

Alright, but this can't be simulated in a game, or at least it would be unnecessarily complicated to do so.

I just don't like it when enemy combatants in video games act like absolutely nothing happened, after receiving multiple gun shots. They do not move slower, their aim is the same and they never bleed out.

At least in ArmA3 they go prone and can only crawl when they are heavily injured, so that's already better than in other games.

Yeah, but you can make shot placement extremely important, and also weigh the damage done according to your average human response to soft tissue damage. I think we can safely say that the average human response to being shot in a non vital area is not to die immediately.

[-Coulum- 35]

I think the current hitpoint system is not capable of reproducing realistic stopping power.

To guarantee an instant incapacitation, you need to cripple the upper central nervous system - anything less and whether a target goes down immediately is totally dependent on them and their will to fight (which is effected by adrenaline, pain, fear, situation etc.)

a vid I found interesting and logical. Its not proof of anything but I agree with it. (watch from 3:08 on)

Humans are tough - even if a soldier suffers a fatal wound, it doesn't mean he won't be able to fight for some time before incapacitaion, provided he has the will power. However serious wounds can hamper a fighters ability and I agree that there should be more negative effects from being hit - but that negative should not necessarily be instant death/incapacitation.

Using the current hitpoint system, I think damages are pretty fine as is. If we up the power of 9mm to be one shot drop in the torso, all others weapons will also have be capable of this. Then people will be upset because there is very little difference between the .50cal stopping power and a 6.5mm. With the simplistic hp system you simply cannot have the perfect damage values.

To improve upon the current hitpoint system, I think damage needs to also be dealt over time as well as instantly (due to blood loss and accumulation of pain) and there needs to be more randomness: No two people react to a shot in the same way, and no two shots hits in the same way.

[BigBoss 10]

I think we can safely say that the average human response to being shot in a non vital area is not to die immediately.

I agree, I'm not advocating instakill.

What I would like to see is the AI reacting to gunshot wounds in a more believable way.

In most games, the AI has two states:

1. healthy, fit, combat ready

2. dead

If you hit the AI multiple times, but you do not succeed at killing him, it remains in the first, perfectly healthy state.

CoD is a good example, just pop a few rounds into an AI in sp. If he survives, he continues to fight with the same vigor he used to have, before he got shot.

Multiple gunshots may not cause instadeath, but they certainly ruin your morale and cripple your abilities depending where the bullets hit.

As I said, ArmA3 is already doing a better job than other games, because injury negatively affects the abilities of both AI and the player. What I'm missing, is the chance of bleeding out without proper treatment and falling unconscious due to injury.

[Nosyashell 10]

Trent, I'm not trying to slam you, but I can tell you personally from Law Enforcement experience that people can take an incredible amount of hits and still keep on coming. From watching TV, we get the idea that people get shot and plop, they fall over dead. I guess it has to do with the mindset of a person, the adrenalin flowing through their veins, and whatever substances they've taken. No two people will react the same. Some do fall over screaming and I guess expecting to die, and some run like hell, while others will keep up an assault. I's amazing in a ghastly way. Even if you hit someone in the heart, they can still complete an up close attack until the brain runs out of oxygen.

The only place on the human body that leads to sure instantaneous immobilization is a hit in the "T" area comprising of the area of the skull across your eyes and down your nose that will strike an area of the human brain called the Medulla Oblongata. A hit there has the same effect as turning off the light switch- everything stops and goes black, and they just ragdoll down.

Even arterial bleeds can take a few minutes for an individual to react to noticeably, as the organs shut down first as a person loses blood to protect the brain. I worked with a guy that was shot in Vietnam twice- once by an Ak47 (7.62x39), and once by a 5.56 that hit him from someone blind firing during a firefight (one in the arm, the other in the shoulder area). He said the AK round hit him in the shoulder like a sledgehammer, and knocked him down though he was still able to fight until he passed out due to blood loss and shock. The 5.56 round "hurt like hell", but didn't have the same effect when it hit him, as it passed through and through. He said it burned more for whatever reason. He showed me both wounds, and the 5.56 round left a smaller scar than the AK (which was still ugly 25 years after it happened).

When he first arrived in-country, he was issued the M14, and though it wasn't the most controllable in full auto, when it hit someone, they usually went down and stayed that way, or were initially knocked down. About midway through his tour was when they were given the M16, and they found that when they fired the 5.56 round, the NVA soldiers could take a fantastic amount of hits and keep on trucking (they could see the dust 'poofs' off their uniforms, so they knew they were hitting), and the average North Vietnamese soldier wasn't typically large in stature. He learned to shoot for the legs or hip area, as they went down better that way.

A 9mm goes through the human skull just dandy up close, believe me, as do .22s, .380s, .45s, .38s, .38 Supers, .357 Magnums (and .357SIG), along with most pistol calibers. I think I've seen one of each caliber by now except musket balls. And SWAT teams, if they have to shoot, shoot until the threat is eliminated or incapacitated, as do most Police Officers, be it 1 or 10 rounds. A lot of departments still train their people to 'double tap' when they fire, and if that doesn't work they may resort to failure drills.

I have actually seen an xray of a person who was shot with a .380, and their skull was so thick that the round passed under the scalp around the top of his skull to the other side. Just bizarre.....

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

For me, I would prefer to see the effect of my bullet have some consequence, ie a fall/drop to one knee/weapon drop etc. (As apparently happens in the Fall Mod)

There are many instances of men taking multiple hits and being able to function as well as those being wounded in a much lesser way and being incapacitated.

It may not be uber realistic, but the standard "twitch" just feels somewhat off IMHO.

If there were a chance of temporarily K.O.'ing AI etc that would really spice up the battlefield for eg.

I just want to see my hitting an AI have a decent effect even including the "twitch".

Rgds

LoK

[-Coulum- 35]

And SWAT teams, if they have to shoot, shoot until the threat is eliminated or incapacitated, as do most Police Officers, be it 1 or 10 rounds. A lot of departments still train their people to 'double tap' when they fire, and if that doesn't work they may resort to failure drills.

Yes, read about SAS in the Iranian Embassy rescue - some of the terrorists were found with over a dozen bullets in them so...

Can you imagine if SWAT had to fire 3 bullets every time to put a person down if they used their MP5s?

Yes I can imagine that quite well.

btw, very good post Nosyashell.

[max power 21]

http://puu.sh/3EdN8.png (483 kB)

When a bullet explodes in you like this, you do not just fucking twitch it away.

I think the small arms in arma 3 are mostly 6.5mm. The only ones that are fragmenting in the ballistics medium are the 5.56 ones, due to a weakness at their cannelure. And this itself only happens above a certain velocity. For M4s, the average distance that fragmentation no longer occurs is something like 100 meters.

The wider area around the bullet wound tract is something they call 'temporary cavity', which is a temporary expansion of ballistics media (like flesh, supposedly), and causes internal wounds akin to blunt force trauma. This is by no means deadly under all circumstances, and it is argued that the only reliable measure of weapon effectiveness should be the permanent cavity. I don't know about that necessarily. I bet I would be pretty incapacitated if I was hit in the sternum with a bat, but it is supposedly not a very good indicator for wound deadliness.

In that image, please be careful to note the depth at which the bullets start to turn, and the width of the actual cavity. I think the 20cm mark might be the average width of a human torso, and the 30 cm mark might be the maximum that's considered useful... or something like that. At any rate, the temporary cavity lobes where the bullet starts to turn is not always inside of the average human torso, so what you're left with is a 7mm hole and not much else.

I think it might also be important to note that that 6.8mm projectile isn't a grendel round, and the wound profile doesn't look like a steel jacketed round, but maybe it's some kind of whatever they call it- composite bonded metal thing.

In Arma, when you are shot, one does not simply 'twitch it off'. There are many wounded effects that impair your combat effectiveness.

And finally, if Arma 3's wounding stuff is based on Arma 2's, then humans have an armour value regardless of whether they are wearing armour or not. It's possible that everyone is assumed to be armoured for now, and they will change that when they implement plate carriers with armour values.

Edited July 17, 2013 by Max Power

[Inimical_rize 1]

To be honest we can argue ballistics all day but so many factors roll in on that split second the round breaks the skin that you'd never have a satisfactory answer.

As max power said most assault rifle rounds are very weak structurally, this will vary from assault weapon to assault weapon, only when you start including precision weaponry as snipers and what not do you see the intention of round manipulation on targets, this can be anything from your usual Ball round entering and tracking or Armour piercing (mostly punching through) to the more special and not widely used but still prototype Squash head round (don't mistake for hallow point ect), used mostly by Special forces and specific Special response teams (U.K only as far as I know).

I do not know much about this type of ammunition but from what I hear these rounds are designed to be as stable as a usual Ball or AP round until impact, be it soft body or rigid body armour once the round impacts the tip is designed to implode to a specific tolerance instead of folding as most rounds do, this round crumples up to an almost flat surface, behind or before the cannula (i cant remember) is some tungsten rods which are incredibly small but they're still carrying that energy that use the flat surface formed by the jacket of the round to splay out from and into the target. That is what's supposed to happen in theory! however and what is usually the case the round acted different every single time on testing but they went with the most common performance I guess.

To include a suppressor or silence can only make things more tricky, check out this thread http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?156356-Snipers-need-extra-Realism-tweaks/page3 post #28 where I try to explain.

[Nikko 10]

The thousands of handgun deaths every year would disagree with you. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that in real life people just shrug off getting shot a la the "flesh wounds" in action movies.

Apparently most people shot with handguns survive

---------- Post added at 17:14 ---------- Previous post was at 16:50 ----------

When a hollow point explodes in you, you'll very likely be uncapacitated nearly instantly.

All a hollow point does is expand making the wound channel wider and increasing the chance the bullet will hit blood vessels etc. They don't fragment or explode unless you are talking about some exotic types like hydroshock rounds.