Standardization of universal damage system

[Bukain 86]

I really wish all the top modders+mod teams of the community do a meeting at which they decide to utilize a single realistic universal damage system for all their contents. The result in theory will be realistically optimized performances among contents of these mods.

Personally, I'd want a realism base standardization instead of vanilla based as most of us rarely ever use vanilla contents in most of our missions whatsoever. Even the vanilla damage system doesn't go along with most of us hence the popularity of ACE.

 

For certain top mods like rhs, cup, and bw, my wish is partly* possible by ACEing them. Then one can have weapons from these top mods with optimized performance. Even then, the vehicles of these mods would still be out-of-touch between one anothers(i.e tank vs tank, jet vs jet). That's what i mean by partly possible*.

But yeah, i know there will be disagreements. So how about we lean on democracy!? How about we set up a poll, we vote on it each player for one vote, and then we decide on the preference of majority? Huh? 😆

 

P.S I know this is nearly impossible, but there's nothing to lose from expressing my thoughts right 😁

I also clearly aware of the fact that modders make mods for themselves. So each of their preference is the first prioritization for every one of them. And that, i completely understand 🙂

Thank you very much for the sharing of your work

[drebin052 324]

37 minutes ago, Bukain said:

I really wish all the top modders+mod teams of the community do a meeting at which they decide to utilize a single realistic universal damage system for all their contents. The result in theory will be realistically optimized performances among contents of these mods.

 

Every mod team has their own definition of what they classify as "realistic" values and what's balanced for gameplay. Good luck trying to standardise things with regards to the ten million variants of 5.45x39mm or 5.56x45mm, for instance.

 

There is also the issue of body armour/helmets. How exactly do you plan on standardising armour values for vests from RHS versus VETERAN MOD or 3CB? It would be an absolute nightmare and would probably break the balance in other parts of the mod.

 

37 minutes ago, Bukain said:

Personally, I'd want a realism base standardization instead of vanilla based as most of us rarely ever use vanilla contents in most of our missions whatsoever. Even the vanilla damage system doesn't go along with most of us hence the popularity of ACE.

 

Compatibility patches exist for this exact reason. Also, ACE3 isn't for everyone and is largely excessive outside of milsim.

 

Plus, magwells already do a lot of the heavy lifting. So you can just force players to have access to only RHS magazines for missions that run RHS content, or CUP magazines for CUP content-heavy missions.

 

37 minutes ago, Bukain said:

For certain top mods like rhs, cup, and bw, my wish is partly* possible by ACEing them.

 

It's not the mod team's job to ensure compatibility in the first place, but for the servers and units running the packs to decide. A simple search on the Workshop will give you patch after patch for RHS+CUP, etc., anyway, so the work's already been done for you.

[Bukain 86]

Btw, realism is universal, so it's not good that each people perceive it differently. Just a thought 🙂

There are informations online everywhere, so if not an easy task, the standardization of what we currently have in top Arma mods (don't need having millions variants of ammos) is indeed possible. What im saying is not modders to put everything that other mods have(no pushing anything), I'm saying standardization of duplicated contents among top mods(like CUP' bmp-2 and RHS' bmp-2 having same stats)

 

And yes, I've to agree that magwells done a really good job some parts of my wish. 

Truth be told, it's mostly vehicles that still is the difficulty. Like you said, if a server or a player know how to utilize what compatiblity mod and ACE and such, we can already standardized popular small arms (i.e m4, AK, rpg) from top mods. Also if a mission maker really invested, he too can make a scenario in which soliders/players wearing body armors and vests that are go along in the stats.

The vehicles....... 

 

To be honest though, i already aware of everything you just said. My last paragraph will do the telling 😁

 

As a player with zero modding or scripting knowledge, the only thing i can do is whining about stuffs that still ain't there lol Just kidding. I don't dare pushing these modders in any means man! They're the one that's making Arma possible. Only appreciations and much much thanks to all of them...

[stburr91 1007]

On 6/23/2020 at 9:21 AM, drebin052 said:

 

 

Also, ACE3 isn't for everyone and is largely excessive outside of milsim.

 

 

That's an understatement. ACE medical is so excessive that it's painful just watching video of people using it, I couldn't imagine how painfully excessive using it as a player would be. 

 

 

23 hours ago, Bukain said:

Btw, realism is universal

 

LoL, no it's not. 

 

Just ask 10 people what they think of the current US President, and you will get answers ranging from, he's the next Hitler, to he's one the best US President in the last 100 years. 

 

Perception is reality.   

[PuFu 4600]

4 hours ago, Bukain said:

I really wish all the top modders+mod teams of the community do a meeting at which they decide to utilize a single realistic universal damage system for all their contents. The result in theory will be realistically optimized performances among contents of these mods.

Personally, I'd want a realism base standardization instead of vanilla based as most of us rarely ever use vanilla contents in most of our missions whatsoever. Even the vanilla damage system doesn't go along with most of us hence the popularity of ACE.

The standardization should be something that is provided by the core game. simple as that.

for A3, that is not the case, everything single config (including penetration values for armored vehicles, armored plates, structures etc etc) is buffed for reasons unknown.

 

The values available can be however translated and compared to real life values, you will note that all RHA(e) is over the top. 

 

There are mods that keep these values and inherit from these, making these compatible to vanilla content, there are mods that are using and translating real life values to game configs (RHS for instance) and as such, these values are not really compatible 1:1 with anything that inherits from base game. 

Which approach is best? well, inherting from base game would be ideal if these values would be correct, but as it is, none aren't. i can't even figure out if there is some overall multiplier used (it seems there isn't).

 

4 hours ago, Bukain said:

So how about we lean on democracy!? How about we set up a poll, we vote on it each player for one vote, and then we decide on the preference of majority? Huh? 😆

 

this paragraph is completely against the last few lines in your posts. no poll out there will change how people mod this game.

 

3 hours ago, drebin052 said:

Every mod team has their own definition of what they classify as "realistic" values and what's balanced for gameplay. Good luck trying to standardise things with regards to the ten million variants of 5.45x39mm or 5.56x45mm, for instance.

Not really. Most mods can be split into 2 categories:

a. the ones inheriting most of values from base game

b. the ones that created their own (more realistic, based on real world data) values.

 

3 hours ago, drebin052 said:

There is also the issue of body armour/helmets. How exactly do you plan on standardising armour values for vests from RHS versus VETERAN MOD or 3CB? It would be an absolute nightmare and would probably break the balance in other parts of the mod.

again, if base game would provide most of the values correctly, instead of being buffed and gamified for reasons unknown, this would be a moot point to begin with. All armor plate carriers / helmets etc still use the same NIJ protection ratings, but that is obviously in relation to different type of bullets, so there's that.

 

3 hours ago, drebin052 said:

Compatibility patches exist for this exact reason. Also, ACE3 isn't for everyone and is largely excessive outside of milsim.

Some of the stuff cannot be made compatible just via config changes.

 

1 hour ago, Bukain said:

Btw, realism is universal, so it's not good that each people perceive it differently. Just a thought 🙂

realism is not universal. but things that are based on phisics (balistics, terminal velocity, RHA levels etc) are.

 

1 hour ago, Bukain said:

As a player with zero modding or scripting knowledge, the only thing i can do is whining about stuffs that still ain't there 

you can maybe spend time and try to do something else then whine, especially since you are well aware from post 1 that nothing will change. not for A3 anyways

[Bukain 86]

15 hours ago, stburr91 said:

Lo, no it's not. 

 

Just ask 10 people what they think of the current US President, and you will get answers ranging from, he the next Hitler, to he's one the best US President in the last 100 years. 

 

Perception is reality.   

Hehehe sorry 😁

I should say "truth is universal". Tbh that was what i really wanted to mean when i writing that post:) That's why sometime i wish I'm better at English:)

 

So anyway, there must only one single truth to any existence/thing you can imagine. Only difference is how each and every individual translate it into their respective brain.

So as of my knowledge, perception is not always reality. It is a trait of individualism.

 

We're now going off topic here stburr. Should stop rn 😆 Don't want to go edgy with site' policy 😁

[Bukain 86]

13 hours ago, PuFu said:

you can maybe spend time and try to do something else then whine

I should pufu, i should 😁

Just couldn't resist to start this thread.

 

I couldn't agree more about the fact that the vanilla being such a mess. That's the single main* reason of why i have to ended up starting post like this in the first place.

If BI indeed did developed their weapons and equipments parallel with reallife stats, we might really be having what I have been proposing, universal standard which most* peoples/modders would relied on/agreed upon(with acceptance. Cuz who else doesn't want realistic vanilla right?). But sadly, it seem like BI kinda out of touch with reality with their last installation 😒

 

Oh about the poll thing i stated, that was a joke. And if we really have to, I'd vote for realism any day, not the vanilla.

[Bukain 86]

Not that much of ACE3 fan either myself. Just pointing out that if a player/server/mission maker really want/need to utilize let's say both RHS and CUP within scenario, then ACE3+it's compats for the mods become the needies. Like i said it at least fulfilled the optimization of small arms/most of the ballistic among the top mods.

 

Oh, of cuz! With the last couple of update, the whole new ACE medical system become bit more frustrating, at least for me. But i heard most milsim folks love it

[krzychuzokecia 719]

Remember JAM? I remember... I don't know why, but in good 'ole OFP times it was easier for addon-makers to rise above various differences, and egos saying I'm the bestest! and do something together. And OFP surely had it's share of I'm the bestest! Nobody is so great as me! people!

 

On 6/23/2020 at 7:13 PM, PuFu said:

The standardization should be something that is provided by the core game. simple as that.

for A3, that is not the case, everything single config (including penetration values for armored vehicles, armored plates, structures etc etc) is buffed for reasons unknown.

 

GlobMob devs says that's not entirely true, and that 7.62x51 damage/penetration values are (quote) massively nerfed. So, which is which?

[PuFu 4600]

11 minutes ago, krzychuzokecia said:

Remember JAM? I remember...

so do i, even though back in the OFP days i wasn't modding, and mods was something it took me an eternity to download.

 

11 minutes ago, krzychuzokecia said:

I don't know why, but in good 'ole OFP times it was easier for addon-makers to rise above various differences, and egos saying I'm the bestest! and do something together. And OFP surely had it's share of I'm the bestest! Nobody is so great as me! people!

assumptions. there are actually little to no differences or conflicts between various modding members, under closed doors there is actually quite a lot of collaborations going on.

I have known / worked / collaborated etc with most people that released custom stuff for well over a decade. It isn't about who is the bestest, it is about individual scope of mods, and these differ. 

Would have been better to get such a standardization going for mods say like 7 years ago? sure. it is worth doing now? nope.

 

11 minutes ago, krzychuzokecia said:

GlobMob devs says that's not entirely true, and that 7.62x51 damage/penetration values are (quote) massively nerfed. So, which is which?

as i said, there isn't a multiplier (say 1.73 x real values = arma values) that would make things easier.

6 years ago when we figured out we had to create out own bullet values, things were buffed from A to Z.

I don't recall if 7.62x51 was in that list or not, or if it was changed along the line, since we have custom values, we aren't affected, or had to adjust. That said, 7.62x39 wasn't even defined before APEX, since no weapon was using that caliber.

so there's that

 

you can use this if you wanna test out some things yourself

https://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=25287

 

 

[Jackal326 1181]

18 hours ago, PuFu said:

so do i, even though back in the OFP days i wasn't modding, and mods was something it took me an eternity to download.

JAM was a fantastic mod back in the day, and whilst nothing similar exists for Arma 3 (as far as I'm aware, I have been out of the loop for almost half a decade), BI adding the MagazineWell config parameter has helped enable some sort of cross-compatibility for community content from an official source.

 

18 hours ago, PuFu said:

assumptions. there are actually little to no differences or conflicts between various modding members, under closed doors there is actually quite a lot of collaborations going on.

I have known / worked / collaborated etc with most people that released custom stuff for well over a decade. It isn't about who is the bestest, it is about individual scope of mods, and these differ. 

Would have been better to get such a standardization going for mods say like 7 years ago? sure. it is worth doing now? nope.

Agreed. In the past 15 years or so I've worked (directly and indirectly) with many addon makers and mod teams sharing knowledge and giving advice. There are so many addons and mods out there "in the wild" now that are still in use and are sadly unsupported as their creators have moved on to other commitments that introducing some form of full-blown standardisation would mean either these mods fall by the way-side and become defunct and obsolete or the work involved to bring them up-to-date would be too much.

 

18 hours ago, PuFu said:

as i said, there isn't a multiplier (say 1.73 x real values = arma values) that would make things easier.

On a side note, it seems that if you take an objects weight in kg and times it by 22, you get close to the value Arma uses.

 

18 hours ago, PuFu said:

you can use this if you wanna test out some things yourself

https://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=25287

That will come in very handy, thanks.

[krzychuzokecia 719]

1 hour ago, PuFu said:

Would have been better to get such a standardization going for mods say like 7 years ago? sure. it is worth doing now? nope.

And why that is? Modding is not constrained by Arma product life, and JAM wasn't made just after OFP release either. Matter of fact it's final version, and vehicle extension (CAVS), were released a few months before A1.

 

I'm sorry to say, because RHS is wonderfully amazing mod, but it's also a poster boy in terms of lacking standarization between content. Now, RHS values may as well be the most accurate/realistic (and I bet they are), but then why not making sort-of-JAM out from it? Not even as a mod, but maybe simple database of values, and (in terms of armor) guidelines on making applicable LODs.

 

1 hour ago, Jackal326 said:

There are so many addons and mods out there "in the wild" now that are still in use and are sadly unsupported as their creators have moved on to other commitments that introducing some form of full-blown standardisation would mean either these mods fall by the way-side and become defunct

 

That's a moot point IMO, and it was moot even in case of JAM - many addon-makers were sure that they knew better, and were not concerned with any compatibility. Would it come as surprise to anyone though, that the most popular addons (in no particular order: Laser, SJB, RHS, ORCS, BAS, WW4) were using JAM? IIRC the only big mod that was not JAM compatible was WGL, but even then I'm not sure if their values weren't identical to JAM, just with different magazine classnames.

1 hour ago, Jackal326 said:

BI adding the MagazineWell config parameter has helped enable some sort of cross-compatibility for community content from an official source

 

And it's criminally underused. CBA3 uses magazine well system for their compatibility solution (named, quite fittingly... JAM), and CUP uses CBA3 including JAM. However I can't recall any other mod really taking use of that - even GlobMob team, when asked to introduce magazine wells for their guns, declined.

1 hour ago, PuFu said:

you can use this if you wanna test out some things yourself

 

Thanks for the link, and I'll try it out, but... for a single dude like me, no matter how hard I'd work on such a thing (new JAM), no one would care. Actually, I remember at least two people trying to do that in A3, and failing (will try to dig up their threads, can't remember the names now). Why?

Because without some Big Mod™ such project is deemed to failure. Thousand of people would whine why it's not working with Big Mod™? make compatibility patch for Big Mod™! - no matter if mine solution would be better (more accurate etc.).

That was the power of JAM, that it was made by devs of Big Mods™ and by sheer popularity of those mods it gained immediate following, which kind of forced others do adopt it as well. In Arma 3 lone wolf like me can only focus on making addons the way he wants, and then (if he cares) making compatibility patches for one of 3-5 Big Mods™.

 

Quite obviously ACE ballistic rework would fit the bill, but since mod's scope is much bigger, and it has more features (many, let's say... controversial), it kind of disqualified itself as a potential new JAM - JAM power also came from the fact that it was three small .pbos, with just config and sounds, and it could be easily introduced into any new mod.

 

Anyway PuFu, you can safely ignore this whole rambling, because your/RHS stance is perfectly known to me, and I'm the last person to have any influence on your decisions :) A man got's to know his limitations and making friends and influencing people is mine! However, I'm throwing it out into the air, maybe someday something will come out of this talk. Or not. It's not like it's hurting anyone.

[Bukain 86]

I'm interested in how you guys are really talking about JAM. Like this JAM thing might be so good. What is it exactly? To be honest I'm very new to this community. I started to play Arma only with Arma 3.

Can you link me at least where it's information exist? Thanks guys.

 

I regret i started this thread: ( It's like starting fire, sorry. I never know that this kinda idea have ever been implanted or tried. That's why i asked. I think it would be an new idea or maybe useful, didn't know it had tried(i once stated that on i think CUP thread too if I'm remember correct). Really sorry.

 

Anyway can you link me to info on JAM? Maybe some knowledge about old arma time for me which i never have to known.

[Harzach 2517]

1 hour ago, Bukain said:

info on JAM

 

https://www.ofpec.com/addons_depot/index.php?action=details&id=51

[PuFu 4600]

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

And why that is? Modding is not constrained by Arma product life, and JAM wasn't made just after OFP release either. Matter of fact it's final version, and vehicle extension (CAVS), were released a few months before A1.

It isn't anywhere related to A3 life span, which is not really close to end until BI announces a future title to replace it. It is in regards to the next point below

 

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

I'm sorry to say, because RHS is wonderfully amazing mod, but it's also a poster boy in terms of lacking standarization between content. Now, RHS values may as well be the most accurate/realistic (and I bet they are), but then why not making sort-of-JAM out from it? Not even as a mod, but maybe simple database of values, and (in terms of armor) guidelines on making applicable LODs.

for bullets etc, these are just config values. but things needs to be configured together with all the other systems in place. For vehicles, it's also about how you define individual LODs. some info has long been posted on biki, and these days things are easier post Tank DLC engine update

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Damage_Description

if anyone would want to make the changes, even though that means most modern tanks for instance stand little chance about vanilla (future) values, it could be done, but would most likely require a good part of configs to be adjusted / changed. for big mods like CUP, that would be a humongous amount of work, not impossible, but could only be done with access to mlods. so an external dude couldn't just do a config compatibility patch to get it to work.

To be honest, most mods out there want to have their stuff compatible with vanilla, not some 3rd party

 

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

That's a moot point IMO, and it was moot even in case of JAM - many addon-makers were sure that they knew better, and were not concerned with any compatibility. Would it come as surprise to anyone though, that the most popular addons (in no particular order: Laser, SJB, RHS, ORCS, BAS, WW4) were using JAM? IIRC the only big mod that was not JAM compatible was WGL, but even then I'm not sure if their values weren't identical to JAM, just with different magazine classnames.

again, for neither A1 or A2 such system was needed, because the base values were accurate enough for the purpose. A3 is different here.

 

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

And it's criminally underused. CBA3 uses magazine well system for their compatibility solution (named, quite fittingly... JAM), and CUP uses CBA3 including JAM. However I can't recall any other mod really taking use of that - even GlobMob team, when asked to introduce magazine wells for their guns, declined.

You don't need to have CBA dependency to use magwells. RHS works just right, and it doesn't require CBA to run, but it is compatible from the get go with CBA.

 

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

That was the power of JAM, that it was made by devs of Big Mods™ and by sheer popularity of those mods it gained immediate following, which kind of forced others do adopt it as well. In Arma 3 lone wolf like me can only focus on making addons the way he wants, and then (if he cares) making compatibility patches for one of 3-5 Big Mods™.

again, the current big mods for A3 had, from the get go different scopes. and for RHS, we figured out that what we wanted to achieve couldn't be done with some of the systems and values in place along the line, not from the get go.

again, JAM was what CBA is these days. with a very important difference - for A3, you need to do some changes to the model as well, not just the configs. hence 7 years after the game release, doing that is simply not viable.

 

19 hours ago, krzychuzokecia said:

Anyway PuFu, you can safely ignore this whole rambling, because your/RHS stance is perfectly known to me, and I'm the last person to have any influence on your decisions 🙂A man got's to know his limitations and making friends and influencing people is mine! However, I'm throwing it out into the air, maybe someday something will come out of this talk. Or not. It's not like it's hurting anyone.

as you can see, i am not ignoring. I am simply pointing out that due to both values provided by the base game, and some engine limitations and work arounds required, things are as they are.

i am just hoping that a future title will provide, from the get go, accurate real world values that could just be inherited from, and would contain most of the calibers used by various depicted and possible modded weapons.

[ballistic09 241]

On 6/24/2020 at 1:16 PM, krzychuzokecia said:

GlobMob devs says that's not entirely true, and that 7.62x51 damage/penetration values are (quote) massively nerfed. So, which is which?

Well, considering that the formula for bullet penetration in Arma is publicly available, lets check:

 

Armor penetration in mm = (projectile speed / 1000)x(caliber)x(bulletPenetrability of the target BISURF)

 

So, if the caliber parameter for B_762x51_Ball is 1.6, the initSpeed parameter for the Mk14 mag is 850 m/s, and the penetrability of the armor BISURF is 15, that means the penetration of vanilla 7.62x51 ball through armor grade steel is:  (850/1000)x(1.6)x(15) = 20.4 mm.

 

For reference,  that means Arma's 7.62x51 ball round penetrates about 2-4 mm more than M993, the US' current best 7.62x51 AP round... If the GM devs were talking about something in that ammo being massively nerfed, it certainly wasn't the penetration value... They were more than likely referring to the "hit" (damage) value of the ammo.

 

This is probably a good time to point out that when it comes to Arma's damage model, there are 2 separate factors at play: penetration and damage. Arma actually has a pretty robust armor penetration system that operates similarly to Warthunder's. In order for a round to deal maximum damage to a vehicle, it has to penetrate the physical armor defined in a vehicle model's fire geometry, and hit a damageable component with a corresponding hitpoints class in its config. Once a round penetrates a vehicle's armor and hits something inside, the game calculates an amount of damage to deal to the vehicle's health value based on the hit value and speed of the ammo that hit it, as well as some parameters from the hitpoint class of the component that was hit. Penetration is easy to quantify (see formula above) and you can plug in real world values which will work in game as they should in real life. Damage is not easily quantifiable, and values are generally chosen based on how modders would expect something to perform.

 

What's problematic about this is that the penetration values of all vanilla ammo types are extremely overpowered. They're either based on current state-of-the-art AP ammo, or estimates/guesses of what it would be by 2035. This means that the default ammo is strong enough that it can do things like have 5.56 & 7.62 that can shoot through a BTR, or 125 mm sabot rounds that can penetrate any part of the Abrams frontal armor. This is a rather huge issue because most mods simply reuse the default ammo... To counteract this, modders are left with two options: Ignore armor penetration entirely and give vehicles enough health that they can tank enough penetrating hits so that it "feels right," or just ignore the vanilla content and define their own ammo with correct values. RHS did the latter option, and unfortunately, as long as other mods are using any of the default ammo, it means they will never be "compatible" with each other... Vanilla will simply always overpower anything using real world armor thicknesses and penetration values.

 

On the other side, RHS is guilty of using hit (damage) values for anti-tank ammunition that are well below that of vanilla values. RHS anti-tank ammo deals about 2/3 the damage of vanilla, making vehicle combat against stuff balanced for vanilla armor even more difficult. This was done to get around an engine bug where ammo that didn't penetrate armor but had a high enough hit value would cause damage to "bleed" through the vehicles armor, damaging hitpoints that weren't actually hit. This is no longer the case for vehicles that have been updated to the Tanks DLC armor standard, so this may possibly be remedied in the future. Vanilla ammo will still wreck RHS vehicles, but you would at least stand a fighting chance to destroy enemy armor before it kills you.

[Jackal326 1181]

On 6/24/2020 at 10:28 PM, krzychuzokecia said:

...Would it come as surprise to anyone though, that the most popular addons (in no particular order: Laser, SJB, RHS, ORCS, BAS, WW4) were using JAM?...

No I wouldn't be surprised by that, I am SJB 😄

But I get what you're saying, we'll just have to agree to disagree I guess 🤷‍♂️

[blackburnrus 31]

how to know if armor and rounds from "mod A"  have capability with "mod B" ? What configs and where should I read?

Plus is there any other mods besides RHS, who uses custom armor-script settings?

[Valken 622]

There is workaround for this. Use Universal Ammo System and Advance Armor Protection System found on Steam workshop. It is ACE and non-ACE compatible and has many patches for many mods. 

 

Really unifies the damage ballistics so everything feels "relative"! I play almost exclusively in SP with this unless a MP or COOP servers does not have it. Works great even with zombie mods for example when ACE medical may affect it.