Accuracy and damage of weapons

[Commander-598 0]

I concede the M60 debate to you.

From your diagram, it says it "fragments"., which I hear it does under 180m, beyond that...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Also what I meant by the 5.45mm round been good against unarmoured targets like targets not wearing a CRISAT vests or other body armour.<span id='postcolor'>

Body armor isn't some hi-tech bullet-stopping protection. Somebody who is shot by most anything while wearing body armor, is either going to have broken ribs or one hell of a bruise.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Oh yes, now I see the similarity.<span id='postcolor'>

A 5.56 and a Red X?

Seriously, theres not much difference in the lead of a .22LR and a .223, except its length.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I have fired .22s, .223s, .308s, .44s, .45s, 9mms, .380s etc and anyway why would that affect my knowledge in firearms?<span id='postcolor'>

Not your knowledge of firearms, but your knowledge of "take down" power. I'm an abid hunter.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Commander-598 @ Feb. 16 2003,16:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I'm an abid hunter.<span id='postcolor'>

You search for bargains on Ebay?

Oh........................... "avid".

[JJonth Cheeky Monkey 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Commander-598 @ Feb. 16 2003,15:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A 5.56 and a Red X?

Seriously, theres not much difference in the lead of a .22LR and a .223, except its length.<span id='postcolor'>

How come nothing works when you want it to. Anyway

Its not just the lengh, its the shape of the bullet, the weight of the bullet, the size on the bullet.

The M855 produces 1798 J of energy

The .22 LR produces 68 J of energy

Others.

The 5.45 X 39 (M74) produces 1316 J of energy

The 7.62 X 39 (M43) produces 1991 j of energy

The 7.62 X 51 (.308 Win) produces 3352 J of energy max.

The 7.62 X54 R (M1908/30) produces 4466 J of energy max.

85 J is the minimum to kill someone by hitting them in a vital organ according to NATO.

[beedlo 0]

Doesn't the length of the barrel also affect the initial velocity of the bullet, which would also affect the kinetic energy of the bullet? G36 could have a much longer barrel?

[Commander-598 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">85 J is the minimum to kill someone by hitting them in a vital organ according to NATO.

<span id='postcolor'>

Well, I can prove thats wrong.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The M855 produces 1798 J of energy<span id='postcolor'>

YEs, and thanks to uts excellent AP ability, it goes right through without "getting snagged"(Not hitting much), that is past the supposed 180m.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Those infected wounds were caused as a result of the poor sanitary conditions of the Afghan fighters. Not a 'poison bullet'.<span id='postcolor'>

I know that, it was a common myth seeing as how most that were hit with 5.45mm rounds died, and not everyone had access to the Soviet Armory so there was a little missing information.

[Eviscerator 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (cheeky monkey @ Feb. 16 2003,15:32)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Also what would you think makes a Bullpup more inaccurate, look at the SA80, its unreliable, but its very accurate. Also look at the WA2000 sniper rifle, its one of the most accurate rifles around.<span id='postcolor'>

The L85A2 is a very reliable rifle when cleaned properly, the problem was when switching from the A1 to A2 they were cleaning it wrongly, much the same as with early M16's they were cleaned wrongly or not cleaned at all which led to fouling which caused the notorious stoppages, but when the L85A2 is cleaned properly it is very reliable, official figures put it at one stoppage per 25,200 rounds

[Scorpio 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Harnu @ Feb. 15 2003,04:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">SFG, it's always been like that.  If you hold it in one position long enough all shakyness stops.  Nothing new.<span id='postcolor'>

Thats because of the breathing rate. If you run around for a long time then sit down to try and snipe (and also it depends on the position) you get shakeyness.

[nierop 0]

OK enough about those freaking bullet types!!

In think 2 changes should be made:

1] LAWs should have less effective range than Carl G/AT4 (dunno about RPG but I guess it also should be less). It rediculous how far I can knock out tanks with these things.

2] Shilka's and Vulcans should have a functioning lead calculating computer like in real life. I hate being shot by choppers that fly just outside the view distance and i have no clue where to aim. I must say I only use Shilka's and Vulcans against ground-based targets effectively.

Please, please, pease can we get this?

Bye,

Pimmelorus

SHoP EuroSquad

[nyles 11]

From my 'Constructive Criticism', which I posted here last year:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

2. The pistols are a very nice and handsome addition. I really love to have a tokarev as sidearm, just in case. It really saved my life once in a while during the campaign. There is one thing though, which I really don't like on the pistols: It is possible to fire them at targets way too far away. Currently, when you are shot in the arm, you have a bit more trouble in aiming, making fighting less effective on longer ranges. Because of this, it's way too easy to abuse pistols as sniper weapons, even though, the sights have been thankfully fixed: Pistol rounds no longer hop-up, but the target vanishes below the weapon sight instead, making it a tad harder to aim at far away targets. What I am suggesting is the addition of a little wobble effect when aiming, making it harder to keep the weapon on the target, especially if he is further away. This effect should be implemented for EVERY weapon, with varying effects. Rifle type weapons for example, should be wobbling as much as you currently do when shot in the arm, as long you are standing upright with the rifle. The wobbling should decrease the closer you come to the ground. MGs should have a little more wobble while standing, but on the otherside, should be very precise when being prone, to at least simulate a yet non existent bipod-feature. Even launchers should have a little wobble, however it is extremely easy to balance a tube-shaped weapon on your shoulder and aim with that, so it should be only a very light wobble, still noticeable though. Maybe this would compensate for the current way too far range of most launchers. When fighting armour from the ground, scoring a hit with a range of more than 400 metres is very unlikely, even for stationary targets.

In general, I'd rather go for stronger but inaccurate weapons instead of the accurate light weapons we have right now. I will deal with damage later on.

3. With Resistance, I noticed an excessive amount of tracers. I haven't really checked every weapon, but it seems that every one of them is firing tracers. For me at least, this kinda destroys the atmosphere to a certain degree. I would love to see tracers on Autocannons and MG's (handheld, crew-served and vehicle mounted), but not at the current amount. I know that you can disable tracers via the difficulty settings, but I don't want to miss them completly (see MGs). Making every 5th round a tracer on the above mentioned weapons could be enough already. Especially on night missions, the muzzle flash is strong enough to give away positions, there is no need for GREEN laser all over the place. Maybe implementing an improved tracer effect (one of the few interesting things in DF:Black Hawk Down) instead would be great. I'd prefer few but better than the current many but ugly kind of tracers.

4. Weapon damage: I really hoped that 1.85 would eventually, at least partly adjust some weapon data, but unfortunatly I was wrong. Still, I want to present my view of the weapon damage on how it should be. The major point for me is scale here. No matter how the damage values are, be it that you need 10 shots to kill a soldier or one single hit, the calibre of any weapon in the game should be taken into account for the calculation of it's damage compared to other weapons. I was really upset that the G3 rifle was given such a low damage level. You sometimes need 3 hits to the chest to kill a person. I mean, this weapon has 7.62 calibre ammo, yet it is very weak compared to other 5.56 weapons like the AK74 or the MGs. Regardless of what will be done to weapon data in the future, BIS should always try to maintain scale. All weapons firing the same calibre should do the same damage. Even though it would be a big change in gameplay, this should be considered for any upcoming patch. The basic weapons, the M16 and the AK47, are pretty fair in-game at the moment, but especially new implemented weapons and the PK and M60 machineguns need some tweaking. When playing online only few people actually want to play as machinegunner. It's already hard enough to score some aimed hits with them, but even if you hit, the damage is very low for 7.62 calibre weapons. On the other side, the G36, while using standard 5.56 ammo, is a total overkill, being able to kill with a glance to the upper body most of the time. My philosophy is that weapons should be balanced not by damage alone, but also by tweaking accuracy (which would make the G36 perform extremly good already) and other values like rate of fire and reload time. I really hope that if someone of BIS is reading this, they take a minute and think about what I suggest here. In the end it will add to the Flashpoint experience a lot.

5. This is my personal view on how I would like to see the damage system in flashpoint. I'm trying to not use precise damage values but more roughly the shots needed on certain locations to kill. In my opinion, a headshot should always be fatal, no matter what weapon used. I'm excluding other hit locations than chest and legs here, because I'm not familiar with how many different locations there are in total. Its pretty obvious though, that a hit to arm should not take minimal damage only, because of them blocking the chest very often and thus creating the illusion of players surviving tons of chest shots. If possible to check wether a strong bullet would hit multiple locations (i.e. arm+chest), this should be implemented, might be complicated though or even already in the game, dunno.

Furthermore, I'm limiting this to infantry weapons and co-axial mgs only. I will not mention different types of the same weapon in the 'weapons' section, as I assume it's pretty obvious that an ak74 should do the same damage like an ak74su, that an ak47 should do the same like an ak47cz and that an m16 should do the same like a xms.

Anyways, here is the list, note that it is mainly to show which weapons should belong into the same damage category and not differ in-game:

(calibre / hits to chest / hits to legs / using weapons)

.50cal + 12.7x109 / 1 / 1 / m2, m2east, m2 co-axial + nsv co-axial

7.62x51 + 7.62x54 / 1 / 1-2 / g3, fal, m60, m21, m240 co-axial + svd, pk, r700

7.62x39 / 1 / 2-3 / ak47

5.56x45 / 1-2 / 2-3 / m16, steyr aug, g36

5.45x39 / 1-3 / 2-3 / ak74

7,62x25 + .45 / 2-3 / 2-4 / tt33 + colt1911 (not done yet)

9x19 + 7.65x17/ 2-4 / 2-4 / mp5, bizon, cz75, 92fs, glock17 + skorpion

There are some other nice ideas, which i want to adress together with this list: Someday, I had a nice experience when i rammed a vehicle. The ai driver disembarked the moment I did so, but he was faster and shot me in the legs. I was forced prone and shot him in the chest, killing him, with my trusty beretta. The experience of the auto prone was great and added a lot of atmosphere. My idea about this is that there should be a 70% chance for any hit and not only certain leg hits to knock you off your feet. Unlike some leg shots which won't let you stand up again, you are free to do so with those regular hits though. It just should knock you off your feet. Maybe some modifiers on how high the chance is, could be given according to the type of weapon. A 9mm pistol for example would be less likely to knock you off compared to a chest shot with a m16. Furthermore any hit, should cause a little red flickering on the screen. Very often you fall on the floor face down, only to realize a second or two later that you were shot due to the lack of hit effects. Those suggested new hit effects, combined with the above mentioned chance for any hit to knock you off your feet, would be very nice additions.

Now some comments on the weapon list on top of this point, especially in terms of balance. As stated above the exact values for the damage were avoided and instead only displayed with the average amount of hits to certain locations that will kill you. The Russian weapons might seem a little underpowered, compared to other weapons, but in reality they were a tad less effective due to calibre size. However, I still chose hit counts that are very close to each other and only noticeable that you will sometimes need one hit more with the russian weapons. Most of the time, the needed count will be the same though. To compare this, at least in terms of the standard weapons m16 and ak74, the ak offers full auto mode for human players, which should already even things out. However, AI does not benefit from this, what I would like to change. At close ranges, AI should more likely use full auto or longer random burts with aks. This alone would balance things out already.

6. AI machinegunning: In general I would like to see AI use machineguns only in small bursts or full auto and never on single fire. Even on very long ranges they should at least fire in 2-4 shot burts. Especially on tanks, there is often the case where the gunner picks out infantry with single shots from the co-axial machinegun. Currently it seems that high skilled AI are more likely capable of using mgs in auto mode while low skilled units often seem to exclusively use single fire. This strikes me as wrong, as there is no skill in keeping the trigger squeezed while on the other side it is extremely hard to fire off single shots from an machinegun. I would suggest to switch this so that low skilled ai is using more automatic fire, while skilled machinegunners use small burts (but still no single fire). This has another nice effect: The mg fire sound pretty ugly when used in single shots. Only in an continous fire, the sound is acceptable and does not hurt one's ears due to the harsh and unexpected ending.

7. In addition to the above point, I would like to see full auto modes being reworked completly, not just properly simulated for AI units.. Back then, I suggested to have AI shoot more in random full auto bursts (maybe 3-5 shots at a time). Currently, there is no real difference for human players wether they fire in full-auto or semi-auto. Players can still place single shots while on full-auto mode. The idea I had, which might work out nicely, is to have full auto fire a minimum, random number of shots, depended on the rate of fire of the real counterpart of that weapon. That way, there would at least be an amount of 3-5 shots, even though I clicked the fire button for a brief moment only. The trick now would be, that after this random amount of initial shots, there would only be single shots following to gurantee that you can immediate stop firing any time. This random amount would indeed only affect the first rounds to leave the weapon.

I think a feature like this would really help to simulate the effect of firing a weapon in full auto. Even though, a very skilled player could indeed manage to fire single shots from a machinegun, the shots mostly will follow in such a rapid succession that you have fired off quiet a number of rounds even with just short squeezing of the trigger. The machinegun atmosphere would be greatly enhanced in OFP that way and would force these weapons more into their respectiv role. When addressing this, I also suggest to check the available fire modes for all weapons. Neither AK47 nor AK74 have a burst mode, for example.

8. Another weapon related issue: Even when a rifle has only one or two remaining bullets and you shoot in burst mode, the 3-burst sample ist still being played. Furthermore if you have ammo left and reload weapon you should get a fresh clip plus the chambered round making 30+1 (31 rounds total) in case of M16 or AK74 as an example. Of course one bullet should be taken away from the ejected clip, as it remained in the chamber. If the chambered round was the last of the clip, it should be discarded as there is no ammo left. I hope you get what i mean. Basically it's about realistic ammo management.

<span id='postcolor'>