Armed Assault weapon ballistics

[slip777 0]

Hi. Has anyone noticed that the ballistics for armed assault weapons are totally off? For instance, if I shoot at a guy 2000 meters away with an M9 it will take the same amount of time to get there as an M4 or M24. A 9mm shouldn't even be able to travel the 2000 meters before hitting the ground. So whats up with the bullet physics here? Are they using the same exact velocity model for each weapon? None of the bullets have acceleration, they only travel in the same pre set arch at the same pre set speed. Here's a video I made. You can't really see the bullet hitting in this one, but you can definately hear it.

If a 9mm travels at 390 m/s then it should take 4.4 seconds to travel the 1700 meters it was firing at, but it only takes about 2 seconds if you don't count the time the game is paused at the teamswitch screen (the velocity would be correct if it was 5.56). I'm uploading another video now which shows the bullet hitting.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Sounds like an issue with the initspeed of the bullets in question.

I'll have to fix this, I suppose, I've already fixed the rate of fire problems in my version, so this shouldn't take too long.

[KaiserPanda 0]

Yeah, the balistics seem quite screwy. At that range, the graduated sights on a rifle would have you lobbing it up in to the sky. I laugh at the 2km mark on me Mauser. When you're on that notch, the butt is depresed something like 30degrees. It's insane.

So, thoughts on ArmA balistics:

Speed of projectiles is too great.

Do bullets loose velocity?

No inaccuracy over long range due to wind.

[ThePredator 0]

Yes, ballistics are...well. there are no real ballistics.

TypicalSpeed for nearly every gun is "BulletBase" with no further definition. 5,56x45 and 7,62x51 for example are the same that way.

In the cfgMagazines they define v0 (InitSpeed) for the guns...but the ammo has a specific speed already. So energy is only affected by the guns v0. Ammo is not the limiting factor it seems.

I bet the formula to calculate the weapon ballistics and damage is wrong.

I had that issue in SWAT 4, too. They used momentum to calculate damage and penetration, which is like medieval math.

[funnyguy1 0]

yeah, I've noticed that in my version too...(still no 1.2 patch grr) It kinda sucks, because the said that the game will simulate ballistics...

[TheReddog 0]

On a similar note I have had ballistics and point of aim go wildly wrong sometimes. Like on that first big battle mission where you are defending in the campaign, I took an M4 out of the ammo supply and the thing was shooting literally 10m high at all ranges. No shit the bullet was impacting above the rear sight ring of the iron sights (it had no aimpoint on it).

[desertfox 2]

I wouldn't only love to see realistic ballistics implemented into the game - I think it is mandatory. Hope BIS will get around to look into this matter.

[sirex 0]

Yeah, the balistics seem quite screwy. At that range, the graduated sights on a rifle would have you lobbing it up in to the sky. I laugh at the 2km mark on me Mauser. When you're on that notch, the butt is depresed something like 30degrees. It's insane.

So, thoughts on ArmA balistics:

Speed of projectiles is too great.

Do bullets loose velocity?

No inaccuracy over long range due to wind.

a lot of things are quite screwy

;-/

[sickboy 13]

I wouldn't only love to see realistic ballistics implemented into the game - I think it is mandatory. Hope BIS will get around to look into this matter.

If BIS won't do it, it's only a matter of time before High Quality Realism mods like WGL, or independent modders will take care of it, as our Dear Cameron seems to be already doing (Salute btw )

[slip777 0]

I thought I read somewhere that ballistics were affected by wind when standing on a high hill? Is this feature active?

[twisted 127]

to really claim the title of 'ultimate combat simulation', ArmA should have the ballastics done in depth.

Please.

[ThePredator 0]

Right.

What do soldiers do in combat? Shoot. And a combat simulator should simulate exactly that. Not just for small arms, of course. Even a tank and a helicopter is bound to ballistics.

I don't get why they made all weapons fire tracers, I had to fix that with a new class for no-tracer ammunition. Only machineguns now fire tracer rounds.

But there are more issues with ballistics. Wind drift is one of the most needed. And weaponsway, which somehow belongs to ballistics, should be smooth or nearly zero in certain situations (prone supported for example).

I am a long range shooter myself, I know what mirage can do to your sight picture. So we have high-end shading effects for out-of-focus-vision but no mirage, which is necessary for long range shots but can be a disadvantage the same time.

[Amalka 0]

Well. I'm still testing but try to take M1, put there 6 T72 in a row on the airstrip in the distances of 500m and check the SABOT (KE) flight times. I'm still not finished yet but it seems that the initial speed and speed loss is far away from the reality. I'll make some serious post based on real numbers here later.

[desertfox 2]

Well. I'm still testing but try to take M1, put there 6 T72 in a row on the airstrip in the distances of 500m and check the SABOT (KE) flight times. I'm still not finished yet but it seems that the initial speed and speed loss is far away from the reality. I'll make some serious post based on real numbers here later.

The actual muzzle velocity for a 120mm SABOT round is around 1690 m/sec. Hard to measure the time to impact if you have a given viewdistance of 1200 meters ( As in my case ). The travel time will always stay way below a single second, so I don't think the actual state is completely unrealistic.

What I deem far more important, are indeed the ballistics. Bullet and projectile drop for instance. While you can use the space bar in a tank as laser range finder, it does not appear to have any sort of impact upon the firing angle. Which is sad.

Concerning the wind: Is there wind at all in Arma ? I never noticed some.

[max power 21]

To be fair, it says combat simulator... simulating combat... not firearms or helicopters or human kinetics... it doesn't simulate automobiles or jet aircraft, but combat dynamics. I think that it's fairly apt to say that if it's anything like ofp, it does simulate combat dynamics quite well compared to other first person games.... one might even say that among games, it is the ultimate combat simulator.

[Kirq 0]

Also notice that pistol bullet after traveling 2 km still generates supersonic crack ! What a powerful handgun !

[KaiserPanda 0]

To be fair, it's dificult to model the balistics for every bullet in a large combat situation. It'd be sweet if BIS could find a simplified way to do it.

Semi-on-topic: Are there any good sources of formulas/whatever estimating damage, penetration, deflection angle, and the like?

[ThePredator 0]

Most dev-teams forget about integrated ballistics in the first place.

If they implement a decent - and correct - system for such calculations, they won't have to find a way around to simulate the results.

For games you don't even have to use everything relevant to real-life kinetics.

Humidity (fog/rain or sun), temperature (month of year, mountain height), atmospheric pressure (height, weather) and of course wind are the environmental factors with their in-game incarnation.

The physical factors are more of the issue, because they are on a per-weapon/ammo basis.

muzzle velocity (v0), barrel length, ballistic coefficient (BC), angle of departure, length of twist and so on...

In-Game there should be at least a difference per weapon, ammunition and on distance wind drift, correct (in)accuracy and energy transfer as well as maximum ranges and decreasing air speed.

[versus 0]

I don't get why they made all weapons fire tracers, I had to fix that with a new class for no-tracer ammunition. Only machineguns now fire tracer rounds.

any chance you could make that into a mod?

[ThePredator 0]

I already did. Still no ETA on the release date. Hope it will be soon, though.

[shataan 1]

"to really claim the title of 'ultimate combat simulation', ArmA should have the ballastics done in depth.

Please. "

The way I see it, combat is all about shooting/ballistics. DF 2 simmed bullet drop and wind effected to boot. So far that game is still unchallenged in the ballistics department. Sadly. Ultimate Combat sim only seems to go as far as what we see these days I guess. ... as far as Dev teams are concerned. A great marketing tool. Bragging rights. Looks great on the box.

But mil combat is all about bullets man. Ballistics should be top of the list.

[dm 9]

ArmA HAS the physics. The problem is the configs (again - just like OFP).

With some tweaking to the configs, realistic values can be plugged into the system, and you will see accurate results in terms of bullet speed, drop and effects such as "wind" (it is there, but its not totally realistic). Bullet power on the other hand is an issue. I did some experiments with sub-sonic rounds, and I had to up the damage values for them, since when they were fired at such low speeds (which also killed the supersonic crack fx) they were not retaining enough power to do any damage. Was quite funny emptying an entire MP5 mag into a soldier at point blank (head/torso) and he'd simply call "1: CEASE FIRE!"

Point is, the system is there, it just needs tweaking

[l mandrake 9]

Does anyone know if patch 1.02/1.03 (Demo) has resolved any of these ballistics problems? I hope the handguns aren't still supersonic...

[ThePredator 0]

In 1.02 they are supersonic (retail).

[max power 21]

Does anyone know if patch 1.02/1.03 (Demo) has resolved any of these ballistics problems? I hope the handguns aren't still supersonic...

9x19 parabellum is a supersonic round. You should look this information up before demanding fixes to problems that don't exist.