6thSense.eu Presents: Tracers (Beta)

[ArmaVidz 0]

My ideology #1

I believe one of the biggest reasons for this mod (?) is to have tracers. Therefor by logic one might think for it's inception and usage it would be coherent to logic to have tracers enabled by default on all classes while providing a means to disable tracers via the array exclusion (?).

As opposed to creating a tracer modification requiring installation and configuration then having tracers on the majority of weapons disabled by default.

Seems inconduscive to the reason for the inception.

My ideology #2

While you are attempting to create realistic tracers should you hinder their usage to conform to "realistic usage?" I believe no.

I'm for leaving them configured for rifles, then leaving it open to disable it via the array.

[Panda-PL- 0]

My ideology #2

While you are attempting to create realistic tracers should you hinder their usage to conform to "realistic usage?" I believe no.

Camp realism says:

The only directive the Army has is one that covers the ammount of tracer rounds and ball ammo one should allways carry.

Removing tracer rounds from rifleman's inventory IRL would go agains Army regulations, just like not wearing body armour or carrying less than 210 rounds etc... So it is not realistic.

So as it is now the rifleman will carry an appropriate ammount of tracer ammunition (42 tracer rounds among 210 in totall is 1/5. Any extra you carry is not limited, so you can have any mix that has 42 tracer rounds in it AFAIK). If we change the loadout we should do it in a way that will not decrease it. Hence additional scripting to make last 5 rounds in magazine tracers etc. But this will require additonal checks and you have to ask Sickboy if he thinks it is worth it.

Camp gameplay says:

it improves teamplay and cooperation in coop gaming, leave it as it is.

[ThePredator 0]

Well, the real world is different to regulations.

Being allowed to have tracers and using tracers is a huge difference. Most combat videos you can watch will show you that tracers are not used that often.

I opt for "no rifle tracers", because this is realistic and a good enough the reason, to disable them in this mod.

We use tracers on heavy guns and machine guns, the M249 does use tracers IRL, so the battlefield will have alot of tracers already.

Adding tracers for every rifle would ruin the authentic environment we created with realistic tracers.

You will see tracers flying like crazy at all times, they loose their magic...

A rifleman should shoot with iron sights, tracers would allow for hip shooting and this will lead to even more arcade-like gameplay.

And as a weapons expert, I have to remind you of phosphor and the chemical reactions. A barrel shooting tracers will wear out quite fast, in the german army, we had MG3 barrels only used for tracer shootings. Cleaning such barrel is a biatch, too.

So every infantryman will think twice to load tracers if he intends to fire accurately over his tour of duty.

For squad/teamleader the situation is different, they use tracers for target marking. Either for their own soldiers or for close air support.

Mission makers can change rifles to have tracers for such classes, but they should not be on by default, as I said earlier, this would ruin the whole "realism" attempt.

[wolfsblut_ 0]

...

Isnt it possible to define tracer-magasines? So you can load up a magasine with tracers anytime if you want to? ...

What about this?

Isnt this possible in an upcoming version?

Sometimes there are situations that you need rifle-tracers. For example you see an enemy-squad in 800 m and you see they have no long distance-rifles but you. To increase your hit-skill in that situation you can load a tracer-mag from your inventory. I think this would be nice/realistic.

Also i agree with ThePredator#s posting.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Agree with Pred, and a quick search of the web has convinced me that Panda[PL] + Pred are indeed right about 249 tracers - I just don't remember seeing any, ever.

But yeah, too many tracers spoils the broth.

[andersson 285]

@Panda[PL]: the things you say are probably true, for US-forces. But from my experience in the FDF (finnish defence force) we only used tracers at night (every 3rd, MG every 5th), IF we used tracers.. The groupleader could have all-tracers during the night to direct the groups fire.

We never used tracers during the day, not even in the MGs.

As this script shouldnt be US only I think its best to have it disabled as default. Some forces do not use tracers so much (SLA?), and do any use tracers during the day in rifles??

I would love the possibilty to define tracer mags so you can reload it when you want..

I should add that I cant speak about the FDFs use of tracers in a real hot situation, as I only did my year..

[ArmaVidz 0]

You will see tracers flying like crazy at all times, they loose their magic...

A rifleman should shoot with iron sights, tracers would allow for hip shooting and this will lead to even more arcade-like gameplay.

Argh. Can't argue with that.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Most combat videos you can watch will show you that tracers are not used that often.

Most combat videos simply don't catch such short events like tracer flyby or muzzle flash. Esspecially at daytime.

Soldiers don't have to use the tracers. They have to carry them. But we want to use BIS weapons so introducing a new magazine is not an option. Hence perhabs the tracers at the bottom approach.

And no, US Army is far more strict with regulations. AFAIK Marines are allowed to change their gear if their CO agrees, Army itself (and they wear ACUs) are not.

That doesn't mean there arent any ppl in Army that don't break regulations, but if a whole squad would start dooing that someone would notice.

Finally, yes, I've heard of people in Army that did all kinds of stupid and illegal things. Like removing ceramic plates from armour because they are too heavy etc. We should make the addon depict how majority of people behave with their gear. And majority probably doesn't want to get occasional penalties.

andersson: that's FDF. FDF is radically different than US Army in both doctrine and training. Historically FDF was allways fighting defensive wars while being outnumbeed - so the doctrine evolved to adjust.

Having no tracers only give you advantage if enemy doesn't know where you are. If you are

1) making a big-scale assult or

2) are ambushed while on patrol

enemy allready has a fix on you. Not using tracers will give him an advantage because your squadmates will not be able to share targets just as fast.

And the two situations are most frequent ones for US Army atm I think.

As for Kosovo and other missions: UN was not allways performing at its best, so did the US Army.

Durring each mission US Army improves its equipment and doctrine, so what was true years ago migth not be true now.

Hell, since Kosovo my own army changed both caliber and main rifle, vehicles, apcs, uniforms and vests. Kosovo was a long time ago.

If we want realism:

I think we should just check how the majority of US Army soldiers that are in Iraq and Afghanistan are equipped and follow their example. Even the gear and terrain in ArmA kind of matches the current conflicts.

[ThePredator 0]

As andersson said: We want to change the game to match for all kind of addons and forces.

US Army is not the reference army anyway. What about SLA and RACS?

Firing tracers at day is unusual, firing tracers at night quite common. However, the script load should be reduced to a minimum, best way is to keep tracers on at daylight.

Tracers are not used much in A-Stan and Iraq. Only at night they make sense. But they are not really necessary, since many soldiers do have IR lasers, which give some pretty advantage over the insurgents.

Tracers work both ways.

And even clandestine operators, like SEALs, use tracers in their machine guns at night. The reason is of psychological nature.

They force the enemy to believe they are outnumbered and are facing a huge group of troops. Actually, there are only up to 12 of them, engaging with all their firepower to break contact.

Their SOPs include the use of tracers, because no tracers at night are unusual for normal infantry platoons.

But using tracers in rifles is only usefull for leaders...

If the mission maker decides to use different options: he can simply add the required settings.

[andersson 285]

Firing tracers at day is unusual, firing tracers at night quite common. However, the script load should be reduced to a minimum, best way is to keep tracers on at daylight.

Isnt the best way to keep performance up (and realism) to have the tracers disabled? The script load should be reduced to a minimum if the tracers where off, or am I wrong..?

[sickboy 13]

Until anyone can give sane numbers about the performance, I'm afraid you guys should leave performance out of this discussion.

My tests show that even with several high rpm guns firing 100's of tracers, impact is minimum to the system.

Besides, as if 5 per round in small-arms are going to make the difference compared to all other Per3 and Per1 settings on those high rpm things :P

Anyway, i'm sitting back, enjoying the show, by the end of this day i'll see what you guys came up with

About adding magazines with different tracer ammo settings, simply not possible without requiring the Addon on ALL Servers AND Clients. Which would simply surpass the purpose of this Addon.

You might however find such features back in 6thSense.eu Mod or in future Mods by other ppl.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Other armies use their own rifles usually. This addons only works for default BIS.

If another addon is released, like FDF, and they use their own rifle and magazine you can configure them to use another tracer setup.

Doesn't FDF have their own rifles?

ATM. BIS addons depict US vehicles and soldiers. And weapons. Thus I take US Army as a reference.

Usually armies with different doctrines will use different equipment.

Quote[/b] ]As andersson said: We want to change the game to match for all kind of addons and forces.

We appriciate your help. Please keep looking.

As far as I researched till now:

In Iraq most US soldiers will load either 5 tracer rounds at the bottom of magazine or some at the bottom and some at the top so that they see when they are running low on ammo. Tracer rounds ontop are "so that enemy doesn't know if you are reloading".

If you want we can implement it. But I don't think I will agree to remove all rifle tracers. Other armies can carry tracers, US Army soldiers have to carry them. So it is realistic if FDF soldier carrying M16A2 has 5 tracers at the bottom of his magazine, but not realistic if US soldier doesn't.

Quote[/b] ]About adding magazines with different tracer ammo settings, simply not possible without requiring the Addon on ALL Servers AND Clients. Which would simply surpass the purpose of this Addon.

I was sure I have allready mentioned it.

How about last 5 rounds in each magazine then? Or first and last 3 rounds?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

@ June 10 2007,21:25)]How about last 5 rounds in each magazine then? Or first and last 3 rounds?

The more I think about it, the more I don't mind the last 5 rounds option. It'd make playing without an ammo counter enjoyable.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that too much for the standard rifles (AK74/M16/M4), as long as NO pistols get tracers.

[ArmaVidz 0]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that too much for the standard rifles (AK74/M16/M4), as long as NO pistols get tracers.

Well, after reading these fellas' posts I'd say 5 rounds at start of mag, 5 rounds at end and I think it would be a great setup.

Edit: @Sickboy's Post Below: 5 rounds from a new clip would be better than having none at all enabled by default. Most folks who are using these will probably be using them for night missions or dusk/dawn missions anyhow.

BTW, the tracers in RC4's Demo mission #2 are a different model? Not bad, not bad but when you zoom in on this "bn880  like" tracer, it looks, well, rather weird imho. But when you aren't zoomed in the effect is rather impressive.

I like the model used in Demo Mission #2 with the MG's. Although, if we could shorten the length of the tracers you used in RC 1&2 I think those would be even better.

[sickboy 13]

Tracers got swapped by accident, i'll have a look at it.

Demo Mission 2 should not have different tracers than Demo mission 1, there are only 1 model of each around.

Last 5 bullets in mag is impossible as we can not read how many bullets are left inside the clip. So any system that we would create is unreliable. For instance when someone fires 25 bullets from a 30 round clip and then switches to a fresh one, he first gets 5 tracer bullets and then 25 normal bullets, etc. etc.

[andersson 285]

@ June 10 2007,13:25)]Other armies use their own rifles usually. This addons only works for default BIS.

Yes, FDF have their own rifles and configurations. But my point was that maybe SLA uses tracers different than US, and they are default BIS. Then again RACS probably uses the same system as US since they are trained be them?

But I think I have totally misunderstood you Panda[PL], I thought that you gave information about how the tracers should be implemented, period. But now I see that you are researching about US-forces. And as RACS and SLA are fictional they can be configured any way..

And you are totally right that any upcoming mod/addon can configure their own magasines.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Last 5 bullets in mag is impossible as we can not read how many bullets are left inside the clip.

http://www.ofpec.com/COMREF/letterA.php#ammo

AFAIK.

We can. Ammo command returns them.

Then use mod command to see if the number is divisible by our 3 or 5 or whatever and if it is - add tracer.

The Predator (below): As I said this addon is designed for off-the-shelf ArmA, in which you 99% of tiem are an US soldier. IF more mods come out their authors will change settings.

If Player is not an US soldier the missionmaker can disable tracers easilly.

No, in fierce firefight enemy doesn't llok for your tracer rounds. He cannot tell if the rounds that came by were M16A2 or M249 shots. Even if he realises you're reloading atm it changes nothing - the rest of your squad is still firing.

We don't play "lone wolf" or rambo style, so, just like IRL, there never occurs a situation that there is noone to prevent enemy from rushing in durring the 5 seconds you reload.

[ThePredator 0]

Having rifle tracers, even 5 on top/end, is not suited for ArmA.

There will be loads of scripts in further missions, add-ons and stuff, so every add-on, that modifies a part of the game not that necessary is drained performance. Even if the FPS count does not drop, the CPU still has to process the whole bunch.

Without being able to move while reloading, the 5 tracers on top/end are a good indicator of a helpless soldier. It does not matter if you have 5 on top and 25 balls...The first 5 tracers after contact has been made are the most important ones.

a) You know where the enemy is

b) you know the next 5 tracers will be the last 5 rounds

c) if there are more soldiers with this magazine setup the enemy can bump 'n' run after tracers are visible.

The argument, ArmA has only US forces is not valid. We still have SLA, which is the other part of the game. And they only have one machinegunner, who usually fires tracer rounds. Big advantage over the US forces, because they don't use tracers as much as the Yankees.

US Armed forces tend to show off their power, other armies are more unpredictable and don't use tracers.

The FDF has some good reason: They can stay undetected while firing at the enemy.

Even if you can spot the muzzleflash, it's too late to react. combat distance is less than 300 m, the bullet travels that distance in 0.shootme seconds...

Tracers do burn out at 500 meters, so the 800 m tracer fire is impossible anyway with 5.56x45 mm weapons.

Why use tracers on less than aforementioned distance, if the disadvantages outweight the pro's ?

As a shooter, you don't see the tracer flying this distance, the impact will be at the same time as the muzzle flash dissapears. In the night time, you won't even see it due to blinding.

A rifleman won't be able to see the tracers with ironsights, but without them, precise fire is impossible, every 5th round he has to realign the rifle to guess the correct hold off. After another 4 rounds, he can check again, if he shot in the right direction...

A machinegunner can fire 3-5 round bursts with tracers every few rounds to realign the weapon without the need of ironsights.

He will give away his position.

A rifleman, on the other hand, can use the ironsights to fire precisely at the enemy. Which is somewhat the thought behind all that. Machineguns surpress, riflemen kill. No one would stick their head out, if tracers fly above.

If the riflemen fire tracers, the enemy knows EXACLTY all positions.

In the real world, tracers are not common for infantry men, they might carry them around, load a few on top/end of their magazine, but in the end, the current conflicts are not quite even.

We have to go back to a real war, not a guerilla warfare conflict.

World War 2... riflemen without tracers... airplanes with tracer mixtures, they had tracers the last few rounds, but dropped that, because the enemy knew the plane was out of ammo.

With no apparent enemy, you can use tracers for your own men to see what you are shooting at. You don't expect a great force at the receiving end...

In ArmA we have the SLA, not quite that well equipped, but a real threat to the BLUFOR.

Tracers in rifles would be stupid, if you do not intent to mark enemy locations. Again, Murphy used to say: Tracers work both ways.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Ah screw it, I really don't mind if they're there for the last 5, or not at all, as long as I'm not seeing random tracers in my rifle fire.

[sickboy 13]

Sure? Couldn't you check the ammo left in the mag before the tracer is/is not created? And since (I'm fairly sure) partial magazines aren't combined when reloading a partial mag, using,

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">? (_soldiervariable ammo (primaryweapon _soldiervariable) =< 5): goto "spawntracer" else goto "loop"

The above code is horribly flawed (and most definitely non-operational - it's been a while since I did any scripting), but I think it could be done...My reply was wrong, we can indeed use the ammo command. All that really needs to be checked is:

if(_soldier ammo _weapon<6)then{xxxxxxxxxxxxx};

[ThePredator 0]

And as far as my scripting knowledge goes: We need to compare the rounds with the magazine capacity for all the weapons...A M249 has 200 rounds, the M240 100 rounds, the M4 30 and we have the 20 round magazine.

I don't think the effort is worth the result.

If you guys are afraid of missing tracers for small arms, it's simple put unrealistic to have tracers ALWAYS on. The majority does not fire tracers, so any other setup can be made mission specific.

Update: A source told me, that they had tracers the last 3-5 rounds, because no one counts spent shots on the battlefield.

Those were just for the warning, not for any visual aid purpose or marking.

[Panda-PL- 0]

Update: A source told me, that they had tracers the last 3-5 rounds, because no one counts spent shots on the battlefield.

Exactly what i came up with.

5 is when you carry 9 magazines - you then have 45 tracer rounds on you. It is logical and along the regulations for US Army.

We'll give this system a go probably, I spoke with Sickboy and he will experiment with it.

[sickboy 13]

So, we basicly add a setting to the ammo classes, so we can choose if a rifle has TracerPer, or TracerLast ?

TracerLast could be any number, like last 5 or last 3 or so?

Then if I understand it correctly, SmallArms would have bullets at last 5 or 3 in the clip, while mg's and up would have tracers per 5, 3 or 1 etc?

[ArmaVidz 0]

So, we basicly add a setting to the ammo classes, so we can choose if a rifle has TracerPer, or TracerLast ?

TracerLast could be any number, like last 5 or last 3 or so?

Then if I understand it correctly, SmallArms would have bullets at last 5 or 3 in the clip, while mg's and up would have tracers per 5, 3 or 1 etc?

That sounds right to me (and to my liking anyway).

I like the MG's and up as tracer every 3rd round, but I'm good if it's 5 as well. No need to squabble over that. Was the m249 to be inclusive of having tracers as well?

[Panda-PL- 0]

Was the m249 to be inclusive of having tracers as well?

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m249.htm

Quote[/b] ]The preferred combat ammunition mix for the M249 is a four-ball (M855) and one-tracer (M856) mix. There are other variations of 5.56-mm ammunition available; however, the four-and-one mix allows the gunner to use the tracer-on-target (TOT) method of adjusting fire to achieve target kill.