aGWulfy

Is it just me or are most handguns in this game almost completely useless? According to the wiki page on Dayz weapons the 9mm handguns do 889 damage. This means it generally takes almost a whole magazine of 9mm to take out one survivor, worse yet with the Makarov and its 8 round magazine. You need more than one full magazine to kill someone, especially considering you will also probably miss many of the shots. What makes their low damage even more ridiculous is the fact that the .45 ACP handguns, those being the M1911 and the revolver, do completely adequate damage of 4500. In real life there is a lot of serious discussion about whether the .45 ACP or the 9mm round is better, but in this game the 9mm round is completely useless, with the possible exception of the silenced MP5/Bizon which can adequately take out zeds simply thanks to their volume of fire. But they're not handguns. What makes this even more interesting, then, is the fact that the weapon that does the most damage at muzzle is the Winchester 1866 which fires the .44 Henry, which is very slightly faster with a given bullet weight than the .45 ACP and should therefore be about as powerful. And to top all that off the shotguns are considered pretty much useless because their slug ammo only does as much damage as the .45 ACP handgun. Think about it: an 11.5mm slug weighing 12-15 grams, going 250-370m/s depending on weight does as much damage as an 18.5mm slug weighing up to 30 grams, +/- some, going 550m/s assuming those 30 grams. The caliber is bigger, slug is heavier and it goes faster and it does the same damage. You might somehow justify the .44 Henry doing more damage than the .45 ACP (say, all the .44 Henry ammo is really nice expanding ammo loaded with smokeless powder instead of black and all the Winchesters are upgraded to withstand that while all the .45 ACP is military-issue FMJ ammo), but even if you don't do that, it's straight out impossible to justify having the shotgun slug do as much damage as the .45 ACP. So with this background info in mind, here are the actual suggestions. The 9x19mm ammo should do something like 3500 damage, maybe slightly less. Should take out an enemy at full health with 4-5 shots in the chest. Damage dropoff should be pretty quick, but should still do at least the current damage at 150-200m. SD ammo should do slightly less damage, but still kill with 5-6 shots in the chest at close range. This would make it an actual problem, deciding between .45 ACP and 9mm where both clearly have their advantages and neither is useless. 9x18mm ammo (Makarov and Bizon) should do slightly less damage than the SD 9x19mm, because it's already subsonic and a lighter bullet at that. Killing an opponent with a single Makarov magazine should still not be a big deal as long as you don't miss more than twice or so. Basically it should be a similar 5-6 shot kill. While I imagine its SD variety must exist due to technical reasons, it should do the same amount of damage as the normal version because, as I said earlier, the normal version is already subsonic so in practice there is no need for a specialized SD round. Alternatively the normal version could be removed altogether, this would create an additional incentive to use the Makarov/Bizon, it being that even unsilenced it doesn't alert the zeds. This is just a random thought, though. The .45 ACP could remain as it is or get a slight damage reduction. Still, it should be considerably more powerful than the 9mm and take out enemies in 3-4 shots. The .44 Henry of the Winchester should be about as powerful as the .45 ACP. I don't even know if it should be slightly more powerful or slightly less powerful, but it's a similar round when it comes to bullet weight and speed so it should do similar damage. The 12 gauge slug should take the .44 Henry's former place of being the most powerful round in the game at close range. I think it should start off at somewhere between 9000 and 10000 damage and the damage drop-off should be adjusted so that at some 200-250m it could still take an enemy out in 2 hits. The buckshot ammo should retain its one shot kill ability. These changes were compiled keeping in mind Dayz's style of making weapons less deadly than they are in real life, but I also took into account the rounds' real worth and actual data. It would make the handguns a more important part of the game and an actual option for CQB. It would make it so the 9mm vs .45 debate could become a thing in Dayz and it would make the Makarov realistic in that it can theoretically kill, even with one magazine, but in practice it's more effective as a throwing weapon. The shotguns would not be dismissed as useless and the Winchester... well, it would make more sense to someone who knows what the Winchester actually fires. Alternatively all those rounds could be made fairly similar in damage in that they would all do very little damage, sort of like the 9mm rounds now (this would mean significantly nerfing the .45 ACP, .44 Henry and maybe the 12 gauge slug), but to make up for that they would have a very high chance of knocking the target unconscious, to the extent that 2-3 shots with the 9mm, 1-2 shots with the .45 ACP/.44 Henry or a single 12 gauge slug would almost guarantee that the opponent is unconscious. This would make them the ideal weapons for Heroes, because even if they don't get hit by some Survivor shooting at them, they can return fire at a very low cost to their humanity, one that they could possibly even make up for by patching up the now unconscious Survivor, blood bagging him/her, basically providing all the first aid he can before legging it so the Survivor can't get another shot. These changes would fit in more with the current effectiveness of the 9mm rounds, but it would still make proper weapons out of the 9mm pistols and the shotguns, they would become weapons that you could actually rely on to save your life instead of being weapons that decrease your chances of survival because once you have them you're no longer considered unarmed by a someone who cares about that.

While talking about other stuff in a recent thread I had the idea of adding an option to disassemble guns. The main idea would be that you could disassemble a gun and in most cases the parts would take up less space than the complete weapon and would also use the normal item slots rather than weapon slots, which are in much shorter supply when it comes to stashes. Considering you could realistically shove the pieces of a disassembled M4 in the pockets of some larger cargo pants it'd make sense for the savings to be quite significant on some guns (some, since, for instance, an AK series weapon will realistically only take more room once you've disassembled it). And having some more rarely used weapons stored as parts would mean you no longer have to make new stashes because the old ones ran out of weapon slots despite still having 50+ item slots. Another thing that could be done with such a system would be that full weapons could be more rare, but it would be easier to find different parts which could then be assembled into a full gun once you have all the necessary pieces. I don't know what advantages it would have, but that's open for discussion. Finally, this would open up opportunities for some interesting firearm variants. For instance, assembling weapons in non-standard ways could have some interesting results (such as a full-auto M16 by adding an M4 lower receiver on it), though that would probably be much, much harder to implement. Let me hear your thoughts. Mostly I'm interested in the base idea of just having it take up less space, but the other points don't seem too crazy either.

Now this is going to look like I'm burying this guy, but bear with me, there are a few points towards the end that I agree with. 1. Yea, it's just as simple as that. Just add new buildings. It's not like we're talking about a few hundred man-hours at the very least. 2. The clothing system is fine. Making it more complex isn't what's needed in an already glitch-prone mod on a glitch-prone engine. 3. What else do you need? You got blood loss, broken bones, unconsciousness and blood bagging, all in the game already. Again, you don't need to add complexity to an already glitch-prone system. If you got any particular ideas, though, feel free to elaborate. 4. Vehicle repair seems completely fine as it is, I don't see how you could realistically improve that. 5-10. Arma 2 is an old game. For what it is, the graphics are great. We don't need better graphics, especially useless little things like that to hog the hardware. Your rig might handle it, mine sure as hell can't. Many people already play at 15fps. 11. Yeah, that exists. It's called putting your weapons down and coming out from your hiding spot, then giving in to the slightest whim of the person who shot at you so he'd spare you. There should not be a mechanic that would somehow FORCE me to spare a player. If I want you dead and I'm on top of the situation, you die. Simple as that. 12. Please... this adds next to nothing to the actual game. 13. With leg injuries you crawl. Until you get a splint or some morph. Again, why should that stuff be more complicated than that? 14. Night already is night. People constantly complain that it's too dark. The night is fine. What bothers me is how during the day the screen can randomly go almost black so you can barely see anything. But that's probably an engine issue, not something with the mod or the base game. 15. This is the one point that kinda does make sense. This would make refueling a heli a risky operation, you'd need people to guard you while you do it. However, in this case there should also be a faster way to go about refueling a heli. I'd say the whole deal is just not worth the effort, but if it's not as difficult to implement as I think it'd be, I'd be okay with this. 16. Yes, the throwing mechanic sucks. I don't know how difficult or legal it is to implement another mod's throwing mechanic, however. If it's legal, simple and a significant improvement, sure. 17. I only have minor issues with weapon modularity at this point. Mainly ACOGs on any guns that can already take the CCO or Holo and we're golden. Also the 5.56mm silencer for the M16A4 would be great, maybe I'd actually start using silenced guns. Also, maybe the flashlight should attach to pretty much every weapon, since really you could just tape it on as many soldiers do. I don't know what kind of work the attachment system requires, however, and if those things are hard to implement, I can live without them. Except for that ACOG thing. M240 ACOG would be the sweetest thing, you could actually see the enemy 900m away that you're shooting at, and where the bullets land. I love me the M240 and putting an ACOG on it would be a gift from the heavens. Also I guess the average sniper crowd would like the M14 and FAL more (if FAL doesn't already take ACOG, I'm not quite sure, haven't used them in a while since I've had enough machineguns). If it's something like a model is needed, I'd have more motivation for that than I have for that scoped Lee I talked about in another thread. One very interesting idea that I just came up with, regarding modularity, which wouldn't even require any new models at all, would be switching out the upper receivers and/or barrels on the M4/M16 series of rifles. Basically you could take the upper receiver of an M16 (either one), a lower receiver of an M4, put them together and have a full-auto M16 and an M4 that only has semi-and burst firing modes. It would be a kinda cool thing, I guess, without the work of creating or looking for any new models or textures (other than inventory pictures for the items. The 3d models could be the regular green bags you have for a lot of stuff). Another benefit of this would be that you could pull the upper and lower apart and this way it would take less inventory space. Also you could store the M16/M4 series weapons in the inventory slots in your tents/stashes. The viability of this idea depends solely on how much effort it would take to make duplicates of ALL M16 and M4 attachment combinations and switch their firing modes. And given the aforementioned advantage this would give to this weapon series, such a thing would have to be done to a few other weapons as well, I suppose. Though I can't really think of anything that you essentially pull in half like the AR-15 platform. A stripped AK, for instance, takes as much space in real life as a fully assembled one. Anyways I've gone off on a tangent here, I think this idea needs refining and then its own thread. I'll see to that. Point is, I'm all for more modularity, but I'm aware that depending on how the modularity system is built, it could be a very work-intensive process to add new attachments like that. Or it could be as simple as a bit of copypasta, changing some numbers and names here and there assuming you have all the models and textures. But it probably isn't.

Being a newbie 3D modeler I figured I'd give it a shot, it'd be good practice and hell, maybe I'd even end up making something nice enough to use ingame. What sort of scope should I go for? The same type that goes on the Mosin or should the Lee have a different scope?

Point taken. I still believe that handguns should at least be capable of neutralizing a threat with 5 rounds or less without a headshot. Okay, let's keep the threat alive then, but still, it should knock them unconscious for long enough that you can escape, if nothing else. I actually even mentioned that as an alternative. That those "slugs" of all sorts would not necessarily kill you (I still think the shotgun slug should be a 1 shot kill, but no one else would agree so as a compromise we could settle for 2. But a 99.9% chance of unconsciousness), but rather knock you out. My point is that one way or another it should be nearly impossible that 5 hits with a handgun at close range wouldn't neutralize a threat. At this rate even the puny Makarov would be a somewhat formidable weapon.

Well, even against the infected it can be pretty ineffective. For instance, when I tried taking out chasing zeds with a Makarov, I eventually came to the conclusion that with my accuracy I can take out about one zed for every magazine I have. I sure hope the damage gets corrected soon.