ZTrainz

Ah, another dimwit who doesn't realize that I know full well how long it takes wear to affect accuracy and that I would never have presented "a few thousand rounds" as a valid point under a model where complete realism was the top priority. The difference between Cuda and me is that I can actually recognize the context of a post without applying my own personal biases to it. He could be the world's foremost expert on ballistics but it doesn't matter because real weapons and ballistics were not the topic until Cuda decided to make it the topic. For the record, he was the first to openly insult with his use of the word ignorant. Once he opened the door, I decided to have a little fun. Dang, Cuda... conceding defeat? That's a shame. Squishy, you were banned for Alt-F4 during combat. Shameful tactic, that. I personally view that ban as valid because Rocket himself has called this an exploit. As you presented no other evidence of admin abuse I must assume that the the admins of that server are above board (innocent until proven guilty, right?). Following on that assumption, I must also assume that your husband and all the others received legitimate bans and are therefore, in some way, cheaters.

The information wasn't wrong, just not at all related to the discussion. Wrong. It was never presented as fact. The wording "In the standalone" and "might" clearly indicate that it was a possible scenario for a game. You need to work on your reading comprehension. My initial response to you attempted to correct this misunderstanding but you seem to have ignored it. Go back and read. I never made any definitive statements about you or your character aside from the rather obvious one that you are trying to demonstrate your knowledge of firearms wherever you think it applies. I try not to make assumptions about people and I try even harder not to publicize any assumptions that I do make. As you are experiencing, assumptions are often wrong and usually make you look like a dumbass. That's cute... and mildly amusing. I just said some people might call you crazy. I wouldn't, at least not because you love guns. As it turns out, I probably have more hours and more miles with an AR-15 type platform in my hands than you do. I also own a couple firearms myself. Again, the example I provided was NEVER "paraded" as factual. At the end of the day, the standalone will be a game and that game needs to meet certain playability standards set by the devs. All FPS type games sacrifice realism for gameplay at some point - all of them. Maybe they will sacrifice realism for balance and playability in the standalone and maybe they won't. It is my opinion that as good as Arma 2 is already, that the devs probably already know that the accuracy of modern firearms generally will not be affected until the round count gets into the tens of thousands. (Don't go attacking 10,000 or 20,000 as hard numbers either. We both know all kinds of factors can affect the life of a firearm.) Hell, they may even decide to add some inaccuracy to the first few rounds after cleaning - especially with the precision rifles. Wouldn't that make it interesting for the snipers? Are you saying you're too fat or athletically inept to join? Can I safely assume that since you're of the bandit persuasion in DayZ you enjoy pretending to kill humans and animals? You need to look up the definition of 'useful'. Please refer to my earlier comments about trading realism for playability and balance in a video game. Questioning my masculinity? My character? That's a little uncalled for, especially when you're the one who can't comprehend what you're reading. I guess I should expect such childish retorts from an alleged cheater.

This isn't a discussion. I'm simply trying to make you realize the error of your original reply. Of course I can't let all the errors and incorrect assumptions that you've made since go unchallenged. I'm curious. Did you have moments in school when the teacher finally called on you, you gave your answer and she just stared at you for a few seconds, a befuddled look on her face before calling on the next student? There are people in this world that equate "firearms enthusiast" and "crazy". Just sayin'... I've read a few of your posts in other threads. Clearly you are trying demonstrate your extensive knowledge of firearms wherever you can. Regardless of the agenda that you are trying to push, there are appropriate places to make your thoughts heard. A thread about duping is not the place for a discussion on the authenticity of weapons in DayZ. If you take the weapon out of my original comment and replace it with a water bottle, the comment still applies to the topic. You can't do that with any of your replies. In the standalone [a Water Bottle] that has [been contaminated] might acquire a property that reduces it's [ability to quench your thirst] and increases the risk of [infection]. Incidentally, this is the point that I was trying to make when I initially made reference to the rabbit parts. I assumed that you were intelligent enough to pick that up on your own - my mistake. This is like trying to reason with a two-year old... I was presenting an EXAMPLE of what COULD happen in a VIDEO GAME - whether my example was correct in real life or not is not applicable. Listen, I've been talking about a video game this entire time. It's got zombies for Chrissake! I know you want weapons to behave as realistically as possible but it isn't going to happen in this video game. First of all, the more realistic you make weapons the more resources you need (both during coding and during use) to make this work. Quite quickly you reach a point where you are spending more on those resources that you could ever hope to recoup from the added realism. Secondly, it is a video game! You want realism, grow a pair and go sign up for a war somewhere. If you actually kill someone, you can prop 'em up against a wall and give 'em all the inappropriate lectures on ballistics that you please. Actually having both could be useful. Each factor that affects a player's combat effectiveness adds to the complexity of gameplay and provides another option for balancing. I suspect that many players won't like the RNG aspect of jams. I'll reiterate: your comment had nothing to do with the OP. Now you're definitely bragging.

Dunno if this is similar to your situation or not. The trees might make this solution impossible. http://dayzmod.com/f...pter-spawn-bug/

I can't help that you were too stupid to use a little common sense and realize that the comment you refer to was not a literal suggestion. You recognized that the comment wasn't accurate to real life firearms. But rather than think I might be using that example in the context of a game, you assumed that I do not know how cleaning affects real firearms. You then decided to provide a correction in the context of real life. So not only did you take it literally when it was clearly (to someone well versed in the use and care of actual firearms) not meant that way, you also changed the context. It was not an analogy, it was an example of what could be done with the object oriented approach that they plan use with weapons and items in the standalone. I also used the word "might," clearly classifying it as hypothetical. I mentioned accuracy not because it is analogous to real life but because it is a good variable to manipulate for game balance. A jam has the effect of rendering you completely ineffective for a period of time. Jamming provides only two states, on or off if you will. Accuracy (as a variable in a game) is much more versatile as it can be decreased in minute but noticeable steps, gradually decreasing effectiveness rather than turning it off completely. I have made no statements regarding my personal view of firearms. Stop making asinine assumptions. But baby bunny fur feels sooo warm and cuddly on your cheek... :( You're right though, that is kinda creepy and no sane person would ever attach a portion of a dead animal's hide to a firearm.

They can see your position too. Kinda funny to see all the QQ posts about "I got banned for no reason!!" when you can look at the logs and see what they joined with (starting loadout), what they equipped in the first few minutes (AS50, ghillie, etc.) , where they were (Kamenka) and where they teleported to (Vysota) 30 seconds later. An intelligent and devoted admin can really make a huge difference, even on a public hive server. They just have risk blacklisting to do it.

A comment that had nothing to do with the OP. In the standalone an M16A2 that has had [rabbits' feet tied to the sling and baby bunny fur glued to the stock] might acquire a property that [increases] it's accuracy and [reduces] the risk of jamming. Care to give a comment on that using your real world experience and perspective as an enthusiast?

I think you misunderstood me. I was giving an example of what could be done and how items are going to be handled in the standalone in an effort to answer the OP's question. The bit about use affecting accuracy was not meant as a suggestion and certainly not as a balance point for such a mechanic. There are other sections of the forum for that. There are also other sections of the forum to brag about your firearms, btw.

@Indy Don't be a tool. Some people are search challenged. @OP From what I understand many items will be handled as unique objects that can have different properties in the standalone. Right now every M16A2 looks like every other M16A2 to the game. That's why no one can tell hacked and duped items from legitimately spawned items (unless someone spawns a weapon or item that isn't in DayZ). In the standalone an M16A2 that has had a few thousand rounds put through it might acquire a property that reduces it's accuracy and increases the risk of jamming. If every item has a unique identifier that the game can see, it will be easy to find and eliminate duplicates. It should also be much easier to prevent the duplication in the first place. Look for rocket's posts in this thread, quite interesting.

Make him marry her. That will teach him.

No... just NO. Random, unfair, unbalanced... bullshit. You getting sniped was a legitimate mistake on your part. You know there will be snipers in Cherno. You even know where they're most likely set up. If you aren't skilled enough to use buildings and terrain as cover, avoid the damn cities. You can survive and gear up quite well just by hitting small towns and deer stands. The snipers have a significant tactical advantage but everyone knows this after an hour of playing. Think about what you're doing, what you're about to do and ask yourself how likely it is that you'll survive. If you're not an idiot, these "totally random, unfair and unbalanced things" won't happen to you nearly as often. Listen... the reason this game is good is because of permadeath. The consequences of your mistakes are severe (relative to the last ten years of gaming) but when you prevail, your victories are so much more satisfying. These "proper gamers" that you speak of are soft. They've been coddled for the last decade. They don't realize that to really, truely appreciate winning, you have to lose and it has to hurt. ... what was this thread about again???

Okay, I guess my explanation was too complex for you. It's a good thing I have pre-school age children because I doubt I would be able to make things simple enough for you without the practice. The loot system is broken. The loot system clogs areas with junk very quickly. The loot system was intended to remove the junk automatically but doesn't. It's very easy to get shot while cycling loot. Loot cycling is okay because of these four facts. Nice idea for a solution... just slow the whole process down. That way the same number of players are competing for fewer resources. That won't encourage farming even more /sarcasm You really aren't very bright are you? Thanks for the beans but you can have them back :beans: . I don't want beans from the likes of you.

Actually, we ARE talking about tin cans. You're just too dense to realize how it relates. Here, I'll break it down Barney-style for you... Let's look at the Cherno church. After a restart, the first survivor to approach will spawn about half of the 12 loot spots. Let's say half of those spawns have at least one piece of junk (a tin can) that no one will pick up (it's actually higher than that but we're keeping it simple). Let's assume that the 1st survivor cleans out the other 3 'decent' spawns. So after the first survivor you have, on average, 3 out of 12 spawns that won't spawn anything new until a restart. 10 minutes pass and the second survivor approaches the church. Again half of the empty loot spots spawn but we're down to only 9 of those. Let's call it 5 to be generous. 2 of those end up with junk (tin cans) that no one will pick up and we're left with 7 empty spots. If you carry this out you're down to a single empty position after one hour, 20 minutes and 8 survivors. That's the BEST case. And keep in mind that these don't have to be 8 unique survivors. If a player leaves and then comes back to within 200m and the ten minute timer is up, it will trigger a spawn check for all the empty spots. Even the idiots should be able to realize that the church will be choked with worthless loot (tin cans) within a hour and a half on a server with moderate activity. This "cleanup" either doesn't function properly or the timer is longer than the typical time between server restarts. Regardless, you can see that it was intended that the game cycle loot automatically. I really don't see an issue with doing something the game is supposed to do anyway - especially considering the extreme hazard you are subjected to while clearing. Don't hate just because you soil your panties when you think about spending that much time outside of your precious pine tree. As I pointed out before, you're benefiting from loot cycling without even knowing it. We're still waiting for our "Thank you."

Am I the only one that has an intense desire to find Venthos and bait him using fake chatter?

You're right, it is different... the cans that where there the first time will still be there the second time you hit that spot. I read somewhere that there is supposed to be a despawn mechanic for loot (no, I'm not gonna spend time looking for it). It was intended as a playability enhancement but it doesn't work. Because of this, locations like the barracks become choked with trash within the first hour of a server restart. The hoppers snatch anything decent and leave the rest. Same thing happens with high traffic locations on the coast. How many times have you seen a store with nothing but crap in it? It's because the survivor that went through 8 hours before took the map and beans off the pile but left the flares and the flares are keeping anything else from spawning in that location. Call cycling whatever you like. Use it yourself or not but there is no doubt that the current loot system is insufficient for this game. And don't you dare pull the 'reality' card unless you're willing to buy a new key every time you die. My opinion... you bitches are ragin cause you don't have the stones to sit in a high traffic spot for extended periods of time with a 'shoot me' sign on your back. Oh, and you're welcome. You've almost certainly possessed an item that spawned only because someone else intentionally cycled it's spawn location.

There ARE servers out there that will locally ban you for possessing hacked weapons. I know this for a fact. I believe it is automated and works off of a white list of weapons/items. The hacked variant uses a different string and is easily identified in the logs by comparing it to list of "legit" strings. If you are a legit player, these are the servers you want to play on. If they've gone through the trouble to put this measure in place, chances are very good that more robust measures have been put in place to combat hacking in general.

Sorry to burst your bubble but Rocket's brother is a virologist. By all reports he's helping with the infection mechanics for the standalone. I'm pretty sure they already know all this. Edit: Doh! I'm so slow.

I'm fairly certain that the infection is easier to get this patch. I got infected twice in the span of about 3 hours this past weekend. One was a zombie hit and one was from cold. A friend also got infected from cold in the same span of time. These are the first infections I've heard about in my group (unless people were swimming or boating) and I have well over 100 hours in-game. IMO the temperature indicator needs to be much better at signifying danger points. If you wait until the indicator flashes, it's probably too late.

I'm not justifying it because he was a bandit. I'm justifying it because he tried to kill me without provocation and was still trying when he died. He was still a threat to me. Why exactly is a bandit killer worse than an indiscriminate killer? I'd love to hear your reasoning for that. I'm not familiar with your farmer's situation but from what you've described I think the courts were wrong. The burglar violated the farmer's property and personal safety just by being there without permission and with malicious intent. If you engage in illegal activity, you deserve what you get IMHO. That decision basically gives a pass to any burglar who turns his back when he gets spotted. What qualifies you to determine what level of threat the burglar posed? Where you there? Are you somehow privy to the minute details of the situation? Would I do the same? If the burglar was still in my house, hell yes. If not, I'm not certain. There is, after all, the distinct possibility that the criminal is armed and is moving to a better position rather than fleeing. Citizens should have guaranteed rights, criminals shouldn't. Defending your person and property is a right that every law-abiding person has. In DayZ, we can both agree that killing is wrong/anti-social/whatever. But what is the penalty for killers? Nothing according to the game. So players without any in-game morality will kill indiscriminately. In the absence of a game imposed penalty system the players must create and impose this system or allow the "wrong" behavior to continue unabated. Ironically the only penalty that we can swiftly and reliably impose on other players is death. This is justice (broken into simple concepts for the idiots). Listen, in DayZ, if you repeatedly allow your advantage to slip away while you are obviously still in a tactical situation you will be killed. I'm not trying to claim that I'm a hero or anything, just that I was justified in killing him because he was trying to kill me. If you want to play as a pacifist, fine. Have fun on the coast with your hatchet, scrounging for a can of beans. I'll play with a little more sense. I wasn't being "smart," I was serious. Your bleeding heart philosophy has no place in a game like DayZ. You'll never be anything more than a target, a victim. As far as RL goes, you seem incredibly naive. It's not a nice place out there and people WILL take what they want from you if you let them, your life included. I certainly hope you never grow the balls to sign up for military service. You'll get the guy next to you killed.

It's this kind of mentality and rush to judgement that leads to a burglar suing the homeowner that shot him. :rolleyes: That encounter happened between Khelm and Berezino. Following the patch of woods we were in would have led me straight into Khelm and spawned zombies. The only other egress routes were runs across large fields. I consciously chose to use my current advantage rather than risk a situation where I was being pursued without that advantage. I trailed him for a few minutes to be certain of his intentions. He moved slowly from tree to tree, all the while looking and advancing toward the last spot that he saw me. He had already made his intentions clear by shooting at me (as I was running away from him) and he was obviously still trying to find me. He made a tactical error by losing sight of me and moving toward my last known position without re-establishing visual contact. Had he not made that error, I may have been the one that ended up on the coast. If he had turned and run the other way he would've lived. If he had done anything other than pursue me, he would've lived. It was his choice to continue to actively hunt me and he died because his intended prey got the upper hand. Killing a bandit isn't murder - ever. It's justice. It's saving the life of that spawner that would've been in his scope five minutes later. It might even be saving your own life two minutes into the future. I think you should check out Hello Kitty Online. It seems to fit your life philosophy better than any game that has guns. @Silly: Evidently we both want a situation where KoS isn't automatically the best method of operation. We just disagree on how to get there. You say we can get there with just penalties, rewards and skill sets. I say we need skins too. Do I expect my "vision" to actually happen? Not really. It would be cool if it did but I don't expect all of those community pressures, even from a standalone. Similar stuff happened in UO but there are things that were a part of UO from the outset that just aren't in DayZ (towns with npc guards for instance). I meant it as a possibility rather than a vision. I did, after all, use "might" six times in that paragraph. Furthermore, I would say my vision is actually pessimistic for this reason: I don't think a game imposed system of penalties and rewards can be balanced finely enough to make tough choices while still allowing the bandit playstyle to be viable. I think the penalties will be either too severe and you won't get many bandits or you'll have penalties that don't have enough teeth to deter many survivors. Same concept applies to any potential rewards and skill sets. I also hold they opinion that adding systems that artificially mimic or influence morality is a slippery slope. The smaller these systems are, the better. Otherwise 2 years goes by and your well intentioned systems have ballooned to the point that you've created a WoW shooter. @Fabik: What if you're a bandit hunter? The morality of that is debatable but most bandit hunters wouldn't consider themselves "bandits." In fact if you kill exclusively bandits, you eventually get the hero skin as I understand it. Aside from that, anyone is much tougher to spot in a ghillie. I've had friends lose me in a forest when they were following me at 50m. Knock on my friends if you like but they've never lost me when I'm in the survivor skin.

If you expect a cookie just because you didn't shoot somebody, you're high. And stop lying to yourself. You snipe Cherno and bring buildings down on fresh spawns for the lulz, not survival or gear. I tire of your repetition. I've already explained why skins not reflecting actual actions every time is the ideal situation. I've already given an example of how the designers can tie other consequences to humanity. I've also predicted that the community will, in time, impose it's own penalties for banditry but bandits must be readily identifiable for this to happen. What you seem unable to comprehend is that a bandit skin is a disadvantage. Just how much of a disadvantage it becomes depends on the community. To be clear, I don't think skins alone will be enough leverage to balance bandit and survivor playstyles but I do think it will help. In a proper system survivors will be a wildcard and survivors will be the largest group of players. Hopefully the skin comes with other consequences that deter or hinder indiscriminate killing. Maybe bandits need another resource like alcohol or nicotine. Maybe you start seeing ghosts or having flashbacks when you ADS after you pass a certain number of kills with that type of weapon. Whatever it is, it has to be painful enough to keep every 12 year old from going on a rampage just because he can. On the other side, it can't be completely incapacitating to those who really want to play as killers. Consider this... you meet a survivor. He might generally kill people for their gear but since he's very close to the bandit skin/penalty threshold, he gives you a pass. Or he might have high enough humanity that he decides he can off you for kicks. You have no way of knowing but if you kill everyone you meet, just to be on the safe side, you'll definitely get a bandit skin and you'll definitely be KoS to everyone except (possibly) fellow bandits. Medics might not treat you; people might not trade with you; you might not be allowed to participate in facilitated trades; you might be followed just so heroes or survivors can burn your camp. In a game where duping isn't rampant these community imposed hardships will be significant. You need to stop looking at DayZ and it's features/systems/whatever as an end state and start looking at what it could become. Some people won't care and will KoS regardless. Guess what... the humanity system isn't designed for those people. It's designed for everyone else that wants a more complex and rewarding DayZ. The other side of "See bad guy, shoot" is "See good guy, don't shoot." Without skins the game just becomes "See anyone, shoot." We've seen it. You conveniently left out the side of the equation that makes your linearity argument invalid. You're right, one cannot program humanity per se, into a game. One can, however, program a system of reward and consequence based on player actions that is designed to influence the frequency of those actions. Call it the poor programmer's version of morality. In this game, where incapacitation and death can come with a single shot, a clear visual indicator of a player's probable intention is needed to avoid FFA DM gameplay. We've already established that premise in this thread. Again, you bring up aspects of the system that are broken. I'll repeat myself... "You (and others) continue to point out things about the system that are obviously broken or unworkable in their current states (ghillies and camo covering any bandit/hero markings for example). These things can (and hopefully will) be corrected!" Please refer to my previous posts for examples of how a skin/humanity system could be structured to make player interaction viable but uncertain at the same time. I was in a situation the other night where defense was counted as murder. The guy decided it would be a good idea to engage me from over 200m with a Winchester. He missed and moved toward my last position after dropping his zombies. I used that time to circle behind and kill him. I got a murder but since my humanity was positive I didn't drop low enough to get the bandit skin. If I was close to the bandit skin threshold, I would have broken contact to avoid the humanity hit. This is a perfect example of how, even in it's current implementation, the humanity/skin system can be flexible and add choices at the same time. "We" supposes the author and at least one other person. I happen to agree with that half of Axz's sentence. His use of "we" is valid. Although I suspect that many, many survivors also hold a similar opinion.

You say that you want a lot of gray area. I've pointed out how a properly designed and adjusted skin system can help to add some gray. But too much gray and you have the complete lack of trust and KoS that we saw prior to skins being reintroduced. Not shooting on sight does put you at a disadvantage. But it's a known disadvantage and you can partially compensate for that with tactics. Tactics require intelligence and skill beyond pointing and clicking but you say that this isn't the challenge that you are looking for. It really sounds like you want a more complex and entertaining way to kill people but don't want to assume any more risk as a result. Don't be such a wuss. You (and others) continue to point out things about the system that are obviously broken or unworkable in their current states (ghillies and camo covering any bandit/hero markings for example). These things can (and hopefully will) be corrected! Let's simplify a little. When you meet a player you can shoot them, avoid them or befriend them. Avoiding them you can already attempt to do but evidently don't. Befriending them doesn't appear to be your cup of tea because there will ALWAYS be the chance that you get shot in the back. The actions that you admit to and your statements indicate that you'll probably shoot on sight regardless. If I'm missing something please enlighten me. Your statements are absurdly contradictory. I believe you are a bandit who is against skins simply because it will diminish your ability to abuse survivors' trust and less aggressive play style. No, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you don't want to wear a 'Shoot Me' sign for killing indiscriminately, go play CoD. Yeah, I said it... it's appropriate here.

@Silly I really like the addiction idea. Katniss also brought up more debilitating injuries. I think these two ideas, along with skins and humanity can be combined to make each and every firefight a very complex decision. You mention that the pk tagging would just change the game mode from FFA DM to TDM. What game mode do you think we should move to? What is your ideal PvP state? You say that you want a reason not to KoS but the actions that you admit to sing a different tune. Here's your reason for not blowing up clueless newbies with (probably) duped satchel charges: surviving as someone who doesn't shoot first is tough in DayZ - man up and take the challenge. No reward that the game gives you for not killing will compare to the amusement that currently drives your "banditry." Consequences might but you seem unwilling to accept any that have teeth. There are many other games out there that let you kill players for amusement and without consequence. You're right... branding people bandit or hero won't ever work perfectly. The kicker is that if it does achieve perfection in marking players' tendency to pk it won't work. Let me explain... I mentioned development of the skin/humanity system several times because it will need a LOT of it before it's really viable as a permanent system. The bandit and hero thresholds will have to be structured so that they are resistant, but not immune to manipulation. The system should allow players to game it a little and maintain a middle ground. Back to UO... the red flag didn't turn on until you hit 5 murders and your murder count decayed sloooowly over time. It allowed "good" players to kill out of necessity but if you killed on a daily basis you'd go red pretty quick - much quicker than you could lose even one murder count (I never macroed off murder counts but I recall it being around 24 hours of play time to lose a single count). It also allowed a lot of players to ride the line intentionally. Basically you knew the serial killers on sight but you could never really trust anyone. For this middle ground to exist (and by extension this lack of complete trust), the hero skin should be almost impossible to get through normal play. It should be something that requires focus and effort. You're right. We've been trying to kill each other forever but usually it's for much less valid reasons than preservation of self. KoS in a real world scenario is a huge if. Even animals know that risking injury or death from fighting is a bad idea without a very powerful motivation. I really think that KoS would be the exception rather than the rule in an actual apocalypse. In any case, I brought it up to illustrate that DayZ is absolutely not representative of a real apocalyptic scenario. You just can't replicate the full range of human motivation and interaction, or the multitude of factors that influence them, in a game. Therefore, if you want your game to be more than FFA DM with zombies you have to put artificial systems in place to influence player behavior. How's about we just give every CD key a single life. It'll be WAY more realistic that way.

It can change it for some and it will, as long as other penalties are tied to the skin. I've seen it in UO. Murderers highlight red when you mouse over them and their nametag is red instead of the standard blue. "Reds" get stat loss when they die, they can't enter towns and they are not just KoS but actively hunted by other players. These specific penalties won't work in DayZ at the moment for various reasons (there are no towns or safe zones, for instance) but hopefully some community driven penalties will evolve. In fact, these penalties are already beginning. As the skin/humanity system gets debugged you will see players trust it more and take more decisive actions because of it. I can see player run trading posts refusing admittance to bandits and some medics refusing to treat bandits. Bandit skins will become a stigma. The community just needs time to react to the system after it is finally implemented properly. Trust me, this downside that you say doesn't exist will become painfully apparent with a more developed skin/humanity system and a little time. Since the bandit skins came back my personal behavior has changed. I used to avoid contact or KoS if contact was likely. Now with survivors I'll avoid first and shoot only when cornered or engaged. Bandits, I'll actually seek out and kill. The skins have moved at least one player farther away from a pure KoS playstyle. I think you need to remember that this is not anywhere near a finished product. Start thinking of the possibilities for a given system or feature rather than fixating on the current (broken) state. The problem with this example is that you consider the second person shooting on sight a foregone conclusion. If this is how humans really worked on an individual level, we'd have died out a long time ago. IRL it's much easier to survive as a pair than as an individual so your example is unlikely to be the norm for interaction between individuals (groups will probably still work as you described). In DayZ, shoot on sight was almost a forgone conclusion but only because that was the action most likely to result in a net positive for the initial shooter. The only consequence of shooting was a few bullets and the unlikely chance that the person shooting second would somehow win the firefight. If you add enough consequence to the act of shooting someone to tip the balance and make a net negative the most likely outcome, your initial shooter probably won't shoot. Skins and humanity, if implemented correctly, will help tip the balance.

To Dabs and the OP: Just because you read a study or quote some "expert" with letters after his name doesn't mean you (or the expert) are right. I know from experience that accurately modeling and predicting real-world events, either mathematically or experimentally, is exceedingly difficult for even the brightest minds. Go back to the first page and read dpactual's post. Just because Army snipers don't use custom loads doesn't mean that better snipers don't. You've never been hunting have you? I've personally shot a deer with a .30-06, straight through the center of the abdominal cavity. It went about 75 yards and keeled over in less than a minute. The entire abdominal cavity was bloody mush - easy to gut but messy. And before you get all righteous on me, everyone misses eventually. I missed and got lucky. I've also heart-shot deer with lesser weapons that went several hundred yards and lived in excess of an hour. You have yet to cite any of your personal experience with terminal ballistics on actual living tissue and yet you cry hypocrisy? Get your hands on a .50, shoot a bunch of pigs and then maybe I'll consider you qualified enough to listen to. I have to admit, this made me smile because I guessed it before you posted (although in my version it was a Sergeant, not the CO). It definitely gives me insight into your character or more accurately, lack thereof. He's right. Hornady doesn't even make the V-Max in .50. Furthermore, a lot of guys reload just because they think they can do better than the commercially available loads. I do agree that Mr. Two is wrong about the ballistic tips. Ballistic tips are there for accuracy and are more likely to provide faster expansion if they have any post-impact effect at all. Dabs, I like your concept about modeling organs and basing a damage system off of that. It won't happen in a video game though, not for the foreseeable future. Why? Time, money and the fact that many gamers won't accept dying within minutes of a single 9mm round hitting them in the leg (think femoral artery). By the way, how do we account for "miracles" (situations that our vast scientific knowledge can't explain)? With 4.6 million DayZ murders, certainly a miracle recovery would have happened by now. Or on the other side, what about the the deaths that have a million to one chance of occuring (like a fragment of a 9mm round that inflicted a non-fatal would days ago traveling through the circulatory system and lodging in the heart or brain)? What about individual anatomical differences such as situs inversus? All of these factors and many more can determine if a given gunshot kills it's victim and how fast death comes. As someone else said, how far do you want to go with this authenticity? This has been said before but at the end of the day any game (or simulation) system is going to be a rough approximation of reality, at best. Viable damage systems in FPS games are so far away from reality right now that real-world terminal ballistics has absolutely no place in the discussion. You could also make snipers much less effective if you had hit detection that factored in things like spin drift, multiple wind vectors, elevation and humidity. Unfortunately that kind of system probably won't be in a retail release either. The complexity required to get it right is just too expensive. Does Arma approximate reality better than any other shooter out there? Yes. Does it come anywhere close to reality? NO! Because the game systems are so inadequate (and will continue to be so), I think the best way to view sniper rifles is from the game balance point of view. I agree, they need some minor adjustments and some of the suggestions in this thread are viable.