.50 caliber rifles. At some point we need to have a serious talk about this.

[Dabs 12]

OP is absolutely right. What separates DayZ from "Zombie Games" like Left4Dead is the fact that it is not a game, but a simulation. ArmA2 is not a game, it is a simulation. Simulations are not games, although you can play with both of them, the goal is inherently different: A Simulation tries to model reality, or in the case of ficticious scenarios, create verisimilitude - Something that may be real. This is also the reason for the success of the DayZ mod, it is much more compelling exactly due to its realism.

Video Game Logic dictates that strapping a scope to a rifle automagically makes it 40 times more deadly. In reality, a scope allows a marksman to acquire a target past the 300-500m that are the limits of unaugmented iron sights. An M16's 5.56mm bullet is deadly out to 800 meters, an M14's is deadly out to 1600m, .50 cal bullets are deadly out to 3000m.

Deadly here means, the bullet will penetrate enough still to strike the heart or penetrate the skull if the shot is placed correctly: It can strike a vital organ and thus cause incapacitation and death

A bullet striking the heart has fatal results - the upper half of the heart is essentially a hollow body that will explode if struck by a bullet. The lower third or so is muscle tissue and damage to it is not always fatal. Any damage to the brain can be debilitating, although many people have survived being shot in the head as large parts of the brain do not deal with functions that are vital for survival, those are essentially focused in the brain stem. Other parts of the brain being destroyed by a bullet frequently cause visual loss hearing loss, loss of language, fine motor functions, loss of appreciation for high art and philosophy depending on what part of the brain was destroyed. Many head wounds can cause quick incapacitation and death through damage to the carotid arteries.

A high or medium powered bullet striking bone will typically shatter the bone. Low powered bullets (such as from pistols) typically lack the energy to shatter the thick bones of extremities, but as arteries typically go along the bones in extremities, can in theory can still cause massive blood loss and loss of limb, but typically do not do so as the arteries are located on the inner side of the bone whereas bullets typically strike the outside.

At ranges below 100m, the relatively soft-jacketed M855 (5.56mm) round, when fired from an M16, typically shatters when it strikes flesh, causing high-velocity shrapnel to spray into the body, causing tremendous, shotgun-like damage, able to damage the heart and arteries when harder bullets such 7.62mm NATO and .50BMG pencil through.

The 7.62mm NATO round only fragments when it hits bone, but a hit to the ribcage suffices to cause this, producing small entry wounds and terrifying exit wounds. Russian 7.62x39 and 5.45x39 rounds act similiarly, often merely tumbling in a target, which is nowadays considered a rather inefficient wounding mechanism (The 5.56mm NATO's wound profile is superior at ranges below 100m)

Now to the typical .50 BMG M2 round: It is designed to fly 1000m, go through half an inch of armor steel or a brick wall, and still be deadly* to the target behind it. It is an armor-piercing round. And this is also its problem: The casing of the typical .50BMG round is too thick for the round to fragment even when hitting bone. The .50 BMG will just go through everything, and leave unspectactular wound channels. If the bullet does not directly strike a vital organ (heart & arteries, brain stem) it may not even disable the target.

*Deadly here again means: It *can* strike a vital organ and thus *can* cause incapacitation and death

This relative inefficiency is why the M2 round is only used when the ammo price is low. It is still, by a wide margin, the most frequently used round, as it is cheap and capable of killing men and destroying machines at huge ranges. When performance is more important than price, machine guns typically use a mix of incendiary and explosive rounds. This is one of the advantages of the .50 cal cartridge - Due to its huge size, it can deliver incendiary zirconium powder, tungsten penetrators and high explosives. A .50 cal sniper rifle can fire all of these rounds, but typically fires M2 ball rounds or match rounds, optimized for accuracy and consistent performance. The machine guns's payload is not optimized for accuracy, in fact, a certain amount of spread is sometimes considered desireable.

In DayZ, it's possible to assume that the M107 rounds are match/ball rounds, and the AS50 rounds are penetrator/incendiary rounds. Neither of the two are significantly more effective vs unarmored human targets than 7.62mm NATO at distances below 1000m. Wound channels do not equal blood loss, as the surrounding tissue quickly swells up (the effect of the temporary cavity)

That means that at distances below 100m, realistically, a 5.56mm round is more deadly against unprotected targets than a 7.62mm or .50 cal round, as you are more likely to damage a vital organ with a torso shot. This is why all the armies in the world have transitioned to using 5-6mm rounds: They're just as deadly as bigger calibers at ranges that matter: most wartime KIAs occur at distances below 30m, and 300m is often described as the limit a rifleman can reliably hit human targets. The advantages of .308 and .50 cal consist of range and armor penetration, not sheer killing power at <100m.

Now on to hitpoint-based systems with guns doing different amounts of damage. As I've tried to establish before, holes in people per se do nothing, what you need, are holes in vital organs, to take someone down. A shot liver may cause death within half an hour or not. A shot kidney may cause you to lose that kidney (you got two) or make you die from internal bleeding within minutes. Terminal ballistics are highly erratic and unpredictable, especially with lightweight bullets that change their trajectory dramatically once they hit flesh. This is why one shot to the heart does not kill you in video games - They currently simply do not track all the organs and their functions and whether they're hit by an erratic bullet's path or not. Video game designers went to art school, not med school.

However, this renders an important aspect of real life shooting useless: Shot placement is paramount. This is the point that really needs to be driven home. Shoot someone in the foot 10 times with whatever gun you like - you're only going to manage to destroy that foot, not kill the guy. You can kill someone with a .22LR if you hit just the right spot. Someone may survive multiple hits by a .50cal because none of the bullets have struck anything vital. The hit point system balances this out: If you hit someone this and this many times, chances are you would have hit a vital organ, and he goes down. And to simulate the effect of shot placement, a headshot is deadly. This is a gross oversimplification, but unless we can have a proper, medical-level simulation of organ functions and blood pressure, the effects of adrenaline and blood loss, this as good as it gets.

Counter-Strike, released in 1999, was the first game to really do that, and did it mostly right. Still, it abandoned "Head shots as proxy for good shot placement, and death by body shots as proxy for statistically probable fatal torso hit" with it's one hit killing railgun, the AWP. That gun was a terrible idea that did not fit the mechanics for these reasons. Yet in CS, it was at least somewhat balanced by the reduced running speed to make the unwieldyness of the weapon part of the game mechanics.

At this point I would like to take note: CS poineered this system 13 years ago. It's time to move on and start simulating organs.

And in DayZ, it's just the same thing. It is merely video game convention to have one overpowered one-hit-kill sniper rifle when all other weapons require multiple shots to the torso, in absence of good shot placement. Yet the completely impractical .50 cals do not even impart a movement penalty. In a realistic zombie apocalypse, a .50 cal is pretty much the worst weapon you could be running around with: You can barely carry any ammo for it, and its weight and unwieldiness make it a liability instead of an asset.

tl;dr: When your hitpoint-based game mechanics dictate that head shots are almost certainly instantly lethal, while you require multiple hits to the body to kill someone, one-body-hit-kill weapons are both unbalanced and unrealistic. Just because you're using a .50 cal doesn't mean you don't need to hit a vital organ to kill someone. Firing 10 times into someone's foot destroys that foot, but will not kill him, regardless of caliber.

An aside: It is important to understand that when using this system, guns generally have to be fairly close together in hitpoint-removing performance. If you hit someone with a 9mm in the torso 5 times, chances are you destroyed a vital organ. Not 15 times. 9mm is good like that, it has good penetration. .45 not so much, having a reputation for being deflected by car windows, car doors and so forth.

A second aside: Subsonic 5.56mm rounds have an absolutely pathetic wounding profile - worse than any handgun in the game. Yet in the game, they do the same damage as their full speed equivalents who have 10x the energy.

[Dabs 12]

One more thing: It doesn't matter how "rare" a gun is. Hackers will have it, and others will farm until they have it, and others again will take it off the first two people. Any weapon that is as grossly overpowered will thus be used in significant quantities and be a nuisance to everyone.

[Blindingsun 233]

I'm not a soldier or a physicist, but I do know some basic scientific principles. For example, a gun that is 6ft long should not fit inside a backpack that is 3ft long. Science.

http://www.eberlestock.com/Tactical%20Master.htm

they need to introduce tactical backpacks with rifle slots then eh

[martin_sonderegger@bluewin.ch 141]

[...]

I want to agree, but I have to disagree. While the system could use some more realism, I fear a full-on "mutilation simulator" would bring some serious problems, not only because it would be banned in most countries.

When we start simulation organ failure and bleeding as accurate as you suggest, and I really like the ARMA series for the realism, we won't know where to draw the line. The next logacal steps would be a system that fully calculates your injuries. When I shoot at your arms, chances are you can't use them anymore to shoot back at me. When I shoot 10 bullets in your foot, you can't runaway anymore, so we would need to disable any chance of quitting the game, even when your house is on fire. And what about body shoots? Two shots in the chest and you won't be breathing anymore, so do we have to simulate a slow and painful death? The next problems are explosions, every stone could fly in your eye, shrapnel could burn your flesh and your ears would be permanently damaged if you're nearby. Under fire, we would need a given chance that your character can't shoot back because of a psychological breakdown, or he could go nuts and shoot at his teammates.

Basically, if we go full-on realism, we would get shot, probably be in agonizing pain for hours, wake up in a hospital and had to live a life of misery. Or maybe it would turn out completely fine.

My point is that, as much as I love realism, authenticy is more important. Suspension of disbelief is what makes fiction fiction, and every game, even simulators, will never be anything else. So for the sake of gameplay, letz's just pretend that the AS50 is a one-shot kill. It's better than a complete bowel movement sim withing DayZ, which would be necessary too. The only thing that really bothers me is the fact that, according to DayZ, 42°C is a healthy temperature for a human beeing. And maybe that every survivor has the same blood type and no STDs.

http://www.eberlesto...ical Master.htm

they need to introduce tactical backpacks with rifle slots then eh

Or we just disassemble the gun, put the parts in our backpack, and put them together afterwards.

Edited August 21, 2012 by daskleineviech

[97ADU Doug 103]

[BlksnshN 127]

Clearly you didn't understand or read the post. In fact, I don't even think you know what this post is about. Go away.

Don't read thread -> ignore all presented evidence -> make post

No, I think my assessment was spot on, thanks though. :thumbsup:

[Dabs 12]

[...] not only because it would be banned in most countries.

Don't think so. Think of it as an EMT simulation, where instead of "apply all-purpose band-aid" you need to apply pressure to shot arteries and so forth. There isn't enough software that can potentially teach you basic first aid. In a zombie apocalypse scenario, field surgery is realistic.

agonizing pain for hours

That is realistic, but in a game, it can be easily hand-waved. Like a broken bone can be fixed with morphine. Magical/futurisitc nanobot-based cures. For a "shooty" game, only immediately disabling injuries are relevant. An untreated gut wound can take a day or more to kill you, but that is not relevant to the shooter. To the shooter, relevant is only whether the target is disabled or not. So there is no gameplay-relevant need to simulate gut wounds in detail and such, nor is there a need to keep magical gut-repairing pills out of the game.

Wounds to hands and arms are very frequent, as in a firefight they're often exposed and/or in front of the center of mass. However, even with a 50 cal, you need to hit bone to reliably disable use of an arm. Aiming for an arm hoping to disable the shooter's ability to hold a gun is not smart. Hits to guns themselves occur frequently as well and may render it inoperable - or barely scratch it.

It's important to simulate the erratic nature of gunshot wounds. One bullet aimed at the vicinity of the heart may drop a tango like a sack of rice. Another may hit the ribcage at a slightly lower angle, get deflected, and end up doing no real damage at all. This is why taking a dive works sometimes in real life, and this is also why you make sure dead guys better stay dead.

All of this should also make clear why buckshot (what shotguns fire) is so lethal in real life - The sheer number and spread of pellets ensure a high probability that at least some vital organ was perforated, disabling or killing the victim.

No one wants an "Agony simulator" where you lie in a bed for weeks on end. You don't need a simulator for that. You can lie in bed just fine without any expensive software to simulate the experience for you. In a MilSim, having good first aid mechanics is definitely a plus, maybe up to simulating field surgery (for something like DayZ), and handwave the more long term effects with phlebotinum (like morphine) for gameplay purposes.

[...]Something about psychological effects[...]

No need to simulate those ever. The players - the human beings behind the in game characters - already suffer from their own psychological problems, react in erratic and plain stupid ways to unexpected simulation. A sniper that would carefully one shot kill people at 700ms, but misses an immobile target at 100ms when he's suddenly under fire due to panic and such.

Or we just disassemble the gun, put the parts in our backpack, and put them together afterwards.

In the army, I personally carried 6 assault rifles in a backpack on an occasion and two more on me. Those had folding stocks, but I didn't fold them - You just don't need to have the whole barrel in, just the center of mass. The problem is the weight. Weight slows you down, makes you less agile, tips you off balance, makes you more exhausted more quickly. And weight distribution also matters - A 1.3m rifle weighting 15kg renders you immobile more than a 13.6cm diameter ball of lead weighting the same. Yes, I just calculated that. I'm a nerd like that.

[vetrox 16]

IS this whole *realism of in game weaponss* still going?

...wow

Better also bitch and whine about how none of the guns need maintenence and dont ever jam and there are plenty of magazines for these guns just lurking about?

Chances are, if you get shot by any sort of firearm where the bullet actually penetrates you (giggidy) and its the zombie apocolypse then you are going to die at some point or another from infection or blood loss or just plain shock.

Oh i just got shot! i will just bandage that and drink some blood, all good.

You put anything onto a pc thats supposed to be realistic then you are going to have to make some sacrifices. Please go play arma before bitching about the mod. zomg .50 weapons shouldnt all be lurking about with people all shooting at eachother. Do yourself a favour and play arma and whilst your at it, go get hold of operation flashpoint cos the campaign in that was by far the best.

ARMA2 IS a game. its more authentic than the others on the market but that doesnt mean it is any less of a commercial product at the end of the day.

[Dabs 12]

...that doesnt mean it is any less of a commercial product at the end of the day.

So is a car, or an AK-74. Your point being?

VBS2 was designed to provide the USMC with, well, a virtual battlespace. 2. To conduct exercises and perform exercise planning. Arma is just VBS2 with a single-player campaign.

My point being: It's not a game. It is a simulation. Your argument is invalid.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Dabs

[Forceflare 166]

Facts or opinions, stupid players only want this removed because they're butthurt about being sniped, end of discussion.

[martin_sonderegger@bluewin.ch 141]

Don't think so. Think of it as an EMT simulation, where instead of "apply all-purpose band-aid" you need to apply pressure to shot arteries and so forth. There isn't enough software that can potentially teach you basic first aid. In a zombie apocalypse scenario, field surgery is realistic.

That's something I could get behind, at least a little bit more work than "click on bandage" would be nice, at least let us use four bandages for four different wounds.

That is realistic, but in a game, it can be easily hand-waved. Like a broken bone can be fixed with morphine. Magical/futurisitc nanobot-based cures. For a "shooty" game, only immediately disabling injuries are relevant. An untreated gut wound can take a day or more to kill you, but that is not relevant to the shooter. To the shooter, relevant is only whether the target is disabled or not. So there is no gameplay-relevant need to simulate gut wounds in detail and such, nor is there a need to keep magical gut-repairing pills out of the game.

Wounds to hands and arms are very frequent, as in a firefight they're often exposed and/or in front of the center of mass. However, even with a 50 cal, you need to hit bone to reliably disable use of an arm. Aiming for an arm hoping to disable the shooter's ability to hold a gun is not smart. Hits to guns themselves occur frequently as well and may render it inoperable - or barely scratch it.

It's important to simulate the erratic nature of gunshot wounds. One bullet aimed at the vicinity of the heart may drop a tango like a sack of rice. Another may hit the ribcage at a slightly lower angle, get deflected, and end up doing no real damage at all. This is why taking a dive works sometimes in real life, and this is also why you make sure dead guys better stay dead.

All of this should also make clear why buckshot (what shotguns fire) is so lethal in real life - The sheer number and spread of pellets ensure a high probability that at least some vital organ was perforated, disabling or killing the victim.

No one wants an "Agony simulator" where you lie in a bed for weeks on end. You don't need a simulator for that. You can lie in bed just fine without any expensive software to simulate the experience for you. In a MilSim, having good first aid mechanics is definitely a plus, maybe up to simulating field surgery (for something like DayZ), and handwave the more long term effects with phlebotinum (like morphine) for gameplay purposes.

It's not about aiming for arms and hands on purpose, my comment was mainly about the "randomness" factor you have in real-life. The more realistic we make the wounds, the more we have to take random chances into account like hitting a finger and such. At least explosions from grenades or even satchel charges have to use some kind of shrapnel calculations, the same goes for certain weapons indoors.

If we want the game to be as realistic as you say with the wounds, I just feel that certain factors like weapon degredation, i.e. environmental damage and/or bullet hits, shrapnel and riccochet have to be considered too. And yes, I'm not a fan of the bone healing morphine, to which we are probably all addicted by now, or the universal blood type bags.

No need to simulate those ever. The players - the human beings behind the in game characters - already suffer from their own psychological problems, react in erratic and plain stupid ways to unexpected simulation. A sniper that would carefully one shot kill people at 700ms, but misses an immobile target at 100ms when he's suddenly under fire due to panic and such.

I think the supression effect BF3 has is a nice touch and makes surpressing fire worth while, why not include something like that in ARMA/DayZ? The player himself will never show somehow realistic reactions, even under fire we can clearly aim and shoot. A supression effect like BF3 would artificially decrease our accuracy and force players to not just turn around and shoot to kill, but run for cover first.

In the army, I personally carried 6 assault rifles in a backpack on an occasion and two more on me. Those had folding stocks, but I didn't fold them - You just don't need to have the whole barrel in, just the center of mass. The problem is the weight. Weight slows you down, makes you less agile, tips you off balance, makes you more exhausted more quickly. And weight distribution also matters - A 1.3m rifle weighting 15kg renders you immobile more than a 13.6cm diameter ball of lead weighting the same. Yes, I just calculated that. I'm a nerd like that.

Why would you carry around eight rifles? Anyway, the problem with weight in ARMA2 is that it doesn't exist, we have inventory space for that. It's not perfect, but I hope weight and endurance will be introduced in ARMA3, so far I can live with the solution we've got. And the weight shouldn't be that much of a problem, carrying a second rifle or another weapon (like an AT launcher) is pretty normal in any armed force. And since the survivors in DayZ seem to have some kind of military background, since real civis would probably kill themselves with half the weapons in the game, I don't see a problem with a third weapon slot. The other thing is that portable generators, car wheels and helicopter rotors take less space than an MP5, so the whole system is kind of dodgy anyway.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

I'm super excited for all the people clamoring for such a draconian weight system to return here when they realize that 5 cans of beans, 2 liters of water, 2 pints of blood, an AK-74 w/ 60 rounds of ammo and random supplies add up and make it so they can't run either.

They will be back on the forums saying "No, no! We meant just for big scary guns. Not for the stuff WE carry."

I'm all for making these weapons a little bulkier and harder to deploy - but making me walk everywhere or "get tired" 'cause I've got a lot of stuff sounds incredibly tedious and quite silly as a mechanic.

[Dabs 12]

Why would you carry around eight rifles?

Because of sass to the CO. Edit: I was also wearing full chem warfare gear + gas mask.

5 cans of beans, 2 liters of water, 2 pints of blood, an AK-74 w/ 60 rounds of ammo and random supplies add up

5 cans of beans - 2.5kg

2 litres of water - 2kg

2 pints of blood - 1kg (uncooled? are you mad, bro?)

AK74, 2 mags, + 60 rounds, ~4.5kg

Total: 10kg. Are you %&&*ç% kidding me? Have you ever even worn a backpack?

Typical field pack weight of a marching foot soldier: 30-40kg. 10kg of which are going to e ammo alone (about ~400 rounds 7.62mm NATO, or ~800 rounds of 5.56mm) and I've been carrying that. It's cumbersome, and your jog isn't going to be very fast, but that's a far cry from "unable to move"

The problem with a weight system is that people are built differently. The 163cm/55kg (5'4/9 stone) girl will likely pass out after walking for 1km with 30kg of equipment, while the 195cm/105kg (6'4/16 stone) steroid munching dude will not only be carrying his own pack, but also the woman, and her pack, and jog for 10km while at it. I could imagine that during character generation there could be a slider that decides your build, weight, size, and thus carrying weight, and reducing recoil with heavier weapons. Conversely, a smaller build gives you more options to stay concealed, allows you to move more quietly, and makes you harder to hit, and makes you need less food to travel and regain blood.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Dabs

[mikemyers (DayZ) 9]

[snip]

Edited August 21, 2012 by Max Planck
Spam removed

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

5 cans of beans - 2.5kg

2 litres of water - 2kg

2 pints of blood - 1kg (uncooled? are you mad, bro?)

AK74, 2 mags, + 60 rounds, ~4.5kg

Total: 10kg. Are you %&&*ç% kidding me? Have you ever even worn a backpack?

Right. And the AS50 is 12kg. So, yeah. That was my point?

I'm not sure what the "are you fucking kidding me?" is for or the "unable to move" comment.

You seem to be responding to someone who is not me. Or didn't follow precisely what I was saying.

I'm calling out the people who say an AS50 should make people walk instead of run by pointing out that most of them are carrying around the same amount of weight in random shit in their packs and would likewise be effected by their calls for increased encumbrance.

Edited August 21, 2012 by ZedsDeadBaby

[Dabs 12]

I think the supression effect BF3 has is a nice touch and makes surpressing fire worth while, why not include something like that in ARMA/DayZ? The player himself will never show somehow realistic reactions, even under fire we can clearly aim and shoot. A supression effect like BF3 would artificially decrease our accuracy and force players to not just turn around and shoot to kill, but run for cover first.

I think that is a terrible idea. Suppressing fire works exactly by making the affected people do something other than shoot back. I just watched a video on suppression in BF3 and it seems to work by rendering your BF3-Hitscan weapon more inaccurate as bullets impact near you. That is crap.

In DayZ, people who have unexpectedly bullets flying around them will generally hit the deck (a poor decision in case the fire is coming from more than 100m away, due to the way foliage works) or run for cover. Both are realistic reactions. At nighttime, a nearby muzzle flash blinds you. N0earby impacts fill your screen with flying debris (I think dust should be more emphasized by the engine though - Hitting concrete causes an impressive amount of dust for example, but typically not enough to impair breathing or visual indoors)

One problem of the engine is that you can fairly accurately pinpoint a shooter by sound. In reality, sounds are reflected by foliage, buildings, landscape, and it is much harder to pinpoint where a gunshot is coming from. With less accurate sound location, the inclination to hit/stay in cover may be increased over the reflex to just shoot back.

If you're providing "Suppressing fire" and the guy just shoots you right back, maybe you should have just killed the guy instead. Obviously there was a clear LOS. Army doctrine states that suppressing fire is provided by at least 2x the defending party's people. So if you're trying "Suppressing fire" as a lone guy vs 3 dudes in a barn, you don't need to wonder that you get shot instead. If those 3 dudes in a barn get every opening of the barn covered by the suppressing fire of a total of 6 attackers (as per military doctrine), so that another 3 may actually advance (as per military doctrine) you would have had different results, I can assure you.

I've provided supressing fire in the game and found it effective enough to be considered realistic. (read: made snipers log out when their general bushy vicinity was covered with bullets) The real problem is people not valuing their character's lives, throwing them away in pointless PVP battles, since they can just respawn and grab their corpse or check their duping tents or one of the abundant assault rifles and only lose a bit of time. If players could be made to actually value their character's lives, it would make the game as a whole much more compelling, more realistic, and more entertaining all at the same time.

[Dabs 12]

Right. And the AS50 is 12kg. So, yeah. That was my point?

Your numbers are off. With 5 rounds in a mag and scope, it's ~15kg in a 1.4m long, bulky package.

I'm calling out the people who say an AS50 should make people walk instead of run by pointing out that most of them are carrying around the same amount of weight in random shit in their packs and would likewise be effected by their calls for increased encumbrance.

Oh, I am not saying an AS50 should make people walk. That was you alone. I'm saying, carrying an AS50 should mean you carry little else. But as it is currently in the game, the AS50 and the MP5 have an almost identical profile in how much they hinder you overall.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Oh, I am not saying an AS50 should make people walk. That was you alone.

*sigh*

No. It really wasn't.

[martin_sonderegger@bluewin.ch 141]

Because of sass to the CO. Edit: I was also wearing full chem warfare gear + gas mask.

Ah ok, I thought there was actual a tactical value in carrying around eight guns. ^^

I think that is a terrible idea. Suppressing fire works exactly by making the affected people do something other than shoot back. I just watched a video on suppression in BF3 and it seems to work by rendering your BF3-Hitscan weapon more inaccurate as bullets impact near you. That is crap.

In DayZ, people who have unexpectedly bullets flying around them will generally hit the deck (a poor decision in case the fire is coming from more than 100m away, due to the way foliage works) or run for cover. Both are realistic reactions. At nighttime, a nearby muzzle flash blinds you. N0earby impacts fill your screen with flying debris (I think dust should be more emphasized by the engine though - Hitting concrete causes an impressive amount of dust for example, but typically not enough to impair breathing or visual indoors)

One problem of the engine is that you can fairly accurately pinpoint a shooter by sound. In reality, sounds are reflected by foliage, buildings, landscape, and it is much harder to pinpoint where a gunshot is coming from. With less accurate sound location, the inclination to hit/stay in cover may be increased over the reflex to just shoot back.

If you're providing "Suppressing fire" and the guy just shoots you right back, maybe you should have just killed the guy instead. Obviously there was a clear LOS. Army doctrine states that suppressing fire is provided by at least 2x the defending party's people. So if you're trying "Suppressing fire" as a lone guy vs 3 dudes in a barn, you don't need to wonder that you get shot instead. If those 3 dudes in a barn get every opening of the barn covered by the suppressing fire of a total of 6 attackers (as per military doctrine), so that another 3 may actually advance (as per military doctrine) you would have had different results, I can assure you.

I've provided supressing fire in the game and found it effective enough to be considered realistic. (read: made snipers log out when their general bushy vicinity was covered with bullets) The real problem is people not valuing their character's lives, throwing them away in pointless PVP battles, since they can just respawn and grab their corpse or check their duping tents or one of the abundant assault rifles and only lose a bit of time. If players could be made to actually value their character's lives, it would make the game as a whole much more compelling, more realistic, and more entertaining all at the same time.

I don't want to apply BF3's supression effect 1:1, but some kind of similar system could work. The problem is, as you said, that people don't "value" their lives as much as they should do to effectively use anything else than headshots. I got shot by small arms several times now and could still turn around and shoot the guy in the face, and that was while he was actually hitting me.

What I think of is basically the breathing effect after running a certain distance, the shaky gun effect we have now, and apply it to a system where a similar effect takes place as soon as you are getting covered by bullets. It doesn't need the whole moton blut stuff BF3 has, neither does it need to affect the actual weapon stats somehow, I just want some kind of reason for people (including me) to rather run for cover than turning around and shooting back. The situation right now is that if someone's shooting with a pistol or SMG at me, chances are I'm killing him with my AR even if he got the drop on me, and that's something I don't like. It would also make the non-sniper rifles useful again, since sneaking behind an opponent with an inferior gun wouldn't result in your own death that often.

Another example why I want some kind of supression effect would be the shotgun incident I had. I shot a guy in the legs close range and he still killed me. True, I was aiming like an idiot, but a shotgun blast to the legs shouldn't allow my opponent to instantly shoot me in the face accurately.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I hate snipers

OP's made like 6 posts about this, and in everyone he refuses to recagnize that people/animals are filled with bones and when you hit a bone with a supersonic bullet bad shit happens. This can't be simulated with balistic gel, and there is very little realestate in a human body that would allow for tissue wounds that ballistic gel can simulate. The one area that would, the gut, is filled with organs that would result in major blood loss or crazy infection if someone were to live past an initial shooting.

Here's some pics of a .50 used to take deer (Bigger stronger bags of meat than people).

http://www.snipershi...&Number=2115910

http://www.primalrig...c.php?f=3&t=117

I'm super excited for all the people clamoring for such a draconian weight system to return here when they realize that 5 cans of beans, 2 liters of water, 2 pints of blood, an AK-74 w/ 60 rounds of ammo and random supplies add up and make it so they can't run either.

They will be back on the forums saying "No, no! We meant just for big scary guns. Not for the stuff WE carry."

I'm all for making these weapons a little bulkier and harder to deploy - but making me walk everywhere or "get tired" 'cause I've got a lot of stuff sounds incredibly tedious and quite silly as a mechanic.

Since prior to the roman empire the battle kit soldiers have carried has been near 70 pounds, this is as much weight as the average man can cary and still be effective in combat. This is still roughly the same today. People can carry much more than this, but more than this and your ability to move/fight/and remain combat effective is severely reduced.

With a .50 rifle weighing in at 30 pounds your at nearly half the weight there, compare that to an M4 that weighs 7 pounds and you can see that it would be a huge disadvantage for the "average" survivor/scavenger to arm themselves with one. As a dedicated marksmen or if your in an overwatch role then it really doesn't matter, but if your trying to scavenge and keep one in your pack, even disassembled you would be at a huge disadvantage.

I would also hope that if your wieghed down you don't only move slower, but you also get "winded" faster, this mechanic can have a huge impact on firing your weapon and still preserves authenticity.

Edited August 21, 2012 by xXI Mr Two IXx

[Dabs 12]

I just want some kind of reason for people (including me) to rather run for cover than turning around and shooting back. The situation right now is that if someone's shooting with a pistol or SMG at me, chances are I'm killing him with my AR even if he got the drop on me, and that's something I don't like.

Someone firing at you from 100+ meters with a pistol or an SMG chambered in a pistol round should have an effect? Why would you want to be this unrealistic? That is why armies use rifles and not pistols: Rifles have range enough to kill everything you can see. Pistols do not. Firing at a guy armed with an AR from 100+m with a pistol is suicide. I do not agree that there needs to be any change here.

Another example why I want some kind of supression effect would be the shotgun incident I had. I shot a guy in the legs close range and he still killed me. True, I was aiming like an idiot, but a shotgun blast to the legs shouldn't allow my opponent to instantly shoot me in the face accurately.

That is again better solved a) by better aim and B) via more realistic wound ballistics. As it is in the game, shooting someones leg off only has an effect when he's running (in which case he's stuck in the dropping to the ground animation for a second)

http://www.snipershi...&Number=2115910

Please take note that according to the hunter, the deer was hit in the stomach, and ran for 100 yards, and expelled the stomach while running before crashing. Also: Yuk! Also: Those guys fired hand-loaded hollowpoint ammo - Hollowpoint ammunition is indeed outlawed by the geneva conventions and by rights would never be found near military bases, and in fact, would only be in the hands of a handful of enthusiasts in the USA (read: crazy people who want to hunt deer with an anti-tank rifle). A regular FMJ/AP bullet would have caused much less spectacular wounds due to the bullets inability to shed off its energy while traversing a body.

That just proves the point again: Shot placement. Even a 50 cal HOLLOWPOINT didn't kill the buck immediately, because nothing vital was hit. It was the tremendous blood loss that got the buck. Hunters are supposed to aim for the heart - The buck may jump, but not live long enough to get further than spitting distance.

In game terms, the buck was hit in the stomach, losing blood at a huge rate more as its heart began to accelerate, ran for 100 yards, passed out when it went below 4000 blood and just bled to death while unconscious.

An aside: I would appreciate if guns did less instant blood removal damage, but instead did wounds of various sizes. Currently it seems all wounds make you lose blood at the same, low rate, and it is mainly the instant magical blood removal effect that kills people. That is not realistic. Blood in the game should be blood pressure really - Which is why IRL you can give people saline, salt water, and to a degree it works just as fine as blood to treat hemorrhagic shock (the stuff you get from not having enough blood), often producing fewer issues, as saline is hypoallergenic and doesn't care about blood types, while a bag of O- blood is not. (I'm assuming the game's blood bags are all O- blood, as thats the only type that can be given to everyone) Also, saline does not need cooling.

What this all means is that a badly placed shot from a 50 cal will not kill you immediately. Not even with hollowpoint ammo.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Please take note that according to the hunter, the deer was hit in the stomach, and ran for 100 yards, and expelled the stomach while running before crashing. Also: Yuk! Also: Those guys fired hand-loaded hollowpoint ammo - Hollowpoint ammunition is indeed outlawed by the geneva conventions and by rights would never be found near military bases, and in fact, would only be in the hands of a handful of enthusiasts in the USA (read: crazy people who want to hunt deer with an anti-tank rifle). A regular FMJ/AP bullet would have caused much less spectacular wounds due to the bullets inability to shed off its energy while traversing a body.

That just proves the point again: Shot placement. Even a 50 cal HOLLOWPOINT didn't kill the buck immediately, because nothing vital was hit. It was the tremendous blood loss that got the buck. Hunters are supposed to aim for the heart - The buck may jump, but not live long enough to get further than spitting distance.

In game terms, the buck was hit in the stomach, losing blood at a huge rate more as its heart began to accelerate, ran for 100 yards, passed out when it went below 4000 blood and just bled to death while unconscious.

An aside: I would appreciate if guns did less instant blood removal damage, but instead did wounds of various sizes. Currently it seems all wounds make you lose blood at the same, low rate, and it is mainly the instant magical blood removal effect that kills people. That is not realistic. Blood in the game should be blood pressure really - Which is why IRL you can give people saline, salt water, and to a degree it works just as fine as blood to treat hemorrhagic shock (the stuff you get from not having enough blood), often producing fewer issues, as saline is hypoallergenic and doesn't care about blood types, while a bag of O- blood is not. (I'm assuming the game's blood bags are all O- blood, as thats the only type that can be given to everyone) Also, saline does not need cooling.

What this all means is that a badly placed shot from a 50 cal will not kill you immediately. Not even with hollowpoint ammo.

These aren't hand loads they are A-Max, http://www.hornady.com/store/50-BMG-750-gr-A-MAX-Match/. Also these aren't *real* Hollow point rounds, they are ballistic tip rounds most likely. Independent of the bullet the .50 will leave a massive exit wound after it hits bone, this allows it to shed its energy and each piece of exploded bone becomes another wounding agent. The gut shot deer is not a bone hit, and thats what it did. Saying you won't immediatly die from being shot doesn't really matter, you would die within seconds/minutes of it. If it wasn't insta kill it would be far less authentic because it would allow someone to be healed from a wound that they would never recover from. The deer likley covered that 100 yards in 5 seconds or less, so don't be all that impressed that it covered that much ground, it doesn't represent it living for more than a few seconds after being shot, and as you pointed out it was a "non vital" hit.

I do agree that incapacitation and damage via blood loss would be more realistic when it comes to wounds, if the mechanics for treating wounds was also realisitic, ie no magical cures from 2 blood back to 12k and instant bleeding reversal, then this could be considered. Otherwise its to easy for people to live through injuries that should kill them.

[Junnk 3]

Let's get realistic. You would never survive a .50 cal gun shot when there is zero medical attentiOn. You know, cause of the Z in dayz

[Rhyzak 1]

Here's what a .50 BMG does to someone.

There are heaps of other videos of them as well with people in different positions.

A .50 BMG will just tear off limbs on a person. But since ArmA is a game. It still needs to act like a game while keeping the realism. Sure a .50 wont kill you if your hit in the limbs but in the end u will just bleed out and die. ArmA is still been perfected and in ArmA 3 they have fixed most of the problems.

Also it doesn't depend on the Rifle that is been used. It depends on the Cartridge itself to inflict the damage.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Rhyzak

[Virfortis 111]

We need less duping.

We need more encumbrance.

Damage is fine.

Serious talk here.

You've been in these threads, Baz. Every point you raise has been discussed elsewhere. Not sure why you post this like it's revelational.

Sorry, but that post is horribly one sided and provides no reasoning at the end of the day.

However, you posted it so I can imagine you think it's perfect, but if you want to play Infantry Only Battlefield in DayZ, I guess more power to you. I thought this was more than a generic FPS, but I guess people like you can't see the complete lack of "point" of the rifle other than so someone can stroke their ego with a BFG.

That's it, that's the entire point of having sniper rifles in a video game. Not tactics, not covering buddies, those are real world applications. In a video game, it's a killing fun-toy for kids.