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1. CUP and KA Weapons Pack already have AA-12s.
2. The AA-12 is mostly a meme gun with a niche role at best. The shotgun we have in Contact is expressly designed for fifth-rate militia forces. See this source on military-spec HE shells for why the AA-12 is a bit overhyped: http://www.defensereview.com/1_31_2004/FRAG%2012.pdf. A half inch of steel armor penetration isn't very impressive when you consider 5.56x45mm M995 does better and has significantly greater accurate range than 200 meters. Buckshot and even regular slugs are also rather poor penetrators, so the merit of the AA-12 in close quarters is also somewhat troubled when compared to a rifle. The ability to sweep groups of enemies is also rather limited. Typical military-issue 40mm LV grenades that you fire out of an M203 have a lethal radius of five meters. Those are a lot more potent than these.
As such, I don't see much of a benefit to a niche (and redundant as seen in point #1) "checkpoint gun" that most MRAPs can readily shrug off. A rifle or LMG does most other roles better with a higher capacity, greater range, more accuracy, more armor penetration abilities, and dramatically less weight.
While your second point makes a lot of sense. The first one I can not simply agree with because I personally dislike the use of unofficial/modded weapons and armor etc. I never play with those.
However, regarding shotguns, the HE shell was just something I really liked about the AA-12 in Arma 2, it did a good job damaging internal components of light vehicles, but what I truly would want in Arma 3 is an automatic shotgun, on top of the semi-automatic ones like we currently have.
A fully automatic shotgun in close quarters with a lot of enemies (towers in KOTH as an example) would wreck havoc, while the Navid usually does the job, the automatic shotgun would ensure that no one on the other end of the barrel would be unscathed.
Instead of having to relying on single bullets hitting the target under such cirumstances, a cloud of pellets would guarantee it while blind firing or firing through smoke or light cover.
It would be very lethal and since this is 2035 there could be armor penetrating pellets aswell that is only useful upwards a distance of 50-100m. Making shotguns shine again above any other weapon in close quarters. More or less making them relevant for the sake of it.
20 rounds magazine, fully automatic, close quarter cleanup, yummy!
Personally I find using MG's in close quarters ridiculous (Its long and heavy, not quite ideal), but the meta is the meta and maybe this could change that. Besides, the common counter to MG rushes is going prone, which would be much more riskier versus a shotgun since instead of dodging lines, you will be dodging cones.
1. Your dislike for unofficial and modded weapons is highly subjective. I'm curious to know your reasoning behind that, since modded weapons bring considerable amounts of fresh content to the game. I'll readily admit however that your prospects for a KOTH game with CUP and KA weapons are limited at best, which probably gives you a good albeit assumed reason to stay with stock weapons.
2. The HE shell in Arma II was honestly really fun to use, but it was most certainly anemic against any infantry that knew how to use cover and implement effective spacing. Regardless, I still do stand by my statement that an automatic shotgun would be a niche tool at best.
3. I'm afraid your third point isn't taking the body armor situation into account. While Arma III dramatically underestimates the power of modern body armor, let alone whatever advances may exist by the year 2035, it still plays a role in the tactical calculus. Buckshot pellets are extremely bad at defeating body armor. In fact, CSAT's armored uniforms could readily defeat most common 00 or 000 buck shot available today. Even the exotic Quadrangle armor-piercing buckshot can only defeat NIJ Level IIA soft armor. That level of soft armor is so weak that it is below any level of armor depicted in Arma III, which means that this cloud of pellets will be virtually useless against anybody wearing any body armor. The Navid on the other hand can brute force through virtually anything up to and including a Carrier Special. As such, the Navid will still reign king in this scenario.
4. Here is a source discussing armor penetrating Quadrangle Buckshot. http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/Shotguns.html. Due to its shape, this stuff is only effective up to 25 meters away. Also keep in mind that every advance in armor penetration can and often has been met by a greater advance in body armor. Level III, IV, and "V" armor should have absolutely no trouble stopping this stuff.
5. See my above points with regards to the body armor problem. Helmets in a prone scenario should have no issue stopping these cones of fire. Furthermore, I must bring up an Arma quirk where your gun can shield you from low-penetrating fire. With that, your opponent's helmet, and your opponent's body armor in mind, I have little faith in the close-quarters lethality of even a dedicated armor-piercing shotshell. If you're bringing buckshot to a Navid fight, you're going to lose the damage race every time.
The AA-12 in Arma 2 sucked ass and people just said it was good because it's a shotgun and has explosive rounds. No, it sucked still and you can take out way more people with other stuff for the same ranges (relatively short still for Arma). But some people cannot aim, true, and need to use up that much more ammo. All you need really usually is a 5.56/6.5 rifle with a magnified optic of some type, learn how to get gud and you won't be carrying around all that weight of the shotgun ammo you waste on killing 1 person with.
Except, no.
Wounds can be more or less punishing depending on the server setting and additional mods. Some only allow limited healing. Some don't allow revive or severely limit revive. Some turns on the instant death. Some use mods like ACE, CPR, or KAT which adds complexity to medical treatment.
A forgiving server might let player walk away with a cheap revive after taking a mortar shell. A harsher one may punish the player the whole mission for that stray 5.45 he took in the leg early on, or kill them outright for that neck shot.
...
Back to the thread topic. Shotgun doesn't work that well with its heavy shell and horrible range. Explosive shells are only good in specific situations.
I do want them for some RP (weapons for criminals, police patrols, insurgency, armed civilians, etc.) But it is not something I'd want as the usual loadout for soldiers. I'd rather stick with the rifles.
And BI/modders probably won't give shotguns much more attention because of how niche they were. Even SMGs don't recieve much attention.
Common intermediate rifles are very versatile. Accurate at common engagement range. Powerful enough to take down a target with one or only a few hits at most. They are light. And they are used by lots of soldiers everewhere. And which is why more people focused on them.
There are several factors that determine this within the submunition system. Cone angle, deployment time, projectile count, and projectile spread shape. As such, this varies from round type to round type. Some 000 buck is going to spread more than some other mod's 000 buck.
See here for specifics:
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Weapon_Config_Guidelines
{@V. Berlioz:
Yes, me not wanting to use mods is highly subjective, I'm more or less one of the few that reluctantly try not to use them, but it is not because I dislike mods. I use to mod myself, not for Arma but for other games, a lot. It is just that when I make missions etc I do not want people to have to download mods to play them, I like the platform clean.}
I really enjoyed that Bohemia added the P90 to the game from a mod, that alone gave me a lot of faith in the developers, it shows their dedicated to the community and that they actually appreciate the work some people do.
As for the usage of shotguns, I know that they are never going to be a considered weapon for actual soldiers, since rifles excel in most tasks like several people here has mentioned.
But some scenarios/missions could really use shotguns, if you play guerillas or a special police unit. It just gives mission makers so much more to work with and I love to spend time in the editor.
Currently as Arma works, even if it's not realistic; Shotguns are quite powerful in close combat.
Especially VS targets with low or non-existant armor, in the Virtual Arsenal it shows great promise, when shooting it you can see that the cone of fire is pretty nice to have in stressed situations since even when you put armor on the units some pellets still hit them and causes damage, lots of times they even die due to getting hit where there is no armor, like the face or groin. Even seen the guy right behind die from a shot, don't know if that was penetration or not though, but still 2 birds with 1 stone.
I would really like more shotguns, since we only have 1 of them, for variety. Same goes for their ammunition. Even if rifles do excel in practice.
Shotguns bring more to the table in terms of mission editing and special tactics etc and I don't feel like such a weapon deserves to be knocked down just because it is not useful in most military situations. We have a lot of 9mm pistols for example. I always carry one around but I never use it, due to never finding a good situation for it, but I still want more pistols. (Deagle plz)
Most of the weapons we have are rifles, just a few different shotguns would be nice to play around with. Afterall, that is what we do. =)
I definitely agree that shotguns have a role to play within militia, criminal, and law enforcement factions. A game called SWAT 4 is exceptionally good at doing that, although even there shotguns are still a really niche weapon. Shotguns will indeed give mission makers more to work with, but once again, I think that's the realm of mods and BI seems to agree on that front.
This is purely tangential, but virtual arsenal dummies have somewhat different damage modeling compared to actual soldiers. This does even impact the effectiveness of body armor in that situation. A good salvo of buckshot can wipe the floor with a few unarmored infantry, sure, but I'm sure a rifle with a couple quick hits can do the same.
There are two concerns with adding more shotguns to Arma III's base game. The first is the problem of performance that I've already covered in a prior post. Semiautomatic and fully-automatic magazine or tube-fed shotguns are liable to put some pressure on server performance. This is really obnoxious when you use smaller shot sizes. This may result in BI refraining from adding additional shotguns with higher capacity than the ones currently in game. The second concern is the role of modding, which I'll cover in my final point.
Your comparison with 9mm pistols is a bit flawed. Pistols are weapons that are specifically in play for your sidearm slot. They're fallback weapons for if your primary either fails you or runs out of ammo. They're a lifesaver when ACE3 is in play and your rifle overheats, but they also have a niche of being very small and lightweight weapon that are covert enough for civilians to carry. Shotguns are a bit of a problem in that weight and bulk department - even moreso than a rifle.
The role of mods in the Arma ecosystem is also a problem. I know you dislike mods for subjective reasons, but I think BI knows very well that mods are the solution to adding variety in terms of weapons and ammunition. BI has not even added subsonic or armor-piercing ammunition types to their most-used weapons. There's perhaps very little evidence to suggest they'll do anything more than the current "buck and slug" combination for shotguns. As much as I hate to restate it, I think your solution is developing a small and efficient list of mods that provides the content you crave right here, right now, and without BI having to reinvent the modders' wheel.
A whole squad using shotguns shouldn't be that demanding. Not unless you go line infantry tactics with autoshotguns.
And what I meant when I said modders didn't pay much attention to shotgun was when compared to rifles. I mean ,we have like tens of configuration of same rifle, with different colors, grips, stocks, length, etc. And from numerous different mods. There are probably have over hundred of just m4 family alone.
As to whether a whole squad could grind a server down with automatic shotguns, I managed to do it with just one burst of #T shot fired out of an AA12. That's fifty-six pellets a shell. If we assume nine pellets per shell for our buckshot, then one #T matches 6.22 buckshot rounds in terms of projectile count and thus simulation "cost" if you will. That may seem like a large gap, but it definitely defeats the argument that a whole squad isn't that demanding with auto shotguns. If #T can grind a server down, then I imagine 10-15 dudes with 00 should be able to do even more damage. After all, you only need six or seven to match the server-busting #T. Throw some AI shotgunners in there and the problem becomes more of a uh... problem.
I agree that there is definitely a much larger emphasis on rifles than shotguns among most modders, but part of that whole scheme is how much people are paying attention to shotgun ammunition as well. I expect a large emphasis to be placed on that down the road as more modders notice opportunities with the submunition system. I've already brought over ten types of 12 gauge shot to the table, so who knows what others can come up with.