Bullet travel time and bullet drop

[Michal]

Hi guys,

I think this is great game to be closer to perfection it is lacking two important features of firefight which is ballistics. I think this game would benefit a lot from bullet travel time and somehow but less from bullet drop. I think bullet drop is not so important due to small maps but bullet travel time changes way you have to aim running target a lot. What do you think of this idea?

[LogisticEarth]

Source engine doesn't do projectiles that well, so we're stuck with hitscan weapons. Not terrible since the engagement distances are small enough were leading and bullet drop are neglegible.

[Michal]

Bullet drop is neglectible due to small maps but bullet travel time is important even when you are shooting running target from distances like 100 meters. Let's you assume bullet speed 1000 m/s (it is 950 m/s for M16) then it takes 0.1s to travel 100m. In that time average man running 16km/h will travel 0.5 meters so you will have to lead by more than body width to hit a guy. Which is considerable amount!

[nuh1]

Source engine limitations sadly.

[Michal]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von nuh1:

Source engine limitations sadly.

As a software developer I believe it could be implemented if they liked to. It is not that hard but it needs some work.

[BurntCornFlakes]

I remember hearing something about the game exploding if there were that many projectiles. But maybe not.

[nuh1]

The source engine just doesn't handle projectiles very well. It's the choice between good hitscan weapons, or a bunch of shotty buggy projectile weapons and probably massive amounts of lag to go with it. I think it's a collision issue mostly but not sure.

[Brainlaag]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Trismegistos:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von nuh1:

Source engine limitations sadly.

As a software developer I believe it could be implemented if they liked to. It is not that hard but it needs some work.

It is possible but leads to massive server strain and bugged hit detection. The current system we have is the lesser evil.

[Michal]

Example of Rising Storm shows that it can be implemented with very good results. You do not have to relay on source procedurec you can create your own and integrate them with source engine. Maybe this integration part is difficult.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Brainlaag:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Trismegistos:

As a software developer I believe it could be implemented if they liked to. It is not that hard but it needs some work.

It is possible but leads to massive server strain and bugged hit detection. The current system we have is the lesser evil.

[nuh1]

Isn't Rising Storm on the Unreal Engine though? Some engines handle certain things better. Source has it's limitations, this is one of them.

[Michal]

I know that engines has they limitations but games is programmed in general programming language you can implement whatever you want. Question is how hart it would be to integrate your custom solution with Source. And yes, Rising Storm is using Unreal Engine.

[Dr.Wholian?]

There was a 17 page thread on this during the early access phase.

http://www.playinsurgency.com/forums/topic/309-external-ballistics/

Long story short, it's not technically feasible for the devs at this stage.

I think the most constructive solution would be to prescribe MOA deviation which takes differences in sight radius, velocity, and drop into account.

Realistically even if you're firing carefully in semi-auto, a 9mm SMG or carbine will have ~3 ft of drop at 200 meters, with groups 10-12" wide. So in lieu of gravity or wind simulation, it'd be better for an INS SMG to have 16-24" random spread at 200m than no deviation at all. This might get you an 8-9" group at 100 yds instead of the 3-6" group a real MP5 would be capable of in ideal conditions, but it's a reasonable compromise.

Similar considerations apply to rifles. Average MOA for a service-issue AKM is 4-6" at 100 yards. Someone who owns a well-built AK at home, shoots it every weekend for years, babies it, and fires from a bench, might be able to hold 2" groups, but those aren't the conditions of insurgents in the game. Firing offhand from a standing position, using an old beatup surplus AKM from god knows where, a 6" spread at 100 meters is actually pretty good. That should still get you 12" at 200 yds and thus more than enough to hit an enemy standing out in the open - beyond that it's going to become more luck-based, which corresponds to a real AK.

Real AR's are capable of 1" groups at 100 yds from a bench at home, but from a service-issue rifle, shooting offhand in combat conditions, I'd suggest 2-3" groups are reasonable.

If we start with the above spread groups, we are at least halfway to reasonable, manageable amounts of deviation within the 100-200 yd max engagement distances in the game. Sure, it'd be nice to have 1-2" groups managed via bullet drop and leading, but in lieu of that, adding a bit of extra spread is better than having magic laser accuracy.

[nuh1]

Very hard to implement correctly. Simple fact is that it can be done, but it will be very messy. Hit detection issues, massive lag, and random collision would be on every single weapon. The engine just doesn't handle projectiles very well, it's as simple as that. Just look at how messed up the ATA is if you actually analize it.

[AbuYousef]

Lots of simulation that won't even be acknowledged by 99.9% of the player base because of how the rest of the game is designed (advancing on to objectives in tight environments). Pass!

[Mexicutioner]

The maps in this game are small, bullet drop would be kind of pointless since theres not enough space for bullets to drop really.

[Michal]

As I told in first post bullet drop would not be so noticable on most of the maps but take in account when you calibrate M16 for 300 meters at 150m bullet would fly about 30cm over boreline.

Bullet travel time is far more important and it would be easily noticable -- see my calculations. It would be also nice to have a little bit of randomnes like in real life.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mexicutioner:

The maps in this game are small, bullet drop would be kind of pointless since theres not enough space for bullets to drop really.