Need Weapons HELP with a new MOD

[Korollary]

DISCLAIMER: If you like ET the way it is, please skip this thread. This topic is meant for people who think ET can be MORE fun if some things could be changed.

There is a possibility that a MOD maker may make changes to weapons/damage for an ET mod. The ET mods we have right now are not mods in the true sense; they merely fix bugs, add convenient features, etc. without changing any game dynamics. The mod makers are right now very cautious about touching game dynamics. There is a possibility that one can ruin the game this way. Even if you do things right, you will still have to battle people’s resistance to change.

Since this is quite a challenge for only one person, I’d like to contribute to the purpose. I’m going to try to compile a list of ideas, and try to approach a modmaker. Until then, this is a hypothetical mod.

It is not just my observation that weapons other than the good old MP40/Thompson are severely incapacitated. I’m looking for people who are knowledgeable about WW2 weapons, especially the ones used in ET. I’d like to gather comparative accuracy, purpose, pros, and cons, especially for the SMGs, assault rifles, and pistols (of course, accurate information about the mortar, panzerfaust, etc. will also be useful). I don’t intend to make an ultra-realistic MOD: no 1-bullet kills, Tommy will be equal to MP40, etc. I don’t want the game pace and action content to change; I just want to fix its broken guns.

If you also think along these lines, and would like to cooperate at any level for any amount, post a reply here, and send me a Private Message via splashdamage forums. You can also drop by #uprise on gamesnet in the evenings (US Pacific Time) and talk with me. I’d like to have at least 5-6 people’s genuine support and enthusiasm before we can actually start working on it.

Thanks for your attention.

PS: My primary focus is on weapons. That means I will be trying to ignore the XP system/Class issues as long as I can. I’d agree with you if you said something about Lvl4 CovOps or why the medics are so powerful, etc., but that’s a huge can of worms. I’d like to get the weapons fixed first, so please refrain from posting such statements.

[ND80]

Given that there are only two people who have access to the code, Shrub and Bani, I’d suggest you contact them directly if you want input. While I know Bani read these forums, I’m fairly sure Shrub does not. They both have forums of their own if you want their input.

[SCDS_reyalP]

Here are some thoughts I had on the rifles in another thread:

If I were going to re-do the rifles, I would

• make the garand able to reload mid clip. This is unrealistic, but the ET reloading model is hopelessly unrealistic anyway.
• give the garand an exrta clip, to compensate for it’s smaller clip size
• give the rifles recoil, like the pistols.
• significantly reduce the spread
• reduce the spread and recoil if fired from crouch/prone
• possibly reduce damage
• make the grenade launcher fire slower projectiles with more of an arc.

IMO, this would

• bring the k43 and garand to reasonable parity.
• reward skilled players more, by giving you the potential to hit where you aim, if you use the weapon correctly.
• reduce the annoyance factor of the instant kill grenade launcher (by making it slightly more avoidable) This would be compensated for by the increased effectiveness of the rifle.

Obviously, the exact spread/recoil/damage values would have to be determined by playtesting.

Another interesting option for the unsciped rifles would be to give them a ‘tactical’ mode, like true combat.

The whole idea of trying to balance the ET weapons is muddled by the XP rewards. A an SMG gunner at level 4 is far more fearsome than one at level 1.

Realism:
My opinion is that realism is a good place to get inspiration, but should always come second to gameplay. Moving a bounding box around a sceen with a kb and mouse is so far from the actual experience of shooting live targets with real firearms that the whole idea of calling it ‘realistic’ is laughable. I encourage anyone making a mod to go to the range and shoot some real guns to get a feeling for this.

Misc stuff about real weapons from my bookmarks:
http://world.guns.ru/main-e.htm (excellent reference for many wwII and modern military arms)
http://guns.connect.fi/gow/gunwriters.html (the article on the Suomi SMG has some interesting info on real SMG usage and accuracy)
http://www.ankkurinvarsi.net/jaeger/LIBRARY_MAINPAGE.shtml (specs and development of various weapons, with emphasis on the finish conflict)

Google will, of course, tell you more than you wanted to know about any of the weapons used in WWII.

Weapon balance is one of the hardest parts of making a good game, IMO. Your players are a massively parallel learning system, which will tend toward the most optimal weapon/class/tactic. Making weapons which are truely different and are equally useful is very hard.

GL. If you need a coder and can get the NDA for me to sign, I would be glad to help. :moo:

[Korollary]

If I were going to re-do the rifles, I would

• make the garand able to reload mid clip. This is unrealistic, but the ET reloading model is hopelessly unrealistic anyway.
• give the garand an exrta clip, to compensate for it’s smaller clip size
• give the rifles recoil, like the pistols.
• significantly reduce the spread
• reduce the spread and recoil if fired from crouch/prone
• possibly reduce damage
• make the grenade launcher fire slower projectiles with more of an arc.

IMO, this would

• bring the k43 and garand to reasonable parity.
• reward skilled players more, by giving you the potential to hit where you aim, if you use the weapon correctly.
• reduce the annoyance factor of the instant kill grenade launcher (by making it slightly more avoidable) This would be compensated for by the increased effectiveness of the rifle.

Obviously, the exact spread/recoil/damage values would have to be determined by playtesting.

Like Tommy/MP40, the Garand should be equal to the k43 (i.e. ignoring history).

Realism:
My opinion is that realism is a good place to get inspiration, but should always come second to gameplay. Moving a bounding box around a sceen with a kb and mouse is so far from the actual experience of shooting live targets with real firearms that the whole idea of calling it ‘realistic’ is laughable. I encourage anyone making a mod to go to the range and shoot some real guns to get a feeling for this.

That 's true. I am trying to collect this information not to accurately model those guns as they were in WW2, but to accurately represent their effectiveness with respect to each other. Splashdamage did not do their homework, and they let the SMGs completely dominate the assault rifles in almost all circumstances! That’s what I am trying to correct, so that we can have a richer game.

Weapon balance is one of the hardest parts of making a good game, IMO. Your players are a massively parallel learning system, which will tend toward the most optimal weapon/class/tactic. Making weapons which are truely different and are equally useful is very hard.

It is indeed hard. But I don’t think we can possibly do a job worse than what Splashdamage did.

GL. If you need a coder and can get the NDA for me to sign, I would be glad to help. :moo:

A coder is ultimately necessary, however I need this kind of input foremost in this planning stage (excellent links btw). I wouldn’t approach bani or shrub right now, because a) I know they are busy with other stuff, b) they may not know as much about weapons.

At the moment, I’m looking for people to contribute with the planning stage. New weapons, new weapon sounds, etc. are more important than coding. Even mapmakers who would want their new maps to be bundled with the MOD are needed. Once we have some material, we can either approach bani or shrub, or we can look for another NDA opportunities.

[SCDS_reyalP]

Here is another good weapon site
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/arms.htm
It is about the korean war, but many of the same weapons were used, including garand, thompson, colt 1911 and the m7 grenade launcher.
Effective ranges are listed.

Interesting tidbits about the grenade launcher:

Because of the heavy recoil generated by the grenade cartridge, the rifle (or carbine) was fired by firmly planting the butt on the ground, turned sideways to avoid damaging the stock.

Also the orginal m7 grenade launcher disabled the semi-automatic action of the rifle. While you could shoot normal rounds with the grenade launcher attached, you would have to cycle it like a normal bolt action rifle. The later m7a1 fixed this (although the grenade rounds were reportedly quite hard on the rifles). To fire any of the rifle grenades, you had load a special blank round.

[Korollary]

Here is another good weapon site
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/arms.htm
It is about the korean war, but many of the same weapons were used, including garand, thompson, colt 1911 and the m7 grenade launcher.
Effective ranges are listed.

I saw the effective ranges. 100m for the MP40, and 400m for the garand. If you were to implement this sticking with the reality, it would be just useless. 95% of the targets you will encounter while strolling any ET map will be within 100m. However, we can scale this down sticking to the 4:1 ratio.

Interesting tidbits about the grenade launcher:

[quote]
Because of the heavy recoil generated by the grenade cartridge, the rifle (or carbine) was fired by firmly planting the butt on the ground, turned sideways to avoid damaging the stock.

Also the orginal m7 grenade launcher disabled the semi-automatic action of the rifle. While you could shoot normal rounds with the grenade launcher attached, you would have to cycle it like a normal bolt action rifle. The later m7a1 fixed this (although the grenade rounds were reportedly quite hard on the rifles). To fire any of the rifle grenades, you had load a special blank round.[/quote]

The grenade launcher is obviously a special weapon. From the same page:

Using the M3 grenade cartridge, an experienced rifleman could fire a MarkII fragmentation grenade with good accuracy almost 200 yards !

Combine that with the fact that you have to load a special round, and then plant the butt on the ground, you will see that it was not as annoying as it is in ET. In ET, you can load a gren with ease and walk around with it, and fire the grenade as a reflex as soon as you see someone. Now that annoys people.

Now the question is, what’s the primary use of this weapon ? If you want to blow something up from a distance, under what circumstances would you prefer it over a panzerfaust ?

[Englander]

It is not just my observation that weapons other than the good old MP40/Thompson are severely incapacitated.

Ill after remember that when iam getting Panzered/MG42ed/Arty/Aitstriked/Rifle Naded/Flamed/Prime Naded/Land Mined/Sniped ,I think severly incapacitated is way over the top and if that were the case I dont believe there would be as many playing it as there are.I will say that the assault rifles at long range are crap,but everything else seems deadly enough.

Splashdamage did not do their homework.

Dont think its a question of them not doing their homework,simply they liked the balance in the game the way it is.

You after remember this is just a game and made for fun just because it looks to you on the surface they didnt do any homework it doesnt exactly mean its the case,ever thought they might have liked the game the way it is even though they had the knowledge and research.Since they made it they have the right to decide how they want the weopons to work even if that means certain weopons are restricted in ways you wouldnt think they should be.

I dont see any constructive sides to criticizing the people who brought it to you for nothing,its a massive job creating a game ,then having to work out the balance on top is equally a big job and it will never please everyone no matter what balance is worked out ,just like your conversion wont.

Its too easy and ignorant for someone who never saw the work ,time and effort and who doesnt know the reasons or explanations to why the weopons work like they do ,just because a certain thing is done the way it is or just because you dont like a particular area of the game does not mean they havnt done any homework,it just means you would prefer to have it another way.

GOOD LUCK with your project though!!!

[Korollary]

I dont see any constructive sides to criticizing the people who brought it to you for nothing,its a massive job creating a game ,then having to work out the balance on top is equally a big job and it will never please everyone no matter what balance is worked out ,just like your conversion wont.

I am not criticizing SD. They did something, it’s fun, and it’s free. However, it’s got its flaws (IMHO), and this thread is about people who have similar opinions and ideas. We’d like to improve ET towards what we like better, and certainly we will fail to satisfy some people. So, when I use phrases such as “SD didn’t do their homework”, I don’t mean to accuse anyone or put them into a defensive position.

Thanks for the good luck wishes.

[SCDS_reyalP]

I saw the effective ranges. 100m for the MP40, and 400m for the garand. If you were to implement this sticking with the reality, it would be just useless. 95% of the targets you will encounter while strolling any ET map will be within 100m. However, we can scale this down sticking to the 4:1 ratio.

100m = ~300’ = ~3600 game units, roughly from the sea wall to the water on mp_beach. I haven’t measured it, but the ET SMGs do pitiful body damage at that kind of range.

FWIW, both of those ranges would be for someone holding still, probably in a supported position. A really good shooter (with a really good gun) can get 1" groups at 100 yards. While I have never shot an SMG (damn assualt weapon laws :(), I would guess that hitting a man sized target at 100 yards is a fair challenge.

…
Combine that with the fact that you have to load a special round, and then plant the butt on the ground, you will see that it was not as annoying as it is in ET. In ET, you can load a gren with ease and walk around with it, and fire the grenade as a reflex as soon as you see someone. Now that annoys people.

Now the question is, what’s the primary use of this weapon ? If you want to blow something up from a distance, under what circumstances would you prefer it over a panzerfaust ?

Good question If you were to make it realistic in ET, it would essentially be a mini-mortar instead of a mini-PF. I don’t see that being much use OR much fun. It’s current state as an accurate instant kill weapon is not great either (IMHO). One (not realistic) option would be to make it primeable, like hand grenades. At close range, the attacker would either have to take cover to prime it, or risk having their target jump away. At long range it would explode nearly on impact, due to flight time.

OTOH, the grenades in almost all FPSs (even the ones that claim realism) are hopelessly underpowered
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/grenades.htm

They have a killing radius of 5 to 10 yards, and fragments are dangerous up to 50 yards. Normally thrown less than 35 yards, that means ‘duck’ until they explode

None of this holding it for 4.5 clicks and tossing it on your opponents head
Now you see the point of the (real life) rifle grenade “get that thing far enough away from me that the shrapnel isn’t going to kill me”

[Korollary]

FWIW, both of those ranges would be for someone holding still, probably in a supported position. A really good shooter (with a really good gun) can get 1" groups at 100 yards. While I have never shot an SMG (damn assualt weapon laws :(), I would guess that hitting a man sized target at 100 yards is a fair challenge.

It is even worse for the Tommy. Quoting from http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/thompson.htm :

The main complaints against the Thompson were it’s (sic) weight, inaccuracy at ranges over 50 yards, and lack of penetrating power.

The ET SMGs still do quite a damage from 50-100 yards. It’s not just the damage that a single bullet does, it’s the rain of bullets. Even if it doesn’t kill a sniper, it may give him 60-70 damage and cause him to lose scope. At that moment the field op is probably reloading for the second wave of spray.

Good question If you were to make it realistic in ET, it would essentially be a mini-mortar instead of a mini-PF. I don’t see that being much use OR much fun.

Mini-mortar is maybe not such a bad idea. What a real rifle grenade launcher does is give the soldier some flexibility. You can launch the grenade, take the adapter off and keep attacking the enemy. That’s something a mortar soldier cannot do with his pistol. If you force the engineer to plant the butt on the ground (1-2 secs of setup time), and increase the fuse length to 4-5 secs (per regular hand grenades), you do not have an insta-kill weapon.

It’s current state as an accurate instant kill weapon is not great either (IMHO). One (not realistic) option would be to make it primeable, like hand grenades. At close range, the attacker would either have to take cover to prime it, or risk having their target jump away. At long range it would explode nearly on impact, due to flight time.

Btw, ET rifle grenades are too smart. I just fired a few test rounds. Somehow, they explode on impact with a surface, but not during the first second, i.e. you can bounce it off a wall, and it will explode when it hits the ground. http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/grndrifl.htm doesn’t say anything about exploding on impact. Since ET engineers have a different stack of rifle grenades than their regular 8 hand grenades, I can assume that these are the dedicated rifle grenades. However, if they were regular grenades fired via the adapter, they should not explode sooner than 4-7 seconds.

They have a killing radius of 5 to 10 yards, and fragments are dangerous up to 50 yards. Normally thrown less than 35 yards, that means ‘duck’ until they explode

Yeah the grenades are underpowered as well. But the “4-click and onto the enemy’s face” is something people definitely would hate to lose. Unless somebody has a better idea somehow, I think they are fine. Maybe you can force the thrower to go prone unless he wants to share some of the shrapnel hits or something.

[SCDS_reyalP]

Yeah the grenades are underpowered as well. But the “4-click and onto the enemy’s face” is something people definitely would hate to lose. Unless somebody has a better idea somehow, I think they are fine. Maybe you can force the thrower to go prone unless he wants to share some of the shrapnel hits or something.

Absolutely. 10 yard killing radius would be rotten gameplay. Even the RTCW PF blast isn’t that big. Actually, as far as gameplay goes, I think the RTCW and ET hand grenades are as good as any FPS has ever had.

Speaking of the PF, giving it a slight arc trajectory might be interesting. It would make the long distance PF sniping a bit harder, but a skilled player could learn to be just as deadly with it. I believe RTCW shrub has this as an option, though I’m not sure I ever played on a server which had it enabled.

This page http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust.htm has a good bit of info about the PF as well as some on the bazooka, various grenades and wwII smallarms.

[Ragnar_40k]

There is/was a mod called Russian Front for RtCW in the making. They also wanted to add several new weapons. But I don’t know if they still developing, since the last news topic is from 2003/3/22.

[Bongoboy]

Hi there Korollary,
Good luck with your project, it sounds very interesting.

Sorry you feel that

Splashdamage did not do their homework
and
I don’t think we can possibly do a job worse than what Splashdamage did

Well, er, indeed! I hope you do better

I’d like to think we did do our homework, but didn’t then put it in the game just because we’d done it. The priority always was gameplay, never historical or technical accuracy. We’d always start off with the accuracte technical specifications of the historical weapon, and then tweak it for gameplay and balance with the other weapons. Effective ranges were heavily tweaked to fit the ET map scale. “Realism” was always sacrificed for balance and clarity. For example the Engineer’s M1 Garand rifle has an M7 Rifle Grenade Launcher permanently attached. This isn’t technically accurate, but it does make it very clear what the weapon can do.
The Axis Gewehrgranatgerät doesn’t fire the “potato masher” Stielhandgranat, but it just wasn’t worth introducing another separate ammo type.

Generally we found that the more technically accurate we tried to keep the weapons, the less fun it was to play. All the weapon tactics most used by actual soldiers were the least likely to be used by online FPS players, and vice versa. The sheer pace and acrobatic mobility of ET players were completely unrealistic, but a major part of what made it fun to play.

Obviously, we were trying to appeal to the widest possible audience, who weren’t too fussy about historical accuracy. It’ll be really interesting to see how you manage to balance greater technical realism with gameplay.

Best of luck,

:moo:

[SCDS_reyalP]

Bongoboy, IMO, you guys did an excellent job. While I don’t agree with every choice you made, it would be quite easy to do worse.

Korollary:
FWIW, the SMGs do 9 points body of damage going from the axis MG nest on near their first spawn to the allies nest near the hut. That is half of the point blank amount. I’m guessing that is the minimum it goes to, but at that point I was having trouble seeing the target. Increasing the rate of damage falloff, and/or letting it go all the way to 0 would be one way of giving the heavier weapons more value (assuming you could hit with them at that range).

[Lango]

:bash:

[Lango]

:drink: :bump: :drink:

[Lango]

[Lango]

SCDS_reyalP wrote:

Realism:
My opinion is that realism is a good place to get inspiration, but should always come second to gameplay. Moving a bounding box around a sceen with a kb and mouse is so far from the actual experience of shooting live targets with real firearms that the whole idea of calling it ‘realistic’ is laughable. I encourage anyone making a mod to go to the range and shoot some real guns to get a feeling for this.

I do believe that game play is important but sometimes interating the reality factor in adds to that fun. But I will say that if it gets too realistic the game will become hellish like the real war.

Englander wrote:

Ill after remember that when iam getting Panzered/MG42ed/Arty/Aitstriked/Rifle Naded/Flamed/Prime Naded/Land Mined/Sniped

First of all ENGLAND unfair weapons are a reality and originated around the late 1800’s with the developement of land mines in the American Civil War and early 1900’s with the advancement of a primitive tank(compared to the ones we have now) used some what in WWI.

Englander wrote:

assault rifles

I just want to correct that the assult did not develope until the machine gun and rifle were combined to make the first assult rifle(though the FG42 closely resembles one). Try watching the History Channel.

P.S. Korollary if you need any more info I just happen to be a WWII weapons expert. Danke Sehr!

[Englander]

Lango did you even bother reading the thread ?

were did I ever say these weapons are unfair ,do you like imaging things,try reading and understanding next time instead of bringing the worst quotes and replys ive ever seen.

Dont just quote Assault Rifles and then come out with an answer too it like that,I said they shoot crap at long range in ET,were did I dispute the history of them u moron.

P.S. Korollary if you need any more info I just happen to be a WWII weapons expert. Danke Sehr!

Shame ur not expert at reading.Watch this guy hes funny.

And stop spamming!!!

[Pamper]

I just want to fix its broken guns.

The single most important thing to fix is rifle accuracy. It should be possible to take 1/2 second to crouch, aim rifle (non-scoped), and make a precise body-shot to a long range target.

It’s fine if rifles are inaccurate when you’re spinning around to follow a fast, short-range opponent. But at medium to long range, they should have better (or at least equal) accuracy with an SMG. It’d suggest making rifles more accurate in general, but then giving them larger penalties from firing while moving, standing, or turning (than the SMG).

The way that all non-zoomed rifles have permanently worse accuracy than an SMG is totally wrong.