Panzerfausts without trajectory?

(a little girl) #1

Excuse a noob if this subject has been up before. Can someone enlighten me as to why the fausts are almost “straight shot” weapons?

The rifle grenades and handgrenades both have a distinct curve to their trajectory. Rifle grenades with a speed of 160 m/s and a range of say 300 m should have a much flatter trajectory than the PF with a speed of 60 m/s and a range of 100 meters. The trajectory for a panzerfaust at it’s peak should be maybe 5-7 meters above line of sight on a 100 meter shot, I think?

I do not claim to be an expert myself but check out the data, for example on these sites http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust2.htm :
http://www.angelraybooks.com/diewehrmacht/gallery/f4.htm

Other distinct drawbacks of the PF was the 3 meter backblast. Firing in cramped conditions would result in injuries/death of firer. Personnel within 10 meters behind the faust was also endangered.

The shaped charge warhead of about 1.5 kilos did not result in much shrapnel, apart from that emanating by the target being hit (ie from the surface it hit). The rifle grenade on the other hand was designed to cover it’s surrounding with shrapnel, so even if it is only a third of the PF size should probably have at least as big effect on soft targets (Thats us :smiley: ).

The weapon wasn’t armed for the first 5 meters so a face2face shot would not result in a detonation.

If any of these features were reflected in ET maybe there would be less “PF from hell” discussion. The straight rocketlike flight of the fausts in ET are uncanny.

(Kendle) #2

Simple answer really, it’s a game

(Loffy) #3

The back blast would be an interesting addition. (Until you get fried by noobs.)
// Loffy

(Mr.Monkey) #4

I’ve also notice when someone gets shot, they can come back to life when poked with a syringe!

What should happen in ET is that when you get killed, the game uninstalls it’s self, and prevents you from ever playing it again.

(askin'george) #5

weel…the rocket got a thrust…the nade doesent…

the nade launcher…ejects a nade…

the pf…launches a self-engined projectile… actually…the pf doesent eject nothing…the rocket egnites…and has to accelerate… pretty logic that it doesent goes downwards…its build in to the rocket…(just like in reallife)…if u wanna discuss how fast the rocket or nade flies…well maybe u should just go in real war…

(Bongoboy) #6

Yah, what they said : )

I know, I know, ET’s Panzerfaust is neither realistic nor consistent. We did a lot of research into the historical weapons and then playtested and playtested until we felt the gameplay was balanced at the right level for the most players. We were ruthless in our tweaking, but we always started off with historically accurate rates of fire, magazine capacities etc.

One point I’d make about ANY research is go for books, not websites. Websites (particularly military ones) tend to be badly transcribed and scanned versions of the books. Books usually have editors to check their accuracy and veracity, which very few websites ever do. And websites tend to be kind of soundbitey, where books take the time and trouble to explain details and context.

If you want to find out more about the Panzerfaust I’d definitely reccomend Wolfgang Fleischer’s Panzerfaust And Other German Infantry Anti-Tank Weapons, published by Schiffer Military/Aviation History, ISBN: 0-88740-672-6. Or, if you prefer the original German, check out Deutsche Panzernahbekaempfungsmittel 1917-1945 puiblished by Podzun-Pallass Verlag.

:moo:

(skinner) #7

pwned

(schmeisser) #8

You guys are getting WAY too anal over this stuff. It’s a fucking game. A highly addictive, unrealistic, flawed, fun FREE GAME. Get over it. If it were realistic we probably wouldn’t play it much. Real war sucks. Lets not pretend there’s anything more than a passing resemblance between this game and real combat. What’s next, heaps of entrails, rotting corpses, dead children, raped women? Now THAT would be a realistic war simulation, and only truly sick bastards would play it. You know it’s only a matter of time. So let’s just enjoy our little tension reliever make believe.

(ND80) #9

For RTCW, Shrub incorporated a setting where you could add trajectory to PFs. The vast majority of players that I found when I tested it out on my servers, hated it.

(IPvD) #10

The whole panzerfaust paradigm has been thoroughly qualitized and re-engineered in order to present its best core-competencies and synergize most efficiently with the ET community. Unless you acknowledge the necessity of a win-win situation between PF design and community acceptance, which was achieved retroactively with RTCW, its difficult to see how it fits into the larger action-plan of ET development!

(nate.h) #11

Yeah, I personally really appreciate this, as a gamer :slight_smile: One of the main things that I think sets ET apart and makes it fun is that it’s realistic on a somewhat abstract level, but that the fine details are tuned for optimal gameplay. They don’t sacrifice the elements of fun and balance to the abstract idol of “reality” (whatever that means in an abstract simulation controlled through a keyboard and pointing device) like some other, quite popular mods who shall remain nameless do. Truth be told, if ET were realistic, you’d spend most of your time wandering/sitting around, and when combat finally did come you’d probably bite it without even seeing it coming.

I think the whole concept of “reality” is a good rule of thumb, in that deep down, players expect things to behave “realistically”. In other words, I think it serves a role in making the game feel more intuitive. However, in the end, the experience always boils down to a set of symbols and systems whose rules you learn like any others. Good game design is the art of figuring out where to balance the clarity benefit of reality with the complexity and fun cost.

steps off of game design soapbox

(Dawg) #12

When shrub added the trajectory to the rtcw mod I thought it was pretty cool. The players on the server I played on regularly didn’t complain about it as those on the ND-80 servers seem have done. They liked the idea that it made it a little more realistic and more difficult weapon to just pick up and use. The regular PF users got used to the arc quite quickly and were able to arc the rocket over buildings on maps like marketgarden.

I think it would be cool if the PF did arc but I will not argue strongly for it for all the realism-vs-gameplay reasons others have already cited. If shrub or bani adds this to one of their mods I will probably appreciate it… but I won’t campaign for it…

Dawg

(Azarael) #13

If you want panzerfausts that shoot with trajectory, play Call of Duty…

(Cyber-Knight) #14

wonders why the developers chose the Garand to be more realistic than to balance it out with the K43

:confused:

(lennyballa) #15

That sounds clear to me :slight_smile: . Never forget that a game is a game, how realistic it would be. Games are jus very diffrent from reality, you can also complain about that “you need to schoot someone 10 times in the leg and he dies”. If you keep complaining about unrealistic things about ET, i suggest you go play another game and annoy other people. Thank you :smiley:

(a little girl) #16

Thanks for all the info and reactions. As you can see from the initial post I am not asking for any realism, I play and I play for fun. Just though it would be a simple solution to get around the constant complaints about faustfiests.

Since the curved trajectory is already in the game I didn’t understand why it wasn’t applied to the faust, but now I have an explanation.

Thanks also for the litterature hints.

(The_Jesus_Zeppelin) #17

its really really really simple, its a game, and its not perfect. there will never be a perfect game. so stop pointing out every little detail about whats wrong with it.

(Ton80) #18

ROFLMAO
I think this statment sums up the whole thread
:drink:

(sniser) #19

Now that I can see… this would also prevent those “teammate steps in line of fire in the last moment” mishaps… might even be easily possible for teh bani and shrub mods?

(Cyber-Knight) #20

Although if it didn’t detonate, having a small rectangular object being propelled into the back of your head will still hurt!