Game Design Review - On Guns P2

This is a continuation of a topic in my Game Design Review series which began here:
http://fpscreloadedreview.blogspot.com/2014/10/game-design-review-on-guns-p1.html

When I think back to the original doom, and quake, I recall their weapons accuracy.  These games were fun and consistent, without all the tedious need for upgrades and add-ons just to make a gun shoot well out of the box.  It was an era of run and gun.  I really enjoyed the original Doom; it shaped all my gameplay experiences to come.

The guns back then behaved vastly more intuitively than they do today.  Oftentimes without any form of crosshair, to boot.

From this pretty awesome article: 

http://www.plusxp.com/2010/12/a-second-look-the-evolution-of-the-first-person-shooter/

So let's talk terminology first.  It's a sticking point amongst many gun enthusiasts vs non-gun enthusiasts.  We see so many wrongly labelled examples it's quite maddening.  Why do we, as developers care?  People appreciate accuracy both in their weapons AND from the developers in terms of modelling game components.

Magazines vs Clips

Clips are, on the by and whole, not used anymore.  They are a relic of a bygone era save for mostly revolver clips.  A clip is a little metal piece that is used to hold bullets together.  It's flimsy and tiny, and generally is not what people are thinking of when they refer to a 'clip of bullets'.

Picture per wikipedia.

Note the distinct lack of a housing.  This defines a clip.  It's literally like a paper clip.  A simple metal piece that binds rounds together.

Some AK-47 Magazines per http://pokin-holes.blogspot.com

Not real hard to know the difference once you've seen it.  Also makes you look REALLY stupid to anyone who has even a passing interesting firearms if you're not making the distinction.

Shells, casings, and everything in between.

Similarly, the same applies to Shells.  Shells are effectively a whole, pre-fired bullet.  It includes the whole material components of the casing (usually brass or steel), the projectile (usually lead or copper), gunpowder, and a primer.

From hunter-ed.com

Often, however, people refer to empty shell casings as shells.  This is incorrect.  It's splitting hairs but do you really want to seem like an idiot to the more educated of your audience?

So, some simple education is in order on how bullets and guns ACTUALLY work.

In the beginning...

Humankind (arguably, at least in academic circles) proved his superiority both through his intellect but ALSO through his ability to throw objects which could kill his prey.  This effective 'arm reach' improvement gave a huge evolutionary advantage over similar predators.
(Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-chimps-humans-baseball-pitcher.html )

As time went on our methods of throwing things improved.  We used spears, spear throwers, slings (where bullets effectively originated), arrows and eventually firearms.

How firearms work.

Firearms are remarkably simple.   The bulk of the work is done by the bullet itself.  A firearm or gun is effectively a means to provide a loader, a way to initiate firing (trigger and firing pin), and a stabilizing platform (the barrel).

Obviously I got this from http://gunlink.info ^

PUT SIMPLY - IF YOU HAVE EVER USED A PEA SHOOTER, YOU KNOW HOW A GUN WORKS.  JUST SUBSTITUTE YOUR BREATH FOR A CHEMICAL REACTION WHICH CAUSES RAPIDLY EXPANDING GAS TO PUSH THE 'SPITBALL' (aka bullet).

On another note - once a gun fires and the casing is ejected.. there should be no more projectile in it!  I'm amazed how often people think it just shoots magic out the end and ejects a whole round.  Or alternately, that they think that it fires a whole projectile, casing and all.


IMPLEMENTING MORE EFFECTIVE GUNS IN FPSC:RELOADED

Now for the meat of this article.  Inside of the FPSC:R Engine folder (Typically C:\program files(x86)\the game creators\fpscr) there's a game core folder.  Inside of that folder is your weapons folder.  Within that are the individual weapons.

What we're looking for is the 'gunspec.txt' file.  This is gun specifications and effectively controls the behavior of the gun itself.

Within this file the main settings we are concerned with are:

'accuracy'   - The base hipfire accuracy of the gun.
'zoom accuracy' - The alt-fire 'down the sights' accuracy of the gun.
'force'  - Felt recoil.
'damage' - For tweaking your preferred damage settings.

The accuracy field is not as granular as you might think.  The game basically uses this value to define the cone of fire coming from the weapon.   The smaller the number, the smaller the cone.  Zero is no cone.

For the purposes of our example let's look at the values in the original shotgun gunspec file.

damage            = 15
damagetype     = 2
reloadqty         = 6
accuracy          = 8
shotgun           = 1

An accuracy of eight makes this gun seem like it's a blunderbuss. Heck, a blunderbuss was probably more accurate.  Damage is 15 per pellet.  In it's stock configuration the shotgun feels like one of the weakest weapons, often requiring 3-5 shots at a mere 3 yards to put away even the lowliest enemy.

This is my modified numbers:

damage         = 11
damagetype  = 2
reloadqty      = 6
accuracy       = 2
shotgun         = 1
range       = 1500

You might think this seems drastic.  Bear in mind, however, that the accuracy value basically acts like degrees of an arc.   I'm estimating but I'm fairly sure that it's approximately 5 degrees of arc per value of accuracy.  So a value of one gives a five degree cone, a value of two gives a ten degree cone, etc.  This value in testing gave me a nice tight spread.  This also seemed overwhelmingly powerful so I toned down the damage to bring it in line with it's value as a weapon.

I also added a range value, which wasn't present in the file by default.  This should (if not now, then later) make the weapon ineffective as a long range platform. An example of this was the quake (1) shotgun which could shoot the entire length of the map and retain a moderately realistic tight spread.  It made for an effective weapon at any distance, which was unreasonable.

Recommended changes for other weapons:
Colt 1911 - 35 damage, accuracy 1, zoomaccuracy 0, reloadqty 8 (up from 7).
Notes:  The 45 ACP bullet is a low penetration, moderate damage round.  It's on par with a 9mm in terms of ballistic performance.  Also, many modern 1911's carry 8 in the magazine, not 7.  Examples: the Wilson combat 1911, Sig Sauer's 1911, and even the Taurus PT1911.

357 magnum - 50 damage, accuracy 0, zoom accuracy 0, force 150.  
Notes:  The 357 magnum is a hell of a round.  It hits pretty hard for a pistol round and I wanted to
model accuracy as well.  The payback is of course in terms of recoil.

This was off a virtually stock el-cheapo Taurus PT1911 shooting generic ammo.

Ironically 45's are pretty damn accurate, but I *PREFER* using slightly different values to exacerbate the differences between the guns.  I also have a custom 1911-22 I put in (a 1911 using a .22LR barrel, magazines, etc) which has a fast fire rate, higher magazine count (12), less damage, and perfect accuracy with low recoil.  I needed slight value adjustments to make that work.  Until something more granular is available, these values will have to do.  I kept the default pistol ranges for now.  I want to play more with ranges before I make recommendations there.

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