Reality Mods? As if.

[Buster Charlie]

One problem I have with so called reality mods for BF1942 and soon this game, is that they don't tackle the fact that the engine can neither handle the draw distance nor resolusion needed for 'realistic' ranged combat.

To be blunt, everyone makes the sniper rifle some rail gun, because they claim it's realistic. What they DONT want to talk about is pretty much EVERY SINGLE rifle in the game would be JUST as effective at the ranges BF2 handles.

The BF2 world is kind of compressed, the draw distances are short, everything happens within a few hundred meters. But in real life, you could EASILY take on infantry with an AK at 300 meters. The AKM is not so inaccurate that it won't kill people at that range rather well. The M-16 and AK-74 nad other .22 caliber rifles have a flatter trajectory and probably an effective range closer to 500 meters! I can't think of a BF2 map where I can see that far! Heavier Bullet rifles that fire .308, 7.62X54R (pretty much all ligh machineguns and so called 'sniper rifles' have the trajectory and oomph to fire out to 800 meters give or take.

So considering that most computers can't come close drawing accurate detail at 800 meters unmagnified, and BF2 maps don't even draw that far? How can you ever have 'realism' in the small arms? let alone the vehicles!

I guess my real point is yes, a sniper rifle can kill you in one shot IRL, but so will pretty much ANY rifle. Also shotgun spreads are stupid in most games, a shotgun should easily land all its shot in a person at 70 meters, At 20meters or less even a pistol would be something you wouldn't want to face. And SMG are always so gimped, sure they dont have long range power but under 100M they should be feared.

I still think given the limits of game engines and display tech we're gonna have to settle for 'gameplay' over ultimate realism, because it's just not gonna happen, at least not in the BF2 engine as it stands.

[=Sarc=]

Very good point.

If people want realism, OFP has it all. You got vehicles, aircraft, realistic weapons and huge draw distances.

[El_Gringo_Grande]

What is OFP?

[=Sarc=]

Operation Flashpoint

The military use a modified version of it (VBS1) to train soldiers. I believe it's the most realistic FPS to date.

[Buster Charlie]

I got OPF, I really like it, it seemed very close to reality, my biggest beef was the control setup was VERY kludgy and you couldn't find a online game easily or join in mid game.

I can't wait for that remake they're doing of OFP with the new OFP2 engine. That should be really cool.


But then again OFP was always super fun for me either, I did enjoy it, but its a good example of how a little TOO much realism can wear thin fast. My biggest complain is that it had the accurate draw distances, but the human eye can see farther and better than a monitor can produce so often it was REALLY HARD to see where an enemy was shooting from.

But then again, this is not the game devlopers fault, its just a limitation of technology.

[Toshido]

One word...

Scale.

[JG14_Jagr]

Originally Posted by Buster Charlie

One problem I have with so called reality mods for BF1942 and soon this game, is that they don't tackle the fact that the engine can neither handle the draw distance nor resolusion needed for 'realistic' ranged combat.

To be blunt, everyone makes the sniper rifle some rail gun, because they claim it's realistic. What they DONT want to talk about is pretty much EVERY SINGLE rifle in the game would be JUST as effective at the ranges BF2 handles.

The BF2 world is kind of compressed, the draw distances are short, everything happens within a few hundred meters. But in real life, you could EASILY take on infantry with an AK at 300 meters. The AKM is not so inaccurate that it won't kill people at that range rather well. The M-16 and AK-74 nad other .22 caliber rifles have a flatter trajectory and probably an effective range closer to 500 meters! I can't think of a BF2 map where I can see that far! Heavier Bullet rifles that fire .308, 7.62X54R (pretty much all ligh machineguns and so called 'sniper rifles' have the trajectory and oomph to fire out to 800 meters give or take.

So considering that most computers can't come close drawing accurate detail at 800 meters unmagnified, and BF2 maps don't even draw that far? How can you ever have 'realism' in the small arms? let alone the vehicles!

I guess my real point is yes, a sniper rifle can kill you in one shot IRL, but so will pretty much ANY rifle. Also shotgun spreads are stupid in most games, a shotgun should easily land all its shot in a person at 70 meters, At 20meters or less even a pistol would be something you wouldn't want to face. And SMG are always so gimped, sure they dont have long range power but under 100M they should be feared.

I still think given the limits of game engines and display tech we're gonna have to settle for 'gameplay' over ultimate realism, because it's just not gonna happen, at least not in the BF2 engine as it stands.

Some valid things.. however your shotgun point is way off.. average spread rule of thumb for combat loads of buckshot is 1 inch per meter traveled downrange. At 20 M the spread of 00 buck is wide enough to theoretically pass around a man sized target (certainly not a sure thing..but the overall spread pattern is wider than the average torso... At 70M's with 00 buck you would be amazingly lucky to get a single pellet on target.

The weapon performance in game is rediculous..as is the damage model on people.. but there are limitations..

There is no muzzle shake..so with no ballistic drop and no wind there has to be some built in error. I think it could be far better handled than it is now though. Overall accuracy needs to be adjusted.. I can fire full auto AK47 from 10M and easily put the entire mag in a B27 target..

The biggest shortcoming is with the belt fed weapons.. the SAW in reality is very nasty.. prone/supported you can really lay the smack on people at reasonable ranges.. in here it fires like you were offhand firing one handed..

You would have to find that balance point where you are improving the performance of the weapons to near reality..but remembering to allow for wobble and a more realistic recoil..

On that point.. is there a how to anywhere to allow proper editing of the weapons and assembly into a mod that will not interfere with my primary install of BF2 on servers?

[Vodkatonic]

^^^ He answered the question about the shotgun, that was my only disagreement....

[burble]

i'm pretty sure everyone with realized long ago that 'realism' was not possible in this type of game. it would be no fun at all for one AT round to take out any vehicle, AA to be 99% effective, ect.

also, you don't need to try so hard to be an armchair weapons expert. some of your facts are a bit off.

an AK47 is going to be hard to use at 300 meters. .223 weapons (not .22, there's a large difference) might be effective up to about 400 meters, but you're going to have to be in a prone, supported position, and still be a damn good shot. at 300m, a man-sized target is about half the width of your front sight post, with the bullet dropping at least a couple feet by the time it reaches that distance. a PERFECT zero is also important at that kind of distance, as well as controlled breathing and a soft trigger squeeze, which you're probably not going to have in a firefight.

it's not that i don't agree with you on the gameplay aspects, it's just that i'm argumentative, and i've put at least a few thousand rifle rounds downrange.

[Buster Charlie]

1) I said "But in real life, you could EASILY take on infantry with an AK at 300 meters. The AKM is not so inaccurate that it won't kill people at that range rather well."

So we agree, the AKM can kill people easily at 300 meters.

2) I refer to the M-16 and AK-74 as .22 CALIBER weapons in the same way I'd refer to the AKM, FAL, M-14, G3, M1 Garand as .30 Caliber weapons even though none are exactly .30 caliber. I didn't say .22 LR or .22 Short or a specific cartridge, I said .22 caliber. WHich .223 is close enough.

I concede my shotgun data may have been off (I am not as intimate on shotguns) I only just aquired my first shotgun (ironicly a Saiga-12). I may have been thinking of something when I said 70m.

I've heard of some very long shots with the ar-15, again in 'range' conditions, but the 5.45 and 5.56 models have a flattery trajectory than than the 7.62X39 round so they have a flatter trajectory, but they loose their energy at longer ranges and are more affected by wind and foilage.



I think we agree, some of the numbers are pretty rought, but the basics are there.

To be honest right now I'm more of a collector than a shooter, I dont get to go to the range much so i'll have to take your word if you've shot the ar-15 a lot. I just head it had a max range around 600m (but again thats probably not combat conditions)



On another note, I think they dropped the ball with balancing the support weapon. They could have made it deadly, yet have realistic flaws.

Having never fired a belted MG I am drawing this from stuff i've read and heard. But as I understand it all firearms to some degree degrade in accuracy when their barrel heats up. This is especialy the case with machineguns.

So instead of making the MG so inaccurate that I can be prone 10 feet from someone and miss after firing at them for several seconds, they should have used the 'heat' function to degrade proformance after extended shooting.

Right now the heating bar fills up fast and 'empties' fast too. If I designed the MG in BF2, I'd have them heat up and disipate heat at a realistic rate, or close to real life while still being playable. This would encourage firing in bursts, but still allow extended fire when nessisary. Realisticly a MG should be fairly deadly and accurate at first, but after extended firing its grouping should open up as the barrel heats up. Also Some of the MG allow for 'quck' barrel changes, which would be a cool feature, but some guns like the RPK do now allow for that.

The way BF2 handles the gun just magicaly 'stopping' from extended shooting is not very accurate.

[burble]

it's also not very accurate that it cools so quickly. after putting hundreds of rounds through a machinegun barrel, it will remain quite hot for a long while. like everything else, it's a tradeoff.

i've never fired an m249, i was trained with the 7.62 m240b, instead.

but let me tell you- it is NOT easy to aim. unlike ingame, the rounds go right where the weapon is pointing. it is not inaccurate. the problem, rather, if from the both the weight of the weapon and the immense recoil (tons more than an m16). when firing a larger unmounted machinegun, after the first shot, you might as well not have any sights.

when you consider the weapon at the bottom of the screen should be moving all over the place, not staying stationary, MG's in the game are actually somewhat realistic.

and on the rifle range, let me just say this- on a properly zeroed m16, in a supported position, i can hit 300m targets maybe 2 out of 3 times. not every time.

take away the support, and i can't hit anything that far away. in fact, when i qualified with my weapon (us army), i didn't even bother shooting at the 250 or 300m targets from an unsupported position. unless you're a real sharpshooter, it's a waste of ammo.

this becomes even worse in a standing position. i'd say, standing, you'd be doing good to hit 150m targets reliably...on a range. now think about if you're moving, breathing hard, being shot at...how accurate would you be?

[Toshido]

They either need to model the quick barrel changes that machineguns are designed to do or allow quicker than realistic cooling.

[Enigma]

The problem with most reality mods for ANY game is that they make it so realalistic, it sucks all the fun out of the game. (Red Orchestra)

[Buster Charlie]

Originally Posted by Enigma

The problem with most reality mods for ANY game is that they make it so realalistic, it sucks all the fun out of the game. (Red Orchestra)

Well that is a matter of opinion. I like elements of ficiton in a GAME to make it "Fun" but I also like elements of reality to make it immersive. I dont care for mod teams who have no imagination or ability to balance a game so they use 'its realistic' as an excuse for bad gameplay.

[ES_Destroyer]

i downloaded a reality mod 4 bf2, but it was a bit dodgey, most of the maps exept Gulf of Oman crashed on loading. the reality mod didnt change the power of the weapon (not that i noticed) but added recoil instead of expanding cone of fire. the crosshair itself was bout 2 inches in diameter and dint get smaller. this was to replicate that shoting from the hip, your not quite sure where the bullets go. the iron sight was the only way to aim straight. also the shotgun had no crosshair at all.
playing with thim\s mod i could own because i can hold the gun steady when shooting even with heaps of recoil so i would get heaps of kills as support, when prone.
so this mod didnt really make realistic damage and ruin the fun/challange, but makes the functionality of the weapons better.