Raised weapon sights

[galzohar 31]

Chumba, my experience with shooting says the exact opposite. Bad shots are VERY distinguishable from good ones. I can tell 99% of the time if I hit the target or not without even checking it as long as the ballistics aren't being a problem (that is, as long as the weapon is zeroed and I know the exact range).

I agree though that pulling the trigger right as the sights pass the target is usually a very bad idea, since it's quite difficult to time it properly. But when you do fire the bullet you should be able to tell if you hit/missed. It's really not that hard and in fact you are told to try and predict where your bullets hit the very first time you go to the shooting range.

[Chumba 10]

galzohar, yes I can generally tell whether I've blown it as well almost instantly - ie. AS I make the shot - I never said I couldn't distinguish good from bad shots - I SAID that what I see thru the sights is no different - it's the instant of firing the shot that determines the result - so chasing a wandering sight picture is NOT IMO the right way to simulate shooting. I'd rather have a LITTLE bit of movement (some sway is a must - just not huge amounts of it) and have dispersions demonstrate the final accuracy according to situation.

[galzohar 31]

Like I said, I agree that chasing the moving sight picture is not the right way, but then again the reason it's not the right way is because of the effects of rapid trigger pull you'd have to perform in order to pull the trigger at the right time, as opposed to proper, slow trigger pull. I have no idea how one would simulate proper trigger pull in a game, unless we were all forced to use a special mouse that has an axis (like a joystick, only very small) instead of a fire button (or strongly encouraged to by giving people without one an unfair disadvantage). Anyway, not something we're going to see in the foreseeable future.

Another, more practical alternative, could be to have a random (but very small and nearly unnoticeable) delay between pressing the mouse button and the rifle actually firing, that way you will only guarantee a hit if your sights are on-target for the entire trigger pull, otherwise you'd be risking a miss. Then you can even go further and make that delay vary amongst different weapons, as we all know an M24 has a much more sensitive trigger pull than an M16 and thus is much less prone to misses caused by improper trigger pull (assuming you stabilize the weapon in the same way and fire at the same distance with both weapons, of course).

The sway itself should be there the same way it is there IRL. Just because its negative effects can't be simulated to 100% shouldn't mean it needs to not be there at all - As long as its presence increases realism rather than detract from it.

Edited May 13, 2010 by galzohar

[Wolfstriked 11]

I think sway is realistic,after all it happens in real life.Dispersion could be modeled in but dispersion is already in game(I hope)to give differences for say sniper to pistol.IMO what is wrong with adding in dispersion instead of more sway is you take the player element out of equation.You now have player put dot on enemy and just fire away waiting for dispersion to give a good shot.With sway you put player back into the game since they now have to contend with chasing the dot.

Galzohar,I think that would be very bad.The game has an unnconnected feel as is and if you now start clicking on fire and nothing happens it will feel worse.EDIT<<<just read where you said its unnoticable.:D

Maybe a way to simulate suppression is to remove holding your breath?Who would be able to put weapon around corner,stabilize it and then try to hold ones breath.Maybe instantly put player out of breath as if they just ran for awhile when bullets are striking very close? Also speed at which breathing returns to normal could be very fast compared to after a long run.

Edited May 13, 2010 by Wolfstriked

[galzohar 31]

Can't really tell without trying it, especially considering that to get realistic results the delay will have to be very small. Not saying it's a great solution because I hadn't tried it either, just that you can't just rule it out without trying because after all it seems like it would achieve the desired effect when combined with realistically high levels of weapon sway and realistically low levels of weapon dispersion.

The only problem I see with it is that you would have to be able to also do "fast" trigger pulls with lower accuracy for short-range engagements and/or any other engagements where you would choose rapid fire over accuracy. An extra keybinding would resolve the issue but would also make controls very cumbersome as everyone are used to only have 1 kind of fire button. An alternative to an extra key would be to only do the slow trigger pull while holding breath, as I don't know anyone who would squeeze the trigger carefully while letting his breath go freely, nor anyone who would hold his breath but jerk the trigger.

Edited May 13, 2010 by galzohar

[Chumba 10]

I'm not saying there shouldn't be ANY sway at all - indeed SOME sway IS realistic - but it should be kept to a SMALL amount - and the way VBS is described to have it in the vertical only sounds like a sound idea - but to make it THE accuracy determinant factor would mean having just way too much and THAT I'm steadfastly against.

[galzohar 31]

I don't see why would anyone at all want an amount of sway different from the one you would have in real life.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Define real life. Is it on the range or on a chaotic battlefield with all hell going on around you? All I'm saying is that us humans shouldn't be able to make the super accurate shots we do today simply because we choose to ignore fear. The effects of current suppression are pretty good, the problem is it is far too insensitive. Even shooting around your own position would "make you nervous", and you'll have a harder time getting the good aim. Try doing accurate shooting while a 1000HP tank starts up next to you, impossible. In Arma, you're still "at the range" because no bullets landed within 20cm of your position. I want all these effects taken into account. If enough is going on, you'll have a hard time shooting accurately (without rest or going prone).

I like your trigger control system though. Would be key to snipers.

[galzohar 31]

Try doing accurate shooting while a 1000HP tank starts up next to you, impossible

I would rather try it in real life before making such claims.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I did ;)

[MirindoR 10]

, only thing you can do is crawl all over the place to level it with your body which is just not that practical.

yep thats what i do, its not that bad tbh

[nkenny 1051]

I do hear you about sway, but altho I have no problem with sway for certain purposes - ie. wounded inaccuracy, fatigue and being suppressed - my personal preference is for the effect to be kept minimal and dispersions used to actually generate the final degradation in accuracy.

Same for recoil - we have to be realistic in understanding that for most combat rifles - particulary "assault" rifles - a trained soldier really doesn't have to think or worry too much about recoil. There are certain exceptions such as high powered sniper rifles and shotguns but broadly speaking recoil shouldn't factor in a players ability to aim and shoot weapons. OFP does the whole thing very well but ARMA games went in a bit of a crazy direction with recoils IMO.

In fact it's not so much the SIZE of the recoils that are fubar in ARMA2 but the SLOOOOW speed of them - it's mainly the speed that I adjust. Having the sight resettle to a point a tad off the original aimpoint would be a good thing too - this could be made different for various weapons (M16 family could in fact be left returning to the same point IMO).

People overestimate how hard it is to aim properly. I mean AIM, not SHOOT - of which aiming is only part - granny can line up the sights perfectly, but can she pull the trigger properly, spot the fall of shot and make subsequent aim corrections? In ARMA2 the player is supposed to be a trained soldier.... Again, OFP does it all quite well - I never thought about how the weapons handled from day one with OFP but the first time I tried to shoot in ARMA it was "WTF!!". The big issue shouldn't BE about wrestling the sight back onto the target - it SHOULD be about working out where the bullet/s actually went and correcting accordingly... It's a game - we're NOT shooting real weapons - so spending too much time on "realism" is silly - we need to be trying to get the basic mechanics workable and having appropriate and "realistic" RESULTS. Again, they got it pretty good in OFP so it's not like this is uncharted territory.

This.

Just cranking up sway to 'unmanageable' levels in the name of realism is neither helpful nor purposeful to achieve a reasonable realistic tactical GAME situation.

Also -- Operation flashpoint had it right.

-k

[Chumba 10]

galzohar - that's exactly what I'm saying too - ie. a little bit is spot on but I'm terrified of going down the path of big movements - and the thing we see under suppression is very much along that line.

Really we're really none of us very much at odds on this - even I'm not advocating NO sway - but as I've said, I certainly don't want it to be THE final accuracy determinant factor by being made large + dispersion dropped.

NkEnNy - hooAAHH! :-)

[galzohar 31]

IMO it's not so much about "little" or "lots", just "the same amount you would have had with this weapon in this firing position IRL".

[CarlGustaffa 4]

OFP had it right? AK sniping and one bullet always guarantees death (are we civilians or soldiers in body armor?), and returning fire has no effect (pre suppressive effects). How is that "right"? It's enough to check the news once in a while - "heavy firefight lasting several hours, 3 enemy confirmed dead, several wounded". In Arma it's a truckload or ten of corpses.

It would also help if the AI was made more reluctant to attack just so we can pick'em off. Alternate planning, like setting up a CSW in a good position, or setting up an ambush, anything :)

Edit: Sorry, I was thinking about OFP as a whole, not how it's sway was implemented.

Edited May 15, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[Chumba 10]

IMO it's not so much about "little" or "lots", just "the same amount you would have had with this weapon in this firing position IRL".

Thats what I'd classify as "little" - maybe I've overestimated the amount you've been envisaging - we've probably been talking about the same thing all along - the amount I'd consider correct is maybe half what can be seen on that VBS vid without breath held - tho I could live with the same amount but absolutely no more - and with breath held it looks about right (I'm assuming it steadies down as a consequence of breath holding? ).

And on-topic I think a pov stepping up and down from each stance would be the way to go - possibly with degradation in accuracy / increase in "sway" the more it moves away from the "standard" position.

[galzohar 31]

No game (other than Infiltration for Unreal Tournament 99 but even there it was only lvl3a) ever simulated body armor realistically as far as I know, especially not OFP/Arma/Arma2.

AI would not be as easy to get picked off if they had a clue which places are good to be at and which aren't when they are taking fire from a certain direction. Even with UPS/UPSMON they seem to go out in the open way too much and those scripts really seem to try and avoid that, but at least UPSMON gives you the ambush option which means that if you place the AI wisely enough in the editor they will stay in their hidden positions until one of them gets detected or the enemy is in a good enough position for the ambush to start attacking. Though again fixing weapon accuracy would make it a lot less easy to pick off AI.

IRL sway is not only caused by breath. In fact the movement from instability of your grip and the movement from your breathing are quite distinguishable, especially when you compare standing to crouch to prone (which have different "instability-caused sway" but breathing has a similar effect). Holding breath does nothing for making your muscles shake less nor make them any stronger. Even when holding breath I could only hit the first shot out of 5 at a target at 400m while standing with an M24 (with somewhat heavier night sight as it was at night time), and that was when I was making an extreme effort to keep the weapon steady using a special shooting position you would probably never use in actual combat. Normally you wouldn't really hit reliably beyond 50-100 meters from the standing position because it's *that* hard to keep the weapon steady, and breathing is actually a minor effect in comparison to how hard it is to actually hold the weapon steady (but still needs to be accounted for if you want to hit, of course).

I fired the M24 using a posture like this one, except without the glove and coat of course. This kind of posture is obviously not something you would ever do outside of the shooting range, since due to how long it takes to get into it properly you might as well assume a more stable position (crouch and/or prone and/or find something to lean your weapon against would generally be faster). In Arma 2, on the other hand, you can easily hit at much more than 400m. Even with ACE which makes it much more difficult than vanilla it's still way too easy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Air-rifle-shooting.jpg

Edited May 15, 2010 by galzohar

[Chumba 10]

OFP had it right? AK sniping and one bullet always guarantees death (are we civilians or soldiers in body armor?), and returning fire has no effect (pre suppressive effects). How is that "right"? It's enough to check the news once in a while - "heavy firefight lasting several hours, 3 enemy confirmed dead, several wounded". In Arma it's a truckload or ten of corpses.

It would also help if the AI was made more reluctant to attack just so we can pick'em off. Alternate planning, like setting up a CSW in a good position, or setting up an ambush, anything :)

This post must have sneaked in whilst I was making my last reply...

By saying OFP had it right I'm talking about the away aspect - NOT the rest of it! - ie. OFP has sway in the ironsight / optic view but it's nice and subtle.

I still stand by what I've been saying all along - SOME sway is ok and appropriate, but IRL the sight realistically sways only a relatively TINY amount and the final result is dependent on the final action - something the shooter FEELS rather than SEEING down the sight - which (lining up the sight) for all intents and purposes is the EASY part of the job - like I've said, Granny or a goddamned 5 year old can line the sights up but actually placing the shot is another thing!!

Edited May 15, 2010 by Chumba

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Sorry, was actually a response to NkEnNy. Anyway, I can't really recall OFPs level of sway. But implementing decent sway in order to get proper firefights, they were not in OFP afaik. Not sure what mods did to improve it though.

Sway should cause it to be near impossible to stand and aim without breath control, and the level of breath control can get would be affected by what goes on around you. You can shoot back, but you won't be delivering accurate shots. Just like what we see in youtube videos from the real deal.

We have to allow ourselves to be worse shooters, or the turkeyshooting of AI will never die. What has helped though, to make the firefights longer, is the implementation of first aid and battlelfield clearance. You'd often get wounded instead of always dieing from a wound. Realistic? Not in the way you can get healed and continue to fight like nothing ever happened. But it brings back much of the fun.

Edited May 15, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[galzohar 31]

As I've already said, when you're standing or even crouching, putting the sight on target beyond 100m is extremely difficult, not to mention 300+. This is true even if your breathing control is perfect.

[nkenny 1051]

Operation Flashpoint has a superior 'felt' weapon handling. Not in the least because it was instantly intuitive.

Operation Flashpoint

:: Soldiers were more 'agile'. Fewer movement blockers and fast animations.

:: Weapon dexterity more noticeable. Handling difference between a M16 and M60 were immediately obvious.

:: Recoil was immersive.

Implementation

:: In crosshair mode Heavier weapons would 'lag' behind the crosshair. Enforced float-zone did its work in ensuring that shots had to be 'lined up'.

:: In Ironsights (aka Optics) Turn rate seemed limited by your weapon weight.

:: In either case recoil was 'felt' as in Arma1 (screen shaking) this was lost in Arma2 for some reason.

:: Weapon bullet/accuracy dispersion was a simple way of keeping track of distance shots. Having said that Dispersion whilst in optics/ironsights mode was very little.

:: Bullet impacts were large and very satisfying. Blood decals upon scoring hits were equally exaggerated -- but to great effect.

Operation flashpoint did not permit reloading whilst moving. Operation flashpoint did not have an actual ballistics emulation. Still the inherent feeling of control in Operation Flashpoint contra arma2 cannot be denied.

also: Rogue Spear had excellently simulated body armour.

-k

[CarlGustaffa 4]

:: In OFP, units also looked like they had shat/shitten (?) their pants when they moved, so not all good :p Also the major clipping problems would make them feel more agile :)

:: Yes, but you can achieve the same effect by turning up floating zone in Arma2. But, enforced floating zone was my pet hate in OFP, I could never get used to it. Anything enforced in this respect would have to be limited to 5% or so, just to prevent marking the center of the screen as a "weapons cursor" for accurate hip shooting.

The problem I had with enforced floating zone was not the sense of heaviness of the weapon (dexterity), this is something I want back (and you have it when you 'alt-aim' preventing body rotation while in scope view). But rather that I had to aim all over the screen, that part never made sense to me.

Maybe the following would work:

* While prone, your body rotation speed is limited to the weapons dexterity. Prevents prone snipers from flipping 180° instantly while prone with a heavy weapon.

* For other stances, you get full speed body rotation (not realistic, but would be too hard to live with for most if not, and probably impossible to implement anyway), but weapon uses dexterity value to align itself to the center of the screen / crosshair (with zero floating zone). After a 180° instant rotation, the weapon is at the edge of the screen, realigning itself back to center (defined by players floating zone setting) as defined by dexterity.

* Dexterity also affects "cursor accuracy". "Hip shooting" with an MP5 without using the sights would be far easier than doing it accurately with an M107. Center tickmark removed naturally. I asked for an addon for this, but nobody took notice (as expected), so I made one for myself, and works pretty good.

Just to clarify: I do want the sense of dexterity at all times. I do not want to be forced to aim around the screen to be able to do so.

[galzohar 31]

Heaviness of the weapon is just barely simulated in Arma 2. It's one of the biggest things that are missing. Standing up with an M240 and hitting first shot at a target 200-400 meters away is just not practical IRL but is rather easy to do in-game. Sure in-game turning speed is slightly affected by weapon weight but it's not anywhere near enough for weapon weight simulation (for reasons such as the above one).

[Wolfstriked 11]

I agree that VSB2 sway at reduced amount would be excellent.Dispersion of said weapon can then be looked at as the flinch or hardtrigger pull etc.The weapons need more dispersion as Chumba and Galzohar suggests.A fine tuning of VSB2 sway with more dispersion for weapons should be a mod that is well received.

I also feel that dispersion when not using optic should be increased further.I suggested this before and it wasn't well accepted.I am totally fine with just a small crosshair and the weapon actually having alot of dispersion when just shouldered.To me its more realistic that way.Again could be an excellent mod.

Any mods outthere to make floating zone on a button.I have it at zero but find certain situations where it would be handy for a second.So you click it and drop weapon down to see something and unclick and weapon jumps rightback to set position.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Wolfstriked

[galzohar 31]

While I said it should be much harder to hit things than it is currently, I never said we need more dispersion for weapons. In fact, it seems like ACE made too much dispersion for some weapons so that having sights on target at 300m, which would've pretty much guaranteed a hit IRL (based on personal experience), still results in a miss. It should be harder to put the sights on target and it should depend a lot more on your firing stance than it does currently, but additional random dispersion (as in, bullet flies away from where the sights/barrel is pointing) is not really needed and would not be realistic, at least for most weapons.