firearms balancing

[esavier]

So far firearms are working nicely but what about different approach. CDDA works on approach that ammunition is frequent but epic weak comparing to reality. Right now its easier to kill enemies with butterfly knife than with pistol. Guns means almost only disadvantages comparing to melee weapons. Ammo is limited, they are loud and you must be some kind of epic hero to earn headshot, and even then, most enemies will just don't care about you do and continue to eat your {insert what do you like here!}.

Why not to use damage model that allows to kill basic enemies with one round (even if its 9mm pistol, ok max two), however ammunition should be really scarce. Also differences between weapon types should be not on all enemies but only when encountering enemies that are really tough or actually wears medium or better armor. In that case all weapons can one-shot-kill weak opponents, but not every weapon can do sufficient (or any) damage to heavier targets.

Take following resources for comparison:

heavy ammo, similar to .308 sniper rifle, hollow point ammo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0BoPVkgVQ8 .22LR sports light rifle ammo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyvaR5AMS3s

( i would also love to see shotgun reworked - buckshots should not be 1x50dmg but 10x5 and also displayed properly, (e.g. not like monolith projectile )

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[Mshock777]

Yeah, damage and penetration should be 25% bigger. I also have a problem with launchers and explosions, They are just useless against cars, but they destroy rock/buildings just fine

[esavier]

there is another (suggestion) thread about explosives : https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/8217

[KA101]

Esavier: OK, you get shot working properly and we'll test it.

Increased lethality, not so much. Zeds don't have bleeding, shock, or other such side effects from being shot. Just the gross physical trauma. Headshots are effective more by disrupting their sensory organs than by harming the blob.

It's like a demolition derby or mech fight. You didn't kill the driver/pilot, but made xem pull over to fix the ride. Now it's shut down so you can pulverize or strip it for parts! (The blob wants to kill you so it can rez you as a ride, or break you down for parts. Symmetry!)

[kevingranade]

I'm not sure what your proposal actually is, just, "guns should one-shot weak enemies"? Also if you want to talk ranged balance you'll need to consider the pr about overhauling aiming.

[esavier]

@KA101 : whatever its blob controlling body or not, right now there is no visible effect of getting shot, for you, for animals, for zeds, and so on. Right now ths is against simplest laws of physics. its not some murican movie with batman or walking dead dude! Even two shots with 9mm in chest can do sufficient shock to nervous system that actually moving or even standing is impossible, no matter how good you are.

Moreover being dead means destroyed/damaged organs that are actually need to support nervous system - brain/spine and of course muscles. Instead blobs just "possesing" fully functioning body and supporting it like parasite. Despite host don have will on its own, Hosts organs are functioning well to support muscles itp. In this case all damage to organs will actually cause nervous shock.

@kevingranade overhauling aim is one thing but its easier to modify aiming engine to balance damage than first working on aiming and then restructure weapons. As I said, its weak to have big guns and lots of ammo but still hanging around with baseball bat because guns are loud, inaccurate and so, so weak... this problem is even yielding logical cascade :

• you don't have ammo to learn shooting,
• you cant shoot because you will waste ammo.
• even if you hit something 1/5 of the times, the damage will be ignored
• If you learn shooting, you will be unable to fight because of lack of ammo.
• even if you will shoot 4 times and hit every tme, you will lose all your ammo to kill 12 zeds

[Snaaty]

I have experienced the exact opposite. Games where I start with guns tend to be very easy, if I manage to establish a base. Especially considering NPCs increasing the damage guns can do would be ridiculous, the first thing I always do if I meet an NPC is to check if they have a gun. If not, I attack them and get wonderful loot, if they do have a gun, I run as fast as I can and probably still die.

Also, with some skill in marksmanship, handguns, e.g., you can deal really good damage. Maybe in your testing you just need more corresponding skill levels?

[kevingranade]

There's a specific reason to depart from realistic levels of accuracy for guns, which is at the engagement ranges the game supports, all guns more or less would be perfectly accurate, I'm trying to narrow this gap a bit with my aiming PR by making guns more accurate, but requiring the player to spend time aiming. As for effects of bullets, my understanding is that small calibre bullet wounds don't render you physically incapable of standing, they induce shock, which has extreme debilitating effects. By fiat of the game design, zombies don't experience shock, so they can take multiple bullet wounds and keep coming, this is intended. As for players and NPCs, they accumulate pain, which is a rather weak form of shock (actually I wouldn't be surprised if NPCs didn't accumulate pain, but if so that's just a bug) On Aug 28, 2014 4:04 AM, "Snaaty" notifications@github.com wrote:

I have experienced the exact opposite. Games where I start with guns tend to be very easy, if I manage to establish a base. Especially considering NPCs increasing the damage guns can do would be ridiculous, the first thing I always do if I meet an NPC is to check if they have a gun. If not, I attack them and get wonderful loot, if they do have a gun, I run as fast as I can and probably still die.

Also, with some skill in marksmanship, handguns, e.g., you can deal really good damage. Maybe in your testing you just need more corresponding skill levels?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/8716#issuecomment-53705622 .

[KA101]

FWIW I was testing the jabberwock mission and summoned a lot of NPCs. Tried to talk an aggressive one down and got both barrels of their shotgun. Instant loss of left arm.

I think firearms are OK.

[Griffinhart]

gross physical trauma

Which can account for quite a lot when it comes to hollow-point and large-caliber rounds.

.308 Winchester (ball, I believe) vs. concrete and watermelons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUEPTp5WMAzjh9mOrKUwRLmQ&v=atntd0XlQxg&feature=player_detailpage#t=150

.223 Remington (50-grain hollow-point) vs. ballistic gel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FhXb2xUCuto&list=UUEPTp5WMAzjh9mOrKUwRLmQ#t=124

There's also a demo of frangible vs. ballistic gel and hollow-point vs. watermelon later on in that video.

[KA101]

I suppose I could make AMORPHOUS take additional damage from bullets?? They're already slower though--so more likely to get shot, beep-beep-beep--so I'm hard-pressed to justify the nerf.

[esavier]

I am starting to believe you guys never hold any weapon nor saw how its working on any target, The energy that comes with a shot is similar to small hammer being propelled to about 120 km/h. I am not talking about damage to blob, but to whole human body, also skeleton and nervous system!

Either way increased lethality of weapons should be balanced by reducing number of ammo scattered around which better suits apocalyptic world - and i mean scenario when you have found your first gun - (and not something like scar rifle or FN FALL in basement wirh bucket of ammo), but barretta or usp in bad condition, and now scavenging nearby towns to find few bullets ( 10-15 ? )

(i did some research by myself, and being skilled with handguns is as practical as being almost newbe with zweihander or katana, Also, if what you said is ok, then why non headshot with fmj bullet should even harm zombie? Am i missing something?

also yes, there are almost no difference between HP, P+, FMJ not even talking about double-outh-shots behaving like slugs...

[KA101]

I've shot .22LR and seen that it can penetrate a 2x4 pretty well. Kevin and Rivet are our primary shootists--Rivet's known to pack a .357.

Suffice it that you and I have very different outlooks on firearm usage post-Cataclysm.

[kevingranade]

Again, I need you to be specific, "damage model that allows to kill basic enemies with one round" isn't helpful. Are we talking 25% increased damage/penetration as @Mshock777 suggests?

Also your sources need some firming up, performance of a nonstandard shotgun shotgun slug and .22LR loads against ballistic clay is totally irrelevant, neither of those things are even in the game.

[John-Candlebury]

I did some testing with a highly skilled character (6 in all skills) using a usp .45 with .45 ACP against normal zombies at different ranges

-At range 4 no shots missed, no shots did damage under 10, 8 did damage between 11-30, 37 did damage between 31-50, 5 did damage above 51. -At range 8 (half the range of .45 ACP), 15 shots missed, 14 did damage under 10, 12 did damage between 11-30, and 9 did damage between 31-50, none did damage above 51 -At range 12, 33 shots missed, 6 did damage under 10, 6 did damage between 11-30 4 did damage between 31-50, 2 did damage above 51. -At range 16 (max range) 34 shots missed, 3 did damage under 10, 2 did damage between 11-30, 2 did damage between 31-50 and a surprising 7 did damage above 51.

Well I would say that at least handguns are very underpowered if you compare them against melee. Past range 8, .45 becomes very terrible with 29 out of 50 bullets missing or doing damage equivalent to an unarmed punch. I would say that guns could be buffed by reducing their dispersion, so that they remain high powered for larger distances, and perhaps one could add some extra range too.

[KA101]

OK, pistols are intended for short-range work and the .45 ACP is primarily a pistol cartridge. I can accept a damage buff, but 8-12 seems a reasonable working range. Range 4 hitting for two or three melee hits (whilst not actually being in melee) ain't bad. The aiming PR will change the dispersion effects, as weapon and sights are calculated separately.

FWIW: skill 6 is an above-average average soldier/mobster/cop or other profession that routinely shoots as part of the job. "professional" level is 4-7.

You might try using the Long Ranger, as that's intended to use .45 at rifle ranges.

[John-Candlebury]

Yeah damage at 4 tiles away is pretty much spot on, most zombies die in 2 or 3 shots. I didnt take count on this, but at range 6-12 you often needed about 5-8 shots to kill a zombie, which would mean about 6-10 zombies killed for a stack of ammo, considering that you probably killed at least three times that amount of zombies to get to the gun store, I would say that 8-12 tiles away is no longer a viable range.

I know that the crazy limited range of firearms is done so that pistols and rifles actually play differently, but I would like to point that I wouldn't see the issue if we allowed rifles to shoot things in the edge of the reality bubble accurately (as in the gun can't miss, an unskilled user could) and we gave the current rifle range to pistols (a little more than the length of a house).

Oh also I found that increasing the damage bullets do has very little effect on how much actual damage they inflict. Barring point blank range, dispersion seems to rule the day.

[KA101]

OK, good to know. Thanks.

[kevingranade]

I'm not married to the current accuracy level, and yea balancing with rifles hitting things reliably at edge of map is probably a good balance point. Also while looking into this and penetration issues I turned up a bug in the firing code that disabled armor penetration, I have a fix in progress. On Sep 2, 2014 7:28 PM, "KA101" notifications@github.com wrote:

OK, good to know. Thanks.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/8716#issuecomment-54244675 .

[esavier]

Especially for you guys, I've done some testings on shooting range :

• 9x18mm | 9x19mm ( Full metal jacket, jacketed hollowed point, p+ and mpx ( metalic pressurized powder load))
• 22LR ( FMJ, hollow point, stabiized sports version, )
• .45 cal and .40 ( are pretty similar in behavior, jhp, hp, hp+, golden rail, hydro shock)
• .308 ( jhp, stabilized, fmj, phoshor load)
• 5.56x39 (.223 remington) & 5.56x45 NATO (similar in behavior, fmj, jhp, hp, steel jacket, dispersion load)
• 7.62x39 & 7.62x54r - heavy ammo - ( jhp fmj, dispersion, dragoon sniper, DD premium )
• 12G shotguns ( remington 870 MCS long ) with monolith, flechette, brenette, and railed ( wingtail ) and few types of different spread buckshots)

conclusions:

• there is 10% difference between monolith ammmo types and different callibers ( fmj, golden rail... )
• fmj is creating ~2.5 cm in diameter tunnel in gel - not much damage but they are also capable of going through 10cm wood plank without losing much energy, an even piercing red clay brick
• dispersion ammo is shreading target in 10cm diameter range from hit point, releasing all ammo energy inside target, but is crashing on plank without penetration
• hp, and hydro shock ammo is able to drill 8 cm in diameter tunnel, in geil, or creating ~20 cm diamter cone in back of clay block. ( jhp have greater piercing that hp but also greater damage than fmj )
• there are almost no difference between different weapon types with this same calliber,

Proposals for firearm balancings:

• bigger difference between ammo types,
• smaller difference (dmg) between weapon type
• less ammo laying around ( epic less! like 10-20 9mm lying in gun store instead few packs, 50rounds each)
• ...that will be balanced by higher accuracy and slightly better damage. Weapons should add additional damage to bullet ( basing on differences between weapons: longer/shorter barrels, bolt\pump action or automatic ) , not opposite. that will focus damage on type of ammo being use
• shotgun pallet shells should behave like shotgun pallet shells not like monolith bullets, this will have impact of chances to shot vital body parts and accuracy
• ability to use sniper rifles as 'sniper' rifles not like sniper (e.g. very accurate) 'rifles', maybe some kind of aiming mode that allow to aim at distances that are normally outside typical FOV (zoom?) also, ability to aim bodypart in aiming mode for all gun types, that allow to focus on shooting different body parts on different situations and enemy types ( headshots! )
• quality of guns and means to maintain it? maybe jamming weapons in poor condition or misfires
• magazines mechanics - easy craftable, load few magazines and change them while fighting ( if rifle have magazines/cartriges, else fastloaders / ammo pockets / (fabric) ammo straps to hold few bullets in easy-reachable places, usually on weapon stock or belt )

[Snaaty]

You should also take into account that C:DDA is not only a simulation, but also supposed to be fun. Having almost no ammo, but a full locker of guns is not fun. Perhaps as far as guns go we have to abandon ultrarealism in favour of playability. But that's just my opinion. If you drastically reduce gun usage, you enforce melee combat at the same time. However, melee combat in certain situations is almost impossible (thinking of robots and turrets, right now). Some of the changes seem to be nice, though, I think people are currently working on a rework of the aiming mode, so that might answer your sniping proposal.

[kevingranade]

Everything except the pure balance changes (less ammo, more accuracy/damage) and having ammo damage be higher than weapon damage, we're* planning on doing. Ammo and weapon damage already works like you say it should, with ammo supplying the base damage and weapons modifying it. As for the balance thing, I'm sympathetic to the gist of what you're saying, and that's somewhat the way things will go in the future, but I don't think anything immediate is going to happen.

*All of these are things I will personally implement unless someone beats me to it.

[esavier]

@Snaaty : not about full locker of weapons, but few usable guns, and not no ammo but "ammo for black hour". I am personally end up in situation where i have full metal rack (yeah, full metal rack!) of different ammo and also lot of high quality of guns, but using guns, especially when hordes are active, are too much trouble because of noise etc. I doubt that it will be actually problem with playability ( or making it optional could help ) since right now you have 5x more ammo but using it 5x more to kill this or other thing. Also always look on sound it make!.What i think could be nice is planning stage in every battle - adjusting ammo type to opponent type, and actually considering gun usage in situations where gun usage is superfluous or maybe necessary. Right now having load of bullets even i dont feel like swapping to melee, even if its two normal zeds - and that situation is weaek

@kevingranade great to hear that :) ...I would like to see a least plugin or option to overhaul weapons, but if what you said is considered to be done - i am happy :+1:

[KA101]

There are folks who like to play a fast-paced shooter style, so we accommodate that too. Making guns an "emergencies ONLY" thing risks Too Awesome To Use. As a content creator, seeing my work banished to that category is unrewarding, so it isn't likely to happen if I've anything to say about it.

Hence making sure that folks have ammo should they feel like using it. (Besides, how else are you supposed to become/remain a good shot?)

[kevingranade]

Actually one thing I'm planning on doing Real Soon Now(tm) is making practice for skills take a good bit more time and resources (in-game, to the player it should take less time compared to grinding), part of that is requiring putting a significant number of rounds downrange in order to significantly improve your firearms skills. When that is in it's only natural to buff the now harder to get/maintain firearm resource by increasing accuracy/damage, and the need to expend ammo to practice will eat into your ammo reserves.

[KA101]

Yeah, I'd considered making a few different target dummies for melee practice. Wasn't sure if that would be worthwhile.

[esavier]

"training" is actually pretty god idea, but practice dummy? i bet that for firing practice ( or any other fighting practice ) can be used almost anything from wood log to glass bottle ) I am not sure how it is currently working, but instead giving "experience point" for killing or hitting live target, there should be "exp" point for... ehm... using(??) weapon, and additional points for hitting object user was aiming for.

[Snaaty]

Not sure about melee dummies, though. Training your melee skill up is already pretty easy, first on Fungus and small animals and later on regular zombies and stuff. So, unless training melee is going to get noticeably harder, I don't think a melee training dummy would be worth it.

[esavier]

@kevingranade said he will make this somehow harder to train. If he can pull this out it would be great :+1:

[Snaaty]

Ah shiat, I just saw that he posted above, talking about that. In that case, training dummies make sense, I guess. Therefore, please ignore my previous comment.

[esavier]

nah, don't worry about this, github issue tracker is treated by people more like improvements discussion thread than like bug report ( for those are mantis or bloodhound etc. ) since very beginning :)

[kevingranade]

If you have marked targets and follow a training system you should be able to improve faster with guns than just shooting at target that tells you hit/miss, because there are causes for pulling in different directions that you can consciously practice to eliminate. Also you should be able to systematically account for your error vs error from the gun, which means you don't need to keep getting a better gun to get higher accuracy.

[esavier]

yeah, sure, sounds fair, also practicing distance should matter, missing from 20 tiles, when from 5 you are barely are able to hit is wrong, in the other side, hitting target every time from 3 tiles shouldn't give much experience to the shooter either. This system also needs some fresh algorithm to determine how much experience user will gain from shooting in different distances, i.e. :

most experience will be gained from distance where hitt propability is beween 40% and 50% and target is hit, either way exp will be lowered depending on distance from "optimal distance", also if missed, output will be multiplied by 0.15

[illi-kun]

Mugling has some progress with rebalancing of firearms.