The Logistics of gun battles

[Tyrant]

How do you poor old designers maintain the above balance??

 

I read an article on how worrying it was having no bullets travelling across the screen because it would reduce excitement? And how you guys were going to represent gunfire in your forthcoming game.

 

I would as say as an avid fan of tactical and turn based squad combat this would be the answer.

 

With ballistic weapons that travel at super sonic speeds don't show the bullet's path show the muzzle flash! Then show a resulting effect. Dust puffs and bits of concrete flying into the air by the target if the bullets missed. Have the target show it's been attacked by it ducking taking cover (if it's sentient of course, this wouldn't work for mindless undead or simple automaton's) this will add massive tension ' did he just dive on the floor or is he dead? 'There was a spray of blood is he taking cover or is he down' people will be frantically checking health bars as the tension mounts.

 

Go to town with sci fi weapons if you're using them. Lasers should leave glowing holes in walls and trees alike. Not forgetting smoking ones in dead bodies. Use a laser as a continuous line from the barrel to the target this makes the player feel how awesome or fearful this weapon is, pulse's or blasts from lasers in my opinion look naff and are best left to star wars and a felt tip pen.

 

Have aliens try an evacuate rooms if attacked by grenades or even through them back even if they fail and get blown to bits, you know the player will be letting out a satisfied chuckle!

 

What I'm trying to say is that you can maintain very high levels of realism and build tension and enjoyable game play by using the environment around you, the actions entities take in certain situations and a good AI.

 

Please no bullet paths oh and try and put in a multiplayer.

 

Thanks again for working on something that I have always hoped would be created one day, you have my full support.

 

Tyrant

[Bastiaan]

What about tracers? In the marines we use MAG's, 7.62 machine guns for firesupport. Normally one of every five bullets is a tracer, a bullet with a phosphoric end. This is to indicate where the target is when the MAG is shooting at it, if you implant it in the ordinary weapons you have a visual element which remains realistic.

[ApOcaLyPSe_1985]

Why not do it like good old Jagged Alliance 2? Just use a dot that travels across the screen as a bullet. It gives the same action effect with tracers, only more exciting (personal exp.) and it looks good in autofire.

 

Question for Altar:

Will the player have the chance to target certain points of the body like head, legs, arms, torso and maybe the eyes like in Fallout or JA2?

It'll make battles more exciting and the player can cripple certain points for his own advantage. It makes you think longer though but I don't think that's bad.

It's chess right

[krisofer]

game ballistic weaponary vs. game playability

 

In certain other games where the bullets from gun travel along at an unrealistic slow pace, the result has left a variety of traits.

 

Firstly,

I think we should also clear up whether the engine tracks each bullet (ufo) or creates a number of untracked sprites (apocolypse)

Also how possible is bullet time at this stage in your engine, or at least i thought a simplified version which use projectiles which have a virtual speed until slowmo is engaged at which point a dist = speed * time is calculated in order to place the projectile in the world at the correct point and tracking it as a point entity rather than a traced line and doing so until slowmo is disengaged via a roll off to max velocity in engine world to trace line from end last know position.

 

good traits-

1.As said by the developers, you watch the bullet slowly reach its target adding suspense and a more gameplay with each round fired.

2.A greater knowledge is given as to the bullets target and path to it.

 

bad traits-

1. Gameplay is lost in that automatic fire is never truly shown, one feels like they are firing semi-automatically regardless of the nature of their weapon or close to it even if each round is untracked.

2. The game is limited in showing less the contrasts in effectiveness and effect (fx) of different projectile velocities. Without this you could not show a mental fast alien in slow mo dodging a blurred tracer sprite by an inch in zoom camera.

3. Sometimes you just want to know you can waste an entire magazine in 4.5 seconds without spending a minute, this adds pace and live action to the stratedgy seeing splays of ricochets makes you believe your firing a machine gun.

4. You now have plasma cannons firing glowing stars of one color and rifles another. which i thought sucked in a certain other game. a tracer sprite alike those used in the halflife engine could be used adding to your gameplay the players comprehension of a bullets path and a contrast in effect.

5.The plasma cannon could have been tactically deficient in its slightly slow projectile while the rifle had its one mainsday, things like this add depth to a stratedgy.

 

personally i believe there is enough depth to be found in realism exposed to comprehension to warrant never betraying it truly. ( slowmo a case in point )

i'm sorry to sound a bit blunt, your added suspense given by slow bullets sounds more like an easy way out of coding a slow-mo for action sniping scenes etc.

sorry i don't mean to dig but i love your game and i want the best for it.

 

thanx 4 reading.

 

k.

[Boomer]

UFO without bullets' paths can't be played.

 

Boomer

[Fqubed]

UFO heart atacks happen in a few points

 

1) taking an Aimed shot with a rocket launcher from across the screen against a chrisalid (sp) that is in front of you squad, it happens usually as the rocked is very close to the target, the chest pains are to be taken seriously.

 

2) seeing a blaster bomb fly to the farmhouse your men are in and make its way thru the window (only to hit the floter that happened to be standing in front of it)

 

3) shooting (and killing) a mutant with a 9mm pistol

 

Now the little puffs idea is actually very good, continuous laser is also cool. It all depends on how it goes in the end, but an actuall bullet (either traked or just more or "less goes in this path") is very cool, but if its traked make full auto fire shoot the bullets, bolts, blasts at very short intervals and trak them simultaneously so you dont get what (dont mean it as an insult just wanted an up arrow) said about it fealing just as a semi auto.

 

Anyway my thoughts

 

F3

[Kernel]

I still remember a heart stopping moment I had in TFTD against the lobstermen (damn they were hard to kill).

 

I had two guys left to move that turn. One carrying a sonic cannon and the other armed with a disrupter pulse launcher. Both guys were opposite sides of the map.

The first guy had two other soldiers next to him and a lobster man a short distance in front of him. On his last remaining time units I took a couple of snap shots at the lobsterman, the first one missed and the second one hit... the lobsterman didn't die... this got me a little worried.

So, my last guy, using the launcher I plotted a nice course to avoid all the obsticals across the map. Using the last few waypoints I set the shot to hit the back of the lobsterman... I'm sure you can guess what happened.

 

The bomb followed the path correctly, avoiding all the obsitcals, unfortunatly it also avoided the lobster man... :o ... hitting the guy with the sonic cannon right in the face. Taking out three of my guys in one fell swoop, and would you beleve it! That lobsterman still stood there as if nothing had happened.

[Fqubed]

They should add alien emotions, like that lobsterma, if he were in AM, should just roll all over the ground tears in face and loose a turn due to "extream laughter disability"

 

But yea thats the type of moments im refering to.

 

F3

[Bastiaan]

I read there will be over 50 weapons! I already have seen an M16, MP5, AK47 and a P90.

I like it that there are existing weapons in the game, as all weapons in UFO: Enemy Unknown were made up, also the interceptor wasn't an existing one, and in aftermath I have seen an F15 and in the movie they had a chinook, so you get a realistic combination between fiction and the real world.

[Fqubed]

Yes the heli in the trailer was nice. I like that there are "real" weapons, that was one of my favorite aspects of Fallout:Tactics. Cant wait til it comes out..... hope they can implement some sort of multiplayer (even if its hotseat) oh well all good things are worth waiting for.

 

F3

 

oh welcome back Bastiaan, been absent some days i think

.

[Bastiaan]

Yeah well, I checked up a few times, but I have been quite busy with some stuff which all happened on the same time in my country.

And according to my schedule I will be away when UFO is released, so I must wait another month.....NO!

[Slaughter]

Hehe, army sending you on "joint winter" at the time Bastiaan?

[Bastiaan]

Maybe, or Irak or...the moon, I don't know, I believe we go to Schotland.

[Bastiaan]

Wow, I have read in that latest interview they will be carrying those heavy weapons, I think they are talking the type you see in the movie they released, if they are going to carry that stuff, they won't be working long, very bad for your back.

[Fqubed]

Bad for your back, think of it as bad for your enemys back. Makes the load seem all that much lighter.

 

F3

[Slaughter]

Carrying a 12.7 (a BAD weapon we use in the army, it has explosive bullets) is NO FUN AT ALL, and that weapon in the movie has 4 gun pipes. Have to agree with you Bastiaan, OUCH!!! Then again Fqubed has a good point

[Bastiaan]

Yeah, but remember, not only the weapon is heavy, you also need to bring something else to make it fire like ammo, and what about the tripod it has to stand on, you sure need those seven soldiers to carry all that stuff, I can't imagine you use a weapon like that in such a small unit, maybe a .50 machine gun max. and even that is tough. But you are right, if you fire that at the aliens they will keep their heads down for a while.

[Fqubed]

Well ya ammo and other logistical needs would have to be seen to. Tho in a .50 you're carrying a bit of ammo, these seem to be artillary shell type, so less ammo needed for the big bang (then again shells do weigh more.......)

 

Here is something that reminds me.... RainBringer

 

F3

[Bastiaan]

Have you ever carried .50 ammocases, there bulky and have an unhandy shape even if you don't bring much. But hey, it's a game I know, I can live with it.