In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #18: Reticulating Splines

[aimeeandbeatles]

I remember a few years ago screwing around with the game console/files in some game and rendering some automatic weapon absolutely useless because the bullets would spray everywhere except where you pointed at.

 

[Commodore]

Yes, the machine gun physics are certainly the most unrealistic part of Fallout.

Even games that make claims of being realistic usually fail at depicting machine guns in their proper role.

 

[Lexicus]

The idea of super accurate automatic weapons is something that does bother me about video games. Machine guns, in reality, are designed to engage an area target, not point targets like a semi-automatic rifle. They are meant to suppress numerous targets over a given area to give your guys time to maneuver. With that in mind a super accurate machine gun is actually kind of a disadvantage on a real battlefield.

I'd like to see this represented in video games more. But since developers and gamers alike don't really seem all that interested in realism and only care about things like "DPS" I don't think we'll see accurate depictions of machine guns or machine gun tactics in video games any time soon.

Sorry for the rant, but in Iraq when doing vehicle patrols, I was one of the rear machine gunners on the Stryker and learning/applying how machine guns are actually used makes me cringe a little whenever I see how they are treated in video games.

I like to think of the damage effects in the HUD in Call of Duty as a sort of suppression effect, blinding you so the best thing is to "hit the dirt." Red Orchestra 2 actually has a suppression effect, if too many bullets get too close to the player character (or artillery or tank rounds go off nearby) the screen goes too gray to see anything, sway is drastically increased for a few seconds so you can't really do anything.

Suppression effects definitely tend to make shooters more interesting and add a whole dimension to the game if done well.

Even games that make claims of being realistic usually fail at depicting machine guns in their proper role.

Indeed, RO2 has realistic bullet and gun physics but I'm not sure the AI characters are affected by the suppression mechanics so you can use the bipod-mounted machine guns in the game to just mow them down completely at long range.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The idea of super accurate automatic weapons is something that does bother me about video games. Machine guns, in reality, are designed to engage an area target, not point targets like a semi-automatic rifle. They are meant to suppress numerous targets over a given area to give your guys time to maneuver. With that in mind a super accurate machine gun is actually kind of a disadvantage on a real battlefield.

I'd like to see this represented in video games more. But since developers and gamers alike don't really seem all that interested in realism and only care about things like "DPS" I don't think we'll see accurate depictions of machine guns or machine gun tactics in video games any time soon.

Sorry for the rant, but in Iraq when doing vehicle patrols, I was one of the rear machine gunners on the Stryker and learning/applying how machine guns are actually used makes me cringe a little whenever I see how they are treated in video games.

There's something similar going on with how snipers are represented in gaming, but not having hands-on experience, I can only speculate on what it is. Part of it may be the state of the art of writing AI behavior, that the AI simply doesn't know what to do when it comes under fire. In PvP games, the sniper equipment strikes me as OP, in the sense that if they were that dominant on the battlefield, every real-life army would be 80% snipers, but that could also be because most game-players don't know what to do when they come under fire, either.

Yes, the machine gun physics are certainly the most unrealistic part of Fallout.

This goes really well with your avatar.

I remember a few years ago screwing around with the game console/files in some game and rendering some automatic weapon absolutely useless because the bullets would spray everywhere except where you pointed at.

I think there was a scene in the remake of Red Dawn where one of the characters is taking target practice with a Skorpion machine pistol at a tree from, like, 30 feet away and misses completely.

Even games that make claims of being realistic usually fail at depicting machine guns in their proper role.

Company of Heroes is, to my memory, the only game I've played that used any kind of suppression mechanic.

 

[Commodore]

Company of Heroes is, to my memory, the only game I've played that used any kind of suppression mechanic.

Dawn of War 2 did, but I think all it did was slow movement speed.

 

[Gorbles]

Technically, that's (most) of what it did in CoH as well (it also suppressed Morale recovery, which exists in DoW II but only under the hood - it's not visible like in DoW 1).

I can't think of many other RTS games that tried this either (and that's the genre it would - imo - make the most sense in). I have a big bias for Relic though, I mainly played their RTS games haha. They got to do such cool things when making CoH . . . 2, I think it was. They basically went to a museum (or similar kind of space) and rented out some of the guns, tanks, etc, to record some of the sounds (where possible). The sound design in their games is usually such top-notch work.

 

[Lexicus]

Original COH is the bomb, setting up the killzone with MGs and then dropping mortar shells on their hapless infantry!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Technically, that's (most) of what it did in CoH as well (it also suppressed Morale recovery, which exists in DoW II but only under the hood - it's not visible like in DoW 1).

I can't think of many other RTS games that tried this either (and that's the genre it would - imo - make the most sense in). I have a big bias for Relic though, I mainly played their RTS games haha. They got to do such cool things when making CoH . . . 2, I think it was. They basically went to a museum (or similar kind of space) and rented out some of the guns, tanks, etc, to record some of the sounds (where possible). The sound design in their games is usually such top-notch work.

I think suppression in CoH also limits the squad's rate of fire and accuracy. iirc, a squad of Volksgrenadiers beside an MG42 will pick apart a suppressed Rifle Squad with almost no damage taken in return. (The suppression effect of the MG42 is much faster than for the American .30 Browning, but I think that's just a balancing factor, where the two sides are not mirror images of one another.)

re: Sound design. Yeah, that can make a big difference. I'm using a mod for Fallout 4 that replaces the sound files of the conventional guns with recordings of actual guns. Firing a gun indoors while playing the game with headphones actually hurt my ears, the first time I used this mod. I also used to play World of Tanks a [butt]load. In the early days of the game, they used very "video gamey" sound files for the tanks, but at some point they were able to go to museums across Europe and record the actual vehicles' engines and clanking treads and the difference was immediately obvious. I still distinctly remember driving my in-game SU for the first time after they updated the sound files with the real engine noise. It was pretty dramatic.

 

[Lexicus]

(The suppression effect of the MG42 is much faster than for the American .30 Browning, but I think that's just a balancing factor, where the two sides are not mirror images of one another.)

Truth in Television insofar as the MG-42 had a much higher rate of fire than American MGs and a distinctive, scary sound as of canvas being ripped.

 

[Takhisis]

The idea of super accurate automatic weapons is something that does bother me about video games. Machine guns, in reality, are designed to engage an area target, not point targets like a semi-automatic rifle. They are meant to suppress numerous targets over a given area to give your guys time to maneuver. With that in mind a super accurate machine gun is actually kind of a disadvantage on a real battlefield.

I'd like to see this represented in video games more. But since developers and gamers alike don't really seem all that interested in realism and only care about things like "DPS" I don't think we'll see accurate depictions of machine guns or machine gun tactics in video games any time soon.

Sorry for the rant, but in Iraq when doing vehicle patrols, I was one of the rear machine gunners on the Stryker and learning/applying how machine guns are actually used makes me cringe a little whenever I see how they are treated in video games.

A long ago when I first learned about that kind of thing I was amazed to see how low the percentage of ammunition that actually hit targets was when using automatic weapons (even more so when compared to single-shot weapons e.g. in sniper operations).

OTOH you have Carlos Hathcock.

 

[cardgame]

The idea of super accurate automatic weapons is something that does bother me about video games. Machine guns, in reality, are designed to engage an area target, not point targets like a semi-automatic rifle. They are meant to suppress numerous targets over a given area to give your guys time to maneuver. With that in mind a super accurate machine gun is actually kind of a disadvantage on a real battlefield.

I'd like to see this represented in video games more. But since developers and gamers alike don't really seem all that interested in realism and only care about things like "DPS" I don't think we'll see accurate depictions of machine guns or machine gun tactics in video games any time soon.

Sorry for the rant, but in Iraq when doing vehicle patrols, I was one of the rear machine gunners on the Stryker and learning/applying how machine guns are actually used makes me cringe a little whenever I see how they are treated in video games.

The .50 M2 Browning held the world record for longest sniper kill for decades

 

[Commodore]

The .50 M2 Browning held the world record for longest sniper kill for decades

And soldiers have also used full auto versions of the M16/M4 to lay down suppression fire like they were machine guns. That doesn't mean that's what their main role is though.

EDIT: Also the M2 is a bit of an oddball among machine guns. It was originally designed to be an anti-aircraft machine gun, hence the use of a large caliber round and the focus on making it more accurate than other machine guns.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I downloaded a new mod for Fallout 4 that required a restart but looks very promising: Damn Apocalypse.

• It includes a bunch of alternate start options. I went boring and created a 1st-level "Vault Enthusiast" scavenger who starts off near Sanctuary in search of Vault 111, and with very little starting gear, so I'm kinda following the game's vanilla narrative, except that I'm not Shaun's father. But if you want to, you can start almost anywhere, at higher level and with more gear. I think there's even an option to play as a Ghoul, but that might be a plugin that I didn't plug in.
  
• Combat is rougher, for everybody. A radroach in Vault 111 disabled one of my arms with a single lunge, but the damage the player inflicts is higher too. Combat's just more dangerous, all around.
  
• Conventional guns have recoil, giving energy weapons a new advantage and making fully-automatic guns a little less OP (I think, with gunsmithing and the right perks, you can still become a bullet-hose if you want to, but at least you have to put some effort into it).
  
• Loot distribution aims to be more sensible. Unlocked containers are likely to have already been looted by the scavengers who preceded you, and will contain mostly junk. Conversely, locked containers are more likely to contain useful stuff (the mod notes specifically recommend developing your character's lock-picking skills or using a mod that makes opening locked containers easier). If you want good weapons and armor, you're gonna have to take 'em from somebody.
  
• Caps are less frequent. The mod designer wanted to make barter more useful.
  
• Loot is also more location-specific. Hospitals are more likely to have medicine and chems; military bases are more likely to have weapons, ammo and armor; settlements (including Raider and Mutant camps) are more likely to have food.
  
• Items you find may be "broken" and you'll either harvest them for parts or repair them. While exploring Vault 111 and Sanctuary and the nearby Red Rocket, I've found several empty Stimpack syringes where there are normally full Stimpacks. I did find 4 intact pistols and some ammo just laying around, though. Maybe those are scripted item placements and not random spawns, meant to give the new character some equipment right at the beginning?
  
• Powered Armor is much harder to find, and the player will often find it in pieces and in need of repair. Also, the distribution of the suits has been tweaked: Raider Powered Armor spawns as in the vanilla game, more or less; T-45 and T-50 military suits can only be found in military bases (and presumably only behind locked doors and security robots, or somebody would've taken them already); T-60 suits are mostly in the hands of the Brotherhood of Steel and the Atom Cats - there's a single, unclaimed T-60 suit hidden somewhere, if the player doesn't want to fight the Brotherhood or the Atom Cats; and there's a single X-01 suit, scattered in pieces across the Commonwealth, including in Far Harbor and Nuka World. Powered Armor frames are rarer, and Powered Armor, of whatever type, frequently needs to be repaired and assembled, which requires schematics. Also, fusion cores are more likely to be depleted or less than fully-charged when you find them.
  
• Clean water is harder to find. The hand pumps you can build at your Settlements produce dirty water.

I've only just started my new game, so most of this I haven't seen with my own eyes yet. Still, it looks an awful lot like the game I wanted to play, right from the beginning.

Sadly, the game's gotten super buggy with this mod. The one issue that I can't work around or put up with is that my character doesn't always draw his weapons when I tell him to. That's a game-breaker. The problem could easily be resulting from a conflict with one of the other mods, and not with this one by itself, but I don't feel like doing the detective work. The only feature here that I'll miss, and one I don't already have another mod for, is the location-specific loot and making locked containers more lucrative compared to unlocked containers. Finding a Stimpack or some ammo just sitting in a trash can or wherever has always seemed bizarre to me, but I can overlook it.

 

[Commodore]

. Finding a Stimpack or some ammo just sitting in a trash can or wherever has always seemed bizarre to me, but I can overlook

I always just chalk that kind of stuff up to some scavenger who put it there for temporary safekeeping to go check something out, got killed and never had the chance to come back for it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Sadly, the game's gotten super buggy with this mod. The one issue that I can't work around or put up with is that my character doesn't always draw his weapons when I tell him to. That's a game-breaker. The problem could easily be resulting from a conflict with one of the other mods, and not with this one by itself, but I don't feel like doing the detective work. The only feature here that I'll miss, and one I don't already have another mod for, is the location-specific loot and making locked containers more lucrative compared to unlocked containers. Finding a Stimpack or some ammo just sitting in a trash can or wherever has always seemed bizarre to me, but I can overlook it.

I forgot to mention, if you decide to try Damn Apocalypse for yourself and follow the vanilla story at all, when you get to the end of the mission to Concord, make sure you drop some weight before you kill the Deathclaw (or the last of the Raiders, whoever's the last one to go down).

Spoiler :

This mod doesn't want you to have a fully operational suit of powered armor, but you need one for this mission. So when you complete the mission, alarms in your suit start to blare and you have to bail out of the suit before it explodes. For me, I was carrying enough stuff that when I lost the Strength bonus from the suit, I couldn't run anymore and I couldn't get away from the suit before it exploded, and it killed me. If I hadn't been playing with a Survival Quick Save mod, I'd have lost all of my progress since I left Sanctuary and would've had to start over.

I always just chalk that kind of stuff up to some scavenger who put it there for temporary safekeeping to go check something out, got killed and never had the chance to come back for it.

Right, exactly. Or, if there's Feral Ghouls or Mutants around, maybe one of them had enough brain cells left to recognize something as valuable, but without knowing what it was or what it was for. Mole Rats or Deathclaws might collect 'shiny' things too, although they probably wouldn't store them in containers.

 

[amadeus]

The OpenTTD saga continues!

It’s around 1940. The bi-directional coal mines are now open after I blasted through some pesky mountains (good thing there’s no EPA in this game) and the revenue this year alone is almost triple last year’s.

Passenger services also up and running, with more on the way now that my cashflow is looking good. Smooth sailing from here on out.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Cookie Clicker is judging me.

 

[Arakhor]

I decided to play a round of famous places in GeoGuessr. First place was inside the White House (all the portraits of former presidents gave it away). Second place was just outside the Lincoln Memorial (I've played Fallout 3 enough to recognise that long thin lake when I see it). The fourth place was standing to the right-hand side of the same skinny lake, with the Lincoln Memorial somewhat further off in the distance, making Washington DC literally 60% of the places I was supposed to be "guessing".

The third place was the statue of Stanislas of Poland in Nancy, eastern France, though I picked Paris instead, and that was the only one I did even vaguely badly at, because the fifth place was right on Westminster Bridge, with Big Ben ahead of me and the Houses of Parliament almost literally spitting distance away! (I even got a perfect 5000 point score on that one, for some reason!)

Somehow, I don't think I'm ever going to score over 20,000 points on a single round again.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, I'm trying to take it easy. I'm counting my blessings that the game is running as well as it is so far. Tonight I'm going to try to figure out why the mod that lets you fix up Sanctuary isn't working. I have a "scrap anything" mod that may be submerging the interface of the "fix Sanctuary" mod. I'm scared I might accidentally delete the whole bridge instead of repairing it.

I took the trip to Concord last night, to get the refugees in the museum. The "realistic survival-mode damage" mod that I'm using may actually make heavy weapons viable. Using the minigun you find on the roof, I took down the Deathclaw much more easily than in the past, and I think it was because each 5mm round was doing a lot more. Even though I was probably missing 2 in 5 shots and bouncing 2 more off its armor, the 5th round was hurting it, and since the gun fires about 25 rounds per second... Say hello to my little friend! I think I fired 500 rounds killing the darned thing, but it was worth it. I just had to hope there were no civilians in the area. Not exactly a precision weapon. In the base game, I think the devs got scared by the minigun and nerfed it too much; it didn't seem to do that much damage, and given its weight and the amount of ammo you need for it, it was basically worthless. In Survival Mode, where your carry weight is reduced and ammunition has weight, heavy weapons are even stupider. I'm looking forward to trying the rocket launcher now.

I found the heavy weapons across the board to be useless in FO4 because with the perks you would pick up in the course of a normal game, the regular guns become almost as powerful as the heavy weapons. Add in the weight penalty of heavy weapons and they become even more useless. Then add on a survival mode where weight is even more premium, and *bam*, I never carry them anymore. The minigun in particular was pretty horrible to begin with though; I agree the devs nerfed it too hard.

I do tend to carry around nuke grenades/mines and even a nuke launcher now and again, but half the time I use them I get self-fragged.

There's lots to like in Sword and Shield (opinion opinion opinion),

Your opinion is wrong and you should feel bad. ;-)

 

[Gorbles]

We need a thread for electronic entertainment leading to verbal deathmatches