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Bullet Penetration Damage

Panzer Jager '43

Grizzled Veteran
Dec 15, 2010
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So here I'd like to ask if anyone knows if, in RO:HOS, bullet damage when penetrating through barriers is increased or decreased relative to the caliber. This is critical because most game developers assume that bullet damage is decreased when passing through barriers, but that is not always the case. Usually, high-energy Spitzer bullets after penetrating a barrier will yaw EARLIER in tissue, or have already yawed passing through the barrier, hitting the target sideways, creating both massive entry and exit wounds.

Bullet penetration is a rather touchy and detailed subject. But when talking about damage, if you manage to penetrate through a barrier with a Handgun cartridge, it will lose a lot of it's energy and the damage it creates on personnel on the other side may be near negligible if not usually non-lethal. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not get hit by a 9mm that's punched through a wall if I had a choice. It *could* still kill if it had enough energy to reach vital organs, but it would have considerably reduced lethality and likelihood to incapacitate.

The difference is with Rifle cartridges that manage to penetrate barriers: they can turn sideways, as said above, and when they hit a person that can create a much, much larger wound channel, and even sometimes undergo fragmentation like hollow-points. This is due to the larger surface area contact and resulting forces on the bullet. A larger wound channel obviously means better probabilty to hit something vital.

The last point I'm wondering about is if the PTRS / Anti-Tank Rifles are going to be firing API bullets, which obviously have their own advantages in penetrating barriers. The original 14.5mm cartridge used in WW2 was an API cartridge with 1.8g of incendiary composition. Knowing the wounding effects of the .50 BMG Mk211, getting hit in the open with API is like getting hit by Ball (FMJ) ammo, BUT if it punches through a barrier wounding effects can be...extreme.

I'm just hoping that Tripwire will implement penetration damage properly, NOT like Call of Duty for example, where magically the enemy takes 10 shots of 7.62x51 through a wall. If anyone can confirm that, or would like to argue my points, feel free to speak up :)
 
Afaik they modelled no additional or decreased damage for rounds that have passed through an object (correct me if I'm wrong), the only official posts I could find were these ones in relation to whether or not a round penetrates.

I seem to recall someone somewhere saying that the penetration calc itself was complex enough and they've decided not to to calculate for additional factors like the round velocity/trajectory/shape.
 
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Given the nature of the game, there comes a limit to how carefully we are modelling wound damage... basically a 7.92 round impacting is going to hurt quite enough whether it is travelling straight and starts to yaw AFTER hitting flesh/bone - or it is already tumbling. And we certainly aren't modelling Aid Stations, so the result matters less...

The basic answer - if a high-velocity round penetrates something before hitting you, it is still going to hurt!
 
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The basic answer - if a high-velocity round penetrates something before hitting you, it is still going to hurt!

Yes, indeed. Infact it's likely to hurt even more :p
But in a game, the difference between 1 shot and 1 shot is obviously.. nothing.

So I'm assuming damage is the same when penetrating - good enough, and that answers my question :)
Thanks. I like how Devs often answer my questions regarding weapons - you guys really do love guns.
 
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Given the nature of the game, there comes a limit to how carefully we are modelling wound damage... basically a 7.92 round impacting is going to hurt quite enough whether it is travelling straight and starts to yaw AFTER hitting flesh/bone - or it is already tumbling. And we certainly aren't modelling Aid Stations, so the result matters less...

The basic answer - if a high-velocity round penetrates something before hitting you, it is still going to hurt!


Now here comes a somewhat unimportant question but, is there an actual difference to the maximum amount of material the std. German heavy 7.92mm FMJBT & std. Russian light 7.62mm FMJ rounds will penetrate ingame? Now obviously considering that you've modelled penetration to be dependant on velocity there will be a difference at longer ranges between the two rounds, where the 7.92mm will hold its energy better; but here I'm just thinking about the maximum penetration at PBR, is there an actual difference ingame or do they start out the same?

Just abit of curiosity :)
 
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Well I can't answer for him, but I can tell you that in RO1 most fights took place in under 200m range. A 200m target in RO1 was a hard shot with open sights - I've hit nearly unseeable targets with a Kar98k and missed the 200m achievement, but got the 100m, and my target was small enough.

So: that said, at ranges under 200m, the difference between 7.92 and 7.62R is not going to be noticable. However if Armour-Piercing or Heavy/Light Ball variants are modelled that may be different, but I considerably doubt they are. They're more likely to model all German weapons with 197gr Ball and all Russian weapons with 148gr Light Ball.

But as I said... I can't accurately answer for him.
 
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