MG suggestions.

[[BFC]ParaBellum]

You don't carry a MG AND a tripod. You'd need another guy to carry the tripod. The tripod is very heavy.

I did some testing yesterday with regards to bullet dispersion and one thing clearly stands out: the single shot mode of the MG-34 is screwed. I aimed at a spot at a wall, distance less than 100m and the dispersion was about a meter! At that distance the dispersion should be a couple of centimeters, not more.

What I didn't like either was that there is little difference in dispersion between the first 3-5 rounds and the next 20... The first 3-5 rounds should hit very exactly, with accuracy suffering a lot after that. The soviet DP seems to suffer less from this.

Here's a screenshot showing bullet dispersion of the MG42:

http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=romg18ks.jpg

In this shot I would've probably missed a stationary man-sized target from less than 100m.

Again: the first rounds shout hit the wall in a very tight pattern, it does NOT in RO. I came to the conclusion the MG accuracy is too good for longer bursts and too small for short bursts. Also the dispersion pattern varies quite a bit.

Since I usually fire quick succesive bursts (that negate the problems with dispersion patterns) with great success I haven't noticed this before, but after this testing I agree that the MG's accuracy should be improved.

 

[Murphy]

In my opinion the main problem of mgers is there immobility once they are deployed. A rifle man, or anyone else for that matter, can strafe left and right or better run in a zick-zack pattern to avoid being shot. The poor guy at the mg however is fixed. He can

 

[kapulA]

Most of the issues you have is cause you dont work in teams;
in German military doctrine for example,the whole squad was centered around the MG,and the Machingunner had 2 more riflemen covering him because he is pretty vaunerable if deployed alone;try getting atleast 1 rifleman to cover you and your performance will improve greatly,if not being targeted by a sniper

 

[Byte Me]

Man another MG thread, seriously people use search... Anyways, what I have gathered from previous threads on the subject:

Problem: MG's accuracy are the same no matter if it is the 1st or 10th bullet fired, in succession.
Fix: The longer the burst, the more innacurate the shots are after the 4th (DP), 5th (MG34), or 6th round (MG42).

Problem: Deployed recoil is just a little too high.
Fix: Decrease deployed recoil a smidge.

Problem: MG34's single shot is not as accurate as it should be and it should have tracers.
Fix: Increase accuracy for single shot and fix tracers not showing up.

Problem: Suppression effect is not enough to stop riflemen from returning fire on a MG while being fired upon.
Fix: Increase suppression effect (needed for all weapons really).

Problem: MG rounds do not penetrate materials.
Fix: Being looked into, though still using physical bullets (without huge amounts of lag mind you). My suggested fix is

there should be a ratio of hitscan rounds* to "physical" rounds (obviously all tracers would consist of the latter). I think a 1:1 ratio would be good, but since the game models tracers every 4 rounds, the first shot could be a "physical" round, the next 2 be hitscan, and the last (tracer) would be "physical". I would glady trade off some bullet physics realism to gain penetration realism.

*The Unreal 2.5 engine supports penetration with hitscan "rounds", if you did it with the actual bullet physics it would cause huge amount of lag.

Note: if tracers are every 5 rounds than it would a be : 1 physical round (first round fired), 3 hitscan rounds, 1 physical tracer round.

Problem: Players do not pivot around the bipod, instead the MG pivots around the player.
Fix: Engine limitation though it still might be possible, last I heard it was being looked into.

Problem: Tracer rounds are as bright as lazer shots from Star Wars.
Fix: Decrease the brightness of tracers for other players (it should still be easy for the MGer to see them), if possible (might be engine limitation, if so then just dimmer tracers for all).

Problem: Barrel change is just a little to slow.
Fix: Decrease time for barrel change (about a half sec for the MG42, don't really ever have to change the barrel on MG34 so discuss).

Problem: You can only reload while deployed.
Fix: Allow undeployed reloading while prone (slower than when deployed) and possibly while crouched (very slow).

Problem: MG is too "static" when deployed and needs to be able to take cover.
Fix: Add "duck" feature, when a player presses the crouch button when deployed, while standing or crouched, he can duck behind the cover that he is currently deployed on and reload, change barrels, or undeploy and move.

Problem: Tracers are hardly ever used to aim because you can only be in IS (deployed) or hipped.
Fix: Add "looking over" feature, when the player scolls with the mouse wheel (what I use to look over the DP in the BA64 gunner position) while deployed, he will get off IS by raising his head (view) several inches off the gun, will allow quicker undeploy (by like .25 of a second, this would also be the default position you would be in when you first deploy, again saying you about .25 of a second of deploy time).

Problem: MG42 eats through ammo to quickly.
Fix: Allow a player to clip 1 ammo belt to his existing belt (only 1 for balance reasons, though I don't think this feature would even be needed if above changes were implemented).

Note: Obviously not everything in the list was thought up by me, I take full credit for only the penetration idea.

 

[Kirq]

Holy sh*t !
This post is kinda end of a topic !!
TW please add this features and all MG lovers will start to fall asleep with blissful grin !

 

[Tak]

I'd like to see a 'head down, head up' implementation, instead of the duck that you're talking about (unless we're talking about the same thing, just with different words ). Have the first position be what it is now. You're sighted and have a good view of the world, but at the same time more open to enemy fire.


Have the second position (head-down) be where your avatar lowers his head to beside the stock. You can still see along the side of the MG (except possibly on the MG34 with the drum) so you can still roughly aim, but you're more in a supressive role and much harder to take out.

o____


Think of that as the head and gun in the current deploy. That would be head up.

o-----

That's more what you're looking like with your head down, beside the butt with just a bit of the top of your helmet poking out.



The gun also needs to rotate on the bipod, not the player! That is, IMO, the most important thing that needs to be looked at to fix MGs.



I also have to entirely disagree on using hit-scan bullets. That's one of the prides of RO, that the MGs are full RoF with each bullet counted. I won't possibly be waivered on this, and if you won't then let us agree to disagree, but I felt strongly enough on it that I had to comment.

​

 

[Byte Me]

Tak
I'd like to see a 'head down, head up' implementation, instead of the duck that you're talking about (unless we're talking about the same thing, just with different words ). Have the first position be what it is now. You're sighted and have a good view of the world, but at the same time more open to enemy fire.

The 'head up, head down' thing is like what you do in the gunner position of the BA64 (switch weapon key, for that I use mousewheel), where you actually stand up and look over the DP. But obviously you wouldn't have as much clearance when holding a MG. "Ducking" would be like how it is for riflemen, when they go into IS they raise up a little, but when they go to hip, they duck down a little to take advantage of cover (I love this feature, no more stupid static crouch position like in other games).

I also have to entirely disagree on using hit-scan bullets. That's one of the prides of RO, that the MGs are full RoF with each bullet counted. I won't possibly be waivered on this, and if you won't then let us agree to disagree, but I felt strongly enough on it that I had to comment.

Hit scan is a compromise, I don't like the idea either but I would much rather have less bullet physics realism to gain some form of material penetration realism (again it is only a few bullets that are hitscan, not all of them, seems fair and reasonable to me). Besides my way may not have to be implemented if the devs can pull it off with physical bullets.

Yoshiro
We are looking into ways to implement a penitration system into RO that will not kill the servers.

 

[Nifel]

Excellent discussion here, good posts by most! Keep it up, we need to get this fixed!

 

[Los]

"Problem: Barrel change is just a little to slow.
Fix: Decrease time for barrel change (about a half sec for the MG42, don't really ever have to change the barrel on MG34 so discuss)."

This one perplexes me. Given that you are the only guy manning the MG right now the time required to change a barrel is just fine. Think about it, you are the gunner, maybe you have a spare barrell slung on your back. You get into poistion and start firing right away, that barrell is still on your back, you have to stop firing fish the holder out, unzip it grab the asbestos rag, pull the old barrel out and slip in the new one, by yourself that could be 30 seconds. The devil is in the details with most of this stuff.

If we had an assistant gunner that guy's job wold be to get everything ready for the quick reload.

Of course that goes for regular reloading to. (this goes for most all FPS games anyway) All reloads are done as if the spare mag or stripper clip is hovering right ther near your hand, you never have to spend any time fishing the thing out of the ammo puch and of course it never gets snagged. (Every guy relaods with the sepeed of a well traiend SAS operator) Likewise you never have to spend any time stuffing away your old MP40 magazine, I guess it's just thrown out like in the movies, except they don't really grow on trees.


Likewise there' s a lot of beef about your "mobility" when in position. No kidding it's mostly the same in RL. You're supposed to put some little bit of thought into where and how you position yoru MGs in combat they're the most important weapons the squad and platoon has. It's not counterstrike where you can bunny hop around, or roll around, or quick peak around with your 26lb Machine gun that you are lugging together with the other stuff you are carrying. It takes a second to hit your right mouse button move a tad and redeploy. That's just fine.

KABEX: Good points. For any meaningfull long range accuracy you need the tripod. It is very hard to see anything at long range when you are in the prone squinting behind the gun. The other question I have with ballistics is rather they'll eventually be accurate enough to model things like plunging fire, beaten zones etc, all the basic techniques of the gunner. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-22-31/chap6.htm



KAPUA:"Most of the issues you have is cause you dont work in teams;
in German military doctrine for example,the whole squad was centered around the MG,and the Machingunner had 2 more riflemen covering him because he is pretty vaunerable if deployed alone;try getting atleast 1 rifleman to cover you and your performance will improve greatly,if not being targeted by a sniper"

Exactly. You can tweak and fix all day but many of the gripes have to do with misconceptions on how the weapon is employed.

Los

 

[Phoenix-D]

You can't use part hitscan and part regular bullets because they won't end up in the same spot! The regular bullets will drop, the hitscan ones will go laser-straight. So your tracers would not indicate at *all* where your penetrating fire was hitting.

 

[Tak]

The 'head up, head down' thing is like what you do in the gunner position of the BA64 (switch weapon key, for that I use mousewheel), where you actually stand up and look over the DP. But obviously you wouldn't have as much clearance when holding a MG. "Ducking" would be like how it is for riflemen, when they go into IS they raise up a little, but when they go to hip, they duck down a little to take advantage of cover (I love this feature, no more stupid static crouch position like in other games).
Hit scan is a compromise, I don't like the idea either but I would much rather have less bullet physics realism to gain some form of material penetration realism (again it is only a few bullets that are hitscan, not all of them, seems fair and reasonable to me). Besides my way may not have to be implemented if the devs can pull it off with physical bullets.

Ok, I see where you're coming from with the MG positioning. Slight differences, and as far as I'm concerned either would be worlds better than what we're at now.


And a good compromise it is, but one that I just feel takes that little extra something special out of RO. It's a really big selling point when I can tell a friend 'yeah, all 100 of those bullets is an actual bullet'. If that's what they go with, I won't fight or whine or whatnot, just saying that for me, personally, there has to be a better way.

 

[jlamb]

I add my full and unwaivering support for raising the deployed machine gun accuracy.

Do this and almost everything else will fall into place. You wouldn't go through ammo as quickly because you wouldn't need to fire as many rounds to kill your targets. You won't need to change barrels as often. Riflemen will be suppressed because if they stick their heads up, they'll get blown off, and hastily running across an open field would be suicide. Mobility wouldn't be much of an issue unless you have deployed in a really bad spot.

Any bipod-mounted machine gun is going to be perfectly accurate far beyond the range at which your eyes can discern a human profile. Just because you can't see beyond a certain point doesn't make your gun's bullets less accurate!

A lot of the numerous adjustments being suggested would only serve, in my opinion, to blur the rifleman and machine gunner kits together... and they should NOT be on even ground but dominate in different areas.

 

[The_Cook]

Personally I think most of our complaints will be moot if they upped the "suppression" effect. Make it more blurry, make it harder to hear, and maybe more dust kickin up from objects hit from bullets. I have no problems with the mg's, I love my mg34 single shot. I wish I could do it with the 42 also. and the pulmechik russian thing.

 

[Nifel]

Personally I think most of our complaints will be moot if they upped the "suppression" effect. Make it more blurry, make it harder to hear, and maybe more dust kickin up from objects hit from bullets. I have no problems with the mg's, I love my mg34 single shot. I wish I could do it with the 42 also. and the pulmechik russian thing.

Upping the supression effect still won't make the MG 42 what it is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a realistic WW2 game and the MG is definately not realistic as it is now. The supression effect as you call it will be better if you make the MG 42 more realstic, ie. better accuracy and lower recoil.

 

[Byte Me]

Los
This one perplexes me. Given that you are the only guy manning the MG right now the time required to change a barrel is just fine. Think about it, you are the gunner, maybe you have a spare barrell slung on your back. You get into poistion and start firing right away, that barrell is still on your back, you have to stop firing fish the holder out, unzip it grab the asbestos rag, pull the old barrel out and slip in the new one, by yourself that could be 30 seconds. The devil is in the details with most of this stuff.

Actually now that you mention it, it only looks slow, the guy kinda just takes all day removing and replacing the barrel (well not all day, but he is kinda slow about, being in the middle of combat and all). He should be a little faster, not mad grabbing and ripping the barrel out though, it just seems like the animation needs some speeding up with a longer "off screen break" to make up for it being faster.

Phoenix-D
You can't use part hitscan and part regular bullets because they won't end up in the same spot! The regular bullets will drop, the hitscan ones will go laser-straight. So your tracers would not indicate at *all* where your penetrating fire was hitting.

At close range your shots WILL go "laser-straight", and being that your probably gonna be a mg in one of the city maps, most of the time you will be shooting buildings at close range. At long range it might be a problem, but thats what we testers are for, to make sure things work right . And you'll notice in my previous posts, that I setup a rotating system of hitscans and physical bullets, so everytime a tracer round (1 every 5 or 4 fired, not sure which) is supposed to be fired, it WILL be a physical round and not hitscan.

Tak
And a good compromise it is, but one that I just feel takes that little extra something special out of RO. It's a really big selling point when I can tell a friend 'yeah, all 100 of those bullets is an actual bullet'. If that's what they go with, I won't fight or whine or whatnot, just saying that for me, personally, there has to be a better way.

Well how am I supposed to tell my friend you can't shoot through anything at all? "Pfft, show me another game", is what he'll say.

 

[panzerknacker]

I get the sight post bug alot. The Mg42 is sometimes unusable from it. I would estimate for me the sight post bug happens about 75% othe time with the MG42. About 30% with the DP-28 and occasionally with the mg34.

On the POV issue I have tested it, I used to run up to the wall then lean around, and I would always get shot, but now I learned lean slowly and I never get shot. With the cone of fire built into the MGs it is next to impossible to plug that 2-3 pixel helmet top, while he can plug you accurately.

 

[jlamb]

Regarding penetration... why not just start a hitscan once the physical round hits something (just for a few inches)?

 

[Nifel]

Well how am I supposed to tell my friend you can't shoot through anything at all? "Pfft, show me another game", is what he'll say.

I want both so badly. Hm, a wooden house? Perforate it with 400 bullets from the MG! And all 400 are modelled...! I wish.... *sigh*

If I had to choose though, i'd take realistic bullets any day instead of being able to shoot through stuff. I am sure we'll see both with the 3.0 engine though.

 

[jlamb]

I'm not sure I understand... Infiltration was doing it since the original UT... ?

 

[Ron]

I'm not sure I understand... Infiltration was doing it since the original UT... ?

Dig around in the older penetration threads there are excellant reasons you'll find.