• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

Please Don't Balance Weapon Damage

I don't need to argue with you. I know that in RO2 pistol-caliber weapons will be inaccurate, if you like it or not. If you think you could hit the heart with an MP-40 at 150m, that's great, but in the game you won't be able to, since not everyone can.

And, there *is* suppression in RO2, that will cause your gun to wander when aiming. It will indeed affect Rifles too. But a man with a Rifle is going to be patient with his wandering until the sights are on the target, so that it *is* a hit, whereas even if you do that with an SMG it may not be a hit. That is just the fundamentals of how a player will use a gun. For example, in your typical FPS shooter, players will not try sniping with Shotguns. It doesn't work. And so, in a realistic shooter, players will not bother taking aimed single shots with submachine guns. It's not worth it and if your target has a Rifle you will be dead first, since he can hit you where it hurts.

your whole argument is pretty much screwed here as i can't find a single point i can hang my hat on. infact i can't find a single thing you said to be even remotely true. also failed to argue the point that aop presented. or if you did you did a terrible job at it. :confused::rolleyes:

also since i doubt you were in combat so how do you know. judging by your comment you'd be dead if you were.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
I'd much rather see the weapons have realistic capabilities than balanced ones, even if I am the one getting shot by them. Like how the scoped Mosin reloads one round at a time just because the K98k mount didn't leave room for stripper clips. I hate that! RO is more about position and preparation than shooting reflexes, minor differences like that would only be significant in far twitchier shooters IMHO.

And of course there are games like World at War where the Arisaka does more damage than the Garand for balance reasons. TWI would never do something like that... right?

I'm not sure if I understood you, but I'm going to go off on my own tangent anyway :p

I have come to loathe the word "balance". Nothing unbalances an FPS game more that attempting to "balance" it. The reason there are so many different types of weapon in the real world is because balance comes from weapon mix and usage, not weapon capability. No one in their right mind thinks a pistol is as powerful and accurate as a rifle, yet often in games they are. MG's are just about never portrayed accurately because of the cries of "over-powered" etc. Well yes, that's why WW1 was a monumental disaster, but we have learned tactics etc to deal with them. We didn't somehow gimp the enemy's MG's in order to be able to have WW2 be "balanced".

Having said that, I have come to feel that playing AGAINST the odds is much more fun, for me. In most FPS' I will end up being one of the better players on the server, and then resort to trying to gimp myself in order to have a bit more fun.

So I might intentionally pick what I think are the crappiest and weakest weapons, simply to see if it is possible to beat guys with better weapons (usually it is). In fact in BFBC2, I usually out shoot snipers with an M-60, and before you scream bloody murder, that is actually realistic. The only way a sniper survives on a real battlefield is by not being spotted. Once a sniper is spotted, no matter how accurate he is, he will most often lose simply due to being out gunned.

I guess what I'm saying is "game balance" is a good thing when done right - it's just that no one does it right, except for TWI (maybe). Balance should come from the way the weapons are employed, not by making all weapons equal, or nearly so, as most games do.

The problem is, how do you design a game to make people play realistically? Sure you can set certain rules, but that still doesn't stop people from using an MG like a sniper rifle, or a pistol as if it was a rifle. The PLAYERS are the ones who balance a game, not the coders.

What TWI (and others) should be doing is making the weapons and situations as realistic as possible, then encourage the players to learn how to deal with those weapons and situations by telling them what works in the real world should work in game as well, and what doesn't, won't

Running and gunning doesn't work in the real world. It shouldn't work in game either, yet so often it does. I believe RO2 is the closest to the perfect FPS (IMHO) that I've ever seen, which is why I already pre-ordered. I had been waiting for BF3 since BF2. Not any more. They've killed BF3, and BF2 was borderline to begin with.

If RO2 isn't what I'm after, it's at least the closest.
 
Upvote 0
There is a reason WW2 military picked the .45 for both thier standard issue sidearm(colt 45) and submachinegun (Thompson)....lethality!!
If someone were breaking into my home, and I only had one bullet for my 9mm and one for my .45 ( ridiculous analogy I know, but I'm trying to make a point) I would grab the .45 without even a second thought.
I think you would too.

The thing is, regardless of statistics, if you don't hit you don't kill, so the best choice should always be "whichever gun I am best at using, or is best for the situation" A heavier pistol can be harder to aim than a light one. If you're talking about multiple shots, you could most likely get more hits with a 9mm than with a .45 simply due to the recoil making you shoot slower, or less accurately.

On the battlefield, the sniper rifle is the hardest hitting, longest range infantry weapon. So why aren't armies issued with nothing but sniper rifles? Clearly because weaker weapons employed properly will defeat more powerful weapons employed improperly.

Real guns are far more accurate and powerful than most games admit - all in the name of balance. So the truth is, at the ranges most engagements happen in-game, anything should kill and be accurate. If they weren't then they wouldn't even be issued. At game-ranges, the only choice is "long weapon or short weapon" and that decision should be made based on the situation, not which does more damage when you hit. In fact most modern armies don't even issue pistols or sub machine guns to their soldiers because they are no more useful than a modern light weight assault rifle.

In the real world I'm not that good a shot, yet I could hit a running man sized target at 300m with ease using the NZ Army Steyr AUG. Now here is something that should make it clear what I mean: the Steyr Aug is lighter, and shorter than the PPSh, which means in any kind of engagement, the Steyr is easier to use, and harder hitting than said PPSh. In fact it is only 1 kg heavier and 5 inches longer than the standard H&K MP5!

Basically, the small weapons like the SMG and pistol are going the way of the dodo - at least in terms of standard army issue weapons - and there is a very good reason for it. Even in WW2 this was recognised and lead to the development of the assault rifle.

You need more stopping power over longer ranges in combat than the pistol or SMG can provide. Thus in WW2 you had mixed platoons with some spray and pray weapons, and some hard hitting accurate long range weapons. Modern armies have cut that down to a LMG and assault rifles, all firing the same round. The LMG is more accurate and harder hitting with the same bullet, due to being fitted with a heavier and longer barrel (heavy barrel increases accuracy, longer increases velocity), but it is also larger and heavier than the assault rifle, can tend to waste ammunition, and is more complicated and thus more likely to fail. If that wasn't the case you'd see everyone carrying M-249's rather than M-16's.

The M-249 in fact is pretty close to that "perfect weapon". In the old days you would never clear a house with an MG, because the MG was too heavy and awkward to quickly clear rooms. In Iraq, the M-249 has become the go-to weapon for house clearing because it is light enough and small enough to quickly engage targets, but it also has plenty of ammo and power.

So, to come back to what I was saying, the weapon you choose should always be the weapon that fits the situation and the user. In just about any real war situation, the difference between a 45 and a 9mm will be ammunition capacity. The 45 can't hold as much and as such is less useful, period. If a 9mm has twice as much ammo, but stopping power that is sufficient (and it is) then why carry a 45 with less ammo? You may get a slightly higher one-shot-stop ratio, but you've got twice as much ammo, a lighter gun with lower recoil and are probably not even going to notice the difference. Who in their right mind relies on statistics? No, you would put three into him whether you used a 45 or a 9mm, in which case the gun with more ammo is better.

The 7.62 is harder hitting than the 5.56, but you can carry a lot more 5.56. The M-60 used a 100 round 7.62mm belt. The M-249 uses a 200 round 5.56mm belt. Which one is issued to more soldiers now? The M-60 is longer range and harder hitting, but it's actually unnecessarily long ranged and hard hitting. The M-249 does the job better, simply by reducing the power to what is actually needed, then carrying more ammo.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
The 7.62 is harder hitting than the 5.56, but you can carry a lot more 5.56. The M-60 used a 100 round 7.62mm belt. The M-249 uses a 200 round 5.56mm belt. Which one is issued to more soldiers now? The M-60 is longer range and harder hitting, but it's actually unnecessarily long ranged and hard hitting. The M-249 does the job better, simply by reducing the power to what is actually needed, then carrying more ammo.

The 5.56mm M855 Ball round will actually create equal or sometimes even larger wounds than 7.62mm, but only in short ranges (< 100m.) Beyond that, fragmentation and yawing is reduced to Pistol-cartridge levels, which is where most complaints of the 5.56mm tend to be. That doesn't mean it can't kill or can't incapacitate at those ranges: it just means you must be more accurate in hitting vital organs and incapacitation is more unreliable. Additionally, short-barrel weapons such as the Mk18 CQBR may fail to fragment at the muzzle, instead of down range, due to their lower velocity, which is why they're often preferred with 5.56mm Mk262 ammunition.

[URL]http://www.texassmallarmsresearch.com/TechInfo/556Performance/556Performance.pdf

But I digress, no? I mean, 5.56mm isn't even vaguely related to WW2.[/URL]
 
Upvote 0
The 5.56mm M855 Ball round will actually create equal or sometimes even larger wounds than 7.62mm, but only in short ranges (< 100m.) Beyond that, fragmentation and yawing is reduced to Pistol-cartridge levels, which is where most complaints of the 5.56mm tend to be. That doesn't mean it can't kill or can't incapacitate at those ranges: it just means you must be more accurate in hitting vital organs and incapacitation is more unreliable. Additionally, short-barrel weapons such as the Mk18 CQBR may fail to fragment at the muzzle, instead of down range, due to their lower velocity, which is why they're often preferred with 5.56mm Mk262 ammunition.

http://www.texassmallarmsresearch.com/TechInfo/556Performance/556Performance.pdfhttp://www.texassmallarmsresearch.com/TechInfo/556Performance/556Performance.pdf

But I digress, no? I mean, 5.56mm isn't even vaguely related to WW2.


Yes true. The point is, the bigger round goes further and hits harder, BUT how often do you engage targets at 500m? So at the ranges that actually count - the ranges most infantry combat happens at, the 5.56 is MORE effective, because at those ranges it hits harder or just as hard, but it is easier to use, and has more ammo.

So, if you are choosing between 5.56 and 7.62, the POWER of the round is a lesser consideration than the CONVENIENCE of the round. This is true for 9mm vs .45 or any other round.

In combat, I would always use my rifle/smg, unless it became inoperative or the situation was so desperate that a rifle is just too slow. Once I am down to using a pistol, I am at a MAJOR disadvantage and will use the pistol for one thing only - to protect myself while I get out of the situation (hopefully) and get a real weapon, or take a few of them with me.

The types of round are not relevant to my argument. I am using 5.56 and 7.62 as an example only. I am simply trying to highlight that no soldier ever chooses his weapon based on how hard the round hits, even if he has a choice. He looks for accuracy, maintainability, weight and supply. If my bullets don't hit as hard, but I have much more of them, then I am probably going to win the fight.

Let me put it this way - if I had a 9mm in my hand pointing at your chest, are you going to be relieved it's not a .45? Or are you going to try like hell not to get shot, period?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Geez, are people in here still saying the .45 ACP is more powerful than the 9mm ?

Look, here are the std. WW2 loadings for both:

9mm Patr.08: 8 g bullet @ 365 m/s = 532 Joules
.45 ACP: 15 g bullet @ 260 m/s = 507 Joules

In conclusion, they will both get the job done just the same, but neither one is going to be a reliable one shot stopper, hence why these small rounds (named: pistol rounds) are used primarily in sidearms for last ditch defense situations, or in weapons which spit out a lot of lead in a very short period of time (Read: SMG).
 
Upvote 0
I'm thinking mods should start deleting posts that hijack threads with senseless ballistics arguments.

None of you are experts and all of you are derailing threads.

I think this thread ran its course after the first few posts, then it turned into a comparison between different rounds, namely the .45 ACP & 9mm Parabellum.

As for being an expert or not, I'm not even sure what makes one, but I definitely have enough experience with these two rounds that I know what they will & will not do.
 
Upvote 0
The M-249 in fact is pretty close to that "perfect weapon". In the old days you would never clear a house with an MG, because the MG was too heavy and awkward to quickly clear rooms. In Iraq, the M-249 has become the go-to weapon for house clearing because it is light enough and small enough to quickly engage targets, but it also has plenty of ammo and power.

Who the :IS2: clears rooms with a 22 lb belt-fed not-all-that-light machine gun? The USMC is replacing the 249 because of weight and reliability concerns with a magazine-fed and truely light machine gun, the M-27 IAR. Meanwhile the SH 21-76 United States Army Ranger Handbook lists breaching order with the fireteam's 249 going in last after holding rear security. I have no idea where you come up with it being the go-to weapon unless the gunner was expected to literally chew the next room apart through a wall. And in that respect the weapon is insufficently powerful if the interior walls are of heavy construction.
 
Upvote 0
Geez, are people in here still saying the .45 ACP is more powerful than the 9mm ?

Look, here are the std. WW2 loadings for both:

9mm Patr.08: 8 g bullet @ 365 m/s = 532 Joules
.45 ACP: 15 g bullet @ 260 m/s = 507 Joules

In conclusion, they will both get the job done just the same, but neither one is going to be a reliable one shot stopper, hence why these small rounds (named: pistol rounds) are used primarily in sidearms for last ditch defense situations, or in weapons which spit out a lot of lead in a very short period of time (Read: SMG).

Kinetic energy is not at all the only component to tissue damage.

Go look at ball ammunition in 7.62x39...

The entire argument behind .45 ACP is that it has more reliable expansion using ball ammunition than the 9mm, not that it's more "powerful."
 
Upvote 0
Kinetic energy is not at all the only component to tissue damage.

Go look at ball ammunition in 7.62x39...

True but..

The entire argument behind .45 ACP is that it has more reliable expansion using ball ammunition than the 9mm, not that it's more "powerful."

The .45 ACP has no expansion in ball ammo. Maintains .452 diameter. Same with 9mm, but 9mm Ball *can* sometimes yaw. .45 ACP will not. Very stable, straight wound path.
There's not a single Pistol round in FMJ configuration I can think of that expands. 7.62x25mm Tokarev and 5.7x28mm will yaw within flesh but that is not expansion. And we have, of course, already discussed the benefits of a larger base diameter - that the benefits do exist but that a failure to hit vital organs is still a failure to hit vital organs, and incapacitation was discussed too.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
True but..



The .45 ACP has no expansion in ball ammo. Maintains .452 diameter. Same with 9mm, but 9mm Ball *can* sometimes yaw. .45 ACP will not. Very stable, straight wound path.
There's not a single Pistol round in FMJ configuration I can think of that expands. 7.62x25mm Tokarev and 5.7x28mm will yaw within flesh but that is not expansion.

Quit posting raw ballistics data and trying to state things that simply aren't true. You can google ".45 ballistics jelly" and see pictures of a .45 round harder then ball varient, splintered like a wooden ball inside the jelly.

And you can't think of a pistol round in "fmj configuration" that expands because your talking out your rear. Any peice of metal thats flying 700+ fps, impacting anything harder then paper is going to deform somehow. My 25-06 with low grain rounds will explode if it hits anything bigger then a twig. Translate that to a heavier round and you still have deforming, because regardless of "configuration" you still need a copper/copper alloy coating to prevent barrel fouling. And when that coats most of a rounds surface, it doesn't just break off like an m&m shell.

That episode of CSI where they pulled the perfect bullet out of the wood, the prop guy planted it there after he drilled a hole in the wall. And it was fired into a water range and sold to the prop company in bulk. Just thought you should know.
 
Upvote 0
Yes true. The point is, the bigger round goes further and hits harder, BUT how often do you engage targets at 500m? So at the ranges that actually count - the ranges most infantry combat happens at, the 5.56 is MORE effective, because at those ranges it hits harder or just as hard, but it is easier to use, and has more ammo.

So, if you are choosing between 5.56 and 7.62, the POWER of the round is a lesser consideration than the CONVENIENCE of the round. This is true for 9mm vs .45 or any other round.

In combat, I would always use my rifle/smg, unless it became inoperative or the situation was so desperate that a rifle is just too slow. Once I am down to using a pistol, I am at a MAJOR disadvantage and will use the pistol for one thing only - to protect myself while I get out of the situation (hopefully) and get a real weapon, or take a few of them with me.

The types of round are not relevant to my argument. I am using 5.56 and 7.62 as an example only. I am simply trying to highlight that no soldier ever chooses his weapon based on how hard the round hits, even if he has a choice. He looks for accuracy, maintainability, weight and supply. If my bullets don't hit as hard, but I have much more of them, then I am probably going to win the fight.

Let me put it this way - if I had a 9mm in my hand pointing at your chest, are you going to be relieved it's not a .45? Or are you going to try like hell not to get shot, period?
At ranges of around 100m's,200m's, and 300m's I don't think a M885 will hit just as hard or harder 7.62x51. The M885 doesn't fragment at those ranges and leaves wounds like that of a .22 LR. While a .22 LR can kill, it's not ideal. I guess one could argue that what's the point of more ammo when a 7.62 can get it done with less rounds. Paul Howe who fought in Mogadishu noted how the 5.56x45 would fail to stop the enemy with multiple hits where the 7.62x51 fired from the M14 take the down enemy quicker. David Petraeus actually survived a shot to the chest with a 5.56x45. I don't think he would have made it to general if the round did what it was suppose to do. A possible explaination for the inconsistent lethality of the 5.56x45 could be from the fact that it is derived from a varmint cartridges like the .222 Remington Magnum and .222 Remington. Perhaps if the Hague's convention was reversed, hollow point ammo for the 5.56x45 might solve the lethality problems. The resurgence of 7.62x51 weapons among NATO countries that have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan does some what support that the 5.56x45 does not cut it all the time.

“In 1980, I treated a soldier shot accidentally with an M16 M193 bullet from a distance of about ten feet. The bullet entered his left thigh and traveled obliquely upward. It exited after passing through about 11 inches of muscle. The man walked in to my clinic with no limp whatsoever: the entrance and exit holes were about 4 mm across, and punctate. X-ray films showed intact bones, no bullet fragments, and no evidence of significant tissue disruption caused by the bullet’s temporary cavity. The bullet path passed well lateral to the femoral vessels. He was back on duty in a few days. Devastating? Hardly. The wound profile of the M193 bullet (page 29 of the Emergency War Surgery—NATO Handbook, GPO, Washington, D.C., 1988) shows that most often the bullet travels about five inches through flesh before beginning significant yaw. But about 15% of the time, it travels much farther than that before yawing—in which case it causes even milder wounds, if it missed bones, guts, lung, and major blood vessels. In my experience and research, at least as many M16 users in Vietnam concluded that it produced unacceptably minimal, rather than “massive”, wounds. After viewing the wound profile, recall that the Vietnamese were small people, and generally very slim. Many M16 bullets passed through their torsos traveling mostly point forward, and caused minimal damage. Most shots piercing an extremity, even in the heavier-built Americans, unless they hit bone, caused no more damage than a 22 caliber rimfire bullet.”

Fackler, ML: “Literature Review”. Wound Ballistics Review; 5(2):40, Fall 2001
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Kinetic energy is not at all the only component to tissue damage.

No, but both rounds in their std. WW2 loadings still behave the very much the same, they make a nice clean wound channel unless they hit something hard. Only difference is that the 9mm round will reach abit further and have slightly better penetration performance. The Russuan 7.62x25 featured even better penetration power, even if only by a little bit.

The entire argument behind .45 ACP is that it has more reliable expansion using ball ammunition than the 9mm, not that it's more "powerful."

Using the std. ball ammo, no, they are identical, only difference is the slightly wider diameter of the .45 ACP's wound channel, whilst the 9mm will penetrate further.
 
Upvote 0
The M-249 in fact is pretty close to that "perfect weapon". In the old days you would never clear a house with an MG, because the MG was too heavy and awkward to quickly clear rooms. In Iraq, the M-249 has become the go-to weapon for house clearing because it is light enough and small enough to quickly engage targets, but it also has plenty of ammo and power.
I do airsoft carrying a M249 replica and I can assure is NOT FUN making CQB with such thing in the hands...
As far as I remember, in USMC protocols the MG gunner gets a shotgun to enter buildings... (I use als a shortened M1014 for that purpose in airsoft).

This post is really an amazing amount of info... but remember the awesome power of 7.92x57 and 7.62x54R ammo we use in RO compared with the small 5.56x45 and 7.62x39 of modern weapons/games...
 
Upvote 0
No, but both rounds in their std. WW2 loadings still behave the very much the same, they make a nice clean wound channel unless they hit something hard. Only difference is that the 9mm round will reach abit further and have slightly better penetration performance. The Russuan 7.62x25 featured even better penetration power, even if only by a little bit.



Using the std. ball ammo, no, they are identical, only difference is the slightly wider diameter of the .45 ACP's wound channel, whilst the 9mm will penetrate further.
45ACP%20230gr%20FMJ.jpg

2q2hiqb.jpg

Hardly more penetration then a .45 acp. That seemingly little 2.47mm difference between the rounds makes a difference.
 
Upvote 0
That seemingly little 2.47mm difference between the rounds makes a difference.

If you mean in terms of lethality for FMJ ammunition, the vast number of actual shootings and ballistics tests conducted with those rounds suggests otherwise. But we already covered that.. and this thread is going waaaay off topic. Maybe you mean in terms of penetration. In that case, out of a 4" barrel 9mm 115gr FMJ will go ~17" while .45 ACP 230gr FMJ will go ~14".
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0