A question about Ammo types.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Okay this is more a JA2 question, but I can't be bothered to join A JA forum when there are enough weapons/ammo experts here.

In JA2 you can load an 9mm smg with a pistol clip or vice-versa, the game assumes that the merc takes the time to unload the bullets out of one clip and load them into a spare clip for the weapon involved. There are also two 7.62 ammo types. The 7.62 Nato and the 7.62 WP these are incompatible.

My question is, what's the difference? I'm pressuming length of the cartridge, but if anyone can explain in laymans terms I'd be grateful, cause I'm thinking about a doing couple of JA2 inspired maps for FOT.

Cheers

[OnTheBounce]

There are also two 7.62 ammo types. The 7.62 Nato and the 7.62 WP these are incompatible.

My question is, what's the difference? I'm pressuming length of the cartridge, but if anyone can explain in laymans terms I'd be grateful, cause I'm thinking about a doing couple of JA2 inspired maps for FOT.

I've never played JA or JA2, but I can answer your question since I have something more than a passing familiarity with this subject.

You want laymans terms, eh? Okay, here it goes:

7.62mm NATO is a longer cartridge than it's ComBloc/Warsaw Pact counterpart. The former has a case (that is the brass/copper/steel container that houses the powder) that is 51mm long, while the latter has a case that is 39mm long.

Although both use bullets that are nominally 7.62mm, the NATO round is 0.308" in diameter and the WP bullet is 0.310". So the WP bullet is slightly fatter than the NATO bullet.

The bullet weights are also drastically different. The standard NATO bullet weighs in at 150 grains while it's WP counterpart tips the scales at 122 grains. (A grain is 1/7000th of a pound.)

There you have the physical differences. There is also a serious difference in intent for the two rounds. There's a long, tangled skein of history that goes into why those rounds are the way they are, but that would fill a book unto itself. Suffice it to say that it's an unsavory tale of innovation, tradition, politics and economics that started with a German study in the wake of the First World War/The Great War...

For game purposes the "generic" 7.62mm round used in FoT are actually 7.62mm NATO rounds, so you're set w/a sprite for that. If you want/need a sprite for 7.62mm M1943 Russian (as it's sometimes called) I have some sitting in my closet and I have a digital camera. I could take a picture for you and make a sprite if you'd like.

Cheers,

OTB

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Thanks OTB, that clears everything up : ) But now I have to ask what's the difference between the 7.62 NATO and the .308 ammo available in FOT? Or am I opening up a whole new can of worms? Damn Metric system, what's wrong with good old Imperial measurements?

Re the sprites, it's only the begining of an idea so no need to trouble yourself at the moment but I might hold you to that in a few months time.

On the otherhand I sure the community would welcome any and all new sprites. : )

[Max-Violence]

Indeed, we would. And, since we're probly not gonna see Phase2 of OTB's demo anytime soon...

[OnTheBounce]

But now I have to ask what's the difference between the 7.62 NATO and the .308 ammo available in FOT? Or am I opening up a whole new can of worms?

Okay, the simple version:

• The is no .308 available in FoT, except in my demo. I used the Imperial/SAE name for 7.62mm simply to keep it homogenous with .223.
• 7.62mm NATO and .308 Winchester are basically the same round, but not quite. The difference essentially boils down to fact that military and civilian manufacturers use different standards and measurements. 7.62mm NATO was the original round, built for the US military and civilian manufacturers then marketed it as .308 Winchester.
• You can probably get away with using the two types interchangeably, but there is an increased risk of something going horribly wrong due to ever-so-slight differences in length.
• There is a common misconception that 7.62mm NATO and .308 Winchester are identical rounds, with the names simply being synomyms. This is wrong -- TY Viktor for setting me straight on this -- and it is not recommended using the two types interchangeably.

For game purposes, however, they can pretty much be considered the same type of ammo, really. Unless you want to needlessly complicate things by differentiating between the two.

Now, in case you were thinking about .303 when you typed ".308", then you're looking at a round that had about as much place in the game as the weapons that chambered it. This was the standard service cartridge of the British Army and Commonwealth forces during both World Wars. The dimensions are very different from either 7.62mm NATO and .30-06 Springfield. The M-14 is chambered for 7.62mm NATO, not .303 British (as it's known on this side of the pond).

Damn Metric system, what's wrong with good old Imperial measurements?

How many rods in a league? There you have what's wrong with the Imperial/SAE systems. :lol:

Although I confess that when bullet weights and powder charges are being measured I find "grains" much easier to work with than very small numbers of grams.

Re the sprites, it's only the begining of an idea so no need to trouble yourself at the moment but I might hold you to that in a few months time.

Okay, I'll keep it in mind. I'm not going to shoot up my 7.62x39mm any time soon, so it'll be ready if/when you need it.

Indeed, we would. And, since we're probly not gonna see Phase2 of OTB's demo anytime soon...

I know, I know, Max. I need to tear myself away from the campaign and get back to slaving away at the demo. I wanted to release Phase 2 at the end of November and here it is the beginning of February already. The bright side is the campaign has been drastically improved w/the revision of two missions that I simply could not get to come out the way I wanted them to. I've also added some non-related "side quests" that have an impact on the campaign. For instance, rather than simply having the player fail if they fuck up an objective, you keep playing. The only thing is that something won't come out as good as it could have. For instance, you have to rescue two friendly leaders in one mission. In the core campaign you would have seen the fail screen if you dorked it up. Instead, you'll get different versions of the recruits from that faction, or the number will be reduced, depending on just how badly you fuck up. I'm also factoring in Reputation as to which side-quests get opened up to a player. Underworld figures don't like dealing w/goody-two-shoes types, and do-gooders don't ask thugs to run errands for them.

Cheers,

OTB

[Viktor]

[

[*] You can probably get away with using the two types interchangeably, but there is an increased risk of something going horribly wrong due to ever-so-slight differences in length.

NO! Firing .308 Winchester ammo in a weapon chambered for 7.62 mm NATO is an extremely BAD IDEA as the .308 Winchester round specification allows ammo manufacturers to load it to a chamber pressure 20% higher than the maximum allowed for the NATO round which could cause your expensive assault rifle to blow up in your face!

[PaladinHeart]

Exactly. But how would a poor dumb tribal know the difference between ammunition types? If it loooked like it could fit I would say they would try and put it in the gun and fire it.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Cheers again OTB, I get confused with the .303 and .308 in the game, as the file names/text etc can't seem to make up it's mind as to which it is, and I wasn't sure that which was a typo.

I find this all very interesting, and highly confusing, anyone have any idea how different ammo sizes there are in total? No second thought no need to answer that. : )

How many rods in a league? There you have what's wrong with the Imperial/SAE systems. :lol:

Although I confess that when bullet weights and powder charges are being measured I find "grains" much easier to work with than very small numbers of grams.

Just letting off a little patriotic steam OTB : ) Actually I'm just the wrong age for imperial and metric. We had brought in metric before I started my schooling but all my teachers had been brought up with the imperial system and didn't really understand metric well enough, IMHO, to instruct others. So perversly I'm okay with the larger measurements in imperial, anything under an inch I need to switch to metric.

Exactly. But how would a poor dumb tribal know the difference between ammunition types? If it loooked like it could fit I would say they would try and put it in the gun and fire it.

That is so true, in fact the same could be said for anyone in the post apoc. Unless they had access to all the different types of ammo to play with I doubt anyone would remember all the different ammo types and what went with what. Even in the BOS info probably got corrupted as it was passed down the generations, even with access to pre-war files doesn't mean that everyone understood the info they contained and taught new recruits everything correctly. Afterall they have developed a whole new religon and way of looking at the world. Perhaps the weapon and item descriptions should have been written from the view point of the characters and not the player.

[Viktor]

Exactly. But how would a poor dumb tribal know the difference between ammunition types? If it loooked like it could fit I would say they would try and put it in the gun and fire it.

That is so true, in fact the same could be said for anyone in the post apoc. Unless they had access to all the different types of ammo to play with I doubt anyone would remember all the different ammo types and what went with what. Even in the BOS info probably got corrupted as it was passed down the generations, even with access to pre-war files doesn't mean that everyone understood the info they contained and taught new recruits everything correctly. Afterall they have developed a whole new religon and way of looking at the world. Perhaps the weapon and item descriptions should have been written from the view point of the characters and not the player.[/quote]

Mmmmm... It's a shame FO:T didn't have a "unknown item/weapon/ammo" system like Baldur's Gate where you had to pay the more knowledgeble traders to indentify (unless you had an NPC which could do so..) items found in the game universe....

That way, the slightly smarter tribal who found some old ammo in a cave which looked like it might fit his buddy's old .30-'06 rifle, could visit his local arms dealer and find out if they ammo and the rifle were compatible for 20 ringpulls/bottle caps etc. instead of risking the damn thing blowing up in his face!

Even better would have been a "Master Gunsmith" NPC who not only could tell you what ammo went in which gun, he/she could possibly modify certain basic weapons to use a more common ammo type than the one they were built to take...

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Mmmmm... It's a shame FO:T didn't have a "unknown item/weapon/ammo" system like Baldur's Gate where you had to pay the more knowledgeble traders to indentify (unless you had an NPC which could do so..) items found in the game universe....

That way, the slightly smarter tribal who found some old ammo in a cave which looked like it might fit his buddy's old .30-'06 rifle, could visit his local arms dealer and find out if they ammo and the rifle were compatible for 20 ringpulls/bottle caps etc. instead of risking the damn thing blowing up in his face!

Even better would have been a "Master Gunsmith" NPC who not only could tell you what ammo went in which gun, he/she could possibly modify certain basic weapons to use a more common ammo type than the one they were built to take...

You're taking a risk suggesting using a BG system around here aren't you? Some rabid Anti-BG people lurking somewhere : ) But seriously that would be a better system, perhaps in new maps we can have two versions of ammo/weapons with different descriptions. The unidentified items with the simple descriptions would be what is dropped, then you take them to a Gunsmith (using the QM?) and exchange them for the identical identified items (for a price). If we used generic ammo sprites for the unidentified ammo so that players wouldn't know which was which and the normal sprites for the identified ammo. Unidentifed weapons could be boobytrapped so that if you used them anyway they might blowup in your face.

On a seperate topic, Viktor do you have digital tv? There was a program the other night on Ftn called Future Warrior (I think), they had this soldier testing out this new all in one body armour, which would protect against gas and chemical attacks, as well as normal damage. It looked just like Fallout's Combat Armour. : )

[PaladinHeart]

Ah well at least I don't have to worry about this sort of thing in my RPG im working on since the main characters will be more advanced than even the BOS. Although that's not to say they won't have their fair share of troubles to deal with.

I have so many ideas for my campaign and yet I haven't even finished my first map :-P I am planning on putting in lots of high tech stuff so I hope it makes the game more fallouty. I will, of course, have the standard fare guns but most will either be from the earlier FO games or completely fabricated by me.

For example I have thought of 24 Special Encounters (and wrote them all down). I didn't like the way that FOT handled them so I will have them like secrets you have to find. I think i'll keep just exactly what they are and what my story is going to be about a secret until its finished sometime in the next ten years tho :-P

[Viktor]

You're taking a risk suggesting using a BG system around here aren't you? Some rabid Anti-BG people lurking somewhere : ) But seriously that would be a better system, perhaps in new maps we can have two versions of ammo/weapons with different descriptions. The unidentified items with the simple descriptions would be what is dropped, then you take them to a Gunsmith (using the QM?) and exchange them for the identical identified items (for a price). If we used generic ammo sprites for the unidentified ammo so that players wouldn't know which was which and the normal sprites for the identified ammo. Unidentifed weapons could be boobytrapped so that if you used them anyway they might blowup in your face.

On a seperate topic, Viktor do you have digital tv? There was a program the other night on Ftn called Future Warrior (I think), they had this soldier testing out this new all in one body armour, which would protect against gas and chemical attacks, as well as normal damage. It looked just like Fallout's Combat Armour. : )

As far as I'm concerned any gaming idea or concept should be judged on its relative merits and problems, not which game it was implemented in...

I'm not sure if the system you outlined above can even be implemented, but it would add a whole new dimension to the gameplay. On a not unrelated note, I was always annoyed by the fact that IN made no difference to which weapons an NPC could use provided they were strong enough to pick them up!

Obviously, an NPC would not be able to hit much if he/she had 10% Big Guns and was trying to use a SAW, but I personally don't your basic tribal with an IN of 5-6 would be able to figure out much more than a pipe rifle without being shown how to do so.

I have seen a similar program to the one you mentioned, showing a fully integrated body armour/gas mask/HUD system. One of the unfortunate side effects of making body that can stop a bullet is that the armour has to be able to dissipate the very high kinetic energies transfered to the armour evenly across the torso of the wearer or they'll end up with broken ribs or ruptured internal organs. This would be especially true of armour design to withstand the heavy calibre machine gun rounds now used in anti-materiel rifles such as the .50 BMG round which have 3-4 times the muzzle energy of the 7.62mm NATO Ball round.

[PaladinHeart]

Bah, who really cares? Its a game and its meant to be fun. Im sure if we all played games where the bullets could kill you in just one or two measly hits we wouldn't be having much fun.

As far as im concerned you can have body armor that can make you completely invincible to normal attacks and more vulnerable to electric. In reality a .50 shell would just laugh at such an armor but in a game its more fun if you DON"T die in one hit. Just my 2 cents :)

As someone once said, "Lying in a ditch with a sucking chest wound is no fun at all". Games should be fun foremost. To me, reality is a far cry from being the highest priority, as long as the game is fun to play.

Reality DOES have its place though. Its more fun to find a couple drinks and some jerky in a cooler than a stimpack, laser pistol, and ammo for said gun.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I'm not sure if the system you outlined above can even be implemented, but it would add a whole new dimension to the gameplay. On a not unrelated note, I was always annoyed by the fact that IN made no difference to which weapons an NPC could use provided they were strong enough to pick them up!

I don't think that it'll be that difficult to implement. More time consuming than anything else. It would depend on whether someone was working on a campaign or standalone map and what sort of character the player starts out with plot wise. If the character is a BOS squaddie then we can presume he/she's had some weapon training and is familiar enough with their starting weapon that they'll be able to recognise identical weapons and be fairly sure what ammo to use. So that will be one type of weapon and ammo that could be left untouched. If someone was making a standalone map then they would have to include a weapons expert, either on a large map have a small area (village or BOS outpost) where the player could bring the items to be identified, or have one of the team the expert. If the latter then we would need to set up triggers that if the expert dies to switch the ammo and weapon entities using the give item to npc commands, note that it would help to limit the amount of similar weapons in the game. If someone was making a campaign then triggers checking the players stats could be used to determine which version of a weapon they would find.

Obviously it would require a lot of scripting and all items would need to be tagged but it would only need to be done a couple of times early in the game. After that the player would be sufficiently knowledgable to identify things themselves from experience, except when they find the uber weapon at the end of the game.

Obviously, an NPC would not be able to hit much if he/she had 10% Big Guns and was trying to use a SAW, but I personally don't your basic tribal with an IN of 5-6 would be able to figure out much more than a pipe rifle without being shown how to do so.

Yeah it's a shame that they didn't have the chosen one have to find someone to show him/her how to shoot etc. I presume that one of the npc's Vic or Cassidy gave them lessons : )

[Red]

Identifying items in FO:T? wtf? I mean I can somewhat understand someone with a low int not knowing how to pull a trigger or load a gun, but it's not as if you had a Magical Amulet of Gayity-- er Charm + 20 or someshit.

Technically knowing what the items does/how it works is reflected by your barter skill anyhow. For using them, that's why you have weapon skills...

Using a pipe riffle? I think anyone who's seen it done once can figure it out, and in a wasteland that's rather likely even for a "measly tribal".

[PaladinHeart]

Actually its a system I don't plan on employing since the player will have a hard enough time figuring out what type of weapon and armor to use for each given situation. I figure that's hard enough without having to worry about identifying weapons and ammo :)

Plus, Red does have a point. This IS the wastelands after all. Its a pretty hostile place and im sure most of the people would have a basic understanding of what bullets should go in which gun.

BUT in the rare campaign where you have someone like ME who doesn't know squat about guns and ammo types, you might could use this system. If a bullet fit the chamber and loaded reasonable well I would expect the gun to fire it. Like a BB gun. You can put almost anything in it and fire it that will fit in the barrel but that doesn't necessarly mean that it will actually work good.

[PaladinHeart]

Oh, a couple more notes..

As for a gun misfiring or such due to idiotic stupidity. I think someone like myself would learn from the first mistake and carefully check guns and ammo from then on.

If you really wanted to incorporate a new weapon/ammo type then you should make the gun have a minus to whatever skill is used to fire it. Thus forcing the player to invest more and more into their small guns skill to accurately fire a weapon. However I wouldn't ever have this more than 50% since it is hard to get a skill around %200 or more if the campaign is rather short and can only get the character to level 20 to 30.

Learning the maximum range and damage a gun does would be a nice addition though. As a character fires a weapon and actually hits his/her intended target they should learn more and more about its maximum range and its maximum to minimum damage. As the gun does various amounts of damage and it shot from various ranges it could be recorded in the weapon's stats. Same with armor. You don't really know how metal armor is going to protect you until a deathclaw smashes his fist into your chest. But this is just an idea for another game since FOT can't do this.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Identifying items in FO:T? wtf? I mean I can somewhat understand someone with a low int not knowing how to pull a trigger or load a gun, but it's not as if you had a Magical Amulet of Gayity-- er Charm + 20 or someshit.

Technically knowing what the items does/how it works is reflected by your barter skill anyhow. For using them, that's why you have weapon skills...

Using a pipe riffle? I think anyone who's seen it done once can figure it out, and in a wasteland that's rather likely even for a "measly tribal".

As I said it would depend plot wise on what sort of character the game would be set around. Plus I had more in mind the more complicated pre-war weaponry than pipe rifles, stuff like mini-guns. Though I still think the weapon/ammo descriptions should be more generic and simplified. The denziens of the wastelands might know how to fire them but I doubt that there would be very many who would know the history of the Sten gun or the background to the Pulse rifle.

As for a gun misfiring or such due to idiotic stupidity. I think someone like myself would learn from the first mistake and carefully check guns and ammo from then on.

Well I wouldn't put more than one or two booby trapped weapons in the game, I'm not that cruel : ) I'm not even sure that we can booby trap ammo, though it would be nice if we could, to simulate weapons that had been poorly maintained.

[OnTheBounce]

The denziens of the wastelands might know how to fire them but I doubt that there would be very many who would know the history of the Sten gun or the background to the Pulse rifle.

That's something that the designers got carried away with starting with FO2 that wasn't really done in FO itself, and then in FoT it just got out of hand. Manufacturer, model and some basic characteristics are fine, but the item desc shouldn't be a primer on the history of the type.

If any of you have played T$R's old Gamma World PA game, they had a system which forced character to figure out anything that they encountered. If it was an old, disposable lighter the going was fairly easy. If it was a Bubble Car...things weren't so easy. Not to mention that you could damage an item while trying to figure it out, or accidentally discharge/start it. More than one PA denizen died horribly that way... (Yes, your character's Intelligence score played heavily in trying to figure out how to use things.)

OTB

[PaladinHeart]

I agree. Having the history of an item is a total waste. Knowing the caliber and what it can do is far more important. Plus im sick of WW2 stuff anyways.

I doubt even having many normal gun types in my RPG. Some, like the AK47, will only be found in a single special encounter.

Im also leaning more towards psycho mutant & futuristic stuff so raiders and other common stuff from previous FO games will be less common. Basically a different perspective of the FO world, which is always a good thing.. I guess :)