Duck and Cover

I'm trying to increase the range of the weapons slightly so you don't have to be standing dead in front of someone with a moderate skill level in small arms.

Please don't tell me it's entirely contingent upon perception. It's really stupid to think someone with a perception of 7 can't see any further than a few tiles away.

No limit to the range of weapon, but there is a limit to how far away you or your character can see another entity to target it.

I posted some ranges in this thread http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6647

Based on a perception of 5 and skill of 57% Small Guns.

Weapon Range 25,
Short 18m
Long 24m
Scoped 25.5m
OnlyLong 25.5m (minimum 16.5m)

Weapon Range 50,
Short 18m
Long 24m
Scoped 27m
OnlyLong 27m (minimum 16.5m)

Weapon Range 100,
Short 18m
Long 24m
Scoped 28.5m
OnlyLong 28.5m (minimum 16.5m)

Based on a perception of 10 and skill 57% Small Guns.

Weapon Range 25,
Short 24m
Long 25.5m
Scoped 25.5m
OnlyLong 25.5m (minimum 16.5m)

Weapon Range 50,
Short 24m
Long 39m
Scoped 45m
OnlyLong 45m (minimum 16.5m)

Weapon Range 100,
Short 24m
Long 39m
Scoped 45m
OnlyLong 45m (minimum 16.5m)

Given these test results having a perception of anything less than 10 is like being visually impaired, and having a small arms skill of anything less than 100+ is like being woefully inept. It's pretty much apparent to me that setting the weapons range beyond a certain level is practically useless in the most common circumstances. I can't begin to tell you how wrong this is, the difference between a 9x19 or a .22 round compared to a .308 round is immense when it comes to improved hit probability at a range, regardless of how fine tuned your visual ability is. It seems to me like it's nothing but extremes. Either you have to have a character that's rigged to shoot at someone beyond a few meters away or you don't even come close.

This is something that really bothers me. The weapon range seems pretty much dependent on perception, furthermore to attain any type of range whatsoever, you need to have heroic visual acuity. I very much prefer the way Jagged Alliance 2 worked for ranged weapons. I don't have the best eyes, I wear glasses, but I can shoot a landed seagull with a .22 from 30 meters. Apparently that means in fallout I'd have a perception of 9 or something coupled with my average shooting abilities.

For fallout it seemed not as bad. In FOT everything seems to be underpowered and I notice characters miss a lot more, I endeavored to increase the damage of the weapons and range since it's kind of silly to do tremendous amounts of damage up close with a gun if you can't at a range. You might as well use melee.

Burnov wrote: For fallout it seemed not as bad. In FOT everything seems to be underpowered and I notice characters miss a lot more, I endeavored to increase the damage of the weapons and range since it's kind of silly to do tremendous amounts of damage up close with a gun if you can't at a range. You might as well use melee.

I think that is the result of trying to make a balanced real-time game. There is a reaction time for the average player that must be taken into account. And then to make the game balanced for multiplayer on top of that adds many more potential problems. At that point any semblance of realism has to be thrown out the window. Fallout was able to stay within the realm of realism because of the constraints of TB and also because there was no multiplayer to have to deal with.

I figured perhaps it might be possible to modify your perception based on what weapon you're holding. Is that possible? I attempted in the editor to fiddle with some derived or effect stats but nothing showed up in game.

It's not the most realistic way to going about things but I figured it might be worth a try.

Burnov wrote:It seems to me like it's nothing but extremes. Either you have to have a character that's rigged to shoot at someone beyond a few meters away or you don't even come close.

Reality
The fact that in FOT everyone shoots like shit in combat is a pretty accurate depiction of the real world. In genuine combat it takes about 1000 rounds to hit an enemy soldier in a fire fight and 50,000 rounds to kill one. This is an average for all armies of the world. Don’t squawk about snipers because they are anonymous agents on the battlefield and as such are not subject to the same stress as a soldier that has been detected and is being fired on.

At a short range of 100 meters an average shooter can drill a man sized target with his rifle from the standing position just about 100% of the time. When you change the target to a human being that is firing back the shooters ability to hit his target is reduced to 1%. Now change that static scenario to one where both parties are taking cover moving and firing and the probability of any one shot hitting the enemy descends to 1/10 of 1 percent.

The Game

The game's primary display mode is 1024 x 768 in that resolution the longest shot you can get is from one of the upper corners diagonally to one of the lower corners of the viewing area. That is a distance of about 30 tiles or 180 world units and that translates to about 45 meters in the real world. The range of weapons and their effectiveness must conform and be compressed to fit the view screen. yes it is a compromise but one that if it were not in place would allow buggers from far off the screen to drill you and for you to be shooting at critters that you couldn’t see.

That long diagonal shot represents a range of about 50 the longest weapon range in the game. In order to make the game more real you would need to reduce the size of every thing that you see by a factor of 10, the characters and players would be little more than dots. If the marksmanship assumed real values without a corresponding change in the size of the visible battlefield your party would be under the fire of unseen assailants in open country seconds after it materialized at the spawn point.

You could call the range compression in FOT a limitation of the isometric perspective, I can live with it.

Either way, you're missing the point that perception shouldn't play such an integral role in determining a weapons maximum range.

Perhaps for precision shooting, but if you can see your target, that's not even half your problem, your statement about the amount of firepower it takes to actually hit someone lends credibility to my point that it has more to do with your ability to handle your weapon. Perception shouldn't have a lot to do with it. Unless we're speaking in absolutes. In which case. You either see your enemy or you don't. Period. Beyond spotting the enemy, it's pretty much divided between your ability to shoot and the performance capabilities of your gun... Or ok perhaps other elements which are completely unrelated to actually seeing what you're shooting at. Such as one's current psychological state. If you see someone, and they shoot at you and you scramble behind a bunch of debris, you're not going to see them at all... at which point when you attempt to look for your quarry again that's when perception counts, not when you level the gun to your shoulder. Unless of course you're half blind and walleyed. Which is apparently the equivalent of having a perception of '5' in FOT.

If you can see your target. Even if he's a shapeless blob. Your main problem is going to be adjusting for windage and understanding the trajectory the bullets are being fired out of the gun. I've fired a few rifles and it seems each of them has it's own unique idiosyncracies that you have to compensate for or get used to.

My problem isn't so much using the isometric perspective and thus limiting your maximum combat range. I'm annoyed at the fact that anyone with an average perception can't hit someone more than a few steps away, well within the viewable range of both your character and the target. Thats simply not how it should work. It makes no sense unless everyone in the post nuclear future is visually impaired.


In my opinion the difference margin between having a perception of 7 and 10 is the most difference save for handicapped people that you should encounter when it comes to combat range determined by that statistic.

Furthermore with a perception of 10 or so your max range with a long class weapon goes at least a screen and a half away, that's perfectly acceptable for any long rifle in FOT in my opinion and slightly less than that for a carbine, and a reasonable disance lower than that is pistol range.

So I guess my next logical question is: What are the most common entities used in the default FOT campaign and is there any easy way of going about switching all their perception stats between 7 or 10.

Even if he's a shapeless blob. Your main problem is going to be adjusting for windage and understanding the trajectory the bullets are being fired out of the gun.

Are you familiar with the term battelsight range? it as a sight setting where a center of mass point of aim will produce a hit on a kneeling man sized target out to a range that is determined by the rounds trajectory. For the M16 it is about 300 meters for the AK it is about 250 meters. With that FIXED sight setting the shooter need not estimate range or adjust his sights. Only when the target is beyond battle sight range does the shooter need to adjust his sights and then the term 'adjust sight range' comes into play.

I'm annoyed at the fact that anyone with an average perception can't hit someone more than a few steps away, well within the viewable range of both your character and the target. Thats simply not how it should work. It makes no sense unless everyone in the post nuclear future is visually impaired.

You are right about perception being too big a factor but you know radition can cause cateracts (MUhahhhaha!). I know what you are saying and I agree.

A case in point is 'Stitch' the medic in mission 1 he must be fucking blind he wont fire at a target more than six or seven tiles away. The truth is that if a perception of 5 = 20/200 vision the threshold for legal blindness Stitch would have been a 4F and never get into the BOS.

What I do is this I concocted a medication (entity) called Retinox5 that for ten minutes bumps his perception up to 7 where he can be a useful member of the team in a shoot out. In fact have made a number of medications for the physically impared members of the recruit pool.

Acceptable perception of say 7 should be a given, I would rather have seen a skill like 'Self Discipline' or 'cool under fire' be something that you could develop. You have made some good points and sparked an interesting discussion keep up the good work.

Well.. unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to fire any new fangled guns. Most of them are old farm rifles and I had to rely on very simple iron sights that might've been a bit bent, or the rifling had been long shot out so that it wasn't producing the sort of groups it probably used to. I'm familiar with the idea of battlesight range. However I've never seen a firsthand demonstration of it.

So my shooting experiences in every sense of the word have been more or less an exercise in Kentucky windage. Each of the guns has their own quirks and that makes it pretty hard to get a "mental zero" on where you think the round is going to go and at what range.

I'm going to try a few ideas and figure out something. Anything that will facilitate the ability to actually have a pistol shootout where cover is utilized at something a bit beyond three or two tiles away. I don't really mind being shot at from offscreen, as I'm quite used to it playing Jagged Alliance 2. It just takes a bit more observation to figure out who's pulling the trigger.

You know the best shooters it has been my pleasure to train are from farm country hands down. Having shot an old iron that has some personality or bias makes the shooter aware that bullets dont fly like a laser beam.

In any case try the Retinox5 elixer as a bandaid ill post a link if you want.

The permanent fix is giving every actor and recruit in the game a percption kick up to a level that gives the clown decent vision. I might just do that and then see how the game plays.

What really sucks is when you can walk into a pack of raiders and they can't hit you and you cant hit them..thats absurd. I think a more lethal combat zone might add some pinash to the game.

Burnov wrote: Most of them are old farm rifles and I had to rely on very simple iron sights that might've been a bit bent, or the rifling had been long shot out so that it wasn't producing the sort of groups it probably used to. I'm familiar with the idea of battlesight range. However I've never seen a firsthand demonstration of it.

Wouldn't that apply to every gun in FoT? All the weapons they use are pre-war models that have been around for centuries and, if that wouldn't damage them enough, have surived a nuclear war. The wear and tear on those things must be incredible.

IIRC most of the guns in the base game are set to short, simply editing some of the smgs and all the rifles to long, sniper rifles to scoped and the rocket/grenade launchers to only long produces a fair improvement to people's weapon skills and combat in general.

As for Retinox5, how about a simple pair of glasses? A lockpick entity with using the glasses sprite and a basic +1 to perception would make a nice quest reward. You could set up triggers so that depending on the characters perception if they would be rewarded the glasses or another item.

As for weapons that give bonuses IIRC that won't work, but what you could do is (if someone would make the sprites) have a lockpick entity with a bonus perception using a sniper scope sprite, or a spotter scope. Which would be carried in the second hand slot.

That's a good idea too.

Worst comes to worst I'll have some character entity modifying to do for a fair amount of time.

Generally I'd like to increase the scale of weapon performance overall instead of for just select individuals if possible. It'd make for some more interesting intermediate range gunfights.

Don't forget in the entity editor you can add an accuracy bonus, under each mode, which should improve the chance to hit and make for some interesting firefights.