It may be a carbine, but a rifle is a rifle and it should be able to hit things more then 5m away :confused:

Reduce the spread from 1.5 to... 0.8 or so and give it back the silencer mod.

Modeling drop is important if you're making a long-range shooting simulator, but there are a few problems with doing it in F3/F:NV:

* The ranges you're firing at really aren't that long. The default FoV is pretty wide, so things seem farther away than they actually are. You might see a few inches of drop and decent decrease in muzzle velocity on the .44 Magnum and .45-70 Gov't rounds at extreme F:NV ranges, but these aren't 1000 yard targets. And .22 LR projectiles would drop tremendously, but they don't need any help being weaker.
* With an F:NV scoped weapon, you could use the scope to compensate for drop at various ranges and still see your target. With a weapon using iron sights, you can only compensate by aiming higher/raising the muzzle, which blocks your view. I.e. you cannot adjust the rear sight as you would/should in real life.

If you want to model bullet drop because it's important to/fun for you, that's cool. Balance-wise, I think slowing the lever-guns' RoF and doubling or tripling their spread (into the 0.05 to 0.09 range) removes their reliable sharpshooting capabilities at long ranges but allows them to still be effective combat weapons.

That is pretty much the conclusion of the US Army & Marine Corps isn't it?

.44 Mag fired from a 20" barrel has a drop at 500yds (zeroed to 200, it would be even worse zeroed to 100) in the 20 foot range. At 300 it's 3 feet and at 400 it's clost to 10 feet. .357 performs a little better due to it's higher ballistic coeffecient and smaller size. Wind drift numbers are similar in that they are greatly worse than high performance rounds and MOA shot concentration is also poor at these ranges. They do yaw less than high velocity rounds, and therefore have less yaw induced movement, but the poor general ballistic performance make that moot.

I currently have the Cowboy Repeater at .3822 spread, the Trail Carbine at .415 and the Brush Gun at .265. All are better than the .5 spread you gave This Machine (which I assume you did for balancing purposes). I used This Machine at a lot of targets from mid to long range and felt pretty comfortable with the hit percentage I was getting (looking as if it was a .44 or .357 round instead of .308), considering that spread was the only means I have yet to model to respresent individual rounds' external ballistics capabilities. If This Machine performed reasonably well at .5, and the cowboy guns come in slightly better, indications so far are that a spread in that range does an acceptable job of imitating real world performance, where the bullet drop and poor balistic performance of the pistol rounds greatly impacts accuracy after 200 yards. Not being any great GECK wizard, this is the only means I have at my disposal to model this ballistic reality. I still get hits at max draw distance, just at a lower rate. I have not extensively tested in VATS yet (I rarely use VATS, but understand that if I release a mod, others will) so I might run into the problems you describe.

I would really like to know 2 things that would help me tremdously. If anyone can help me, it would be appreciated:

1. What are the real life units that correspond to the range measurement units in the GECK. The .45-70's max range is 19000, but 19000 what's?
2. What console command does one use to find the range to a target? I realize that the ranges are much shorter than it seems in the game and really wish to do as accurate job as I can when attempting to adjust these weapons' performance.

For those interested This Machine now has a spread of .0296, which quite frankly feels right. Every year I get the chance to put a coupla thousand rounds through a wide variety of surplus military rifles and few come close to the consistent accuracy of the M1s I shoot (my Mauser comes pretty close, though) The M1 Garand is one of the surest shooting military grade rifles I've ever fired. Not quite scoped sniper quality spread, but sighting with iron sights at long ranges balances it's effectiveness at those ranges. Error probable on shot will be with based on sight quality, not the round's ballistic performance.

And to round this back a little to the Assualt Carbine, I have it's spread at 1.614. The round I used to model this is a very high velocity round (considering that the 5mm takes 5 units of powder vs. the 5.56mm's 4 units) and has great ballistics, but I've modeled in a "full auto" modifier to the spread to account for there being no progressive recoil. Firing in controlled bursts of 3-5 rounds, I'm getting the correct percontage of hits I would expect as if I was fighting muzzle climb. They just don't always come on the first 2-3 round in a burst, ala real life.

One more thing: I put some DT bypass back into the high velocity rounds. I saw that at some point you had some in (leftover ammo effects in the GECK not used in the final versio of the game). I wonder why you left them out, but left in DT bypass for the JFP & SWC rounds, which have a much poorer armor penetration?

-Gunny out.

Quoted for righteousness.

If we really want to get technical the M4 Carbine (it's not an M4 I know, I know...) has an effective range of 500m+... couple with the 5mm round probably being more aerodynamic, it just doesn't make sense.

Now of course we have the fact that Fallout's combat is mostly close range and consists of strafe, shoot, repeat, but jeez....

1. 128 units = 6 feet. An exterior cell is 4096 units = 192 feet = 64 yards. For a sense of scale, it's about three tiles (192 yards/175 meters) from Sniper's Nest (where you find the Gobi) to where Aurelius of Phoenix stands on top of his little house in Cottonwood Cove.
2. I don't know off the top of my head, but if you want to try some short/mid range stuff, you can coc into testjoshweapons. I put rulers on the ground for distance testing. You can also modify that level pretty easily to extend the ranges.

What's the difference if the game won't draw them until you're within 100 yards?

BTW, for people doing general weapon modding, a good "proving ground" is to coc to newvegassteel. The area is full of Fiends at a variety of ranges and they're all dressed in similar light armor. The outdoors areas are good for testing long and super-long range weapons, the area around Vault 3 is good for mid-range and long-range weapons, and Vault 3 itself is good for close- and mid-range weapons.

GhostDigga21: Draw distance of creatures is based on current FoV (assuming they are loaded). That's why a lot of creatures that are loaded don't render until you aim.

When I started putting DT bypass onto the base ammo types like 5.56mm and .308, doubling it on the AP versions and removing it on the HP versions, people were confused/made frowny faces. My solution was to make AP versions available only to "proper" rifle rounds and 5mm. JFP and SWC are hand loads (unlocked by a perk), and therefore, *~ just better ~*. I could have made all of the hand loads really awesome FMJ that were just called "hand load", but that seemed boring.

Obviously, anyone making their own mod can be as crazy and specific/realistic as they'd like.

Hm, okay... so if I zoom in from the Sniper's Nest I can hit the Aurelius of Phoenix from there? Because whenever I tried the whole Cove basically isn't there, as I get closer some of the buildings pop in, but it puts a damper on the sniper character builds (not just in that situation either).

No, you probably can't see Aurelius. There are maximum render distances in the engine because if you were to zoom in on things three or more tiles away, all you would see would be level of detail (LOD) models that are extremely low-res. There are also very practical gameplay reasons for limiting ultra-long-range sniping distances: it becomes the game of Sniper: The Living God. You don't really need any Sneak. Just pick a spot, crouch, and murder everyone. Keeping the practical sniping distance within two tiles means that enemies have a chance of figuring out where you are and engaging you in combat. As it is, it's not particularly difficult to circle Cottonwood Cove and rain down death on every Legionary in there.

Adding external ballistics to the game is probably futile, as said above with the range from the Sniper's Nest to Aurelius of Phoenix. Even .44 Magnum from a rifle only drops about 12-14 inches with a 100 yard zero at 200 yards. Past 200 yards and it's dropping a lot more, but considering one of the farthest shots in the game is "only" 192 yards, you can see why it's not that important.

You really need 300 yards to see the advantage .223/308 has over .357/.44, then 600 yards to see the advantage .308 has over .223.

Josh, thanks for the insight and info. I think I'll be spending a little bit of time in 2 new playgrounds. And no, you can't see Aurelius. Boone must have a longer draw distance than I do. :hubbahubba:


Unfortunately, this is just about on the mark. At ranges of less than 200 yrds, even our previously "super long impressive sniper shots" were kid's play. Since I have all the info on a spreadsheet, I will see what I can do with the weapons with numbers at 200 yards instead of 500. Bullet drop is *not* the only factor I used in my spread calculations, but it was one of the few major factors. Off to the garage with a cigar and some beer. Firing up the laptop as we speak........ :brokencomputer:

-Gunny going to be very busy changing a whole buncha crap.

I wish this gun didn't blow, because it gives me that 'soldier' feel. If it didn't svck so bad I wouldn't not use it.

The problem with the lever-actions is how damn fast you work the thing. A pump-action or bolt-action weapon takes a second to cycle rounds, bu the lever action takes maybe 1/4 of a second.

Make lever-action guns shoot 35-40% slower, maybe make the DAM multipliers for Cowboy a little lower. There, balance. Either that, or make new weapons not svck. The LMG/12.7mm can't hit a barn door 10 feet in front of it!

Ehh, the game can already become Sniper: The Living God. With max render you can easily run around and spot something and then crouch and sneak attack. Yhea sneak attack head shots 800% damage. All with a perception of 1 and a sneak of 10. I think you could dramatically increase the difficulty and FUN by making sneak sniping more difficult. Forget minor tweaks on weapons, fix the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

But anyways, I think it is cool that you are posting here. Always nice to hear from the devs!

I removed the damage multiplier for sneak attack (but left in the instant crit) and I agree, it is much more fun. I'm having to play much more tactically now, and make absolutely certain I can hit the head so I can at least get that multiplier. Try it, if you can. Just making a "2" into a "1" makes this almost a completely different combat experience.

-Gunny out.

Thanks Josh for the 2 shooting range

.46ACP,

Yep....

Granted, 100 yards with open sights, unsupported (this being the big thing), is a little challenging to begin with, and it takes a decent amount of practice to hit most of the time in the kill zone. Your basic post front sight is often bigger than a torso at 100 yards after all. After 300 yards, it starts to get quite hard with basic service/hunting rifles unsupported. I note that I often miss more than hit in Vegas with pretty much all of the early open sighted rifles at 100 or so yards, which is pretty good for a character with a low Small Guns skill; shots on Powder Gangers at their little camps near Goodsprings Source.

With most engagements in Vegas taking place at no more than 100-150 yards (I pegged the shot on "feather head" from in front of the Sniper's Nest at about 300 yards; 200 fits), this will again, hide the advantages of small/medium bore, spitzer, high velocity projectiles.

Hence, the "cowboy guns" aren't going to be at a disadvantage compared to bolt guns and automatics (magazine size being a massive boon for the latter). .223, .357, .308 and .44 Mag all have similar terminal performance on humans when you get right down to it within their effective ranges, and the combat in Vegas is within that range for all of them.

Actually, semi/automatic weapons in NV have rather small (yet realistic) clip.

"100 yards hide advantage of high velocity rounds"?
If anything, Magnum's few inches drop within a 100yard instead of few mm of the high velocity round indicated they should have a huge gap in spread.

".223, .357, .308 and .44 Mag all have similar terminal performance on human"?
Even .223 and .308 have vastly different effect on human; no to mention Gunny is working with big game performance to model how weapon tackle Super Mutants and DeathClaws alike.

Some of us *like* it the way it is. I think it is QUITE FUN already - making it *more* difficult would make it LESS fun.

The Sniper Rifle has been nerfed enough.

That 800 pound gorilla is my friend. I named him Bruce. We get along famously.

After adjusting for 200 yards for spread, there was about the same proportional gulf between HV rounds and the pistol rounds. The HV rounds were roughly 4-5 times more accuate than the pistol rounds. The absolute numbers just get smaller. So the question is, since my efforts are to place the weapons in their relative order and position using RL numbers, then just what in game numbers should those RL numbers represent. I had originally though that rifle spreads of .02-.5 would be acceptable, but have rethunk my position and all rifles/carbines will be tested with spread of .02-.15, pistols feel good in the .2-1.0 range with automatic weapons and shotties living above 1.0. Josh's test cell has already been helpfull for checking pistol, smg and shotgun performance, now I just need to find a way ( or some very nice modder) to make it 6 times longer to test rifles.

As far as damages go, I've been pretty good with where I've had them. I had to fix a screwup on the shotguns, but I figured it out and will be testing them today. The only real question left on damage is whether to keep the .50 above 300 DAM. The ONLY way the damage formulas work is for the BB gun to be at 4 and the .50 to be at about 338. Again, the way the weapons rank against each other is simple mathematics, but choosing the range of damage it should represent in the game is the touchy-feely part.

Edit: The revelation that max engagement ranges are less than 200 yrds didn't effect my damage. I had long ago decided to use muzzle numbers for damage since I knew tha game couldn't/didn't model velocity drop at range. I figured a flat number would be the easiest, and it actually favored the pistol rounds quite a bit. If I used energy/TKO numbers at 200 yards, the damage would look alot different.
-Gunny out.

I agree. I did the same thing in my game. Sneak attacks are still strong but not overpowered crazy. Fallout 3 was the same way, crazy powerful.




A sneak attack critical with a sniper rifle to the head using JSP ammo would do: (Base 40 + Crit 40) * 2 (Head Shot) * 2 (Sneak Attack) * 1.5 (JSP Round). That comes out to 480 damage on a single shot. Take better criticals at it comes to 600. In assault carbine would need to hit with 32 shots to match 480 and 40 shots to match 600. Even the mighty Brush gun would need to hit someone 8 times in the chest to match that one sneak attack! Or you would need 4 missiles or 4 Mini Nukes or 9 shots from a hunting shotgun. Before the nerf the Sniper Rifle with Better Crits was doing 900 on a sneak attack head shot. So please, spare me with the Sniper Rifle was nerfed too hard.

If that was not bad enough, there is a huge range between when the targets appears on the screen and they have ANY chance to detect you. Go spot a monster at range and then start moving towards them. Then go into sneak. Notice they never spot you? Now stand up and keep moving towards them. You can generally move almost half way to a critter before they notice you and start attacking. Even with a sneak score of 10. That is a massive range for the player to get easy mega damage attacks.

Even worse, if you are using a silenced sniper rifle half of your victims buddies just stand around allowing you to slaughter them.

So you may LIKE sneak attacking, but it is beyond the easiest way to play the game. Probably easier then opening the console and typing 'kill'. It is basically the player "I win button". Dropping sneak attacks to regular crit and improving detection would go a long way to making this a more challenging and fun game. Unless you don't like a challenge.

the gun isnt all that bad its better than the service rifle and has a high rate of fire.

You forgot TGM.

As for making Josh's range six times larger......post that on modding section and I think someone would do it because it is very helpful for lots of things.

The Service Rifle can be found on NCR bozos with 50 HP . The Assault Carbine is valued as 50 caps more expensive than the Trail Carbine, a gun that elite Rangers use to guard the President of their country. The Assault carbine is either misplaced in the weapon tier or is underpowered for it's current weapon tier.