Bullet Drop

[Doc. Caliban]

I'm trying to work out how to get bullet-drop into the game.

It works fine if I use a .prj, but then I have to have it detonate to kill anyone.

Is there a way to get it to work without detonation?

or

Is there a way to get rid of the 'shaking' from the detonation when you're close to the target?

I'm happy with the .prj method for long shots, but then close up shooting sucks.

Thanks,

-Doc

[Doc. Caliban]

I suppose it's no surprise that I've missed the boat on GR1 information. The game has been out for, what, 30 years now?

Still, there is a lot of good info to mine in the forums.

Edited August 21, 2008 by Caliban

[Sup]

GR, while user-friendly for a lot of things, is actually not a very moddable game. Aside from external, configurable statistics -- weapon stats, and the like -- it's pretty much either hardcoded or just locked out of modders' reach.

[Rocky]

GR, while user-friendly for a lot of things, is actually not a very moddable game. Aside from external, configurable statistics -- weapon stats, and the like -- it's pretty much either hardcoded or just locked out of modders' reach.

Huh? IGOR anyone? Boasting over 700 mods, I'd say it's fairly moddable LOL.

Bullet drop is unfortunately outwith modding abilities though

[Sup]

GR, while user-friendly for a lot of things, is actually not a very moddable game. Aside from external, configurable statistics -- weapon stats, and the like -- it's pretty much either hardcoded or just locked out of modders' reach.

Huh? IGOR anyone? Boasting over 700 mods, I'd say it's fairly moddable LOL.

I think this is a misunderstanding in terminology. Igor is a good toolset, that has allowed a lot of enjoyable mods to be made pretty easily. However, it allows only very shallow modding of the game. When i say a game is very moddable, i don't mean it's easy to make new content for -- i mean it can be changed very dramatically. As i said, GR is user friendly. But i haven't seen any mods that seriously altered the gameplay. It's always a first person tactical shooter sharing GR's main gameplay characteristics. With some creativity in the limited scripting system modders have created some pretty impressive stuff, but the fact remains that most of GR's gameplay is locked out of the reach of modders. We can only change stats and scripts.

Basically (and this is an oversimplification, but) game modding goes in shallowness-depth from...

1.Assets, (art and sound)

->

2.scripts, and external stats, (where most GR modding takes place)

->

3.Gameplay code, (the laws of how the 'world' works, and what can be changed in scripts)

->

4. engine code, (the gears that turn under all of this. The basic mechanical structure all of the gameplay/more nuanced rendering code sits on top of)

With Ghost Recon, we're locked out of all but 1 and 2. This means we cannot change the actual game very dramatically at all.

Most moddable games reach into that third level, and open up some of their gameplay code. I'm sure you've heard of Half Life mods that wildly change the product -- there are HL2 mods that emulate RPGs, RTS games, and Adventure games. This requires radical alterations to the gameplay code, more than just different scripting of stats and missions. And, sadly, it isn't doable in Ghost Recon. Open source games, by releasing their entire code, can be changed or cannibalized into just about anything. This is the level game developers work at when they license an engine.

Splinter Cell doesn't have much in common with unreal tournament 2, does it? Just some of the basic engine code.

Maybe we'll get sourcecode or something, someday. If UBI ever chills out about that stuff.

[Rocky]

GR, while user-friendly for a lot of things, is actually not a very moddable game. Aside from external, configurable statistics -- weapon stats, and the like -- it's pretty much either hardcoded or just locked out of modders' reach.

Huh? IGOR anyone? Boasting over 700 mods, I'd say it's fairly moddable LOL.

I think this is a misunderstanding in terminology.

Not really, you just made a bold statement saying that GR was not very moddable, and then tried to justify that by changing the goal posts completely by coming up with an alternative definition for moddable.

In GR we have new missions, new weapons, new maps, new gametypes, new skins etc etc, plus we have a custom official tool for modding and the game has built in mod support, something many of todays games do not even have. GR is very moddable.

Now, if this thread had been posted in the GRAW forum, then you would have had a point.

Anyway, we are drifting off the OPs point, if you want to debate further whether or not GR is moddable gane or not feel free to start a new topic.

[Sup]

As i clarified to rocky in PMs, i didn't mean 'not very moddable' as a criticism at all, I was just using the term as i'm used to in my normal company without really taking into account that not everyone looks at it the same way.

I was only referring to the limited scope of the alterations we can make to GR -- scripts and art, for the most part, no code. In many ways this has been a blessing more than a curse, it's fostered a kind of focused, collaborative modding community that you don't see very often, but it comes with a few nagging frustrations.

Mainly bullet drop and reload time.

[Doc. Caliban]

GR, while user-friendly for a lot of things, is actually not a very moddable game. Aside from external, configurable statistics -- weapon stats, and the like -- it's pretty much either hardcoded or just locked out of modders' reach.

Absolutely. There are a lot of little things in the game that we just live with.

Many times, however, there are solutions via the xml files for what we want to do, so it's always worth asking.

[Doc. Caliban]

Bullet drop is unfortunately out with modding abilities though

Ah, but it's not!

There are a few weapon mods that have rifles using weapon type 4 and .prj files. From what I've seen, the desired result was to have a bigger effect on the target such as blowing a door out, throwing a man, taking out a vehicle, etc.

What I decided to do was apply the same idea to any sniper weapon that I use for the sole purpose of getting a true bullet-drop and a flight time for the projectile so that moving targets are not just point-and-click simple.

So far it's been great!

My original post was just questioning if the 'shake' of a detonating projectile is hard coded, and if so, if there is any sneaky way to get around it. Because of the shake, it's not practice to apply the same modification to anything other than long-range use weapons. If I had it my way, I'd mod all of my weapons to use .prj files with 'real life' velocities and trajectories.

If anyone is interested in talking about the specifics of my intended application, that would be great. I have questions about a few things, like textures for instance, that apply to this issue, and I know that there are a lot of people here with that kind of experience.

-Doc

Edited August 24, 2008 by Caliban

[thales100]

Bullet drop is unfortunately out with modding abilities though

Ah, but it's not!

What can be done (and ive included in some mods like Sniper Cannon, Sniper Cannon 2 and the NTW20 in Sniper Team) is to make a grenade launcher with an invisible grenade and using a rifle or whatever model.

In fact the projectile will drop, but the"shake" effect is hardcoded. Thats why ive always prefered to use it with sniper rifles.

I released a mod sometime ago called "LW15.499 Assault Rifle" including this feature to an assault rifle, but this "shake" effect makes all weird in game.

This also brings some limits, like you wont have scope masks as a "sniper rifle" coded as a grenade launcher.

Also itll be a "one shot one kill" weapon, wherever it hits the enemy.

One more thing : dont forget that GR maps are generally limited to 400m x 400m, so youll have a range limit of 300 meters +/- to shoot, cant add much drop effect in such limited distance, like a LR shot using a .50 in r/l.

Edited August 24, 2008 by thales100

[Doc. Caliban]

What can be done (and ive included in some mods like Sniper Cannon, Sniper Cannon 2 and the NTW20 in Sniper Team) is to make a grenade launcher with an invisible grenade and using a rifle or whatever model. <snip>

Precisely.

This is what I'm doing, though I have some questions about the limitation of the values in the .prj file and the physics of the game.

I have the initial velocity set to a value that is in line with a 7.62x51mm cartridge out of a 20" barrel and I've set the weight of the projectile to the actual weight of the bullet. I've tried to affect the trajectory by changing the bullet weight and air resistance but have not had any noticeable results. I want to leave the velocity alone so that a somewhat realistic flight time is maintained.

I want to massage the numbers until I'm getting a trajectory as close as possible to the real thing: ~-25"@400m, ~-52"@500m, etc. (assuming a zero of 200m) Being able to do this assumes certain things about the accuracy of the game physics, but as long as they are constant, if not accurate, I should still be able to get some trajectory changes made.

What I'm running into it that at the given velocity, I don't get any changes by making changes to the other two factors. Are they in there but moot? There are other examples of such unused data in configuration files so it's not impossible that the trajectory is set based on the initial velocity only.

Does anyone know if all of the factors (velocity/weight/air resistance) are actually factored by the game engine?

Does anyone know what the acceptable data ranges are for these entries?

[Doc. Caliban]

One more thing : dont forget that GR maps are generally limited to 400m x 400m, so youll have a range limit of 300 meters +/- to shoot, cant add much drop effect in such limited distance, like a LR shot using a .50 in r/l.

I've been taking the fog out of some missions and increasing the draw range to 2,000m since the true need of the fog and clipping distances were due to the graphics cards that were available when the game launched. Granted, some missions need the fog for realistic weather effects, but otherwise it's reasonable to expect truly clear days. I've had several 500m-800m+ shots in these cases.

All of our co-op missions are played with a 2-man team so the .50 caliber weapons are rarely used as a semi-auto 7.62x51 adds less weight and a bit more versatility. Because of that, my ballistic goals are placed on that caliber. A 200m zero has you around 2" high @ 100m, 9" low @ 300m, 26" low @ 400m, and 52" low @ 500m. That's a good range to have to consider, especially if your target is presenting a small target area such as being prone or partially behind cover.

The real fun is when they start moving @400m+ and you have to consider hold-over AND lead distance. Good stuff!

I still love this game.

EDIT: On the maps that I've removed the fog from, I increase the spotting distance as well so you can't just run willy-nilly around in the open and expect no one to see and come after you.

Edited August 24, 2008 by Caliban

[thales100]

One more thing : dont forget that GR maps are generally limited to 400m x 400m, so youll have a range limit of 300 meters +/- to shoot, cant add much drop effect in such limited distance, like a LR shot using a .50 in r/l.

I've been taking the fog out of some missions and increasing the draw range to 2,000m since the true need of the fog and clipping distances were due to the graphics cards that were available when the game launched. Granted, some missions need the fog for realistic weather effects, but otherwise it's reasonable to expect truly clear days. I've had several 500m-800m+ shots in these cases.

Can you tell wich maps you are having 500 - 800 meters to shoot playing GR ?

You can edit the draw distance to "2000m" but maps will still have a limit of 400 x 400 meters due to CM limit. Some custom maps are bigger, like CMC map and some maps from Centcom mod if i can remember, but you certainly wont have all this distance to shoot.

Edited August 24, 2008 by thales100

[Doc. Caliban]

Can you tell wich maps you are having 500 - 800 meters to shoot playing GR ?

You can edit the draw distance to "2000m" but maps will still have a limit of 400 x 400 meters due to CM limit. Some custom maps are bigger, like CMC map and some maps from Centcom mod if i can remember, but you certainly wont have all this distance to shoot.

I just started messing around with this last week, but I know that I've got some missions on Riverbed and the Airbase where the insertion zone is outside of the little 'game zone' of the map so that I can set up my partner as a sniper well outside of and above the action to provide cover for me while I go in to do the work. Those two maps at least have shots well over 500m, and if you place patrols out on the other end, you can get right out to a kilometer. That's fun for testing the trajectories of the weapons, but just being able to start a mission on high ground for sniper placement is nice. It's one way of getting around the game limitation of being a supposed special forces operator who can't cut through or climb a fence. )

[thales100]

Can you tell wich maps you are having 500 - 800 meters to shoot playing GR ?

You can edit the draw distance to "2000m" but maps will still have a limit of 400 x 400 meters due to CM limit. Some custom maps are bigger, like CMC map and some maps from Centcom mod if i can remember, but you certainly wont have all this distance to shoot.

I just started messing around with this last week, but I know that I've got some missions on Riverbed and the Airbase where the insertion zone is outside of the little 'game zone' of the map so that I can set up my partner as a sniper well outside of and above the action to provide cover for me while I go in to do the work. Those two maps at least have shots well over 500m, and if you place patrols out on the other end, you can get right out to a kilometer.

Sry but youre wrong, this is impossible, you are having at max 250 - 320 meters of effective spot range probably, how are you measuring it ? These maps have the 400m limit.

Edited August 24, 2008 by thales100

[Doc. Caliban]

this is impossible, you are having at max 250 - 300 meters of effective spot range probably, how are you measuring it ? These maps have the 400m limit, and this from one extremity to the other.

I only base this on what the range finder in the binoculars says.

On the air base map if I put a man on the highest peak of the mountain to the west of the control tower, the downhill shot to the nearest fence alone is 250m. The control tower windows, if I remember right, are in the 400m range, the far fence on the east side of the base is 600m, and I'd guess the far side of the map must be close to 750m+. And that's not doing any diaganol shots across the map.

If I put a man in the far southwest corner of the map (there's a small hill there), I can place a patrol on the far end of the east-most runway and that comes in at 900m+.

Since I'm lazy, will that description suffice as opposed to a screen shot?

On the riverbed map, I have an insertion zone on the upper edge of the eastern most ridge and I've set up patrols as targets on the opposite side of the map. I get 500m+ shots there.

[thales100]

Sure, please that would be cool, add a screenshot of you playing as the sniper, at the spot position you found, then with the binoculars get the target. The distance shown by the binoculars will be the real effective spot distance.

[Doc. Caliban]

Sure, please that would be cool, add a screenshot of you playing as the sniper, at the spot position you found, then with the binoculars get the target. The distance shown by the binoculars will be the real effective spot distance.

If the binos are accurate, then the ranges I've been quoting are spot on.

Give me a few minutes and I'll put something together.

[Doc. Caliban]

OK, here we go. Do you have a hat? If so, hold onto it.

Note: Most of the screen shots are cropped because I play @ 1920x1200. All of them are compressed a bit, so there will be some artifacting.

The original reason I looked into doing this was to test the trajectories at long ranges. Then I realized that one of the annoying limitations of the game is that you have to work inside a small area of the map: No ridges, can't get outside of fences, etc. How many times have you had this conversation in a co-op mission:

"OK, you get into position on that ridge to the west.... what? What do you mean, you 'can't'? You're the sniper, we're not pressed for time, hump up there and get into position! What? What the hell are you talking about, you can't get your ass up that slight rise because it's too steep? Or there's a fence that you can't possibly negotiate? Or there's AN INVISIBLE LINE that you can't cross? "

Simply using Igor to move the insertion zone outside of the 'normal' part of the map makes sense in some cases.

The mission can also be modified so that additional responding units come from off of the map if things start going south... if you make enough trouble, you can bet someone will show up. While I'm down on the map doing the dirty work, my sniper keeps these people off of my back. Even a slick coming in and dropping off a team can be dealt with by the sniper before they can head into whatever building I'm causing trouble in. This is all especially fun when the guy playing your sniper doesn't know that you've 'Igored' these additional units into the mission.

Now, imagine having an M82 (M110 now?) equipped with an Ops Inc. MBS and having this view:

You are going to be a serious pain in the opposition's collective ass.

Now let's look at the ranges.

How about those guys in the control tower? An easy shot @ just under 500m:

Or that guy on the far side of the compound? Remember to compensate a tad for the downhill shot @ 600m:

Yawn! You could make these shots in your sleep. Hey, what is that ###### doing way out there? Now this is more like it:

Add some patrols to the tops of the ridges on the riverbed map and increase the spotting distance to 150m-200m for an extra challenge. Now insert your team onto a ridge that allows you to get down onto the map once the sniper is in place on high ground:

These are just dummy targets, but imagine them prone and laying down suppression fire on your team down below. Yes, you are a problem solver:

As you can see, I've been getting a lot out of my sniper rifles with the bullet drop and flight time. Moving targets are hard to hit now at long ranges. Sniping it entirely different than it used to be.

The idea of removing fog and increasing draw distances can be abused and used as a 'cheat', but done with the intention of making situations more realistic and making up for it by increasing the enemy's ability to spot you at longer ranges and adding units that respond from 'off of the map' balances thing out. Apply it appropriately and you can add a lot of interesting aspects to 'old' missions.

My buddy and I play 2-man co-op almost exclusively. The ability to place an asset where you would do so in real life makes a big difference when you only have a couple of guys in the first place. Coincidentally, the guy I play with is ex-Danish Special Forces and was deployed in Bosnia as a sniper.

On a related topic:

I use weapons from several different mods rolled into one custom one that we use privately. I have the HK21E from the Navy Seals mod, and an M82 that I can't remember where I picked it up from. The model name is 'el_m82.qob' if anyone can help me ID that. I would LOVE to have versions of both of these with suppressors. Ops Inc makes them for both calibers, and because of the unique design of their cans, their effectiveness does not degrade at all due to heat. There was a test with the HK21e "firing 1400 rounds in 15 minutes with no degradation in performance". THAT is a nice special ops weapon. Anyway, we would LOVE to have those models if anyone can set us up.

EDIT: A bonus would be the 21e with the suppressor and an Elcan or ACOG on it.

I think I'm off for the night, but I'll check back tomorrow.

Thanks all,

-Doc

Edited August 24, 2008 by Caliban

[Doc. Caliban]

3.Gameplay code, (the laws of how the 'world' works, and what can be changed in scripts)

Playing as a 2-man team, we use suppressed weapons almost exclusively. The thing that drives me nuts is that you can shoot a guy from 200m away with a suppressed weapon and his buddies will know exactly which patch of brush to return fire at. That's BS! No muzzle flash, no muzzle report that they can hear, no tracer, and you can't pinpoint crap by the supersonic crack.

EDIT: My buddy has told me that this is exactly why the only really effective weapon against a sniper at any long distance is a .50 BMG, preferably mounted in a Jeep. Raking the hills in the suspected area that the sniper is located is the best bet for taking him out short of mortars, artillery, or air support. That, or teams with dogs.

That's probably my biggest gameplay gripe.

Edited August 24, 2008 by Caliban

[Doc. Caliban]

I'm pretty happy with this.

The longest shot I can manage to create is 1073m with a target at the NW corner of the western runway, and an insertion near the SE corner of the airbase map.

The holdover for a 1km shot with 7.62x51 comes out to ~435" in the game, and in real life with the Lupa D46 round it's -382" @ 900m and -507" @ 1000m. That means that the game shot @ 1000m is coming in around a 950m shot worth of hold over. I can fine tune it by adjusting the initial velocity a bit.

My 7.62x51 sniper rifles are now pretty close to the same trajectory as the real thing.

-Doc

Edited August 25, 2008 by Caliban

[Sup]

3.Gameplay code, (the laws of how the 'world' works, and what can be changed in scripts)

Playing as a 2-man team, we use suppressed weapons almost exclusively. The thing that drives me nuts is that you can shoot a guy from 200m away with a suppressed weapon and his buddies will know exactly which patch of brush to return fire at. That's BS! No muzzle flash, no muzzle report that they can hear, no tracer, and you can't pinpoint crap by the supersonic crack.

I'm pretty sure that's a hardcoded part of the 'Group' AI.

Split each soldier into seperate groups (or whatever they're called in IGOR) and they won't do that, will they? I haven't messed with igor for ages so i don't know.

I guess if you want to be really elaborate you could possibly script in a solution, adding/removing guys from groups with scripts on unit death? But it would still be hard-scripted and awkward, if what i just said is even possible.

Also, maps can be any size you want. Or else the size limit is ridiculously high, like 3000x3000. The issue is the Command Map -- it's locked to a fixed size at waytoosmall. Chems had a mod in the works years ago with a huge map that was for Co-op only, and just took the command map out entirely (easy to do by masking it off in the UI graphics). That's definitely a less than ideal situation.

[Doc. Caliban]

This is the projectile file that I am using for the 7.62x51mm rifles. It's based roughly on a 20" barrel.

The bulk of the data is based on Thales' excellent LW15 499 rifle mod, including the projectile model itself.

I don't fully understand all of the contents, so I've made a few comments in the code:

<ProjectileFile>

<VersionNumber>2.1</VersionNumber>

<Type>0</Type>

<NameToken/>

<ModelFileName>mini50_prj.qob</ModelFileName> (Thanks, Thales!)

<Weight>0.01134</Weight> (175 grains converted to kilos)

<AirResistanceConstant>0.25</AirResistanceConstant>

<DetonateOnImpact>1</DetonateOnImpact>

<DelayTime>5</DelayTime>

<InitialVelocity>860</InitialVelocity> (Just a scooch higher than the true muzzle velocity.)

<ExplosionDataVersion>1</ExplosionDataVersion>

<VisualExplosionType>0</VisualExplosionType>

<IsDirectional>FALSE</IsDirectional>

<DamageThroughWalls>0</DamageThroughWalls> (I have this set to 0 because...)

<BlastRadius>0.00000000</BlastRadius> (... this is set to zero. I don't want anything but an actual hit to do any damage.)

<CombatCoefficient> (This stuff has to do with the explosion itself, and I've tried to minimize it as much as possible, but I don't understand the math behind it well enough to be sure what to do other than zeroing out the first entry. In real life this round is not going to do anything other than poke a .30 caliber hole in a door, so I don't want the 'explosion' to do any damage other than killing the target if possible. Feedback?)

<CombatCoefficientIndex>0</CombatCoefficientIndex>

<CombatCoefficientV0>860</CombatCoefficientV0>

<CombatCoefficientV1>-0.9</CombatCoefficientV1>

<CombatCoefficientV2>-0.001134</CombatCoefficientV2>

<CombatCoefficientK1>0.971</CombatCoefficientK1>

<CombatCoefficientK2>0.004</CombatCoefficientK2>

</CombatCoefficient>

</ProjectileFile>

A great way to get a feel for the trajectory is to practice with this line instead of the one above:

<ModelFileName>oicw_round.qob</ModelFileName>

That way you can see the projectile and get a view of the drop.

Again, not a shred of this is original thought on my part other than trying to find a realistic drop for a rifle. All of the groundwork had already been laid out by others, all of whom to which I owe a big Thank You.

-Doc

[Doc. Caliban]

I've been playing a lot of different games, and they all make me appreciate this mod all the more.

Sniper rifles in every game I've come across are point-and-click, zero flight-time, perfectly-flat trajectory. That's total crap.

The bullet-drop mods in this thread make shooting past 300m a real ###### if you don't know how to shoot for real, ESPECIALLY with moving targets. The only thing missing are atmospheric effects, but this is still pretty damn close to full realism as far as trying to hit targets at distance with a real rifle.

It's a chunk of lead arcing through the air at a finite speed, not a laser beam.

-Doc

EDIT: I limit the effective range of the 5.56mm and 7.62x51mm rifles to 200m and 300m respectively and have a max of 3x optics to provide a real need for sniper rifles if you want to reach out. Otherwise you have to rely more on stealth and tactics. My way of balancing things out with removing the fog.

[Dcopymope]

So, are there any Total Conversion or Unofficial Expansion Pack mods that have any bullet drop in them at all? Does the 'Heroes Unleashed' or 'CENTCOM' mods have bullet drop?