I guess it’s time to make some difference in the firearms system of Cata.
First of all - balancing. For now, firearms are ultimate weapons (with enough ammo) - you can run, kite, and even if you get cornered - you can spray and pray 20-30 rounds in one turn. You know, in the real life you got to take aim before shooting - even inexperienced shooter can make a good shot if he got enough time to prepare it. But even master of IPSC cannot make sure headshots running around and spraying lead. So i guess, that you have to get bonuses to accuracy based on how much you standed in one place.
Why? Because for now, even if you got a good skill, you cannot shoot for more than 20 tiles. I tryed sniping turrets from 25 tiles with scoped M4 and 4-3 marksmanship-rifle skill. More than a half of my 5.56 mag went anywhere, but not to turrets.
Let’s say, there will be ‘quick aim’ (1 turn spent with ‘.’, 150% accuracy), ‘good aim’ (3 turns spent with ‘.’, 220% accuracy), ‘excellent aim’ (6 turns spent, 300% accuracy). Otherwise it will be counted as shooting on the move.
Some weapons got to be faster, some weapons got to be slower. Rifle-scoped rifle onliviously will be slower to aim that one with red dot, for example, or some light pistol.
Balancing weapon damage would be very complicated, but would you really believe, that human body can stand a sure hit with .50BMG? When i finally shot zombie after 5 misses on distantion of 4 tiles, what I got? 73 damage. Zombie is nearly dead and keeps moving. I guess, that some damage should be devastating, some - nerfed (5.56).
Also, weapon turrets suck. Really. They should have no recoil at all, cause it’s not funny when 2 zombies survive 150 rounds of .50 fired from the vehicle. From 5 tiles.
Burst mode on weapons. Why I can’t choose, how many rounds will I fire? Unskilled in firearms should experience big difference between planned amount and reality, but skilled gunfighter should be able to conrol his burst’s lengh.
Weapon clips and mags. They were planned, but where they are? Shotguns and revolvers would become much more valuable.
Rifle belt. Cause sometimes you don’t need a backpack to carry your rifle. We got holsters, why not belts?
Kevingranade is actually working on finishing up an aiming PR for firearms, which should make aiming with them actually take time and whatnot, as well as some other large balances such as accuracy.
There is recoil. if you hope to hit something, you need to make pauses between shooting, that IMO accounts for ‘aiming’ in between shots. It might make sense to add recoil after movement too.
Edit:
Oh man… check this one, I believe it is what i2amroy is referring to https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/2194