Mixed Ammo Mags?

[PlasmaChroma]

If this has already been discussed I’m sorry, I don’t know the history behind the debate on adding ammo magazines to the game.

Has there been any thoughts on adding mixed ammo capability to magazines? Meaning I can load up a few reloads into a mag and then stack on factory rounds on top of them?

I’m finding it a bit annoying at the start of the game when I have a mixture of loose ammo which is all the same caliber, yet cannot seem to put them side by side in a mag. Perhaps later in the game this becomes less of an issue as having a large amount of ammo gives the player the option to more cleanly arrange their usage. As a new player barely scraping by I don’t yet have the luxury of making my own stuff yet so I’m finding it annoying unrealistic to have roughly identical rounds blocking my ammo flow.

As a developer I can understand why there might be some difficulty involved here. The magazines struct/object internally probably isn’t designed in a round-by-round fashion as a vector or array (although I haven’t really checked), so allowing a mixture in would probably be a bit painful. I think long term it’s probably the right solution but perhaps a bit traumatic. At some point I’ll get all the dependencies setup in my environment with SDL and gettext so I can actually build it so maybe I’ll fiddle with it eventually if I can find the time.

P.S.
This game is way too addictive, I just found it a few days back and it already killed an entire weekend.

[mugling]

The implementation would actually support that but the interface would be horrible

[Litppunk]

if your a dev, and think you could solve it, you can always do so, and post a mod for others to use. If the main devs like it they’ll probably even mainline it and maintain it, if not you can just keep it a mod for those that want to use it.

[BeerBeer]

Well, from the side of realism, you really shouldn’t mix ammo such as every other round being FMJ and JHP (not that you said that!). Various ammo could induce various pressures, potentially stopping burst fire. But if we have the ability to mix ammo within a mag, then doing the previous example would be possible, and it would have tangible gameplay effects/benefits. Firing single rounds from such a mag should be safe and OK, AFAIK.

So… there’s that.

But should we allow ONLY the mentioned, uhhh, continuous stacking of ammo? And what’s a proper phrasing for it? But that system would cause problems if you’d want to fill a partially filled mixed mag with the ammo type that resides below.

Maybe the simplest solution would be to just inflict a jam if a mixed mag is fired on burstfire when the ammo type switches spontaneously?

The mad thing to do would be to talk about ammo-specific pressures and the pressure tolerances of various guns…

[PlasmaChroma]

That’s actually a fair point BeerBeer; I didn’t even consider problems with round types interfering with burst fire (I wasn’t aware this could actually occur). And if the system allowed this type of change, it would inherently allow people to create just the situation. Interestingly it would also make the trigger happy trait a bit more of a serious risk if the player was trying to single fire. I’d hope this scenario wouldn’t exactly exist between reloads and stock rounds, assuming that the reloading of the rounds was careful and exact and the rounds are still within the tolerances of a factory round. In theory this would even imply that people could load .223 and 5.56 NATO into the same clip as well.

As a side note, and I’ve never tried it, but for semi-automatic fire would mixing .223/5.56 in a gun designed for 5.56 NATO pressure tolerances actually be a problem? Would there be a difference when using full-auto?

To do this as an imperfect mod, I’m considering perhaps just changing reloaded rounds to be considered factory fresh. That would resolve part of my annoyance, while haphazardly producing a bit of a balance change by improving ammo. Given that I’m currently terrible at the game I wouldn’t really mind buffing myself slightly though.

[Litppunk]

Using different gunpowder types/amounts in the same clip and then going full auto may well cause all sorts of problems, I can’t say I know for sure, but probably would only result in more frequent jamming at worst if the gun was rated for all the ammo being used. (long as its strong enough to push back the reloading mechanism, but not so strong as to cause the gun problems) In addition to this it would throw your aim off TERRIBLY at longer ranges, as the arcs the bullets follow would be very different, and you can only have your scope/sights set for one (at a certain distance(s) (on the way up and the way down)

That said, if you only mean different tips (FMJ, Balistic tip, soft point, split tip, etc…) the effects would be minimal only effecting the ballance/ mass of the bullet. (which would still have an effect on accuracy compared to what it is sighted in for) but at smaller distances would not be enough to cause any issues.

I know people who (when hunting pigs) do FMJ’s for the first 1-3 in their clip and then Balistic tips because they often get multiple lined up for the first shot, and want the extra penetration for going clean through the first (and secound?) pig(s) and then there are pigs going everywhere and they want as much; hydrostatic shock, rapid dispersion of energy etc… for more killing power, and knockdown power respectively where they are shooting at bodies running everywhere.

I also know people who load full FMJ and then a few Balistic on top, because after the first shot(s) pigs are just running everywhere and its kind of hit/miss and FMJ are cheaper rounds.

[BeerBeer]

Guns am complicated

[Arek_PL]

this is far more complicated, sometimes multiple types of ammo are used without issue, mostly tracer rounds with other rounds