I think it would be nice and generally more organized (to play and to code), if there would distinct magazines for the guns that actually utilize ones. Like assault rifles and SMG’s etc. That would eliminate “tactical reload” nonsense found in the game atm and add some interesting micromanagement aspect. Right now managing ones ammo is a bit of a pain, imo. All those “non-autostacking” piles of ammo in your car’s trunk, with no way of actually organizing this mess…
My vision is: if one finds G36, with attached mag (30 rounds STANAG-compliant, or 100 rounds C-Mag drum), one can load it with ammo (provided he has some) from a sack or pile or box with ammo (whatever method of storage u can think of…), and use it in combat. But that’s just one mag. And it should tactically limit ones decisions. Mag’s reload should be a lengthy process, really. So it would make sense to find and stash compatible/better mag’s for your gun. Load them when in relative safety. Keep some for emergency uses. Load different types of ammo, too… There’s would be at least some bit of thinking involved to use powerful mil. grade weaponry. Cause now - one can walk all gun-blazing rambo-style, and just shot everything until either ammo is depleted or zeds. But if there’s a need for a burst or two of Incendiary - full unload is the only option. C’mon, really? Is it so hard to reach for your tactical vest pocket and swap that damn mag? I hope there can be done something to make this better. This and inventory system - cause now there is no distinction between utility vest and tactical, backpack and pockets… So much depth can be added. What do you think?
On the point of stacking ammo, feel free to pick up as much as you want, and then drop it in either precise stacks (by punching in the number to drop before selecting the letter to drop,) or approximate stacks by picking up a rough amount that you want to combine and dropping them before picking up more stacks in the same manner.
Not the best of methods, but probably the most forward without handicapping the player in an emergency.
If it autostacked, you’d be forced to pick it all up, and if you only wanted a few hundred rounds to pop the last of that horde chasing you, but had to pick up all 5k… you just might get killed before you could partial drop and reload.
Perhaps adding a partial pickup along with auto-stacking would be a solution, though I’d worry about it starting to get clunky, or making raiding too simple. shrug
Thanx for a suggestion. Problem is that trunks are limited by amount of different stacks. So, if i want just to drop that .40 in my trunk, where’s another 1k of it already stored, i might well be over budget. I need first to identify is there this sort of ammo, and if there is - pick it up and then drop all of it as one stack. If i don’t take care - half of my trunk can be consumed by, said, 10 stack of 50 .40 ammo, which is strange.
I know what ya mean. The limit is on all map tiles. 26 items, no more.
I’ve taken up a habit when sorting out my raid goodies into my stash, and generally pick up all ammo (or other stackables,) then drop it all. (in respective places if it’s at my shelter.)
A little extra work, but the space-saving is worth it for me to pick that habit up.
Something to further consider doing, is dropping another box or trunk on your ride, and making it an ammo only box.
If you’re even the slightest bit selective in what you pick up, you’ll never hit the 26 stacks limit if they’re a single stack per type.
I do that already, both things. That’s the problem - IF they are 1 stack of a type. But without a careful micro there will be a mess.
But my suggestion is not about limit on tile items or stacks - it’s about gun’s and ammo, you know… I really like to see 2 things - magazines as separate containers, attached to guns for firing, and inventory system with backpack’s/pocket’s/tactical vests each behaving differently. LOL, just try to get something out of your backpack while you run, and you should see what i mean.
Yea, but once you get into having to deal with individual magazines, it really brings down gameplay for realism’s sake.
I honestly can’t name any game out there that is fun and makes you manage magazines. The industry as a whole seems to understand that that’s a big step past the gameplay line.
Yeah, I want Cataclysm to be a game with sim elements, not a hardcore survival sim. So we’re not going to be drilling down into the depths of loading individual magazines and whatnot.
I actually don’t understand your concern about “hardcore” - every bit of it already there (different ammo, different round specs. One can shot robots with 9mm, if knows what round to use). Ammo containers are pretty simple thing, and intuitive. I don’t ask for a jams, barrel overheating, ballistics and the like.
Okay, games then - It’s called “7.62”. Or, for more classical approach - Jagged alliance 2. Damn DayZ too (and really FORCES it).
P.S. “Industry as a whole” likes to sell us “angry birds 99”, btw.
nah, that’s the profit-driven, mobile gaming division.
I was looking at the whole, to include even the Indy devs, who are far more likely to go for realism if they’re not profiteering.
Funny you try and use JA2 to justify it though, since there are no individual mags, just rounds stacked in an appropriate magazine size. And even beyond that, a) loading rounds from a different mag doesn’t affect anything other than slightly slower. b) there are no loose rounds other than magazines for non-removable mag weapons. c) outside of the small delay when reloading in combat, magazines don’t even exist as far as gameplay goes, and just serve to try and reduce the amount of ammo you can carry.
Personally, I carried one or two spare mags of the proper size, and had a high Cap weapon in the squad for re-sizing my spare ammo into the large and more efficient stacks to be reloaded from out of combat.
[quote=“qurvax, post:9, topic:88”]I actually don’t understand your concern about “hardcore” - every bit of it already there (different ammo, different round specs. One can shot robots with 9mm, if knows what round to use). Ammo containers are pretty simple thing, and intuitive. I don’t ask for a jams, barrel overheating, ballistics and the like.
Okay, games then - It’s called “7.62”. Or, for more classical approach - Jagged alliance 2. Damn DayZ too (and really FORCES it).
P.S. “Industry as a whole” likes to sell us “angry birds 99”, btw.[/quote]
Actually gun jams and barrel overheating might be nice touches, item durability is sort of in already so can just make it cause gun jams. Also Jagged Alliance 2 sort of had a magazine system but they didn’t care about it because you could make infinite magazines by unloading guns although it does take longer to load a gun with a different type of magazine.
[quote=“n9103, post:11, topic:88”]nah, that’s the profit-driven, mobile gaming division.
I was looking at the whole, to include even the Indy devs, who are far more likely to go for realism if they’re not profiteering.
Funny you try and use JA2 to justify it though, since there are no individual mags, just rounds stacked in an appropriate magazine size. And even beyond that, a) loading rounds from a different mag doesn’t affect anything other than slightly slower. b) there are no loose rounds other than magazines for non-removable mag weapons. c) outside of the small delay when reloading in combat, magazines don’t even exist as far as gameplay goes, and just serve to try and reduce the amount of ammo you can carry.
Personally, I carried one or two spare mags of the proper size, and had a high Cap weapon in the squad for re-sizing my spare ammo into the large and more efficient stacks to be reloaded from out of combat.[/quote]
Yep, even JA does model that reload with mag is faster. And CataclysmDD model it too! (SURPRISEEEE!). So it’s here, partially.
How far it goes, from JA2 to 7.62, or maybe to HardLife mod levels (loading your mag with AP-AP-AP-Tracer order, with appropriate amount of time) - is really debatable. But think about nice things we could have! In 7.62 you can actually find extended mags. Or use AK74 with RPK mag (75x5.45rnds, AFAIR) with penalty (it’s damn bulky). Or, stick two of those together with a duct tape for a faster reload. Or just don’t give a damn about possibilities, and use whatever you can grab. Hardcore… yeah, right… but why we don’t get our water in plain litres, stored “somewhere”? Wouldn’t it be simpler that way? /sarcasm. Wheres my ammo boxes at least?! /humor
To clarify - i don’t think this game should go “full real”. So don’t accuse me of advocating it please.
From both a game interaction and coding point of view it just seems more disruptive than it’s worth.
Item clutter
To do this you need AT LEAST one magazine type for each gun that has a removable magazine. Additionally you’re asking for boxes for the ammo instead of abstracting it away, that’s something upwards of 100 items added in support of the feature. That means definitions both for the items themselves as well as determining where they get spawned.
New code
The reload and firing code, which is rather complex BTW, would need to be reworked again to handle separate magazine items as well as integral magazines.
UI complexity
Typical reloading will go from hitting ‘r’ and possibly picking an ammo to, 'u’nload magazine from gun, 'r’eload magazine, and 'r’eload the magazine in the gun, optionally with juggling of the gun and the magazine depending on the exact implementation. Alternately for tactical reload you’d 'u’nload the gun and 'r’eload a different magazine instead of just hitting ‘r’.
What are the actual features you’re interested in? If this is mostly about ammo stacking, then we can either take a look at how stacking works or add ammo boxes to help manage it without reworking how ammo handling as a whole works.
1.: Many guns share compatible magazines. M4 and G36 both uses STANAG’s. But there is of course different capacity magazines… So you are right, probably.
About abstracting - for me it seems like good idea, to have ammo containers. Even “virtual” would do (JA2 style). Just as with (much appreciated by me) canteens. If i need reserve ammo, i better pick 5 cartons of .223 from a stack showing 10(100) or smthn, that pickup-drop whole 1k of rounds, to get me 500. AND, because i can’t reload guns with 2 types of ammo at once, i really really should avoid having ammo count that cannot be divided by gun capacity without leftover. Guess why.
2.: I can’t talk about the code complexity. Don’t have much programming background in C++, sorry. If i could do it, i would program it myself just to see the difference.
3.: I think this system is good as it is. No point in change that. Just no individual round reload, when there is mag attached. U - remove mag, R - reload next compatible mag that is most rounds. And if there is none with ammo - show error message.
Ammo in magazines may be reloaded with “crafting” (and speed increases with skill?) or by “using” it… The only real change would be that one no longer be able to throw 10 extra rounds inside M4’s mag right in the middle of firefight, and don’t even notice doing so. If zeds catch you unprepared, with empty mags (and pants down) - your in trouble ) I’m, personally, would like this bit of a danger.
Actual features that i proposed are magazines and ammo containers. If it worth it, of course. I’m not saying it absolutely needs to be here. For now there is almost no support for that suggestion from other players.
I’m working toward this bit by bit. Here’s the current situation:
“normal” reload takes about 3-5 “turns”, which is 18-30 seconds, when in reality this kind of reload takes at least a minute or so, and probably longer.
“tactical” reload is way faster, just a second or two, probably still a bit too fast, but it’s in the right ballpark.
Spare magazines take up one of only 4 gunmods you can put on a gun, and you can only have one of them.
Spare magazines are kind of rare (relatively common for a gunmod, but in absolute terms not all that common)
“single-round” reload is a separate issue, and only happens on guns without removable magazines AFAIK.
Changes I’m pondering along these lines (in the order they’d be implemented, this really only matters for #4):
Make spare magazines not count against a gun’s gunmod limit, and allow equipping some number of them per gun (probably 2-4).
Make spare magazines way more common so it’s reasonable to leave several attached to each gun.
Remove firearms skill requirement for adding spare magazines to guns.
Increase “normal” reload time to more-or-less match “realistic” magazine reload time, meaning it would take 2-3 times longer than now.
Possibly prorate reloads based on how many rounds you’re reloading, not sure there’s a point, since the main distinction is “normal” reloads not being practical in combat versus “tactical” reloads using spare magazines being reasonable to perform in combat.
Possibly reduce the speed of tactical reloads, especially since they do get reduced with higher firearms skills.
Thank you, Kevin, for all your hard work.
What’s about time to reload, IRL i remember myself loading 30 7.62x51R rounds in about 45 seconds. That’s must be somewhere near an average time, and i bet there is someone, who does this faster.
Tactical reload time is very much dependent on gun type and even more dependent on what your gear are like - every damn pocket costs seconds. If we could have nice thing from tactical games like these http://www.511tactical.com/All-Products/Outerwear/VTAC-LBE-Tactical-Vest.html - it would make difference too.
I’m probably going to call it something like 2 sec per round for a baseline (no firearm skill), and tweak it from there as needed.
I have some ideas about differentiating inventory management a bit, but no guarantees as this has been a contentious point in the past.
At the moment I think the item system is due in for a bit of a fix up.
Having ammo boxes for all of the ammo types would not be too hard to program in,
It would require 2 or 3 new items added and maybe a few lines of code in how ammunition is handled in regards to liquids.
So say all ammunition that you loot from stores and military bases comes in boxes, the amount for each ammo stored in a box could be defined in the ammo definition, I do not know much about guns or ammo specification and handling irl, but for each ammo type a basic “size” tag could be added, how much ammo you could fit in a box would be determined by the “size” of each individual projectile.
I will make an example out of context here,
Let say .22 rounds are size “1” and the storage space of a small cardboard box is lets say 20,
the player is able to cram 20 rounds into that box.
If the player had rounds of size “0.5” her/she would be able to fit 40 rounds in the box.
Boxes should be stackable in the same way that water is.
eg. small box of .22 [20] [5] would mean that you had 5 boxes of .22 rounds with 20 rounds in each box.
Or perhaps you could have this:
small box of .22 100 [5] This would mean that there is five boxes of .22 and the contents of all the boxes adds up to 100.
Or even alternatively:
small box of .22 36 [2] This would mean that there is 2 boxes of .22 but there is only 16 in one of the boxes.
Heh, the sm. cardboard box has a description of being no more than a foot in any dimension.
Even at the conservative 6" cube, that’s still room for a thousand or more 22lr rounds, if you consider that the box of 100 you can buy now is around 6x2x2, and holds them all proper-like, wasting plenty of space over loose rounds.
I’m still against implementing actual containers for things like ammo that already have abstract containers, being that you find rounds in even stacks. I see no plus side to it, and anything that introduces more micromanagement without a benefit is a negative in my book.
I hope there can be done something to make this better. This and inventory system - cause now there is no distinction between utility vest and tactical, backpack and pockets… So much depth can be added. What do you think?