Hello, I’m an on/off player of the experimental who’s also poked at the source and compiled by own builds at times ever since before the Dark Days Ahead versions of Cataclysm! Being somewhat familiar with how the mechanics work, and with some knowledge of scripting and coding, I want to point out that I’m trying to keep these suggestions plausible to implement with little effort.
----SUBSONICS----
First off, I found an M1911 yesterday, to replace a .45 revolver I couldn’t suppress and a .22 Mosquito that was quieter than a pin drop but incredibly weak. I was pretty excited because the .45 ACP I had for the M1911 is a subsonic ammunition, and with a suppressor on the gun I should’ve been looking at a nice and quiet zombie slaughterer!
Nope, just as ‘Bang!’ as a .308 even with the suppressor on. It kinda made me feel a little sad inside, but I’m well aware that sound is based off of damage output for the gun. However, I think this early in development I might be able to propose a workaround that would keep this ‘automated’ system for generating balanced sound output and allow things like subsonic rounds to exist!
Applying a sound modifier to the round itself, is my suggestion. Subsonic rounds don’t have a report in flight as they don’t break the sound barrier, so the only noise is the impact it makes and the gasses escaping the gun. This can be reflected by applying a ‘-x sound’ stat via a ‘SUBSONIC_ROUND’ flag or something similar to the round, and working that bonus into the same code used for the suppressor functions.
Yes, this would change the balance of ammo types, but I searched both “real” and “balance” in the C:DDA Design Outline and Real wins 21:1. I believe introducing subsonics to the ammunition would definitely fit the design outline’s plan for reality-based simulation.
----Mag +1----
Sometimes you just don’t have time to reload, which is why we have spare magazines! But, for just about all guns that load a chamber from a magazine of some type, it’s possible to pre-load the chamber with a round and add another bullet to the magazine. It would be something of a ‘30+1/30’ thing, and though there isn’t a system it could piggyback off of effectively it would only need a few checks added into the existing non-revolver reload mechanics to permit such a thing.
As far as balancing goes, I would say Mag +1 ‘reloading’ could take a third as long as reloading a full magazine, or possibly as long as reloading with a spare magazine. You’re ejecting the mag and fumbling with a single bullet instead of anywhere from 5-30, so it won’t take as long but it’s like trying to fish that last quarter out of your pocket for putting into a snack machine! Damnit, Murphy!