That bad COF...

[yahooo]

Yet another highly charged issue....however what is the teams thoughts on this..

I was thinking of the first Insurgency release when the cone of fire was (by accident it seems) pixel perfect no +- additions, it made it totally different and for me it made an amazing difference to both the game and how it was played....then they fixed it....

And on the other hand you have the DODS latest version which is all over the shop...intentionally or otherwise..

Is ham & Jam team going to adjust the COF for this game or go with whatever is the default with the engine??

I'm courious 'cos your all still testing it (errr...sort of) at the moment.

[SteveUK]

Weighted cone of fire.

[Ginger Lord]

http://www.hamandjam.org/about-h-and-j/faq

Q: How does the weighted cone-of-fire work?
A: As a way to simulate the slight variation in accuracy of each bullet fired from a gun, we project a “cone” from the tip of the weapons muzzle. The further away from the weapon the wider the cone becomes. Each bullet you fire randomly lands somewhere within this cone meaning that not all bullets will go exactly where you aim them. However, we’ve improved on this common system by using mathematical weighting to bias the randomness towards the centre of the cone. That means that the majority of your shots will be roughly on target with far fewer shots wandering wide.

[teflon]

Nice job Ginger, No more dod:sauce b.s. Slowly but surely this game in turning into something real nice. Keep up the good work!!:D

[babokitty]

sauce has the same weighed cone system.

[Ginger Lord]

sauce has the same weighed cone system.

It does now, didn't originally. We provided the code for all to use on the Valve Wiki many years ago, plus the code for first person ragdolls (as also seen in many mods).

Whether or not they use the same variables as us remains to be seen, ours feel tighter at least.

[SacredLizard]

by the way I love the first person ragdolls :)

[Volosh [79th AD]]

I remember when insurgency first came out. It was real good. Hell, I even bought a server, but as the versions moved up (and eventually got on steam) the game started to gain popularity and loose the fun. I hope the same doesn't happen to HaJ. From the teaser this game looks like it has a lot of potential, hope the devs don't mess it up like insurgency.

[engineer]

How exactly did we "screw it up"?

[engineer]

Yet another highly charged issue....however what is the teams thoughts on this..

I was thinking of the first Insurgency release when the cone of fire was (by accident it seems) pixel perfect no +- additions, it made it totally different and for me it made an amazing difference to both the game and how it was played....then they fixed it...

Shotguns were taking out people at .308Win/.30-06 ranges, and AK47s are not match rifles.

[Jed]

I thought I'd give a bit more insight to the CoF/Bullet system in HaJ for those that are interested.

First of all, the damage per round varies on different weapons in HaJ. For Rifles a single round can impart at maximum 100 damage per shot, MGs 80 and SMGs 50. Some might argue this is not "realistic" to the type of rounds used but we're not a realism mod and these values are chosen to impart some balance into the game.

Secondly, we implement a bullet "fade" system which simulates the weapon having a specific effective range. It is not bullet drop as some think but instead slowly decreases the damage per round once it travels over over a pre-defined maximum distance. This simulates a weapons maximum effective range and means that an SMG, for example, requires more hits on target at a distance to drop it where as it only needs say two at close range.

The exact values for bullet fade are hard to express as words and use some pretty clever math but in simple terms, SMGs are only effective in CQB senarios, whereas MGs and Rifles can reach out and touch somebody at a greater range.

Thirdly, assuming your bullet hits your target with any potential killing power left, we apply damage based on where on the body you hit. Arm and leg hits aren't as lethal as a shot to the torso and a headshot is going to put your lights out for sure. We also implement a check to see if a shot to the arm would of passed through to hit another body part. If so we use the hitbox rule for the second box. This avoids the "kevlar arms/legs" issue.

With regard to the Cone of Fire. As stated we have always used a centre weighted method so that shots on average gravitate more towards the centre of the cone. Our CoF are also tighter than the ones in Day of Defeat and a little more accurate. We actually calculated the angles for the cone mathematically based on what degree of torso shots we would want to fall on a human sized target at a specific distance from the player. Whereas some games just use the default 1,2,3,4,5, etc. degree cones, we start getting into multiple decimal places of accuracy :D

Also, our CoF gets tighter based on stance, so crouching or proning will make your weapon more accurate yet.

Lastly, recoil is constant for all stances but varies for each weapon.

[babokitty]

Thanks for that Jed :) Nice to hear there's no lame kevlar legs in HAJ. At least I won't have to worry about hitting someone's knee.

But it seems crouching/proning may be too powerful. In that regard, I feel DOD:S has it right with stances effecting only recoil and player velocity effecting accuracy.

Does player velocity also figure into accuracy in HAJ?

Also,

Can players spin around like a helicopter in prone?

Ta

[Jed]

The differences in CoF when crouch/prone aren't that great over standing but they are more accurate. Certainly it caught a few people out when they first played expecting it to be light DoD but obviously we're a different game and just took a couple of games to get into the "groove".

Velocity doesn't effect accuracy. You can't shoot when sprinting but at other times it's purely down to stance.

No, players can't spin. The turn limits were a lot tighter originally but people complained all the time so we increased them a bit. Basically when prone you can turn a certain amount left and right. If you want to turn more you have to crawl forwards or backwards and then the speed of the turn is limited. Basically you start crawling in a circle.

This feature is to kind of mimic the physical limitations of movement you'd have in real life but also to add a pro-con balance to proning. Gives you better cover/accuracy versus limited movement.

[babokitty]

That's great. Spinning proned hitboxes were one of my pet peeves in DODS. Always wondered why valve didn't put some MG code in for proning.

Now, with no movement penalty, I'm starting to think w+m1 might be too powerful.

[Jed]

Now, with no movement penalty, I'm starting to think w+m1 might be too powerful.

Think all you want. You've not played the game so you can only speculate :)

[yahooo]

Thanks for the reply guys. It's interesting to hear how you set out the parameters you want. I like the idea of a change to the COF depending on stance.

[summit]

I know it wasn't for everyone, but I miss the system MOHAA/SH/BT implemented.

Recoil affected accuracy (I can't remember whether a CoF was present) - so naturally different weapons had different recoil and it seemed to work well. It probably lead to all weapons being overly lethal but I guess the days of deathmatch-esque multiplayers are fading.

Multiplayer games today are definitely moving to extending the life of a player, which leads to decreasing accuracy and damage of weapons. I know a lot of people didn't find the ability to headshot someone with a pistol at range appealing, but damn did it add a high skill requirement - a staple for any multiplayer game that hopes to have a long lifespan.