Effective range of guns

[konrax]

Many guns have a fairly short effective range stat on them, does anyone know if the damage from guns falls to 0 after this range?

 

I've been in a few battles now and it feels like the weapons didn't hit the target at all past these ranges despite my godly aim.

 

If that is the case I would really like to see them still hit the target but have the damage decrease at a reasonable rate after that range instead.

[Katitof]

It starts falling down.

You can test this with another player in dm mode or even on zombies at different distances.

[Gazz]

It falls to zero at max range.

[Cadamier]

It falls to zero at max range.

 

I thought it was 'max range' +1 when it goes to zero?

[konrax]

I would really like to get some feedback from the devs on this, I find it really frustrating and not intuitive at all tbh.

[JCrook1028]

I would really like to get some feedback from the devs on this, I find it really frustrating and not intuitive at all tbh.

 

You just got feedback from the Dev who does the balancing numbers..... Gazz.

[FileMachete]

Not a dev, heh, just my read on this. From what Gazz said and the xml lines I would _guess_ that "DamageFalloffRange" is where damage begins to fall off. And that at "MaxRange" damage goes to zero.

Disclaimer: I could be totally wrong of course.

 

Example for "ammoShotgunShell" vanilla values are;

 

"DamageFalloffRange" operation="base_set" value="3"

and

"MaxRange" operation="base_set" value="18"

 

Xml for shotgun shells also has this; "RoundRayCount" set to "8", so assumption can be made it's mimicing 00 ought buckshot rounds (though they usually have 9 .33cal pellets).

 

Meaning, I think, that there's only 100% damage out to 3 meters. And hitting 0 at 18 meters.

Obviously that's not what happens in rl. But for a game, ok? Mainly I would guess there's no point spending the cpu cycles tracking a bunch of projectiles for hundreds of meters. So setting MaxRange as short as possible makes sense.

Question then becomes how realistic do you want to make things?

Can't take it too far or the shotty would be better than the in-game vanilla AK, at any distance.

Maybe keep it 'short range' but have it's damage better reflect rl?

I think that could work. And if we incorporate the spread of the 8 impacts we can also choose to say, "let's keep damage at 100% up to the last point where all 8 pellets could be expected to impact on a torso sized target, and fall to 0, or MaxRange, at double that range."

Completely arbitrary of course.

 

The rest is a lot of averaging and ignoring things like chokes, barrel length, etc. this is just me generalizing, a -lot-.

Majority of rw tests I've done/seen typically show that at ~15yds/m all pellets will impact on a circular area of approx 7-11".

So if we say let's have a pattern of ~9" at 15 yards, we need to figure out the angle of dispersal, and then pass that value on, and there are properties that do just that in the xml.

 

Under "ammoShotgunShell" there are these;

"SpreadDegreesVertical" operation="base_set" value="3.02"

"SpreadDegreesHorizontal" operation="base_set" value="3.02"

 

Which would appear to act to open up the impact points of the 8 raycasts (or pellets).

While I'd imagine TFPs came to these via in-game testing, they're far from matching rw dispersal/spread; assuming I'm reading their effect correctly.

'RW' again, varies a -lot-, but using a nice round 1 degrees of spread seems a reasonable average that would result in;

4.4" pattern at 7 yds

9.4" pattern at 15 yds

18.9" pattern at 30 yds

{to compare: using 3 deg & same math would have a 28.3" pattern at 15 yds}

 

So we could change those two properties above to "1" and be done, right? Nope

Theres also this under "gunPumpShotgun"; "IncrementalSpreadMultiplier" operation="base_set" value="2".

Which I'd guess further increases the dispersal of the pellets. And "Multiplier" would mean the 3.02d goes to 6.04d;

{or: 6 deg & same math would have a 56.6" pattern at 15 yds}

I've no idea how this is actually applied so first thing I'd prefer to test would simply be commenting it out. But I don't know how to do that via xpath, so I'll set it to "1" and see.

 

Getting back to the fall off and max distances let's make it easy and just say that out to 15 yards 100% damage makes sense. And even though at 30 yards, in rl, the pellets are still carrying ~90% of their energy, and that the spread alone will mean a drastic decrease to inflicted damage simply due to less than all pellets hitting the target, we're trying to keep MaxRange short. So lets say at 30 yards damage falls to 50%, meaning MaxRange should then be 45 yards (ok, meters).

 

We'd wind up with an xpath modlet with an items.xml containing;

 

<FileMachete_FirearmTweaks>

<set xpath="/items/item[@name='gunPumpShotgun']/effect_group[@name='Base Effects']/passive_effect[@name='IncrementalSpreadMultiplier']/@value">1</set>

<set xpath="/items/item[@name='ammoShotgunShell']/effect_group[@name='Base Effects']/passive_effect[@name='MaxRange']/@value">45</set>
<set xpath="/items/item[@name='ammoShotgunShell']/effect_group[@name='Base Effects']/passive_effect[@name='DamageFalloffRange']/@value">15</set>
<set xpath="/items/item[@name='ammoShotgunShell']/effect_group[@name='Base Effects']/passive_effect[@name='SpreadDegreesVertical']/@value">1</set>
<set xpath="/items/item[@name='ammoShotgunShell']/effect_group[@name='Base Effects']/passive_effect[@name='SpreadDegreesHorizontal']/@value">1</set>

</FileMachete_FirearmTweaks>

 

Fair warning: I haven't tested this but it's likely -very- OPd, compared to the rest of the firearms in-game. And I could be so so wrong about what the xml is doing, so, Buyer Be Very Wary

[konrax]

Either way after playing games like counter strike and pubg for years the current ranges of cutoff are far too short especially for pvp.

 

I'm not asking fofor pubg levels where you can snipe someone at 800m+ but having a 100m range on most guns, and say 200 for the rifles would go a long way.

 

Keep the current effective range as the point it does max damage, then have them fall off accordingly.

 

Or

 

Better yet would be to make each projectile act like arrows do currently and have them have a drop distance and separate stats for velocity etc which would act much more like pubg for the gunplay. I would be so happy to see this for the guns as it would actually add so much depth to gun fights and make it far more interesting than the current system.

[LuckyStar]

Either way after playing games like counter strike and pubg for years the current ranges of cutoff are far too short especially for pvp.

 

I'm not asking fofor pubg levels where you can snipe someone at 800m+ but having a 100m range on most guns, and say 200 for the rifles would go a long way.

 

Keep the current effective range as the point it does max damage, then have them fall off accordingly.

 

Or

 

Better yet would be to make each projectile act like arrows do currently and have them have a drop distance and separate stats for velocity etc which would act much more like pubg for the gunplay. I would be so happy to see this for the guns as it would actually add so much depth to gun fights and make it far more interesting than the current system.

 

I'm okay with how they're working now.

 

I don't think I want every game to be the same.

 

7DTD definitely has some different ways of doing things.

Once you get used to it, which I haven't completely, it's fun.

[konrax]

I'm okay with how they're working now.

 

I don't think I want every game to be the same.

 

7DTD definitely has some different ways of doing things.

Once you get used to it, which I haven't completely, it's fun.

 

I'm in the camp of making things have more depth and work more intuitively at the same time. Infact many game designers consider this a hallmark of good game design in general.

[ghettochild2600]

Many guns have a fairly short effective range stat on them, does anyone know if the damage from guns falls to 0 after this range?

 

I've been in a few battles now and it feels like the weapons didn't hit the target at all past these ranges despite my godly aim.

 

If that is the case I would really like to see them still hit the target but have the damage decrease at a reasonable rate after that range instead.

 

You could edit weapons in the item.xml

Remove crosshairs, range, magazine size, ect. Just make sure to backup the original copy in case you break it. And to answer your question yes damage falls off to 0 after the specified value whatever it's set at.

[konrax]

You could edit weapons in the item.xml

Remove crosshairs, range, magazine size, ect. Just make sure to backup the original copy in case you break it. And to answer your question yes damage falls off to 0 after the specified value whatever it's set at.

 

The "you can edit the xml" thing is a lazy response to opinion I'm giving. My point is about improving the game in my opinion based on years of experience playing shooters.

 

This game can improve a lot with a few small tweaks to the gunplay that would help it stand out from the crowd using systems they already have implemented and working.

 

Bullet range, timing, and drop are all widely used mechanics for gunplay games. Also the sound from guns barely travels 50m, which should also be greatly increased for realism and gunplay purposes. Right now it's pretty easy to run around shooting things and not have other nearby players hearing you, thus making stealth rather irrelevant.

[ghettochild2600]

The "you can edit the xml" thing is a lazy response to opinion I'm giving. My point is about improving the game in my opinion based on years of experience playing shooters.

 

This game can improve a lot with a few small tweaks to the gunplay that would help it stand out from the crowd using systems they already have implemented and working.

 

Bullet range, timing, and drop are all widely used mechanics for gunplay games. Also the sound from guns barely travels 50m, which should also be greatly increased for realism and gunplay purposes. Right now it's pretty easy to run around shooting things and not have other nearby players hearing you, thus making stealth rather irrelevant.

 

I don't disagree and maybe my response of editing the items yourself is a lazy way (the Bethesda way) I'd personally like to see a larger range of weapons and certain things get under my skin like the shotgun holding 8 rounds (unrealistic, now give me a DP-12) and reloading only shows you putting in two rounds no matter what. Even if you shoot once and reload it still shows you only chambering two rounds. So somehow I'm magically able to put one more round in than before? I tried messing with the reload speed as a "lazy" fix, but it didn't change anything. Unfortunately this is the only option for now until the devs release another update that hopefully caters to what we would like to see changed.

 

You want to talk lazy go have a look in blocks.xml for autoturret and you will see that it will say <property name="BustRoundCount" value="15"/> when it should say BurstRoundCount. Typos aren't acceptable in programming and can be game breaking. Makes me wonder what else is broken to a typo. They couldn't even make rank 5 of shotgun messiah perk work properly and even states it in the code (progression. xml). Says shooting in the leg will cripple, but it doesn't matter where you shoot them. They should just change the perk wording to match until they figure out specifics.

 

If I knew how to program and could make my own game it would be anything but lazy. Being able to peak around corners, proper distraction methods, realism, and commonsense things shouldn't be that difficult to implement for an experienced programmer I'd think. Guess it all depends on the experience of who they hire to do the programming and whatever is highest on their list of priorities.

 

I have tested shooting zombies at different ranges (disabling them from jumping and frozen in one location) and the damage does indeed fall off to zero of the amount of blocks the xml states. More importantly, imo, I don't think that the perception perk (increasing ranged damage) even works. There are no damage changes in the weapon statistics menu and it takes the same amount of shots to kill a zombie on the hardest difficulty (200% Z health) with zero points in perception as it does when maxed out.