My point was just aimed at the "Projectile Trajectory" aspects. I agree with you for the most part, but I have no problems with rounds piffling after they reach max effective range. I just think the max effective ranges should be more reasonable, if not more realistic, with the projectile (Projectile/Artillery) and missile weapons, and then adjust the energy (Laser) and hybrid (Blaster/Rail) weapons accordingly. Yes, there's be tears from the Anti-realistic CQC fans, but they'd still get in and make their kills if they play smart.

One of the things I have noticed people shuddering at when uncapped weapon ranges get brought up is "OMG! The HMG shouldn't even..." What these people forget is that though the HMG may reach the distance of a sniper in the hills, the bullet dispersion would be so high that it would be down to blind luck for the sniper to get hit by a single round. If this isn't an example of one of the points you're tying to make, my apologizes for misunderstanding.

Agreed... while disappearing bullets is probably required in order to keep the servers from dying... the range on all weapons needs to be increased substantially.

When I can see a person in front of me clear as day, and I aim and fire at him and don't do a single point of damage... wtf!? This is not good game mechanics... period.

Also.. its very clear the maps were built for SS5-SSPro3 ranges... there is minimal cover and most everything is relatively long range. Yet the bullets just somehow can't make it? Its terrible and it makes the gameplay feel clunky and unintuitive. I am growing increasingly frustrated about it as well, and I am sure i'm not the only one.

Few things that need to be done.

All maps need to be reworked to add more cover, the amount of cover that was added when Shiigeru, or whatever the hell that titan's name was, crashed helped a ton. Add more cover to the outside areas so we can move around and not get picked off immediately.

Remove the reduction to dispersion when you crouch and ADS. Its not realistic and its a large part of the issue here.

Increase max range of most weapons to about 150m for most medium range weps, 80-100m for the HMG, and 20-30m for the shotgun. Bullets should disappear outside or near the edge of the render view, so they appear to go on forever without actually doing so.

Linear damage drop off to ~60% at max range. Allow bullet dispersion to reduce damage at long ranges, not hard coding. The HMG and AR will probably be really balanced just due to bullet dispersion. Laz0rs are the one exception to this, since they have no dispersion, at which point you will need to hardcode weapon damage at all ranges.

I will say, when I can't hit someone from across the street with my AR, something is grossly wrong. I can throw grenades farther than I can shoot, and its ridiculous.

This should be of CRITICAL priority CCP. This mechanic is gamebreaking, and it will drive away players in droves if not addressed quickly.

All maps need to be reworked to add more cover, the amount of cover that was added when Shiigeru, or whatever the hell that titan's name was, crashed helped a ton. Add more cover to the outside areas so we can move around and not get picked off immediately.

Linear damage drop off to ~60% at max range. Allow bullet dispersion to reduce damage at long ranges, not hard coding. The HMG and AR will probably be really balanced just due to bullet dispersion. Laz0rs are the one exception to this, since they have no dispersion, at which point you will need to hardcode weapon damage at all ranges.

I will say, when I can't hit someone from across the street with my AR, something is grossly wrong. I can throw grenades farther than I can shoot, and its ridiculous.

I like what you're trying to do here, in tying the Eve-scape in to DUST.

One thing though, and you didn't say this wasn't the case, but I feel it's important to mention in order to finally jettison hard range as a class definition: All weapons need to be able to contact all enemies...even if they do minuscule damage at long range.

In Eve, our scale is enormous. You're in a cruiser that's 200 meters long, orbiting another 200m cruiser at 35km. It makes sense at these ranges to have some weapons that just don't even reach.

But, on a field where I can see someone running around from a few meters away....dif story.

Thank you very much for the excellent response.

The maximum practical range of all small arms and especially high-powered sniper rifles depends mainly on the aerodynamic or ballistic efficiency of the spin stabilised projectiles used. Long-range shooters must also collect relevant information to calculate elevation and windage corrections to be able to achieve first shot strikes at point targets. The data to calculate these fire control corrections has a long list of variables including:

ballistic coefficient of the bullets used
height of the sighting components above the rifle bore axis
the zero range at which the sighting components and rifle combination were sighted in
bullet weight
actual muzzle velocity (powder temperature affects muzzle velocity, primer ignition is also temperature dependent)
range to target
supersonic range of the employed gun, cartridge and bullet combination
inclination angle in case of uphill/downhill firing
target speed and direction
wind speed and direction (main cause for horizontal projectile deflection and generally the hardest ballistic variable to measure and judge correctly. Wind effects can also cause vertical deflection.)
air temperature, pressure, altitude and humidity variations (these make up the ambient air density)
Earth's gravity (changes slightly with latitude and altitude)
gyroscopic drift (horizontal and vertical plane gyroscopic effect GÇö often known as spin drift - induced by the barrels twist direction and twist rate)
Coriolis effect drift (latitude, direction of fire and northern or southern hemisphere data dictate this effect)
E+¦tv+¦s effect (interrelated with the Coriolis effect, latitude and direction of fire dictate this effect)
lateral throw-off (dispersion that is caused by mass imbalance in the applied projectile)
aerodynamic jump (dispersion that is caused by lateral (wind) impulses activated during free flight at or very near the muzzle)
the inherent potential accuracy and adjustment range of the sighting components
the inherent potential accuracy of the rifle
the inherent potential accuracy of the ammunition
the inherent potential accuracy of the computer program and other firing control components used to calculate the trajectory

The ambient air density is at its maximum at Arctic sea level conditions. Cold gunpowder also produces lower pressures and hence lower muzzle velocities than warm powder. This means that the maximum practical range of rifles will be at it shortest at Arctic sea level conditions.

The ability to hit a point target at great range has a lot to do with the ability to tackle environmental and meteorological factors and a good understanding of exterior ballistics and the limitations of equipment. Without (computer) support and highly accurate laser rangefinders and meteorological measuring equipment as aids to determine ballistic solutions, long-range shooting beyond 1000 m (1100 yd) at unknown ranges becomes guesswork for even the most expert long-range marksmen.

I've seen a couple of mentions about trajectory (aka bullet drop). Something people need to know/remember is that matches are not hosted on anyone's single console like other FPS games that can be mentioned. Everything is processed on CCP's server bay. To code in trajectory and travel time for small high ROF projectile weapons, and expect the system to track every bullet fired, would put a huge amount of stress on the servers even with only a couple of thousand players. That's why CCP only has travel time for large rail turrets and forge guns and not trajectory. Only grenade based weapons have both. Missiles and rockets are their own beasties.

Forge guns were great for anti infantry last build, just took practice. I haven't been able to finish patch 3.04 so haven't tested any of the new changes.

Dis Cord you are my favorite person ever.

You can be my overly gimped wingfatman any day.

Plasma weapons would not extend across the map. AR, plasma cannon, shotgun, blaster should have hard range cap, but do more damage then projectile.

Explosive weapons and missiles often in real life have a timed self destruct that sets the max range, swarms do this now.

Projectile weapons would realistically work as you say, but smg and hmg would then be resource hog on system, particularly if bullet drop was calculated.

Very fast projectiles like railgun slugs (forge and sniper) can run out of momentum before they run out of energy and airbust. This would take longer then our maps would allow, this is what makes some meteors explode mid-air.

High energy laser turn the air opaque from blooming the air to plasma, there are also focus issues since way to extend range is two use multiple lower energy laser converged on target. This would make laser weapons work closer to ingame laser rifle then a laser pointer. CCP did well here just counter intuitive.

That said, last build had better range then now. Just put ranges back to last build without sharpshooter.

How do other console shooters handle this problem? I assume they experience the same limitations.

I think other FPS games get around these limitations by creating a optimal range, a falloff range and a no damage range. Within optimal the bullet does full damage, in falloff range the bullet does reduced damage, and no damage range is the point where the projectile deviation from the intended path would be so great that the game automatically discounts the bullet and it "disappears"

Other games can have realistic physics tracking by hosting their matches on one of the participants consoles so, for each match, there's a console dedicated to all the game mechanics for only those involved in that match which is why lag switches (One reason I don't play CoD anymore.) work for the console that's hosting to give the owner an advantage over other players in that match.

Dust is hosted by CCP's server bays so physics tracking every projectile of even a thousand or so players would put a considerable load on the system. A 1000+ ship battle in Eve can affect all the systems on a shard, imagine what it would do if the system also had to real time physics track a few million "bullets" on top of missiles, mass drivers, rockets, drones, LAVs, HAVs, Drop Ships, market transactions, corp communications, trading, giving, contracts, ships, jump-gates, player owned stations, planetary interaction, skill point gains and expenditures, bounties, kill rights, aggression timers, targeting, module activations and deactivations, warps, every ship in Eve, drones, NPCs, missions, the list goes on. But it's all on CCP's servers. None of it is hosted on our consoles.

Did you play MAG? Ranges were no problem in MAG, and that was on a central server.

This is a matter of class differentiation, not a hard wiring problem.

I'm not talking about range, I'm talking about physics tracking, AKA tracking bullet drop/travel time. Range isn't really the issue to handling this as any game could have unlimited range. In Dust, if CCP wanted, they could make an infinite ammo continuous fire pistol with pin point accuracy over unlimited distance.

I'm all for falloff damage over staged ranges with the round disappearing after it becomes ineffective. I'm not for playing a game where combat can affect whole player corporations, alliances, and possibly sovereignty and it's all low end tactics happening at less than airsoft ranges.

I'm not talking about range, I'm talking about physics tracking, AKA tracking bullet drop/travel time. Range isn't really the issue to handling this as any game could have unlimited range. In Dust, if CCP wanted, they could make an infinite ammo continuous fire pistol with pin point accuracy over unlimited distance.

I'm all for falloff damage over staged ranges with the round disappearing after it becomes ineffective. I'm not for playing a game where combat can affect whole player corporations, alliances, and possibly sovereignty and it's all low end tactics happening at less than airsoft ranges.

But unless there's physics tracking, no bullet in Dust will ever hit the ground unless the firing angle will put it there.

We would still need extended range damage fall off to account for loss of inertia on projectile and rail weapons and energy dispersion for laser and blaster weapons. Weapon handling does/did affect some weapons more than others. I can site lots of experience dealing with the bullet dispersion at range and increasing barrel climb of the HMG during extended firing.