nope. Gotta crawl before you can walk. These guys are new at FPS games. Don't fix what ain't broke.


Also um, plasma isn't affected by gravity and stuff so there's no need for bullet drop.

nope. Gotta crawl before you can walk. These guys are new at FPS games. Don't fix what ain't broke.


Also um, plasma isn't affected by gravity and stuff so there's no need for bullet drop.

Except for laser weapons and rails, please remove hitscan type weapon modes. Please replace the non laser, non rail weapons with projectiles that have travel time and ballistics as appropriate.

Concerning Processing power, computational weight, etc, where necessary reduce the rate of fire, and increase the per shot damage.

Hitscan is a terrible crutch, and hardly seems necessary in 2013. We had Tribes in 1998 with 32 player support and mainly weapons with realistic ballistics.

I talked to CCP Wolfman about this last year. Trying to calculate all that would result in more lag than you see now.

Funny thing about that though, Dynamix was able to do this in 1998 with 32+ players per match. Think about that, Tribes had very few hitscan weapons 15 years ago and made it work with the same or larger numbers in a match than Dust. I call BS on that argument.

Hmm, on one hand, bullets that move and have things like bullet drop sound great, but on the other, I feel that CCPs severs might explode from the stress of tens of thousands of people flying in spaceships, and hundreds of others shooting ARs with physics everywhere.

Bullet Drop, Yes.

Having to have a virtual bullet go from point A to point Dead, Hmm... Iffy.

Except for laser weapons and rails, please remove hitscan type weapon modes. Please replace the non laser, non rail weapons with projectiles that have travel time and ballistics as appropriate.

Concerning Processing power, computational weight, etc, where necessary reduce the rate of fire, and increase the per shot damage.

Hitscan is a terrible crutch, and hardly seems necessary in 2013. We had Tribes in 1998 with 32 player support and mainly weapons with realistic ballistics.

Rail gun would have ballistics also, it uses magnetism to fire a projectile.

Yes, but the round flies very fast, making ballistics probably negligible for it. 2500 m/s I think, and while there's no reason this couldn't be modelled, it's unlikely to matter much considering the small map sizes.

Tbh, i can't see why it would matter with any current hitscan weapon within its respective range. It's safe to assume that most weapons currently in the game or announced would have projectile velocities in excess of 700m/s.

Given optimal ranges of often around or under 50m the travel time would be completely insignificant i.e indistinguishable from server lag, input lag and and human reaction speeds.

This makes me wonder if it's worth the development cost and added server stress. Not arguing that it's impossible to manage the overhead but both development and server resources could've been spent on other, more noticable areas.

Could be. I don't know what the travel rate of other weapons are supposed to be. I can say this though: it makes a big difference when it comes to the weapons that currently have ballistics - flaylock, MD, FG. These weapons are much harder at distance because as the travel time increases, so does the uncertainty about where the target may be once the round arrives.

Even a difference of a half or quarter second would go a long way IMHO.

The 700m/s are pulled off from google and supposedly close to what an ak 47 and similar manages (i'm uncreative ).

I can only assume that projectile weapons follow the basic mass*velocity rule so speeds would be similar to/higher than what we have today to penetrate shields/armor unless we fire magnum caliber full auto weapons at each other. The HMG for example was around 5-6mm caliber iirc, less mass than the 7.62mm of an ak and not even close to a magnum so speeds should be pretty high just out of real world intuition.

Blasters might be considerably slower but if i'd design a close range general purpose weapon (say, Gal AR) i'd make sure to give it enough speed so the user does not have to lead shots within its intended range. We could assert this to be the case and use it as an excuse to keep it hitscan. Using it outside of its range can already be balanced through falloff mechanics so that there's no unfixable risk of abuse either.

While i agree that weapon ballistics are an interesting and valid way to allow for weapon options that are harder to handle but also potentionally more effective i'd argue that there is also value in more reliable, easy to use hitscan weapons for those who prefer a dependable solution that is as consistent as possible. Different players and play styles have varying preferences and allowing each a wide choice is a good thing in my opinion.

With that said I can easily support the addition of new guns that have noticable travel times and ballistic arches as there's a distinct lack of those outside of niche and specialist options. I do not think however that current hitscan weapons require a change in that regard.

Well thanks for your input.

Obviously, I think removing Hitscan removes a gimmick, and also helps to balance the current crop of Hitscan weapons. Beyond that, I think your real world examples are fine, but not really relevant to Dust. Look at the current speed of Swarm missiles, MD rounds and Flaylock rounds. All of these are significantly slower than their real world counterparts.

Actually, plasma is a state of matter, albeit a highly energized state of matter. As such, it is affected my gravity. That said, we are talking about using plasma weapons in an atmosphere which has problems on it's own, so, we can just skip that crap and make things that work here.

wish I could give you +100 for this thread alas I must give you +1 good sir

Buster, regarding Starsiege in 1998: the physics was a major part of it, the engine was made to accomodate those physics from the outset. Retrofitting an engine you didn't develop to accomodate more advanced physics is a very different kettle of fish.

Those weapons are also low rate of fire, relatively. Spinfusors and Mortars are 1 shot at a time, Plasma Guns and Grenade Launcher are around the MD's rate of fire. Chaingun is closest to being on par with Dust automatics but still falls short by a bit.

In a perfect world we'd be rid of hitscan but in this one the calibration of the UE3 engine with the current game is still being worked on.