Noob question about deviation

[ViciousAxel]

I've been playing PR for around 3 years and this has been a constant annoyance for me. The main problem I have with deviation is the fact that bullets seem to leave the barrel at an angle. For example, you will be sitting still with your sights over someone and fire with the deviation not settled yet, and the bullet will miss completely. The only possible fix for this I could think of would be to make the sighting-in animations longer, and to have rounds hit where you are pointing once the animation is finished. Or perhaps you could use the breathing-sway from original bf2 to simulate settling your weapon, with the sway stopping only when your weapon is steady.

[AquaticPenguin]

Not true. Using something like ACOG sights means that each time you aim down the sights it takes time to settle

But the deviation is the same, and is independent of you bringing your sights up.

[splatters]

Joker, sorry but I totally disagree with you.

While yes the deviation isn't the most elegant in PR due to sever engine limitations (because there is no other deviation indicator than your own knowledge and where the bullets hit) it results in damn realistic behavior in regards to when is the optimal time to fire the weapon if you ask me.

I have very little trouble hitting targets in CQC even if I've moved and if I've moved a lot I know my deviation is maxed and act accordingly (not expecting a headshot at 50m) However, at under 30m I kill my opponent 9/10 times if I'm the first to shoot. The range where deviation comes the most in play is 50-300m. At those ranges it is crucial to wait till your weapon is steady so the two-three shots first leaving the barrel result in a kill, otherwise you'll lose the advantage of surprise. At +300m you probably wont hit with the first shot anyway unless you're lucky or sniper/marksman.

[Senshi]

Deviation in Project Reality 0.973 - YouTube

Sorry, I picked the wrong encoding and that caued the youtube video to be quite blocky, but I think you can still see the point.

I just modded the game to reenable crosshairs, this better visualizes the current deviation/spread dynamics in PR and the effects of certain movements (note the huge impact of going prone! On the plus side the deviation stabilizes quicker while prone...).

In agile combat crouching is your best friend. A quick crouch&zoom instantly boosts your accuracy a lot when coming out of a sprint/turn.

[Joker86]

Joker, sorry but I totally disagree with you.

Yes, I had a few games in the meantime, and I was able to reliably hit targets popping up surprisingly within 30m around me.

I guess my mistake was that I always went prone when I saw an enemy, due to other games where this instantly provides the highest precision. And I guess the other mistake was that I was using the PKM and was moving with it while shooting.

I think the amount of deviation is okay, but still I would like to see and indicator, not only to help me estimate the deviation, which soon won't be a problem, I will say, but simply for the sake of immersion and reality. And I don't think of some kind of icon, I want a visual effect, whatever that would be.

Because right now you run, you see an enemy, you stop, crouch, aim your sight and place it over the target.

There will be a huge difference in your precision between shooting immediately and waiting five seconds, but still, on the screen NOTHING will have changed, although the screen, next to the sound boxes, is your only connection to what happens ingame. In this moment the connection to the game is cut.


Edit: although I still have to complain a little bit about hitting targets in PR. I was a Hamas (Fatah? Hisbollah?) insurgent on the Gaza (?) map. We had a known cache a little bit southeast of the center of the map, right at the border of the city to the hills with the olive trees. There are a lot of "clay huts" with walls around them, forming yards. I hope you know the location I am talking about.

I was in the first floor of one of those houses, aiming out of the window with my M4 and looking for targets which should be really close, supported by a tank, which means I was moving. While looking for targets, I saw the tip of a rifle looking around the corner of the entrance to the yard. This yard had a diameter of about 20-30m, with a fountain or something like that in the middle. I don't know any more if it was a fountain, it was an obstacle at least. The entrance was right on the opposite side of the yard, next to another house. So I stopped and aimed at the entrance, and indeed the very next moment I saw an olive soldier with Miz'Nefet and opened the fire with my M4. The man managed to run through the fire into the entrance of the builiding next to the gate. Then another man came run exactly the same way, and although I unleaded the rest of my magazine onto him, he made it into the house. Yes, I was moving, and standing, but when I opened fire I had already settled for 1 to 1.5 seconds, the target was really close, and I shot full auto on it. And if not the first, at least the second man should have fallen. The obstacle in the middle blocked the sight for only a slight moment, so it can't count, too.

It's really like shooting someone from the window on the 1st floor who is running the street in front of your garden. If shooting full auto with a .223 you should be fairly familiar with, you should actually hit him. Especially as you were aiming down your sights before, so the time for raising the weapon and bringing the sights in line doesn't count.

Edit: it looked like this:


In matters of reality: safe kill or not?

I admit movement speed in this game had an impact, too.

Those whole "stories" I write here have the purpose of showing events that can happen ingame, and can be quite frustrating, at least for newer players. I was really disappointed I didn't kill a single BLUFOR, although I was aiming into the right direction, and they advanced like... well, not like a force which spawns on tickets, especially the second guy following the first through enemy fire deserved a facepalm.

[Senshi]

The prone-delay was introduced to discourage dolphin-diving, which was VERY popular in earlier versions of PR, as it provided the almost-instant accuracy boost you are describing here. It's a good change.
Going prone means you are wildly inaccurate for some seconds, but once your weapon is brought up and you waited 5-7 seconds you are most accurate. Also, the "regen" of the deviation in the prone position is faster than on crouch or stand, meaning that after firing a shot/burst the weapon will steady very quickly again.

If you think of real-life application, this does make sense as well. "Hitting the dirt" takes a surprising amount of time (the whole jump), and then you still are in a pretty stupid position and first have to get up your upper body again as well as your weapon. Going from stand to crouch basically is a movement that only involves the lower body (generally speaking, ofc), allowing you to keep your weapon stance throughout the whole transition. Check other games like Armed Assault 2 with more profound and realistic animations to see why going prone is not always the smartest idea. Or just try it yourself: get your good ol' gun-stick out and try to transition as quickly as possible from an aimed-standing position to a prone-aiming position. It's not that easy.

Having no visual indicator is a drawback, yes, as deviation should be the "swaying" or unsteadiness of the weapon, caused by recent recoil or not having "settled" the weapon yet. This is something that an experienced rifleman obviously feels and sees. Other games (again, like Arma2) portray this as slight erratic movements of the optics/crosshair that decrease over time when coming to a halt or settling in. This is far better feedback, but is still limited. AFAIK it would be possible to implement erratic movement of the crosshair into PR, but that would have the huge drawback of jittering your whole screen around, as - unlike Arma2 - the weapon crosshair/facing is 100% tied to the view direction. In Arma2 your camera angle remains still and only your weapon/optics jitters unsteadily. This makes aiming very difficult, but still allows you to have a good look around (as you would be able to in real life as well, the eyes don't need much time to adjust after a quick stop).

You could only argue to implement a visual indicator like the one for HAT systems (two small markers on the bottom of the screen).

tl;dr-version: The current system in PR is the best possible approach for the BF2 engine.
You just have to learn to use crouching for combat on the move, as well as get a feeling for accuracy differences. It really is worth it to just go around for a while and test different actions and their results, like I did in the video above.

[Joker86]

Having no visual indicator is a drawback, yes, as deviation should be the "swaying" or unsteadiness of the weapon, caused by recent recoil or not having "settled" the weapon yet. This is something that an experienced rifleman obviously feels and sees. Other games (again, like Arma2) portray this as slight erratic movements of the optics/crosshair that decrease over time when coming to a halt or settling in. This is far better feedback, but is still limited. AFAIK it would be possible to implement erratic movement of the crosshair into PR, but that would have the huge drawback of jittering your whole screen around, as - unlike Arma2 - the weapon crosshair/facing is 100% tied to the view direction. In Arma2 your camera angle remains still and only your weapon/optics jitters unsteadily. This makes aiming very difficult, but still allows you to have a good look around (as you would be able to in real life as well, the eyes don't need much time to adjust after a quick stop).

Just have the area around the sights being blurry, reducing it accordingly to deviation. This represents how you try to get the sights in line with your eyes, and trying to focus your eyes on both the sight and the target (which, in real life, actually doesn't work - you either have the ironsights sharp or the target, never both. Due to some techincal reasons you should always keep your sight focused, not the target. Chances to miss will be smaller.)

Even with crosshairs I think the effect would be acceptable.

[Cassius]

Aim, aim some more, aim longer miss anyway. Except when its a friendly then its an headshot at a pixel fiering from the hip over 200m .

[Daniel]

No increase of accuracy when friendly fire.

[Spec]

He was kidding when he posted that (ten days ago)...

[Daniel]

-.- sry for that...

[tankninja1]

I think it might help if the devs can find a way to turn the deviation system from linear to parabolic, meaning if you view the deviation "cone" from the side your accuracy at short range, 0-30m, it would take less time for the gun to set up than and medium ranges 30m-200m and long ranges 200m-1000m

[Rudd]

If anyone wants to know how BF2 does deviation.

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.deviation.minDev .333
ObjectTemplate.deviation.setFireDev 1.4 .7 .023
ObjectTemplate.deviation.setTurnDev 2 .15 .15 .05
ObjectTemplate.deviation.setSpeedDev 3 .02 .02 .02
ObjectTemplate.deviation.setMiscDev 20 20 .15
ObjectTemplate.deviation.devModStand 1.5
ObjectTemplate.deviation.devModCrouch 1.0
ObjectTemplate.deviation.devModLie 0.9
ObjectTemplate.deviation.devModZoom .3

they are all pretty explanatory once you know that the multiple values mean.

ObjectTemplate.deviation.setSpeedDev 3 .02 .02 .02

the values mean

maximum deviation on account of movement

deviation added on account of moving forwards/backwards

deviation added on account of moving side to side

rate of deviation reduction (which is controlled by the FPS of your player in local, but by 30fps server FPS online)

For an indepth explanation of turning these values into real world values,
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr ... ost1493775

[KiloJules]

Rudd, many thanks for that useful link. Never seen that post. Very good explanation.

And the answer of BenHamisch on the 2nd page made my day! lolzy