Ballistics or Tracers?

[Psyko]

i would like to help with this. In fact i was really hoping this would be in the new release because from what i hear it seems you guys have done a lot of work with most of the weapons...am i right?

[WildBill1337]

i say all or nothing. with assault rifles, and sniper rifles, where accuracy is very important, tracers would be very misleading and would hurt gameplay and realism. with automatic rifles, mounted machine guns, and coaxial guns, youre firing more into an area, so tracers would be ok there

[Celestial1]

tracers would be very misleading and would hurt gameplay and realism.

In reality, standard assault rifles as well as automatic rifles are often loaded with 6 tracers in a 30 round mag. That's 4 bullets between tracers. Are those 6 bullets per magazine really going to affect gameplay that much?

Tracers drop, somewhat significantly. Nothing HUGE, but enough to know that's not EXACTLY where your regular rounds are going to hit. It occurs because in flight the bullet loses much of it's mass because of the tracer substance burning off in flight, and while in flight the bullet loses stability because of the changes in mass and weight. They're not perfect.


There should be a 4 round : 1 tracer ratio in Standard Conventional Army rifles, and Conventional Army Automatic rifles. Every 5th round will be a tracer, which will help direct fire and somewhat show you where you're hitting. Adjust slightly up from the tracer impact, and you'll be hitting dead on.

ALL standard rifles (Officer, Rifleman, Medic, Engineer, Light AT, Grenadier, etc) should be issued rifles with a 4:1 ratio of tracer. Automatic riflemen should also be issued 4:1 ratios of tracers. Any non-standard rifles (Sniper, Designated Marksman, Specops, Crewman with carbines) should be issued without tracers, as the first 3 are meant to be an accurate shooter, and not to be easily found.

I don't quite like the idea of giving only tracer filled magazines to officers. Sometimes it IS done, but it's going to make officers want to hold back fire for fear of blowing their cover. While useful sometimes, it will cause some implications when it is less desirable.

The tracer bug will cause very little issues, I think you'll see, in the long run, when people get used to their rifles.

[zangoo]

How should we gather people for the larger test, How many people should come? Also should we use teamspeak to relay instructions instead of ingame chat?

[cyberzomby]

Would be cool to help you guys test. I would very gladly get shot with tracers

[Masaq]

How should we gather people for the larger test, How many people should come? Also should we use teamspeak to relay instructions instead of ingame chat?

You need a thread.
In it you state the date, time and location. All of these should be set in advance, NOT arranged on the night.
You need to state how people can gain the test files.
You need to state how they can install them.
You need to state how they can uninstall them so they can play in public again afterwards.
You need to tell them what you will be testing, how you will be testing it, and how long you hope to spend doing it.
You need to tell people that if they **** around when you're trying to test something specific, they'll be kicked from the server.


That's how you arrange a test session...

[CareBear]

and masaq know his stuff about that

[isooth]

Simple question, over a, say 500 meter engagement (not at all strange on maps such as kashan, when firing at max accurate distance of your rifles is key) how much would the tracers deviate from the normal path? would it be a matter of a few cm on screen, or just a tad bit? The point of tracers is not to show the squad what part of the body they should hit on a solider, just the general direction, so if it isn't that much, I'm fine with it...

(the graph in the start is a bit fishy, maybe its me being tierd though... Will study it further... xD)

[Zandr]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in real life tracer bullets should overrun fewer distance than common do.
Does it mean that BF2 devs have foreseen this effect?

[Drav]

I take it making a new emitter attached to a normal speed bullet isn't going to work then?

Just for the record, I voted for all or nothing. LMGs and vehicles all tracers, assault rifles and the rest no tracers. Be interesting to see it in action....

[zangoo]

Simple question, over a, say 500 meter engagement (not at all strange on maps such as kashan, when firing at max accurate distance of your rifles is key) how much would the tracers deviate from the normal path? would it be a matter of a few cm on screen, or just a tad bit? The point of tracers is not to show the squad what part of the body they should hit on a solider, just the general direction, so if it isn't that much, I'm fine with it...

(the graph in the start is a bit fishy, maybe its me being tierd though... Will study it further... xD)

I dont have the graph but mosquill does, But if it is about 2m at 400m you could say about 4-5m at 500m. Also what do you mean by fishy?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in real life tracer bullets should overrun fewer distance than common do.
Does it mean that BF2 devs have foreseen this effect?

Yea they would have had to think about adding this so it is a feature. Also you are correct the tracers have a slightly diffrent path then normal bullets but they are very very close to the normal bullets.

I take it making a new emitter attached to a normal speed bullet isn't going to work then?

Just for the record, I voted for all or nothing. LMGs and vehicles all tracers, assault rifles and the rest no tracers. Be interesting to see it in action....

Well the issue isnt how to make a tracer but how to get a interval for them.

[Jaymz]

One of two things really needs to happen before we can incorporate this into PR...

1. A way to make tracers use your ballistics

or

2. A way to make intervals for new tracers

[zangoo]

One of two things really needs to happen before we can incorporate this into PR...

1. A way to make tracers use your ballistics

or

2. A way to make intervals for new tracers

We have a way to make tracers use the ballistics but they dont have intervals.

So unless someone gets 2 firearms to shoot at the same time with the same input and from the same object, The ballistics wont be in pr.

Just a side note, Wouldnt it be more realistic to have ballistics with wrong tracer loads then having bullets that go 1km/sec Constant with realistic tracers?

[SocketMan]

Can you do both?
Change at will (with the keypad)

[Sabre_tooth_tigger]

Did we test the very small all tracers route yet, if not why not. Seems alot more practical to do a small test then presume anything in text. If a server is needed maybe someone can volunteer one for zangoo to try this out some more please

[zangoo]

Me, Soalic and Crazyasian have created a range card for the m40a3, It uses the scope markings and has info for 200 - 1150m. We have tested this and it works very very well. We have made 2 versions for 4:3 monitors and widescreen monitors. This makes shooting snipers much more of a skill. If you would like to take part in these small tests please pm me and i will invite you.

[Jaymz]

If a compromise were to be made I'd say,

Set all sniper and marksmen rifles to use the new ballistics system. Don't incorporate "true" ballistics to LMG's, HMG's or regular rifles. Instead, come up with better settings for what we have now (gravmod etcetc) to make them more relevant to the hardcoded tracer rounds.

[Mosquill]

Don't incorporate "true" ballistics to LMG's, HMG's or regular rifles. Instead, come up with better settings for what we have now (gravmod etcetc) to make them more relevant to the hardcoded tracer rounds.

But as long as there is noticeable drop, there is noticeable difference in drop between tracers and non-tracers. And implementing ballistics just for sniper rifles would be too unbalanced and stupid.

[Drav]

Keep plugging away guys, I'm sure you'll get there....Have you looked into using an animated texture as an emitter to produce a tracer interval on normal speed bullets? So it only actually emits colour every so often...You might not get it to produce one in four, but it might help reduce the star wars effect enough for machine guns?

[nedlands1]

Me, Soalic and Crazyasian have created a range card for the m40a3, It uses the scope markings and has info for 200 - 1150m. We have tested this and it works very very well. We have made 2 versions for 4:3 monitors and widescreen monitors. This makes shooting snipers much more of a skill. If you would like to take part in these small tests please pm me and i will invite you.

I'd strongly consider making a version for 5:4 monitors since most people probably use a 19"/17" LCD screen which is 1280x1024.