Project Reality Forums

By now we have all seen the new HUD, wich consists of the traditional mini-map, ammor counter and health bar. It also includes two new features, the relaod bar as well as the stamina bar. But all of these things can be represented without these unrealsitic aproaches.

For starters, the weapon information. The ammo counter needs to go, IRL you can't see how many rounds are left in your mag unless it is one of the special clear ones, but then the clear mag's could be put in game. The reload bar is just silly, you should be able to watch the reload animation, most of witch are wrong, and be able to judge by that.

Then we have the new stamina bar and sprinting system. The bar should be done away with and instead replaced by certain audio effects. Your in game soldier would beign to breathe harder as he tired, and if you stopped to shoot your aiming would be less efficient. Of course your fighter would eventualy slow down and stop running as well. I also thing that the jump key should be part of this new stamina system, so that if someone tries to "bunny-hop" they will soon tire and be stuck jogging for a minute or so untill they stop to rest.

Now for the health bar, probably the most complicated problem we have. But as I have refered to in my other post about wounding affects, it is not impossible. In fact, it has already been done in the DCR mini-mod. Such effects included darkening tunnel vission and a heartbeat sound. Because this is a realism mod, health effects would be less concerning anyways because a well placed shot or two will most likely take an oponent down.

Finally we have the mini-map. The mini-map too needs to be removed. Instead of the regular map we are used too seeing, a small hand-held GPS unit could be moddeled and pulled out when you clicked the map button. This would provide all the information we're used to seeing such as time left, and tickets. Aside from making it look like a hand-held GPS unit it could be the same map we're used to seing. If possible these GPS units could be issued only too squad leaders, increasing the need for teamwork.

These features would in turn make project reality that much better, and realistic. As well as adding depth to the game increasing the overall fun factor.

I like the ideas, minus the GPS part. How many soldiers are carrying those around anyways? Players should still be able to see their tickets and amount of time remaining. Maybe for infantry, the minimaps could be taken away and have a button you can press to bring up a map screen, showing the layout of the area like OFP. Maybe with some vehicles, the mini-map added back on the HUD, if at all possible, which in a way could simulate the BlueForce Tracker being used by us in Iraq. The only infantry units to have an active mini map should be the commander, which he will see when he brings up the command menu.

My 2 cents

Forgive me for saying wounding affects were unimportant. Was kinda in a hurry when I typed this, because I had had to stop half way through last night and wanted to get it done before I had to hurry off. That being said, I must admit they are a very important part of the game. Some things I didn't think of when posting,
-increased weapons sway if you get shot in the arm
-slower movement if you're shot in the leg
-a bit of both if hit in the chest

As for the GPS, I only wanted to come up with something that was more original/realistic. Hell in real life you don't even get a map, you get to follow your orders and go where you're told. That was part of the reason I suggested only giving it to squad leaders, to increase teamwork because on big maps you don't want to get lost and be stuck without a map. It does also make sense to have it inside of vehicles as well. But I still think the actual mini-map on screen needs to go. As for tickets and time left, I was wrong here too. These should be available to everyone, but I still think a more original way to show it would be good. Red Orchestra has a small stopwatch that counts down from 30 minutes. I was just hoping for something like that as opposed to a little box with the time in it.

Ya, i agree, axe the minimap and give squad leaders a gps tool. might be hard to code the gps tool to work right... pull it out, left click, map appears? maybe somethign could be done to make it be like a mini commander mode when 'firiing' the gps unit (left clicking) and 'firiing' again closes the menu. you could just have it so he has a map he can pan around and zoom in with, but cant give any orders to anything but his squad.


how many soldiers do have those in iraq now? i would imagine a lot. Also, i still think this mod is set 4-5 years in the future, so we can fudge some stuff a little...

Cool ideas. I agree with most of them. Most soldiers don't know the exact amount of cartridges in their magazine, but they usually have a general idea of how many they've shot. If you've ever been in the military (as quite a few of you have it seems) or been to the shooting range, you usually have a general estimate of how many rounds you've shot. With a handgun you usually have an exact amount of how many rounds are left. Considering the average magazine capacity is around 12-15 rounds for a handgun. That and almost all handguns are semi-automatic, making it easier to count how many rounds you've used. Also, you definetly start to notice when you're running low on ammunition in your current magazine when the weight of your weapon starts to feel lighter. Usually a 30 round magazine weights anywhere from 4 to 5 pounds, depending on the ammuniton specs and the type.

Anyways, since a HUD is a bit unrealistic, perhaps having someway to tell your weapon is lighter would help. Maybe when you use the iron sights the weapon is more stable than a fully loaded magazine and it sways less. Maybe an animation indication could help as well, such as when the weapon is heavy (near full magazine) the soldier has the weapon pointed towards the ground a bit more, and when theres less ammuniton the weapon is pointing straight forward. It's also usually quite easy to tell how many magazines you have left too.

As for the GPS idea, that is pretty cool. Before an operation commences soldiers have usually studied maps for hours getting to know the terrain, obstacles, blueprints of any buildings, etc. So I think maybe there should be just a paper map each member of a squad could carry. On it could be land marks that could help the soldier indentify their postion. Like Operation Flashpoint as m0ldy mentioned, except it doesn't show your location, you have to indentify it. Also in Operation Flashpoint you had a compass, perhaps having access to one in the mod would help too. The squadleader should have access to a streaming GPS map however, to coordinate attack plans and such.

The health bar isn't definetly not needed. Like you guys said, you'll know when you're hit. Graying vision, dulling sound, and such are key factors for immediate medical attention. Not to mention realism will help make living much harder, even with a bulletproof vest. Two full metal jacket rounds to the heart and one to the head will make a health bar pretty pointless.

DCR did a really nice job with damage effects that you notice: tunnel vision, heart beat, darkening, ears ringing...

all that stuff should be put in.

If possible, what we'd ideally be shooting for would be somethign like this:


Little picture of guy standing in the leonardo da vinchi stance ( arms, legs out). The picture has a distinct head/neck section, section for each arm and leg, a small heart hitbox, an upper chest hit box and a lower chest/torso hit box.

Then some sort of thing that shows how much/fast/badly you are bleeding.

Some sort of stamina indicator, either a bar, or a very easily understood audible system (heavily winded = guy constantly breathign really really hard). Stamina should take a while to recover after being shot, but not too long to recover after runnign a while (and not being shot).

Damage system:
Say each section has 100 health. Your guy will only die when his head/neck, heart, upper chest or lower chest/torso goes to zero, if your arms or legs go to zero, you wont die.

All hits to all parts of body make your guy start bleeding. The bigger the caliber, the more you bleed. Eventually, you can bleed to death (from being hit anywhere).

Every time you get hit anywhere, your vision goes blurry and red or black with tunnel vision that SLOWY dissapates. Call this shock. Evey time any sort of explosive device goes off next to you, depending on the loudlness (is that a word..?) and proximity of the explosion you get blurry/tunnel vision and a ringing noise that lasts for a while. This would also be shock.

Medics would have bandages to stop bleeding, and morphine to cure shock. Nothing can give you back health though.

*Note*
Body armor (i'm assuming) will not stop anything more than pistol rounds in most cases. For any part of the charachter with body armor, pistol shots (or anything else that wouldnt penetrate body armor, like shrapenel) don't do damage or make your guy bleed, but they do induce shock.


Hits to arms: The worse your arm is damaged, the mor unsteady your aim gets. Not like the crosshairs expand more rapidly, like your gun begins to sway left and right whenever you use it (think AT guns in FH). As all the guys in BF are right handed, your right arm would affect the sway more than your left arm. Also, reloading is slower, switching to different weapons is slower and changing firing modes is slower.

Hits to legs: After any hit to any leg, you cannot sprint or jump and speed in every other position is slowed down, maybe even a worsening limping animation could be put in. After one leg goes under 30 health, you can't walk, run, sprint or crouch, you have to prone and can only crawl around.

Hit to heart: A very small hitbox, the size of the guy's heart. Anything hitting it kills it in one hit. If material penetration can be used correctly on people, then in theory we can have bullet that travels through someone's side, and goes into thier heart, then comes out the other side.THis would make heart shots a bit more common.

Hit to upper chest: I'm thinking upper chest is like basically stuff near your ribcage. So lungs and other organs. Hits to upper chest cause massive bleeding from all the horrible internal damge they create, do a good amount of damage (1 or 2 shots from anything to the upper chest kills you, depending on gun) and cause massive shock. Also, they cause aim to waver like being hit in the arms (50 damage to an arm = swaying 20 %, 50 damage to upper chest = swaying 10%). Also, after a shot to this area, you ain't gonna be able to run so fast or jump, so no more jumping or sprinting.

Hits to lower chest/torso: Hits to this area can kill you, but don't do as much damge as hits to the upper chest. Hits to this area, ususally between 1 and 3 (again, depending on gun) will kill you. Hits to this area cause almost as bad bleeding as upper chest hits (im thinking the organs down here are less vital to immidiate action and life) and almost as bad shock. They also cause the same style of movement impairment as leg hits do, but to a slightly lesser degree. Still, after one shot, you can't jump or sprint.

If an absolute ' Youve been hit here so you cant jump ever again untill you respawn' thing wont work, then we can just have really really slowly recovering stamina, and hopefully it can be modded so a shot could hurt your stamina as well, like it does 200 out of 100 stamina, so it takes a long time to recover.

Also, the little combat effectiveness thingy from AA would be nice. Basically, your aim goes to shit if there are bullets flying or explosions happening near you.

Edited old post, see ^

Ugly Duck wrote:For starters, the weapon information. The ammo counter needs to go, IRL you can't see how many rounds are left in your mag unless it is one of the special clear ones, but then the clear mag's could be put in game. The reload bar is just silly, you should be able to watch the reload animation, most of witch are wrong, and be able to judge by that.

I am a bit divided on this issue. I agree that the round counter (showing number of rounds left in the magazine) should probably go, but the magazine counter (showing the number of magazines remaining in inventory) should stay. And the magazine counter is also used for things like rounds remaining for the internal magazine weapons (shotguns and sniper rifles), which we hope to be able to "top-off" as they were in BFV. Also, it is used for the round counter for single-shot, manually loaded weapons like grenades, grenade launchers and recoilless launchers. And since you carry so few rounds for those, you should be able to know how many you have left.

i agree with that. kill individual ammo count for auto and semi auto weapons, but keep clips, while keeping say shot gun shell or sniper round amounts left.

Why only for semi/auto weapons, i mean if in real life you can count your ammo left why cant you do it in a game?

Eddie's idea was a good one. However I don't think the military even uses shotguns in combat, with the exception of breaching purposes. But the counter for the total magazines is a good one. That would leave sniper rifles as the only real countable ammo weapons. And as arch enemy said, why can't people count for their self? It would be no different than counting IRL, in fact it would be easier. So I'd say keep the magazine count, drop the ammo count.

Ugly Duck wrote:Eddie's idea was a good one. However I don't think the military even uses shotguns in combat, with the exception of breaching purposes.

They're not a general purpose weapon like the rifle, they're only used in certain situations. Breaching is one example, but for close-quarters battle in general (MOUT / room and building entry and clearance, VBSS, trench clearance) the shotgun is useful. It is also used in operations other than war (embassy/installation security, guarding EPWs, law enforcement on installations and anti-riot) and less-lethal applications. It's also used for standoff disruption of unexploded ordnance when a large caliber rifle is unavailable or impractical.