I did realize this seemed a bit flaky. I acted to try to keep everyone scattering to the four winds over it, which is now unnecessary due to bubs' reassurance. Believe me, I don't want to do the developer's job. But I don't want to see CC make absolutely no sense either.

Grif, I think you nailed everything on the head, even things I hadn't though about in regards to mission design. I can't help but feel that there's some degree of miscommunication - or non-communication - in the top brass. Hopefully this will be less of an issue from here on out.

I would think standardized weapon variables would be nice for modding in general, course I'm probably just saying this because I'm thinking about working on an army and I'm concerned with realistic representation of the arms and armor as I have them in my head with a minimal amount of work. Having realistically weighed bullets with proper velocities and effects would be nice since it would simplify making the guns allowing me to use the bullet diameters, muzzle velocities, bullet "sharpness", etc that I already have rather than trial and error.
On a related note; is sharpness in any way attributable to just how sharp a bullet actually is? Is there any related equation or value so that one could say; look at a 9mm Parabellum cartridge and make an association to the sharpness value?

I personally think most of the stuff looks pretty good anyway, maybe I just don't have a refined view of how stuff blends but I see much smaller inconsistencies than being pointed out, course its probably just me.

I agree with a lot of what Grif said, but ♥♥♥♥ you man: the RPC kicks ass.

I dunno, would you call that sharp?



How about that?

Well I don't mean "sharp" as in knife sharp but rather how the force is distributed by the bullet's tip. Just like in those two pictures, a 9mm pistol round is "flatter" than a rifle bullet, I'm asking would the game say is the difference between those two in the sharpness value.

I agree with you and everything you said except for the following:

1 there is a rocket propeled chainsaw for the same reason as anti-gravity chocolate, because its just FUN, its a GAME it is not serious, if you want super serious super realism shooter, then stfu, play call of duty, and gtfo. Its a ♥♥♥♥ GAME you asshat.


Number 2 and this one is IMPORTANT.

High mass + low sharpness = STOPPING POWER,
Low mass + high sharpness = low stopping power, and still lethal.

Its like comparing hollow-points to full metal jacket. Full metal jacket would be heavier than a hollow point, of the same caliber, BUT, for the sake of cortex command, rather than having a full metal jacket be heavier, we just add sharpness and make it lighter, so that it travels at the SAME speed, and does the SAME damage to the terrain, while having DIFFERENT effects on MO's like weather or not a bullet knocks an actor back 8 feet, or if it just punches clear through.


The point is, sharpness HAS been explained. It is a way to SIMULATE having additional force in impacts, the higher the sharpness, the lower you have to make its mass, or velocity, the higher sharpness has to be to get the same result.





If you want a realist shooter play call of duty or something, if you want to play with a detailed physics sandbox, download a physics simulator or go ♥♥♥♥ with garry's mod. Cortex command CONTAINS physics, but is NOT a physics sand box, it is a GAME, Cortex command is not a detailed realistic shooter.

Its a ♥♥♥♥ space-aged brain in a jar shooting crabs with lazor beams with a space-long-cat in the ♥♥♥♥ intro!

QUIT BRINGING REALISM INTO A ♥♥♥♥ PLAYFULL, FUN, GAME WITH CARTOON GRAPHICS AND SPACE CRABS!

To appease those who wanted a rocket propelled chainsaw.
I think it fits the Ronins well, considering that they have to improvise to make weapons that normally, we wouldn't use in war. Like a rock. You can buy it, and throw it at that Coalition's head, but normally, I'd not even attempt to throw it.

Well, yeah, my point exactly. It would actually give us some way to sensibly measure and compare things. Not that it would bar the way for more unrealistic things, it's just that we'd know exactly how unrealistic something actually is in comparison to more realistic stuff.


I lol'd.


Jury is still out on this one for me... I wouldn't say it doesn't deserve to exist though. But it should definitely be handled as more of a joke weapon within CC content proper.


Alright Miles, shut up. Just stop. Guess what we're talking about in this thread? Realistic standardization of CC's system. Coming in here and constantly telling us that we shouldn't be concerned with that and we shouldn't be talking about it just makes YOU an asshat, I hope you realize. Way to keep disrupting a thread.

And furthermore, you clearly aren't any kind of serious modder or else you'd realize that we need some kind of sensible standardization to alleviate the confusion that comes with the question "okay, how should I balance my projectiles?" This problem results in two things: either A the modder wastes time trying to figure it out or B the modder doesn't care and does whatever, furthering the confusion for others and resulting in mods that don't work well with the main game or other mods. And unless it's a total conversion mod, "playing well with others" should be some kind of consideration.

Finally, CapnBubs pretty much said that he's going to do something about this issue and create a more consistent and realistic system as the creators intended. So if you have a problem with all this, go yell at them, not us.


This is actually a pretty terrible argument. Game design isn't always all about crowd appeasement. If it was, nothing would ever get done.

I agree with Grif on all the bad things said about Numgun. I was pretty upset when he was made into a developer. I know his habits, and now we see just copies of his unfair ♥♥♥♥ in the game. CapnBubs can stay, but Numgun just shouldn't be involved with the actual content of this wonderful game. It's starting to go down hill now. I used to make mods myself based on actual guns, and instead of sharpness, I had wished for energy of the round, so I could set velocities and energy to how they should be. It'll be great to see some standardization anyways.

Some realistic and consistent stuff would be great for reference, but it would be downright boring if even half of the content was very consistent.
The majority of the content should not specifically try to be realistic or consistent, it should be primarily focused on being fun, and the means of doing that with massive amounts of content is to seek uniquity and variety.



My point of pathetic round velocity still stands. Bullet mass should be high to compensate for this.

For example, the Ronin M16 shoots at about a tenth of the velocity of a real M16.
CC can't handle HALF that real velocity; things disappear at approximately 500 velocity.

So, to balance out kinetic energy with this new lower velocity, mass should be multiplied by what velocity was divided by. The Ronin M16's bullet should weigh 40 grams, to give it the kinetic force that a bullet with realistic velocity and mass would have.

To balance out the external ballistics, GlobalAccScalar should be divided by what velocity was divided by, in this case 10. Drag on the bullet should be accounted for, and it isn't, which is pretty stupid since we have AirResistance. I don't know exactly what the drag should be, but I know it should have some.

After we've got all of that taken care of, the penetration abilities should be replicated. This can be done by simply finding the sharpness that allows the bullet to penetrate with power similar to it's real life counterpart. Generally penetration of a weapon is tested and demonstrated on ballistics gel, so that penetration distance should be replicated with CC's flesh material. Multiple references would be good too though.




But arguing over firepower realism when CC has such a pathetic excuse for terminal ballistics is silly.

"okay whard it hit u? did it go in2 you? did it com out?"

I don't particularly care about how unrealistic this is, but it's annoying to me because it's not a good game play feature. Just about every other game out there with guns has firepower set by the bullet. While plainly stated firepower is too simple an idea for CC and detracts from it's nature, we do need more control over the end result of shooting actors.

I suggest that MOPixels and MOSParticles should all have a WoundDamageScalar variable; a damage multiplier for the wounds it causes by it's penetration. Realistically, this could be seen as being the average wound cavity diameter.

I also suggest that the fundamental system of wounding be revamped and deepened. The depth of penetration should be calculated, and this should multiply the initial damage done and the amount of bleeding caused. The exit wound would then cause no significant damage itself, and would mostly act as a limit to the depth of penetration and as an alternate exit for all that blood or whatever other emission of the wound. Several levels of entry and exit wound sprites for different firepower [diameter] penetration would be great. Being shot and taking an inch of penetration from a BB shouldn't cause a massive fleshy hole sprite.

Right now in CC it's better to have a wound cavity that takes up your entire abdominal cavity without the projectile exiting than to have a micrometer diameter needle [or for that matter a neutrino] shot all the way through your arm. Ridiculous!




Also I agree to an extent with Grif's ranting of vanilla content quality. A good deal of it is kinda shoddy but that is reasonable for now, as everything was fairly hurried, and the Q/Q balance leaned toward quantity. As of now that's fine, but that stuff really needs to be fixed up eventually, particularly before the final build.
I sympathize with the devs, polishing things up sucks, especially when you're wanting to make your next idea a reality (or in your case you're in a hurry to get a lot of stuff done.)
This is why Shadow Echelon has been in the making for such a long time; I can rarely bring myself to work on polishing and finishing what's been started.

I still don't get what the plan is for bullet speed in all this. Giving a bullet realistic weight and sharpness really doesn't matter if you're going to slow it down enough to make the game enjoyable.

Edit: I'd like to just throw out there that this isn't me putting my leg out into an argument. This is a question posed by someone who knows they are at best an extremely amateur modder. Just a question, as sincerely as I can put it.

I'm not saying that all things must be realistic, or even a large percentage of things. But consistency (not realism) IS important, simply because it makes stuff easier for mods. I've been trying to separate the terms "realism" and "consistency" but you just lump them together it seems. As for variety, just because "a mass of 0.003" always means "it weighs 3 grams" doesn't halt variety. In fact, it encourages it because it makes the system you're working with simple, consistent, and intuitive, which allows people to focus on the more important and unique factors that you're talking about.


No, that's what sharpness is for.


Well, I remember a time when that wasn't the case. Velocity seems to have been artificially capped at 500 in one of the earlier builds. Not sure why that is. If it weren't for that, the system might actually be able to handle realistic velocities. I recall my first (bad) mod having muzzle velocities of over 1000. Of course, I think another reason for such velocities is simply the fact that Data wants this to be a somewhat more short-ranged game, which it was even before the artificial cap. So in the case of velocity, I call less for absolute realism, and more for just a consistent scale with which to work. And for the most part all of the vanilla content seems to follow this, with pistols going slower than assault rifles, which go slower than sniper rifles, and so on and so forth. While the individual velocities might not be strictly realistic, they are realistic in relation to one another, which is enough as long as the rest of the game is designed to work with such scaled-down velocity, which it seems to be.


Oh believe me, I've been on that soap box before. But that is less about realistic values and more about realistic calculations, which isn't really what we're talking about.


You posted just as I was typing. I believe I answered your concern pretty well. Basically, I'm not asking for realistic velocities, just well-scaled velocities.

Kind of, I'll admit. I suppose that first statement particularly made it seem that way. I know realism and consistency are different, but some of my reasons against the two are the same, neither should be seen as limiting factors to the development of either mods or vanilla content. And then from there my arguments specifically targeted at one or the other weren't separated well.
My mistake, allow me to edit and rephrase that to more accurately convey my thoughts.

It's already definitive what mass is. It IS kilograms. The effect IS consistent. Just because the vanilla content uses misfitting values of mass, (possibly for the sake of uniquity and making the vanilla content varied and fun) giving false contextual clues regarding mass doesn't change what a kilogram is in the game.
Without a standard, all is in relation to one another. While this may make things more complex, it means there's no boring 'standard' content. There doesn't have to be a box if your intention is to think outside it.

Consistency within factions would be fine as a part of their themes, though.


No, sharpness currently compensates for penetration, not kinetic energy. Raise mass to compensate for kinetic energy, then use sharpness to compensate for penetration, and everything will be more more like as if the bullet were traveling at a realistic velocity.

Yeah, the consistent ballistic velocity scale simplifies things, but consistent adherence to it lessens variety. With my example of the M16, it's perfectly fine that its velocity is scaled down. An M16 is expected to be a very standard assault rifle, and 100 is a fine standard for a assault rifle velocity for the sake of gameplay, and other standard assault rifles should have similar velocities. But I was talking about replicating the kinetic effects of high velocity while the actual velocity has been lowered for gameplay reasons.

If it's really an artificial cap, that's pretty lame, all that accomplishes is the limiting of possibilities.

its a game. Game design is about crowd appeasement, or the game will not sell. its called MARKETING.

Furthermore, I agree that we need a STANDARD, but I disagree that the standard must be realism. This is a game with space crabs and robots with a brain in a jar for a head. it is not reality.

We DO on the other hand need the phyisics and game balance to STOP CHANGING EVERY DAMN BUILD. I do agree with you on that, but I HATE that your bringing real physics into a ♥♥♥♥ cartoon game, especially with your specific super-serious thread title containing 'zomg hueg'.

I can not seriously believe you want lightning fast real mass bullets that can't be avoided thus destroying both playability and the willingness of the audience to play.


IF THE PLAYERS DO NOT ENJOY THE GAME IT WILL BOMB! IT IS A GAME FOR THE PLAYERS ENJOYMENT! It is not a place for the game to dictate how WE view fun.

Wait what. Who wants this?

Darlos specifically said that the lowered scale was fine by him.

I was just pointing out that it's an impossibility yet at the same time realism, and elaborating on how mass could compensate for kinetic energy lost in the slowing of bullets. I wasn't arguing for fast bullets, I was arguing for the effects of fast bullets.

I don't want 1000 mps bullets, I want 100 mps bullets for the sake of gameplay, with the punch of 1000 mps bullets, both for the sake of realism and gameplay.