[SUGGESTION] New accuracy system

[parjlarsson]

To bump this thread, and rehash this stuff again.

Duke: Having not fired an automatic weapon myself, are you confirming there that the grouping showed no gradual trend upwards. I was expecting with a gun firing in a burst, that the recoil of each shot would raise the barrel a fraction each time?

What i think the OP was hinting at:

For any shot, call the a function to calculate the first shot based on soldier's skill, firing mode and the weapon's general accuracy. So in theory, whether you fired a snap shot, burst shot or full auto; the chance of hitting on the first round is equal. But an aimed shot would have a bonus modifier to improve accuracy.
Subsequent shots would then call another recursive function or loop, where by the placement of each additional shot is calculated by moving the original path up a random amount and to the side a random amount. The random amounts would again be scaled by the weapon's accuracy and user's skill. The result would be a gradual zig zag pattern going upwards. On that note, any accuracy reported to the user should always be the first shot. I believe a method like this was used counterstrike for gun accuracy.


EDIT: Having looked into the combat.c code, I noticed that the two spread values included for each weapon correspond to the yaw & pitch deviation calculations. It could be possible to modify that method, and recurse/loop the subsequent shots off the previous shots yaw & pitch. Not 100% confident how it affects other methods in that code. Furthermore, it would require some weapon rebalancing and potentially change the combat tactics (multiple shots no longer as effective at long range).

Different automatic weapons have different recoil tendencies. The FAMAS which I'm most competent with is fairly decently accurate even full auto with a trained, experienced shooter. The M4 even more so.

AK-47 type rifles though - all bets are off, esp. since a lot of them are old and not properly maintained by the people that use them in combat currently. Iirc some of them have upward recoil tendencies even if you hold it well, meaning you have to actively compensate by increasing the downward pressure from your arms/body onto the weapon.

Panicky people with automatic weapon can go insane and spray bullets everywhere while spinning around with no recoil control. Outside of that, you'll never see two bullets go 45 degree different if they're fired at full auto.

But let's not go for full authenticity here. If it looks cool use it. Tracer fire looks cool. A zig-zag pattern might look cool.

Worry about bugs and AI and maps before you worry about small stuff like this, unless it's a pet peeve thing. imho.

[Edi]

To add to this discussion:

AK-47 and variants have significant upward recoil when fired in burst or full automatic mode. You can control it in burst and even full automatic mode, but you have to know what you're doing and it's physically demanding due to the way you have to put downward pressure on the gun with your arms and practically hunch over it so you can get additional control with your body. Done correctly, putting 7 or 8 out bullets out of a 10 round burst on a stationary man-sized target in full automatic mode is completely possible.

As far as ammo forming lines, if you use tracer rounds, yes, they most certainly do. Having been on the firing range at night time with two platoons shooting tracer rounds while two watched from the sidelines, it was quite the light show. If you put every third, fourth or fifth round a tracer, it will indeed cause a lot of lines to be seen when firing in swift succession single shots, burst fire or full automatic.

[xkuehn]

I can not comment on the realism, but I'd like to remind you that complicated hit probabilities make for complicated AI.