Weapons - EEEK!

I've noticed a few threads below regarding weapons and stuff, and I thought to point out a few things.

The standard rifle round in the western world is the 5.56x45mm, used in the M16 (and its varients), the Galil, the G36, some of the newer Kalashnikovs... the list goes on forever.

The 5.56 can penetrate a standard issue millitary helmet at a range of 500 metres and better.

The 5.56 tumbles end-over-end when it hits human tissue and tends to break into little nasty fragments that cut the target's innards to shreds - or someone's head open.

These rifles are more than accurate enough to hit a dinner-plate sized target from 200 metres away, WITHOUT using a scope.

These rifles usually have fully-automatic settings, with rates of fire between 600 and 1200 rounds per minute (10 to 20 rounds per second). They typically have 30 round in a magazine, but shorter and longer magazines are sometimes issued.

Rifles are usually fired single-shot to maintain accuracy - this is because the normal fighting distance isn't up close and personal, but at a target hundreds of metres away. Fully-automatic recoil would mean no accuracy.

That's a modern assault rifle in a nutshell - and it's a standard issue weapon. ID software, like most computer game designers, doesn't follow this. Face it, most of the guns in action games... well, they suck. They're innaccurate, or they don't do much damage, or the bullet/rocket takes a lot of time to reach the target.

This is the big difference between psuedo-realistic games and rocket-jumping action games. "Realism" means you die fast. "Action" means that firing a rocket at your feet is an accepted way to leap onto higher ground.

I've got a feeling that ID software isn't going to change their style - they'll use weapons that are derived from the weapons in the Doom and Quake series, and just add better graphics and more base in the sound effects.

Don't get me wrong, I would like some "this-is-your-life ending, so shove it" realism in the single player experience of Doom3, but I'm not expecting it.

Walter Sochack

It's a good way to look at it. And they probably wont pull a realistic damage code in DooM 3. Can you honestly see Rainbow Six damage coding in DooM? It wouldn't work to well because the levels are longer. Maybe if their armor was strong enough, and base it more on armor damage, and once armor is gone, "one-shot you're dead" might work. But what are the chances of it being like that.