Feature: Realistic Damage Calculation Approach

Description:

In actual and upcoming shooters the feature of customizable weapons is getting more common. The Player does have fun fiddle around with all the mountables, etc. But in the real world, all these accessories haven’t that much of an impact on the behavior of a gun than the used ammunition. There are dozens of different calibers and each of them with different characteristics and area of application (like speed, aerodynamic, influence by air resistance and most important impact on the target while wearing different protections).

This concept is going to proof that the Player will have fun in choosing the right round for his belongings and after that choosing a gun in dependency. And that the Player will need to adapt his tactics if one kind of round is running out. It is about handling the damage dealt by each gun by imitation of realistic behavior. That means, that the system will be based on physical principles as long as the result is noticeable in game and the resource consumption is within a tolerable range.

Goals:

–       Creating a calculation prototype (maybe in Excel)
       –    Inputs should depending on the manufacture specifications of a round
       –    Information will be calculated with physical principles
       –    Missing Information will be guessed by using approximate value
             based on own experience
       –    Output will be an Energy value in Joule altered by worn protection
–       Converting it to blueprints
–       Arranging a test of concept with Players

Progress:

Getting the majority of the needed formulas was fast and easy. One of the first results was that calculating a ballistic trajectory is not needed. This Project does have a maximum engagement range of approximately 300 meter. The Player would only notice the travel time of a bullet and this will be addressed later with a workaround, if possible, to save up system resources. So I dropped the development on this detail.

I ended up quickly with the needed information of a bullet that hits a target at a given range. The huge problem was to go on further. How to calculate the energy output to the target? How much energy is impacting the target and how much is left to the bullet after possibly leaving the target on its back? As there are different kinds of bullets, how does a full metal jacket influence human tissue in comparison to a hollow point bullet? What is about the bullet deformation inside a body and what is with its speed and direction while leaving the body again? I realized that it is not possible to predict those with simple formulas. It was up to me to do a simplification.

First I tried to get the different bullet heads in relation to each other. Bullets with no deformation at all do not influence the math behind it. Bullets with deformation multiplied it in dependency to its increased cross section. Bullets with fragmentation increase it further more. On the other side, rounds without deformation do have more impact power to different kinds of armor.

This leads to very high energy values for fragmentation ammunition.

The Armors themselves do work the other way around to the bullets. Different armors negate different amount of impact energy. Those values are than influenced (multiplied) by the used bullet type.

Although the impact energy was decreased by armor, fragmentation ammunition was still the most viable option. It lost about 80% of energy to the armor, but the energy left was still higher than the amount of the armor piercing rounds. But just decreasing the multiplier for that kind of ammunition was no option too, because it leads to other inconsistencies to the reality.

At this point, I added a simplification for calculating how much energy is able to impact the human tissue itself and how much is left. This in combination to the mathematics above leads to my actual system.

Missing:

Testing: This concept needs to be proven by the Players. Do they like it? Do they even recognize it?

Balancing: If it is worth to be followed, the values for the simplification are only guessed and need some kind of balance.

Minimum viable Product: This concept is not confirmed, so I left out some features:

–       The possibility of a bullet leaving the target on the back side
–       The travel time of a bullet
–       The barrel length, which influences the time the round is influenced by the gases

Conclusion:

I like the implementation myself, but it is not presented to any Playerbase. The calculation for each shot seems to not be that resource heavy. After all, this concept is doable, at least.

After reaching my first Milestone, I will hopefully can say something about the acceptance of it to the Player.