A Gunsmith's Analysis (Updated for RC7)

The place to discuss all things Receiver.
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Katemonster
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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:52 am

Falling Damage and Safety

So, there's something that has me annoyed with the falling-to-your-death function. In the indoor, warehouse-ish room with sometimes catwalks up above and sometimes enormous, chest-high concrete blocks on the floor, sometimes the catwalks don't connect to the doorways at either end on the second floor. If you sprint toward these gaps with intent to jump to the door, but fail to actually jump, you'll land on the window sill just below the doorway:

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Jumping down from here will result in your death, even though it's much lower than the catwalk. This is annoying. I think you ought to survive that fall.

One thing I think would have an interesting effect on gameplay is if there were an intermediate height down which you can fall without game over, but that results in a sprained ankle. You can still play, but you can't jump as high, can't sprint, and limp really badly (pulsated movement that really screws up your aim.) This intermediate height would be like jumping down from that window sill to the floor, or from the catwalks to those concrete blocks. Jumping from the catwalk to the floor would still be high enough to just end the game. Maybe put the rolled ankle on a luck roll and have it more likely to happen the higher you fall from.

Another idea would be that if you fall from a sufficient height, you roll to have a slight chance of dropping your pistol and having to pick it back up. This could have the effect of the weapon inadvertently firing when it hits the ground, but I'll get into that later.

----------------

On a semi-related note, it would be cool if safety mechanisms on the weapons weren't just fluff and that the player had some incentive to take safety into account. For this discussion, I'll be using the terms fall-safe to denote the gun not going off in your hand or in your holster when you jump down from a ledge, and drop-safe to denote the gun not going off if you drop it and it hits the ground. I'm building these suggestions upon the changes I suggested in the previous three posts about the weapons themselves.

A note on firearm safety: The golden rule of safe firearm handling is that you always treat all guns like they are loaded and ready to fire, even if you know that they aren't. Part of this is that you never have your finger on the trigger or even inside the trigger guard unless and until you are actually on-target and intend to fire. Just walking around, your finger should be up on the frame, parallel to the barrel. Unfortunately, novices (like possibly the PC of Receiver) sometimes have trouble remembering this, and also fine motor control for things like that go out the window when you find yourself in a really stressful situation. This can lead to bad things happening.

I'd like to bring the the concept of single-action and double-action triggers back into mind. (I told you I would.) Of course, double-action originally came about to do away having to manually cock the hammer for every shot on a revolver and achieve something resembling semiautomatic fire, however there's another implication to it these days. Reliable semiautomatic pistols have existed for well over 100 years, but law enforcement officers around the world continued to utilize DA hand-ejector revolvers, similar to the Victory, well into the 1980's. Part of this was stubbornness and unwilling to make the change to newfangled and potentially less reliable autoloaders, but the other part is that most autoloading pistols were single-action and no one likes being liable for unintentionally-fired bullets. When a police officer yells "stop, or I'll shoot!" and shoots anyway, that's generally because they got twitchy under stress and yanked the trigger unintentionally. For this reason, double-action has always been the preferred weapon for law enforcement, and it's a smart idea to take this into account for personal defense weapons as well. So, double-action revolvers continued to be the norm until the mid-1980's when they were overtaken with DA/SA pistols like the Beretta M92 family and S&W third-generation auto pistols, and later with DAO pistols like the Glock family.

In addition, certain conditions can make a pistol not fall-safe while in the holster. I'd say the consequence of having a gun fire while in the holster would be to shoot yourself in the thigh and get instant game-over. At the present though, none of the three pistols in Receiver are subject to this problem.

(Now, another thing to take into account is that mechanical safety devices are in fact mechanical, and all mechanical things are subject to breakage. That's a fundamental part of safe behavior with a firearm; you never rely on a mechanical safety and use it as an excuse to violate the safety rules. However, for the purposes of Receiver, I'd just ignore that and not take part-breakage into account because that adds on a whole other layer of complication.)

With all that said, I'll just jump into talking about the specific weapons. Bear in mind that none of the below is relevant if the chamber is empty (or rather an empty chamber is lined up with the barrel on the revolver.)

Colt M1911A1 (Single-Action):

• First, the original Colt M1911 and M1911A1 pistols are never really drop-safe in any condition. If they fall and hit the ground muzzle-first with enough force, there's nothing stopping momentum of the firing pin from setting off the gun. Firing pin safety-locking devices weren't implemented on the 1911 design until the early 1980's (Colt Series 80.) So, if you fall from one ledge to another and lose your grip on your gun, and it falls to another platform far below and hits muzzle-first, there's a chance it could go off. Note that, as it is a recoil-operated design which relies on resistance from a firm grip on the frame to operate correctly, the slide would not cycle and you'd have to manually rack the slide to recock and eject the fired casing after you pick it back up.

If it is a later Series 80 style pistol from 1983 or later, then it's totally drop safe and you can ignore the above. Again, taking into account that we are ignoring the possibility of parts breaking.

• In your holster, the gun should be fall-safe whether it is cocked with the safety on or off (due to the grip safety, and the holster covering up the trigger) or decocked (due to the spring-loaded, inertial firing pin design.)

• In your hand, if the gun is down, it is fall-safe in any condition thanks to the grip-safety not being depressed. However, if the gun is up in the ready position with (Q) or (RMB) and thus the grip safety is depressed, and the hammer is cocked and manual safety is turned off, the gun is not fall-safe; the trigger pull is very light, and you're likely to accidentally pull it while trying to keep your grip on the gun on even a short fall.

One last note about the 1911: When the hammer is fully decocked and is resting against the firing pin, you can pull it back about 1/8" and the sear will click past a safety-notch on the hammer. This notch holds the hammer back away from the firing pin, and locks the sear against the hammer so that the trigger cannot be pulled. Due to the 1911's inertial firing pin system, and ignoring the fact that safety devices can break (otherwise this actually becomes a major detail regarding drop-safety,) this doesn't really serve a purpose like it does on some other firearms.

If you really wanted to implement that for fine detail, it would work something like this: Decocking with (F* -> LMB) would bring the hammer to a rest on the firing pin, then a quick tap to (F) would pull the hammer back slightly and let it rest on the safety notch; you'd have to hold down (F) a bit longer to fully cock the hammer. Alternatively, releasing (LMB) quickly enough after releasing (F) would cause the hammer to decock onto the safety notch rather than going all the way forward to the firing pin. Again, this is just fluff, it serves no purpose except attention to detail. Anyway, it's this safety notch that causes the first of the two 'click' sounds you get when cocking the hammer. The second click comes from actually reaching the cocked position.

Edit to add: Amethyst would like me to add that, on the Series 80 (and only the Series 80, not any of the earlier models,) this partially-cocked position is called the "quarter-cock" position and it does not lock the sear against the hammer; the trigger can be pulled and the gun will fire even from quarter-cocked state. Also that whoever made the decision to implement this change at Colt, should they still be alive, needs to be flogged to within an inch of death. I'd like to believe it's the same person responsible for the barrel profile on the M16A2.

Glock 17 (Double-Action Only):

• The Glock is a DAO design and has no grip-safety or manual safety lever; if there is a round in the chamber and you pull the trigger, it will always fire (unless something is wrong with the ammo.) DAO means the trigger pull is heavier than that of the single-action 1911, but being striker-fired means it is still rather light by double-action standards. If the gun is in your hand, whether up or down, it isn't completely fall-safe, though having it discharge is much less likely and the luck-roll should be less likely to fail than with the 1911.

• The Glock is always drop-safe; the striker is not fully cocked and is locked in place and the trigger cannot move from momentum due to the safety tab on it. Similarly, with the trigger covered up, the Glock is completely fall-safe if it is in your holster.

S&W Victory (Double-Action):

• In the decocked position, the gun should always be drop-safe and fall-safe; the double-action trigger pull is so heavy that you aren't much likely to accidentally yank it all the way back when startled, and the hammer-blocking mechanisms are sufficient to keep it safe when dropped.

• When cocked for single-action fire, it should still be totally safe in the holster with the trigger covered up, however there's a tiny chance that it could fire if dropped and lands on the butt of the pistol grip; momentum could cause the trigger to swing back and release the hammer, and the trigger spring may not push it forward fast enough to reactivate the hammer-blocking safety device. This is fairly remote, but possible.

• While cocked and in the hand, whether pointed up or down, the light SA trigger pull makes it very not-fall-safe and likely to fail the luck roll, like the 1911 but without any of the safety devices.

--------------------------

So basically, besides the increased realism, that all gives the player incentive to not run around with the revolver cocked or with the 1911 out in front of them ready to fire at all times.

Malfunctions

There are a number of things that can go wrong on a firearm, most of them extremely rare and not worth talking about here. Some of them can result in a completely non-functional or completely destroyed weapon, which would just be terrible in a game like Receiver. There are two, however, that I do think are worth noting.

• First is the misfire; if the cartridge was miss-manufactured with a dead primer, the gun will go click rather than bang. Re-trying to fire it will yield nothing, regardless of what Man On Fire wants you to think. On the revolver, just continue pulling the trigger to skip that chamber. On the auto pistols, hit (R) to rack the slide and eject the bad round.

I'll state the obvious for cosmetic purposes: This round should still appear loaded, with a bullet in the front, but with the dimpled primer texture. It should behave like any other fired cartridge and not be picked back up.

• The second type of malfunction happens only on the auto pistols, and can result either from a slightly undercharged round, or from not gripping the gun tightly enough to provide the resistance necessary for recoil-operated designs (of which both the 1911 and Glock are) to work. The shot will fire, the slide will cycle, but the slide won't quite go back far enough or with enough force for the fired shell to hit the ejector and be thrown clear of the gun. What you end up with is what's called a 'failure-to-extract' or "stovepipe" jam, and it looks like this:

Image

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Again, just press (R) to pull the slide and sweep your imaginary hand over the ejection port while doing so to knock out the empty shell, and get back to shooting drones.

One note about recoil:

Even though bracing your shooting hand with the backside of your weak-hand when holding the flash light does help, it isn't as strong and stable as holding the pistol correctly with both hands, so recoil effect/muzzle-rise should be worse and accuracy poorer when holding the flashlight. That gives you a big incentive to not have the flashlight out when you don't need it.

Along with that, being able to drop flashlight is sort of an important thing to add since if you put away your current flashlight you're able to pick up another one, and that'll spam your inventory.

Okay, that's all for this post. Yeesh.

--Katemonster

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:34 am

AUGH. I knew I was forgetting to add something to the last post. ADD can go to hell.

The problem with decocking a hammer with your thumb over a loaded chamber is that sometimes your thumb can slip. You're pulling the trigger on a loaded firearm without intent to fire, which is inherently unsafe and stupid. Unfortunately it's unavoidable on a revolver if you decide you don't want to shoot after you've cocked it for single-action fire. On the 1911 however, the proper way to carry it is hammer cocked and safety on. Decocking it over a loaded chamber is unnecessary and generally bad juju.

I'm wondering if it would be unreasonable to add a luck roll to decocking with (F* -> LMB) with a slight chance for failure, and to have the gun fire when you release (F) if it fails. That would apply to the Victory and the 1911. However, if your thumb does slip while decocking a 1911, the other problem you have is the slide breaking your thumb. Maybe ignore that effect? I don't know. I'm exhausted from writing. Goodnight.

--Katemonster <3

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by orlok » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:33 pm

Hello there

I like the sound of missfires alot.

It's not the safest weapon in the world but wont the palm safety assist if the 1911 is dropped?

Rgds

LoK

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:54 pm

The grip safety locks up the trigger. Nothing in the gun (on a pre-Series 80) locks up the firing pin. So if you drop the gun from very high and it hits the ground face-first, the gun will stop but the firing pin will continue moving downward thanks to momentum, and will dimple the primer on the cartridge and fire the gun.

The Series 80 added a mechanical stop that you also find on most other modern pistols, which prevents the firing pin from going far enough forward to reach the primer unless you're holding all the way back on the trigger. It's called a 'trigger-retracted firing pin block' which is a mouth full so actually it's usually called nothing at all. :roll:

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:27 pm

Ballistics

I'm not entirely sure whether or not Receiver takes into account different damage or likelihood of causing damage for the different handguns/cartridges. I'm certain that ballistic arc/drop are not being taken into account. I'm not sure whether or not these are things that are planned to be implemented. In the event it's something the team is interested in looking into, I'll outline it all here. I'm also not sure how physical scaling/metrics are in Receiver, as in whether or not the game has defined meters or inches or whatnot; that can be sort of important for ballistic drop.

For the sake of Receiver, I'm pretending that wind drift is just not a thing. The weather where Receiver takes place must be pretty nice.

Bullet Drop:

Due to the way that firearm sights work and are used, there are two places where the path of the bullet crosses the shooter's line of sight. One is very close in front of the gun, where the bullet rises above the sight line, and the "zero distance" way downrange where the bullet drops below the sight line again. The idea is that the bullet will (hopefully) land exactly where you aim when shooting at a target at zero-distance, so you set the zero distance to be whatever you think the most common range you'll be shooting at is. For a target further away than zero you have to aim high, and to hit a target closer than zero you have to aim a bit low... unless it's something so close that the bullet hasn't risen above the sight line yet, so then you'll have to aim a bit high again.

Image

For very long range, high-accuracy shooting with a rifle, you'll have one elevation adjustment on the sights that allows you to zero at a specific distance, and a separate elevation adjustment that allows you to compensate for extra range without screwing up your zero adjustment. So, like, on an M16A2 rifle, the front sight post can be moved up an down to zero the rifle, normally for 300m, and the rear sight has a dial which allows you to add range to your zero in 100m increments up to 800m.

No one puts this much thought into handguns. At least not very often. The zero distance isn't something that's worried about so much unless you're talking about fancy competition pistols for punching holes very close together in paper. As long as the bullet doesn't rise much more than 3" above the sight line at most, that's considered good enough for fighting at typical handgun fighting ranges. If you're trying to get pinpoint accuracy with something like a stock 1911, you just have to intuit the bullet's path and estimate how far away the target is and how high to aim. That takes practice and experience... whether you're talking about real life or a highly-realistic game.

What affects the shape of this arc are the bullet's drag factor ("ballistic coefficient", or how quickly the bullet slows down) and starting velocity. Velocity is also dependent on length of barrel. I'm not going to go into massive detail about all that, it isn't necessary and all we're looking for are ballpark figures to get an idea of about what the curve would look like in-game. Just know that the Glock's 9mm ammo is faster and has a better ballistic coefficient than 1911's .45 ACP, and the 1911's is faster and has a better BC than the Victory's .38 Special ammo.

So, with that said, here's a ballistics table for handgun cartridges that will give you a rough idea of what the arcs look like.

(Grains are a measurement of weight that's used for weighing both powder charges and bullets.)

Glock 17
9x19mm Parabellum, 115 grain bullet:


• 1.9" above sight line at 25 yards
• 2.9" above sight line at 50 yards
• 1.7" below sight line at 100 yards

Colt M1911A1
.45 ACP, 240 grain bullet:


• 2.6" high at 25yd
• 2.5" high at 50yd
• 6.9" low at 100yd

S&W Victory Model
.38 Special, 158 grain bullet:


• 3.1" high at 25yd
• 2.7" high at 50yd
• 10.1" low at 100yd

Like I said, you can see that the 9mm shoots a lot flatter than the .45 ACP and A LOT flatter than the .38 Special. If implemented, this adds a whole other layer of challenge to Receiver since it becomes much, much harder to snipe off drones from far away.

Edit to add: Anton informed me that the game does take bullet drop into consideration, but It isn't noticeable to me... I'm hitting shock drones from well over two blocks while aiming dead-on, and those things aren't very big.

Damage

Firearm enthusiasts have been arguing for the last 108 years over which is better, the 9x19mm Luger Parabellum or the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol. Let's put it at this: the .45 bullet is much heavier and fatter than the 9mm, but moves so much slower than the 9mm that it actually carries much less energy (at least when you compare the common 115gr 9mm bullet with the 1911's standard 230gr bullet. Take note that the 1911 is extremely picky about bullet shape and does not function reliably at all with anything except the original 230gr ball.*) With higher energy, higher velocity, and smaller diameter, the 9mm is more likely to penetrate the metal outer housing of the drone components and knock them out.

*Note: Amethyst and I got in an argument about this on IRC, and she was right. The reliability issues I was referring to were for the very first version of the 1911 magazine, which is nearly non-existent these days. The more modern hybrid-lip and (much more common) wadcutter magazines don't share these ammo-pickiness issues, if the magazines and the gun are in spec.

(This brings up some questions about game balance, and whether or not the Glock can be considered game-breaking. I say it doesn't, because 'easier' and 'easy' are not the same thing, and Receiver is still pretty challenging with the Glock even after taking this all into account. If you really wanted to, you could switch to a Glock 21, .45 ACP, which would have more-or-less the same power as the 1911 (the barrel is half an inch shorter) and a 13 round magazine. The recoil would be much worse due to the difference in weight between the 1911's steel frame and the Glock's plastic frame. You could still install the autosear plate mod, but recoil/muzzle-rise would be insane and every shot after the first two would go into the ceiling. Muzzle rise wouldn't be as bad if it were a Glock 21C... okay, enough rambling about that.)

Anyway. The lack of penetration also means that, while less likely to score a kill, the .45 ought to knock a shock drone off-balance much harder than the 9mm will.

The Glock and the 1911 are both shooting lead-core bullets wrapped in a copper jacket. This is referred to as, yes, 'full metal jacket' or FMJ ammunition. Among other beneficial effects, the copper jacket helps prevent the bullet from deforming and shattering/splattering upon impact. The .38 Special, at least the ammunition being shown as used in Receiver, is just cast lead with no jacket. This makes the penetration characteristics for a metal machine housing very poor. Combine that with the small diameter (same as the 9mm,) low velocity, and low energy, and the .38 Special basically sucks for knocking out drones. It won't have the same knock-back effect on shock drones as the .45, and it will have a much lower chance to kill than the others. As if you didn't already have enough reasons to hate playing with the Victory.

Of course, you'll be more likely to do damage the closer you are. Thanks to ballistic coefficients, the .45 will also lose damage-over-range faster than the 9mm, the .38 being even worse.

Lack of a copper jacket also makes the .38 less likely to ricochet than the others if it fails to score a kill. Keep in mind that all three of these are fat, slow-moving handgun bullets that will stop inside the machine if they score a kill, so ricochets should only happen if they fail to penetrate. Also, if you hit a turret in the leg, the 9mm ought to punch through it at close range rather than ricocheting off, leaving with the same low speed and damage it would have as if it had ricocheted and a slight change in direction.

If something more powerful were added to the game like a 7.62mm NATO rifle or a .460 S&W Magnum handgun, you'd be extremely likely to score a kill shot and punch completely through the drone's housing at any practical in-game range. The bullet would be very likely to hit the front of a turret's body, pass all the way through taking out the motor and battery, and come out the back at a slightly and randomly changed direction direction and with the same low speed/damage characteristics as the game's ricochets. Shooting through windows and thin walls is also a thing to consider, but as with everything else this will suck a lot of energy out of the bullet and throw it slightly off course in a random direction.

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Okay, that's all I have to say about ballistics. There's only one more big post coming, I swear, then I'll shut up for now.

--Katemonster

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Ninjas » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:52 pm

Thanks Katemonster! We appreciate the detailed post and will take a look at these issues.

I have not had a chance to read through all of it yet, but from skimming it, I can tell you that many issues concerning the environments (including the super furniture sticking through the floor) are going to be fixed!

I will read through these posts when I get a chance to see if there are any other aspects that I (rather than David) can address.

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:11 pm

Thanks Ninjas. :) I'm glad you find this helpful, or at least interesting. About the biggest concern I have is that I'm typing all this up without anyone caring. Anton pointed out to me that David said something about press-checking on Twitter, so I guess my words are being taken to heart...

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:31 pm

Finishing Thoughts, Miscellaneous Notes and Suggestions

Melee, Inventory, Mods

I know I'm in the minority when I say this, but I think adding melee and the ability to have/find multiple guns is a bad idea. If Receiver were a longer campaign, something Half-Life or even Portal length with persistent save functions and bosses and more aggressive enemies and whatnot, then I'd say yeah, add those things. It isn't. It's a short roguetype that takes 45-60 minutes to beat and/or 5-15 minutes to lose, different every time, with no saving. I think adding multiple weapons on a single run is unnecessary, and that a melee function would take away the stress of ammo conservation and make the game way too easy.

I don't have a problem with suggesting adding rifles or submachineguns or shotguns, however what gives me pause is that anything with a solid buttstock ought to provide a melee function, and I don't like the idea of a melee function. Of course, there are shotguns that lack buttstocks and rifles/SMGs that have stocks too flimsy to use for beating things. If a melee function were added, I'd say that it should only be able to knock a shock drone away, not kill it, and that it should only be able to knock out a turret if at least one part of the turret has already been shot out.

While I don't like the idea of adding a huge weapon inventory, having some control over what weapons you play with would be sort of nice. I'd say that the game should continue to randomly select your weapon at the beginning of each round, but I agree with others that there should be a title menu or part of the options menu that lets you un-check the weapons that you don't want to be part of the starting raffle. I very much like the randomized starting weapon, but I don't think this optionality is a bad idea.

I do agree with other people that it would be cool to be able to mod the game in the form of individual weapon plugins.

Magazines

It's disappointing that you can't pick up extra magazines from the ground. I think it would be fair if they were a rare spawn, getting rarer the more magazines you have, and having the game completely stop spawning them if you have had at least five. I still wouldn't start with more than three. Part of the reason I suggest being able to pick up magazines and the ability to load single rounds directly into the chambers on the 1911 and Glock is that it would be both hilariously cruel and awesomely challenging if you could start the game without any magazines.

Another suggestion about magazines is, since they are each individual and unique entities that must be loaded manually and that magazine capacity isn't just an integer property of the gun itself, it would be cool if you could pick up different sized magazines, such as the standard 7-round 1911 magazines as well as the 8-round mags I showed earlier and extended 10-round competition magazines, or the 33-round magazines for the Glock 18 (they will fit in the 17, yes.) Larger capacities would be rarer spawns and you probably wouldn't be able to start with them.

Sprinting

When on high ledges, it would be nice to be able to creep up to the edge slowly while crouched so that you can get a better downward shot. Unfortunately the sprint function ends up screwing this up and catapulting me off the ledge. Being crouched should disable the sprint function, I think.

Shock Drones

Two things about these. First, they are absurdly hard to kill. I mean, I understand the concept of hitting specific weak points, but I shouldn't be able to fire 8 rounds of .45 ACP into one and hit it every time (yes, I'm sure I'm hitting it) and not kill it. It flies, and flying generally means light-weight, and light-weight generally means not particularly bullet-resistant. You ought to be able to knock it out with 3 or 4 shots to the rotor rims, which would bind up the rotors or shatter the blades and be the equivalent to knocking out the motor. They shouldn't be super easy to kill, but it's kind of ridiculous as it currently stands.

Second, I really want to be able to Goomba-stomp them. I actually tried this once, jumping on one from a platform just above. It should slam them into the ground lethally and break your fall a little bit. I think it's hilarious, by the way, that they take impact damage; I've had a couple of them flat-out suicide on walls while charging at me. Unfortunately, like the turrets, you don't collide with these. Sadface.

Other Functions

Other people have brought this up, but it is kind of annoying that you can't bind anything to Mouse3/4/5.

PrintScreen doesn't work for me in Receiver and 3rd party screen capture apps are a pain in the rear, so it would be nice if Receiver had a built-in .png screenshot function.

Rendering hands is something that's been talked about, but I think the lack of hands is actually kind of charming. It makes the game a bit more immersive since it isn't you playing a character who is manipulating the weapon, it's you manipulating the weapon. Or some philosophical meta BS like that.

Edit to add:
Noise

A random and inconsequential thought I had a while back but forgot to mention. One of the aspects of firearm safety is always wearing proper hearing protection. Guns are really loud and should leave your ears ringing pretty badly after firing them, especially indoors. However, one of the things mentioned on the tapes is that you've been issued a tape recorder with a set of headphones. I'm going with the story that the headphones double as hearing protection.
</edit>

Adding More Guns

Considering the scale of the game, I don't necessarily know that it's even worth adding more guns. However, if that's the plan, I do have some suggestions. The criteria here is basically, how interesting does this make the game to play? So with that in mind, I have three recommendations. I have functions and key mapping all figured out for these, but I'm not going to go into detail about it unless it's requested, because I've said enough already. Without further ado...

Ruger Super Blackhawk
.44 Magnum
What makes it interesting:
Fairly powerful, but slow and complicated to reload. Also single action, so you have to cock it before every shot.

Image

Thompson/Center Encore Pistol
.460 S&W Magnum
What makes it interesting:
DEVASTATINGLY powerful at any practical range, but you only have one shot before reloading so you're kind of doomed if things start chasing you.

Image

Remington Model 870 - 14.5" AOW
12 gauge
What makes it interesting:
Has to be manually cycled after every shot, and you get to manage two types of ammunition that can be mixed around in the mag. Slugs are extremely powerful but not very accurate, while buckshot is devastating up close and makes it easier to hit moving targets but is basically useless at very long range. Lack of buttstock makes melee butt-striking not a thing... and also makes recoil kind of ridiculous.

Image

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That's it. I'm done. That's all I had to say. Phew...

--Katemonster <3

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Djemps » Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:37 pm

Hi Kate. I think your gun suggestions make the most sense out of all of the ones I've seen so far. A short range 12 Gauge (useless at long rage) is probably the best option to round out the game.
Katemonster wrote: Without further adieu...
It took all of my might to suppress my inner Grammar Nazi on this one!!!

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Katemonster
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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:39 pm

I'm not sure that you did. :P Huh. I never new that. :oops: Fixing it now.

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Djemps
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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Djemps » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:17 pm

Katemonster wrote: I never new that. :oops:
I think you are just trolling me now!!!! :lol:

By the way, did you know David just mentioned you on his Twitter?

http://twitter.com/wolfire

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:27 pm

Update: So because I'm old and unhip, all the illustrations on page 1 were hosted on ImageShack. That's been causing some problems, so everything has been switched over to Imgur now.

Djemps: Yes, I did. I'm flattered. :D And glad to be actually helping.

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Aetos » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:56 pm

Wow. This thread has been an absolute pleasure to read, and getting through all of it wasn't as bad as you make it out, I think.

On the topic of picking up extra magazines, what do you think of picking up extra ammo types? Maybe somehow setting a specific magazine to hold FMAs or your typical, average stock bullets, etc. I'm not into guns too much myself, so I don't know all the different types you could fiddle around with, but it might be interesting, especially if they're visually different. Might make you want to save those hard hitting bullets for the Shock Drones, or the ones that pierce much better for turrets.

Thoughts?

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by Katemonster » Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:44 pm

Hi Aetos. :] Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

Yes, that is something that has crossed my mind, but I'm not sure it's worth it for rifles and handguns. Most exotic bullet types are intended for making wider, shallower holes in flesh. That doesn't help much with motor windings and boxes of PCBs. There is also penetrative ("armor-piercing" pistol ammo isn't as armor-piercing as people make it out to be) ammunition, but the little robots we are talking about are of generally frail construction and steel/tungsten core ammunition isn't going to make much of a difference.

The shotgun is a bit of a different story, since slugs and buckshot have very different applications, and that can lead to awkward situations like having to go through a room full of taser bots and having found nothing but slugs, or being down a long hallway from a turret with nothing but buckshot. Even though Receiver is very handgun-centric, this is the exact reason why I'd very much like to see a shotgun added to the game.

I suppose you could do that with the Encore pistol too though, because you can also use it to fire the much, much less powerful .45 LC cartridge from the same barrel.

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Re: A Gunsmith's Perspective

Post by orlok » Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:58 pm

Hello there

Firstly @Kate, thanks for the reminder about the workings of the grip safety, it's been a long long time since I handled my 1911. (decades!)

On the whole kate and I are in agreement about most issues/aspects/direction to do with the game but I, personally, still want the below pistol!

Image

..as it's an interesting weapon to handle whether it's the clip or magazine loading version and a bit out of the norm compared to many "normal" pistols, but that's just my humble opinion. any thoughts?

I think if any weapon is included it's physical workings and manipulation must differ vastly from the other available weapons (if they are included as standard), at the moment the manipulation of the glock/1911/sw are quite individual, the bundled weapons shouldn't merge into a forgettable jumble.

I also agree that not all weapons be in any particular game, rather a random 2 or 3 out of the armoury. (or be down to user choice)

Bullet drop, although included, may have to be tweaked and should be evident in game. "walking" your shots onto a tgt can give some satisfaction.

A daft question, but one i've never thought of before... do/can pistols use tracer rounds? Asthetically pleasing and useful for placing shots, but don't think they practically exist for pistols.

On a similar note, would different round types/weights make a substantial difference to gameplay? Would "exotic" rounds like Glazer be interesting or have a practical role in game?

On the subject of movement, it would be nice when crouched that one could NOT go over the geometry edge. Leaning needs to be in too :)

@Kate have a peek at this site http://home.comcast.net/~gunspotz/guns.htm , some great images and obscure info there. A great collection.

Excuse my rambling post its 5am here and im full of flu :(

rgds

LoK

UPDATE: ahh i see some of my questions were answered while i was typing this, interesting to see folk thinking along the same lines...

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