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Truly Customizable Weapons - proof of concept, issues and feature requests[message #258650]

Sat, 07 August 2010 14:36

ko5ma

Messages:35
Registered:January 2010
Location: Poland

TCW - Truly Customizable Weapons
Proof of concept and a few feature requests

The what and why:

Well, i like micromanagement... Truly Customizable Weapons are something that i've been missing in JA2 for a very long time. The possiblities of accessorizing weapons were vast and getting better each day (NAS!), but internals in both Vanilla and 1.13 are very limited, and mostly done with bullsh... err, "fantasy" items, such as a barrel extender or rod and spring. In reality however, improved/modified internal and external parts, such as match triggers, different gas systems, various railed handguards etc are getting increasingly popular, both in civilian and military environments.
In my opinion TCW is a neat way of adding an additional - but optional - level of complexity into the game, and a bit of extra realism and variety without disrupting the balance (much ;P).

The how:

Thanks to NAS developers we now have a powerful tool to add a lot of attachment slots to any given item. Seeing the way Smeagol is implementing stock replacements for new AIM version has inspired me to try something similar, but different in scope. A TCW can now take not only external accessories, but also a rather wide selection of internal and external parts, both standard and replacement. Most (not all) of the replacement parts are meant not to be straight upgrades - they offer some benefits, but also bring drawbacks. This way using the system does not result in an overpowered ultimate wunderwaffe, but rather gives a choice of what we want our mercs to use for a particular mission, in accordance to their role. Currently the system (limited as it is) is meant to be balanced in order to allow making near copies of existing weapons. As an example, a Custom AR15 built with standard parts to resemble a M4A1 will have similar stats to its non-customizable counterpart. To fully achieve this goal however, some additional xml tags would be needed.
For now, i've decided to go with an empty "framework" item as a base to simplyfy things and limit the amount of items needed, but it could be easily remade to use a receiver (probably best for AK's and such), lower or upper receiver (for AR15's) if some way of merging graphics is developed.
As for realism vs fun balance, i would like to keep everything reasonably true to reality, but gloss over some minor issues - for example, i know that LMT MRP uppers won't accept standard AR15 barrels, i just don't think it's worth making an extra unique set.

Proof of concept:

Here's what a sample system looks like. So far i've implemented a single weapon - Custom AR15 (Custom Glock is pretty much done, plans for the future include a generic 1911 and AK), and a lot of base, internal and external parts (see a more or less complete list below the pics). Screenshots are from the game, not mockups; graphics mostly scavenged from existing pics, some are obviously placeholders. When fully functional, the available parts would allow to replicate pretty much any other AR15-based weapon currently included in game - and many more that aren't. Part list can also be easily extended to include even more options.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/7181/tcwscreenshot1.jpg

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7923/tcwscreenshot2.th.jpg

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7564/tcwscreenshot3.th.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9518/tcwscreenshot4.th.jpg

Attachment and slot list (attributes not fully implemented due to xml limitations):

Base framework item - Custom AR15

1 Upper receiver slot [defines possible internal attachments; adds top rail OR carryhandle mount]
- A1, A2, Flattop, Billet flattop, MRP short, MRP long, LR300, HK416 short, HK416 long, Shrike belt fed
1.1 Barrel [defines damage, accuracy, range, influences AP; adds muzzle device slot]
- 7", 10", 11.5", 12" SS, 14.5" stepcut, 16" SS, 18" HBAR, 20" stepcut, 22" HBAR, 24" HBAR
1.2 Gas system [influences reliability, recoil]
- DI shorty, DI carbine, DI midlength, DI rifle, Piston
1.3 Handguard [may influence accuracy; adds barrel mount OR 1-8 rail slots]
- Shorty, Shorty RAS, Carbine, Carbine RIS, Midlength, Midlength RAS, Rifle, Rifle RIS, Rifle RAS
1.4 Bolt & carrier [influences rate of fire, recoil]
- Standard, Light, Heavy, High Quality

2 Lower receiver slot [defines available fire modes; adds magazine slot]
- Semi, Burst, Auto, Semi ambi, Auto ambi
2.1 Trigger [may provide a modest bonus to accuracy, reliability OR add autofire to non-auto lowers]
- Standard, Match, Police, Auto sear
2.2 Buffer & spring [influences rate of fire, reliability]
- Standard, Soft, Hard, High Quality, Short
2.3 Pistol grip [may provide a modest bonus to accuracy or recoil]
- Standard, Ergonomic (MIAD), Sniper
2.4 Stock [influences AP, may provide a modest bonus to accuracy]
- Standard telescopic, Standard solid, Improved telescopic (CTR), Improved solid (UBR), Sniper, Folding (LR300), Wire stock
2.5 Magazine [defines magazine size, influences reliability and bipod penalty] (temporary solution until someone comes up with a proper magazine system)
- 20rd GI, 30rd GI, 30rd HK, 30rd PMAG, 40rd custom, 100rd C-MAG, 200rd belt

3 Accessory slots [mostly existing items]
3.1 Carryhandle mount
- Trijicon ACOG, Trijicon Reflex, AN/PVS-4, Carryhandle rail mount
3.2 Top rail mount
- any railed optics
3.3 Barrel mount [only one]
- Barrel-mounted M203 (if allowed by barrel/handguard/upper), flashlight, laser, bipod, small 2x1 or 3x1 rail mount
3.4 Rail slots [up to 4x2]
- any railed attachments including reflex sights, railed grenade launchers (if freefloating), barrel-mounted grenade launchers (if non-ff)
3.5 Muzzle device
- any compatible muzzle device

Issues and feature requests:

As it is right now, the system is mostly functional, but admittedly neither very eye-pleasing nor playable (lack of item seeding, some issues with NAS that need to be fixed first etc). Unfortunately, the remaining problems are related to code rather than xml modifications... And this is where we get to the problematic part - i'm an engineer, not a coder, i just can't do that. There are a few code changes that would be required to make it work as intended:
* needed: tag in items.xml doesn't work, it is required to make proper use of different lower receivers
* needed: it's impossible to modify certain weapon parameters through attachments (most importantly: bAccuracy, bReliability, bAutofireShotsPer5AP, but it would be nice if all weapon parameters could be derived directly from attachments)
* needed: new xml tag in needed in attachmentslots.xml (i.e. weapon with bolt removed - no go)
* needed: some sort of overlay image merging system (something a'la pimpmygun site - separate sti's made in a certain scale, arranged with x,y coordinates to create a complete picture when an item is attached to a slot. Since this would be done for weapon-specific parts, and not accessories, common scale would not be an issue)
* needed: more than 10 default attachment definition (or is it possible right now?)
* wanted: a mid-sized attachment slot
* wanted: possibility of changing caliber via an attachment
* wanted: new non-automatic firing mode for automatic weapons with slide lock/gas cutoff attachments (i.e. needs to be reloaded after each shot like a bolt rifle, but reduces noise by x%, definable as an xml parameter for the slide lock attachment; possible now but permanent rather than selectable)
* luxury: stock position toggle button (collapsed/folded/extended)
* luxury: when displaying weapon "faceplate", would be much more tidy to have a button to toggle display between parts (internal and external - barrel, trigger, stock, handguard, etc) and accessories (optics, muzzle devices, lasers, flashlights etc). Just an idea, not sure if it can even be done without extensive UI reworking.

I would be extremely happy if any of these changes found its way into one of the future 1.13/NAS builds.

Help, please... Very Happy