Vapor Trail Bullets?

[TheThirdHungarian]

I was thinking about how its difficult to adjust your aim when shooting because there is no tracer. I was thinking maybe a way around it would be a "the last of us" type vapor trail. What do you guys think?

[King Kitteh]

I personally would not mind vapor trails if they are client side. But on a server they shouldn't be, because then you could tell where someone was sniping you from by the trail.

 

Although I will note that in real life, it probably is difficult to tell where you are aiming when you cannot see where the bullet hits (don't know if you should aim higher or lower etc).

Although this is a game so No Worries from me I guess.

[TheThirdHungarian]

9 minutes ago, King Kitteh said:

I personally would not mind vapor trails if they are client side. But on a server they shouldn't be, because then you could tell where someone was sniping you from by the trail.

 

Although I will note that in real life, it probably is difficult to tell where you are aiming when you cannot see where the bullet hits (don't know if you should aim higher or lower etc).

Although this is a game so No Worries from me I guess.

Fair enough but when it comes to aiming, that's not necessarily true. Generally after a few shots, you will get an idea on where the bullet will end up. That's just my own personal experience though

[TheThirdHungarian]

I think there should be a way to find where the shots are coming from though. sound from the gun and bullet hitting would be cool.

[King Kitteh]

Just now, TheThirdHungarian said:

Fair enough but when it comes to aiming, that's not necessarily true. Generally after a few shots, you will get an idea on where the bullet will end up. That's just my own personal experience though

 

I'll admit to never firing a gun, but when there is no medium for the bullet to hit, how can you tell how far off you were? Imagine trying to shoot a small target in a field. If your bullet misses the target then it just flies off into the distance. You can't tell if it went to high or too low. Of course this, I did say this is a game, so perhaps a tracer would be ok.

 

2 minutes ago, TheThirdHungarian said:

I think there should be a way to find where the shots are coming from though. sound from the gun and bullet hitting would be cool.

Yes, sound is okay, particularily from the bullet hitting something. But trying to find where the gun was actually fired is very difficult. People don't have very good pin point hearing.

[TheThirdHungarian]

1 minute ago, King Kitteh said:

 

I'll admit to never firing a gun, but when there is no medium for the bullet to hit, how can you tell how far off you were? Imagine trying to shoot a small target in a field. If your bullet misses the target then it just flies off into the distance. You can't tell if it went to high or too low. Of course this, I did say this is a game, so perhaps a tracer would be ok.

 

Well, tracers being rather expensive should be more of a military/gun shop kind of loot (maybe could havefer an xp boost for aim)and also to find your medium you have to pay attention to objects around like say a wall behind your target or dirt or things like that. Once you have the medium for a gun, it doesn't go away really. But I have to agree, that is pretty far in depth for a game.  

[King Kitteh]

2 minutes ago, TheThirdHungarian said:

Well, tracers being rather expensive should be more of a military/gun shop kind of loot (maybe could havefer an xp boost for aim)and also to find your medium you have to pay attention to objects around like say a wall behind your target or dirt or things like that. Once you have the medium for a gun, it doesn't go away really. But I have to agree, that is pretty far in depth for a game.  

I didn't mean a literal new item of tracer bullets. I mean that all bullets would give a tracer as you originally suggested. Anyway, another solution could be to make weapons with the laser dot actually show it.

[TheThirdHungarian]

oh my bad lol. But yeah, I defiantly think unless there is an actual tracer bullet, it should be subtle though. And I do like the idea of having laser sights usable in game.

[Millitron]

3 hours ago, King Kitteh said:

 

I'll admit to never firing a gun, but when there is no medium for the bullet to hit, how can you tell how far off you were? Imagine trying to shoot a small target in a field. If your bullet misses the target then it just flies off into the distance. You can't tell if it went to high or too low. Of course this, I did say this is a game, so perhaps a tracer would be ok.

 

Yes, sound is okay, particularily from the bullet hitting something. But trying to find where the gun was actually fired is very difficult. People don't have very good pin point hearing.

If you don't see the splash, i.e. the dirt and dust kicked up by the impact, you basically can't tell how you missed, whether you were too high or too low, or to the left or right.  If you're familiar with the gun you're using, you might have a good idea; with practice you can notice when you have poor form.  For instance, anticipating the recoil and tensing up tends to make you shoot too low, while not having the proper stance (especially the "chick lean") will tend to make you shoot too high.  And that's just long guns; hand guns have those problems and more.

In your example I would say you should err on the side of aiming too low, so if you miss you can hopefully see the shot hit the ground.  If you're too low, you can see how much you were off by the splash of dirt, but as you said if you're too high the shot will just fly off into the distance and you'll have no way to correct.

You can't see vapor trails on normal bullets generally; at least I can't.  Maybe it's a training issue, maybe it's an eyesight issue, or maybe it's an equipment issue.  I know sniper spotters have special scopes for following the vapor trail, but I don't know if they're strictly necessary.

[CaptKaspar]

In my experience shooting varmints, it's best to miss high. Missing low causes them to scatter at the dirt spray, missing high causes them to perk up at the bullet whizzing by! 

 

Being an isometric game, sound direction is a little difficult. Having a visual indication that the sound came from ---> that general direction would be ok. 90 degrees or so. Progressively narrowing to say 30 degrees as more shots are fired.

 

Also, remember that the bullet will reach you before the sound does. Negligible at close distances. 

[critical jim]

I actually rather like the idea of tracers, but I've only ever used tracers when firing LMG's or heavier. Also, I haven't looked into whether I can zoom out farther than the default max zoom, but in any case, I doubt it would be far enough to warrant tracers IRL. So not only would the zoom have to have several hundred meter radii from your dude, they'd have to implement new automatic weaponry, as well as military ammo depots and whatnot to provide the massive amounts of ammo, which inevitably brings us to the OP aspect of firing a platoon support weapon on a horde of zombies or a single player on a server, as well as a new source of wayy too much ammo for one man, and tracers kinda arent that important anymore. I've never seen a vapor trail IRL.. maybe rocket launchers or 50 cal. but its been a long time since I fired them,  but maybe spitting up dirt or pavement, making temporary bullet marks in a wall or something..  and the animation of the dirt could give you a vague idea which direction the shooter is in.

EDIT: I've been in wagers where we've seen how many targets we can cut down with the remaining ammo at the end of a day of shooting. So it would be a fun replacement for the sledge, if a little bit silly.

Edited May 19, 2016 by critical jim

[TheThirdHungarian]

Tha

On 5/19/2016 at 8:28 AM, critical jim said:

I actually rather like the idea of tracers, but I've only ever used tracers when firing LMG's or heavier. Also, I haven't looked into whether I can zoom out farther than the default max zoom, but in any case, I doubt it would be far enough to warrant tracers IRL. So not only would the zoom have to have several hundred meter radii from your dude, they'd have to implement new automatic weaponry, as well as military ammo depots and whatnot to provide the massive amounts of ammo, which inevitably brings us to the OP aspect of firing a platoon support weapon on a horde of zombies or a single player on a server, as well as a new source of wayy too much ammo for one man, and tracers kinda arent that important anymore. I've never seen a vapor trail IRL.. maybe rocket launchers or 50 cal. but its been a long time since I fired them,  but maybe spitting up dirt or pavement, making temporary bullet marks in a wall or something..  and the animation of the dirt could give you a vague idea which direction the shooter is in.

EDIT: I've been in wagers where we've seen how many targets we can cut down with the remaining ammo at the end of a day of shooting. So it would be a fun replacement for the sledge, if a little bit silly.

That could work to, either way they do it, it would just be nice to get some sort of visual feedback of where your bullets are. Also I agree with not wanting military weapons but I do think a few semi auto rifles would be cool. Maybe an AR-15 and a modified AK-47.

[TheThirdHungarian]

On 5/19/2016 at 8:08 AM, CaptKaspar said:

In my experience shooting varmints, it's best to miss high. Missing low causes them to scatter at the dirt spray, missing high causes them to perk up at the bullet whizzing by! 

 

Being an isometric game, sound direction is a little difficult. Having a visual indication that the sound came from ---> that general direction would be ok. 90 degrees or so. Progressively narrowing to say 30 degrees as more shots are fired.

 

Also, remember that the bullet will reach you before the sound does. Negligible at close distances. 

Yeah, I see your point. As long as they did it in a subtle way I think that could work great.

[blackteapie]

Well, I don't think vapor trail bullets is good idea, unless you can make sure that only shooter can see their own bullet trail. 

But, I think there should be an animation of bullet hole or rising dirt when the bullet hit something other than somebody. By this way, shooters can have better understanding about the final location of their bullet without exposing their position. And preys could also know that they are shot at, without knowing the shooters' position. 

[ToastedFishSandwich]

This is one of my biggest problems with guns right now. There definitely needs to be more feedback to the player and client-side bullet trails would be a great way to do it.

Edited July 14, 2016 by ToastedFishSandwich

[Kirrus]

On 17/05/2016 at 1:39 AM, TheThirdHungarian said:

I was thinking about how its difficult to adjust your aim when shooting because there is no tracer. I was thinking maybe a way around it would be a "the last of us" type vapor trail. What do you guys think?

Moved thread to suggestions