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Different types of shotgun ammo


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Buckshot and flechette would be difficult to implement. Slugs are already here and phosphorus... never heard of that type of shotgun ammo. I know about explosive ammo though.

Anyway some kind of analogue to X-COM heavy cannon with various ammo types would be nice.

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Buckshot is simple, there's no need to implement a cone of fire. Just have buckshot be significantly more damaging than slug at close range, but with intense falloff over range, then slug is your semi-close to mid-range ammo for the weapon.

For the role of the shotgun in Xenonauts, buckshot is obviously what we're going to want 90% of the time, from breaching UFOs to taking down heavy enemies like Muton/Chryssalid equivalents. The question is more whether it's worth implementing slugs at all and just leaving the shotgun as a simple close-combat high-damage weapon instead of giving it that versatility. That's a design choice for Chris.

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Well i don't think that it is strictly necessary for xenonauts operatives. But.

Some special shotgun ammo types can be used by civilians on farmland. Also some civilians can have some unique weapons like revolver that dissapears after the mission ending.

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This really sad. No other kind of ammo?

Honestly, is it an armory or just another Generic wannabe gear giver? One of the Shotgun most appealing characteristic is the different kind of ammo you can load into it. While modern day there is a TON of diversity, military ops in the vietnam war and before used the "savage" 12g shotgun for years with different ammo load. It's called the master key in the police, if a door is locked, it open it using a slug.

The wound it inflict is also really different from a conventionnal firearm since buckshot wreck havoc with flesh and organs while slugs pierce trough thick materials and break things. Shoots trough a wall like paper!

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Quite a gory post, still, it's how these thing are intended to work.

Tactical flexibility is a must in any environment. A shot gun is an impressive piece of weaponry that can be usefull late game for many use. How do you think a shotgun is used for? Range? Precision? Neither.

It is used because of it's piercing capabilities. It get trough walls, doors, ect.

The door is still there, but not the 3 guy behind it.

Bucksot is designed to make stuff bleed, and I mean a lot. That ammo get you the kind of trauma wounds that make living thing bleed out of many holes, if not killing them outright. It does not penetrate thick armor or bone plate. To kill a polar bear you can use a shotgun with a slug, not a buvksot. To kill a deer, a buckshot is better suited since it's ofthen a mobile target hard to get near of. Not much in the penetration area.

Killing is not only in stopping power (bullet impact) but in trauma wound (blood loss). A combination of the both get you a quick kill, impact get you a stun trauma get you a bleeding wounded target. There is still a debate on this, some armorer have their own liking.

I know the shotgun can be usefull mid game against any unarmored target as well as armored one because of it's stagering stopping power.

Let's compare the 5.56 mm Nato (similar to 5.49 mm Vars) to 12g. The 5.56 will do small holes in the target, it is designed to travel trough it in an elliptical pattern. With this kind of bullet. you can kill a cow by firing in it's leg. Indeed, when hitting a bone or dense matter, the bullet deviate in a rolling patter, drilling trough organs in the process.

It's range is ok, around 300m effective. It's a mid range weapon designed to hurt a lot, if not kill outright. (7.62 will just get trough, clean).

12g Buckshout on the other hand will not fire for as far as the 5.56 but will rip organs appart. Let's compare :no more organs / holes into them. (Btw .38g buckshot is on the market, just to say)

Buckshoy allow for a better chance to hit a target trough a small oppening (slit in a door). It also help you hit small or fast moving target (rabbit, baby aliens, face huggers, ect).

If your hit miss, there is a good chance you wounding it. If it is the case, you likely got it bleeding. You can then get to it faster that it can escape. In a technical sense, buckshot increase your odd to hit in mid range (not close range) and if you hit organs, you really destroy the thing appart.

Slugs on the other hand are not that precise since the bullet and the gun are not designed with that goal in mind.

This mass of lead can get trough most material like if it was paper. Steel, body armor, helmets, walls, living things staked one in front of the other. It does marvel on an engine block. It got as much penetration as a 7.62 mm in close range but is not as bulky.

If I ever have a Zombie or Robot uprising to suppress, it's going to be with a shot gun!

Anything a slug hit but does not pierce get the kinetic impact to rip out what behind it. Lets take a good example: A spine! Lets say we fire on a mind controled human with a slug. We fire in the middle of the body mass, the bullet enter (rip) the upper torso, explode several organs, then blew a hole the size of a water melon out of the back of the poor thing while it shatters the bones it get in contact with. See, no more organs compared to holes into them. Yet, the result is a red pulp but well, can't get the butter and the money of the buter, right?

Buckshot on the other hands would just utterly cripple any flesh it come in contact with. You have a better odd of hitting the target, hitting several parts at the same time, making it bleed out while you stalk the damn thing. You would basicly have a big splatter of red goo but the bullet would have stopped there. It would not carry out (unless point blank).

A buckshot is usefull for light armored target. Make them fell either lead pellets in their eyes in mid range or blow them appart in close range. I think shot gun can be use fairly well mid game. It's a good short range weapon that can both target soft or hard target.

Energy weapons get damage trough heat dissipation. If you hit carbon with laser, it's not much use. Do that with a hi kinetic damamge (explosive, ammo) you will get another kind of effect.

I do not beleive a lot of research is needed in the shotgun case.

For the buckshot, maybe a % of getting a bleeding effect

For the slug ammo, more DMG les accuracy and range.

Tactical wise, also note that the abilities to destroy or fire trough a wall is not to be underestimated since it screen you from energy weapons that needs to burn trough material first.

Or is all doors unlocked in all scenario?

What if I need to get a shot trough a wall?

Even with body armor the sheer kinetic energy contained in a 12g shotgun is enough to et trough or cause severe internal bleeding (bigger gage exist btw).

Edited by plucx
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You... have a way with words. Some of your imagery...

Basically you get the shot gun in the ballistic era, then in the laser and plasma, etc. era it changes to a carbine/smg style weapon. Hard hitting, but close range. That's why it looks like the shotgun shoots slugs now, because there was very little point implementing a spray system for just one gun (I believe, I could be wrong).

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It all depends on what you put on later.

Ususally, a slug wont do much damage on a big creature (IE polar bear) unless you hit vital organs or a bone like a femur. These bullets tend to use bones agains their owners by shattering them. They explode and sends shards around. Anti-personnal mines works that way. They make your bone explode, and all you get then is a lumpy banana like limb with bone shard stuck around. No jokes here, it's real life guys. Buck shot however will always cause big trauma on soft tissues like eyes, faces, muscle. It's a painfull weapon and effective one since it give cover for a good zone at mide range. It's easier to hit with it than with a slug.

Slug have too much drag and mass to get far and a smooth bore cannon is not made to be precise. Buckshot are another business all togheter. However, in close quarter, ill take a slug because a scatter gun won't make a difference there. But do I want my weapon to always be a short range one? The munition type can chage that.

Also, I have to point out that a munition the have a scatter patter does not mean it have to be a buck shot. Here is somthing that might get you interested. Almost no coding, some variety in weapons.

There is somthing in between the small lead pellets and the big old slug. It's several big pellets that split when fired. At mid range they hit a bit random at the expected target. Decent range, loosy precision but still a good scatter.

What I mean, instead of having an AOE munition there that might be unsuited for later ops and quite hard to work with, make it that when you fire this ammo, it release 4 to 6 pistol pellets with a +- 5% different trajectory. This could easely simulate a buckshot at max range. A slug could get a huge precision drawback but that balance the shotgun and keep it going on later with the auto shotgun version. Swithching ammo could be a pain, but it's a choice you make when you load up. Am I going in close or long range? Soft or hard targets?

If I would have to fight a big bloob of gello, i would take a scatter shot, if it is a lump of burning rock it would be a slug. If I wanted to blow a door down too.

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I'm not sure but i think its alot easier to code different effects upon delivey, like with switching rockets or granades, then switching a weapons way it delivers/fires based on ammo. from a codeing point of view wouldnt it be completley different weapons for each ammo?

Quartermaster has been makeing a program to easily mod weapons damage accuracey and tu cost. he probably has a greater understanding about all of this but I dont understand at all how such things would "be easy".

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Exactly the point i'm talking about.

Let say you make 4 bullet spawn at the same time. They each get slightly randomized trajectory and trigger damage to the object they collide with. I have not coded in years so i'm talking out of my hat in saying easy that or this, i'm sorry about that. But this maight be a track to get it working without having a cone of effect that require to trigger all the sprites in the zone. A solution might be: When ammo "buckshot" is loaded, FIRE trigger 6 bullets with 0.1 sec interval to "player target" each with a 5% deviation. Thus when a bullet hit a target, it trigger the object script. If I remember there must be some delay in between the bullet triggering the target to avoid some confusion in the script. It's been a while so please ignore any confusion here.

The benefit are a scatter like weapon, no need to reinvent a new system trigger system? I dont know how the game is coded so might be an avenue.

I think JAG2 worked in something similar like that.

Again, by easy i meant, not impossible, easier. No disrespect meant, just drowsy with fatigue, i'm sorry if I step on a toe here.

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No not at all, i'm way too sleep deprived now.

Ok, I beleive the game could gain from two ammo types.

Large pellets (4 to 6 bullets that spawn is such a small time frame that they seem to be fired a the same time)

-Medium damage, good average accuracy.

Slugs (One mother bullet)

-Heavy damage, poor accuracy and limitted range.

If you get damage types integer you might consider to put slugs in the AP types and the pellets ones in the Normal types.

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but for mid range we have rifles...

Also changing it so that a gun shoots multiple rounds in one go I believe screws up the ammo system. Essentially if you had a double barrel shot gun, and each barrel shot 5 slugs, you'd have to shoot 10 ammo. And it would say that. And you'd wonder why your double barrel shot 10 shots...

Still don't see why it's necessary to have this extra ammo types...

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A rifle and a shotgun can't overlap but I understand your concerns.

In the game a rifle

range of 180m, 25 Dmg.

Shotgun

range of 80m , 35 dmg.

Right there, less than half the range. No armor mitigation and "medium" range.

80m is an ok range for a shotshell in real life. Slug average max accuracy is 69m. Beyond that good luck.

Now the slug :

To give you an Idea, it's very hard to hit anything beyond 69m with a slug. lets say 30m in a snap shot in combat situation. These bullets really behave badly. Other than that you are better off using a rim rifle but that's the job of a precision rifle.

Now the argument of overlapping weapon in a tactical senses:

Machine gun : 50 dmg, 50 clips, 300m range.

Rifle: 25 dmg, 30 clip, 180m range.

Shotgun: 35dmg, 12 clip, 80m range.

Now lets have a look at the covering cone of fire from a Rifle VS Shotgun spread.

Shotgunspread.jpg

Now, each pellets does less damage than a rifle bullet but give you a better average chance to hit something at mid range. In close range, the spread is not too big so the damage is concentrated.

Let's see a scenario:

The target has 0 dmg mitigation:

He is hit by all 4X8.75dmg pellets, full 35 dmg.

The target has 10 dmg mitigation:

He is hit by 4X8.75dmg pellets, 0 dmg

This show that pellets have more dmg potential than regular rifle bullet but has none of the armor piercing capabilities just trough pure Dmg output vs dmg absortion.

It is therefore an excellent weapon to use against lightly armored but fast ennemies. Like a flying wasp, running ants, fleshy floating brain (TFTD).

Why then bother with a Slug?

Slug deliver a huge damage, but does not spread. Has such, the % to hit chance ratio is way lower. It's armor piercing capabilites make it usefull against armored ennemies. It does a lot more damage than a rifle.

Let's look at this picture here :

3951d1140306072-home-grown-shotgun-slug-loading-pred2.jpg

The bullet came trough tearing a big hole. A 5.56 would barely get trough with any energy whatsoever. A 7.62 (sharpshooter) would have plow trough but the damage would be less impressive.

A such the shot gun is a versatile weapon because of it's wide ammo range(there are thousands ammo types out there). It's drawback is the need to change the ammo configuration and lack of pinpoint accuracy.

Spread shots increase the likelyhood to hit a target while slugs offer maximum stopping power.

They both have been around since 1880. Like it or not, shotguns have been invented because of it's ammo variety. Ie: Robber bullet, Explosive bullets, Pirahna shards, shots (immensely varied in material used, numbers of pellets, pellets size, ect), slugs (Steel, thungsten, expanding, ...). There is even a lot of different gage, like a 10g is way more powerfull than a 12g, a 20 is smaller but enable easier autofire. I'm not going to get in the details but still, just adding another kind of ammo is required for the shotgun. It's a basic thing.

Picture of a shot Shell and a Slug Shell

Interesting system using .38 pistol ammunition. Posted here just for kicks.

3951d1140306072-home-grown-shotgun-slug-loading-pred2.jpg

Shotgunspread.jpg

3951d1140306072-home-grown-shotgun-slug-

Shotgunspread.jpg.529a0e8fb51de8d656903b

Edited by plucx
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You are definitely overthinking the role of the shotgun.

The shotgun is a starting tier weapon that is fairly rapidly replaced by the laser carbine.

Why go to all of the effort to add in alternative ammo types that don't do much..

The shotgun and rifle roles CAN overlap because the shotgun is implemented as a short to medium range slug thrower.

That would not be the case in real life of course but bullet behaviour is obviously more limited in the game environment.

Extend the shotgun range and it begins to overlap with the assault rifle because they are treated as the same weapon with the subtle difference in statistics you mentioned.

The AR will still have advantages of course.

If you could make a case for ammunition types that had more utility then maybe it would be worthwhile.

Possibly those plastic bullets you mentioned as a ranged stun weapon or something along those lines.

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I'm a bit wounded Gauddlike.

Projectile weapons are delivery systems, such can be said of rockets, only the payload is greater on these.

Soon afther ww2, explosive shells were tested and not long afther that auto-shotguns appeared in south africa in a "crowd control" role. The weapon itself is fairly simple. What make it unique is it's ability to carry different payload types. That could keep it usefull even late game just because it can now fire beannags, cryogenics, Alien explosives, Acid goo! Change the name for the Gaz Cannon in TFTD, it's the same role!

Maybe there is no time to implement a shotshell in this stage of the game VS the gained gameplay benefit.

How could this benefit the game as a whole?

You keep the shotgun sprite for the whole game.

You enable the player to get more flexibility afther having reaserched alien tech and then reaserch it to get in a human made munition.

As such, it let you recycle weapon systems already included in the game (it's already done and working right ?) and add a wide variety of action from the player.

You knew that several starting weapons in X-Com were still usefull in late game?

This whole idea of HAVING to use late game weapons is wrong imo. Do you know the expression "looking in the eye of the beholder?"

Edited by plucx
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As such, it let you recycle weapon systems already included in the game (it's already done and working right ?) and add a wide variety of action from the player.

But the wepon system for the shotgun is the same as for assult rifles? The way you suggest it changeing ammo would change the weapon system (behaviour rather then payload effect), wouldn't it? I have my doubts about the possibility of that.

This whole idea of HAVING to use late game weapons is wrong imo. Do you know the expression "looking in the eye of the beholder?"

Can't say I've played dungeons and dragons enough to come across that expression no. :P

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LOL, Yeah I played too much!

This expression is not related to D&D tough.

It make a reference to the fact that by fighting an ennemy you seldom become that very thing you are fighting. Like Nietze monster.

In Xeno final campaing, what differentiate you from an alien? Xeno (and some gov.) are then basicly dependent on their minerals, pieces and tehcnology to keep going. It might be what the aliens wanted from the start up. Get you hooked the offer you to join their great empire! It's cultural assimilation by a more powerfull and advanced civlisation. Look what happend to the Native.

That is why i prefer to keep human only invention in new X-Com games. It's challenging as hell. Laser cannon are a go, such are medpacks. it's another game altogether. It make you discovert how so many use for this pesky gatling, incendiary missile ammo, ect.

Now, about the weapon system.

I used this word it as it's real life meaning, not in a game mecanic reference.

Now, all the sprites for the shotgun, animated or not, are made.

What if by using improved ammo could get a basic weapon to last up to end game?

I'm quite sure that most government of the time would jump on such ammunition to give to their soldiers since it qould not require them to change their arsenals. Jusdt load the ammo and fire.

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Do you know the expression "looking in the eye of the beholder?"
It make a reference to the fact that by fighting an ennemy you seldom become that very thing you are fighting.
I don't think that's what that means...

This is Phil. Phil thinks your hot. After all, beauty is in the eye of the Bee-Holder! =p

beekeeper.jpg

Now, all the sprites for the shotgun, animated or not, are made.

What if by using improved ammo could get a basic weapon to last up to end game?

I'm quite sure that most government of the time would jump on such ammunition to give to their soldiers since it qould not require them to change their arsenals. Jusdt load the ammo and fire.

But you see the thing is, while that is an interesting take on the game, it is not the one chosen. Basically the weapon system could go 3 ways. Getting better guns, getting better ammo for the same guns, or a combination of both. Now not to bog down the research tree and to keep everything nice and simple, Chris has chosen for the first option.

Also, do you think you could proof read your posts before you post them? I realise that English probably isn't your first language, but some of your posts are a bit hard to read through. Ta =]

beekeeper.jpg

beekeeper.jpg.8597b93016e411deb408b02c03

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I think that's a matter of losing the meaning in the translation rather then confusing or mistakeing the expression AD.

for example "en tia i handen är bättre än en tjuga i foten" loses everything in the translation without an ammended explantion. (although some might argue its not an expression but a pun parody on one). litterally it means "better to have 10 bucks (or wahtever currency you are using) in your hand then a pitchfork in your foot". tjugo = twenty, en tjuga = a 20 sek bill / a pitchfork

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