Games

Opinions on tactical FPS

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Rants, Rambles, and Raves… On Tactical FPS games

From a person who has been gaming since he was in diapers, using a Nintendo, and all the way into the future.

More realistic ballistics:

In old times, weapons were little more then you hit target, you do damage. And each hit from a given weapon doing so much damage, like 10% of life bar per bullet from SMG, 20% from rifle, Which is a piece of crap to start with, even by modern standards. More modern implementations might take into account mass, velocity, and hit modifiers.

Objects are generally boiled down to objects that can be penetrated and objects that can’t. In Raven Shield they take it a step even worse, an object that can be penetrated is usually limited to a destructible one. I.e. a bullet may penetrate a pawn (rainbow, tango, hostage), a window, or a door. But it won’t go through a carboard box, a cereal box, or wood fence, because these are all “solid bullet proof objects”.

When a bullet hits something, the mass of the bullet and the velocity it hit at should be taken into account along with the type of material hit and the density of it and the bullet. For example compare trying to penetrate a strong tungsten alloy and a tin can, which takes more punch?

SWAT4 essentially operates on the concept that if an object may be penetrated, the bullet has M mass moving at V velocity used to calculate it’s momentum. While the object being hit requires a certain amount of momentum to penetrate; if I looked deep enough into the games SDK, I wouldn’t be surprised if “momentum” was just a synonym for velocity to the developers… When the momentum is exceeded, the the damage caused by the bullet on it’s way through is modified by a modifier range or factor of how much damage it can still do.

What should really happen, in my opinion?

There should be several types of impact material, e.g. liquid, wood, concrete, metal, plastic. The idea is pretty simple, let’s say you take a gun and fire into a pool of water. For an object to occupy a space within that water, it has to displace the same volume of water out of it’s way, to move through it, it has to keep displacing water out of the way. Shooting through block of wood that is as thick as the water (e.g. same volume of) works about the same way, but the density is different, taking more force to displace the wood out of the bullets way in order to ‘penetrate’ the wood.

For the sake of performance it would make sense to have several known (common) densities with known properties and tune accordingly. It would still fall short of accuracy with the real world but make it easier to apply ballistics to all objects within the game.

The biggest problem with ballistics in modern FPS games, they continue to use the “can penetrate” and “can’t penetrate” stupidly…

Proper damage models:

Shooting a the representation of a human in a tactical FPS should have similar effects to the real world. Most often, you get a set of hit boxes based on superficial anatomy. A head, a torso, arms, legs, etc. And if your lucky a modifier that adjusts damage done based on the hit box, e.g. head shots fatal, leg shots minor damage or something like that.

I think they should take it a step further and apply more things based on the hit boxes. For example, why not take a leg? Break it into 4 hit boxes, the foot, the crus, the knee, and the thigh. If the target gets hit in any of the leg hit boxes, they should die! Bleed to death or fall into shock awhile later maybe… but not die out right as in games. Getting hit in the crus or the thigh should effect ones ability to walk, getting hit in the knee or the foot should probably force the target to crawl instead of walk.

The torso should be split into h8it boxes based on internals, the “general torso”, the heart, lungs, maybe the kidneys, e.t.c. A human might be able to survive several shots to the chest but I would think a double tap to the heart would have more (quickly) lethal effects, even if not as much as going for a T-Shot, I would think it more likely to disable the enemy in the sense of more games, and kill the target more readily.

Compared to games like Raven Shield (last patch) where it doesn’t really matter where you shoot a tango, just hit them 2ce and they are as good as dead, pardoning latency and the FN Five-Seven. And SWAT4 where the only side effect is it pays to follow the Mozambique drill — just to do enough damage quickly to put the target down. While in real life, the idea is if the double tap to centre mass doesn’t stop the target, taking down their nervous system will put’em down for good.

Weapons Attachments and kit restrictions:

I think AAO:SF has the best in terms of realism but makes for a too oft abused configuration, M4 with aimpoint + suppressor + M203. Raven Shield limits you to one attachment but that sucks, especially since it makes weapons like the AUG, SA80, and G36K more powerful (built in scopes) — further pissing off people who know about the Tavor Assault Rifles!

I think the proper solution would be to allow 2 attachments for all primaries, such as an barrel and an receiver attachment. So using the M4A1 carbine as an example. One could have an M4 with a scope and a suppressor or with a M203 and scope but not a bipod and a suppressor or an M203 and a suppressor, e.t.c. That would at least keep it fair.

Load outs, I really think a merger of the “package” and “individual” item ideas would work. For example, so many slots, like something like this:

Player Kit:
— Primary Weapon = None | SMG | AR | SG | SR | LMG | LAW
——— Front Attachment: None | Suppressor | Grenade Launcher | Bipod
——— Rear Attachment: Default sights | CQB scope | Magnifying scope | Night scope | Laser aiming module
——— Ammunition: FMJ/Slug | JHP/Buckshot
— Secondary Weapon = None | Pistol | TASER | Special
——— Pistol Attachment: None | Suppressor | Laser aiming module | Tactical light
——— Ammunition: FMJ | JHP | Cartridge

— Specialist item = None | Binoculars | Radio | Laser designator | Night vision goggles | Spy gizmo | Gas mask

— Demolitions item 1 = None | Breaching shotgun | Door breaching charges | Plastic explosive | Satchel charge | LAW ammunition | Breaching hammer | Breaching bar

— Protective Gear = None | Light | Medium | Heavy

Where light = Level IIIA, medium = level III, heavy = level IV on the NIJ standards.

And allot like 3 or 4 slots for grenade “packages”, say 3 slots holding a “two pack” of grenades.

— Grenade slot 1 = None | 2 x Fragmentation | 2 x Flashbang | 2 x Smoke | 2 x CS Gas
— Grenade slot 2 = None | 2 x Fragmentation | 2 x Flashbang | 2 x Smoke | 2 x CS Gas
— Grenade slot 3 = None | 2 x Fragmentation | 2 x Flashbang | 2 x Smoke | 2 x CS Gas

Which in my opinion would be the most flexible and much faster then having to equip each slot individually.

Breaching methods:

Ballistic breaching with shotguns, any shutgun capable of destroying the door and frangible breaching shot as well — in effect making hinge and knob side breaching possible. Explosive breaching with any suitable explosive, as well as dedicated door breaching charges, using shaped charges to blast through doors and windows, etc. Mechanical breaching with bars, sledge hammers, and even fire axes that just happen to be sitting handy.

The ability to break down doors, blow up walls, come crashing through windows, is just a requirement. You can’t have a tactical game unless you can conduct a full breach. Not having to use the “door” is also more realistic, why send everyone through one door… When we can sneak a team into the next room, frame charge through the damn wall. And employ snipers to pick off X-Rays through the windows — after coordinating kill zones ahead of time that is.

Vehicles:

One of the big problems with games is the “vehicle” selling point. In games like BF2 or Halo, they often become the gods of the battlefield, you have to use the vehicles to win.

By nature of things, vehicles make good transport and are very useful. But have to be controlled to avoid them becoming all powerful monsters of destruction in adversarial games. Having stuff like personal motorcycles and dune buggies or HMMWVs for transporting troops would be nice.

What I would like to see is AI controlled support vehicles that can be called in by team leaders using a “radio” item. So for example, a squad leader could call in an attack helicopter or a gun ship and have it circle in a radius overhead, attacking every enemy in sight.

To make that even sweeter, in some maps the enemy could have AAA and shoot the thing down !!!

That would open up so many possibilities, such as vaulting a few DPVs into the target area, send a group/groups to secure the objective, while the other members of the patrol set up a parameter, guards the cars for egress, and calls in a few helo’s for backup. The possibilities for hit and fade runs are infinite when that is combined with a map editor…

Game Types:

Round based Cooperative, following “mission” and various special coop types, e.g. search and destroy, recon, hostage rescue. Round based and respawn based team death matches in “objectiveless” team with the most points wins, capture the flag, and search and destroy games. Heck, you could probably convert coop levels over for use as player Vs. player missions by using some form of squad based spawn points for the defending team.

Mission Planning:

It’s imperative to be able to play the mission ahead of time and adjust in combat. Raven Shields F4 map sucks horribly but at least you can draw on it. A real planning map that can accommodative multiple floors would be perfect.

Team leaders need to be set, teams organized, mission objectives reviewed, and assault teams synchronized on their objectives.

Human Capabilities:

People can walk, run, crawl, roll, jump, e.t.c so why why not do like wise in game? One of the most annoying thing in Tactical FPS games is when you get killed in one of those, “I could have just … like in real life” moments. Walking should be quick but not to quick, watching a SWAT team on the moves a perfect example. Running should be quick and really jumble your aim around. The ability to crouch and crawl is a requirement IMHO, and on top of that. When going prone while running or dashing, one should go into a dive.

If your walking and drop to the ground, odds are you want to get on the deck eh? But if your running like a bat out of hell, odds are you might not want to stop where ya are and lay down!!! I think to avoid the bunny hopper problem, jumping should be limited to a very short height and while running, just enough to be useful, yet realistic for someone in ~15 plus kilograms of combat gear.

That would allow one to still move quick, jump quite short heights, and avoid the usual crap of not being able to jump at all, because nubs and pansies abuse it so often online.

One thing I would really like, is a special “physical” action button. One that changes what it does based on the situation, whne close to people, go for a rifle butt/pistol whip/CQC attack, when close to objects, try to push, throw, kick, or otherwise employ them. Such as kicking a chair across the room or flipping a table over — be versatile.

Team Organization:

It should be kept simple, AAO is a perfect example. Platoon leader, Squad/Section Leaders, Squad members. I think it’s useful to occasional have specialists but when it goes to the extent of say, BF2 or other class based configurations. I think you really loose all of the flexibility gained by having a tactical FPS modeled on anything beyond the general infantry…

Kit selection should define specialization options, not soldier “class”.

A perfect example, in RvS if we need more grenades, we bring more grenades, if we need a demolitions man, we bring demolitions! We don’t limit the demolitions man to a special class, we equip for the job. I think SWAT4’s split of grenades, breaching, and protective gear is the right style but the devs chose to divide it wrongly in terms of a Tactical FPS. But for simulation of Police SWAT environment, quite well since there are less, uhh… Fun toys to play with in most police departments >_>.

Graphics and Performance:

An Intel or AMD chip with performance comparable to a Pentium 4 in the 2.0-2.2 Ghz range, 768MB, and a 256MB Graphics card supporting OpenGL or DX9 decently would be an ideal minimal spec IMHO.

If you have a super gaming rig, you should get what you paid for within reason. If you only have a common gaming rig, you should at least be able to play the game smoothly with lower graphics. Games should look as *nice* as you can make them on your hardware but you shouldn’t need a $300 graphics card and double your RAM just to play.

Hell, a good make of GeForce 6800 is dirt cheap now and one of the best graphics cards of it’s generation.

Communication Functions:

Text chat, V-Commands, and Text Macros.

Text chat is the lowest common denominator of the internet, and most games require a keyboard and mouse to use properly ^_^. Pre recorded Voice Commands like that used in MOHAA, RvS, SWAT3, SWAT4, BF2, and such are great. The only problem is game developers almost never choose decent stuff and many gamers never bother to use them.

V-Commands should be a quick pop up menu and issued through keystroke OR mouse gesture and drop a HUD or on screen indicator that says WHO, WHAT, and WHERE. Like in SWAT4, you can see a marker of WHO issued the V-Command, you can hear the WHAT part, and when orders are given you can see the WHERE part marked on screen.

In game VoIP has always been a pile of shit, no matter what game that has implemented it, it has ALWAYS been shit. Striking a deal with the TeamSpeak or Ventrillo people for a dream-team setup that allows the game to auto-join certain servers/channels from in game or when just joining the a given team on the server.

I’ve always liked TeamSpeak because its channel commander feature offers a lot for serious team gaming.

The ability to record text macros in game, without having to use keybinds like in Unreal 2 games, I think is something every FPS should do. SWAT3 is one game that really got it right, text + sound bites. Although, being able to open your configuration data in a text editor and adjust things to taste is, like the hugest perk ever created.

User account and Points / Rewards system:

Having any kind of spend your life playing this game and racking up kill points, and we will reward you with unlocks. Is just a crock full of shit, it’s a marketing gimmick to make you play the game longer and an excuse to sell you expansion packs that add features that, often in my experience — should have been there in the first place. Or freely able to be made by a modding community.

Game Mods:

SWAT3 was perfect, download ZIP file, copy ZIP file to folder, flick the on/off switches for what mods you wanted to play. Launch game, and play. The mods you had on got used when hosting the game but when joining OTHER peoples games, WITHOUT RESTARTING. The game would load the required mods for joining other peoples games, as long as you had them installed.

That is the way it should be, having to restart the game to swap mods or worse, having to use a conversion utility (e.g. MW4:Mercs) are just piles of crap, unless of course. You want to appear to be a company that would rather lock people into buying expansion packs or sequles that your not obligated to make, rather then letting people extend what hopefully is a decent game, and make it better!

User Accounts and Anti-Cheat:

The games got to have some way of ID’ing users uniquely, PB generally does a decent enough job of it. While I don’t care much for PB, and in fact have never had much use for it as anti-cheat (aside from the spying part). It does do one good thing.

It helps enforce server policy.

Level Design:

Missions need multiple ways of completing it, unless the game is a “quickie” that you’ll play once and then chuck on a CD-Rack, which means there is no point in paying more then ~20 bucks for it.

Problems should be approachable from many different angles, there should be multiple paths available on most missions. Objective and enemy placement should be able to be randomized, one of the greatest things of early SWAT3 was that the missions placed some “mission” specifics in a normal set of spawn points, then placed other stuff in more random locations. No playing from memory, you know X, Y, and Z are choke points, you know hostages may be on Level 2, but only the machine knows what you will find in between ^_^.

HUD:

A customizable hud, the ability o change colors and whats on it works best.

The ability to have a small tactical map or SAI like element is ideal. Having helmet cameras and UAV feeds available and the ability to reorganize the HUD and toggle cams on/off based on position in the team — is even more fun 😉

Cross hairs should be used but be able to be disabled (I for one prefer no cross hairs on my HUD, unless I’ve got grenades). Iron sights and scopes should work on every weapon available but allow for proper shooting. In CQB, you don’t aim with the sights for every shot, learn how to use the weapon.

When it comes to ammo counts, I think the traditional rounds in the magazine counter is nice, although not really necessary once you get used to how the game tunes the rates of fire. What is important is knowing how much ammo you have left. I love how SWAT4 implements it, you know how many rounds are in your current magazine. You can see how many magazines you have on the HUD and how “relatively” full they are. Magazine based ammo tracking is much more accurate the the old NNN total rounds remaining ammo counter anyway.

I think moving some features that would really improve the value of a HUD, into a separate “PDA” screen would be useful. B ecause then one could really stretch things to realistic limits, targeting people like Robocop or a T-800 are a bit futher off for most troops in the 21st Century.

last couple days

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I think over the last few days, I’ve probably have had the most sleep I’ve had in months but still miserable rest if any. I keep having strange dreams that are, should I say a bit distorted? And each usually less pleasurable then the last… I’m always waking up, going back to sleep, or not able to keep sleeping w/o being bothered into getting up :

My most productive day in awhile actually. Got some work done on the website for Wiz, managed to drop into the Proving Grounds on the RvS side. Scope out some of the current regulars and check in on the NCOs. I also managed to duck in for a few rounds with Duke before dinner. It’s been a good while since I’ve played SWAT4, since I took the Drill Instructor position for a Raven Shield recruit. I have been focusing my own activities on RvS as well, after all — what good would I be as a DI if I wasn’t up to par myself?

It’s also quite nice to be able to play RvS at night again without lag. The only sad thing, I thin I miss my old “lag step”. I get an occasional spike of warpage in both game snow but that is probably because the aerial on my [new] wifi card is bent… As opposed to before, when I used to play RvS and lag-step to an extent that taking two steps forward felt like warping half of one backwards too. Now once the first-round lag is over, I wouldn’t even realize the server is in another country lol. Hooah for cable.

Tonight I was also on Element Leader duty in SWAT4 for the first time in a long time. I generally have a standing policy of “If no one else will, I will” when it comes to EL. I try to avoid it though, in favor of letting young Cpl/LCpls take command of the mission. That’s how my generation learned, practice !!! With how long it has been, I was actually presently surprised that I didn’t fumble any keys. Probably because I was concentrating more intently on a safe mission plan for my element, instead of what key to push. Planning about three quarters of it before hand also helped >_>. I still prefer taking EL of elements that are mostly compromised of [SAS] though, rather then a superposition of pubs and members. For one thing, it is much faster to plan things without having to go over details covered in our training regime.

I think I did fairly well for a rust bucket, I don’t consider a headache the size of Russia and much time spent coding instead to be a decent excuse for shotty work though. Not with how many hours of server time I’ve got lol. As long as I can keep my eyes on what I’m doing, I can generally handle room clearing in my sleep. But one thing that really threw me off though was our rear guard, a pub. Who had a great knack for taking up good spots for covering the rear. But almost no talent for actually securing the rear, often I’d end up crossing his/her Line of Fire (LoF) and that’s not good, but I suppose it was faster then having to teach the pub how to do a better job…

*sigh*

Tomorrow is my last day off and I’ve still got so much shit to get done :

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Just got out of Chesters Live Op, I’ve done the map before, as EL in fact lol but I wound up EL on this one anyway.

The Mogadishu mile map is a large but quite dark indoors. The first time I played the map, we had been deployed on a Live Operation that the scenario was to rescue a pair of captured Danish army sergeants. Chesters op was a search and destroy for X-Rays, intel, and weapon caches.

All went well until the second entry, Red team had a strong base of fire from where they covered us. So when Chester and I cleared out of the first building, we formed up on the second, leaving Red team to keep their angles covered. Chester tried the door and alerted a tango, so I ordered a breach.

We blew the dang door open and entered, the X-Ray must’ve fallen back when he heard the commotion. Because on entry, I saw him on my 12, checked my corner (3), and fell into the bastard hard… I figured, hey maybe we can take a prisioner and get intel for the next Live Operation.

X-Ray in the corner pocket (9) tagged me, the X-Ray, and Chester, then fled outside and mowed down Fury before Big12 could gun him down :

Leaving just Big12 to carry on alone until finally being shot in the kisser slicing the pie into a hornets nest :-(. All in all, things went well until that one X-Ray. But the actually went better in the first trip we did a year or two ago. When we did rescue op, we took %50 casualties within the first 5 minutes, one from an ambush and another through the house to house clearing. But in the end, on that Live OP it was me and Lazko, critical on ammo and blood red up’n’down the health gauges but still completed the op. This trip wasn’t so fortunate… but it was still a Live Op lol.

Can’t clear them all I guess.

rant…

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[project classified]
If I have to look at one more undocumented magic number tucked away… I think I am going to hunt down the original programmer(s) and force feed the code down their gullets one byte of code at a time….

I generally don’t pick on other peoples work but sometimes, it just royally pisses me the **** off. If I was the jackinape who wrote this shit, I think I’d burn it rather then run it. Is it to much to ask, that people leave code behind that will not antagonize the putz stuck maintaining it a few years later? Like, /actually/ appear like ya now wtf you were writing? lol.

I could have better spent my time working on my own projects….. And saved the headache of tracking stuff down.
[/project classified]

One thing I actually like about my work on Neo Ports Manager, other then that it is one of my projects which makes me the bastardo in charge of what gets committed. When I write something, I always assume someone will have to read it later… In NPMs case all code eventually hits a publically viewable subversion repository, with my name on the commits I might add! So it’s fairly obvious that I ain’t prone to submitting toxic waste.

Unlike a few people I’ve known…

Another day older and deeper in insanity.

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Another day as good as gone…

Managed to get through work in one more or less antagonized piece. Had a few grapes on the way home but otherwise skipped lunch altogether. Joined TG#1 for some of Snipers training, managed to spend some time with Ghost, Jonsi, Nick, and Caern. Really, it’s the most gaming I’ve done all month :. One thing I am glad of though, in the rounds where I was the “last man standing”, I generally did good !

I think Caern was a little surprised by the speed of my pistol whippin’ backhand hehe. A tango popped the door behind me in an area I was being cautious about clearing, snapped around and plugged ~5 .40 Caliber rounds into the threat and slammed the door shut in an eye blink >_>. I’m proud to say though that in the end, Nick, Caern, and Me managed to complete the mission without casualties hehe.

I was quite delighted to have a few time to join a few old friends in my “office” on XFire. Hmm, them were some good days (y). But sadly, I didn’t have much time to spend with my friends… As the Chief FH decided it was time to monopolize my time on a project. Why bother though? By my experience and mathematical capabilities, I estimate the supplies stored int he car will be just as shitty and disorganized within 3 years or less the way things are.

Honestly, I’ll never understand it… She creates her own problems and wants the rest of us to deal with it, then applies it recursively… FFS at least be consistent in a purposeful manor. Wait, wtf am I saying? This is my mother we’re talking about lol.

Had triple helpings of dinner… About the only real meal I’ve had all day +S. What can I say? I’m like a camel: living on flumes but still workin’ like a dog. Shit, I need a vacation!!!

But this isn’t the kind of business where you get a vacation, without having to work your ass off along the way; let along a vacation alone.

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Tired… I think my sleep/work patterns of late are starting to get to me :

Manged to get some time in on TG#1, even if it was some ‘solo’ dynamic assaults.

I’ve also gotten another module imported, and another that would be ready if I didn’t have to port it from using the Qt3 Support library… lol.

It shouldn’t take to much work to get the portconfig module ready for import but, my brain needs some rest :. And I’m stuck going back to work soon (an ~hour) on top of it 🙁

zzzZzzzzZzzz

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So tired…

The [SAS] Killhouse Redux is coming along nicely, haven’t been able to figure out one of the extra’s I wanted… but level 1A is now feature complete, pardoning the stairs. Level 2A is aout 40% done, the second wing, ladies room, and two more hotel rooms need furnishing + a wee bit of work in the hallway (decorations).

So far, the map is coming along pretty nice all things considered. I’ve also got some plans for a few ‘secret’ area’s just to make things interesting. Hehe, if I’m the smoe making the map, why not have a little fun?

The question is how long will it take the membership to find them ^_^

On another note, I’ve been trying to replace Konversation as my IRC client for *nix. Many KDE apps on my laptop seem to suffer greatly on performance when being run under fvwm instead of a full kde session. I tested out tirc, which is nice and handy — even has Vi based key bindings ^_^. The only problem is the bus error when forcing a nick greater then the 9-char standard and doing a call to the nickserv bot.

So far, it looks like it will probably boil down to learning either BitchX or irssi.

The only IRC clients I’ve really liked in the past have been, Konversation (the best!), Chatzilla, and X-Chat. But I’m not really in the mood for needing a web browser to run an IRC client, nor in using X-Chat again. Nice client but eh, kinda boring.

I really need to get some time to focus on KDE4, between family, life, and work. I’m behind schedule on everything these days :

Dang it… I need a vacation !!!!

Map making time?

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Spent 90% of the day working on trying to make The [SAS] Kill House Redux map a reality. I’m a couple months ahead of schedule so far, most of Level 1A is complete and who knows what will become of Level 1B… hehe.

I think the hardest thing probably has been the lighting, it has to be reasonably realistic. But at the same time, it really would help to not need a flash light just to see the weapon in your hands >_>. When you ain’t got one to choose from design wise, ya never realize how useful windows really are !!!

Level 1A is pretty simple, spawn point, ~30m long hallway ending in a T-Junction. And a number of small to large rooms; exploring center doors, corner doors, threat points, multiple entries, etc. In a very basic manor, just perfect for basic training work. Level 2A, is meant to be more of a “simulation” environment then a clean room.

Decorating the spawn point, since most of Level 1A is meant to be unfurnished was kind of fun. The desks are kind of personalized to my tastes hehe. I also put a sign up which I feel fits quite well in several meanings of it, only I know them all ^_^.

Just for the heck of it, I’m considering putting in a secret room… Hey, why not have an office or something hehehe.

I’m looking forward to Level 2A and the challenge involved but joining my teammates in training on it will be sweeter still.

Recent activities.

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Havn’t had a lot of spare time lately :

Survived my 20th birthday on the 20th, makes me wonder if I’m starting to get old in my own way lol.

My brother called and wished me a happy birthday, was good to talk with him even if I had to put up with a ‘lecture’ 8=). I know the old axim is “those who can’t do, teach” but in my families case it is lecture >_>.

Night before my birthday I managed to polish off one of my favorite burgers from Ruby Tuesdays. I remember the first time I had one, hehe a few years back I was the only guy involved in a project. So the girls had to throw a birthday party and what else but The Ultimate Colossal Burger xD

They always did know how to throw a party lol.

Ma also made 2lbs of Chili, so I’ve been feasting on that for the past couple days, hmm now that I think of it.. A little chili would hit the spot about now ;).

I spent most of my birthday eating, sleeping, and coding — three good things, especially since sleep is a premium for me +S. I ain’t done much of anything in C++ in about 3 years, sad considering November will be my fourth anniversary. But I’ve really been enjoying the C++/Qt4 work of late, even better I’ve got suitable development environments on my laptop and desktop. Lunch was a trip to the best all you can eat joint in town, so that went well hehe.

Still, it’s all overshadowed by one thing… But I guess that’s a different subject.

I’ve managed to get a bit of training in this weekend, been concentrating on the fundamentals of room clearing for Jonsi’s training. One nice thing about teaching it, I’ve been doing it enough in the virtual world, that I parts of it flow into the real world lol.

Ok, so is it that bad if you tend to stack on doors and button-hook entries ? haha

Started work today on a diagram for a new swat4 map, The [SAS] Killhouse Redux. I’ve got over 25 rooms and two floors with concepts for adding another wing on the first floor. What I like the most about the design, it’s trivial to build it in bits and pieces. Level 1As first wing, then the other wing or Level 2A, etc. My original “dream” for the ultimate training facility included like a 5-6 floor shooting house but no map maker got into the project.

The only big problem is me and the Unreal Editor used mix like water and oil. I should be happy though, as crappy as SwatEd is it really is less bothersome then the UnrealEd build shipped with Raven Shield. Although I’m more used to the Rvs build… At least the S4 one doesn’t crash so often!

I can do almost anything I set my mind to, it’s just a matter of time. Tomorrow I need to inhale one of the tutorials and set to work on more of the map. The main problem atm is adjusting the objectives, although I reckon I could always make a room in the middle of no where full of tangos lol. The old [SAS] Killhouse in RvS that we used to use before I even got here, had a lone tango hidden behind boxes. But that was more so because of issues with the game design, Swat4 is a little less, ehh irksome.

Today I also got some time on the SWAT4:TSS server for the first time in a good while, I really miss that game lol. The only bad thing I can say, is the MP5s don’t support full auto. I’d rather have a trusty MP5N but hey, the devs had to make it more ‘balanced’ :. The UMP.45 fires at about 300 RPM on their own scale and on full auto, while the MP5 is limited to three round bursts as respective alternatives to semi automatic.

I really prefer full auto because I can control the bursts. In RvS, I often like to use the MP5/10A2 because the way it was implemented. You can’t hit shit past about 30 metres and if you fire more then 2 rounds at a time, you won’t (consistantly) hit shit to start with ! The FAMAS G2 also has such a high rate of fire, that it’s great fun to put on full auto and try to fire one round from it per trigger pull.

SWAT4 has one of the worst simulations of ballistics I’ve ever seen but, Rvs has good shooting but the worlds most unreal physics.

Tomorrows plans, map making and training ops. With how long it’s been since I’ve really played SWAT4, I think I should take some drill time to work on my usual reflexive plan.

3-round burst to centre mass then follow up with a double tap or another burst to the noggin.

Me, I fire a lot of rounds per kill — because I keep firing till the f****er goes down. The advantage of video games is, once they die they start to fall over dead (realistically or not). The disadvantage is unlike the real world, getting shot doesn’t have much effect on the enemy. At the best you might jar their shots (rvs) or stun them briefly (swat4) for another follow up shot.

What I really would love to do some day, is set up sensors on the monitor and a laser pointer on a model weapon. And have the sensors on the screen detect the movements of the laser beam across their own beams and use that to generate mouse movement-input for the operating system.

That would make aiming a lot more reflexive then a mouse lol.

DI Planning Phase

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Just finished my notes, I figure I can make the encrypted file available to the other NCOs to save me time reiterating it vocally. It’s mostly an outline of what ground I’ll have to be covering as a drill instructor.

My planned format is much like that my greatest teachers used for me, Rand, Wiz, and Relish.

I know my work on Tuesdays now (formally Mondays job) is almost a total washout when it comes to computer time. I kind of would like to get at least 3 or 4 days of the week going for training an hour or 2 per if possible. Time issues will tell the tail I guess. One thing I like about most of my work, I’m usually home some time in the local afternoon which generally works well.

I really prefer Zulu time but I kinda like my time zone. It balances out to an interesting inter-mix of times when syncing with other countries, I usually get to see people in several very different time zones during my online time lol.

The smaller portions of my training phase need to be taken day by day more so. I like what I have so far, a fairly ironed out wave of it but still a lot of breathing room to swing with whatever I end up. One thing I need to do is get this TeX file setup for printing so I don’t crash from all the alt+tabing lol.

I always felt [SAS]_Cpl_Spidey01 had the best ring to it in my time thus far, although I admit SSM/RSM/WO1 has enabled me to do a lot more then I otherwise would’ve been able to… but it’s the Corporals that fill many of my favorite tasks in [SAS].

Good to have my butt back on the virtual training grounds doing training!