Carnage: Realism mod

[Vijil]

In real life, one bullet will kill one soldier, if you hit in the right place. An anti tank shell will always kill a soldier, regardless of where you hit. This changes the dynamics of combat, because it means that once you've commited to a situation, the likelyhood of being able to pull out and save your arse is minimal. Strategy and tactics in RL happen in the planning, not the actual combat.

RTS's typically seem to ignore this. In DoW, for example, itll take two anti tank shells to kill a lightly armoured Eldar Guardian, when in the game youd splat at least two of them with that nuber of shots, and arguably the same in RL. A tank can take ten or so anti tank shots, when in real life its all about who gets the first shot in.

I propose a fast, furious, realistic damage tweak to the game. It wouldnt be hard to implement, but it would require very serious strategy and planning to win when the heaviest tank cant survive more than three ATMs, or Orcs can decapitate Eldar at a rate of 1 per 2 seconds. The fact that accuracy is in the game would mean that a lascannon wouldnt alway hit first time, but when it did, youd want the enemy to lose heaps of health if not be killed outright.

I certainly want to try this out to see what its like. It would be simple to do, just take all the weapon powers up by a certain percentage, say 300%. It would make for some mind shatteringly fast games of total, imo addictive carnage, with the added bonus of being closer to real life.

Or about as close as WH40k can get, anyway.

[SPOON!]

Problem: Stratagy could go out the window as the command of troops is done relativly slow

[Vijil]

re read my post dude. the strategy has to be done before the combat. Once youve sent them in its pretty much too late to change things, just like RL. The strategy would be in setting up ambushes and stuff like that, not in actual combat.

Instead of killing strategy, this forces strategy, because you cant rely on being able to pull out you have to think very carefully about what you do before you do it. No simple rushing.

[peer]

I would love a mod like this. But then, I am a realism freak when it comes to most games.

[ArchonArokN'ah]

Play a total war game.
Catapults kill rows of people (the rocks bounce), and with ballistas, it is impossible to hit.

In games like Generals, the people (eg, rebels) can survive several tank shells screaming into them (usually twenty). I think this is supposed to represent that the people are hiding behind cover, and being generally low to ground, but if they can show detail of people smoking, and talking, then what is wrong with taking cover?

[BlackTemplar]

I think it sounds great, Vijil.

[Musicalgibbon]

Sounds fun, realism i like. It will be fairly crazy though as plans often fall apart as soon as combat ensues but that is the nature of war.
Are you going to implement more sophisticated damage models (if it is possible of course) so that a unit takes more damage from the flanks than from head on or is it going to be a simple one shot kill system?

[BrianGeneral]

Yo,it'll be fun to play with.
But scout's bullet can always 1-hit kill.......

[LordPerrin]

You'd have to incorporate way more morale, decreased accuracy while moving, better benifits for being in cover, pinning, (when you're taking alot of fire, your return fire is useless), etc. I've got dozens of ideas that can and will make this work if you'll let me help. Hit me up on email or MSN at sailor1029@hotmail.com

Thanks alot

-Scott

Edit: I've got too many ideas to wait until someone replies. I'll start out with what I've got.


First: If you want quick battles that aren't totally f*cked up and impossible to control, then why not make it more of a representation of the TTG? If anyone's ever played any of the Combat Mission games, you'll understand. Time it, give each player 30 seconds or so to give orders, then have the game go for 60 seconds where all you do is watch. That gives us the best of both worlds, we can sit around and watch the carnage without being distracted, and we aren't distracted by it while giving orders.

Second:If you up the damage, then CC armies are gonna get pooched. Orks are gonna have a tough time getting into CC if you just sit back and mow them down. Solution: The effectiveness of incoming fire doesn't mean anything. In a real life combat situation, you don't really shoot to kill people, you shoot to keep them from being able to shoot back accurately. You'd have to create several levels of pinning, so the more fire you put down on a squad, the less effective their return fire will be.

The effects of this pinning will have to be something along the lines of decreased rate of fire and decreased accuracy. Now the orks all carry weapons, and can all fire while moving. This means that return fire against them is going to be fairly innefective if they're charging you. This doesn't automatically make orks awesome, tho, because they can only fire at the squad they're charging. Keep some reserves with anti-infantry weapons out of the way of the charge and you'll be ok, right?

Wrong. At least not if the ork player knows how to maneuvre his guys. It'll all be about maintaining a base of fire and manoeuvering your assault troops to take advantage of the disruption. Sound anything like real combat? Good, thats what I was hoping for.

Then you bring in vehicles. Vehicles will have to aim slower, otherwise they'll be mowing everything down because they won't have morale modifiers. If someone's shooting at you and you're in a tank, you're not ducking, you're trying to put lead into him. Make them weaker, if infantry can get close to tanks, the tank should be done. I take that back, don't make the tanks weaker, make infantry good at dealing with tanks in CC. Tanks will wreak havok, but if you get close, they're toast. Make anti-tank weapons innaccurate and slow firing, but very damaging. Even a land raider should only be able to take a couple of shots from a lascannon to take it out.

Then you get into special units like bloodthirsters, dreadnoughts, wraithlords, etc. Make them weaker, but still be able to do serious damage. A couple of AT hits will knock them out, but they'll take in tons of small arms. This means that they'll be tough and powerful, but you'll have to be careful with them.

Now you've got real-world tactical combat, quick battles, more thinking, more acting less reacting. The guy who takes the initative and pins down the opponent first is going to be happy, but its gonna be hard to do.

Anyways, I'll probably come back and post even more later on, this is all I've got right thise second.

[LordPerrin]

wow, you'd expect the guy that created the post to possibly check it once in a while...or maybe have people offer feedback or something

[Mr Tyranny]

Maybe hes like occupied or something? RealLife™ tends to make a mess of most modders ambitions..

[Vijil]

yeah LordPerrin I see what you're saying, but for starts we'll just keep it simple. If it takes off then maybe we could go into more complex ideas such as yours but for the sake of being able to do this easilly we'll start by just modifying the damage ratings.

[LordPerrin]

That simply won't work. you'll have CC attacks almost completely useless, tanks will dominate everything, and the game will be an unplayable mess. Also, I'm in it for realistic combat, not just realistic damage. Having one without the other will put you in a worse situation that you started with.

There's no way to half-ass this one unfortunately. If you decide that you want to do it and do it right, let me know.

-Scott

[Vijil]

Its all very well for you to say "it simply wont work", but until we try it we dont know for sure. I'm gonna try it out anyway.

[Triceron]

It definately won't hurt until you try it. Who knows, it might work out very well. Look at Counterstrike and Rainbow 6, who knew an FPS could ever be played so tactically until someone actually figured to make accuracy and ammo important. This mod might work in a similar fashion and make squads ultimately more important and push micro a bit further.

[ZzGashi]

this mod sounds horrible... i mean how many people want a game to be real? huh? anyone?

[Zurgnoff]

ZZ Did it ever occur to you that people might have different opinions than you? On topic though what is going to happen to orbital strikes, artillery, and other indirect fire weapons that would cause massive damage over a large area without having to expose themselves to fire? In a realism mod (to my knowledge of how powerful they would be) they would be game ending weapons if they hit the intened area

[King Raa]

i was wondering... the game looks so good.. well they made a strategy ish mod for half life.. so cud u do it the other way round n make an fps outa dow with a natural selection style thingy (not played NS but heard its mix of fps and rts.. )
neway just an idea to be ignored.. lar de dar.

[ZzGashi]

ZZ Did it ever occur to you that people might have different opinions than you?

Hey i just saying... it just sounds strange to weaken some of the troops and vehicles/big things, not everything dies in one shot.

[Strangefate]

Im pretty sure that soldiers in Real Life wouldn't die from one shot if they had Space Marine armors and were genetically cultivated with their advanced tech.
Why issue armors if they dont protect.

[Interviglium]

the thing is, to get the best out of something like this you need to be able to have a way for morale to effect accuracy and for morale to be based on realistic events, and for units to react realisticaly, and with this in my mind, like expected, the way CC would work would be that you exploit the god/emperor given advantages given you. Orks charge in in massive attacks, Space Marines cooly stand their ground firing at the horde pouring down upon them until the very last moment when they toss aside or sling their bolters aside and step forward into close combat. Obviously, as a contrast (and yes, I do know the guard isn't playable), guard faced by a rush like that would be panicing, their shots missing, giving the orcs valuable time to close the ground with a similair sized force.

btw, if this uses LUA like HW2, then, if you want, I'd like to help, if your still keen to do it when DoW comes out.

[Civik]

well, now, here's the problem with a 'realism' mod... if each hit = a death, then what about space marines?

Technically a lone guardsman has a 5% chance of making a space marine combat ineffective... and even if he hits the target (50% chance) and hits it square enough to wound it (30% chance), there is still only a 30% chance that the guardsman will actually find a chink in the armor to take advantage of.

How will this be represented?

[Humhu]

A hit doesn't always mean a death. If you get hit in the shoulder and go down, you're not really dead. You could probably still sling grenades if you were fanatical enough, or a medic could drag you to a field hospital and patch you up, then kick you out into the battlefield again.

[Civik]

precisely, that's why I used the term 'combat ineffective'. Because you don't always get killed... you could just get knocked out by the concussion of a grenade...

But that's kinda what health bars are referring to.

[FireWarriorUK]

What the heck!? The mod is in the concept stage and people are already trolling it up and deciding that it won't work?! I think it's a great idea and am a huge fan of mods, especially the realism mods for all games. Games like Medal Of Honour were awful online until realism came into play so that a good couple of shots to the chest would take you down.

I reckon that this mod sounds like a great laugh but maybe not making the tanks quite so uber might be a good idea (2 heavy bolter sponsons = a ridiculous amount of dead orcs/gaunts/guard etc)

[LordPerrin]

You need to understand that if you want realism, the major thing that has to change is the morale system.

The thing about tanks, FireWarrior, is that they'd have to be fairly innaccurate. Weapons like HB's would become more of a support weapon, not a killing weapon. With a morale system that lends itself to realism, HB's would be very innaccurate but cause a fairly large morale hit, meaning the squad you're shooting at won't be shooting back as accurately. Get a couple of HB's and pin a squad. Now they're not returning effective fire, and are "broken". Now you bring in a CC squad to clean them up.

About artillary barrages: Against troops in the open, artillary will f*ck things up. Give troops in cover a huge bonus against artillary, but also make it cause probably the largest morale hit in the game. If whirlwind fire is coming down on your position, and you've got a good place to hide, I'm pretty sure we all know where you'd be.

I'm certain you could make it work, and I don't think that re-working the morale system would take a huge amount of effort, depending on what kind of modding tools are made available to us.

-Scott

[Tren2100]

the only reason the health bar exists is as a way to balance things and to make it so the difference between the cost of a tank and infantry aren't massive (example in combat zone infantry cost $100 while the weakest tank costs $1700). another thing is health accounts for chance the fact is that tanks lack perfect accuracy then you plus onto that the armour. a realism mod fits in with say a modern or past war game but not here this is the 41st millenium there is no way that the way it works is the same.

btw:were you thinking of applying this to terminators too cos that would just be plain stupid...oh and what are your plans for the hero units.

[pculliton]

In reply to the issues with the realism mod, I don't think he's talking about every soldier being able to be killed with one shot. The likelihood would go up, yes, but units with protection (for instance, SMs, if in fact some level of protection is implemented for them), or very large numbers of hit points (Warbosses, for example), would still be harder to take down. Warbosses and Terminators are big, bad, mean dudes who generally have plenty of fighting experience and can probably handle a few wounds -- the definition of a "few" would be all that changed. Am I correct in my understanding of this?

As an aside, if you'll notice, SMs actually have the same number of hit points as a Shoota or Slugga Boy but appear to last longer in combat, indicating that the SMs higher resistance to fire is handled in another way. Perhaps their armor save is somehow implemented? If so, this would make the creation of this mod a little less painful, as Marines' armor save would still protect them, but they would have less of a chance of surviving when actually hit (much like TT).

By the way -- I'm all for the realism mod, and had plans to create one myself once Spooky's / Relic's tools come out. I would be happy to lend what help I can, although real life is somewhat busy.

Now -- moving on to the "first person" concept. I've given it some thought. Try playing the tutorial with the camera level to the ground, completely zoomed in. Exciting, though of course the controls are a bit mushy. Could be (possibly, depending on how Relic tracks the unit data) an easy mod. (Yeah, I'm a programmer. When I say "easy", I mean "easy".)

Thoughts? Comments?

[SvK]

pculliton, the Space Marines are Heavy Infantry, while most Orks (or is it 'Orkz'?) are simply Infantry. Normal bolters are more effective against Infantry than against Heavy Infantry.

Now that I've written that, it doesn't sound so helpful.

[Panzergeist]

In real life soldiers don't march in masses while under fire like the war of 1812. Simply tweaking damage wouldn't make it realistic; it would merely make combat faster and ruin tactics. What the game needs is more complex rules for cover, soldiers going prone and hiding behind rocks, suppresive fire, and soldiers disobeying suicidal orders, or attack orders in general if they are demoralized.

[pculliton]

Very right, SvK. Thanks for reminding me. Well, then -- we've still got an amount of differentiation, just not as cool as my work-addled brain was imagining. Oh, well. Next time I get a fantastic idea, I'll try to post before my 10th hour at my desk. ;-)

Panzergeist -- a touchup of the AI code would probably handle a large amount of that. As far as I know, the AI code will be exposed... but it could involve a great deal of work. I do that sort of thing for a living, and I would be hesitant to take what you're talking about, without first seeing the code itself.

Adding more complex rules for cover -- that might be a mappers' issue. It might also be fixable entirely via the code depending on what Relic's given us, but my guess is that, if the solution is to make the available cover more complex (which it may be), then the mappers will need to deal with that.

Now that I think about it, though -- a real morale system would be useful, but it wouldn't really fit the universe, would it? I mean, the current situation (with Terminators breaking more often than standard marines, which I initially laughed at and now lament) is absurd, but... would a Space Marine ever refuse a suicidal order? For that matter, a Chaos Marine or Eldar? The Orks are a different story, of course...

I very much like the suppressive fire idea, by the way.

Anyway -- thanks again SvK and Panzergeist. I look forward to continuing to take part in this discussion. Looks like we could have the backbone of a decent modding group here, already.

[esk]

I would love to see a relizm mod. I don't think that changing the hit point values would do all that much, but giving it a shot wouldn't hurt. I think the hit points should be removed as such, and only have a % chance that a squad member is killed depending on tougness and armor and acuracy of the unit firing and streng of the weapon firing. (pretty much like the table top) I would love to see cover become a big part of the game. And pinning fire (a bit like full spectrum warrior) where you pin a squad down with fire and they pretty much don't fire back. This means you could out flank with other squads, etc. You could always add a forced advance while under fire so that you still can move even if pinned, you just move slower and take more casualtys if trying to fire. or you could have them break moral if they are moving from cover to cover(faster) and they lose a member. Another trhing I would like to see, would be troops breaking moral and then running. I think you lose troops all to easy once they break moral, I would love them to run until safe, so you can reinforse and have another go. Anyway these are just acouple of my Ideas, don't know if they can be done, but would love them to.

[Lord Dante]

Alot of troops in this game use CC - or specialise init. if u up the damage of weapons CC would never get used as even scounts could down hundreds of exarchs or sucidal banshees.

the mods a nice idea, but essentialy more guns will win as ppl are cut down with ease. without the use of some extra cover mod, it will be like the first world war. walk in and shoot alot.
realistically - modern 40k armour could stop a modern rifle with ease. SM armour can stop large cannon shots. terminators, my god can stop lascannons and ive read aout them being stepped on by Titans.

Eldar armour might look slight but some of it is as tough as SM armour.

So in the end CC gos out the window. and upsets the game balance into stand offs.

[pculliton]

Thanks very much for your posts, guys. It's good to see that this discussion is staying alive.

By nerfing HP you increase the number of soldiers killed, whether in hand-to-hand combat or by ranged fire. True, more members of any assault force would be killed by ranged fire, but without overwhelming numbers or a well-thought-out unit structure, what assault force can expect to make it through modern ranged weapons?

Mobbing -- presenting too many targets to effectively engage, would still work, though far more of the attackers than normal would die (though not far more than is realistic, in my estimation).

Building an appropriate assault force would allow an assault to work even more efficiently -- combined arms, with artillery breaking up (or, in a realism mod, gutting) defensive positions, ranged troops providing support, and assault troops doing the dirty work up close. Especially with the speed of most specialized assault troops in the game (with armor soaking damage in the advance), I don't really see where hand-to-hand combat will be obviated -- it will simply require more strategy to get there.

Again, we (I and, I believe, the thread author) are not talking about making all ranged weapons one-shot / one-kill. Nor am I suggesting that Terminator armor could not stop a lascannon shot (though there would be some small amount of luck in that). What we seem to be suggesting is that *several* lascannon hits seem a bit egregious; one or two would probably do a termie in unless his rolls were excellent.

Assuming that the code allows for accuracy -- which, by all appearances, it does -- this mod would simply make it more likely for the terminator to die (or, as stated elsewhere, to become "combat ineffective") within a realistic amount of time. No unsupported termie could walk into a crowd of heavy weapons and expect to live.

Finally, getting around to the scouts gunning down hordes of anything -- remember that units take time (usually a small amount, but it exists) to switch targets, usually enough so that the *only* way that they could have the opportunity to target "hundreds" of them would be if those "hundreds" also rolled up into a practically unkillable line and stood there firing -- which, if HPs were nerfed, couldn't happen, now could it? One side or the other would be wiped out or advancing to the rear before the firefight had a chance to degenerate.

Factoring in target switching and attack speed, and with the weapon ranges left as-is and HP nerfed, a scout squad armed with bolters *might* be able to take down two or three cultists or guardians apiece, and *possibly* kill one or two Chaos Marines between the four of them (the bolters would be doing less damage to the CSMs, since they are HI, remember) -- would you expect any less? It feels right to me.

On the other hand, as it is, a squad of scouts firing from cover *might* manager to badly damage a handful of cultists, and rough up a CSM or two, before the attackers are on them and the scouts are in hand-to-hand combat -- which hardly seems as realistic as the stated alternative. If you don't strategize a little (support your assault with, say, indirect fire weapons) you should lose soldiers, though not necessarily the fight (a full squad minus two of CSMs will make short work of scouts at any rate).

With respect to this, I agree, esk, pinning would be a valuable thing to have implemented.

Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.