I brought this over from the Tommy Gum thread because I feel it's more suitable here. I didn't want to derail that thread any more.
Well obviously you want a variety of guns, and you want the satisfaction of keeping them all fed with proper ammo, so multiple ammunitions are necessary, just for the sake of having a quality ladder for weapons. I think as far as this game goes for RPG aspects like progression a simple hierarchy of "bigger is better" would suffice, with, of course, large caliber guns weighing more, and the ammo being heavier. Of course you couldn't just go by bullet diameter you'd need to take into account the cartridge size and bullet grain as well, so while the hierarchy would go .22, 9mm, 10mm, .45, the .357 and .44 would come after those because they are magnum rounds. Also note that different guns in the same caliber will do different damage, and while this also may not be realistic it is done for the sake of balance.
Now, I don't think the game needs to be this ambitious, but an ideally realistic system would work sort of like this: you take the data for wound profiles and terminal ballistics of each round. This means foot pounds of force, temporary and permanent cavities, penetration, fragmentation, and you involve them as variables that are accounted for whenever a hit is scored. Inside each target is a model of their internal organs, and each bullet impact reacts realistically to bone, muscle and organ tissue. The wound cavity variable would effect how each organ is damaged, as would fragmentation. Basically damage or destruction of the organs will have the requisite effect on the target. Shooting them in the leg and damaging their tendon might make them drag that leg, if you hit their bone and shatter it it might cause them to collapse altogether. Damaging various internal organs can have specific effects ranging from internal bleeding to shock to death. Hitting the heart should cause death within seconds. Severing the spinal cord should cause instant death. Severing a major vein or artery would cause bleeding out within seconds.
Now, as I said, very ambitious but would take the real world strengths and weaknesses of different rounds into account. Combine it with realistic ballistics models and it's a winner. But it's probably out of reach of our computing power to run this sort of simulation in a smooth running game for now. One day it should be possible though.
I think we're mostly on the same page here. Assuming that a hit is scored (and not discussing all the factors that would go into that equation) Here are the contributing factors that I can think of that would have some bearing on wound damage:
Shooter skill - a low skill shooter can hit a target in the torso, but a higher skill shooter has a better chance of hitting the critical organs within that target area.
Luck - anyone can get lucky.
Bullet velocity - velocity should have some effect on damage. As a critical component of force, there must be at least enough force to impact the target to wound.
Bullet mass - this is an important characteristic of inertia and as such should have an impact of the bullet's ability to defeat resistance and pentrate to vital organs.
Bullet size - Simply put, the bugger the hole, the greater the likelyhood of hitting something important.
Terminal ballistics modeling - what the bullet does once inside the target is reallly important. Does it fragment? Does it tumble?
Ammo type - effects terminal ballistics.
Specific target area - you are much more likely to cause a critiacl injury to the head than you are to the arm.
I feel the luck factor is what critical hits are for, so take away luck from base damage.
Shooter skill should be a modifier to critical damage since it represents the greater chance a skilled shooter would hit a critical organ over a randomly placed shot.
Ammo types should be a modifier to base damage based on the specific ammo type's characteristics ie: HP fragments greatly for +dam, while jacketed armor piercing does not, but penetrates more.
That leaves bullet velocity, mass, diameter and terminal ballistics modeling for base bullet damage. Ranking them in what I feel is the correct order of importance to imparting lethal force on a target:
1. Terminal ballistics. I'm really in the permanent cavity camp. However the bullet makes a bigger hole, the better lieklyhood of that hole including something important.
2. Bullet size. This is a big factor in permanent cavity. I would much rather be shot by a .22LR round in the chest than a .50BMG round in the arm. Yeah that little .22 might hit something important, but that damn .50 is gonna take my arm off. I'll take my chances with the .22.
3. Bullet mass. I understand that mass is a smaller component of kinetic energy than velocity, but I feel that the range of velocites from highest to lowest has less of an impact on damage than the bullet's mass keeping that energy up while moving through the target.
4. Bullet velocity. If velocity weren't important, we'd just be throwing cartridges at each other. OK, I'm being facetious again. But velocity is a greater portion of the energy equation and without it the bullet won't penetrate to vital organs.
You could easily make a base damage for each cartridge using the above imformation. I, personally would rank the in game base rounds thusly:
.22LR
9mm
.357mag
10mm
.45ACP (if included)
.44mag
Graduate the base damage for each round starting with the .44, so that a single shot to the head does not cause enough base dam to kill. People survive headshots, so no single round should have enough base damage to kill in one shot. Scale the other calibers down from there consistent with the statistical differences between the rounds. There would be small decreases in damage between .45 an 10mm, but a large difference between 9mm and .22.
Once base bullet damage is applied, add damamge modifiers for ammo type.
Now setermine if a critical hit is made. Add luck, shooter skill and target area to modifiy critiacl hit chance. If a critical hit is scored, critical multipliers bases on those factors will add additional damage.
One additional note: I think fixed base damage is less realistic than a range. Since the difference between hitting the femoral artery in the leg can be measured in fractions of an inch, any wound to any body area will not deal consistant damage. Base damage as a range would represent this.
» Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:39 pm 
