The Blue Sun Mod

[Ninja2dan]

Originally Posted by R@S

The realism vs game balance is a tricky one, and I tend to lean towards balance. Since I'm modding this game to increase the fun, not add a lot of micro-management that hinders the flow of the game, I almost always sides with balance. I could've added stuff like not being allowed to carry guns in cities, but that would mean that you'd have to leave your weapon in the car or on the ground everytime you enter a city. Or not being allowed to talk to character while you have a weapon in hand, being forced to shoulder it. A lot of time spent on pointless actions that disrupts the fun, just for the sake of realism. If I learn how to make those settings controlled by an INI file, then I'll consider adding them. But for now I'm not good enough and have so many other things to do, it'll have to wait.

I think that having to sling arms or conceal weapons would be going a little too far even it that option was possible. There are holsters in the game already that accept a pistol and keep it "concealed", which would be more than sufficient for that purpose. But if your character is on a mission where he is packing an M249 or SVD, he's going to be using that weapon shortly after entering the town. So needing to conceal the weapons like that would be pointless really, since you're about to start slinging lead all over the place.

And having to shoulder a long arm while talking to someone is also not needed. Just because someone has a rifle in their hands doesn't mean they are holding it in an "aggressive" manner that might upset or intimidate the person they are speaking with. So don't worry about that kind of detail, you're fine without adjusting it.

I've heard the argument that some weapons are only prototypes and has no place in Algeira countless times, and IMHO that argument is flawed. Where does it say that this game takes place now and not a couple of years in the future when prototypes might have been produced in larger numbers? Having said that, I do agree that the gyrojets has no place in the game, but my argument is that they are so bad and no fun, they're a waste of space. That's why they've been removed from this mod. But other prototypes, like the Jackhammer and such, are fun to use and I'll leave them in the mod no matter what. You'd have to pry them from my cold dead hands

I haven't really seen too many weapons in the earlier versions that I did play that would have been considered "prototypes", but the Gyrojet was a perfect example. What I mean is firearms or equipment that never was, is, or ever will be used as an actual production weapon system (or at least outside of the special-order market). The Pancor/Anderson "Jackhammer" is questionable, because I am pretty sure the USAS-12 was also in game already. The Jackhammer was a cool design, but never made it into production and never will. The benefits it offers is a 10-round drum, fully-automatic capability, and bullpup design for "compact" size over other shotguns. But the USAS-12 is also select-fire capable, and has both 10-round magazines and even 20-round drums. I've fired the USAS-12 many times in real life, and it's one hell of a nice weapon. Still, my point is that the Jackhammer is not really something that I would consider worth removing, but I would hope that nothing is used that is way off the realism scale.

That isn't just regarding "prototype" designs, but also the use of regular-looking firearms using oddball calibers. For example, there shouldn't be any .454 Casull firearms in game because it's a very uncommon caliber. You sure as hell won't be seeing ammunition in some 3rd-world country, and even in places like the US those rounds are quite rare.

Not that one has been added yet, but stuff like a 9mm AK-47 is another example of something that should never be added, no matter how "cool" it looks.

The new weapon limit is 4096, the mod has 400 variation of weapons, both modifed and folded ones included in that number. For the time being I have no 3d guy, but hopefully another capable guy will came along and help out. And I can always ast the HLA team if I can borrow their new additions, they've never turned down any of my requests. What a great bunch, eh

The game that I'm a DEV for is a mod for BF2 called "Project Reality". We have a whole team of model and texture artists, coders, etc and have already been using a lot of custom-made items. I wonder if any of our models could be ported over to the 7.62 system easily, in case we have something on our end that isn't already in game yet. If it's possible, I'm sure I could get permissions from the rest of the team.

Off-hand there aren't really many weapons that I can think of suggesting for future addition. Although I wouldn't mind hearing what else the HLA team has made lately. Mostly I was thinking about weapon accessories, uniform (character model) changes, and personal equipment. Those new maps bring a lot of new ideas to mind.

I had a guy working on realistic weapon characteristics, but he's been working on that for more than 6 months and never seemed to get anywhere. So I got tired of waiting and made a few adjustments myself, and I'm by no means an expert, or interested in it. So if you have time I'd be grateful for anything you could offer in that department. It's the WEAPONINFO file that needs to be altered, and if you need help I'll gladly explain what all the entries are for and what they do when altered.

Trying to get the weapon data in game accurate shouldn't take that much effort. If it is that difficult, then you really don't need to make everything 100% accurate to their real-life counterparts. The overall idea is to just make them "as realistic as possible within reason". You don't need muzzle velocities to match precisely, but you obviously want an M16A2 to be shooting hotter than a M1911A1.

Since I'm not a coding guru myself, I don't think I'd have much help to offer in that aspect. And it sounds like it takes a bit of coding and some serious testing to get things working right. I'd probably mess things up more than fix it, especially if your other guy was working on it for 6 months and still made no progress.

Then there's the ITEMINFO debacle, I was in such a hurry and had so little spare time, some of them are incomplete. Some better explanations and descriptions would be great, but I think that's too much work for just one guy.

Now that does sound like something I could manage. It'll be a bit before I could actually get to work on it, I'd need my PC repaired and the game running again so I can preview an item in-game while writing the description to make sure it all looks acceptable.

I'd just need to know if there are any character limitations, restrictions on certain character types (no symbols, etc), and how "detailed" you want the descriptions to be. Noob terms or Soldier terms basically.

Here's 6 maps from Reloaded that I've added, they're mostly walled off bases, some have a bit of forrested surroundings . Then there's 4 new Random Encounter maps, 2 of which is open space ones and the other 2 is winding passages. I dint bother making screenshots of them, gotta leave some things to your imagination.

All I can say is "Wow". Seeing those images, it looks like they are of the exact same quality, matching the maps from the original game. That's great because they will blend in perfectly without looking like some modified content.

The military-style design to several of those new maps is cool, and can lead to a lot of new scripting/quest ideas. The terrain is nicely mixed, and looks to be well laid out and designed to look like a real location. The Aerodrome looks beautiful!

About the map you have labeled as "Tutorial", I'm assuming that it was used as part of the tutorial in Reloaded. I'm curious, are any of those targets reactive, or are they just stationary objects? Most likely just stationary, but I can dream.

Originally Posted by beepbeep

This looks great!

Btw., what 7.62 Reloaded? An official expansion pack?

Also, is it just my imagination or did you really remove the only Zastava weapon that was in the game?

If you manage I'd be really grateful if you would at one point include some Yugoslavian weapons, like the M76, M70B1 and the M70AB2 (it was the gun I was assigned when serving my tour in our country's military and it's also supposed to be much better than the Kalašnikov),...

Yes, 7.62 Reloaded is an "official" expansion pack, but unfortunately it was only released in the Russian Federation and is only available in Russian language. There were a few people working on translating it, but the location that those posts were (SF forums) is currently dead/closed.

And which "Zastava" weapons are you talking about? I can't really remember there being any in the game. All of their weapons were just clones of other weapon systems. The M76 was a modified clone of the SVD. The M70 series were just AK-47 clones. The M84 was cloned after the PK series. Why have the original weapon systems and then add duplicate copies with the only difference in game being the item name?

I have personally fired nearly every Zastava firearm in production as well as their "parent" firearm that they were cloned after. And from personal experience, they performed no better or worse. That was just a false rumor started by people from Yugoslavia, simply because it was "their firearm". Just like Americans claim that American cars are best, or Japanese claim that their electronics are best. People will almost always prefer a product made in their home country, and claim it as being better out of pride. Nothing against anyone from those countries, Yugoslavian firearms were not of poor quality. But I just never saw anything that would say they were better either.