The Blue Sun Mod

[Ninja2dan]

R@S, I had a question for you. How well in contact are you with the modding team that is/was creating the weapons that you've been adding to BSM? How active are they now, etc?

One thing that has always bothered me is that the game, even up through the end CGL's, is mostly focused just on small arms, not support weapons.

We have a few UGL's, but rarely did I recall them ever being available, and when you could find the launcher it was days before you found ammo for them. The mines sucked balls, seriously. The enemy was magically gifted at locating mines, making them totally useless. And there were few other heavy weapons such as rockets.

On top of that, my experience when using the UGL's was piss-poor. It didn't matter how much training I gave my soldiers, they never seemed to fire those weapons properly. The UGL's all seemed to fire at extreme velocities, giving them a very unrealistic ballistic trajectory. This means that those 'nades could rarely be "lobbed" onto the target, but were fired at almost a flat trajectory like a regular bullet. Shooting over walls/obstacles, or up onto higher ground was nearly impossible for me.


* Any chance of making the UGL's more common in the game, with ammunition more readily available?

* And do you think those weapon modders would be interested in creating a few "rockets"? As mentioned before, I've got great models of all kinds, would just need someone to convert them for use in BSM. M72, M136, RPG, etc are all available.

* Could someone take a look at the UGL's and do some testing with them, see if there is something wrong with their projectile velocities? You should really be capable of lobbing those things in a nice arc over a good distance, with weapon skill affecting accuracy, not range.

* Is there any way to improve the AP mine system, so mines are actually useful to the player? I don't know how mines are detected, what kind of dice rolls are made, or if certain terrain/objects help conceal them. But as they stand now, mines are 100% useless. The ONLY time I've ever been able to effectively use mines is when I placed those mines inside of an enemy spawn area prior to them spawning in, and getting lucky if one or two of those enemy happen to spawn in on top of one.


One last idea/suggestion, is it possible to create a new weapon like the Claymore AP mine using the same technology as the hand grenades? What I mean is having a small blast radius around the mine, but throwing projectiles (shrapnel/frag) in a dedicated arc in front of the mine. Also limiting the "clacker" use distance, so the operator must be within a certain range of the mine in order to detonate it.

I recall using other "radio-controlled" mines before, that allowed you to charge mines and lock up to 4 of them into one controller, and remote-det them. But it would be nice to see an actual Claymore-style variant, limited to only one mine per clacker.

[R@S]

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

R@S, I had a question for you. How well in contact are you with the modding team that is/was creating the weapons that you've been adding to BSM? How active are they now, etc?

I talk to them every week or so, they keep me up to date on their developments as I do them. After they release a new version of their addon and the bug fixes are done, they usually take a few weeks off from working on their project. They are still working on the new functions for the code, there are still some issues to iron out with it.

Their best 3d guy, Grey, is very busy with his real life and doesn't have much tome to work on new models. But they get by anyways.

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

We have a few UGL's, but rarely did I recall them ever being available, and when you could find the launcher it was days before you found ammo for them.

I have already started working on making attachments available earlier, and that includes UGL's and nades. In BSM you need to do some missions before you get access to the best shops, the ones that has the awesome stuff before anyone else has it. I'm a firm believer of working for the good stuff, things shouldn't come without an effort.

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

The mines sucked balls, seriously. The enemy was magically gifted at locating mines, making them totally useless. And there were few other heavy weapons such as rockets.

Yeah, the mine issue is a bad one, and I've tried to correct it but think I've failed. I have some success with trip-wires and the random encounter bandits, but when it comes to guards and soldiers they seem to spot them very easily. But Legionnaire=M= did some work on the mine settings a while ago, I'm not sure that was after you stopped playing or not, and I haven't really tested the new settings that much to tell you if they are improved or not.

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

* Any chance of making the UGL's more common in the game, with ammunition more readily available?

See above

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

* And do you think those weapon modders would be interested in creating a few "rockets"? As mentioned before, I've got great models of all kinds, would just need someone to convert them for use in BSM. M72, M136, RPG, etc are all available.

They already have a M72 LAW, RPO-A and an RPG-7b with 11 different grenades to fire. So I'll say they're all set on that department I've already added the RPO-A from their game, not sure if asking for the others is worth it.

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

* Could someone take a look at the UGL's and do some testing with them, see if there is something wrong with their projectile velocities? You should really be capable of lobbing those things in a nice arc over a good distance, with weapon skill affecting accuracy, not range.

Not me, I'm to busy, sorry. But I'm sure someone else has time for it.

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

* Is there any way to improve the AP mine system, so mines are actually useful to the player? I don't know how mines are detected, what kind of dice rolls are made, or if certain terrain/objects help conceal them. But as they stand now, mines are 100% useless. The ONLY time I've ever been able to effectively use mines is when I placed those mines inside of an enemy spawn area prior to them spawning in, and getting lucky if one or two of those enemy happen to spawn in on top of one.

See above

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

One last idea/suggestion, is it possible to create a new weapon like the Claymore AP mine using the same technology as the hand grenades? What I mean is having a small blast radius around the mine, but throwing projectiles (shrapnel/frag) in a dedicated arc in front of the mine. Also limiting the "clacker" use distance, so the operator must be within a certain range of the mine in order to detonate it.

I recall using other "radio-controlled" mines before, that allowed you to charge mines and lock up to 4 of them into one controller, and remote-det them. But it would be nice to see an actual Claymore-style variant, limited to only one mine per clacker.

I dunno for sure, the engine differentiates between nades and mines, and only mines has the Rem-det functions. The nades all use a timer and there's no way to change that. The problem with the mines is that they need to be primed and set before the rem-det works, and that means placing it on the ground. Maybe the Russians finds a way around this. If they do I'll add it for sure, I'm dying to have satchel charges in the mod

[Ninja2dan]

Originally Posted by R@S

I dunno for sure, the engine differentiates between nades and mines, and only mines has the Rem-det functions. The nades all use a timer and there's no way to change that. The problem with the mines is that they need to be primed and set before the rem-det works, and that means placing it on the ground. Maybe the Russians finds a way around this. If they do I'll add it for sure, I'm dying to have satchel charges in the mod

The Claymore would also need "primed" before placing it, just like any of the other mines/booby-traps. The difference though between the Claymore and other mines is that it would need to have a directional fragmentation, similar to how grenades currently spew shrapnel, but limited to within a specific arc.

I ask because I have never seen any other game in my lifetime come close to getting grenades to work as they do in 7.62. Most games simply have an invisible frag radius and anything within that radius is "hit" with the shrapnel. If they want a random effect, they simply add coding in to roll the dice. But in this game shrapnel is real, it's actual fragments that are thrown in random directions. The "randomness" is not a roll of the dice, but simply having the character get lucky and not being in the path of the fragments. Obstacles work as they should, no magic death if you were hiding behind a wall.

If someone could figure out how to get that same fragmentation effect to work in just a specific arc, you'd be able to turn that type of blast/frag into AP mines. Weapons like the Claymore would have many great uses in the game, and because they are command-det you don't have to worry about an enemy dodging it because they see it.

But if it's not possible, then oh well. Maybe I can get the devs to add them in during a future release, if I can ever get a hold of them.



The last time I played there were only a couple of rockets available, and ammo was rare. It's good to hear that more are out there now, they have a limited use in this game where destructible environments don't exist but they still have their charm. Of course they should still be more difficult to obtain, but in the later CGL's it would be great to have them available as an option (at a steep cost obviously).

The same goes with the UGL's, I have no problems with them requiring completion of some quests or tasks first and being priced accordingly. But when I last played, even when I had millions in the bank and was rockin the M249's and uber-expensive gadgets, I was still rarely able to find either the launchers or the ammo. I look forward to seeing them around more often, but still hope that someone can look into their mode of operation and see if something can be done to fix their unrealistic ballistics.

[R@S]

Haven't I told you that I added a Claymore that has a 60 degree dispersal arch, and a MON-50 that has a 54 degree? What I can't do is add the option to throw them once they've been primed and I thought that was the issue here.

And I forgot to saay in my previous post, you can "lob" grenades with the UGL as long as you fire it from-the hip. Then you can adjust the arch while holding the shift button, just as with grenades.

[Ninja2dan]

No, nobody told me that Claymores and similar AP directional mines had been added. That's what I had been dying to see in the game, and it looks like my request had already been taken care of. Cool deal.

And no, I didn't mean to "throw" the mines in any way. Claymores are treated the same as any other mine: Deployed, Primed, and await detonation or removal. I guess it was just a misunderstanding of my question.


Once I have the game up and running again I'll have to give the UGL's another try. Before I had only been using them in "aimed" mode because I thought that would provide the best accuracy at such ranges. Now that I know they can be lobbed via hip-shot, with a fairly easy-to-see ballistics path, they might be a lot better than I remember. UGL's sound like they are actually effective now.


Damn, now you've really got me drooling over the game again, and it'll be at least another 3-4 weeks before my PC is fixed. If only I could play it on this crapper laptop.

[safoolfool]

Don't get too excited, I find the hipshooting of UGLs pretty bad. Your merc ends up aiming it at close to 90 degrees, meaning it looks idiotic and takes a while to land. I also find that it's even less accurate than usual (probably because the game is thinking hipshoot means less accurate, instead of treating it as a different mode of firing), which means it's abysmal.

[R@S]

Originally Posted by safoolfool

I also find that it's even less accurate than usual (probably because the game is thinking hipshoot means less accurate, instead of treating it as a different mode of firing), which means it's abysmal.

I have a different experience than this, but I make sure the merc using GL's have high HW skill, at least above 50. And I also think the weapon familiarity is useful as well.

[IceShade]

Originally Posted by Ninja2dan

R@S, I had a question for you. How well in contact are you with the modding team that is/was creating the weapons that you've been adding to BSM? How active are they now, etc?

One thing that has always bothered me is that the game, even up through the end CGL's, is mostly focused just on small arms, not support weapons.

We have a few UGL's, but rarely did I recall them ever being available, and when you could find the launcher it was days before you found ammo for them. The mines sucked balls, seriously. The enemy was magically gifted at locating mines, making them totally useless. And there were few other heavy weapons such as rockets.

On top of that, my experience when using the UGL's was piss-poor. It didn't matter how much training I gave my soldiers, they never seemed to fire those weapons properly. The UGL's all seemed to fire at extreme velocities, giving them a very unrealistic ballistic trajectory. This means that those 'nades could rarely be "lobbed" onto the target, but were fired at almost a flat trajectory like a regular bullet. Shooting over walls/obstacles, or up onto higher ground was nearly impossible for me.


* Any chance of making the UGL's more common in the game, with ammunition more readily available?

* And do you think those weapon modders would be interested in creating a few "rockets"? As mentioned before, I've got great models of all kinds, would just need someone to convert them for use in BSM. M72, M136, RPG, etc are all available.

* Could someone take a look at the UGL's and do some testing with them, see if there is something wrong with their projectile velocities? You should really be capable of lobbing those things in a nice arc over a good distance, with weapon skill affecting accuracy, not range.

* Is there any way to improve the AP mine system, so mines are actually useful to the player? I don't know how mines are detected, what kind of dice rolls are made, or if certain terrain/objects help conceal them. But as they stand now, mines are 100% useless. The ONLY time I've ever been able to effectively use mines is when I placed those mines inside of an enemy spawn area prior to them spawning in, and getting lucky if one or two of those enemy happen to spawn in on top of one.


One last idea/suggestion, is it possible to create a new weapon like the Claymore AP mine using the same technology as the hand grenades? What I mean is having a small blast radius around the mine, but throwing projectiles (shrapnel/frag) in a dedicated arc in front of the mine. Also limiting the "clacker" use distance, so the operator must be within a certain range of the mine in order to detonate it.

I recall using other "radio-controlled" mines before, that allowed you to charge mines and lock up to 4 of them into one controller, and remote-det them. But it would be nice to see an actual Claymore-style variant, limited to only one mine per clacker.

A long time ago I did some research on this subject, and asked whether R@S could look into it.. Now the whole thread and conclusions are gone, since SF is down, the basic idea is this.

Setup (note: It's deep into the night):



Result:



OH HAY GUYZ WATS GOING ON HERE O LOOK TRIPWIURS?

A sapper skill of 20 allows you to walk over a lot of traps you've set yourself. It also has some kind of hivemind connection between everyone in the group of the guy who planted the mine, and the rest.

For instance, a guy comes across a tripwire. He "rolls the dice" (i guess) and spots it. He then "informs" the rest of the group, even though they are on the other side of the map. Everyone can walk over the tripwire without it going off. He can, in fact, stand right on top of it.

Now the interesting thing is here, as soon as the guy who spotted the tripwire dies .. it goes off, because the guy standing on top of it didn't pass his check. At least, those were my conclusions.

Really, don't bother. It's a very flawed system, and you're better off just using remote det charges that can't be "disabled" by "spotting" them.

[R@S]

I'm starting to suspect the the type of ground you put the mines on also plays a part in how "easy" it is for the enemies to spot them. When I put down mines in the random encounter maps thay usually goes off without the enemies seeing them, while when I put it on roads, in cities and similar flat ground they spot them right away.

Since the maps have a camo "bonus" feature on some surfaces for the characters, I think the same goes for the mines. But this should be tested more to see if my suspicion is warranted

EDIT:
It would also explain why the Hidden value in the mineinfo file make them work better when set to 0, I think that disables the environment check. They should've added a camo entry in that ini file instead of using a global value for all the mines, that would make fixing it a bit easier.

[IceShade]

I'm still not convinced. Yesterday, I hid a few things and mines in foilage, off the roads. The first one was triggered, but nothing afterwards. During the fighting, enemies were standing right on top of everything.

With 7.62's stability as is, I had to reload. When I reloaded, at least two more traps triggered. Pretty awkward.