No.09

I understand your point of view. It's nice you took the time to write such a detailed reply. I've added a few observations of my own. I'd like to make clear that STALKER was and is an arcade shooter. Fancy effects like bullets ricochets doesn't make it realistic. Games as old as Delta force had better ballistics than the ones implemented in STALKER. Good ballistics make it hard to hit reliably at range, so it seems popular with modern game titles to simplify them as much as possible. It's been a while since I've played AMK 1.4, but from what I remember I agree that at least some weapons seemed too effective. AS Val and VSS Vintorez use the 9x39 ammo which is supposed to be really effective at penetrating armor and delivering maximum damage to soft tissue. It certainly is more effective than both 5.56x45 or 5.45x39 ammo. Comments on your specific points: 1. Killing with one shot every single time, no matter where the bullet hits, is indeed silly, but these weapon systems and its bullets were designed to try and achieve that. The SP-6 surely does pierce kevlar vests all the way to level 3a standard. Level 4 type of armor is probably a different matter. Tho once the armor is pierced the SP-6 rounds are designed to effectively wound the enemy combatant. In real life, in a combat situation, you don't do headshots at 50 meters with any kind of realiabilty, therefore it is very usefull to have a high rpm to quickly put enough bullets on your target to effectively hit it and kill it, no matter the weapon type you are using. In CQB this can be crucial since the human body can take quite some damage before being disabled, so an enemy combatant can return fire if it is not put down quickly enough. Therefore a high rate of fire can be a life saver and is not an indication of the effectiveness of the ammunition used. The maximum effective range of the 9x39 is about 300+ meters, which is actually close to the effective range of 5.56x45 and 5.45x39 ammunition, which lies at about 300-400 meters. IIRC at 300 m the 9x39 will still deliver more damage on the target than a 5.56x45 and 5.45x39 ammunition will be able to. Its penetrating values (SP-6) are pretty impressive. At normal combat ranges in STALKER the 9x39 (both SP-5 and SP-6) should be a clearly superior ammunition type, imho. Also, I think it is important to note that the 5.45x39 is generally more effective in both piercing armor and at damaging soft tissue than the 5.56x45. So the difference between 9x39 and 5.45x39 should be smaller than 9x39 and 5.56x45. 2. Yes, I remember slugs and darts as being ineffective in AMK. Both types of ammo should be effective when dealing with armored opponents. Tho make no mistakes, someone with an assault rifle will have the edge on you, no questions about that. That's how it is. I've never fired slugs and darts, but from what I hear and read they're not extremely accurate, but probably more than what is set for them in AMK 1.4. Slugs should be pretty deadly against all types of targets. Their sheer mass makes them effective. Even when armor stops them they will cause significant blunt trauma. Darts on the other hand are the ultimate anti armor weapon. I think the damage they cause is mostly dependant on type of dart and how much shock damage do they cause. If darts are fired at very high speed and fragment in soft tissue they could be really deadly. 3. With 9x39 it seems the cheaper PAB-9 round never went into production. Long range ammunition is usually specialised for snipers. It does retain killing power, but with higher precision at range. Higher precision does usually translate into better energy retention, which should help with achieveing a longer range. Possibly causing more damage on target. I think a good way to set things is to use the normal ammunition as standard and then work from there for specialised ammunition. The percentages you suggest seem way too extreme. While the common (MG) ammunition in 7.62x54 can be rather innacurate and generally inconsistent it is not that much weaker than an AP or long range version. Especially at ranges we have in STALKER, which are generally more or less CQB. So the difference shouldn't be so extreme. Barrel wear depends on the characteristics of the ammunition. Usually it depends a lot on the muzzle velocity of the ammunition that is used. Higher velocity equals more barrel wear. AP rounds have often higher mass and lower muzzle velocity so I don't think they should produce more wear than a standard round. I think the wear should be more pronounced in various high power pistol rounds that increase the muzzle velocity. 4. The reality of things is that often „bandits“ fire their guns, for training or fighting, more often which can lead to them being more proficient than the average soldier. I've read some interesting articles about this. I don't know how much can be set for the AI. I've tried changing order of fire modes but I didn't notice any difference. So I take it as a limitation of the Ai. 5. I've increased the bleeding factor and it worked quite well. At times I had to fire only a single shot at the enemy and they would bleed out and die. Sometimes it is silly tho because they don't seem to treat their wounds, even if they are very slight. So you shoot someone, run away and he'll simply die if the bleeding is severe enough. 6. For grenades, either hand grenades or those launched from a grenade launcher, the effective killing and wounding radius is too small iirc. There's accurate info available on the effective and maximum shrapnel range of these weapons. I know I've increased them and the results were very good for me. 7. Oh, I hate the stun effect. I've dramatically minimised the stun effect because it's not very realistic imho. The lack of the stun effect makes for much harder CQB battles tho, as it should be. 8. Yeah, the random miss is a pretty silly feature. 9. The AKSU-74 is not a dedicated special forces weapon. Even with good armor there's only so much a human body can take and a full clip (30 rounds) should incapacitate you. Body armor tries to prevent fatal injury, it does not turn you into a tank. So you'll feel every hit from whatever caliber, even when wearing an armor plate. I've set up the hit values and bullet properties so that you need some hits with 5.56x45 or 5.45x39 to take the enemy down straight away, but to kill it you don't need as much since it will bleed after being hit. So at times I need only one hit and then let him bleed out. It's far from a perfect solution, but given the limitation it works ok for me. The artefacts are quite a problem tho, they can make you nearly invulnerable the way I've set up AMK guns so I simply changed those that enabled higher resistance to damage to some other function. 10. The real life headshots I've seen don't really happen like that. You have some material spourting out, but it's unlike what is portrayed in games. I don't miss such a feature and think is ok as it is. The damage model in STALKER is rather primitive from what I've seen. The armor of the suit covers the entire body, I think. The only thing you can set is damage values for various parts of the body, but is generic and not linked to specific suits. Anyway, all of the above is just my view. I enjoy playing AMK, but I've heavily edited most of the gun related statistics, including some character properties. You can perform all of these changes by yourself and play it. For me that's the fun part in STALKER/AMK, nothing prevents me for setting things up the way I like. Cheers, No.09