Weapon Ranges

[Zentriffic]

Many may disagree with me, but I do hope that I will be given some consideration on this topic.

The range of starting pistol is not an issue for me. In fact, it might be over powered on since it should not pass 30m with a good chance of hitting a human sized target (small biters?).

I started looking up measurements in Factorio today because weapon ranges just don't feel right to me. The game's SMG should be in line with something like the "Colt 9mm SMG" which has an effective range of 100m. Yet, the game has the SMG at something less than 50. Now, if you want to say that the world has higher gravity, GREAT! But, that means we can't move effectively to begin with, because to change the ballistics that much, gravity would have to be significantly stronger, say 1.5 or better? That means that if your mass was 100Kg, on this planet you'd feel as if you gained about 50Kg just landing. That Colt 9mm SMG goes from feeling like it's normal 2.61Kg to feeling like it's nearly 4Kg. Do you get my point?

The SMG should really have a range of 100m, when standing still, reduce to 50 if moving.
The shotgun should have a range of about 40 (less if moving), since they are using pellets not slugs. Slugs go out to about 75m and Sabot rounds can reach out to 200m, but are single target per shot. Also not really reasonable in this game.

Rockets typically are able to hit well over 100m. Heck, the LAWS M-72A2 had an effective range of 200m, and it was a 66mm round. Quite small really. That was old when I went through basic in '83. Now they have the FGM-148 Javelin, which had a range of 2.5km, and with design changes and such now can reach out to 4,750m. These cannot be hand fired while moving, IRL. Just imagine trying to launch an RPG or such while running. It isn't going to happen.

Howitzers can hit targets out to 25 miles, with proper coords given. That's not even going to their "fire for effect" which uses a generalized area, not a specific coord.

I'd really like to see weapons modified to be more in line with reality. SMGs should become useless if someone were to be firing it constantly for a few minutes, as they are not designed for that kind of use. The M-60 has spare barrels to swap out to prevent the barrels from drooping from overheating (but you have to change them out before it's too late). Weapon ranges always depend on two things, the weapon used to fire the round, and the projectile's charge used to send it down range.

Lasers should be line of sight, but reducing in effectiveness as distance increases. Even coherent light spreads. In the game though, at 100m it should not lose any of its bite.

The gun turrets make me think of Phalanx CIWS (Close in Weapons System). Or even more likely, for the game, the MK-110 Naval Gun System, which can be seen on YouTube ... /watch?v=K2yRhVXKEXU

I've worked with small arms in the Military (Army and Navy) for years. I've also worked with airborne weapons systems (Navy). So, yeah, weapons are a bit of a area of interest for me.

A bit of "trivia" for those interested, the M-61 Vulcan Gatling guns used in Navy and USAF aircraft never fire continuously. It's too easy to burn out the barrels with their rate of fire. So, in the Navy anyway (back in the 80s), they would load the drum with rounds missing every x-number of rounds. The missing rounds caused the pilot to have to release the trigger for the system to advance to the next round. This gave the barrels time to cool and prevented overzealous pilots from burning out their Vulcans.

[Deadly-Bagel]

All well and good but weapon range is aimed more at balance than realism.

Though I do agree the rocket needs a TON more range. Hopefully the weapon tweaks coming in 0.15 will be good.

[Zentriffic]

All well and good but weapon range is aimed more at balance than realism.

Though I do agree the rocket needs a TON more range. Hopefully the weapon tweaks coming in 0.15 will be good.

I think it would be great if they gave personal weapons a scatter like the shotgun, once they pass their "range" (effective in game) and then went out further, losing damage and chance to hit.

[bobucles]

It's the oldest rule of time. Gameplay is more important than Realism. It's why checkers move diagonally and queens are the strongest chess piece even though women are supposed to have -4str compared to male knights.