As ArmA is an ultra-realistic war simulator, I hope that a feature may be included to introduce malfunctions to the weapons during firing. Hopefully this could also take into consideration the environmental impact on the weapons(e.g attempting to fire a waterlogged weapon may result in a failure to cycle the action or in rare cases a chamber explosion). I believe that this is especially relevant to ArmA 3 now that caseless ammunition is being used, since it's notorious for depositing carbon directly into the chamber and trigger mechanism(more so than conventional ammo). In real life this is a major issue and can have deadly consequences if your personal weapon jams in the middle of a firefight. I understand that this may be a lot to ask for, and it may seem trivial but it would be a giant leap forward towards making a significantly more immersive and realistic gameplay.
Description
Details
- Legacy ID
- 3324100261
- Severity
- Feature
- Resolution
- Open
- Reproducibility
- N/A
- Category
- Gameplay
N/A
Other games such as operation flashpoint have included this into the game and it gave it a much more realistic feel overall. I think it would be a real shame if this were not put in to ArmA 3.
Event Timeline
For the DayZ standalone something like this is planned and due to the same developer/related engines it would be really nice.
This is an incredible idea. I was just thinking about this and a quick search brought it right up. VOTE-UP. Great thinking jonsm131! Lets see it happen!
Sure. Although I expect BIS to leave a feature like this to modders I'm very much for it. If this is to be implemented, however, I'd want to see realistic and accurrate stoppage rates. Not sure about the new, caseless ammunition, but here's some eye-opening results for the standard 5.56 NATO: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/army_carbine_dusttest_071217/. Note in particular the M4 at 882 stoppages / 60,000 rounds. That means nearly a 36% chance of at least one stoppage per 30 rnd mag fired!
AssassinenMuffin, in the Alpha, you're right. The Alpha is missing about 90% of the full game content, so I'm sure we'll see modern weapons in the full game.
Make Love Not War, the study you quoted was from a while back when the US Army was considering a possible replacement for the M16/M4 platform and it is certainly not the first time there have been complaints about jamming. The platform is known for being very sensitive to dust and other kinds of fouling, partially due to its direct impingement gas system as mentioned in the article. However this can be mitigated through proper maintenance (Which is why the army is so damn anal about weapon cleaning). You also have to consider that the test mentioned there was really extreme, and does not necessarily represent true combat conditions. (Unless you happen to be fighting in a sandstorm) From my experience the M4 performs fairly well (but not perfect) under normal circumstances with proper maintenance. As for caseless ammo, one of the many the problems they are currently having in development is the depositing of carbon on and around the area around the bolt carrier group (somewhat similar to that of direct impingement systems, like the M4). Normally the casing would help to contain some of the carbon before being extracted, rather than have the carbon plaster the internals of the weapon. So I believe that it is safe to assume that we can expect to see similar reliability to our current day M4/M16 in future caseless platforms. I apologize for going on way too long, but I didn't want you to get the wrong idea about what the realistic stoppage rate of the M4 may be under normal conditions.
@ExploitedYouth, i dont think so, we will probably just get futuristic stuff and the modern stuff with ACE and other mods.
You sure about that? Pretty sure the M4 and M16 platforms are not a direct impingement, instead are piston driven to keep the fowling out of the chamber.
@Keragon
Yes I'm 100% sure the CURRENT in service M4 /M16 are direct impingement systems, which is why the potential for a rifle like the HK416 to replace the M4 was such a big deal. That said, Colt has announced its "enhanced M4", which is gas piston operated. Although, so far the "enhanced" M4 has ONLY been adopted by special operations forces in the US, with the rest of the military still using the direct impingement rifles. The Army has still not adopted the "enhanced" M4 and it is still unclear whether they are actually going to make the swap. Only time can tell. I've added some links below for further reference, if you are interested to read more about this. If you are able to find some newer information to prove me totally wrong, I would love to hear it. Discussion is always good.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110616210348/http://www.colt.com/mil/M4_2.asp
http://world.guns.ru/assault/usa/m16-m16a1-m16a2-m16a3-e.html
Maybe this doesn't need to be mentioned, but if this is implemented and you are playing against AI, please BIS, make sure that enemy AI guns can jam too. I can just imagine bug reports that say, "my gun jams, but the enemy's never does!"
Please accept this as a helpful heads up.
I could be wrong but I assume these "future" weapons would be immune to jamming. There are plenty of guns today that are very reliable and I would think that during the time of this game the technology would be even better.
@Spayd
Better, though unless you can make frictionless, self maintaining material, then it'll never be perfect.
@Spayd
Sorry to say that an "unjammable" weapon is completely unfeasible, even 20 years down the road, I'm afraid. Even if we were to have frictionless and/or self maintaining materials (which is an IMMENSELY complicated thing to create) there will still be a possibility of the weapon jamming. Even if we ignored the most common contributing factors (ambient temperature, dust, feeding/magazine issues, improper gas regulator settings, ammo contaminated by the environment, operator errors, etc, etc) parts inside the weapon could simply wear out, or you could simply be using a particular type of ammo that does not work well with the weapon in question. Even if the weapon was electronically operated, not mechanically, malfunctions are still possible. Did you know that weapons such as electronically fired missiles may also fail to fire? Things like RPGs, fire and forget missiles or even aircraft mounted air-to-air missiles!
Ahhh I was thinking this same thing. I just posted my suggestion about weapon jams too. This is a great idea. Malfunctions are an unaccounted for variable that should be included for sure.
i also think changing of barrels for lmgs should be required under certain circumstances or something like that, because you cant just shoot a biliions rounds like you can in arma in real life
Eh. Travel over 100 miles to the combat zone without getting killed while in flight, now the weapon jams as soon as you fire a couple of shots while on the ground.
Now that's real life. LOL.
To clear something up, the failures of the M4/m16 weapon system is not due to the Direct Impingement gas system. The DI gas system increases the risk, due to the increase of carbon and unburnt powder in the gasses being shot back into the bolt carrier group. A piston gas system seperates these two.
The majority of malfunctions are caused due to the bolt system in the rifle, which utilizes rotating locking lugs. Any dust/mud/dirt will cause the bolt to not seat upon extracting the round, causing a failure to fire. Severe build up carbon/dust/dirt can cause failures to feed. I just want to get that debate settled.
I would, however, love to see a malfunction system implemented. I would prefer it to vary standard FTF/FTE's where immediate action is required (SPORTS/Tap Rack Bang), and the occasional double feed requiring remedial action. Only one button to fix, but the time to fix is drastically changed.
@tsmkirby
You are right, I did summarize my sentences to try and keep my note as short as possible, the message I was trying to get across is almost exactly what you said. Although evidence does suggest that DI weapons tend to malfunction more in extreme or long term engagements without maintenance, simply because more carbon is being blown into the more sensitive bolt carrier group comparatively. Under normal circumstances, with proper maintenance, there is little diffenence in reliability between DI and gas piston weapons.
I have to say though, while you are right to say that the majority of malfunctions are caused by the fouling of the bolt system in the M4/M16, it has little to do with the fact that it uses rotating locking lugs, the AK-47 along with many, many other modern rifles have bolts with rotating locking lugs and are extraordinarily reliable. It really has more to do with the M4 being more precisely machined, and thus has lower tolerances with regard to fouling that can cause seating issues in the breech. I'm sorry for arguing over semantics, I'm just hoping to set the facts straight, same as you.
Ditto.
It's a well known fact the main reason AK-47's are more reliable is from being less tightly machined, versus the M4 or M16.
This is a great feature to introduce for several reasons:
- It forces the player to maintain situational awareness of their weapon and ammunition.
- Military weapons aren't new out of the box. They are used and abused and will certainly reflect that when you go to fire it and get jams here and there.
But I think the best way to implement this jamming feature would be to have only 2 types of jamming.
Type one: Bad primer/stove pipe/misfire/misfeed (Easy and fast to correct)
Corrective Action: Tap rack bang
Type two: Double feed (Harder to correct, requires more steps)
Corrective Action: Initially tap rack bang, then drop magazine, rack slide or clear stoppage, reinsert mag and bang.This should make the jamming system not too complex where it could annoy players, but easy enough where they can recognize they have a jam and easily fix it. In real life, when firing a weapon that jams, you can feel and hear the difference in the shot. The bolt or slide doesn't come all the way forward or it just doesn't sound right. The game should implement a different sound for the weapon when this happens so the player can not only see a small flashing "jam" symbol somewhere, but they can tune into only the sound and stay focused on the enemy in front of them.
Jam clearing procedures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJaQvV6q-D8
I feel like it's realistic to include but doesn't really have any positive effect on the gameplay, at least from a PVP perspective. This is one of those super-hardcore milsim things which most people don't really care about except for the milsim commandos who only play against AI.
That said, a jamming rate roughly half or a quarter of modern weapon jamming rates wouldn't be game-breaking or annoying, and could probably be explained away by saying "future weapons".
If you add this you have to add option for the player to maintain his gun so it doesnt jam just like in real life. Having random jamming for no reason is ultra stupid.
Ditto. Some people just know how to cuddle and care for their firearms. To instate (random) jamming on a specific person whom does maintain their firearm, would be uncalled for. (There's also several different variations of jamming.)
Think this feature request is going to be extremely dynamic calling for such dependencies such as, "If person is skinny dipping in the ocean, then cause jamming anomalies." In other words, somebody ejected or swimming in the ocean, they're going to know the possibilities of getting their weapon wet. And wearing a wet suite could provide inherent protection for their firearms.
This sounds like a feature for ARMA 3.5 or 4.
really, all I'd like to see is when I fire at an enemy with my .408 M320 and the round hits the rifle that's laying idle across their chest, it'd like that sucker to be unserviceable after taking that hit. So often I'm taking aim at an enemy just to miss and put a round into their rifle and then have them turn that same rifle that's been all shot up and kill me with it.
This feature was already implemented in America's Army (a PVP multiplayer game) and worked well. There is absolutely no gameplay reason not to implement it to the game. It would be a gameplay improvement adding some tension.
Doesn't the "D*mn I clicked the reload button instead of the roll/move out of the enemy's view" already qualify for mechanical error? (ie. There's no "Cancel Action" when reloading, and you're screwed if you forgot to move before clicking reload! ;-)