I never played Arma, to be fair. I always gravitated more toward the "brain-rot" games! But you're right of course, realistic games use more realistic ballistic models (and everything else).
One reason I never got too into the simulator games was that the line between "real" and "game" is always going to be very arbitrary. No simulator will replicate the experience of slogging over a marshy mountain carrying 100 lbs and a GPMG! The Onion said it best:
https://youtu.be/yuTkgi7scKo?feature=shared
A real combat simulator would have you polish boots and cleaning latrines for most of them time, and then wake you in the middle of the night with an artillery barrage.
This is very interesting to consider! I think the point about orientation is a great one. Definitely if the drop was substantial, this would be an issue. Let's say you were standing atop a tall tower in a desert and did the same experiment, then maybe you'd see a slight but noticeable difference. The effects of air resistance would only become significant as the vertical velocities increase with acceleration due to gravity.
Indeed it did, although the flak cannon brings another set of issues as the preceding article talks about (basically it combines two very different types of weapons system).
And agree, different types of game need different mechanics. Battlefield games were a very different experience; I think the simple mechanics work in UT.
Love this. "Akshually" is kinda what I'm going for (maybe not midwit), the point is to take something a bit incongruous and pull it apart pedantically.
I definitely think UT's sniper rifle is "coded" as a regular one familiar to us, with its ammo as shells in a cardboard box. I think adapting gas gun mechanics to a man-portable weapons system with interchangable ammo is a bit more complicated than you allow, but indeed it's not magic. Thanks for giving me more ideas to write about.
There's a lot you missed .. although much of it is bollocks.
FWiW my neighbour shoots targets at 5,000 yards - that's well past the confirmed kill sniper head shot record .. it's worth pondering why, how or if someone is telling porkies.
> Love this. "Akshually" is kinda what I'm going for (maybe not midwit), the point is to take something a bit incongruous and pull it apart pedantically.
You got the pedantic part down, but I don't think that you took a charitable view of the game's systems, and your assumptions were maximally conventionally-minded.
Rather than assume "this is bullshit and doesn't work," I think you'd do better to try to imagine "how could this possibly work?" That question can lead down interesting paths.
It doesn't even take much, in this case. Very fast projectiles and/or scopes that account for variables like bullet drop, wind, etc. Both of these things already exist, in a sense, or are on the cusp of existing.
Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed. Point taken on the GIF, and I'll bear in mind. It's a bit of a balance; I don't like using too many embedded YouTube videos because that can spam readers with ads.
The GIFs were great for illustration, you're describing something in the time domain so an animated example is useful. The problem was those GIFs. The towers level with the camera movement and planet moving in the background was just way too much motion alongside text I was trying to read.
Maybe try putting more white space between the images and blocks of text or put several images one after another in a group. Then I could see the examples but read blocks of text with no distractions.
One reason I never got too into the simulator games was that the line between "real" and "game" is always going to be very arbitrary. No simulator will replicate the experience of slogging over a marshy mountain carrying 100 lbs and a GPMG! The Onion said it best: https://youtu.be/yuTkgi7scKo?feature=shared