Fully unlocked ballistics and range

This mode provides full simulation of ballistics at a distance of up to 500 meters, and completely rebalances all weapons and ammunition to simulate a real model of damage.

Idea

The weapon in the vanilla STALKER 2 has very questionable ballistics and damage models, despite the game's engine being able to simulate realistic ballistics (to some extent). This mode is designed to correct this by changing the way the path and damage are calculated at a distance. It also adjusts the damage and armor penetration of each weapon. I created this mod not only because I am not satisfied with vanilla damage and ballistics, but also to share my findings with the modding community STALKER. In addition to explaining the changes made by this mod, I will also talk about my findings and how ballistics works in this game. I hope it will become the basis for many other mods!

How it works in vanilla

In vanilla, ballistics is very simplified, and the damage model has nothing to do with real weapons. The developers had all the tools to make the weapons game more realistic, but chose not to. Given that the game has already sold millions of copies, that might be the right choice, but we're not here for arcade shooters, are we?

There's a crazy bullet drop in Vanilla when a bullet, flying 10-25 meters, suddenly and sharply falls to the ground. Damage also falls sharply. The balance of damage between weapons does not obey any logic: damage values are scattered around the world, and some guns have higher armor penetration than assault rifles. The weapon does not have dispersion when the sight is pointing. NPCs deal much less damage than the player, but at the same time use aimbot to hit you.

At the same time, the game engine already knows:

simulate a bullet's trajectory by how much the bullet falls at a distance

simulate damage reduction and armor penetration with distance

simulate damage from bullets of different calibers through bulletproof vests of different classes

simulate the recoil and dispersion of the bullet.

To do all this, you just need to feed him the right data.

I'll explain how it works in the technical details section, but in the meantime, here's a list of changes.

What changes this mod

Bullet Path

- Full emulation of trajectory up to 2000 m (yards), including projectile rendering

- Full damage and armor penetration drop emulation at a distance of up to 500 m (yards)

- Correct speed for all calibers including 12/70 bullets

"Each gun has a unique bullet trajectory, depending on the bullet and the barrel length (which affects muzzle velocity). Even the ballistic ratio of the bullet is taken into account.

- All weapons are divided into 4 categories according to the zero range: 25 m (HG, SMG, shotguns), 75 m (carbines), 100 m (assault rifles), 200 m (snipers). The bullet does not start to fall until it reaches zero range, but the damage and AP begin to fall almost as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel.

- Changed the scattering system. Now the weapon will have scattering even when the tip is through the sight, but not too big, so you can count on a reliable hit to the target at zero distance. When shooting from the hip, the scattering will be significantly increased, however

Damage model

- The "roughness" of the bullet disappeared/decreased. Almost all guns have more damage than vanilla. Gun fights are more lethal for both the NPC and the player, both at short and long distances.

- Damage of each weapon is calculated according to very complex formulas, taking into account the diameter of the bullet, the mass of the bullet and the muzzle speed.

- Radically different values of armor penetration, unique for each weapon. Breaking armor not only in video games, but in real life is not something that can be easily calculated, but I did my best taking into account the research of ammunition and data on body armor and even such things as the density of the section of the bullet

- All differences between NPC and player damage models were eliminated. In the vanilla version, NPC weapons simply deal 30-50% of the player's damage, to which difficulty modifiers are added

- Head shot damage multiplier reduced from 6 to 3 for NPC, but since the total damage is increased, you can still count on one shot each without a headdress

- The player now has the same damage multipliers for head, torso and limbs as the NPC: 3.0, 1.0 and 0.7 respectively. In vanilla, it was 1.0 for everything.

Cartridges

- Basic damage and armor piercing depends on the weapon, so the default bullet cartridges (FMJ) do not affect the bullet statistics.

"AP rounds give a flat increase in the armor-piercing of weapons. For each caliber this value is different, for 9mm AP cartridges give the greatest increase in armor penetration, up to 70%, while for high-powered cartridges it is only ~20%.

- Expansion cartridges (HP) give a 40% increase in damage and a 25% increase in bleeding, but reduce armor penetration by 20% and flatness of the bullet trajectory by 10%.

- Sniper (or supersonic) cartridges increase damage, armor piercing and bleeding by 10%, flatness of bullet trajectory by 20%, but at the same time increase recoil by 10% and wear of gun strength by 30%.

- Weight of cartridges is changed according to the real values

"The cost has been adjusted, but mostly the cheap cartridges are more expensive, and the expensive ones are cheaper

Weapon

- All guns are rebalanced to follow the same ballistics and damage model (see above). All damage and armor penetration indices have been changed, all accuracy and distance indices have been changed.

- Adjust the rate of fire and the size of the stores in accordance with the real values

- Adjusted durability and reduced durability per shot for all guns. In general, older and less sophisticated cannons have longer service lives than NATO tactical weapons

- A new type of weapon - carbine! Carabiners are short barrel assault rifles. Slightly less damage and AP, more maneuverability and less ADS time. Zero range: 75 m. Vanilla carbines: AKS-47U (AKU), HK416 (M16), Groza (Grim), AS VAL (Lavina) and VSS Vintorez (Gvintar).

- Changed the "feel" of many cannons, including the time before the ADS, walking speed while aiming and sight gain. With lighter and shorter guns you will become more mobile. The gain when aiming is slightly reduced for all guns and barely noticeable.

- The weight of the weapon is adjusted according to the actual figures

"The prices of all weapons have been adjusted, but they are not so far from vanilla. The average price of weapons in vanilla is 17300, the new average price is 19000

Explosives

- Doubled hit and concussion radius for grenades and most other explosives

- Grenade damage to the player is slightly increased, NPC damage is reduced. Reduced the damage of explosives such as barrels and gas cylinders

NPC Behavior

- Includes "Mac Lane's Best Shootings" both for compatibility (many use it) and because without it you will probably be destroyed by NPC

- Slightly changed the behavior of NPC with different types of weapons, including a new type of carbine

UI

- Fixed information map of vanilla weapons! Have you ever noticed that all guns have a very similar rate of fire, and statuses of distance just don't make sense? Now you can get useful information from the tooltip of the weapon.

- Weapon damage is just basic weapon damage, minimum value - 0, maximum - 125

- Penetration is armor-piercing of weapons (with FMJ bullets by default), from 1 to 5. In essence, this shows what class of body armor can "stand" a bullet.

"Firing speed is much improved and now shows a firing rate of 200 to 1,200 rpm. In the vanilla version, it was between 25 and 1500 rpm. Now the difference between MP5 and AK-47 is not just 10 pixels. But this means that anything below 200 rpm will show in the user interface 0 rate of fire.

- Range indicator increased from 80 to 125 meters. Now it shows zero range, as I said, there are 4 categories of zero range, which all guns fall into: 25 m, 75 m, 100 m and 200 m. You can consider this distance as the expected distance to hit the target.

- The accuracy indicator has a value within its "zero range category". Compare pistols to other SMG pistols and assault rifles to assault rifles. There is no point in comparing the accuracy of a gun to that of an assault rifle, as they measure accuracy at different distances.

- For shotguns, the information map shows stats for bullets (AP cartridges), not for the card (FMJ)

Recommended Difficulty Settings

- Turn off the crosshairs, man, aim at the sight!

- In additional downloads there is a file that sets the complexity variables (DifficultyPrototypes.cfg) to the recommended values.

- If you use your own values, I strongly recommend using these settings

- NPC_Weapon_BaseDamage = 1

- Weapon_BaseDamage = 1

- NPC_HP = 1

Included Changes and Fashions

- Maklane's Better Gunfights (NPCWeaponAttributesPrototypes.cfg) is enabled

- Enabled Ledge Capture from Kennymylenny (even below) (ObjPrototypes.cfg)

- Included reduced endurance costs, my values, nothing too far from vanilla (ObjPrototypes.cfg)

- Fixed X/Y mouse sensitivity (ObjPrototypes.cfg)

Recommended and Compatible Mods

- Readable cartridges

- A-Life mod, for example Shay's Living Zone (An ALife mod). This mod has little compatibility issues, just cancel my mod, you won't lose anything. Read below to learn how

- Painter of the Zone Better Blood Wallmarks (ProjectilePrototypes.cfg). Compatibility is on, so just make sure my mod cancels this one.

- Fashions to reduce loot, such as Grok's Economy and Difficulty Fix Attempt. I recommend overriding it with my optional DifficultyVariables mod.

- Rebalance of medical kits and consumables

How to install

- Unzip the file to get .pak files

- Move all .pak files to the '~mods' folder, which you can find at "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chernobyl\Stalker2\Content\Paks\~mods".

- If the "~mods" folder is not there, create it.

- Make sure you understand the boot order. The following is a list of modified .cfg files. Check for possible conflicts with other mods

Resolving conflicts

- Uninstall ZeeFUBAR_CoreVariable_50_P.pak if you are using any other important mod that modifies CoreVariables.cfg, such as Shay's Living Zone or any other A-Life or Day Length mod. Do not try to play with the boot order by adding zzz to the filename, just delete it, it will save you from headache.

- This mod is loaded last, even if you add zzz to the filename. If you really want to cancel it, remove _99 from ZeeFUBAR_99_P.pak

Modified Files

High priority, do not override if you want the mod to work correctly

- AmmoPrototypes.cfg

- NPCWeaponSettingsPrototypes.cfg

- PlayerWeaponSettingsPrototypes.cfg

- CharacterWeaponSettingsPrototypes.cfg

- WeaponGeneralSetupPrototypes.cfg

- NPCWeaponAttributesPrototypes.cfg (can be overridden with anything that includes McLane's Best Shootings)

Low priority, you will lose something uncritical if another mod overrides it

- WeaponPrototypes.cfg (weight and cost)

- GeneralNPCObjPrototypes.cfg (NPC headshot multiplier and slightly affects the damage model)

- ExplosionPrototypes.cfg (explosion rebalance)

- ObjPrototypes.cfg (shot multiplier in the player's head and limbs, stamina cost and rise)

- ProjectilePrototypes.cfg (bullet speed, to some extent affects the trajectory)

- CoreVariables.cfg in ZeeFUBAR_CoreVariable_50_P.pak (you will lose my UI stats fixes, but many important mods change this, so just delete mine at any sign of conflict, or merge manually)

Future changes

- Change in the balance of returns

- Dispersion balance change

- Changing the balance of investments and upgrades

- Rebalance unique weapons to make them unique again

- If possible, make compatible with mods that modify the same files

Technical details for modders

I recommend unpacking .pak files and comparing them with vanilla files. You will find a lot of interesting information about how variables affect ballistics and damage. But here's how it works, in my opinion.

Trajectory and damage fall off

- EffectiveFireDistance(Min|Max) - zero range, it's the same distance at which the bullet just flies straight like a laser beam. It is measured in centimeters. For some reason, the values are Min and Max, but in vanilla they are always the same. In fashion, all weapons have one of 4 possible values of EffectiveFireDistance: 25m, 75m, 100m and 200m. After this distance, the arcade of the bullet drop begins

- BulletDropLength - length of bullet drop ark, set at 500 m for all weapons. It is measured in centimeters. In vanilla, it was 40 to 100 meters for different types of weapons

- BulletDropHeight - the height of the bullet drop ark, as well as how much the bullet will fall to the ground when reaching the distance of BulletDropLength (500 m), in this fashion individually for each weapon according to the simulation of the real trajectory. It is measured in centimeters. Vanilla value is the same for all guns - 170 cm.

- FireDistanceDropOff - damage will not begin to decrease until the bullet has passed this distance. It is measured in centimeters. In this fashion, damage begins to decline almost immediately after the weapon is taken out of the barrel. Vanilla values were in the range of 8-30 m.

- DistanceDropOffLength - the length of the distance at which damage falls. Does not affect path. In this fashion, the value is set to 500 m for all weapons. In Vanilla, this value was ridiculously low, about 10 m.

- MinBulletDistanceDamageModifier - damage at maximum distance (FireDistanceDropOff + DistanceDropOffLength), as well as damage when falling. 0.1 means that at maximum distance (500 m in this fashion) weapons will deal 10% of their damage. Once the maximum distance is reached, the damage will not decrease and will remain at this value until the bullet is removed from the game (2000 m in this fashion).

- MinBulletDistanceArmorPiercingModifier - same as MinBulletDistanceDamageModifier, but for ArmorPiercing. 0.1 means that at maximum distance (500 m in this fashion) the gun will have 10% of the original armor piercing.

- MaxFlyDistance - i believe that the bullet will simply be removed when reaching this distance, which in vanilla is 1 km. I've increased it to 2 km, which means you can see the bullet flying far and long.

Damage model

- ArmorPiercing - part of the damage formula compared to the player's defense/NPC Strike. I don't think there's a complex punch-fail simulation. The ArmorPiercing bullet is simply divisible by the target attack protection, the resulting value is a multiplier of BaseDamage. See the formula below. In vanilla, the AP values were... I don't want to talk about vanilla. In this fashion, all values were calculated to meet real expectations: weapons with a 3.6 ArmorPiercing should be effective against a 3.0 Strike protection (a Class 3 body armor in real life), but less effective against a 4.0 Strike Protection

- BaseDamage - HP weapons base damage. Vanilla is bad, fashion is good

- ArmorDifferenceCoefProjectiles is very important for armor penetration simulation. Mainly enhances the difference between bullet armor penetration and protection against impact.

- Cartridge statistics are mostly self-evident, but you can find my comments on AmmoPrototypes

Stalker Damage Formula 2 Probably

FinalDamageWhenArmorPenetrated = BaseDamage * ArmorPiercing/Strike * ArmorDifferenceCoefProjectiles

FinalDamageNoPenetration = BaseDamage * ArmorPiercing / Strike / ArmorDifferenceCoefProjectiles

where

BaseDamage = Gun->BaseDamage * Ammo->DamageMod

ArmorPiercing = Gun->ArmorPiercing + Ammo->ArmorPiercingMod

Strike = Stat for protection against bulletproof vests or helmets. Yes, the head and torso are protected separately. The extremities are also protected by a bulletproof vest, most likely.

ArmorDifferenceCoefProjectiles - punch/non-punch amplifier, separate configuration for the player and NPC: in ObjPrototypes.cfg and GeneralNPCObjPrototypes.cfg