Last night I decided that I wanted to revise the damage values in my XML files for JA2 1.13 but before committing to all those hours of work I thought it would be a good idea to present my ideas so that I could hear experts' inputs about if they seem sensible or not.

I've noticed that in the XMLs damage starts at about 25 for 9x19mm and that it inches up point by point or so as we go through pistol calibers. So .40S&W does 26 damage, and .357, .45ACP and so forth are basically only doing 1 or 2 more points of damage than the basic hit from 9x19mm. The game doesn't really differentiate between damage value (i.e. trauma) and armor penetration, so I feel like there's something of a problem when this stepladder approach to damage gives 5.56 cartridges damage values of 30 or so. I feel as if a rifle cartridge should really have a jump in lethality and penetration compared with 9x19mm pistol cartridges. A similar effect occurs when we compare 5.56 to 7.62 NATO, where 7.62 NATO isn't really that much more damaging than 5.56 even though 5.56 is infamous for poor stopping power and everyone likes to talk about how 7.62 NATO is so much better.

In order to think about how I'd want to assign damage I would have to first decide what, in game terms, would be considered to stop or not stop an "average" person. According to in-game text, an attribute of 55 is considered "average", both for skills and attributes. 100 is the maximum score a character may have, and scores bottom out around 35 or so for attributes and at 0 for skills.

Some NPCs who theoretically would have no firearms training, such as a fat lady on a vacation, don't have Marksmanship skills of 0. Mrs. Kulba, IIRC, has a score of like 30 or 40 for MRK. So I would extrapolate that we should consider in game terms that a truly feeble person would have around 35 hitpoints, and an average person in decent physical shape would have 55 hitpoints.

Another point is that people go unconscious and helplessly bleed out when they reach 14 hitpoints. So in order to "drop" (as opposed to instantly kill) a typical person you'd need to do around 40 points of damage in one hit.

The final detail that I'll reveal for the purpose of our discussion is that the damage values for rifles in the default XML tables max out at 60 for 12.7mm soviet antimateriel rifles.

What does this mean? In the default game hits from firearms will average between 25 and 60 points of damage and it takes 40 to incapacitate a typical person, although damage values can vary quite a lot on a per hit basis.

Therefore, I would consider revising on this basis:

With handguns the expectation is that it would take at least two hits to incapacitate an average person wearing no armor and sometimes several or more. At the same time, I want to "make room" in the damage scale for there to be sizeable differences between, say, 9x19mm, .44 magnum, and those quiet Soviet 9x39 sentry popper carbine cartridges. So, I'd consider starting the damage scale for 9x19 down at 15, and I'd have the damage scale or increasingly beefy pistol cartridges inch up towards 25 from there.

Then, in order to represent the jump in effectivness from pistols to rifles, I'd keep 5.56 at 30, so it would be doing an average of at least 5 more points of damage than even bigass pistol hand cannons. Remember that armor penetration is mixed up with trauma in this game and that after the beginning of the game virtually all of the opposition wears armor.

If I'd kept 5.56 at 30, what would a good benchmark for 7.62 NATO be? 40? 45? I figure that if I had a reasonable figure for 7.62 NATO I would be able to adjust .300 winmag, .338 lapua magnum, .30-06, and 7.62x59 Mauser accordingly as being a few points higher or lower. If you've got any suggestions for me regarding how these cartridges should stack up with 7.62 NATO, as well, I'd be very grateful to hear them.

Lastly, what should the damage value for .50 BMG and 12.7mm soviet be? Is 60 too low?

I should add that I plan to adjust the armor to basically provide better protection, too. My plan would be so that the best armor in the game, i.e. field op upgraded dyneema, would provide NIJ level III protection, and thus even if a character wearing it is hit with 5.56 cartridges he or she should take no damage. I'd also plan that the ceramic plates, when added to the aforementioned armor, would result in NIJ level IV protection, so that a character wearing the field op upgraded dyneema armor with ceramic plates should be able to take a .30-06 AP cartridge on the chest with no damage at all.

(originally posted at Bear's Pit)

Remember that the armor will not provide 100% coverage of an area, so getting 'no damage' from a still moderately abstract system like JA2 is a modeling error, not a modeling success. (See my thread on armor hit locations and math for doing this in SR)

As for JA2, I'd try:
pistols 25-30
5.56 (rifle length barrels) 30-35
7.62 (rifle length barrels) 40-45 (depending on how you implement of stuff like recoil)

From what I remember, there were 2 types of AP available in the modeling in JA2, regular AP and the 'extra AP' used by the rocket rifles. So you may be able to get some more spread between the rifles by modeling regular rifle ammo as 'AP' and AP rifle ammo as 'extra AP' so that the basic damage dosen't have to go up that much. From what I remember, the 7.62 rifles at 40 and with teh extra AP tag worked well enough.

Well, happily, 1.13 uses an armor hit location system. Basically, each time a character is hit there is a certain armor-by-armor percentage chance that a hit has bypassed the armor. In that case half damage is applied since it's assumed that the character was hit without armor but also was not hit in the vitals.

I appreciate your damage suggestions for 5.56 and 7.62, but what would you suggest for .50 BMG out of a bullpup and 12.7?

Thanks a whole lot for your thoughts and your help.

Im going to suggest that it get scaled up more. As much as it pains me to have that one black shirt on the roof mow down half of my team in 2 rounds, there is nearly no way someone getting a solid hit with a 12.7x97 round is going to be standing. Armor or no armor.

I think they tweaked things with the .13 patch a little, as the 7.62 DU has its own descriptor. I dunna know, Im not up on my JA editing.

The raw damage of the 50 BMG probably doesn't need much scaling up. But it's ability to penetrate cover of objects does. I know that you can very rarely shoot through cover in JA2. Are there enough exposed modding hooks to make the 50bmg go through more scenery?

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ubbth...ge=0#Post158154

There's my query. Hopefully I get responses soon.

I'm tired, and there's probably typos. Message/email/pm/im if there's any questions, or you want me to get/find/explain/clarify/correct anything.....


I would say, if you can, increase damage of all rounds, and increase AP value of rifle ammo vs. armor if you want to make it more "realistic".

A few key points.... Some of these are personal experience, some are from research/general knowledge.

First of all, shot placement is key. A .22 in the eye changes someone's mind (no pun intended) faster than a .40 to the toe.

Shot placement is key. Did I mention this?

Handgun ammo is meant to hit "soft" targets. That is, things (people) without armor, and not behind solid cover.

Rifle ammo is meant to penetrate armor. Specifically steel helmets.

The .223 round is close enough to the 5.56mmNATO round that they can be considered the same for JA2 purposes. If you want, .223 can be considered "Cold Load" 5.56 NATO (5.56N) ammo.

The 5.56N round is designed to pierce armor, wound, but not specifically kill.

5.56N is noted as being able to go through about three people, back to back. This is where the axiom "It takes two men to take a wounded man off the field, only one to drag a dead man." comes form.

A 5.56mm round is not much larger around than a .22 round. They DO have a lot more propellant launching them, though. That, and the tumbling is what gives them the high armor piercing effect.

5.56mm is five THOUSANDTHS of an inch larger around than a .22.

7.62mm is .30 caliber.

9mm is .354

10mm ~ .40

.45 is REAL CLOSE to 11.5mm


A .35 Remington round will put a hole in something large enough around to put a man's thumb through, without touching the hole. Passing unfired 7.62x54R rounds through the hole without touching anything is laughably easy.

A 1940 Mosin Nagant M91/30, using iron sights and 40 year old ammo will outshoot a scoped Savage 30-06 with new at 150 yards. Hands down. (The Nagant and Savage owners even switched guns with each other to make sure it was the gun and not the shooter)

A .40 handgun has much rougher kick (recoil) than a .45 or a 9mm.

A 1911 fires EXTREMELY quickly, because it is single action only, and has a VERY short, very light trigger pull.

The Hungarian PA-63 and Springfield XD can be field stripped for cleaning in under 4 seconds.

The 5.7x28mm round should be treated like rifle ammo, because it acts like rifle ammo. Standard (ball) rounds quite so much, but DEFINITELY the AP rounds.



Helpful stuff! (I hope...)

A few basic points on handgun ammo types.
http://www.ballistics-experts.com/Law%20En...20Selection.htm

Caliber to Milimeter conversion chart.
http://www.warwheels.net/CaliberConversion...ChartHAUGH.html

"Point Blank Ballistics" application, probably won't be of much use, but I'll include it anyway. It's made more for hand-loaders.
http://www.huntingnut.com/index.php?name=N...e=article&sid=3

Background and a couple of ballistic tests on helmets
http://www.philippinemarinecorps.mil.ph/c6_helmet.html

More info on the 5.56 round that I could find ANYWHERE else.
http://www.ammo-oracle.com/body.htm

Also, here's a few "real world" tests of ammo. Most of it is on waterjugs, but I'll offer it up for consideration. The part with the Buick was pretty suprising...
http://www.theboxotruth.com/ (I like this site)

And, someone on a forum elsewhere posted this link...

"Views of the FBI terminal ballistic testing data"
http://demigodllc.com/~zak/firearms/fbi-pistol.php

Most of it is moonspeak to me, but I've been up for 28 hours now.

I'll read it again later.

Thanks for the resources. I'll have to check them out.

At this time I'm not sure if I can easily differentiate between AP ammo for rifles versus handguns. What I could do is tag AP ammo for handguns as "scifi", make the regular ball ammo stand in for handgun FMJ, and then only have rifles have AP ammo. I could then make AP a lot more effective and handgun rounds would be lagging farther behind in that department.

Well, again....

Handguns are NOT made for armored targets.

And, like I said, if you're including the 5.7mm rounds, they do penetrate armor just like rifle rounds.

That includes the P90, five-seveN, but not the MP7.