Logic failures in video games.

[Eclectic Dreck]

Hang on pal, I've been saying this entire time that .50 cal weapons don't serve well against personnel. You then brought up this huge weapon, I'll admit I forgot about. Then you went back, and stated that the Deagle and Barret are not effective against individual targets- as if I've been saying the opposite. Sweet, mary. I said that most .50's serve as anti-armour weapons.

As to regards of the M2HB, I still believe you are incorrect. The penatratory abilities of the .50 cal round is what causes it to be less lethal than the lower calibre. It plugs a hole straight through the victim. I'm not arguing against this, especially seeing as you keep bringing it up. But low and behold, real-life medical staff seem to know how to save peoples lives. If the bullet doesent fracture and get stuck in the victim. Medical staff can actually keep you alive. You can get a leg blown off, and if they can stem blood flow, it sure as hell doesent mean you're going to die. People have open body surgery which tears up a person worse than a 50 cal.

First, the M2 has existed since the first world war, so I think that I'm perfectly correct in assuming we are discussing that weapon when I hear talk about .50 caliber weapons. Second, I mention the M2 or it's more modern varient M2HB on more than one occasion in each of my posts. Third, the M2 has more stopping power than either the M240 (7.62mm) or the M249 (5.56mm). Unless people commonly have surgery that results in the contents of their body cavity being strewn about on the landscape behind them, they do not commonly suffer more trauma.

What you are saying is true in some respects however. In some cases it's better to have a heavy, slower round than a fast, light round. In other cases, a slower, lighter round is better. Once you cross a certain energy threshold the question becomes moot however. The .50 BMG round has far more energy than it takes to kill a person and, in fact, will not even transfer a significant portion of it's energy into a person when shot. The thing is, it doesn't take a whole lot of energy to do the job of ending a life, and when you consider the weapon delivers a wound channel the size of a liver and an exit wound you can't seal with a cat, you start to realize why the argument has little merit. The round could more efficiently deliver it's payload to a person, but why bother? This is like saying a nuclear weapon needs a rethink because it expends far more energy than required to destroy a city.

 

[Cyberjester]

Why dont people just send in an army instead of an elite team of 1 person and 3 stupid gorrilas? (Most FPS)

Given how in most FPS's you aren't supposed to be in the country, sending in a small strike team makes perfect sense, unfortunately. I'd love a game where I was one soldier in a full on battle, but that's pretty rare. The Battlefield or Battlefront series are ok, but they're not really counted.

Why in Wow fetch quests all the tigers don't have pelts and stuff like that. Seriously does the fur evaporate 90% of the time?

Yea.. Play as Alliance and go to Westfall.. By the time I had enough boar parts, the quest wasn't worth anything. And 50+ lvls later, I still hate boars.

But there's so many of them at every level.

In FarCry where you can go down on your belly, crawl through undergrowth, then get taken out by some dude who magically knows you're there.

Logic fail? Having to go around hunting for keys when I'm carrying a shotgun/grenade launcher that will definitely blow that piece of crap door off its hinges.

This.

The Ghost Recon games: I am an elite soldier, with the cutting edge of military tech at my disposal, and I am stopped by a damn chest-high wall! (at least in the PC versions)
Actually, ANY game where I control a single character (be it FPS, thirs person, or even one of those weird voxel type Diablo2-esque games) that doesn't allow me to jump or scale an obstacle. (Mass Effect being guilty of this, a LOT)

This.

Actually one annoying thing, area of effect damage. Not as in AoE, but as in if I shoot you in the leg, you should move slower type of thing. It would actually be pretty cool if they had a game where a .50 cal gun would take a limb off and you would suffer effects based on that.

I'm thinking super realistic. If you get shot in the arm, you're limited to pistols, if in the leg, you slow down dramatically, etc. It'd be much more fun than mere hp damage.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Oh, so it would explode as a standard explosive charge does and spread the pollutant radiants around?
Works along the lines of what the other chap was saying.

Disagree....

Fissionable material does NOT explode no matter what you do to it, with only a single exception being a controlled explosive charge designed to put equal pressure on all sides of weapon grade fissionable material. Nuclear weapons are shockingly simple to understand, at least getting weapon grade material is a headache or else they would be common as dirt. Even in the case of weapon grade material putting bullets into it is far from enough to cause it to explode, let alone reactor grade stuff which is so impure that controlled explosives can not do it. It is very stable, far more stable then even the most common of stable explosives, and if it wasn't for the whole glow in the dark level of radiations it would be safe to handle.

The reactors that have 'exploded' have been more like a balloon, with more and more air pumped into it till it bursts. It has been secondary systems designed to bleed off the pressure and heat, found in any furnace, that have failed which leads to pressure building up in the reactor itself. This is why reactors are built with domes that can take the pressure, preventing them from popping like Chernobyl which had only a tin roof to prevent it from popping... we all know how well that went.

Fusion is another matter, seeing we are still just experimenting with hot reactors and have no clue how to make a cold one that works. Who knows what would happen if you shot a cold fusion reactor which would be what is found in those vehicles. Hell, from my little understanding of fusion reactors putting a bullet into the reactor of a hot one would cause it to become unstable and explode too. Fusion reactors burn so hot they create plasma, which has to be kept in place by a magnetic field. A bullet would disrupt this field, and cause the plasma to leak in what would appear to be an explosion but is actually far hotter.

I've just assumed they where fusion but that raises the question of how the fuel managed to stay 'hot' for so long give how isotopes used in fusion reactors decay in days, instead of centuries.

 

[Acromatopsy]

Also, in Arkham Asylum, the joker goes on a killing spree, whether it be guards or his own henchman, yet BATMAN, somebody who beats the joker every time, cant kill somebody from beating the everloving crap out of them.

Wonder how many henchmen batman`s left braindead or crippled during his lifetime?

probably why theres an asylum in gotham in the first place.

Yeah, I mean...based on what I've seen in the game Batman has a bad tendency to kick/punch people right on the top of the head - which is way more likely to cause a concussion. And then he just leaves them there instead of calling in an ambulance. He might as well just stab them with a batarang while they're down and save them from life in a wheelchair. Or a life as a vegetable.

I might point out that the juxtaposition between Bats and Jokes is in fact the prime factor making their relationship so intriguing. I mean, what the douche? If Batsy would just negligently put any mugger under the dirt for whatever mischief they may have committed there wouldn't be even the greatly twisted sense of heroism left in him.
And on the other hand, if Joker would give a puffy poo about who he murders or mutilates (excluding some rare glimpses of feeble sanity) he wouldn't quite be the extraordinary villain we love so much now would he?
Them mirroring each other as characters is pretty much the justification of their existance - the allegory of chaos and order and anything contrary. So in a twisted sense of logic there's nothing illogical about hte whole thing.

And yes, those darned birch sprouts around Liberty City, I understand they stop a bike or even a station wagon, but Humvees? Firetrucks? Semi-trailers?!

 

[maeson]

I'm just going to say "to the firearms bullet size convo" rather than quote every 3rd post in this thread (or page).

The .50BMG round is poor against infantry because it is inherently anti-armor. The rounds, to my uneducated knowledge, are designed to crush a bit when they pass through the first layers of armor. Non-specialist body-armor (III and bellow) don't have enough armor in them to cause the round itself to squish enough to really blow someone in half.

That said. It IS lethal because FYI, there isn't a single part on the human body that is "safe" for a gunshot wound. Tips of your extremities and other such (toes, fingers, ears, noses, etc) excluding. Getting shot to the shoulder and/or thigh might not kill you outright, but you sure as hell can bleed to death in a VERY short time frame.
This is why, in the military, most general infantry soldiers are trained to aim for center mass, your torso, more commonly the upper part. Why? you are more probable to hit something that matters, and even IF the target is wearing body armor, it doesn't guarantee your survival. Every shot taken by the vest will degrade it (microfractions in the plates, hitting a previous bullet embedded in the plate, etc). Helmets themselves are NOT designed for gunfire. Most common infantry rounds penetrate helmets with ease. They are designed to protect from shrapnel and deflect grazing shots (from generally low caliber) small arms.
That said, even IF you get shot in the vest, and don't die, there's a high probability that you simply got the crap kicked out of you (sure, adrenalin helps and I've heard people say that after the first hit you can take the second one a bit better... machismo much?) and are incapable of getting up.

High powered rounds have a purpose, but as such, the purpose is not anti-infantry. Too heavy, too cumbersome, too costly (this is a BIG reason). They are effective, but you can say that against some crazy dude with a beat-up makarov, shooting a trained soldier in the face. The end result is the same.

 

[Smudge91]

Not sure if i've been ninja'd but in WoW you can fit a great big eleck in your backpack or any kind of mount and it doesn't slow the character down one bit!

 

[Malevolent Stranger]

Getting stopped by three or four protruding lumps while driving a vehicle that has plowed over thousands of enemies before it.

 

[Smudge91]

Explosive Barrels: why they exist and more importantly why they're like hanging out at the Malt Shop for bad guys...

What barrels have you seen around? And maybe you should be changing professions. Because I'm pretty sure barrels like those in Half Life 2 and other shooters are a bit of an exaggeration... gas tanks etc don't explode when shot- or even the ol' cigarette in the gas trail doesn't work. Neither is hot enough.

Barrels like that exist, seen plenty myself, but the second part is spot on... when these barrels are stored it is in buildings designed to take the blast of one exploding. Never are they just left laying around, and indeed heads would roll if they where just piled out in the streets or other places where people would die if a smoker flicked a cig the wrong way.

My dad used to work in a plant where they destroyed chemicals from schools etc. Once there was an accident and the barrels went ye bang and i think the lid of one flew about half a mile. Ahh the fun of chemistry.

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

.22s, in the simplest explanation have far less mass. This equates to less energy as it hits your body.

What we are talking about, specifically, is stopping power. Shotguns and bigger bullets (the AK-47 if we are talking regular combat, the .50 Barret if we are talking sheer power) have the most stopping power. Arguable, as the opposite in dimension, the .22 has the least stopping power.

Different vests care for varying amounts of damage. If you are wearing a type IV tactical vest, you can stop a regular .50 round. You are going to wish you were dead, but you will have stopped the round. Putting that against a .22, however, you will probably be quite immune.

As a general statement - count on a good vest to save your life - but do not expect it to spare you the pain.

Aye... he was in the guards and they are not exactly the best equiped of units, though sadly that can be said for the regular military as well. Yeah... you can tell I'm not just the little bit jaded over troops having to 'armour up' on their own dime even though I could kick Bush in the balls over the whole Iraq war thing for using them so badly to begin with. Sort of a double insult to people who deserve to be looked after the most by the government, those that might have be called on by the state to give their lives.

In any case I was trying to show a real life example where even one of the smallest calibre put someone flat on their arse while wearing a vest. You don't just shake off being shot even when the vest catches the bullet. You bruise, you break bones, tear muscles and just the shock of being shot alone can drop you. But hey, you don't have any holes.

It gets worse actually. The shock wave travels through your body potentially damaging internal organs while leaving your skin, apparently, intact. No bullet holes, as you said, but that doesn't mean the bullet failed to injure its target.

*ahem*

Concerning the Iraq war...

Well, I will send you a PM - this isn't the time or place.

 

[Blackhol]

How some doors just don't open and ones 10 feet way do.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

It gets worse actually. The shock wave travels through your body potentially damaging internal organs while leaving your skin, apparently, intact. No bullet holes, as you said, but that doesn't mean the bullet failed to injure its target.

*ahem*

Concerning the Iraq war...

Well, I will send you a PM - this isn't the time or place.

The white butterfly effect, but I doubt a bullet that a vest can stop is going to have enough kinetic force to cause that much damage. Still interesting when you see it, normally in suicide vests, as they are mush inside but outside only a light char.

Pondering the possibility of how much kinetic force is needed to rupture each individual organ though. I wouldn't find it surprising if it depends on the organ but in most, if not all, cases it is a low amount of force then one would expect.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

How some doors just don't open and ones 10 feet way do.

That one makes me flinch... soooo many games use this. Can't have a urban fight without buildings and buildigns need doors. Yet being linnier designed ensures that none of those doors will be functional.

[sarcasm] Cause we all know soldiers are too thick to turn door knobs [/sarcasm]

What I find worse is many of these levels could, easily, fix this. Many times I have gone through levels thinking "this door can be opened easily, making the front rooms good places to take cover from fire while the upper rooms can be sniper spots so our snipers are not always going to be in that one location, making them easily counter snipered. The back door opens onto the alley in any case, which would allow flanking manoeuvres to be more effective. A few holes in the wall between the buildings, it is a war zone so they can happen, and you open a whole new pathway making it harder to bottle neck...."

Modern warfare was bad for that, even buildings dead centre of the map are nothing more then solid blocks with textures on them. I don't know if it is just poor planning or even just laziness.

 

[Go Fighting In The War Room]

Your fallout character carrying up to 300 pounds of stuff on his person without a backpack.

It's Magic!

 

[Rakkana]

Reference to UF: How the hell can a wolf have no Heart and for that matter how can they have 2.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Most of FarCry2, for all it's much-vaunted 'realism'. That game pissed me off in many, many ways.

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

It gets worse actually. The shock wave travels through your body potentially damaging internal organs while leaving your skin, apparently, intact. No bullet holes, as you said, but that doesn't mean the bullet failed to injure its target.

*ahem*

Concerning the Iraq war...

Well, I will send you a PM - this isn't the time or place.

The white butterfly effect, but I doubt a bullet that a vest can stop is going to have enough kinetic force to cause that much damage. Still interesting when you see it, normally in suicide vests, as they are mush inside but outside only a light char.

Pondering the possibility of how much kinetic force is needed to rupture each individual organ though. I wouldn't find it surprising if it depends on the organ but in most, if not all, cases it is a low amount of force then one would expect.

Not sure how familiar you are with the .50 BMG round, but I would wager it would have enough power to break ribs and displace body fluids when it hit a type IV tactical vest.

 

[Tekyro]

Anytime in Call of Duty when you put entire fucking magazines into someone. And they just turn around and shoot you once to kill you.

This, but for pretty much every FPS I've played that claims to be "realistic".

[sup]Also, lovin' the avatar[/sup]