Gamers

[unixronin]

So, background:  cymrullewes gave me a copy of Splinter Cell for our PS2 for Christmas.  I've just gotten to the mission after the CIA HQ, in which they swap out your suppressed FN Five Seven pistol for a suppressed FN F2000 rifle (which Splinter Cell calls the SC20K).  The problem is, not only does this rifle have (in the game) roughly the firepower of a .22 Short (you can shoot someone in the head with it at 20 meters — if you get really lucky; see just below — and they don't drop), but it comes with what I like to call an "artificial incompetence" algorithm:  You can't hold it steady enough to actually HIT anything with it beyond about twice arms' length except by sheer luck.

(Come on, Ubisoft — you're supposed to be playing Sam Fisher, highly trained NSA elite covert operative, but the game won't let you hold the sights of a rifle on a stationary man-sized target at twenty meters, kneeling?  Hello?  I'd be prepared to bet I could hold the rifle steadier than that at arm's length with one hand.)

So, anyway, I went looking online to see if I could find any tips on how to actually hit anything with the "SC20K".

Instead, I found gamers.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I know plenty of intelligent gamers who know what they're talking about and have a solid grasp on reality.  And you run into a lot who can tell you every in and out and hidden feature of the game, but scarcely know which end of a real weapon the bullet comes out of.  But read this thread, and scroll down to the sixth post.  "What does ambidextrous mean?"  OK, maybe that's forgivable, if you were raised in a cave.  "I wonder if some of the energy used to fire the bullets can also be used to recharge the batteries on some of these guns."  Um ... hello?  The real world isn't HALO, you know.

But the real medal-winner is the magnificent eloquence of "Sniper 25" in this thread.  The OP puts some pretty reasonable thought into trying to figure out what kind of sense, if any, the "sniper attachment" in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory makes.  (Short answer:  None discernable.)

Entire content of Sniper 25's reply:

"You are a D-bag"

I'm speechless.  Couldn't think of anything more to add to the discussion than that, but still felt it was important enough to post for the world to see?

There are some really depressingly stupid people out there.  But at least they're good at outing themselves.

Comments

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

I learned long ago on my primary gaming site (http://www.gamefaqs.com/) that if I need specific answers to specific questions about specific in-game challenges, I can get good answers, but discussions of anything else tend to devolve into...

...well, that.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

gtfo noob. lol.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Welcome to proof of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh :)

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

In case anyone reading this entry is wondering about the ridiculousness of how hard it is in the game to make a headshot at 20m --

Back in Iowa, there was a rifle range cut into the side of a hill; the backstop alone was a good 20m of dirt face with the rest of a hill atop it. This allowed some creative shooting, as long as you were careful.

When taking new people to the range, I would give a demonstration of the accuracy of rifles. I would place a water bottle at the end of the 50m range, we'd go back to the lanes, and I'd fire one round into the bottle. The bottom would essentially explode, rocketing the now-empty bottle into the air; it would routinely get about 15m in the air. That's a total of three seconds of hang time. In those three seconds I'd fire three additional rounds.

We'd then go back downrange and find the bottle. It usually had a ruptured bottom and three entrance and exit holes in it. Every now and again it would only have two.

They would usually ooh and aah over it. By the end of a four-hour range trip, they would be making the same shots against their own water bottles. They'd usually have at least one entrance and exit on top of the ruptured bottom. Sometimes they'd get two. It is not a hard trick to learn, and is surprisingly impressive.

This is using a conventional off-the-shelf AR-15 with a nonmagnifying sight.

Given the very small maps involved in most FPSes, a good rifleman ought to be effectively a "if you can see it, you can kill it" device.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Given the very small maps involved in most FPSes, a good rifleman ought to be effectively a "if you can see it, you can kill it" device.

By way of comparison, in Ubisoft's other Tom Clancy-inspired game series, Ghost Recon, weapons are extremely accurately modeled (and so is the effect of incoming fire¹ on you and your team). AI-controlled team members tend to be a bit sloppy about fire discipline, but with a modicum of care, a player-controlled sniper has little difficulty achieving single-round kills out to the limit of visibility (which, with a patch applied to cut back on the engine's distance fog, can be up to about 600m on some maps).



[1] This is another area in which Splinter Cell falls down. (Or rather, doesn't.) Your character, should things go all pear-shaped, can stand (or crouch) there and absorb incoming fire (as much as three or four bursts from an MP5, or pistol fire from multiple assailants) and continue with no disability and no sign of any real discomfort aside from a lowered health bar, which can be fixed with the next first aid kit you find. In Ghost Recon, wounds HURT, a wounded limb is disabled, sucking chest wounds ... well ... suck, you're stuck with the wound(s) for the rest of the mission, and that team member will sit out the next mission in a hospital bed. A single good shot from the enemy can kill you, and a dead team member is NOT coming back. "When you're dead, you're fucking dead."

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The early games in the Rainbow Six series were similar. But yeah, Ghost Recon was very well done. Ghost Recon has two rules, just two, and if you follow them to the letter there's no mission you can't complete:

1. Don't be seen.
2. See the other guy.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Last one, really --

What's so stupid about asking if the recoil energy of the round can be used to recharge the batteries for the weapon accessories? Seems like an interesting question to me. Each cycle of the bolt can be seen as a linear motor, for which some of the energy can be diverted to a generator.

That said, I think it's only an interesting question as opposed to a good idea. I'm not in favor of making weapons more complex just to spare someone the task of replacing their AAs.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

True, it's technically feasible if someone wanted to do it. Assuming a rifle with an electronic sight requiring batteries in the first place, as such are starting to become more common. I may have erred in assuming that the poster thought the propellant gas should recharge the batteries directly as though it was all the same type of energy and no mechanical-to-electrical conversion of any kind was required.

(As a side note, assuming one was to decide that the added mechanical complexity was worthwhile, another approach would be to bleed the combustion gases tapped off to operate the action through a miniature Pelton turbine after exiting the gas piston tube. I'm assuming the gas temperatures aren't high enough for a no-moving-parts plasma-MHD approach.)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

It's a lot of added complication. Just getting the rifle accepted and certified, generate all the build and inspection plans, operating instructions, etc and etc and etc. Would cost millions.

It's not cheaper than transporting batteries.

The M16 has something on the order of 200,000 pages of specifications. The reason we have not changed weapons is because we've beaten the fuck out of our procurement system to remove human error, human evil and a lot of other crap. It's cumbersome and hindbound for that reason.