Rifleman Archive

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BrerLapin wrote:

It just occured to me theyd probably be better making rifleman a static Light Squad Element like a BAR gunner. The carbineer a SMG toting 'on the move' kinda guy & the pistoleer a state changer.

Oh yeah & I think the whole Weapon speed as aim time fails horribley as you fire first then delay as opposed to the more logical delay followed by the shot. But of course theyd have to fix the aggro AI

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I would have to disagree on that. A RIFLEMAN is not a static fighter. The weapon he/she uses is designed for a balance of power, speed, and maneuvarability in terms of wielding the rifle. This is why many countries moved from solid wood to lighter materials such asfiberglass for Rifle stocks. The weight was much less and of course the problem of warping being eliminated. Even in today's modern armies, the automatic rifleman(different from the rifleman)is more of a maneuvarable fighter. The Browning Automatic Rifle(BAR) could be used as both a static cover firing weapon and as a man-portable rifle. This continues today with weapons like the M-249 SAW(Squad Automatic Weapon), which is one man portable.

The only truly STATIC soldiers in terms of ranged weapons, really, are machine gunners, who are the base of fire element in most cases. sometimes this is taken over by the automatic rifleman if the unit is squad strength instead of company strength.

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RemoMoxey wrote:

A couple of points for you slick..........

1- Most Police departments carry .40 S&W, not 9mm (9mm is underpowered)............ALSO they carry pistols for ease of motion. When they have to go into a combat situation the rifles come out (SWAT teams carry pistols...AS A LAST RESORT)

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Most US Police Departments don't use the .40 because the 9mm is underpowered. The 9mm is plenty powerful enough and can be made more so with the right ammo. Also most non US police departments use the 9mm.

The reason is more because it's closer to the .45 that the US has a long tradition of using. It's along the same lines that you will often see US police departments with shotguns while other countries have a fair amount of SMG's but very few shotguns if any. In the US you are unlikely to see a police department using an SMG outside of a SWAT team. But they will carry an AR15.

Different traditions.

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Waste93 wrote:

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Gooney wrote:

It comes from the simple fact that aiming a rifle takes significantly longer than aiming a pistol or assault rifle (carbine).

-Gooney

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An Assault Rifle is not a Carbine. It's a Rifle. Hence the name Assualt Rifle. Nor do Rifles take longer to aim than a Pistol or Carbine.

Aim time is determined by range to target. Not really by the weapon in hand. Firing a Rifle, Carbine, or Pistol at a target at 25m will take about the same amount of time. The reason is that they all use about the same sighting system.

Generally you have a couple sighting methods. You havea peep sight like that used on the M16A2 Assault Rifle which is exactly the same as the M4 Carbine. Or you have the three posts as used on most pistol which is very similar to the dovetail (blade)sight of many rifles.

At the ranges we are using in SWG you wouldn't bother with a telescopic sight. Which is what would greatly increase the aim time. But also the accuracy. However you could use a dot sight system. Which makes it even faster to aim than using just the iron sights. These usually have low levels of magnification if any at all. Just put the dot on the target and fire.

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Now were quibbling over word usage, a carbine in RL is indeed a rifle, but as I said very clearly earlier in the thread a Carbine in SWG is a class of weapons not equivical to a RL weapon. Heck a SWG Rifle in no way resembles a RL rifle...remember rifles have grooves down the length of the barrel that cause the projectile to spin...these grooves are called rifllings...hence the common denomer Rifle or Rifled Barrel. Energy weapons emmit light or coherant light or whatever...no spin...no riflings, hence not true rifles.

We really need to try to steer clear of real world comparisons as they dont hold water when related to SWG. I know that weve used them to illustrate a point and again it is obvious that the point of the thread was lost in your post.

The question is "Where did the idea of rifles being slow come from?".

The answer is a simple: Its a balance mechanism with no correlation to real world physics.

I know that weapons in real life have various rates of fire. Im very familiar with different RL weapons and thier uses.

Your insistance of an assault rifle not being a carbine is a bit thick. In real life ALL Carbines ARE Rifles but not ALL Rifles are Carbines...not my fault its the definition of carbine thats to blame.

IN SWG Carbines are a CLASS of Weapons

IN SWG Rifles are a CLASS of Weapons...remeber the spraystick??

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RemoMoxey wrote:

A couple of points for you slick..........

1- Most Police departments carry .40 S&W, not 9mm (9mm is underpowered)............ALSO they carry pistols for ease of motion. When they have to go into a combat situation the rifles come out (SWAT teams carry pistols...AS A LAST RESORT)

2- At 15m you don't aim, you POINT!!!!!!!!!! rifle, shutgun, pistol, slingshot, spitwad..........at that range you don't aim.

3- All semi-automatics have the SAME FIRE RATE (as fast as you can pull the trigger)

4- In a combat situation aiming has little to do with speed (if you're hunting you have you rifle shouldered or your pistol drawn)

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Gooney wrote:

Now were quibbling over word usage, a carbine in RL is indeed a rifle, but as I said very clearly earlier in the thread a Carbine in SWG is a class of weapons not equivical to a RL weapon. Heck a SWG Rifle in no way resembles a RL rifle...remember rifles have grooves down the length of the barrel that cause the projectile to spin...these grooves are called rifllings...hence the common denomer Rifle or Rifled Barrel. Energy weapons emmit light or coherant light or whatever...no spin...no riflings, hence not true rifles.

Actually there is spining of a sort. One of the reasons, if I remember correctly, that blaster rifles (and possible carbines) are more powerful than pistols is they have a spining barrel design that helps focus the energy beam.

But in essence you are completely correct. The only tru rifle in the game would be the Tusken Rifle.

The answer is a simple: Its a balance mechanism with no correlation to real world physics.

I don't believe so. RIfles have always had the same speed mod. So it should have been obvious that they would reach the speeds they currently do. However in the past the balance machanism was HAM costs. Though the Rifle had high DPS they couldn't susteain it. The Mind would be drained after 8-10 shots. While pistols with much lower HAM costs could keep up using their specials. That was the original balancing point and was destroyed with buffs.

Your insistance of an assault rifle not being a carbine is a bit thick. In real life ALL Carbines ARE Rifles but not ALL Rifles are Carbines...not my fault its the definition of carbine thats to blame.

Not true. Carbines are not Rifles, they are Carbines. Though they do use rifling, as do Pistols. They are defined as short barreled light weight shoulder arms originaly intended for cavalary use.

However not all Carbines had rifling. There were smoothbore Carbines in use.

They are a class of weapons that have their own category. If they were Rifles they would only be a subclass of Rifles. Which they are not.

IN SWG Carbines are a CLASS of Weapons

True. Just as in RL they are a class of weapons.

Message Edited by Waste93 on 11-18-2004 09:00 PM

So you see that carbine has several definitions, historically you are right early short muskets were refered to as carbines. But in modern terms the definition of a carbine is a "short barreled rifle".

Carbine is a very general term, like "gun" due to the historical use (short muskets without rifled barrel) the term becomes more generalized than the term "rifle" which is not general. To be a rifle you must have a rifled barrel. In modern terms what I wrote holds true. Carbine is a general term for a short rifle, an M16 can very correctly be called a carbine, while a M1 Garand should not...Then I guess folks could argue about what length constitues a "shortbarrel". This againpoints to the general nature of the term "Carbine" as used in modernenglish.

"The answer is a simple: Its a balance mechanism with no correlation to real world physics."

"I don't believe so. RIfles have always had the same speed mod. So it should have been obvious that they would reach the speeds they currently do. However in the past the balance machanism was HAM costs. Though the Rifle had high DPS they couldn't susteain it. The Mind would be drained after 8-10 shots. While pistols with much lower HAM costs could keep up using their specials. That was the original balancing point and was destroyed with buffs."

I dont know if I really buy the HAM argument, just from experiance with both Pistoleer and especially Carbineer. Carbineer specials are very HAM hungery. Unbuffed most combat specials will drain the HAMs in 8-10 shots. This leads me to believe that HAMs can not be the factor that balances the professions

If we take as a given that the Elite Marksman professions should have roughly similar DPS the only way that you can do that given the native damage range of the weapons themselves is to modify DPS by weapon speed. Which seems implicit in the physical stats of the weapons themselves.

This may or maynot be the case the SWG manual makes no such distinction.However for pure balance reasons it makes sense.

Rifles-- Slow, Heavy Hitting, Long Range

Carbineers --Medium speed, Medium Damage,Medium Range

Pistoleer -- Fast ,Low Speed,Short Range

Then you have the different rolls, which isnt stated anywhere that I can find in SWG documentation but is implicit in the skill set and special names.

Rifleswe assume are hard hitting sniper types from range...low melee defenses focused on MIND HAM

Carbines are assault types specializing in placing states...medium melee defenses, focused on ACTION HAM

Pistoleer isshort range, agile damage dealers ...High meleedefenses for close combat, focused on HEALTH HAM.

Now like I said these rolls are presumed as there is no documentation to support it, and the Doc Buff/ Armor situation pretty much moves all 3 into the fighting range of the Pistoleer once they are mastered. This is the problem. Riflemen have no business in fighting that close shooting at the speed they do targeting the most un-healable HAM.

Rolls in the elite marksman proffs havent been in the game ever, this was due to dodgey specials, and goofy HAM costs. So we have yet to see these professions working in the way that they were intended. I hope that the combat revamp fixes this as it would make the game much more fun for everyone.

Again this train of thought not only leads to but enforces the idea that weapon speed is one of the primary balancing factors.Which leads to and confirms my personal belief that Rifles should indeed beslower given the fact that their native damage is so much higher than both carbines and pistols.

-Gooney

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Gooney wrote:

carbine

n : light automatic rifle

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton

This is a very ppor definition and factually incorrect. As we've already agreed, the first carbines were neither rifles and they obviously were not automatics. Also according to this definition, the most famous carbine, the M1 Carbine of WWII isn't even a carbine since it wasn't automatic. Neither would the M44 Carbine (Soviet) of that time period as it was a bolt action weapon. Nor would the famous Winchester lever action carbines fall within that definition.

The online Webster.com definition is fairly good.

Main Entry: car·bine
Pronunciation: 'kär-"bEn, -"bIn
Function: noun
Etymology: French carabine, from Middle French carabin carabineer
1 : a short-barreled lightweight firearm orig. used by cavalry
2 : a light short-barreled repeating rifle that is used as a supplementary military arm or for hunting in dense brush

Though the useof repeating is much more general than automatic. It is closer to being correct though it still ignores the first carbines which were neither repeating nor rifles.

Carbine is a very general term, like "gun" due to the historical use (short muskets without rifled barrel) the term becomes more generalized than the term "rifle" which is not general. To be a rifle you must have a rifled barrel. In modern terms what I wrote holds true. Carbine is a general term for a short rifle, an M16 can very correctly be called a carbine, while a M1 Garand should not...Then I guess folks could argue about what length constitues a "shortbarrel". This againpoints to the general nature of the term "Carbine" as used in modernenglish.

M16 still can't be classified as a Carbine. It's an Assault Rifle. If you want a Carbine version you have to look at the M4 Carbine. Which is the Carbine version of the M16A2.

If the M16 was a Carbine then how could the M4 be a Carbine? You can't have a Carbineversion of a Carbine.

Nor does your comparison between the M1 Garand and M16 hold up. As they both are of about the same length. M1 Garand barrel length was 24" and M16A2 is a bit over 20". Overall length is 43" vs 39". The M4 Carbine however is just under 14" with an overall of just under 30". Per BATFE guidelines, rifles have to have a barrel length of 16" or more (if I remember correctly). Though that is a legal distinction and not necessarily a definition of a rifle.

Also following what you are saying. Then all bullpup rifles would actually be carbines. Since they are far shorter (overall length)than standard rifles because of their design. Many are about the same size as SMGs. But they are not carbines. They are still rifles.

I dont know if I really buy the HAM argument, just from experiance with both Pistoleer and especially Carbineer. Carbineer specials are very HAM hungery. Unbuffed most combat specials will drain the HAMs in 8-10 shots. This leads me to believe that HAMs can not be the factor that balances the professions

Carbine specials are high HAM costs. Which is an error that should have been fixed long ago.However Pistols have low HAM costs and you can easily get off a number of shots unbuffed.

If we take as a given that the Elite Marksman professions should have roughly similar DPS the only way that you can do that given the native damage range of the weapons themselves is to modify DPS by weapon speed. Which seems implicit in the physical stats of the weapons themselves.

Which is your error. DPS isn't suppose to be roughly the same. You can't achieve balance in that fashion.

The problem currently is that the way high end MOBs were made difficult is that they were given lots of armor and HAM. There are three categories for balance. Combat Multipliers (status effects, DoTs, etc), Offense, and Defense.

The problem is that MOBs were made so that they negate Combat Multipliers and Defenses.

But DPS was never intended to be roughly the same. If it was then you would have three nearly identical professions.

The key component to balance combat is the ability to survive combat. This is a factor of all three facets. For example we could have a profession Athat doestwice the damage as profession B and be balanced. If profession B had defenses that enabled them to take half the damage as profession A does. Profession A would do more damage but also take more damage. However those two professions would be balanced in that they would have the same ability to survive the encounter. That is how you balance a skill based RPG system while maintaining distinct roles.

You also ignore the fact that you can change the base damage numbers instead of speed. Which would give you the same result while avoiding a host of problems with making slow hard hitting weapons.

This may or maynot be the case the SWG manual makes no such distinction.However for pure balance reasons it makes sense.

For balance reasons, DPS equality is one of the worst way to do this. As it makes all the professions by neccessity nearly the same. If you equal DPS you also have to do so with defenses and combat multipliers. Otherwise those with high combat multipliers or defenses are not balanced when the offense is. End result would be three nearly identical professions with the only difference being the graphic in their hand.

Rifleswe assume are hard hitting sniper types from range...low melee defenses focused on MIND HAM

There are no snipers in this game nor can there be with the given combat limitations. Riflemen are Infantry. Mind targeting ability is also only a factor in PvP. Which is the minority of the combat. The ability to target Mind is no different than targeting the other pools in PvE since MOBs don't use pool points to use specials, have about equal pools, and don't really heal themselves.

Message Edited by Waste93 on 11-19-2004 06:58 AM

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Waste93 wrote:

There are no snipers in this game nor can there be with the given combat limitations. Riflemen are Infantry.

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BrerLapin wrote:

The term assualt rifle has nomilitary function it is a 'slang' term describing a fullyautomatic rifle designed for aggressive useage.In essence this applies to the lower calibre shorter 5.56mm weapons & short barreled 7.62's in the West's armoury. The British L1A1 is a traditional 'battle' rifle, long barrel7.62mm SA 30 round clip with a long effective range. The modern replacement is the SA80 an 'assualt' rifle short barreled & bullpupped fully automatic & with a shorter effective range hence the scope.This assualt rifle has been scaled down in limited numbers to meet the role of a crew weapon in the form of the SA80 Carbine, having a shorter barrel & being more managable.

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There is a military definition of Assault Rifle. Defintion is ' A rifle that fires an intermediate cartridge capable of selective (semi-auto and full-auto) fire '. That is an official DoD definition that has been around for some time.