Resistance & Liberation mod for Half-Life 2

The goal of Resistance and Liberation is to realistically portray the events and actions taken by the 82nd Airborne during their stay in Normandy. Our initial release will follow the regiments through a campaign that mimics that followed by the men themselves. The campaign will begin with players dropping into Normandy in the early hours of June 6th, with the ultimate objective of capturing the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise. From there subsiquent maps will include missions based on locations such as Montebourg Station, La Fiere, Carentan, and other key areas.

Our approach in recreating such events is quite different than that of most standard first person games. The principal of our focus is on realism. The realism we are referring to is beyond that of Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat.

   Our initial release will feature several items listed below:

• No crosshair
• No HUD
• No death messages
• Revised score display
• An advanced damage system 

   For future releases we plan to add:

• Weight and intertia added to weaponry 
• Full ballistics added to weaponry 

Now we'll explain the above details a little further. We'll start with the crosshair.

No Crosshair

The idea here is for the player to familiarize themselves with their weapon. Each weapon will have three positions of use. First you have the "shoulder" position. This will be your typical position of the weapon while moving at a steady pace. About the only effective use of this position would be for extreme close quarters combat, or covering fire on an enemy position.

The following 2 positions are both supposed to be „iron sights“ positions. The first one will still allow the player to move the weapon around with freeaim but will keep a distance between the iron sights and the player's eye. The second one will bring the iron sights very close to the players eye but tie the weapon to the player's view. This position does not feature free aim.

No HUD

Probably a first for games these days, RnL will not include a HUD in first person perspective. Instead, all details normally accounted for in the HUD will presented in individual and unique ways. For example, instead of having a compass or directional locator, a player may have to communicate with an NCO, who will carry a map, to determine their current location.

No Death Messages

To further extend the realism of RnL servers will no longer display the typical death message associate with today's first person shooters. Players will need to re-think their tactics when assaulting an enemy location. They will need to play with more caution, considering a player could have gone prone or only been slightly damaged by an attacking player.

Revised Score Display

We're going to the extreme here and taking out a scoreboard. Instead, players will be shown a recap of the map objectives and which force was victorious. The idea here is to promote more teamplay. Players shouldn't be focused on who got the most kills, but how their team is performing as a whole. As a member of an Airborne unit, your personal objective is to assist in the unit's objective.

An advanced damage system

Depending on engine limitations, we're hoping to expand damage into a per poly hit detection system. It would allow us to create more specified locations that would produce varying amounts of damage effects to a player. Both his physical and mental health will be taken into effect.

Weight and Inertia added to weaponry

Continuing from the aiming positions, each weapon will have a weight and intertia property assigned to them. What this means is that a soldier carrying a light sub-machine gun will have much great turning and aiming ability than another soldier carrying a much heavier weapon, such as an MG42. By implementing these properties, sub-machine guns will have the close combat advantage that they rarely have in other games. As well, riflemen will have a much more difficult time slinging around their weapon than a soldier carrying a lighter gun.

Full Ballistics added to weaponry

A complete ballistics system will be implemented for all weapons. Bullet calibur, rate of fire, velocity, bullet drop, etc will all be taken into account. The goal is for each weapon to behave according to its real world counter-part. Players who take the time to learn their weapon, it's characteristics, and it's behaviors will have a significant advantage over others in combat.