All that is needed is for me to make some small changes on fixing descriptions and trader files for the new armor sets, then I'll export the new changes on top of the existing patch and have it uploaded.
Once all this is done I'll get right to work on adding new weapons, shortly after getting the patch with those changes out I will work on fine-tuning weapon balance to accommodate new calibers like 7.62x39, 7.62x25, and 7.62x51, in addition to changing the nature of armor-piercing ammunition. AP should do less damage than FMJ but it should have much higher pierce coefficient which should make it penetrate various materials of cover and defeat heavy body armor much more efficiently.
How are you today mate?
If I may, standard ammo shouldn't be nearly as effective as AP stuff against heavily amored foes. I've played a few stalker mods and I don't recall any making enough of a difference between ammo types. If it penetrates it should make a good deal of damage, if not damage should be minimal.
Also, the difference between AP and ball ammo in terms of damage should be more accentuated for small, fast calibers that rely on fragmentation such as 5.56, as a steel core tends to stay together and inflict less severe wounds.
Doing good. Yeah, that's essentially what I was going for. The 5.45 rounds really shouldn't have as marked as a difference in characteristics between FMJ and AP in ZoA because of the way that 5.45 is supposed to yaw in tissue and the fact that I really only included the older 7N22 as the AP ammo, which is just hardened steel core.
M995, on the other hand, is Tungsten core, so the only Russian equivalent would be 5.45x39 7N24, it really isn't designed for fragmentation or yawing, just punching through stuff like body armor and steel. I have no clue whether or not it would defeat boron-carbide plates because the stuff is so hard to come across, even for people in the US Military. Really expensive too.
As far as the exotic Russian stuff like, SP5, SP6, etc, it's steel core, but it's heavier. There's a new 9x39 BP round also, but I have no clue what it's made of or what it can do.
Cool. Well, I personally doubt in assault rifle calibers being able to defeat high tier armor, even with hardened cores. But of course I have no real experience in the field. If you considered exo suits as having the highest level of protection available, it would definitely be a nice challenge taking them on. I'd lug a SVD or a grenade launcher just for that kind of encounters.
I also remember trying a mod out where wounds to the limbs bled more than trunk injuries. Could be worth looking into that. What STALKER is really missing, at least to a gun nut like me, is an even basic simulation of internal damage. I can't shoot in the arm of a guy turned to the side and get to his heart, for instance. If damage was at least dependent on the angle of impact of the bullet, shot placement would be more important, and outcomes would vary a bit more.
Actually, if you look at the actor and the m_stalker configs in the creatures folder, you'll see that I've already done something like that.
Shots to the CNS are completely fatal, but shots to the torso, and the limbs do progressively less damage as they get away from vitals, but stuff like the thighs and the arms still bleed heavily even if they take less damage.
So far I've re-balanced they way that works because my earlier stats were overkill.
The thing about body armor in this game is that I don't know whether or not it covers only parts of the body, or the entire body. I would assume it just covers the torso, and if that's the case, stuff like shots to the legs would probably bring down an armored opponent well.
I thought you could specify which areas of the body get a bullet resistance bonus from wearing a suit. I have a feeling the value refers to the entire body then, a bit like the way artifacts work (I think).
How about pistol calibers? Will suit helmets be able to stop them? If I recall correctly there are hit locations for eyes, nose etcetera. If you assigned a very high damage multiplier for those, shots to the face would kill a foe easily, but armor might save its life in other cases.
It can be done. I think some mods already do this. I think the damages.ltx is the config we are thinking about changing here.
Really I'd love for helmets to stop everything except rifle rounds and 7.62x25 pistol rounds.
Oh, and you know what weapons I'd really like someone to add in a mod for this game? Hunting rifles, yeah, contemporary bolt-action civilian hunting rifles. I would imagine that there would be quite a bit of those smuggled into the Zone. I bet some experienced STALKERs would prefer to use one of those over an AK-74.
Sounds like a silly stalker to me, swarms of rats and dogs are more easily dealt with an AK. The proximity with a corrupt military force ensures arms shipments are easily diverted towards stalkers' hands. But yeah, that would be nice, bloody rookies could use some variety in their armament. What I would really like are 2-3 revolvers in as many calibers to choose between, with the armor tweaks you're thinking about it would be very fun. Drop me your steam ID, will ya? I could do some testing\config fiddling for you once I get the gaming rig back if you're cool with it.