Firearms: Source Weapons Showcase: H&K G3A3 news

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the H&K G3A3. The G3 is one of the weapons we've been working on redoing over the past two months, during which time we've finally hired the modelers and skinners necessary to get us to Release Candidate 1.0. Schmung, whom we introduced to you in the last update, did an incredible job on the model. This was followed up by a mind-blowing skin job by Racer445. As you can see below in the renders and screenshots, the phong shading and other effects combined with a superb, professional texture really makes this baby shine. These two have only gotten started, too; we have a whole list of new weapons that are being worked on as I write this.

The G3A3 fits into the lineup as one of our many assault rifles, and acts as a primary weapon as one might expect. The strengths of the G3 are in its superb accuracy on semi-auto and the incredibly powerful 7.62x51mm NATO round. The G3 isn't all that accurate on full-auto, has a big kick and a slower rate of fire than most of our other assault rifles. It has a very special niche in the game, but as testing has proved, it easily holds its own in the hands of a skilled player. I find myself swapping fire modes often to get the best advantage (full for up close, semi for distance), and shot placement is critical to get hits. There is not a lot of room for error with a 20-round magazine and a low rate of fire.

Where would we be without good 'ol tester quotes? Here's a few gems for you. This one from tester waisted_menkey:

"Well, quote me or not, I will tell you this about how I feel regarding the G3A3.

It was by far my most favorite AR from the original FA. I used it all the time. Though as a tester I feel I have a duty to cycle my config/load-out, if I didn't feel that, I would use the G3A3 all the time (and people would probably bitch about it). The FA:S G3A3 upholds the standards I expected the G3A3 to perform at, and the new Source model looks amazing. Makes me wanna go right out and buy one IRL."

From tester Reef:

"The G3A3 provides the raw feeling and satisfaction that a weapon like this is all about."

And finally, from community representative TheUltra4sshole:

"Schmung's model is as accurate as you can get without having 100k polies, Racer's skin is good enough to confuse gun nuts like me as to which is a picture and which is the model, it sounds great, TIMN's animations are as good as always, and when I click my mouse, little imaginary virtual people die, and die quickly."

Alpha testing has shaped up quite well over the last few months and I'm pretty happy with where we're at. We've done a few balance passes on the weapons and thrown in a few new guns, which we'll be showcasing here in a bit, but the real blessing is in the weapon selection. For those who want to compare us to FA's RC 2.5, the thought process that will go into picking weapons is probably going to be a lot different.

What do I mean by that? Well, unlike those early versions of Firearms: Half-Life, submachineguns in FAS are actually useful, as are pistols. We have two machineguns, both of which we are taking pains to ensure play out like a squad-automatic weapon and GPMG should, and three sniper rifles, which again we're making sure are all balanced. This won't be like 2.5 where the M60 was only quasi-useful, the only sniper rifle worth taking was the M82, pistols were a joke, and submachineguns got laughed at. (And let's not forget the stuff that got banned, or was handicapped due to bugs such as the M4). At every level of the game, there is more choice, more balance, more care taken to ensure everything has a role and a purpose, and effort to make sure that no "class" of weapon is useless. The pistols are a good example of the latter: With the three handguns we've recently added to the base lineup, there's a huge selection that I don't think any version of FA in the past has ever had. And we've got more on the way, too. But more importantly, they're great backup weapons. It seems like everyone packs a handgun in testing, and believe me, they're damn effective. Some folks (*cough* Naota) even use them as primary weapons.

So despite my complete dedication to allowing players to pick two assault rifles like "old times", I see few people doing that. Since we've made backup firepower in the submachinegun and pistol classes much more effective, there is a lot more choice as to what players can take. The G3 fits into all of this by offering something different than the typical full-auto, 30-round 5.56x45mm assault rifle. One of our earlier showcases on the M16 gave you an idea about that weapon, which is semi/burst only, and plays quite differently than the rest of our lineup. In other words, we're committed to giving the players choice, and lots of it, not just cookie-cutter copies of the same gun.

Since I haven't updated this page since June, there is still more to cover. First and foremost are new team members. I mentioned Racer445 above, and he was accepted a few weeks ago as our newest skinner. He's got some really hot stuff in the works that we're all dying to get in-game, including one of those new handguns I was talking about before. Racer also doubles as a modeler, which he is equally as good at. Expect to see more of his work in the near future. In addition to Racer, we hired long-time affiliated developer and forum moderator Inveramsay. Inveramsay has been a part of the FAS community forever, and started off making 3rd party maps for testing with the famous tc_rabat. He's since moved up and is now working on a remake of a well-liked classic map of the 2.6 era, a certain European town map which I think you all will enjoy quite a bit. Hopefully, we will be showcasing that in the next few weeks.

In other news, there is a contest being held on the forums. I've posted a picture of one of the new handguns we've recently added, and left it up to the community to figure out what
it is. The first person to correctly guess the weapon's name wins the contest and will get their name posted with the next news update. Please visit our "Name that Gun!" thread for more information. Oh, and testers are banned from participating. :-)

And finally, I want to mention progress. Some of you will have noticed the PS and TC flags listed across the top of the HUD in today's screenshots. That's our newest addition to the
codebase, though not the only one by any means. I've also put in a radio command menu with over 60 different commands, all accessible through a multi-tiered GUI. We've also ripped apart the old menus and redid them completely, including putting a new spin on the briefing page. Briefings are also localized now, meaning non-English speakers can translate them to other languages. A lot of bugs were recently fixed, and our maps have progressed quite a bit. There's still more in the works, but I'll leave you with that for the time being.

We're still looking for new team members. Currently, what we need the most are animators and skinners. However, we'll also take sound artists, mappers, and modelers of any kind. If you
feel you have the talent and dedication to be a part of the team, don't hesitate to drop us a line. My e-mail is hitman@firearms-source.com.

What do you think of our update today? Do you have any ideas on how we can better communicate with the the community? What do you think of the G3A3 screenshots and renders? What are your thoughts on the G3A3's implementation versus other games of today? Please post a comment and share your thoughts!