Actually, I think it's a mob of people, running through the streets and coming dangerously close. The reason for this uproar? System Shock 2, apparantely one of the best games to date, is now freeware. Link:
http://www.ferrago.com/story/1686 or http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3924

Halleluja brother!

What's this apparently one of the best games to date. It IS! Highly polished with intense atmosphere and a great story. This was the forerunner to Dues Ex and IMO the much better game of the two. Unfortunately it was a commercial flop but i'm buggered if i can see why. It's quality from start to finish and the Assault rifle is actually an Assault rifle, as opposed to the "assault-occasioning-harm" rifle that we see in so many other 1st person games. (Dues Ex, Halo, Doom 3 etc.)

All is well and good, but dontcha be dissing my Deus Ex. The only thing SS2 had over Deus Ex is that it was scarry at times. Not a better atmosphere, but scarrier. And the Deus Ex assault rifle becomes something really dangerous with 5 clip and accuracy mods.

I agree, SS2 was scary, but it was no Deus Ex [img]smile.gif[/img]

But anyways...


Halleluja!

I have Deuz Ex, but for some reason never got farther than the second level. I downoaded SS2, maybe that will get me into it.

Purleeez. It's a rapid fire Tickle-Me-Elmo gun. No gun that requires an entire clip be emptied at close range to kill a target deserves to be called an assault rifle... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

ARs with master Rifle and 5 accuracy mods kill commandos with 10 bullets. A commando is armored after all.
The thing about Deus Ex's weapons, is once you get them they're utter shyte. Then you invest some points into the weapon group, some mods into the weapon, and pretty soone you're like "OMG This sniper rifle can shoot down turrets and cameras!1!"

I didn't mean to spark a debate [img]smile.gif[/img] but...

The non-stealth pistol (at any and all comparable stages of modding) was, round for round, more powerful than the AR and more effective as a weapon. It didn't make sense to me then and it still doesn't now. Halo was even worse for this. 5 or 6 bullets from the pistol was as effective as 60 bullets from the AR. WTF? System Shock's bullet weapons (although they couldn't be modded to the same extent) were much more satisfying. :D

A 10mm pistol more powerful than a 5.56(or even 7.62) bullet? No... How can it be!?
If I play a game in which the assault rifle or SMG is more powerful round for round than the pistol(not counting peashooters), I'll say the game outright sucks.
If you want something bigger than the pistol, but retain assault capabilities, you take the AutoShotgun. 1 Sabot center mass kills commandos, even MiBs.
And Luvian, you, are like, missing one of the best games of the millenium. Go play Deus Ex. Now!

[ 08-28-2006, 07:04 AM: Message edited by: Bozos of Bones ]

Hmm, Is that sarcasm there, Bozos? :D

Either way, all this talk about SS2 and Dues Ex has got me in the mood to play them again. I think i'll try DE first since i need some digital evidence of ballistics inconsistencies to convince you... [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D

There's no question about Halo, though. According to your parameters, the game outright sucks. ;)

I know how you feel Sever, think im gonna put DE on my machine aswell [img]smile.gif[/img]

The monkeys in med-sci! They're scaring me all over again!

This sounds very interesting. I think I will install and play this now. At least I'll know who to blame when I flunk high school.

Blame Shodan! It's orright though, after a few days playing through this classic again, i just killed her for you. :D

SS2 is one of my all time favourites. After 7 years, it still holds its age pretty well. Games like Dues Ex and even Doom 3 owe a lot to System Shock and its sequel. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Let us know how you like it, IG. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I would if I only got the accursed cinematics working. Could someone give me a hint?

Are you playing on a dual core or hyperthreading processor? If so, there are instructions here to fix the bugs. If you've not got one of those processors, try the link anyway. Lots of helpful stuff. (thanks goes to SpiritWarrior for that link. [img]smile.gif[/img] ) SS2 also had compatability issues with XP. If this hasn't been fixed for the freeware version, there's a patch on Looking Glass's site.

Dang it all!! I have been playing SS2 for about 10 days now, and I was about to post how great a game it is and blah blah blah. But what do I find, freaking dreamer has already beaten me to it! It is a great game, though. I like to play it at night with either my headphones or with the volume up high--all of the creaks and groans really help with the atmosphere. Kick-ass game, hands down!

Got this one of the forums, and it worked for me. Go to 'start', 'run' and type regsvr32 C:\sysshock2\LGVID.AX (or whatever the directory is). Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img]

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to tune down the respawning a little? I recall being unable to open a chest because enemies just kept coming. Eventually, I was forced to retreat because I was running out of health and ammo.

[ 09-09-2006, 10:08 AM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

To echo Sever, is that sarcasm?

Assault rifles, round for round, are more powerful than pistols. Just because the caliber is bigger doesn't mean that the round is more powerful.

Pistol ammo is shorter, and thus contains less powder than rifle rounds. Even .223 (5.56mm) assault rifles have much more power than a 10mm pistol. Compound this with the shorter barrel (the longer the barrel, the longer the projectile is accelerated, and the faster the bullet is), and the pistol has much less muzzle energy than the rifle.

5.56mm rifle rounds
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ary-rounds.jpg

some popular pistol rounds
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...P_50AE_002.jpg
left to right, 9mm luger, 7.62mm tokarev, .357 sig, 10mm auto, .40 s&w, .45 gap, .50AE (desert eagle)

5.56 mm NATO, 10mm auto
(5.56 × 45 mm)
wt: 3.95–5.18 g, 10-13g
muzzle velocity: 772–930 m/s, 366-408m/s
muzzle energy: 1,700–1,830 J, 861-943 J

The 10mm auto, btw, is one of the most powerful handguns in existence, barring exotics like the .44magnum and .50AE.

[ 09-24-2006, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Sir Krustin ]

Define "powerful". Cause experts still have absolutely no idea about how actually bullets do damage, and theorise about "hydrostatic shocks" and the like. Yes, the rifle bullet travels faster. But shoot a thick piece of wood with a 5.56, 7.62 and a 9mm, and see what's left of it if you don't believe me.

Powerful: muzzle energy and penetration - both are primary to the effects of penetrating body armour and wounding. (I'm sure you can agree that bullets with higher muzzle energy can more easily break bones and penetrate the skull, for example)

Wood isn't flesh, and has no bearing on wounding. Use ballistic gel and I'll start taking you seriously.

Define "experts": Dr. Fackler at the WBL (someone who's opinion I respect) is very knowledgable on the subject and he disagrees with you.

Ask any member of a military or police unit that depends on their firearm to defeat the enemy on the field of battle, and every one of them will tell you always take a longarm (assault rifle) over a shortarm (pistol or SMG).

Incidentally, SMGs use pistol ammo - so if you think that pistols should have more stopping power than SMGS, you're dead in the water.

[ 09-24-2006, 10:47 PM: Message edited by: Sir Krustin ]

Yes, faster bullets more easily break bones and penetrate things, but wider bullets make bigger holes. Again, which is more powerful? The bullet with a bigger hole, or the bullet with a deeper hole?
I don't have access to ballistic gel, so unless you want me slaughtering pigs, I'll stick to wood.
Dr. Fackler disproved a whole lot of theories, and proved that the bigger the bullet, the more the damage. By "bigger bullet" I also mean expanding or fragmenting rounds. The weight of a pistol bullet alone is enough to cause some serious damage, and the surface of effect is larger too. Some rifle rounds fragment and turn inside the target, so do some pistol rounds. And what exactly did I say that Fackler would have a problem with?

That pistols are more powerful than rifles.

The difference between the diameter of an entry wound between a pistol and a rifle is negligible.

Hydrostatic shock, which is a direct result of the energy of the round, is the prime mover in ballistic wounding. Kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity, but only linearly with the mass of the projectile (which is far more important than the caliber of the round).

A couple of trivia facts:

1) The 10mm auto pistol round is far more effective than the colt .45 (12.7mm) at man-stopping.

2) The pistols main wounding effect is the bleed-out, not traumatic injury - if you survive the first 30 seconds, you're likely to live out your normal 4-score-and-ten. Rifles, otoh, are more likely to cause fatal injury with bleed-out being secondary.

3) A near miss from high-powered rifle can kill. This just doesn't happen with pistols.

[ 09-25-2006, 11:37 AM: Message edited by: Sir Krustin ]

And now Fackler would disagree with you, because he was one of the people who proved the theory of hydrostatic shock false.
1) The case of the 10mm auto round is larger than the case of the .45, so that explains that.
2) You forget pain [img]smile.gif[/img]
3) Pistol rounds are a bit of a wild card, since they possess greater disfigurement and maneuvering once inside the body. A near miss from a pistol loses some speed, changes form and gains "flaps", which turns it within the target and makes it travel in weird paths. A rifle's bullet will most likely just keep on trucking, with minimal turning.

I actually thought you were being sarcastic earlier, Bozos.

I can see your point about bullet disfigurement with un-jacketed or hollow point pistol rounds, but bare in mind it's velocity rather than bullet size, shape or design that does the damage. In reality, the most powerful handguns in the world fall into the same power bracket as the lowest of the high powered rifles. And that's at close range. Beyond 50m or so (assuming one can hit a target beyond 50 with a pistol without a whole lotta luck) the pistol rounds lose velocity fast whereas rifles are good for ten times that distance and more.

In video games, where balanced gameplay seems more important than any bearing on reality, assault rifles are often toned down so that pistols retain some of their effectiveness.

...and the case of the .223 is larger than any pistol round. What's your point?

Dr.Fackler didn't disprove anything of the sort. I'm familiar with everything he's wrote and he's doesn't so much disagree with hydrostatic shock as state that it's a very complex situation.


Not at all. Bleed-out, shock, and pain are all closely related.

A "near miss", by definition, does nothing - as it has not hit the target.

The shockwave of a nearby high-power rifle round (such as the .30-06 or a BMG .50 sniper rifle) has been proven to disrupt the body enough to cause serious injury, especially in the case of the head area.

In the case of the BMG .50, from a sniper rifle or an M2HB, when hitting anywhere in the body is often enough to kill the target outright.

In any case, you keep forgetting body armour. If the target wears any body armour a pistol shot is just going to annoy him (unless you have the tremendous presence of mind in a combat situation to do a headshot - not many civilians can do this) while a rifle round will go right through it - even trauma plates will just keep him alive, not keep him uninjured.

Ah well, you can keep arguing this if you want, I'm dealing with a funeral right now and my hearts not in it.

[ 09-26-2006, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: Sir Krustin ]

In a first-person shooter, none of those rules apply. The damage done by a bulled depends entirely on the size of the gun used to fire it.

...and the case of the .223 is larger than any pistol round. What's your point?

Dr.Fackler didn't disprove anything of the sort. I'm familiar with everything he's wrote and he's doesn't so much disagree with hydrostatic shock as state that it's a very complex situation.</font>[/QUOTE]A .223, as all rifle rounds, is pointy. The rifle does more of a ripping and less of a pushing, and the bullet does more of a pushing, and less of a ripping. The rifle round makes itself a neat hole by ripping the flesh and expanding the hole, whereas a pistol round pushes the tissue before itself. The human tissue can stretch alot, yes, but sudden stretching does a great deal of damage. The pistol round will stop within the tissue before the rifle round, and will not pierce armor, so you are right in the regard of penetration. The trick is in prividing a good area of effect on the bullet combined with the bullet mass and speed. A normal ballistic gel will only show you a pistol round having less penetration than a rifle round. A marked ballistig gel(another Fackler's invention, a ballistic gel with a darker marked line, about 2mm thick, every 8mm, throughout the gel) will show you how the tissue looks like after the penetration. A rifle bullet will leave a hole and little to no damage around it, whereas a pistol, with it's blunter profile, will displace a whole lot of tissue, and the overall damaged area of a pistol bullet is larger than the rifle's. And that is without taking fragmentation and turning into account.

Not at all. Bleed-out, shock, and pain are all closely related.</font>[/QUOTE]That was kind of a joke, but never you mind.
</font>[/QUOTE]Whoops. In my haste, I misunderstood the term near-miss. I thought it was "almost a miss", not a "miss, but came close".

To tell you the truth I never heard of a near miss actually killing anyone. I heard of dazings, even deafness, but not death. I'll have to go read up on that later. Yes, I'd have to be really dense and stupid to not agree with this. A rifle bullet will most likely penetrate body armor, whereas a pistol bullet most likely won't, both because of the speed and shape. And in the case of trauma plates, the pistol bullet's main advantage, the blunt shape, is, again, a downside, as only speed/energy matters while penetrating plates.
I'm sorry to hear that.

Agreed.

Case closed ;)

To echo Sever, is that sarcasm?

Assault rifles, round for round, are more powerful than pistols. Just because the caliber is bigger doesn't mean that the round is more powerful.

Pistol ammo is shorter, and thus contains less powder than rifle rounds. Even .223 (5.56mm) assault rifles have much more power than a 10mm pistol. Compound this with the shorter barrel (the longer the barrel, the longer the projectile is accelerated, and the faster the bullet is), and the pistol has much less muzzle energy than the rifle.

5.56mm rifle rounds

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ary-rounds.jpg

some popular pistol rounds
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...P_50AE_002.jpg
left to right, 9mm luger, 7.62mm tokarev, .357 sig, 10mm auto, .40 s&w, .45 gap, .50AE (desert eagle)

5.56 mm NATO, 10mm auto
(5.56 × 45 mm)
wt: 3.95–5.18 g, 10-13g
muzzle velocity: 772–930 m/s, 366-408m/s
muzzle energy: 1,700–1,830 J, 861-943 J

The 10mm auto, btw, is one of the most powerful handguns in existence, barring exotics like the .44magnum and .50AE. </font>[/QUOTE]I am not going to take sides on this argument, but I wanted to point out a difference between rifles and pistols that everyone has made the mistake of omitting.

One of the main features of rifles (small, fast bullets which travel through a body and do not mushroom out inside the body) is to "wound" the enemy--not necessarily kill him. By wounding the enemy, you not only take that person out of the fight, you also take out at least one other person who has to help/retrieve/whatever that person as well. The rifle is also very effective at killing enemies (especially at longer ranges), but then only one person is out of the fight, not two.

Pistols are meant to stop/kill enemies at close range. Unlike the rifle bullets, these larger bullets are meant to mushroom out inside a body and do as much damage as possible to make the person they hit die, or at least stop them in their tracks.

Does this answer the question about which of the two are more powerful? Not at all. Both are meant for two different situations and are more effective in those situations for different reasons.

Not all rifle rounds are equal.

There are many, many rifle rounds with expanding tips, mainly hunting ammo.

The type of "pointy" ammo people keep referring to here is so-called ball ammo - and pistol ammo comes in this flavour as well. Other types, such as dum-dum, incendiary, and explosive are equally available to rifles. So please confine the discussion to differences between pistol and rifles specifically, not the ammo which you are assuming is unique to each weapon type.

All else being equal (including the ammo type) the rifle will always prevail.

IMO:

Pistols advantage is not stopping power but deployment speed and close in manuverability (at melee ranges).

It's faster to deply and can be utilized more effectively at close range.

Using the same ammo type a rifle is always more effective at range... and up close (but not at melee ranges) a shotgun is the best choice. At melee ranges a pistol is the only effective option (sawed off shotgun can arguably be used but they're a fairly exotic weapon) other than a good knife.

I'm not claiming to be an expert... these are my opinions based on a lot of years of shooting (my father is a collector. Pistols (up to 44 Mag/45 NSR power levels), shotguns (including a sawed off that my father has a federal license to own) and lots of different rifles.

And regarding System Shock 2... I remember playing it when it was released and IMO it's fatal flaw was timing. At that time first person shooters were still new and extremely HOT. Most hardcore gamers were totally into twitch... and the user interface for SS2 was as clunky feeling as a Yugo compared to a Ferrari.

I never gave the game a chance, and (after I returned the game) actually wrote a letter to the authors telling them to fix the control scheme and maybe they'd have something.

These days I've learned that a lot of weird control schemes work just fine if you give them a chance... but back then we were all pretty smitten with the level of immersion that mouse/kb control gave you in a FPS environment.

Exactly.

The only shooter I've seen that emulates this reasonably is Medal of Honor. Nobody in this game uses a pistol when they have a loaded rifle handy. (Except maybe snipers on the move)

Pistols are most effective at arms reach, anything beyond that is longarm territory.

On Desu Ex and SS2:

SS2 is a great game. Was it better than Deus Ex? I'd say they are about equal. Both are similar in approach (armed conflict isn't the focus, the story is) and both did it approximately as well.

I loved SS and SS2 for the atmosphere, but the artificial restrictions on ammo and equipment and the unrestrained spawning annoyed me at times. It's easy to get stuck in the endgame without ammo.

Deus Ex had a great story and the graphics were good for the time. Things that annoyed me were the "tickle me elmo guns" (needing to upgrade a weapon to make it useful was just a plain DUMB idea) and the railroading they had to do to keep the game manageable. The cybermodification angle was interesting and I actually thought they did a good job with it. I enjoyed this game a lot, but it just felt unfinished to me.

SS2 felt a lot more polished to me.

Ditto. However there was an annoying aspect to Dues Ex's aiming system that kinda seemed dumb to me. The time based accuracy parameter. It's like: "I'm a super nano-augmented special agent that breezed through all my combat and technical training classes. Please stand still for 5 seconds so i can shoot you..." I know it's trying to simulate realism, but it just didn't work out well IMO. On my second run through, i actually cheated my stats up to what i thought were "acceptable" figures from the start and ignored the skill point bonuses. SS2's system (bullets go where you want them to and damage is calculated) was much better.