first person shooters as a training aid

[Andrew Wyatt]

I've lately given a lot of thought towards the use of first person shooter videogames as somewhat useful force on force and team tactics simulators.

my question is this:

Would an FPS designed expressly as a training aid be something that TFL people would be interested in?

 

[M4A3]

Shure, I love FPSers

Ghost recon
Half life Day of Defete MOD. Now I cant remember the last one I was going to say was...

But training for what? Like fun or....

 

[MitchSchaft]

Operation Flashpoint only!

 

[Andrewh]

I am not fond of fps that are joystick or keyboard controled. The fps that use a light gun seem to do more for me.
Both require hand eye coordination, but I find reaction times too slow with the keyboard and mouse/joystick type games. But then you run into the tactics problem.
The fps's that use joystick keyboard controls are more apted to let you try sneaking around rather than on a mapped course of fire. Too bad someone can't combine the two.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

But training for what? Like fun or....

training as in serious tactical stuff. I know an FPS simulator wouldn't be a substitute for actually going out and training, but a simulator wuld allow a person to use oherwise not useful for training time for training.

 

[MitchSchaft]

the Marine Corps uses a version of Operation Flashpoint for their training.

 

[spacemanspiff]

well, yeah, if i'll ever need to use my mouse button and index finger on a keyboard in a 'tactical situation', i guess some practice would be nice.

i play fps' only for entertainment, not training. and right now i only focus on moh: allied assault for entertainment.

p.s. if any other tfl'ers play moh and have their own multiplayer servers, pm me, i'd like to play against some real competition sometime.

 

[M4A3]

Operation Flashpoint

Thats the one I was trying to think of!!

Whare do I sign up?

 

[SamH]

SWAT3 is one that is pretty realistic. The theme is minimal use of force, rather than just blowing off bad guys.

A sequel, SWAT: Urban Justice, is coming up early next year with even more realism and interactive features.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Not to change the subject, but in SWAT2 and SWAT3, did you ever shoot your teammates to see what happens?

 

[MitchSchaft]

If you want competition for OpFlash, holler at us. www.1-8th.com

 

[SamH]

HKmp5sd,

Yep. It happens very occasionally. First shot, they leave you alone and sometimes tell you to watch your fire. Second shot, if you don't kill anyone, they tell you to watch your fire. But if you kill someone second shot, they'll shoot back.

It also depends on the situation. At the beginning of the mission, or in non-critical situations, they're more forgiving for blue-on-blue. But if you're in the middle of a firefight, and you go blue-on-blue, things get ugly for you.
Each AI officer and tango are effected by various emotional variables during the game. Aggression and stress, I think, are the two variables that fluctate depending on the situation at hand. Contacts with tangos increase aggression and stress and cause AI officers to react more drastically to blue-on-blue. Not totally realistic, but pretty close.

Imagine shooting it out with some perps when your team-mate shoots you. Not once but twice or three times.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

now that we've established that there is indeed some interest in such a beast, what features would TFL-ers like to see in one?

 

[Dangus]

I would like to see a couple things:

1) Realistic use of body armor. In games like Rainbow 6, guys in full bomb suits(level IV), often can be put down by a short burst of 10mm from a carbine. That's not realistic. That kind of armor would harldy be phased by even AP rounds from such a weapon. Granted it still COULD kill, going through seams, hitting the exact same spot repeatedly, etc., the chances of it doing so are low.

2) A realistic fatigue system, with a burst fatigue, and then a long-term fatigue system.

3) Aiming down the gunsights, and a fixed system of bringing the weapons to bear. The weight of the gun and the amount of armor should all directly control the maximum turn speed of the character. I see too many games where guys with 50 cal Barrett M82A1s spin 180 degrees instantly and make kill shots. Won't happen in real life.

4) Realistic differences between the weapons. Don't bother balancing guns out so that they all are equal in some way. Some guns are not equal to other guns.

5) More interesting scenarios. Be able to play everything from a bunch of terrorsts/freedom fighters holed up in the woods/mountains/jungles/desert/etc. to an elite CT squad hunting down Al Queda scumbags high in the cold Afghani mountains. Flashpoint does have some things to offer in this department, but the multiplayer system is horrendous, as are the system requirements for what it does. I would seriously suggest you try the Serious Engine, as is used in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. Though the game looks good, it doesn't even use the engine to half it's potential, so seriously check it out Not to mention it's one of the most seriously modifiable engines out there.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

I was actually pondering using the halflife engine, since it's available and something i'm relatively familiar with.

I should take a serious look at the serious sam engine (pun not intended)

I'd like to see bullet drop and deflection through barriers implemented, as well.

As of late i've meen taking issue with the weapons selection for some of the more popular games out there, like Counterstrike and rogue spear, which both feature the Desert eagle in use by Swat type troops, when there hasn't been a documented instance of anyone using such a thing in that role. it seems like every mod and it's grandmother has a desert eagle, a shotgun without a buttstock or a G11.

 

[Foxy]

I've kind of wondered about the light-gun type games as a potential training tool. There's one that came out just about a year ago in the arcades that has a sensor device that tracks your head's movement. Your character in the game runs up to an obstacle, and you can actually duck and lean around tables, columns, etc, or even look underneath a car and shoot at bad guy's legs to take them out. It's quite a quad workout.

Of course, it's not totally realistic.. unlimited ammunition in unlimited magazines, and 400 badguys per level.. you're a one man army!

 

[MrMurphy]

Foxy, I played that one, it's called Rescue 911? I think. Yeah, it's workout all right!


Counterstrike, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein are two favorites for entertainment with realistic weapons in use, tac-loads, grenades, cover etc all coming into play reasonably realistically, and emphasizing team tactics (a bunch of newbie loners on Counterstrike will get wiped out by 3 or 4 team-playing experienced-in-tactics guys, I've seen it happen time and time again, and been on both sides of that equation).

 

[wQuay]

How far do you think this could go? Do you really have the modelling and programming skills?

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

Not to the degree that I can do an entire mod of this complexity by myself, no.


I'd like to get some people together to at least look into making something along these lines. It'd be a good contribution to both the shooting and gaming communities.

 

[Dangus]

The Half-Life engine is old and sucky. Avoid it like the plague for anything that you want to turn out good. It's got a great SDK but that's about it. To put things in perspective, the maximum Half-Life map size is about 800 meters across on each axis, whereas Serious Engine can do 250 Kilometers on each axis, and with more RAM could easily do more. Download the demo and your jaw will drop when you enter the Valley of the Jaguar. You'll be like "Holy crap, I didn't know you could make an FPS with this kind of open terrain!" Then after you settle down a bit, remember that the game itself doesn't even really begin to stress what the engine is capable of.