Reloading realism in shooters

[Blzer]

I was just wondering if it's realistic for the user to keep the amount of bullets remaining in the mag they unload from their weapon as they reload a new mag in. So, say for instance you have a gun with 30 rounds in it, and you have 200 rounds total. If you empty the clip and reload, you should have a new mag with 30 rounds and only 170 left now. Well, if you only empty half the clip, if you reload you will have a brand new 30 round mag with 185 rounds left.

Now, this would make sense if you went back to one of your old mags and had to use it up later, but this isn't the case if you do this multiple times (say you do 15 again later, by the time you're on your last mag you'll still have 30 rounds left, not two mags of 15 rounds). Is there something that I'm missing? Do they quickly fill their mags with more bullets without me noticing? Or is this just to help the user out so that they don't seemingly run out of the amount of bullets they feel they should have? I know this certainly helps me, because I reload all the time (so I never really fear running out, or have that stupid "reload" warning in my way).

My second question would just be... is it realistic to not only have that many mags available on your person (about seven or eight), but also to reload that quickly as well? I just don't know how long it takes to reload, so I didn't know if that was also to help out the gamer as well.

Thanks.

[goh]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

This should answer your re-load speed question:

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/n1drgmqqyuQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Blzer]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

This should answer your re-load speed question:

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/n1drgmqqyuQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ah, but remember this also slightly relates to my other question if you still have a mag with rounds left in it, because you don't just drop the mag and leave it be, or else you would automatically have 30 bullets less after reloading regardless of how many you had left prior to reloading. So in short, with these games you still "hold onto" that other mag somewhere on your person if there are still rounds in it.

[Burns11]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

Obviously they take some artistic license with the unused ammo when you reload, it's for simplicity. Taking ammo out of a magazine and loading another would be too laborious to do on a battlefield.

As for the reload speed, in my fairly limited experience with military grade arms it seems pretty accurate (if anything they are sometimes a little slow), there's a mag release and the magazine mostly will fall out on it's own. As far as magazine retention, I would assume you'll let those drop, not going to try and keep a spent magazine if you are being shot at (but the military could demand you do keep spent magazines, though I would hope not).

So, reload times are accurate, ammo counts are not. Seems like there have been games where a reload left you with partially spent magazines, but I can't recall specifics.

[Blzer]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

Thanks for the answer. I just wasn't sure if I was missing something with regard to keeping those mags that aren't completely emptied. I guess the user needs to be helped out somehow, but I didn't know if there were any games that were going to ignore that "artistic license" and try to keep it as real as possible.

[FlyRice]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

The only game that I remember where your player held on to partial magazines was SOCOM 1 on the PS2. If you had 5 magazines, shot 10 rounds and then reloaded 5 times, you would end back up on that first magazine with only 20 bullets.

[Krebstar]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

In love with it.

http://www.realitymod.com/

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/g3uZpVWCZts" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Blzer]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

The only game that I remember where your player held on to partial magazines was SOCOM 1 on the PS2. If you had 5 magazines, shot 10 rounds and then reloaded 5 times, you would end back up on that first magazine with only 20 bullets.

All other games do that exact thing as well, but what they might not do (you'll have to confirm whether or not this happens in SOCOM) is actually hold onto partial magazines. So while your example fits for that situation, did SOCOM do this? -- Shoot 10 rounds, reload, shoot 10 rounds, reload, empty the rest of your mags. In most games, you would now end up with a full mag, plus a mag with 10 bullets. In a "partial mag" situation, you should have two mags with 20 rounds each.

[FlyRice]

Re: Reloading realism in shooters

Yup, as far as I remember, in SOCOM you held on to your partial mags so that you're not always getting a full magazine on every reload. It would end up just like you described, with two partial mags. It was pretty neat. S4 doesn't do this however, it's just one big ammo "pool".