Member
Mind you, I wouldn't recommend totally copying the carriage system from Escape from Tarkov.
Instead, when you buy a MOLLE magazine pouch, you get those magazines, and the game would assume that you empty the largest first. So if you have two ASR drum mag pouches and a 6-mag normal ASR mag pouch equipped, you would use the two drums first then start feeding the 30-rounds magazines. But you should also be able to get an IFAK, grenade pouches, and other such things, and the only things that are on the wheel are things easily accessible this way, plus a link to open your backpack (which takes longer and opens a new wheel). And as I said, there should be differently sized packs!
As I said, I would make vests 8-slot and harnesses 6-slot. The vest fronts have two nonadjacent slots high and four adjacent slots low, plus two nonadjacent on the back. The harness front has two nonadjacent slots high and two adjacent slots low plus two nonadjacent on the back. (Realistically, these should both probably have two more, but the assumption is that those slots are taken by Ghost gear like the knife, radio, and drone controller.) Some items would require two adjacent slots, like the 3- and 6-mag ASR pouches and the bag for an LMG can. Drum mag pouches take one slot. Single or double ASR mag, pistol mag or various grenade pouches also take one slot. So, yes, you can carry more ammo using two double ASR mag pouches than with the 3-mag ASR pouch in the same space, but the latter should have significantly less of a bulk penalty to stamina- it's advantage IRL is that it sits pretty flat.
For playability, it is assumed that the characters reholster their empty mags or use a virtual dump pouch. (I know that this isn't a fanatical milsim game, after all.) But I think that the game SHOULD track partially empty mags since tactical reloads are such a prominent thing, though again for playability the game just always assumes that when you reload that you reload whatever mag is remaining with the most rounds. Instead of a total round count the HUD should display remaining mags graphically, with some mechanism to very roughly show how partially empty a mag is. There should be a way to crossload mags, though it should take a while, kind of like bandaging. On a PS4 controller it might be a long hold of the square button, frex.
Some ideas for MOLLE pouches:
ASR single, double, triple, and 6-mag pouches (The triple and 6-slot pouches take two adjacent MOLLE slots)
ASR single and double extended mag pouches (for those 40-round AK mags and 40-round MAGPULs and similar)
ASR drum mag pouches
DMR single and double mag pouches
DMR single and double extended mag pouches.
SNR single and double mag pouches (I would separate DMR and SNR pouches, since presumably .50 cal SNRs are going to become available)
SNR single extended mag pouches.
SMG single, double, triple magazine pouches
SMG single and double extended mag pouches (for coffin mags and such)
SMG drum mag pouches
Pistol single, double, and triple mag pouches
Frag single and double pouches
Flashbang single and double pouches (separate from the frag pouch for playability reasons)
40mm single, double, and triple pouches
LMG standard and extended ammo pouches (The extended would require two adjacent MOLLE slots)
Single mine pouch.
IFAK (holds only a few syringes or bandages or other medical item. Limit four?) Pretty bulky.
Tactical pistol holster, which includes a single extra magazine pouch (representing a drop-leg holster if put on a pants slot but can also be on a vest or harness)
Concealable pistol holster (representing a concealed holster if put on a pants slot, but also attachable to a vest or harness, NO extra mag)
Bandage pouch (only holds a single bandage or syringe, like the old ALICE version)
Utility pouch (for holding almost anything, like binoculars or a couple of C4 charges, but NOT medical supplies)
Canteen pouch, holds a single canteen obviously
Hydration system? Maybe the two MOLLE slots on the back can accept a 2-slot hydration bladder that "holds" four canteens?
Larger magazine sizes present an issue, I guess, in that you would need an appropriate MOLLE pouch to have them but you probably want to START with the largest mag in the weapon. So, make it so that you always start with your largest available mag in the weapon. You sort of get a twofer with that first larger MOLLE mag pouch.
Presumably Nomad would start the game with a harness system, a tactical pistol holster, a bandage pouch, and some sort of small backpack with more bandages. MAYBE another pistol mag pouch of some sort. He would get his first rifle and other MOLLE pouches from those two Sentinels at the first bunker.
All pants have three "MOLLE" slots, too, though they are all separate, not adjacent. One is usually used for a pistol holster. When wearing a vest or harness the assumption is that pants belt slots are some sort of tactical gun belt, but when NOT wearing a vest or harness the assumption is that they are on the pants belt, so certain things can be concealed: the concealable pistol holster, pistol mag pouches, and a bandage pouch. Maybe even a grenade pouch?
Generally, the backpack slots should hold more items than the MOLLE slots. Including, if you left slots open, loot like more MOLLE pouches and clothing taken off of enemy corpses. A few slots should be adjacent vertically and could be capable of holding M72 LAWs or captured rifles and such. (When you quip a LAW from your pack, hitting "reload" returns it to the pack.) You should have to carry a looted weapon to your cache like this. Looted ammo should be of appropriate caliber to the weapon an enemy was carrying, and you should be able to carry extra ammo in pack slots. A very few weapons should be able to be stored in SINGLE pack slots, like pistols, the MP7, MP5K, and maybe KRIS and P90. MAYBE even the M320? This is so that you can carry them in tiny civilian Jansport bags for covert urban stealth missions in civilian clothes as I have described elsewhere. When your rig meets covert criteria there should be a message on the screen telling you so. Covert criteria include NO vest or harness and a civilian shirt, pants and backpack. Items carried in pants slots are limited to the concealable holster, pistol mag pouches, single bandage pouch, and maybe single or double grenade pouches. CERTAIN tactical gear might also apply but would have lower covert stealth ratings- things like some black or khaki tactical pants or small backpacks, since such things are popular among civilians, especially the survivalists so common on Auroa. (Nothing with kneepads though, frex, and NO clothing with a camo pattern.) Maybe the reflective vest (or a civilian jacket?) that you see on some industrial workers is available as a sort of "harness" with only two nonadjacent front slots to represent pockets that act like a utility pouch? Maybe they can also hold a single grenade or C4 charge or whatnot?
Ideally, it would be possible to infil tactically with all the civilian gear in your pack (including the civilian pack), then change clothes in the field and leave the tactical stuff in a little field gear cache. Maybe it could look like a green duffel bag? You could then return to the field cache on exfil and change back. But if you don't recover it inside a certain time limit, like a day or two, it is assumed to be discovered and you lose it. You also lose it if an enemy actually does spot it, like if you were stupid enough to leave it on a trail, and maybe if Wolves spot it they are smart enough to set an ambush near it! Imagine going back to your field cache and finding prone hard-to-spot Wolves waiting for you. So, you have the option of just abandoning the cache (which would give you a use for all that "un-kewl" gear you pick up). Field caches could also be a method to swap gear among team mates- drop stuff into a cache and your buddy opens it and take sit. You should have a limit of TWO field caches at any given time, so that one can be used to swap gear and the other can be an actual field cache for the covert missions.
You should have a MAIN cache that is available at any bivouac or shop in which to keep gear, instead of the sort of infinite virtual cache there is now. It should be pretty big, though larger and larger ones might be a perk in the skill tree. The cache has slots to hold all the stuff a player might want to hang on to- equipment in various camo patterns, MOLLE pouches, weapons, etc. Rifles and rocket launchers take two vertically adjacent slots, etc. I might even propose that VEHICLES be stored in special 6-adjacent-slots in the cache (Or 3-vertically-adjacent slots for motorcycles.) And yes you should be able to mass-select stuff to scrap or sell. Personally, I would actually prefer separate caches at every bivouac site, but I doubt that the devs would go for that.
I think that all of this would allow people to indulge their gear fetishism by optimizing a rig that they like without bogging down in milsim detail too much (like with the mags in Escape from Tarkov).
Member
Mind you, accessories and their buffs could still be leveled! For instance, consider:
Pistol Beveled Mag Well 1
Pistol Beveled Mag Well 2
Pistol Beveled Mag Well 3
ASR Beveled Mag Well 1
ASR Beveled Mag Well 2
ASR Beveled Mag Well 3
Etc.
With each higher iteration representing better products, with better buffs to reload speed.
Magazine pouches could be similar, with the level 1 being snap-closure offering no benefit, level 2 being Velcro and having a small reload speed buff, and level 3 being one of the friction methods with a pretty decent reload speed buff. That makes for one heck of a lot of possible MOLLE pouches, for all of which Ubi could be selling camo pattern changes to the poseurs who don't like the more common black, green, or brown examples every time they find one of higher level.
This trend could continue:
DMR Muzzle Brake 1
DMR Muzzle Brake 2
DMR Muzzle Brake 3
...with better recoil buffs at higher levels.
The gear fetishism/fanboyism seems to attach to certain brands or models. The guns, of course. But it looks like specific makes and models of muzzle brake are in the game, as are specific makes and model of vertical foregrips, etc. (But not others, like mag wells.) I'd be willing to bet that there are IP and licensing issues, there, and that Ubi doesn't want to give one company's products significantly better buffs than another's. So, this could be randomized for the sake of brand fairness, so that any of the different models could potentially have any level of buff. Maybe there could be significant differences in situations where no one could really possibly complain.
I truly fail to see how a system like the one I present in these last three posts is anything other than a Very Good Thing for Ubi. The loot-and-shoot fans just look at all of this equipment as the nerfs and buffs that they get, but it still MAKES SENSE to the more simulationist players, so Ubi potentially gains them as customers. Granted, the emphasis transfers from finding the new and special next weapon that has tons of buffs, to finding all of the ACCESSORIES that have the buffs you want, but that's ok. It also has the potential for microtransactions that can be done in a way that doesn't piss off the hardcore gamers, as I have described.
The system does NOT have to be highly realistic, but it does have to MAKE SENSE and be a bit intuitive. Having a beveled magazine well that can be swapped between different models of pistol is highly unrealistic, but the way that the buffs are attached to an appropriate accessory is intuitive.
Other than the fact that camo patterns do potentially allow slightly better stealth buffs in the terrain for which they are optimized, this is all in NO WAY pay-to-win, and as I mentioned the kewl camo patterned gear would still be available in-game, just rare to varying degrees. And black/green/brown/civilian would be very common. And realistically camo patterns don't matter at all in PvP, so there should be no whining about that.
Mixed colors could be possible patterns, too, like a black vest with green MOLLE webbing as on that fellow standing on the right side of your screen.
Member
I guess that the best way to make armor work without rewriting the whole system would be as damage resistance buffs.
First, there should be plate carriers that are the MOLLE equivalent of a harness, 6 slots.
Then, there are kevlar (or whatever ballistic fiber you prefer) tactical vests that are the MOLLE equivalent of a tactical vest, 8 slots, and also accept plates.
So, the kevlar alone (if applicable) adds a small buff. Ideally, it would be decent vs. pistol rounds and shotguns, and also explosion fragments, but poor for everything else. But both of these also accept plates, which give more buff and are better against rifle rounds but only buff very slightly vs explosion fragments. So that's another opportunity for leveled buffs. Have steel, ceramic, and HDPE plates, each of increasing thickness/weight/effectiveness. Heck, the kevlar part could be leveled, too.
Kevlar Tactical Vest Mk.1
Kevlar Tactical Vest Mk. 2
Kevlar Tactical Vest Mk.3
Light Steel Plate Mk.1
Medium Steel Plate Mk.1
Heavy Steel Plate Mk.1
Light Steel Plate Mk.2
Medium Steel Plate Mk.2
Heavy Steel Plate Mk.2
Light Steel Plate Mk.3
Medium Steel Plate Mk.3
Heavy Steel Plate Mk.3
Light Ceramic Plate Mk.1
Medium Ceramic Plate Mk.1
Heavy Ceramic Plate Mk.1
Light Ceramic Plate Mk.2
Medium Ceramic Plate Mk.2
Heavy Ceramic Plate Mk.2
Light Ceramic Plate Mk.3
Medium Ceramic Plate Mk.3
Heavy Ceramic Plate Mk.3
Light HDPE Plate Mk.1
Medium HDPE Plate Mk.1
Heavy HDPE Plate Mk.1
Light HDPE Plate Mk.2
Medium HDPE Plate Mk.2
Heavy HDPE Plate Mk.2
Light HDPE Plate Mk.3
Medium HDPE Plate Mk.3
Heavy HDPE Plate Mk.3
That's an awful lot of room for varying buffs and optimization! And remember, the heavier plates (steel>ceramic>HDPE and 3>2>1) have more of a stamina and agility nerf! It gets REALLY ridiculous if you track front and back plates separately, and then you can add side plates! And maybe some plate carriers or vests are inferior in that they lack side plate slots?
Helmets could work very similarly. And ballistic facemasks are a thing, too.
Realistically, I'm not sure that ANY combination of kevlar and plate should be proof against a .50 cal sniper rifle. I'm less sure about .338. Does the game reduce damage at extreme ranges?
There might also be concealable kevlar vests that DON'T accept plates, to go with the civilian covert stealth system I described elsewhere, as well as nonconcealable kevlar-with-no-plates vests like the old PASGT stuff. Maybe the latter is common among Sentinels, or they just wear the kevlar tactical vests without the plates, and randomize a few to actually have some cheap plates after all. Etc. The Wolves would be more dangerous because, among other reasons, they have better armor.
In an ideal system the rough positions of all of these would be tracked, so that if you hit the plate it would probably result in no damage, etc. This would lead to real-world tactics, like shooting people in the armpit, face, legs, etc. (At the risk of sounding like a broken record, like in Escape from Tarkov.) But it's probably too late to rework the system that much at this point. So, buffs it is.
Or, maybe not. The game clearly already tracks head shots on the Heavies as a separate body region. So, add tracking Torso and UnderPlates regions as well. I'm most definitely NOT a game developer or programmer, so I'm not sure how difficult this would all be.
