Re: Marksmanship

>On 13-Jul-99 at 11:20, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (schoon@aimnet.com)
wrote:
>> >"I know several guys who can shoot tacks
>> >off of targets at 50m. Hitting a man sized target out to 400m isn't
>> >that hard"
>> >
>> >Yes, but the tacks rarely, if ever, shoot back -- which makes all
the
>> >difference in the world.
>>
>> Tacks also don't move, nor do they have the annoying habbit of hiding
from
>> you ;-)
>
>Tacks are easy, I could (back when I was hunting) have done the 50m
tack
>thing and nobody would have been terribly impressed.  The fact that I
>was about 50% on a running squirrel at 15-20meters was impressive, if
>that gives you a shooting indication.	400 meters if they know you are
>there would make it extremely difficult to hit anything even if they
>weren't shooting back.
>
>Roger Books

Exactly. The short ranges in FMA are quite deliberate, to a) reflect a
lot
of the things that have already been mentioned on this thread and b)
more
importantly, to make the game WORK. "Realistically" long ranges (ie,
from
ideal firing range data) are a pain when you are trying to balance a
game
of skirmish fire-and-movement, so I kept them down to what seemed to fit
the game situation - fast-moving street fights with a lot of stress,
confusion and the bad guys firing back at you. I think I remember
reading
somewhere that most US Police shootouts happen at something like five
metres range or less.
Of course, almost ANY of the weapons in FMA (even some of the pistols!)
can
theoretically get a bullet from one side of the table to the other, if
not
a good deal further than that - but this simply doesn't work well as a
game.

Jon (GZG)