Deep Dive into the Guns Overhaul!

TRANSLATIONS:

POLSKIE TŁUMACZENIE (Polish Version)

中文翻译 (Simplified Chinese Version)

Hello Patreon Supporters!

If you haven't seen our Devlog already, you should definitely watch it before reading this post. Today we're going to give you all the details and clear up some common misconceptions regarding the weapons overhaul.

New weapons

Currently in SCP: Secret Laboratory we have 6 weapons: 2 pistols, 2 SMGs, and 2 full-size guns. In the rework, we’d like to introduce some new weapons and remove/modify the old ones. We’re going to have 9 firearms in total. All of these weapons (with only one small exception) will have new models, sounds, animations, and mechanics.

Project 90 — will be removed. Cadets will have a different gun.

MP7 — will be completely renovated, and will have a different name due to legal reasons. It remains in the Guards’ hands.

COM-15 — is going to be based on a different pistol model (SR9c, to be precise). Its purpose remains the same, leaving the gun relatively harmless and gives a way to bully unarmed enemies in LCZ.

USP —  it will be nerfed to a proper sidearm, with fast draw time and better stats than COM-15. Its name will be changed to COM-18, due to legal reasons. Mechanics, animations, and sounds get renovated, but the model and textures will remain mostly unchanged.

MTF-E11-SR — will be based on a different AR-style rifle.

Crossvec — inspired by Kriss Vector — the replacement for Project 90.

AK — new weapon for the CI. We still haven’t chosen the model but it’ll most likely be based on Beryl Wz 96 or AK-12.

Shotgun — another weapon for the new CI subclass. A model hasn’t been chosen yet as we would like to test the mechanics and see which model would fit the game best.

.44 Revolver — a new handgun inspired by S&W Model 500. This will serve as the sidearm for the CI-shotgunners. It will be very powerful but with a limited ammo capacity.

Logicer — is going to be based on a different machine gun, most likely HK MG5. It will receive a huge buff to its stats.

Chaos Insurgency Subclasses

In this update we’d like to introduce new subclasses for the Chaos Insurgency. Unlike the Nine-Tailed Fox, we aren’t going to have one commander, a fixed number of sub-commanders, and an undefined number of soldiers. We’re still planning to have 3 subclasses, but they will all be the same rank, and the number of people spawning as a certain class will be determined by a percentage, not a fixed number. If that sounds confusing, don’t worry, just keep reading. The Chaos Insurgency can get the following setups:

• Setup 1: AK, Combat Armor, Painkillers, Access Device
  
• Setup 2: Shotgun, Revolver, Combat Armor, Medkit, Access Device
  
• Setup 3: Logicer, Heavy Armor, Medkit, Access Device

Upon respawn, people are given setups based on the values in this table:

Body Armor

All classes would have exactly 100 HP and body armor will reduce the damage received from bullets and explosions. It won’t save the players from SCPs, falling, or any other sources of damage. Armor always takes one slot in the inventory, even if it consists of multiple elements (for example, vest + helmet are considered to be a single item). Since many tactical vests are equipped with special pockets for magazines, wearing armor in-game could increase the limit of ammunition and grenades. That means all humans, without body armor, will have the same limit of grenades and ammo, no matter what class they play. When armor is dropped, all the ammunition/grenades exceeding the limit are dropped as well.

Wearing armor can reduce the movement speed and/or increase stamina usage but this effect shouldn’t be too intense (at least for military classes). Players won’t be punished too harshly for wearing armor, as the slot it takes up in the inventory is enough to discourage some players from using it. Armor can be dropped on the ground by right-clicking its icon in the inventory. Armor will also drop automatically when someone dies or gets disarmed. The dropped armor can be picked up by any other player, giving them the same benefits as those who wore it previously. If this feature happens to affect the gameplay negatively, we will increase the stamina usage or reduce the movement speed for the civilian classes only. This will simulate the fact that they aren’t used to wearing armor. Changing these two values allows us to control how likely civilian-class players are to use the armor.

Unlike many other games, armor won’t deteriorate, and its efficacy will not be affected by any damage it has already “absorbed”. At this point we aren’t able to tell if the body armor will be displayed on player models, as the current character models may not facilitate that task.

We’re going to have three armor items. The values below are merely to visualize differences, please do not treat them as anything final.

• Guard Armor: Used by Facility Guards. The efficacy of the armor for body damage is 40%, and 45% for headshots.
  
• Combat Armor: Used by nearly all MTF and C.I. classes. The efficacy of the armor for body damage is 65%, and 80% for headshots.
  
• Heavy Armor: Used by MTF Commanders and C.I. machine gunners. The efficacy of the armor for both body and headshots is 80%.

Please note that these percentages are inflated because they are dependent on the bullet-penetration mechanic. Even the least powerful weapons can penetrate about 50% of the body armor, meaning its damage reduction drops by half. The “actual damage reduction” can be calculated using this formula:

x = a(100% - p), where:
x — percentage by which the damage will be reduced
a — armor efficacy
p — bullet penetration

For example, bullet penetration for SMGs and pistols is between 40-60%, while rifle and LMG bullets penetrate up to 80-95%. Just for visualization purposes, let’s consider a scenario where all weapons deal exactly 20 damage and they only differ in penetration capabilities. If you’re attacking an unarmored enemy, the body damage is always 20 [the result of our formula gives 0% damage reduction (0%(100% - x) = 0%)]. However, if the enemy is wearing Heavy Armor (which has 80% effectiveness) an SMG or a pistol would only deal 12 HP, while rifles would deal 16.8 HP. To kill someone, you’d need 9 shots from the SMG, as opposed to only 6 shots from the rifle. Remember that they deal the same base damage — the only difference is their armor penetration capability. Here are some calculations, if you still don’t know how it works:

SMGs damage reduction (assuming 50% penetration)
80%(100%-50%) = 80% * 50% = 40%
20 - 40% = 12

Rifle damage reduction (assuming 80% penetration)
80%(100%-80%) = 80% * 20% = 16%
20 - 8% = 16.8

Calculating headshot damage is exactly the same, but the result is multiplied by 3.5 (headshot multiplier equals 350% of the body damage).

Again, the numbers in this example are purely for visualization purposes. The damage will be different for each weapon (they won’t all deal 20 HP).

New Mechanics

We’re changing nearly all weapon mechanics. This section is pretty much a list describing all the elements we’re going to change.

More attachments — we’re introducing stocks, grips, and different magazine types. They will be able to change the weapon draw time, accuracy, and even stamina usage (in extreme situations). Foundation guns can be adjusted at workstations, or while spectating. Chaos Insurgency guns can only be changed while spectating. We want unmodified weapons to be just as powerful and universal, in their own way. Attachments can boost certain stats but always come with downsides. In other words, attachments let you make your gun more task-specific and adapted to your style of gameplay but leaving your weapon without any attachments won’t be a bad decision either.

Inaccuracy — (the effect that causes bullets to fly in random directions, which causes the current Logicer to be super ineffective at long distances) will now play a more important role. Standing still and aiming down the sights guarantees the best results; while running, jumping, and sprinting makes the weapon unpredictable. This also depends on the weight of the weapon. Long, heavy firearms, such as Logicer or rifles with heavy attachments, become very ineffective unless you remain stationary. SMGs and lighter rifle setups are more forgivable but only at short distances.

Recoil patterns — will be introduced. Bullets will still land where you’re aiming, but the camera “kick” will follow a predefined movement path. This is something which you can learn to get better at (i.e. “Rust/COD style”, not “Counter-Strike style”).

Hitscan — will remain, which means bullets don’t have a simulated, physical form. Instead they travel with lightspeeds. We’re going to experiment with a penetration system of thin surfaces, but nothing has been finalised, and we aren’t sure if that’s really what we’re looking for in our game.

Ammo Counters — while unrealistic, will still be used. There will be no fixed GUI element that tells you how much ammo you have left (unless you open your inventory).

Weapon Manager Tablets — we’ve decided that workstations will no longer require them. We’re also planning to move the “drop ammo” feature as a button in the inventory. This renders the tablets relatively useless. Considering that body armor occupies an inventory slot, tablets would most likely be dropped by an even bigger number of players. If we decide what to do about SCP-079 generators, tablets will be removed.

Reloading — the process is going to be more complex, as it will respect the fact of having a bullet in the chamber. Each weapon will get a few reload animations, for diversity.

Ammo

Due to new weapons being added to the game, we need to have more than just three different ammo cartridges in the game. Because new weapon types are now a thing, we’re forced to add more than just three different ammo cartridges to the game. Currently, in Secret Lab, we have 9mm (for pistols and Project 90), 5.56 (for MTF-E11-SR), and 7.62 (for Logicer and MP7). We’ve decided to standardize the matter, and have the Chaos Insurgency use completely different cartridges than the ones found in the facility.

The Foundation weapons will use:
- 5.56x45 mm (MTF-E11-SR)
- 9x19 mm (pistols and SMGs)

The Chaos Insurgency will use:
- 7.62x39 mm (AK and Logicer)
- .44 Mag (Revolver)
- 12ga (Shotgun).

In addition, we are adding different bullet types, which differ in penetration and damage:

Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) — considered the universal type and is default for most weapons. It has average penetration and damage, and will serve well against all enemies.

Armor Piercing (AP) — has higher penetration than FMJ. The base damage is the same, but it’s usually balanced by having fewer bullets in one magazine.

Jacketed Hollow-Point (JHP) — bullets which, in real life, expand their diameter upon impact. This causes more damage to internal organs, but has less penetration. In the game, they will perform much better against unarmored enemies, but slightly worse if the enemies wear body armor.

To simplify things, we’ve decided that bullet type will be considered as a weapon attachment, dependent on the selected magazine. If, for example, you have two different MTF rifles, one using AP- and the other FMJ bullet types. Once you reload, they will both be filled from a collective “5.56x45 reserve ammo”, meaning that bullets “become” a specific type the moment they are loaded into the gun.

Weapon Types

Currently, in Secret Lab, all automatic weapons behave the same — shooting SMGs and rifles feel exactly the same. We want those differences to be more prominent in this rework.

Handguns are meant to be used as secondary weapons, in case you can’t find anything better, or your main weapon runs out of ammo, or becomes otherwise ineffective in a given situation. They all share two main disadvantages. One being the lack of sustained fire, and the other, low ammo capacity. These make them very ineffective against SCPs.

COM-15 (9x19 mm) is considered the worst weapon in the game. It spawns in a random location in the Light Containment Zone and is used to spice up the early-game interactions between Class-D and Scientists. It only has three attachments; i.e. an extended magazine, a suppressor, and a flashlight. These attachments are only there to add variety to each round, as we don’t expect people to deliberately change them mid-game. That results in about 8 unique attachment combinations.

COM-18 (9x19 mm) gets a huge nerf, but it is still more combat-suited than COM-15. While damage-wise these pistols are similar; increased rate of fire, magazine size, and superfast draw time makes this gun a good choice for a secondary weapon. The number of attachments does not change. They will still have a heavy barrel, suppressor, dot sight, and a flashlight. A laser sight might still be added. That gives 12-18 unique attachment combinations.

Revolver (.44 Mag) is used by Chaos Insurgency shotgunners to kill enemies at greater distances. It's also quite configurable — apart from a few sights you can mount, you can also choose between three different barrel lengths. Longer barrels increase damage and accuracy but prolong the draw time (meaning it takes longer to equip the weapon from the inventory, which makes the revolver less effective as a sidearm to the shotgun). You can also install a proper buttstock, which replaces the pistol grip. This increases draw time, but reduces recoil and improves accuracy when aiming down the sights, however, it worsens the accuracy when you aren't stationary or trying to hip-fire it. Furthermore, you can choose between three different cylinders. Either having 4, 6 or 8 chambers. The 6-shot cylinder is the default, 4-shot is filled with armor piercing bullets, and the 8-shot cylinder has a longer trigger pull. The "trigger pull" effect is present for all three cylinders. This is a delay between clicking the left mouse button and the gun actually firing. Although, there will be an option to cock the hammer, which removes the delay completely. Installing the shorter barrel, keeping iron sights, and pistol grip, will give you the best results for a sidearm with ability to nearly immediately pull out the gun when it’s needed. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you would have the sniper scope, long barrel, buttstock and the armor-piercing bullets. This turns the revolver into a proper one-headshot-one-kill rifle with a similar purpose to the current USP with the heavy barrel. In this scenario the revolver is extremely powerful but it has only four bullets. This doesn’t just require a lot of skill to effectively operate but also leads to extended drawing time, rendering the revolver completely useless as a sidearm and leaving the “shotgun-revolver combo” less effective. In reality, your favorite setup would be somewhere between these two extremes, one of over 50 unique combinations.

SMGs are weaker than proper rifles in terms of damage, accuracy, and penetration but their compact size allows fast draw times and allows somewhat accurate shots, even when running. They also produce low recoil and high fire rate. In other words, SMGs do a good job in killing enemies and damaging SCPs in nearly all situations. It gets tricky when fighting against armored opponents, especially if they are in possession of proper rifles, but even then, the high mobility of SMGs can be used to your advantage in shortening the distance and rushing the target.

MP7 (9x19 mm) is used by Guards. It’s generally good on medium distances when fighting against unarmed enemies. However, the low ammo capacity decreases its efficacy against SCPs. It has a retractable stock and a foregrip, which both help in recoil control and accuracy but increase the draw time. Other than that, MP7 gets a suppressor, muzzle brake, red dot sight, holographic sight, flashlight, laser sight, and the ammo counter. That gives over 100 unique configurations of attachments.

Crossvec (9x19 mm) is used by Cadets. It is better than MP7 in nearly every way. The higher magazine size and damage makes it nearly as effective against SCPs as proper rifles. It also has a foldable stock, 4 barrels (standard, suppressed, muzzle brake, and extended), 4 rail-mounted options (none, flashlight, laser, and foregrip) and 5 sight options (iron, red dot, holo, night vision, and a new type of sight with integrated ammo counter). That’s 160 possible combinations of attachments.

Rifles are characterized by high precision, penetration, and base damage. This makes them the weapon of choice when fighting at long distances, against armored enemies, and most SCPs. They have the highest number of possible attachments, with many configurations that drastically affect how the weapon behaves. While capable of continued fire, shooting more than a dozen or so rounds will have an impact on accuracy and recoil control, rendering them only effective on very short distances (such as, when fighting SCPs). The first few rounds, however, are very accurate. The rifles are meant to be used in short bursts when fighting at a distance.

MTF-E11-SR (5.56x45 mm) is the weapon of higher ranks in Nine-Tailed Fox. It’s the most versatile weapon, with nearly four thousand unique attachment configurations. Therefore, it’s hard to specify what this weapon’s purpose is. It is purely dependent on what the owner wants it to become. There are 7 barrel options (standard, extended, lightweight, suppressor, muzzle brake, muzzle booster, and flash hider), 5 sight options (iron, red dot, holo, night vision, and sniper), 3 for bottom rail (none, laser, and foregrip), 3 for side rail (none, flashlight, and ammo counter), 3 different stocks (standard, lightweight, and recoil-absorbing) and 4 magazines (40x FMJ, 30x AP, 40x JHP, and 65x FMJ in a drum magazine).

AK (7.62x39 mm) is the main weapon of the Chaos Insurgency. It provides higher damage and penetration per shot, but fewer attachments and no option to change them mid-game. This makes this particular rifle less configurable than its “blue equivalent”. It also has slightly lower fire rate but it makes the recoil easier to control. 5 barrel options (standard, extended, suppressor, muzzle booster, and muzzle brake), 4 sights (iron, ammo counting, holographic, and sniper), 4 rail-mounted options (none, laser, foregrip, and flashlight), 3 stocks (standard, lightweight, and folded), 4 magazines (AP and JHP, both available in regular (x30) and drum (x55) variants) Leaving you with nearly a thousand unique combinations.

The Logicer will become much more accurate and powerful. It’s going to be a rather exotic weapon, as only 1-2 instances spawn every typical C.I. wave. Logicer has the highest fire rate amongst all the automatic firearms. A number of attachments, and the ability to aim down the sights, makes the Logicer way more accurate than is currently the case. The real downside of this weapon is its weight. When held, stamina usage is increased and movement speed is slightly reduced. As an outcome, efficacy against SCPs is naturally reduced, as you can’t effectively run and shoot. The Logicer is only effective when the shooter is stationary. Any movement will significantly increase the bullet spread, rendering this weapon very inaccurate. The Logicer can maintain a continued fire, which remains accurate and easy to control, unlike the rifles. It’s not particularly configurable as it only has 64 unique combinations. These combinations are determined by: 4 barrel options (standard barrel, light barrel, flash hider, and muzzle brake), 4 sights (iron, red dot, night vision, and ammo counting) and 4 rail-mounted options (none, laser, foregrip, and flashlight).

The Shotgun is still a very big mystery, even to ourselves. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to provide any meaningful details, but we definitely want such a weapon to be in the game. We’ll need to perform multiple tests with prototypes, so we can decide which real-life model fits SCP: Secret Laboratory best. Balancing is definitely going to be a difficult process but we’ve decided that the shotgun will always shoot buckshots, with no other ammo types (no slugs — the revolver is for long ranges). We’ll start our prototyping process with a double-barreled, pump-action shotgun, such as DP-12. Having two rounds per one pumping action may be an interesting mechanic.

Hopefully, this table can help you visualize which weapon types are best suited for each scenario. Please note that the rating is purely symbolical. It’s also highly dependent on the weapon attachments you use.

Q&A

We’ve made a Discord channel where you can post questions you’d like answered. Here is a short list of some of the questions that we have been able to answer.

Will weapons have more unique attachments instead of all sharing the same ones?
Nine-tailed Fox weapons (Crossvec and MTF-E11-SR) will share some attachments, because of standardization. The same rule applies to C.I. weapons. Other guns will have dedicated attachments.

Will the third person reloading look more realistic?
Depends on how much our character models allow us to animate them. We’ll try to figure out a way to track first-person animations onto the human characters but we can’t promise any good results.

Will MicroHID be getting changed?
It won’t, neither mechanically nor visually. It might get some slight balance or animations changes, though.

Will we have an animation for adding an attachment on a weapon?
No, attachments installment will remain immediate.

Will dead bodies have realistic bullet holes in them? Will people see where you aim instead of only head movement? Will you be able to see if someone has a gun in their inventory?
This requires character models to be reworked. Until such time, things will remain as they are.

Will any sort of magazines/shell casings be visible on the ground, even temporarily? Will there be any gun holes on walls, doors, gates, etc when we shoot on it?
Probably, yes.

Will we have an inspect option for the weapons just like in CSGO?
Yes.

Will the weapons not clip through walls and doors when we stand too close to them?
We experimented with that, with no satisfying results. Therefore, the answer is most likely no.

Does the weapon rework mean guards get a slight buff when they spawn or will they be left untouched? Will MTF be seeing changes similar to the CI, like letting cadets open gates, or removing the ranking system entirely?
That’s something that definitely needs addressing but we’d like to dedicate this particular update to weapons. Changing the balance of existing classes might be a good idea for a future update.  For now, we’ll limit ourselves to small balance changes only. If too many balance changes occur in one update, there is a huge risk of compromising the balance of the entire game, without being able to pinpoint the exact reason for this happening.

Are grenades and flashbangs getting changed at all?
Yes, we do want to do something about them but we aren’t sure what we are going to do, just as yet.

Will we be able to "melee attack" players with a weapon?
No, definitely not in this update. It might be a good feature for future updates.

Will 049-2 still take headshot and limb damage?
We haven’t decided yet but as things are standing the answer will probably be yes, considering that they are re-animated humans.

Will the previously sneak-peeked scopes be added as a part of this update?
What you saw was just a prototype, tested on the old weapon models, and will be redone for the new guns.