Three-Round Burst is Unrealistic

NWI has made the mistake that basically every fps shooter does when it comes to three-round burst: tapping the mouse button (trigger) causes all three rounds to fire off. This is NOT how most burst mechanisms work on the actual models.

I brought this up in the alpha too, but I see it hasn't been addressed. Given that Insurgency: Sandstorm seems to be making a better effort than most games at replicating the actual workings of the firearms included in the game, I would expect that the devs would go all the way.

Three-round burst is a modified version of automatic fire, not single fire. The trigger must be fully depressed for the duration of the three rounds in order for all three rounds to fire. A good example of this is in the M16 variants which contained 3-round burst (M16A2 and A4). The mechanism is called a Eugene Stoner 3-round burst, which basically consists of a rotating disk which catches the hammer. The disk contains 2 deep groves between 2 sets of 2 shallow grooves. If the trigger is continually depressed, it will cycle through the two shallow grooves and stop on the deeper groove.

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This means that merely tapping the trigger will fire off ONE round. If you were to depress the trigger for longer after that, it would fire the remaining TWO rounds and stop.

There are some exceptions to this, notably the AN-94 which fires a two round burst such that the second round is fired before the hammer even cycles back (called hyperburst).

I understand that implementing this in game might give some macro users some cheesing ability (after all you can click a mouse much faster than you can pull a trigger), but this can be compensated for by implementing a short "cool off" between trigger pulls of like 0.5 seconds or something.

Also I know it sounds nit-picky, but we're going for realism here, aren't we? The way three-round burst works in most fps games actually just doesn't make any sense if you look at how firearms actually operate.

last edited by thehappybub

i think there was game that actually did this type of mechanics for 3 round burst guns cant quite remember what game it was it could of been squad but i found the mechanics rather annoying.

last edited by Strawberrynim

Yea idk, I've never played a game that got it right. Never played squad.

Yaaaaass bro, I made a few posts about this myself, I'd like this implemented

So on the m16 if you let the trigger up early before the 3 round burst has completed then the next time you press you will only get a 2 round or 1 round burst depending on where the mechanism stopped. Loads of people would be complaining that they got cheated out of their 3 round burst. Nobody got time for dat!

last edited by gprologitech

@gprologitech People will complain about everything. It's just the way it is.

Making something unrealistic to appease the people you refer to is kind of dumb tbh. Three-round burst simply doesn't work the way it currently does. I don't even know how you would make a mechanism that fires 3 or 2 rounds by just the tap of a trigger.

And then there is the SCAR which does the 3 round burst properly and resets the mechanism each time. Nearly sure it is the SCAR, somebody can correct me if I am wrong.

I think you're right. Most H&K weapons reset back. Still though, if you tapped the trigger it would only fire one shot, the difference is that if you proceeded to hold down the trigger after that it would fire 3 shots because of the reset.

Yea I agree with you, Time spent on the click would determine how many fired but it would still reset properly to a new 3 round burst in the next click. Maybe not 100% accurate to IRL in regards to reset on the m16 but best compromise for game mechanics. That would be really nice if they could do that.

@thehappybub

This is one of those instances imho it could be practical to choose gameplay before realism. M16A4 and M4A1 both have a natural place in Insurgency 2014, but using the M16A4 in a CQB situation for me is a bit more viable against an akm when I use burst mode firing all three shots as I still have a chance against an equally skilled opponent.

The M16A4 would still be very useful at a distance with the more realistic mechanic you propose, and I have seen people being able to shot the M16A4 in single shot firemode getting a ROF similar to M4A1.

It might be a question of getting more practice on my behalf with such a change, but I had played a lot of hours before I found the M16A4 to be a reliable choice in different situations, and I was always depending on using the burst mode to have a fighting chance in CQB against smgs and other auto-fire weapons on insurgent side.

It is my favorite gun as it is, as you get that extra tension of needing to land your first burst round to take out an enemy who is aware. The suppression effect that sets in when the enemy starts firing with full auto will end the fight after that if I miss the first burst (in CQB). So I am just guessing it would be even less popular with a more realistic mechanic, as I don't notice too many people using it when they could use the M4A1 already.

@thehappybub said in Three-Round Burst is Unrealistic:

I don't even know how you would make a mechanism that fires 3 or 2 rounds by just the tap of a trigger.

You'd need a mechanism that disconnects the trigger bar until after the burst sear has fully run its course. It's a pretty scary prospect really: having a gun that'll just keep firing rounds until it decides its done without any option for the user to interrupt short of pulling the magazine.

I'd love to see the realistic behavior of the burst mechanism modeled. It'd be one of the few games to do it.

last edited by MAA_Bunny

@maa_bunny said in Three-Round Burst is Unrealistic:

It's a pretty scary prospect really

Yea lmao, imagine. If the burst was faster like in an AN 94 then it kind of makes sense, but most bursts are relatively slow.