[DFBHD] Baldo's New M60 Sight

[Baldo_the_Don]

Forgotten Weapons put out a video about the Colt 4x scope that Brownells is reproducing, and I wanted one on a weapon in the SFOD mod I like to experiment in.

I optimized this for the CAR-15/M203 at 2x auto and 4x semi. The reticle is a fine duplex crosshair, I arbitrarily made the thin center 20 mrads wide and high. It's not meant to be illuminated, but I might fake a laser on it later.

The elevation is adjustable from 100m to 500m, although the real one is in yards.

I think it looks pretty good.







Edit: I did try putting a laser/red dot looking thing behind the crosshair, like you might see in an Insurgency Sandstorm video, but I really didn't like it. Something like that would be great in a dimly lit short-range situation, but it obscures mid- and long-range targets, and I can't abide that.

I'll assume you all know how the laser sight looks on the rocket launcher in Half-Life and the Eagle in Opposing Force, like an actual laser from the center of your screen that's not visible 'til it hits something, so it changes size from a tiny speck at the other end of the map to a view-filling glare on the geometry in front of you. Far as I know, you can't do anything that in a NovaLogic game, but it'd be neat. The weapon.def has a flag called 'laserbeam' on the Mk23s and the M4s, but it does nothing obvious.

I'm all shrugs about, it, honestly.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I saw this short and thought the reticle was kind of neat, googled around, found out it's sort of from the scope on an Arisaka Type 99, got this image for reference, traced the reticle, popped it on the Dragunov, confirmed it was almost perfectly scaled for 6x magnification, tweaked the windages to fit 6x, edited a new ammo.def entry for ammo_type99_77mm at 204 grains with 755 velocity and 0.325 drag, which got the drops close enough, then edited the targa to lock them in.

All the POAs are are a pixel lower than the POIs, at the most.

The reference image made it clear that the reticle is high in the scope. Most of the images I found of this reticle are like that. My testing on the reference image showed that the 500m hash is closest to the scope view center, but I feel like the rangefinder beam would be easier to use if I mounted the targa centered on the 600m hash and locked the elevation at 600m.

I did make a non-illuminated version of the Type 99 reticle, but I really like it in amber. Fine-line reticles in red contrast better on bright backgrounds, but feel too muted against dim ones. Fine green reticles seem too bright all around. Amber isn't perfect, just a decent compromise.

The real Type 99 should be 2.5x or 4x, but I like the detail at 6x, so I won't tell, if you don't.

Range testing with active weapon operating parameters (recoil 37 53 75, error 0.147 0.384 1.000 0.008 0.022 0.057) I get consistent single-shot hits on a 20cm² target out to 600m, then I need two or three rounds to hit a 20cm² target between 700m and 900m, and I might need a whole ten-round magazine to hit the 20cm² target at 1000m.

So I feel no explicable need to be unsatisfied with this one. I might still be unsatisfied with it, but I'm beginning suspect that's a me-problem, not a reticle problem.

//////////////////<- Fake Horizontal Line ->\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Edit: I couldn't get used to holding the 600m POA on a target to find range. It isn't intuitive. And the hitmarker flashing so low is easier to miss than I like. I recentered the reticle at the 300m POA, locked the elevation at 300m, and I'm hoping that finding range at the cross of the vertical and horizon will feel better.

I also reverted to the plain black version of the reticle, and we'll see how well I deal with that.

Please note that the fence posts left and right of the 300m target are 50 milliradians apart, centered on the 300m target, and the images demonstrate how precisely I subtended the horizon.

///////////////////<- Expected Next Edit ->\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Edit Again: Noticed discrepancies in the drops. Checked the targa against the reference image and realized that I had edited the tracing for CS:CZDS, not the SFOD. The reference image is at the perfect scale for 6x mag. in the SFOD. I reverted the drops back to the reference image positions and staked more pain into tweaking the drag. Got the drag to where the 1000m POA and POI locked (0.345 at velocity 755), then moved the other drops one to four pixels to their best positions.

This reticle is about as good as it gets, now.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Googling around for the one reticle or the other crosshair, something intriguing will come up, and I'll make an attempt. Such as:







The scope designation is the ZFM 6x42 Z. The reticle is from Swarovski. The scope manufacturer might actually be Swarovski, but I haven't confirmed that yet.

The image is of my second version of this reticle. The first version was for 12x magnification 'cause I misread my notes. It looked great, but I wanted this reticle optimized for 6x.

I'm not aware if the ZFM is illuminated, but I illuminated it anyway. Mr. Chung states the BDC is adjustable to 800m, but I set the max to 1000m, mostly 'cause I can.

I think I made some of the lines too thick, and the form and weight of the numbers feels suboptimal to me, but it's a decent second draft.



Edit: I redrew the '2' on the rangefinder. I made the slanted bit one pixel taller, so it feels slightly less stubby. I think this one is done.

(Also tried to optimize my .jpg quality a bit more. And since I did, I redid the first screenshot, but I failed to catch the hitmarker, and restarting the mission half an hour into it is, just, no. So I got screenshot, with a hitmarker, on a different target. The new target was also further away, so that's cool.)

[Baldo_the_Don]

I used a method of mounting this targa that I'm not sure about for all resolutions and video settings, but at 1280×720, and normal/low choices, it seems to work.







In the experimental SFOD mod I've been tweaking, I have a weapon.def entry for a pick up version of the HK416, using the M4 .3di, but with HK416 stats, a specific ammo.def entry, and EOTech inspired sight targas.

I used to have more long-range stats on it, but I made those up, and all the research I've done makes it seem to me that the HK416's muzzle velocity (730 m/s) is more short-range oriented. I increased the bullet weight from 62 gr to 77 gr, just to add a lil' punch, and now I've drawn up an adaptation of the XR308 reticle.

The XR308 seems to be optimized for MGs, but first, I did a 6x version for the SR-25:







Which I really only wanted for the noise details, honestly. A reticle with 300m drops in the BDC is not for sniping or DMR-ing, but a 6x on an MG feels a bit too spicy. I did tweak the 600m and 900m POAs for the SR-25 ammo's POIs, though. I only mathed up the 1200m drop to look rightish.

Thinking I'd prefer a 4x version of the XR308, I trial-and-errored the 600m and 900m drops, mathed up the 1200m drop, and after confirming that the lines at 4x aren't quite heavy enough for an aesthetically pleasant noise effect, just went for intensity.

And to make my life slightly easier, I mounted the 96×192px 4x targa at half the size for 2x magnification. This may not function correctly at certain video settings, but we'll see.

The HK416 auto has 2x mag., semi is 4x.

Playtesting has been light, and underwhelming, but nice to look at.

[Baldo_the_Don]

That video got me reminiscing. Worked up a thing.







That's the DFBHD(TS) G36 with the NovaHQ Widescreen mod, FOV set to 96 degrees, and a new version of the classic Hensoldt G36 reticle I drew that's scaled to 1.25x magnification, including an illuminated ring. I'm positioned 640m north of the closest edge of the 32m² concrete dock slab. A 32m span from 640m away is a confirmable 50 mrads, which is how wide I wanted the thin part of the horizon to be, and would you look at that! I think I got it. The baseline under the 'numbers' of the rangefinder is 17.5 mrads below the horizon. That's 1.75m at 100m. The footlines (?) under the baseline are each, from right to left, 1.75m at 200m, 400m, 600m, and 800m, or at least they're as close to 1.75m as I could math 'em up at this resolution. The inner diameter of the ring is also 1.75m at 400m, which turned out to be surprisingly close to 3 pixels, and the outer diameter is just two pixels wider.

It's tricky, y'know... drawing an 8, a 6, a 4, and a 2 that're 1×3 pixels. Not sure I manged it.

Look: large, clear, beautiful, useful targas are easy. Tiny, slightly blurry, beautiful, useful targas are difficult. I'm fxxxing trying. Mostly succeeding. I think.

This was a good way to while away a Saturday afternoon. Playtesting commences soon, reports will be edited into this reply later.

Edit: Tweaked the targas a bit. They look a bit better, now. Uploaded a new screeny.

///////////- John Lydon "sings": This is not an HR! -\\\\\\\\\\

Another Edit: How 'bout this for a play on the original Team Sabre G36 sight:







Internally, it's kind of to scale, according to the reference image I have, but it's way too large for the magnification. The inner diameter of the ring is dude-tall at 100m (four times too large), so it sort of works like an EOTech holographic reticle.

This one's more style than substance.

I also have this one:







Which is optimized in mrads with vanilla DFBHD(TS)'s 80° FOV.

The 32m wide concrete dock slab 640m away providing a scale for 50 mrads.

Still mostly style, but with a little more substance.

[Menrva]

Keep up the great work! If you ever feel like updating those TGA sights again, just let me know. My Team Sabre Ops mod features the last ones you had made: https://www.moddb.com/mods/delta-for...bre-operations

[Baldo_the_Don]

Thanks, Menrva. I work slowly, but carefully.

Like this:







I never really had strong feelings about the 1.25x magnification that DFBHD(TS) has for sighted weapons. Or is it 1.34x? Well, it tightens the default horizontal FOV from 80° to 64°, but I may have made screenshots at some point, counted pixels, and found that everything gets 1.34x bigger.

But enjoying the 2x (2.3x) mag. I put on most sighted weapons in the DFWIQ and SFOD mods I experiment in, I'm now of the opinion that 1.25x (1.34x?) is not really enough for the effort it must've taken to put it in the game.

Maybe. The default HFOV in Comanche 4 is 64°, and DFBHD is built on C4, so maybe the FOV expansion to 80° was the necessary effort. * shrugs *

Attached to and inserted above in this reply is a screenshot I made in the version of the TIOCoop92 mod I've edited for my single player enjoyment, including a rework of the optic on the AUG in the mod, and today, I added a correctly scaled and accurized adaptation of the EOTech XR308 reticle.

Okay, I've never confirmed that the cross on the reticle is 20 mrads (68.75 moa) wide with a 10 mrad (34.38 moa) gap, but that's what makes sense to me. The reticle center is zeroed at 300m, and the three dots beneath that are as close to the 600m, 900m, and 1200m POIs as I could get them at the resolutions I'm dealing with. You may notice a dot to the left and two dots to the right of the drops. Those represent the '.6', '.9', and '1.2' labels that are not legibly reproducable at 1.25x (1.34x?) zoom at any supported resolution in DFBHD(TS).

Under laboratory conditions (0 error, 0 recoil), I hit the tall practice target with consistent headshots at 300m, easy center mass hits at 600m and 900m, and I can't really see the target at 1200m at 1.25x (1.34x?), but I can through the 4x (4.77x) binoculars, and after setting the 1200m POA where I kind of think I saw the target through the peepers, I take the shot, switch back to binos, and watch it explode. Groovy.

But...

I tried something again today. The ammo.def has a drag value in every entry. That value is always 1, far as I know, but I changed it for the AUG in the TIOCoop mod. The original mod gives the AUG 7.62mm NATO, at some ridiculous velocity that's murderously fun in MP, but challengingly unfun from the AI in SP. And WikiPedia says the AUG is not chambered in 7.62mm.

WikiPedia does say the AUG is chambered in .300 Blackout, though.

Gathering further values from WikiPedia, I edited the ammo velocity to 680m per second, as one form .300BK has, and centering the AUG's boresight on the top edge of a target 440m away, I tediously trial and errored tweaks to the drag to get the POI about 100 inches (2.5m) below the POA.

Later realized the test rifle producing the WikiPedia values was likely zeroed to 100m, maybe 200m, not aimed to boresight, so I overdragged the ammo, but the point became moot.

After locking the drag to 0.989, I edited the POAs in the targa to match the POIs, got a shockingly low POA for 900m, and realized the bullets were slowing too much and falling to the ground at 1000m to 1100m, regardless of how high I aimed.

I thought, "That can't be right." It wasn't.

I fooled around and came up with drag 0.995, arbitrarily, edited the targa to fit that, and that's what's in the screenshot.

You may see why I chose the XR308 reticle. The targa has two empty pixels between the 300m and 600m POAs. If I attempted a correctly for 1.25x (1.34x?) scaled ACOG, I'd have to fit the 400m and 500m POAs in those two pixels. The XR308, with its 300m drops, makes 1.25x (1.34x?) fit a bit more comfortably.

I'm a Gen-X metalhead. I'm not like other guys. I'm nervous and my socks are too loose.

This reticle is tight as possible, loose as necessary, and I like it.

But messing around with drag in DFBHD(TS) is a slog. The margins are too tight to be called margins. Anyone with a little shop experience would feel 'tolerances' would be a better fit.

Literally thousandths.

[Baldo_the_Don]

This is the construction I use in my target range map:







A 20x20cm steam grate item on the 'face' of all the tall silhoutte targets, with events connected to each that wins goals and advances the waypoint.

Hopefully, that makes this screenshot more understandable:







You see the ammo counter. It took me six rounds with velocity 340, drag 0.993, weapon error_up of 0.017 (2 moa groups) to hit that 2.29 moa wide grate from 300m.

'Cause what I'm calling the 'dropring' targa is not really a Trijicon RTR .223 or an RTR 9mm PCC reticle, but it's heavily inspired by them, adapted pretty friggin' well for the job, and make the M4A1SD in the TIOCoop mod a joy to master.

The horseshoe and red dot are zeroed to 50m, and the hashes on the vertical are POAs for 100m, 200m, and 300m. The POIs are all within the POA pixels they need to be in, and I can work with this reticle, even at 1.25x (1.34x?). The horseshoe's inner diameter is dude-wide at 50m, and I initially had the hashes dude-wide at range, but the 300m hash got too faint to be useful, so I made them all 3px wide.

It's a knock-off, but effective.

[Baldo_the_Don]

The viewmodel of the AUG in the TIOCoop mod is obviously not mounting the classic Swarovski optic I had based the sight targa on. Yesterday, I started feeling that I should fix that. Also took the opportunity to give it a neatish new reticle.

I made a screenshot of the AUG after switching the pos and tpos in the weapon.def, and with that image of the scope up to the eye, drew something that looked like it, slapped some shading on it, and then drew a German #4 with an illuminated red dot. The reticle is mounted 3px low, and that's a fairly consistent 300m zero. The bars and post are my best attempt at making them 5 mrads thick, the thin crosshairs are similarly my best guess at half an mrad thick, and the gap is 10 mrads wide from the center on three sides. The red dot brightness is adjustable.







Edit: The fact that there is a maximum allowable number of valid entries in the weapon.def (54, if I haven't miscounted) annoys me to no measurable end. Imagine my joy at realizing the weapon.def in the TIOCoop mod that I've been editing for so long actually had a duplicate entry for the thermite packs (which was undoubtedly my mistake), and having deleted it, freed up a valid weapon entry slot, and I could add a semi-fire mode to the AUG.

[Baldo_the_Don]

C_DOES put up a new video on the Elcan Specter 1.5/6x42:







And I imagine by now, well... You might know me:







This reticle is an expansion and refinement of the reticle in the Specter DR 1-4x. Many similar features, and a few extras.

I drew this to scale correctly at 9x magnification in the SFOD mod. It's optimized for the ammo.def entry for the M21 (velocity 767, drag 0.46, which, according to my notes, is optimized for the Trijicon TA648 reticle I had on it before. I'll probably change it back to more authentic M21 values later). Not coincidently, I mounted it on the M21, and edited the magnification to adjust between 2x and 9x, which is comparatively equal in scale as 1.5x to 6x. I shut off the HUD for the screenshot 'cause the distance, elevation, and magnification elements cover the caliber label. I edited the weapon.def to zero this at 100m, and left the elevation adjustable out to 1000m 'cause some players might appreciate the option.

Playtesting has been fun, and it functions well.

Edit: Edited the AMMO_M21_HPBT to velocity 853, drag 0.435, and repositioned the drops in the targa to fit. I got the velocity value from Wikipedia, and I got the drag value from some experiment or another. I'm not updating the screenshot 'cause the drops are just tighter now, it doesn't look much different.

I think the velocity 767, drag 0.46 was an experiment with the TA648 reticle. I drew it strictly according to the blueprints from the Trijicon site, and I edited the ammo velocity and drag to fit it, to a closer extent. I'm pretty sure I slowed the velocity 'til the 300m drop on the TA648 was correct, tweaked the drag 'til the 1000m drop was correct, and kept going back and forth 'til both the 300m and the 1000m were good, then repositioned the other drops. I probably got the 0.435 drag from experiments on the Trijicon ACOG 3.5x35 .308 crosshair reticle. I'm unsure.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I've edited the Barret in the SFOD mod to the point that it's not really a sniper rifle. It's an overpowered DMR. A lot of recoil, and 3.5 moa groups. I commented the 'scoped' flag out so aiming while moving can happen (that's why the 'Magnification:' HUD element is not visible). Forewent the sniper scope background for a scope body and glass graphic.

Today, I felt it needed a simpler reticle than the Signal 50 I adapted from COD Warzone videos I liked to watch a while ago.

First, I made a regular old mildot optimized for 12x magnification. The dot spacing was a bit off, so I adapted it for 13x, and I liked it better...







...but I wanted something even simpler.

I drew up a German #4 with an amber dot.







Optimized for 13x magnification. 3 px (0.31 mrad) thin lines that are 10 mrads long from center to post and bars, which I made 2 mrads thick. The dot has brightness control. I love it, honestly.

I also tried a version in imperial units, but I couldn't convince myself that it makes sense for a German #4 to be in imperial units, and it turned into a heavy duplex...







...with 1 moa thin lines from center out to a distance equivalent to 18" (45.72cm) at 100 yards (91.44m). They then flair out at 45° angles, thickening 'til they become the post and bars, equivalent to 18" at 300 yards (274.32m) in width. The frisson I was suffering with the dimensions in inches and yards, but elevation in meters was too much for me, and I went back to the German #4.

Because when you're a chubby, older american man with stupid blonde hair named Donald, the waves of anxiety these days call for distraction, and I don't know about the rest of you chubby, older american men with stupid blonde hair named Donald, but drawing reticles does that for me.

"Keep Calm and Draw Reticles" posters and T-shirts? Nah, nobody's buying that.



Also:





Edit: Okay, then there's this:







That reticle is my adaptation of a Schmidt & Bender Police 3-20x50 PMII Ultra-Short, mounted on the SR-25 at 11x magnification. I like odd numbers.