[DFBHD] Baldo's New M60 Sight

[Baldo_the_Don]

So I looked up binocular reticles and found this. I think it's called an M22 reticle, and it's not a hundred mils high or wide, but the mil subtensions and the rangefinder are accurate.

Edit: Redrew the reticle to thicken the lines, clarifying and centering it all much better.

Should also mention I optimized it for 16:9. I'll make a 3:4 version someday, though.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Experiments on a BDC reticle for the crossbow in the WiQ mod have been very fruitful.

It's tricky to get a screenshot that really shows the reticle effect. It's very bright against bright backgrounds and a whole lot dimmer against darker backgrounds, and I think I managed it pretty well in this screenshot. I'm presenting no evidence of this, but it's also not too glarey in the NVGs.

I made an effort.

There's 3x magnification on this, the outer edge of the horseshoe is dude-wide (19" or 48.26cm) at 25m, the gap in the horseshoe is dude-wide at 50m, and the hashes down the vertical are all dude-wide every 25m out to 275m, then from 300m to 400m, the gaps are dude-wide every 25m. With a velocity of 132m/s and drag 1 on the bolts this weapon throws, it's headshot accurate to 200m, and you'll hit a whole zombie out to 400m, easy. The bolts are explosive, as well. The horizon is divided into 20 just over 10 mrad subtensions, 'cause that's the best I could do at this magnification and at this resolution without fudging the width of the subtensions. At the moment, they're evenly spaced and really close, though.

The elevation is locked at 25m on the center dot by setting the Scope_max_zero to 5 5 25 5 (5 increments of 5m, defaulting to the 25m click, and not allowed to go lower than the 5th click). More often than not, I'd edit the reticle .tga to set the center to zero at a specific distance, or mount it lower in the weapon.def to similar effect, but this way, you can use the center dot to aim the range display on the HUD, 'cause I used pretty good math to draw the hashes at the correct widths for rangefinding, but the resolution limits the legibility, so I activated the ShowRange flag. I had attempted to simply allow adjustable elevation with a Scope_max_zero of 16 25 25 1, but when I fired from the hip at a fast zombie right in front of me and moving, the game threw the bolt out to (I think) 400m, way over its head, and things got messy frighteningly quick.

I'm having fun.

Edit: An ACSS reticle for the M40A1. The wind holds are questionable, but everything else is functional.

[Baldo_the_Don]

So, my continuing adventures in WiQ modding went like this today:

Played the mission 'Fallen Angels,' and as soon as I got in the dune buggy, the game crashed. Skipping the details of two hours of troubleshooting, in the game.lwf I edited, there was a single space in a spot where it should not have been.

A single out of place space in a single file was all it took to crash the game. How does anything remain functioning on this planet?

Attached a screenshot of a reticle I drew for the MSG90SD. Illuminated cross, 5 and 10 mrad hashes, 5x mag., bullet drop compensator, and a grid of holds for moving targets, 'cause I made the ammo for this rifle subsonic, and it's hard to hit runners with bullets so slow.

Yes, the BDC functions correctly. Yes, the holds are a bit much, but they do help. Yes, the elevation is adjustable every 100m between 100m and 600m, if that's what you prefer.

And wow, I've been making new gun sounds. I mean taking a bit of generated white noise (pink noise actually works best) in Audacity and using tools and filters to turn it into gun bangs. I can't believe that it not only works, but it works well. The sounds aren't perfect, but they're very good, and tons better than what RadonX19 had scrounged up (that's not criticism of Radon, it's a lament for the lack of good sounds to find).

At least I think they're good sounds. My hearing's been bad for a long time, and legend has it that mixing on headphones is a path to madness, but, y'know, I had to try.

Also, I've been editing the .lwfs as stated above, tweaking volumes on things like the breathing while running, making the reload and recoil sounds not quite so loud, and just trying to balance things a bit.

Editing .wavs, too. Christsicles, what a nightmare of a slog.

But that reticle... If I can hit a dude running perpendicular to my LOS at 500m with a round moving 340m a second, I can only conclude I did something right.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Basically, I drew this reticle for 20x mag. in the first version, and it's fun, but a bit much. Then I wanted to see if I could make it smaller. I could.

But the real challenge was using imperial units. I could probably tweak the various aimpoints a bit finer, but they are all zeroed in 100yd increments, rendering the metric range display on the HUD more or less unusable. The 200yd (183m) center dot elevation is locked by setting:

scope_max_zero 3 61 183 3

So there are three adjustments of 61m each, defaulting to 183m, and allowed no lower than the third adjustment. The other elevations were drawn and redrawn by trial and error, and a bit of velocity and drag tweaking (875 and 0.375, at the moment). They all hit within the white spot on the targets, but under lab conditions (no recoil, no error), they really all should be centered. Next round of tweaks, I guess.

The rangefinders and hashes are optimized for 5' 10" and 18" targets. The runner hold dots are 3' from center at 200yds. I don't know if that's where they are supposed to be for targets moving at 8.6mph, but I could not find actual blueprints for this reticle, so I winged it. Similarly, the outer horseshoe is also fudged, but the low points of the gap at the bottom are about 18" at 50yds, so that seems rightish for CQB purposes.

My best I understanding of the googling I did, this reticle is for 3x magnification, but at twice that in this screen shot, it's a barely legible mess, and I refuse to even attempt to make it smaller.

And I have to make the illumination green or it'll look stupid in the NVGs. But later, I'm tired now.

Edit: So, velocity 860, drag 0.375, moved a few pixels, changed a few colors, and I think this one's done. I don't hate it. I might even like it.

[Baldo_the_Don]

On the Wikipedia page about ACOGs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanc...tical_Gunsight ), they have a photo of a TA648 6×48 Machine Gun Optic reticle, and I always thought it looked hectic, but I was in the mood to try it today.

Using that photo to make measurements upon which to work some math, and an educated guess here or there, I drew up what you see in the screenshot. I tested and tweaked it on a sniper rifle first, and basically, bullets with 860m velocity and 0.375 drag at 5x mag. were hitting just under target center at all ranges 300m to 1000m. Essentially, I just shifted the entire aimpoint chart two pixels down and everything was close enough to perfect for me.

Mounted it on the M4, edited the ammo from 900m/0.3 to 860/0.375 and play tested it for a few missions. I still think it's a little hectic, but I had a dude running right to left at 300m, tracked him with the lower tip of the 10 mrad hash on the right just in front of his face, threw a single three round burst at him, and he went down like a sack of rocks. I could get used to that. 62 grain headshots at 500m seem weak, but 400m works consistently enough. And short of hitting a guy four or five times in a row, beyond 600m, all you do is make 'em angry.

I believe you deserve no less for sniping with an M4, but I am a misanthrope.

And can anyone give me a simple sort of explanation on how to get the fog in a map in JO/DFX2 back far enough that I can test the 1100m and 1200m aimpoints? I'd appreciate at least a PM.

[jabo1SFH]

make the fog settings 2000 meters and make sure you use an environment setting that limits default fog (dont use any desert enviros).

[Baldo_the_Don]

I've tried the env override dialogs, and somehow, the fog always ends up being 1000m. * shrugs *

This video https://youtu.be/DyZ8cjrkX78 inspired me to work up a Credo 2-6x24 reticle. It's not totally authentic to the 1-4x24 blueprints, but I got it functioning correctly at 6x mag. with the ammo edited to 990m/s and drag set to 0.273.

I made a point to keep the illumination muted the way the guy in the video shows it is.

Really, I wanted to post these screenshots just 'cause this particular map that Tony991 made is a favorite of mine. Deering, Alaska isn't exactly Silent Hill, but it kinda is.

It was tricky finding a spot where I could get the church, the lighthouse, and the moon in the same picture, but I managed. It takes a while for the moon to get over the horizon, but when it does, the lighting gets so intense, and the last screenshot captures not a bit of it.

I think I did acceptable reticle work here, though.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Some site or the other, I got some dimensions for the Kobra T reticle as being 50 MOA wide, and the gap being 16 MOA, and playing around with the math, found that 19" is 16.5888 MOA at 100m, and 3 x 16.5888 = 49.7664 MOA, and that all translates to a T 21 px wide, 11 px tall, the gap is 9x9 px, and I mounted it 1 HUD unit low to sort of zero it at 100m, 'cause using the unadjustable adjustable elevation trick, or adding adjustable elevation, well, I don't like the way it works with fast-switching to the GP-25. At least I don't like it today, who can say how I'll feel about it tomorrow.

So this reticle, on this weapon, at this 2x magnification, would, to the best of my abilities and resources to imagine, look about like this screenshot.

I guess.

[Baldo_the_Don]

On the Forgotten Weapons YouTube channel video about the EM-2, about here: https://youtu.be/fcYj2SpUHvE?t=937

At first, I winged it and got a decent enough reticle, but I felt I needed to take a closer look at the width of the gaps in the 400 and 600 yard lines, and yeah, confirmed I needed to widen them, but also saw that they don't extend all the way to the edges. Used a screenshot of the reticle in the video to count pixels and educate my guesses, and I got what you see attached.

Earlier in the video, Ian McCollum gave values for the ammo, 140gr at 2530 ft/sec, where I got the velocity of 771. .280 British hits pretty hard in this game. I made the recoil 5 7 10, stability 0 .2 .8, and error 0.264 0.459 0.800 0.050 0.087 0.152.

The top-down aimpoint is weird, but I could get used to it. I zeroed the empty pixel just below the point at 183m, the top line is zeroed at 366m, and the bottom line is zeroed at 549m, or 200, 400, and 600 yards. Best my playtesting confirms, put the 600yd line on the target's feet, and if his head touches the 200yd aimpoint, use that. If his head doesn't reach the 200yd aimpoint, go with the 400yd aimpoint. But if his head doesn't reach the 400yd aimpoint, you'll need the 600yd aimpoint. I was getting goodish hits like that, at least.

Edit: Slight addition of the tiniest red dot. 'Cause that how I do.

No real method besides "The red dot fits here," but it does zero fairly well at 25yds. I tried an upside down chevron of various colors and intensities, but it was not working. Too pixelated. I tried making the entire reticle illuminated, but it kept being either too bright (and glarey in the NVGs) or too translucent, easy to lose in foliage. The tiny red dot is kind of elegant and gives you something against the dark. I like it. For now.

Also confirmed that the gaps in the range lines are as close to exactly 15 MOA as the resolution could possibly allow, and from gap to end, the lines are 45 MOA wide. Cannot confirm that this was the designer's intent, but it's telling how it just happened like that here, isn't it?

[Baldo_the_Don]

I reverted the P90 and moved the EM-2 values over to the FAMAS. Added a separate ammo.def entry for .280 British and, based on a screencap from that Forgotten Weapons video, drew up a new targa for the EM-2 optic. It's a bit off, but it's mostly on, and I like it.

So the EM-2A2 has a 24 round magazine, improved fire rate from 600 to 720 rpm, and a reticle updated for meters instead of yards.

The point is zeroed at 200m, with aimpoints for 400m, 600m, and 800m. The red dot is coincidentally zeroed pretty tightly at 25m, but I really just put it there on the point 'cause I wanted it as low as possible while still having a bit of post left and right of it, and also not obscuring the point.

And the designation EM-2A2 was chosen 'cause EM-2A1 looks like EM-2AL in the font on the hud, and I can't have that. Could I? Okay, maybe, but I didn't want it, y'know?

[Baldo_the_Don]

How about a DMR version of the EM-2A2? 5x mag., improved and expanded reticle, and you can't really see it in this screeny, but I redid some details on the sight targa, too.

'Cause .280 British is a light sniper cartridge, and I wanted to be able to use that punch at range.

Error edited to 0.183 0.383 0.800 0.020 0.042 0.087, so firing from the prone position using the reticle correctly, according to my math and testing, error 0.02 gives a 21cm group at 300m. Headshots will need a bit of luck, but you'll definitely hit dude-sized targets out to 691m, and with 140gr at 771m/s and 0.273 drag, you often only need one hit, recoil 5 7 10 makes a follow up hit easy enough, and I so rarely have ever needed a third.

S'good fun.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Attempting to troubleshoot why the game glitches out when I select the Deagle, dual Berettas, or Glock in LAN MP maps, I temporarily reverted the WiQ mod to the version I downloaded, and I was reminded that RadonX19 had put in an iron sight model of the M4 that I had replaced with the Aimpoint version from the DFX demo at some forgotten time.

I put the iron sight .3dis back in, tweaked the pos and tpos, worked up some sight targas, and made a new HUD icon for it.

I think it's neat. Still don't know what's going wrong with the Deagle, Berettas, or Glock, though.

Edit: Attepted desert tan skin. I think it's too dark. Not sure.

Edit again: Googled up some RGB values for Desert Tan.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Desert tan M4 Aimpoint model. Screenshot with added gamma (from 1 to 1.5) to kind of look like it does in-game with my settings.

I also edited desert tan versions of the sight targas. Not sure I like them, 'cause the colors are nice, but blotchy, where the monochrome sights have better dithering, so they have smoother blending from shade to shade.

[Baldo_the_Don]

A few hours in Photoshop the last two days, and this is what I have to show for it.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I googled around for actual German #1 reticle values (1 or 2 mrad thick lines; point to horizon, 3.5 mrads; altogether 37 mrad diameter), and there was a reticle in the results that I thought looked neatish, so I drew up a thing for the M4, made it 15 mrads wide 'cause a guy running perpendicular to your LOS needs a lead of about 7.5 mrads. I've tested it a bit, it's okay.

It might not be an actual reticle, it might be just something the man explaining his aiming method used to illustrate it, so I have no confirmed designation for the design, and am calling it the Rabbit Face.

Feel free to inform me, should you know better.

Edit: It's a special reticle for the DJZF 1-4x24 CVI 63 Wolf scope. Guess we can call it the CVI 63. I doubt the size I drew it is authentic, but it works for the M4.

[Baldo_the_Don]

The WiQ MSG90U with 5-10x scope and a new illuminated mildot reticle. Five and ten mrad subtensions, with special 7.5 mrad pips, 'cause that's your lead for a perpendicularly running target. Inner crosshair and mildots are illuminated in green and are easily visible in day, night, and NVGs, without fading or glaring. Screenshot of the 6m target at 300m with 10x mag. to illustrate the accuracy of the subtension scaling.

I like it.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I wanted a bit more magnification. I tested a few ideas 'til I confirmed that at 15x mag., one mrad is 11.053333 HUD units. The screenshot of the 6x6m target 200m away shows how slight that error is. The other screenshots show the clarity of the lines and the amount of illumination.

I'm sure there are improvements I could make, but this is an excellent third draft.

[Baldo_the_Don]

You know how I like to try imitations?

I got a screenshot from Ahoy's weapon guide video about the Call of Duty: Black Ops PSG-1 https://youtu.be/DwxTLavtvzA with a good view of the reticle, then I NeverLogicked it a bit.

Basically, I traced it at the proper size, put it on the MSG90U at 12x mag. in the WiQ mod, and tested some things, like checking the range finder and confirming the size of the notches on the crosshair, then adjusting as necessary.

Turns out that at 12x mag., the 200m stadium (I'm not looking it up, but I'm pretty sure stadium is the singular of stadia) on the range finder was only a few pixels off, all the other stadia needed heavy adjustment, and the middle of the crosshair was pretty much exactly one degree, so each notch is 6 MOA. And of course, I'm going to add some illumination.

I don't hate it.

[Baldo_the_Don]

A bit of research, and I decided the Zeiss reticle I ripped off of CoDBO needed tweaking.

The center cross is in one milliradian subtensions now, not 6 MOA subtensions, and entirely illuminated, but in white, 'cause red looks weird in the NVGs, and I wanted it to not be green. The subtensions are a little fudged 'cause 1 mrad is 8.791866 pixels at 12x mag., and I had to squish the third notch on each side a pixel to get it rightish. I have a test map with ten fenceposts spaced out a milliradian each, and the notches aren't perfectly spaced, but they're barely off.

The range finder is functional at 12x mag., as you can see in the screenshot, when you know those targets are 1.73m from the highest point of the sandbags to the top of the 'head.'

It's alright, the reticle.

[Baldo_the_Don]

If I would just stop watching XBox Ahoy's weapon guides I might be able to settle my mind on some things, but I got caught up in the Dragunov review (https://youtu.be/XX7yt77a6-I), so here I am again.

PSO-1 reticle in illuminated green, 'cause red looks bad in the NVGs. Twist on the rangefinder: calibrated for 1.5 meters (4' 11"? Who are we sniping?), and every 100m division is labeled 'cause I felt like drawing odd numbers too. Optimized for 11x mag. 'cause that's where one milliradian is 8.061597 pixels.

Play testing is fairly satisfying. Went through a lot of iterations of draw methods, opacities, colors, shades, brightness, but honestly, I don't know how I could make this better.

Edit: Okay, the target kneeling at 500m makes the 1.5m rangefinder almost make sense.

Edit again: Messed around. Apparently, if you set the baseline of the rangefinder on the target's beltline, whether they're kneeling or standing, move it sideways 'til the head touches the curve, then divide that value in half, you'll get a close range estimate. Hm.

Edit final (?): Redrew the reticle including a curve for 0.5m. It seems like you put the rangefinder baseline center mass and move sideways 'til the head touches the 0.5m curve. Plus point: to label the curves, I had to move the rangefinder left, and the HUD text no longer obscures it!

Also realized that if all you can see of the target is the head, place the baseline at the chin, slide left 'til the head touches the 0.5m curve, divide the value by 2, and you've got a range to work with.

Why all this trouble when the game has a range display right there on the HUD? Sometimes, the game tells you the range to the tree half way to the target that the target is almost obscured by. Sometimes it tells you the distance to the window pane you're looking out of or the invisible wall between you and the target. I think an alternate way to range is handy in these cases.

If you like to snipe, I want to make it better for you. Alright, I just want to make it better for me, but my reticles might be good for you, too.

Edit final (!): Made the main chevron two milliradians tall (grudgingly) and thickened it. It's probably not impossible to confuse it with other markings on this reticle in a panic, but it's a little more difficult to do that now. Also redrew the 7 and the 5s, moved the curve labels two pixels higher.

Fairly certain the edit window on this reply is closing soon, so this really will be the final edit.