Weapon Attachment Causing 'Misfires'

[jkruse05]

I've had the Rangemaster out for about a month now and I just have a couple persisting bugs that I can't seem to fix.

 

The first, and biggest one, is with the .308 ammo conversion. I have the gun set to fire 5.56 by default, and it can be modified to fire .308, 7.62, and any pistol round. I got a report early on that some shots weren't registering on target with anything but 5.56, but I haven't been able to recreate that issue, and from my research it may be a Bethesda Bug rearing its ugly head. However, along with that, and since then, I have had reports, and found in my own game, that equipping specifically the .308 conversion will cause 'misfires' where the projectile seems to hit an invisible object immediately after exiting the barrel. This happens with about 50% of shots. You can see and hear it in this video (it happens throughout, but see about 6:30 and onward for a good sample).

 

Here's what I know.

1. The .308 attachment is identical to all other ammo conversion attachments for the weapon. In fact, it is a modified copy of the 7.62 attachment.

2. The 5.56, which I have had NO reported problems with, uses the same projectile info as the .308

3. The Rangemaster uses the vanilla Combat Rifle suppressor. However, there is no similar issue when using the .308 receiver with the vanilla Combat Rifle.

4. The Rangemaster's default muzzle (it does not support a 'null muzzle' state) has the projectile node pushed out about the same distance as on that vanilla suppressor, and farther than on the Handmade AR that it borrows animations from.

 

I am at a loss as to what would be causing this issue, especially with only one ammo type. I'm working on a decent sized update right now, and I would like to actually fix this, rather than just removing the .308 mod.

 

 

 

The other issue is less significant, and is probably just due to my dodgy understanding of how textures work in Fallout 4. For the reflex sights I just opened the vanilla dot and circle variants in nifskope, re-oriented all the various BSTriShapes to fit on the appropriate spot on my gun, and saved them. Somehow, with only that little bit of modification, the main dot in both sights now disappears while looking at the sky, and gets muddled by the shader when looking at water. I'm guessing this is an easy fix, but I don't really know where to start.

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide for either problem.

Edited January 29, 2018 by jkruse05

[jkruse05]

I tried a couple things. Remaking the .308 attachment in the CK didn't work. Then I thought, since the Rangemaster doesn't support a null muzzle state, maybe the projectile nodes from the barrel and muzzle are conflicting for some reason, so I eliminated the projectile node from a barrel and tried that. No dice, still getting the same behavior. Will keep trying things, but any input would be awesome.

[ehtyeci]

Projectile remapping is super wonky and hard to work with. The biggest issue is that if the routing goes below the Z plane, it will make the projectile collide randomly with everything along the way from the receiver's point of insertion (ProjectileNode) to the muzzle's P-ProjectileNode. The fact that shots do register intermittently means that a) penetration physics are applied or b) the game can't keep up with the collision check, or c) both. Shooting with the Rangemaster and .308 with sgtm 2 or 3 further reinforces (b).

Why does this happen to .308 and not 5.56? Especially considering they share the same projectile, AssaultRifleProjectile? Technically they are the same round, just with different names and FormIDs.

Now, for the bandaid:

In CK;

1. Delete the pkKeyword "remapNode" from "RangemasterRifle_Barrel_Long" and "RangemasterRifle_Barrel_Short".

2. Add the pkKeyword "remapNode" to muzzle_base

In nifskope;

1. Give the CPA P-ProjectileNode in RMBarrelExt.nif a Z value of 1.0 (from 0.000017)

That should take care of the Factory Muzzle. Now, for the suppressor, the same procedure will fix for that as well (giving the P-ProjectileNode a Z of 1.0). However, since you're linking to a vanilla asset you cannot change the nif itself. And I believe you also cannot technically package the mod with a nif from vanilla assets.

So, I recreated the suppressor in Blender from scratch, matching the geometry, matched the UVs and made a new nif with the new CPA coords. It's basically ready to use. You just need to point to the new suppressor nif in the "RangemasterRifle_Muzzle_Suppressor" OMOD.

I'll PM the suppressor to you. Whether or not you want to use it is up to you. I just wanted to see if it worked, and spent 15 minutes finding out.

[jkruse05]

So what you're saying is that, technically, the round actually "fires" from the receiver (or barrel) and has to follow a linear route through all the various nodes, before actually displaying at the muzzle node, right? Or is it just that the projectile nodes are too close to the Z plane?

 

 

So, the workaround is essentially making it skip the barrel node, but not deleting it, and pushing the muzzle node further out. I'll give it a shot, but it sounds like you've already confirmed that it works. Thanks for all your work, I'm just finishing up a parts expansion update, so this came just in time. I'll make sure to do the same with the new barrels and muzzles.

Edited February 3, 2018 by jkruse05

[ehtyeci]

In your case it really appears to be a mix of both. I could've experimented some more, but I found a workaround after a day, and I thought I might as well report my findings for now. "remapNode" is a function that moves "ProjectileNode" from the receiver to the OMODs "P-Projectile". If you had a barrel and a muzzle with this keyword, it will be rerouted two times. I have no technical insight on how predefined function calls like remapNode work, and even the description of the function call in CK itself has a typo that makes it confusing (It refers to a "ProjectiveNode", good luck trying to find that).

Moving the actual ProjectileNode to the muzzle and getting shots registered, was what sent me on the trail which led me to experiment with the CPA coordinates up the hierarchy.

I think I read that you won't include a "No muzzle" option for the Rangemaster, which would make the fix suitable since it would be redundant having the remap on the barrels anyway, and this just worked.

[ehtyeci]

Got some news about the alpha issue on your reticles.

 

You are using the third person versions of the reflex scopes. Third person versions of vanilla nifs are usually indicated by the lacking of "_1" behind their filenames. These scopes are simplified in terms of tri count, the reticles and their alpha properties. Third person base mesh has 166 triangles, while the first person one has 830 triangles. Third person lacks the far away reticles that sway and cause the 3D jiggle when aiming around and firing, and instead uses a simplified reticle inside the scope mesh.

 

 

Swapping to the _1 versions fixed the issue with the water and sky making the reticles transparent. However, I believe you've edited the placement of the scope mesh to fit the Rangemaster, because they were floating above the weapon. I found the offset of yours to be exactly Z -0.7.

Offsetting the root node in the new nif doesn't work (I think the nif CPT coords are independent of the root node coords), so, instead of manually offsetting the placement for each BSTriShape (which should be Z -0.7), I grouped them all inside a NiNode and offset the NiNode itself. I haven't done extensive testing, but the reticles do line up damn well with the hit locations.

[jkruse05]

Awwww, damnit, I knew this stuff too, from attaching power coils to objects for other people. Collision only moves if you adjust the whole NiNode when working with settlement objects, this is a similar thing that I should have thought of. I knew about the _1 versions too from working on Electrolasers and AARP, don't know why it just completely slipped my mind.

 

I'll get things swapped over and probably have a patch out this weekend.

Edited February 6, 2018 by jkruse05

[ehtyeci]

Sweet.

Just a heads up on two things.

The new duckbill muzzle suffers from misfire. Probably needs the same adjusting treatment as the others.

And, can you confirm that the suppressor omod "RangemasterRifle_Muzzle_Suppressor" is pointing to the new RMSuppressor.nif model in CK? It doesn't on my end, which I believe is why the suppressor is still misfiring.

Regardless, the new update is pretty awesome. Thanks for your hard work.

[jkruse05]

 

Sweet.

Just a heads up on two things.

The new duckbill muzzle suffers from misfire. Probably needs the same adjusting treatment as the others.

And, can you confirm that the suppressor omod "RangemasterRifle_Muzzle_Suppressor" is pointing to the new RMSuppressor.nif model in CK? It doesn't on my end, which I believe is why the suppressor is still misfiring.

Regardless, the new update is pretty awesome. Thanks for your hard work.

 

I'll double check. Things were working in my testing, but it's very possible I reverted something before saving the final version. Thanks for YOUR hard work.

 

Yup, messed up the duckbill. When I was testing things I tried seeing if I just got the edge of the projectile marker above the Z plane in Nifskope, if that would be enough to overcome the issue. It wasn't, fixed all the others but must have skipped the duckbill.

Edited February 6, 2018 by jkruse05