I sometimes wonder if the people to design some of these weapons have ever used a gun. You want a gun like the battle rifle to be as light as possible, so no real gun designer would ever design the handle on top to be that big and bulky. The old battle rifle’s handle was much smaller and more sensible. Every time I see this one that handle, which looks like it was designed to carry a 100 lb load, grabs my attention because it looks so out of place.
I’ll be interested in what the new sniper rifle looks like. Reach’s had a huge design flaw. No gun designer in his right mind would design a sniper rifle with a clamp connecting the barrel to an extension of the stock. In fact, the barrel would be free floating. A sniper rifle like Reach’s wouldn’t be worth a hill of beans after one shot. As soon as you fired it, the barrel would heat up, which would make it expand (get slightly longer). But it’s clamped to another part of the weapon that isn’t heating up, and hence not expanding. This would cause a tiny downward bend of the barrel that would cause subsequent shots to hit below where you’re aiming. The more you fired it, the hotter the barrel would get, and the worse the problem would be.
I know, it’s all fiction, but it’s just my nature to view these things with an eye toward realism.
I didn’t think it looked that good in the beginning either, however the look has really grown on me. I think the look of it really fits in with the rest of the weapon and armor designs.
> > The designs don’t have to be sensible to your standards.
>
> These aren’t my standards, these are well accepted principles of gun design. It just makes weapons look weird when thos principles are ignored.
All of your points can be countered by a fictional answer, because it’s set in the future. An example would be that they fixed the heating up issue by some xetrium metal that they used on the barrel of the gun.
From an aesthetic point of view, I actually kind of like the new BR design. But yeah, I tend to notice little things like this too, though I don’t have too difficult a time ignoring it for the most part.
Seeing as most of the human weapons fire bullets propelled by an explosion, thermal expansion would definitely still be a very realistic concern, and I think it would be cool to see the weapon designers take something like that in to account. I think the weapon that bugs me the most so far is the redesigned DMR, mostly from an ergonomics/weight standpoint.
Edit: Here is a thread with side by side pics of the new and old DMR, on the off chance anyone wants to see what I’m talking about.
> I sometimes wonder if the people to design some of these weapons have ever used a gun. You want a gun like the battle rifle to be as light as possible, so no real gun designer would ever design the handle on top to be that big and bulky. The old battle rifle’s handle was much smaller and more sensible. Every time I see this one that handle, which looks like it was designed to carry a 100 lb load, grabs my attention because it looks so out of place.
>
> I’ll be interested in what the new sniper rifle looks like. Reach’s had a huge design flaw. No gun designer in his right mind would design a sniper rifle with a clamp connecting the barrel to an extension of the stock. In fact, the barrel would be free floating. A sniper rifle like Reach’s wouldn’t be worth a hill of beans after one shot. As soon as you fired it, the barrel would heat up, which would make it expand (get slightly longer). But it’s clamped to another part of the weapon that isn’t heating up, and hence not expanding. This would cause a tiny downward bend of the barrel that would cause subsequent shots to hit below where you’re aiming. The more you fired it, the hotter the barrel would get, and the worse the problem would be.
>
> <mark>I know, it’s all fiction, but it’s just my nature to view these things with an eye toward realism</mark>.
You kind of answered you own question. I am in favor of more realism of games also, including down to the smallest detail. But these guys that are designing the weapons are purely artist with maybe some engineering background and not purely engineers. Besides the only people we have to worry about is 12 year old kids thinking combat is really like this. LOL
> > Here is a thread with side by side pics of the new and old DMR, on the off chance anyone wants to see what I’m talking about.
>
> Oddly, I really like the look of the DMR despite the obvious design flaw: It’s a magazine weapon with no magazine.
What do you mean no magazine? I thougt the magazines were the… rectangular canisters… that hold bullets and get slapped into the gun?
> > Here is a thread with side by side pics of the new and old DMR, on the off chance anyone wants to see what I’m talking about.
>
> Oddly, I really like the look of the DMR despite the obvious design flaw: It’s a magazine weapon with no magazine.
Yes there is, the magazine is at the end of the gun. You must have forgot the reload animation of the DMR.
I would imagine as a conceptual artist you’d usually look at designs used in real world applications that make sense and translate into what would actually work 500 years from now. You could draw the perfect rifle that is sensible and correct to a gun smith, but usually there’s someone who’s not a gun smith paying you while saying add a giant scope and make it look awesome.
You gotta eat, so awesome and completely skewed it is.