I’d like to suggest something I always wanted to see in a 1st person shooter: common sense and logic. Currently „normal“ game physics suggest the use of ragdoll models, collision detection, etc. However all of them are too arcade almost to the level of „cartoon physics“: «Animation follows the laws of physics — unless it is funnier otherwise». In the game, a lot of things are not fun nor possible. Modern games still rely too much on so called „suspension of disbelief“
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief#Video_games ), despite having hardware resources to act more realistically. I did a quick search of the forum and haven’t found anyone who suggested those ideas en masse. So here’s my incomplete list (impatient ones may scroll down to point 20 and read important P.S.):
1a. Visuals. When I look down, climb or swim, I should see my body parts. In shiny and glossy surfaces there should be reflections of everything, including me. And there is no crosshair in real life — even if you use HEV suit with HUD (more accurately called HMD — Helmet Mounted Display). Weapon aiming will be better, if it’s equipped with a laser pointer, but only RPG have it.
1b. 20 sec flashlight is stupid. HEV spends megajoules of energy for its armor, but can’t find 1% of that for the light? It should be indefinite, just like HEV CPU, sensors and HUD can work for hours with no armor. And not point-sourced, but projected. BTW, where is a flashlight? Best thing to do is to mount it on a helmet in from of a flat band (temple to temple). You also need a button to operate, unless (since it’s indefinite) there is a light sensor and autoswitch with brightness regulation (modern monitors and smartphones have it).
1c. Environment lights are not logical. Why there are lights in vent pipes? To illuminate the way for bugs and headcrabs? Why there are so little areas with total darkness, assuming massive blackouts after the incident? Why there are so little areas with emergency lights (dim but visible to find a way out)? Why lightly damaged areas have all of their lights on? Some of them must be broken, there aren’t eternal. Judging by the lighting, I wouldn’t say BM just experienced a catastrophe — almost everything is bright lit. Add some chaos! Also, at some places the light seems to come from nowhere. Even in Xen there have to be some sources. Also, let’em be interactive: projectile, heavy object (if hit hard and fast enough) or blast wave should be able to break the light, it may explode with optional sparks and smoke, and illumination will decrease. Good shadows are welcome too, but they are very costly…
1d. Gradually HEV suit should get worn and covered by blood, bullet, bite and hit marks and scratches. Freeman must leave a trail on the sand or — if he’s just out of the water — anywhere.
1e. Gordon should blink and squint — caused by sudden bright light, hit in the head, etc. Bright light should leave a streak of afterglow. Catching a laser beam will cause slowly diminishing temporary blindness on that eye. Getting hit hard or being very weak should result in darkening the view.
1f. Telescopic sight for a crossbow shouldn’t cover all the view, considering helmet’s visor. OTH, HEV might have it’s own camera with a good lenses (on the forehead?) — zoomed view might pop in a corner window or cover-all view.
2a. Every movable object should have weight. And Freeman should have limited stamina. It’s not possible to carry whole arsenal of things and still jump and run. If one could attached somehow 10 weapons and 100 ammo packs, he’d weight over 200 kg! The more you weigh (with items) — the less you can move and the more you’ll use energy of stamina reserve. Faster and/or complex movements need more energy: crowbar brandish, climb, swim… Since Freeman is a scientist, not Olympic athlete, he shouldn’t be able to run full speed even for a minute. And while carrying heavy weight — not at all. More tiredness — less speed. Ideally, muscle stamina should count separately for legs and arms. Tired arms would aim badly, tired legs would stumble.
2b. Being so heavy, how can Freeman stay afloat? With HEV suit even without other items he’ll sink, and with an arsenal he’s a living anchor. He might walk on the bottom more often than swim, and use a ladder to get „ashore“. If there’s no ladder — he’ll have to drop fast some of the heavy things and swim up as hard as he can. HEV should show „water detected“ icon, even if the head stays above. Depth meter will be very useful — HEV needs pressure sensor anyway.
3a. Limits of HEV item holders are questionable: how it is practically possible to carry all the weapons and ammo? Remember how X-COM managed this: there are item holders in the backpack (9), belt (6), legs (2) and shoulders (2). A big weapon like RPG (if not carried in the hand) can only fit in the backpack, which takes more time to reach. Max. number of weapons (not counting explosives) is 7: 2 in arms, 2 small (like pistols) on the belt and up to 3 in the bag, but that leaves little place for explosives and ammo, and turns this solder into a slow poking behemoth.
3b. Reaching fast for desired item is also a problem: how to hold it properly (so you won’t loose it after hours of running, jumping, diving and taking hits) and still be able to unhook it easy and fast by touch alone? And what to do with the previous item held in the hand? How much time it actually takes to swap a weapon (and secure the previous one so you won’t loose it)? Is it possible to do it while walking? Crawling? Climbing? Diving? If yes, how much slower it’ll be than standing action? How many days of tedious training it requires? IMO, if climbing or swimming — you can’t even hold anything.
3c. Luckily, Freeman can use left hand to hold and use second weapon or other object (unless main weapon is bulky and requires both hands to hold). However, he’s not ambidexter, so left hand would aim badly. OTOH, left hand can hold a weapon in the right hand to cope better with recoil. Left hand (if free) can also be used to activate an interactive object.
- If you want to aim better — stretch your arm forward and align weapon to target direction. If you try to move at that moment — arm will shake. (Theoretically, inertia should work here: assuming you always aim at the center of the view, after turning the arm it will stabilize in same direction after some fading oscillations. For same reason aiming at moving target is always worse vs. stationary. However, mouse moving is also inertial, so adding more inertia in the game will be redundant.) The faster you move — the less you can aim. Running, crawling, climbing or swimming disables shooting at all.
5a. There should be visible shooting and reload leftover — dropped shells and empty magazines (incorrectly called clips). Lying empty magazine looks like a full one, until you grab it. NPC’s should have finite inventory. If you’re against a grunt and eventually kill him, he’ll leave you just a few bullets in his magazine.
5b. Semi-empty magazines are a problem. For most weapons you can cross-load: pull the bullets out and push them in another magazine, if there is a place — but it’s long. You can use magazines as is, but you have to carry more weight and rely on unpredictable number of bullets after each reload. In theory, HEV can measure somehow and memorize magazine contents, but you still reach your hand to get one of them by touch, and that may not be the full one. Easy solution is not taking a magazine if at least one bullet is missing, but that’ll make Freeman’s life much harder. Better solution is cross-loading between battles: for each weapon with magazines Freeman carries at most one semi-magazine (except the loaded one), empties gathered semi-magazine and puts its bullets in his semi-magazine, until it’s full. If there are more bullets inside gathered semi-magazine, he takes it. When unloading under-used magazine, he either drops it (loosing bullets but saving time), or cross-load it with kept semi-magazine. Fast cross-loading may be done by shifting the bullet out of donor magazine with one thumb and pushing it in acceptor magazine with another, and repeating it. This still needs both hands to be empty, but doesn’t need hard surface to keep bullets in-between, so it’s possible while standing and slow walking.
6a. Actual HEV suit requires up to half an hour to put on, especially for newbie as Gordon. (You may check the procedure of putting a coverall to get into a clean-room in semiconductor fabs — BTW, there is always a mirror to check yourself afterwards.) Before that he needs to take off almost everything and put it in the closet. It’ll be a long and boring non-interactive script. Gordon may arrive from training with that suit on, so he doesn’t need to visit HEV room, but that’s not canonical. Otherwise, in the room there should be a fully automated dressing robot for fast putting on and taking off a suit, but that still needs Gordon to be almost naked. Maybe that robot can also undress him, but that’ll look like a cut from The Jetsons 
However, we’ve seen that — in the Star Wars, ep.3: barely survived Anakin handled by robots, gets prosthetic limbs and helmet and becomes Darth Vader. Afterwards Vader makes his first «kshhh-pffff», and Gordon hears «Welcome to the HEV mark IV protective system…»
6b. Helmet. There are 3 options:
—No helmet, as Freeman is always depicted. Then it’s impossible to make a lot of things: survive in space or under water, protect from fog, sparks and hits in the head. And no HUD with visual overlap and sound. Not good.
—Helmet on. Everything is OK, but Freeman’s face is invisible, which isn’t esthetically good.
—Alternative helmet on — with large transparent visor (like space-suits have) and projected HUD. If it involves a mouthpiece (like air filter) — it would explain why Freeman’s always mum Also, helmet will get dirty and wet, so there must be some cleaning. Easy is wiping with a hand. Cool is engaging some ultrasound or electrically catalyzed hydrophobic cleaning layer, which magically stays transparent when not active. I don’t know which one is more plausible
6c. Freeman’s old school glasses are a problem. For some reason he didn’t underwent a laser surgery to fix his myopia. He’s being depicted with them everywhere in HL and HL2, but in real life there’s no way he could survive with them instead of the helmet. They can get dirty, wet and broken (and injure his eyes), slip off a nose and fall down. And no HUD! Even if he can wear them inside the helmet, surely they wouldn’t survive HECU ambush. Ideally, Freeman should replace them with a pair of contact lenses before getting into HEV. But that’d impair his iconic look. I don’t know the solution.
6d. How can HECU knock down Freeman without removing his suit? Even taking off the helmet shouldn’t be easy, because there must be internal lock. But the suit is made elsewhere (not by BM) and it’s very much like HECU’s own, so they must know some weak spot in it — like how to unlock the helmet from outside. After catching Freeman in the dark one of the grunts can say «Press here and turn», Freeman’s helmet with HUD image is ripped off, and he gets beaten in the face. (In HL-BS Barny saw 2 grunts carrying Freeman without helmet.) Then they loosely slap the helmet on his head before throwing in the compactor, because there should be no trace of him, including HEV. Awaking from unconscious, he has no time to put it properly and reengage the HUD — just to adjust it after a fall. After getting out of the drain pipe he falls on the sand, dropping the helmet. He gets it again and cleans, but still no time to put it — a headcrab is approaching. Freeman either kill the crab with the crowbar or run away with the helmet in his head. After putting it on properly the HUD should show and say something disturbing: «Warning! HEV integrity may be compromised. Seek technical support!». Then we’re back in business.
- In real life when walking you have to check the surface in front so you won’t stumble over an object or stairs. However, if the object next to a foot is light — you’ll kick it away. With medium weight — you’ll move it and stumble. Stumbling should hurt your leg, especially if you run. What you need is a visual confirmation of the surface ahead. However, scene awareness is limited in time and space, so rules should be like this — Freeman won’t stumble, if an object is 1) seen last time no more than T seconds ago, 2) located no more than D meters away and 3) positioned at no more than A degrees away from visual normal (screen center direction). This means Freeman will stumble over anything if strafing or moving backwards, unless he’s looking directly under the boots — just as in real life.
8a. Mass distribution, impulse and force are largely omitted. Hit or kick should turn and/or push the target at certain angle, velocity and direction — having speed, contact position and mass data. At times it would also push away or turn the attacker. Recoil is present, but made wrong, because objects are not points. Even if they are one-piece, there is a barycenter (center of mass). If pushing directly at it — the object will move. If pushing at a sharp angle to that vector — it’ll move and turn. If pushing at a right or obtuse angle — it’ll just turn. Surface friction also comes to play. Real recoil will try to topple you on a back. Even more precise is to use N-piece (ragdoll) model with certain masses and movement limits of joints between pieces. Here, recoil will move the arm much more than torso and head, and legs wouldn’t move at all. Aiming will be difficult if shooting in series.
8b. There’s no way to keep vertical position all the time. Body can tilt and even fall down in all directions reacting to various events: crawling, hitting, taking a hit, stumbling, firing with recoil, slipping on some surfaces… Long slipping speed should be limited by some terminal velocity, derived from weight, friction, inclination and gravity.
8c. When falling from height it’s possible to soften vertical speed by rolling over a head right after landing on feet (SWATs and SEALs trained at that). If it doesn’t work, it’ll result in at least one fracture, which takes months to heal, unless — read below about medkits… Same with hitting a wall while running — at least head injury is inevitable. Saving from deep fall (even if air drag limits terminal velocity) is not possible by landing on a ladder! It is possible by diving in a liquid, but only in proper position and with certain minimum depth. Also, after landing there is some damage to object or subject below, which may result in death or crushing. This also means that it’s possible to break a wooden crate without any weapon — just by jumping over while carrying something heavy. Some objects are so weak, they wouldn’t even support Freeman’s weight, if stepped on. After being hit by something or someone (floor, wall or enemy melee attack), Freeman might occasionally loose some of it’s items — dropping from hands or inventory (if loosely held). Same rules apply to HECU and SpecOps — push them down to die from a fall or loose a gun.
8d. There is no move control while subject is on air. If you jumped in some direction, you can change it yourself only by firing a weapon with recoil, positioned at a right angle. Wind and blast wave apply too.
9a. It’s impossible to be healed momentarily. Actual medicines are: 1) specialized (no panacea), 2) start working after some minutes, 3) gradually raise effect for minutes to hours, 4) some of them loosing effect for hours to a day and need to be reapplied, otherwise healing will be lost. Some of the damage cannot be healed by medkits at all (e.g. bone fractures require hospitalization), unless Black Mesa developed some portable and ultrafast medicine, which should be scientifically explainable (like nanoshpere-carried tissue-targeted regeneration with stem-cell pre-programming and enzyme growth acceleration). But even that cure can’t be flash-fast heal-all.
9b. Health should be detailed to every major body part: head, torso, 2 arms and 2 legs. If a bullsquid bite your left leg — its health goes down independently (blood loss will hinder overall health, but the suit will stop it immediately). If any body part reaches 0 — you are either dead or deadly injured (like loosing an arm). Health should effect activity of body parts: leg wounds result to lameness, carrying less weight and jumping to less height (if jumping at all); arm injury result in loss of aiming precision and also carrying less weight; head illness impairs overall body coordination and reaction, distort senses (up to hallucinations) and more. However, after the injury Freeman’s immune system should slowly alleviate the damage partially even without medkits — and the healthy he is, the better it’ll work. Apart from stamina reserve, another health-related parameter is heart rate. Even if you are healthy, high heart rate impairs aiming and adds heavy breathing.
9c. After hours of adventures an average MIT graduate will get hungry, and after sweating a lot (even being a superhero) he certainly will be thirsty. Instead of searching for another vending machine with food and water and taking off the helmet, a parenteral nutrient compound (water, sugars, amino and fatty acids, vitamins, minerals) may be administered intravenously (as healing solutions), but the suit should replenish it from outside. Compound energy capacity is 1500 kcal/litre; adult male energy consumption is ranging from 2 (easy handwork while standing) to 23 (running at 30 km/h) kcal/(hour·kg) — here’s where heart rate and total mass matters too. Low nutrients in the blood (AKA hunger) causes lower stamina reserve.
9d. (No, I won’t speculate on Freeman’s needs to pee and poo… Scratch this.)
[Hit the post size limit here… What do I get for writing a longest non-spam post on this forum? Bounty, ban or both? ]
