Medical Damage - 9mm underwhelming damage

[rekterakathom]

Mods (complete and add to the following information):

• Arma 3: 2.20 stable [e.g. 1.00 stable, rc, dev]
• CBA: 3.18.4 [e.g. 3.0.0 stable, commit hash]
• ACE3: 3.20.0 [e.g. 3.0.0 stable, commit hash]

Description:
When using default medical settings, damage dealt with 9mm is unexpectedly low. A naked person will sometimes only be bruised from point-blank 9mm bullets.

A video demonstrating 9mm bruising unarmored targets from point-blank was posted on Reddit by user u/Jean_Claude_Vacban, gaining hundreds of upvotes and a lot of comments of people sharing their similar experiences. Note: a few comments were also made about body armor, but I shall make that into another issue.

Steps to reproduce:
Follow this flowchart!

1. Open 3den editor
2. Make sure you are on default ACE medical settings
3. Place down a player unit equipped with a 9mm pistol
4. Place down a target unit nearby without any armor (no uniform or headgear)
5. Enter preview
6. Fire the 9mm pistol at the limbs of the target
7. Observe semi-frequent low damage hits (bruises) to limbs

Expected behavior:
A 9mm pistol should cause considerable damage to unarmored targets at low ranges, with bruises being extremely rare.

Where did the issue occur?

• Editor (Singleplayer)

Log Files:
https://pastebin.com/xuDbQ66g

Additional context:

• YouTube video: https://youtu.be/XWS9Xn8Uhns

• Repro mission (used in the video): ace_bodyarmor_test.Stratis.zip

Screenshots:
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

[rautamiekka]

Also no uniform & headwear in step 4 ?

[rekterakathom]

Also no uniform & headwear in step 4 ?

Yes, thanks, I'll edit it.

[Cplhardcore]

Cannot reproduce with just CBA/ACE

[rekterakathom]

Added a YouTube video of me reproducing the issue to the "additional context" section and attached a zip file to the mission where I did it.

[Cplhardcore]

Added a YouTube video of me reproducing the issue to the "additional context" section and attached a zip file to the mission where I did it.

Finally got it to be reproduced, it might be outside of ace's scope to be fixed though

[johnb432]

I've been looking into the issue for a bit, for now I have been focussing on limb damage with the P99. So far I have found:

• The "Use Custom Armor Penetration" setting doesn't impact damage on limbs - at least with non-armored uniforms and naked units.
  • Non-armored uniforms and naked units actually have armor: ACE calculates 2 armor points for the chest and head, and 6 for the limbs.
• The issue is present in both 2.18 and 2.20, so it's not a 2.20 regression.
• The major issue is that the incoming damage varies wildly. Firing a round a unit's knee can produce anywhere between 0.2 to 0.85 worth of damage - that's huge variability. The only difference between the shots being fired is the aiming point, which is ever so slightly different. Same gun, same ammo, same weather, meaning the same impact speed (which I did measure and could confirm that the vector magnitude is the same, but the vector direction is different, due to aiming point).
• If you fire on the inner upper part of the thighs, it will result in bruises only. If you fire on the outer upper part of the thigh it will result in bleeding wounds.

I'm really unsure if ACE can even find a mitigation or proper solution for this issue.