The need for IC gun training.

[SomeoneOutTher3]

This is a question that I had in the back of my mind for some time and have asked over OOC a few times. Does using a gun ICly REALLY require training?

I have been to a shooting range for quite a few times and fired a 9mm. The only issues that I've had when doing so is accuracy going down at longer range and recoil (Well, that and the pistol slide hitting my thumb once because it was in the way). Now, the typical distance that one would have to shoot from in the game is 7 (or 14, depending on who you ask) meters or less. At that distance, neither of those pose a problem when shooting. Heavier ballistic weapons like automatics and assault rifles may or may not actually be harder to use (Never fired a rifle or full automatic), I agree. However, people typically use either energy weapons or pistols most of the time in the game. Shooting at a target from 7-14 meters with a 9mm is not that hard, provided you take aim. A crew-shaped target in the game would be even easier to hit since it is larger. The safety switch and the button to take the magazine out of the gun aren't even hard to locate (Do safeties even exist on in-game firearms?).

As for energy weapons, handling them should be even easier. Energy weapons would have no noticeable (key word there) recoil, as they essentially shoot beams of light, so the problem of the bullet dropping and recoil messing up accuracy is nonexistent, so the lasers should travel in a straight line, making the laser guns in the game easier to shoot than ballistic weaponry. This statement is supported by game mechanics, since the lasers in the game travel in straight lines and the laser weapons have no recoil. Not to mention laser weapons having no safeties or need to reload. As for changing settings, I would presume that IC laser weapons have a setting switch that would be located where the safety switch is.

Those things considered, does handling a gun in-game require as much training as people make it out to? Discuss.

[DatBerry]

to me it varries, if its a nogunz, you can hand them a side arm, tell them to point and squeeze, if he is somewhat informed, can probably use a pump shotgun, the bigger the gun the harder it is to handle, the saber's magazine is top mounted, i dont think such a config is easy to deal with.

usually i only care when i see people with no gun training using advanved weapons like AEGs lawgivers gat lasers and lawps

[SomeoneOutTher3]

usually i only care when i see people with no gun training using advanved weapons like AEGs lawgivers gat lasers and lawps

Wouldn't the AEG be essentially the same as an energy gun, with the only difference being that the AEG is larger due to a reactor inside it recharging the gun by itself, and therefore not /that/ hard to handle?

As for the lawgivers, the only people who usually have access to them are either knowledgeable enough to carry out testing, are trained in firearms, or antags. Yes, it will take some time to figure out that the guns are voice-activated. But do the lawgivers actually have recoil in the game? If not,refer to the part about E-weapons.

Gat lasers don't have recoil or any safety switch, they should be easier to handle because of that.

LWAPS also have no recoil or switch, look down the scope and pull the trigger.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It's all well and good that you can shoot a stationary target in a carefree environment with proper supervision. I'm a decent shot too.

That's not what is usually happening IC, when people are being chatted to by staff about their skills with weapons. Shooting a target and shooting a living being are two different things. It's not just that you can pick up a gun and shoot it well, it's that you pick it up and shoot it well with lethal intent on someone else, and make most of your shots. If someone tied up a live person to the target stake and told you to try again, or the target stake started shooting back, I would imagine that you suddenly have a much harder time hitting your target.

Because Aurora is a roleplay server it's expected that not everyone has a casual attitude towards death and murder unless they are an antagonist. Barrin civil unrest in their local area, IRL your common librarian, doctor, or engineer IRL are not capable of picking up a gun and shooting at someone else with decent accuracy and intent to kill or maim.

For an analogy, conscripted soldiers fresh from their homes would not be expected to be crack shots on a battlefield, and you would not throw some random passerbys into a SWAT team to breach and clear a room full of hostages or bad guys. That is what most non-sec characters are - random office shmucks.

That is what we tend to mean by you needing weapons training to use them properly. Yes, any random shmuck can pick up most of the guns and shoot at targets well enough, but that's different from shooting another character and operating.

[Skull132]

The main case to be made is about comfort and efficiency.

Much like you, I have shot weapons at a range and I know how to handle them safely and with some amount of competency. However, a few years ago now, I was also given the chance to participate in a national guard field training exercise which lasted a 3 day weekend. I was lugging around a Galil and light webbing the entire time, and boy. The environment of a range is not comparable to an environment where you actually have to go and do stuff with your weapon. The main argument is that, without specific training, you're going to suck and you're probably going to miss due to fatigue and not being used to other external factors that you wouldn't find in a range. (Leaving out characters who do that level of training as a hobby, I suppose.) That's usually why 80% of the cases where the training argument is levied by mods and 'mins, it's in a situation where an individual who's untrained pressed an assault or pursuit with a weapon, as opposed to defending themselves.

There's also the fun point of taking another human's life. Once again, in situations where your character pushes an advance, pursuit, or his life otherwise isn't under threat (he can run away or whatever), he may think twice about killing someone. Once an opponent has disengaged, it is most common for an untrained individual to freeze up, if my memory serves me. (The "fight or flight" paradigm being actually "fight, flight, freeze," with the latter being most common.)

[SomeoneOutTher3]

Thank you for the answer.

 

That's usually why 80% of the cases where the training argument is levied by mods and 'mins, it's in a situation where an individual who's untrained pressed an assault or pursuit with a weapon, as opposed to defending themselves.

What about the "exceptional" cases in the other 20%?

There's also the fun point of taking another human's life. Once again, in situations where your character pushes an advance, pursuit, or his life otherwise isn't under threat (he can run away or whatever), he may think twice about killing someone

Yeah, my question was primarily meant to be about using firearms in-game for self-defense, not actively pursuing someone. In the game, it seems that every non-security character I encountered suddenly lost the ability to use a gun whenever a situation arose that might have needed it for defense against whatever was on the station (Almost never did),so I asked if gun use really needed as much training as people made it out to.

[Ornias]

Frankly, no-one should face OOC retribution for something that there character can't do, unless it is something truly integral to their job (or, y'know, life).

Now, realistically, you give a man a loaded gun and he can kill with that loaded gun. But that's in a clear, "man is standing here, aim and fire". If you gave a man a gun and threw him into a war zone, he'd be practically a null combatant - sure, he might get off a lucky shot, but he's not going to want to be their, nor is he going to make much difference.

If you hand a character a gun and they say "I don't know how to use this", they're not saying they don't know how to aim and fire. They're saying they don't know how to aim and fire properly. If you hand a random civilian a gun and say "good luck", they'll likely miss most of their shots, if they can even bring themselves to aim and fire in a high-stress situation at all.

Anyone can fire a gun. Not everyone can fire a gun at the enemy.