My experience shooting with nods mirrors yours. Normal use of optics is almost impossible, and certainly impractical.
Possible to use a forward mounted red dot on a high riser, but the dot is not super clear.
Ground Branch depicts optics and NVGs very realistically, especially compared to Arma.
We use IR lasers/illuminators for everything. No visible lasers ever. At short range, bracketing the target in the middle of the illuminator circle works pretty well!
Great points guys. Keep in mind I’m only referencing how the NODs with scopes work in game and not in real life. I have no experience with this in RL and now that you’ve made me think of it, it can’t be easy LOL! I guess it’s better to have a night vision or thermal scope on your rifle and flip your NODs out of the way to get the longer shots.
I have another GB question, has anyone found how to equip flashbangs or smoke grenades? I’ve only found regular grenades so far.
drag them onto your belt or vest, but you have to have the pockets. It’s in my video near the beginning will try and find a time stamp. 4:30
Totally missed those dang sprockets for the vest and belt loadouts LOL! Man, this game just got a whole lot cooler! What tac shooter do you remember where you could load yourself out in such detail?! 
Never! It’s awesome. I’ve got a near-exact replica of my LBT6094, with the magazines and pouches right where they are IRL. Too cool!
Supposedly they intend to bring GB to VR at somepoint in the future. If they can make the mechanics as good as say, Boneworks or TWD:S&S, it will be amazing!!
Oh wow, that’s incredible, Hollywood! 
When and where did you serve?
I hope not. VR still sucks for any sort of detailed first person shooter graphics at this point. All VR first person shooters look like blurry cartoons. I do still like Onward, Contractors and Pavlov though. I bought Boneworks and didn’t like it at all.
Who said anything about that? Being a country boy from Texas, having a plate carrier and NV in your gun room isn’t too abnormal, nor is using them frequently to shoot nocturnal four-legged pestilences (hogs).
YMMV, but I think the tech is pretty much there. Pavlov looks pretty good to me, but I relate to it as a VR version of counterstrike, and I guess I don’t need photorealism yet. I wouldn’t say it looks cartoony though, but might depend on which headset one has. I tried Onward and was disappointed both in the game mechanics, and community, uninstalled after a day. I agree that Boneworks is more of a physics demo than a game, but the shooting seemed fairly solid.
I think the best VR shooter that I’ve played is actually an older one; Zero Caliber. I relate it as COD in VR, and it’s pretty good in terms of mechanics.
The best VR FPS though, I think is TWD S&S. Despite the fact that I don’t care about zombies or TWD franchise (at all, ug!), the game itself is a masterpeice in terms of VR mechanics. It’s what HL:A should have been, in terms of how weapons are used, the inventory is a physical backpack you take off/on your back, how items are placed on your body, world interaction, etc. Very well done, and worth a looksee, anyway. It strikes a perfect balance between pure physics (boneworks) and my-weapon-is-glued-to-my-hand-and-I-cannot-scream (HL:A). The character graphics are (intentionally) somewhat cartoony though, I think in an effort to avoid uncanny valley.
I enjoyed boneworks as an experience but the weighted physics, while technically very impressive made me feel a bit sick more than the actual motion did.
You have a gun room? Man, that is awesome! 
I think I’ll give The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners a try! I’ve had my eye on it for a while and your endorsement put me over the edge.
Yes. It’s a wonderful achievment in terms of VR physics, but it needed some balancing to be an actual game, which is what TWD:S&S achieves very well I think.
Let me know how you like it. I’ve not played it since the new update, might have to try it out now. The first time you stab something is surreal how ‘good’ it feels, compared to BW.
it runs reasonably well on my old notebook, it has airplane test range and they have my fav MP5SD… noice! 
Hey, we wouldn’t steer ya wrong! GB is friggin’ gorgeous!
absolutely!
btw all those MK18, AK-103 etc. its whole new rabbit hole for me.
despite I really like the design of MP5SD I am slowly realizing that its kind of ‘retro’ metal by todays standards. I mean there are no rails so no way to customize it with the sights and stuff.
so testing MPX SBR for CQBs and HK416D for open spaces. did I mention already that I like suppressors?
H&K makes a receiver picatinny mount for optics, an integral light handguard, and they even sell one with a laser module and light (not in GB unfortunately). Besides 15 minutes with basic tools and you can mount pic rail sections wherever you need to hold whatever you want. If your hand size can reach the controls (my thumbs aren’t long enough to reach without breaking my firing grip), they leave little on the table to other designs.
The modern host of pistol caliber carbines (PCC)'s are arguably more ergonomic than the MP5 when it comes to reloads. But I have found little difference when you actually put it on the timer except with firing them both dry and then reloading. Yes having a bolt hold open on the MPX or similar is faster than running the working parts on the MP5, but if you have to work the bolt on both systems the times are near identical, same with reloading on a hot chamber.
There are 2 real world complaints I ever had with the MP5, the first is that it is heavy for what it is. This however means it barely recoils; the recoil level with the MP5 in GB is pretty accurate, it doesn’t have much. The second is the safety wasn’t good for someone with my size hands, there are ways around it both with modifications, or with manipulations, it was just annoying.
If I was going to walk into the arms room and needed a 9mm sub gun, the MP5 would to this day be a damn good choice. Also the SD is probably the most reliable turnkey suppressed 9mm system ever built.
You can put a top rail adapter on it. You can even put a tri-rail mount on the SD version of the MP5 …
thx for the valuable info guys
so back to MP5SD 
anyway I realized that any kind of optics work fine for me in the open. once I am inside I prefer the bare metal sights.
did the plane mission and while I was using 6x optics around the plane I grabed the enemy short AK to work my way inside it.
btw cleared the outside, cleard the inside with 2 remaining bad guys somewhere still hiding
another question. can I equip myself with two primary weapons? I can definitely grab enemy guns lying around but didn’t figure how to have two right from the start.
So like a lot of tac shooters, they have a lot of minutiae that is neat, but some of the important things are missing or wrong. The gear setup is neat, it’s kind of cool to be able to setup my rig pretty similar to how it is in real life. Same with the weapons. However for all the modability, things like IR illuminators or laser for the pistols are missing, same with pistol optics and mounts (Geissele six second mount anyone?). It’s an odd thing to leave off considering that there are a dozen different RDO’s for the rifles.
It appears as though there is some kind of ballistics engine, which is good. However without adjustable zero’s that’s kinda pointless. There numbers appear to be off for 7.62 NATO, a round which when zero’d anywhere from 25-100 yds (I looks like a 50 yd zero which is a horrible idea) shouldn’t drop more than about 15" at most out to 300 yds. Yet with the M-110 I have to hold at the shoulders at 300 yds to get a low torso hit on what appears to be a 40" E-type. Which is exacerbated by not being able to go prone, and the hideous sway mechanic they have implemented. Interestingly enough 5.56 out of 16" barrel appears to have a 50 yd zero and hit where I would expect out to 300.
Moving beyond external ballistics, let go to terminal ballistics. Entirely too many 1 shot stops. I shouldn’t be getting complete flaccid paralysis (ie rag doll) stops with a single round to torso except in an extremely small area (the spine). Single hit to the arm, bag guy drops, I may see if what happens if I foot shoot someone. Currently there is no reason to choose anything but the lightest recoiling weapon you can find, they appear to all do the same damage.
Now all the above may be work in progress items, fair enough. Now for my major gripe that is probably a core gameplay function: The different stances with the guns. Yes it is accurate to have a high ready, low ready, compressed, etc. it is also incredibly clunk in game. Actually getting the rifle/pistol into firing position is an act of unconscious competence (well it should be if you’re doing this for real). When I want to shoot, I don’t have to think “lets bring the sights up first”, the gun is already in motion. It is frustrating as all get out to have to juggle the weapon ready position, fire button, and aiming down the sights. Real world it’s an unconscious act to bring the rifle/pistol into position, flip the safety to fire, and be ready to shoot. Not “hey the bad man is trying to shot me, press fire, crap we’re not shooting, oh that’s right I have to hit it again to shoot, or I bring my sights up, oh I’m dead.”
Oh and minor gripe: If I turn the lights off in the shoot house or aircraft simulator, leave them off! It gets annoying having to keep flipping them off.
I’m not seeing that, at least not 2-3 weeks ago. Not trying to argue, but my experience was that 9mm weapons needed 3 shots to stop, and 5.56 to the torso was 1-2 shots. At the time I was getting a lot of mutual hits, which indicated to me that they may not be dropping immediately. Shrug maybe they changed something in the latest patch. The amount of 4.6 out of the MP7 it took to kill was ridiculous, about a 1/3rd of a mag. We can debate how realistic that is (I have no idea, only what I read on the interwebs), but there is/was definitely some damage scale.
Yes. It’s a cool mechanic and I applaud them for innovating beyond “the gun is glued to your face except when sprinting”, but it takes conscious effort to drive the gun. Which is why VR would be so cool.
So it looks like there are “tiers” to their damage system. All calibers are on stop shots to the head. A 5.45/5.56/7.62 will on shot drop an enemy regardless of location. Shin, forearm, calf, etc will all drop them just as well as a head shot. 9mm/45 appear to require 2 hits to the torso, or 3 to an extremity. The MP7 with it’s little 4.6’s appear to be 3 rounds to the torso or 4 to an extremity. That does explain how the bad guys seem to one shot you as the player.
Man, you should’ve seen the original weapon ready states in Ground Branch LOL! I think there were at least five if not more. They simplified it for this latest iteration and I love it. Why is rolling your mouse wheel up or down clunky to you? Why is hitting your right mouse button to bring your gun to bear frustrating to you? It’s a GAME dude. Get used to it.
All I can say is I hope you’re still in the two hour refund window for this dreadful pre-alpha!
