Mechanics

This page is dedicated to all of the mechanics within Frontline: Karelia 40 - 44. It is intended to allow those learning about the game to figure out more about how each piece of the game functions.

Player
The player is a soldier for either faction: Russia or Finland.

Soldiers will spawn with their selected loadout and cosmetics. Soldiers will always have a 5 second (?) invulnerability timer after spawning.

Basic movement, combat actions, inventory system, and health system are instrinsic to the player's time on the battlefield.



Health


The player starts off with 100 HP, but the specific number is never visible.

Frontline: Karelia 40 - 44 uses a diegetic feedback system: there is no visible health bar or number, instead the game shows the player's health by a red vignette. When a player is hit, a red vignette will surround the player's screen and there will be a wounded hole where the player was hit. Depending on their health level, the brightness of the red vignette will range from barely noticable to severely noticable. When the player runs out of health, they will die.

When the player is hit by bullets or shrapnel, they will begin to bleed. A display will show telling the player that they are wounded and bleeding. HP will begin to drain, along with the red vignette worsening. Blood will also begin to pour on the ground at a constant rate. The player must use a bandage to stem the bleeding. Once the player bandages all of their wounds, the display will disappear and the vignette will stop worsening. If the player does not bandage themself in time and runs out of health, they will die from blood loss.

The rate of bleeding is different in each body part. The arms bleed the slowest. The legs bleed faster than the arms. The torso and head will bleed the fastest. The exact rate of bleeding in each body type is unknown.

It is currently impossible to regenerate health.

Status Bars
On the bottom left of the player's screen, 3 bars will be present representing 3 statuses: Weight, Suppression, and Stamina.

Weight

Each item in the soldier's inventory has weight. The more items the player carries, the slower they will move and the more stamina they will consume.

The bar will depend on how much gear the player is carrying. The more the player carries, the more overencumbered they become.

Dropped weapons, grenades, and satchel charges can be picked up. This will add weight to the player.

The player is allowed to drop items in their inventory which can alleviate some weight, mostly weapons and throwables.

The player has an amount of weight which they will intrinsically tolerate without penalty. (More info needed)

Conversely, the player also has a max amount of weight they can carry before the penalties of overencumberance are at a maximum. (More info needed)

Some items, such as the shovel and wire cutters, cannot be dropped and will always be permenant weight to the player.

Suppression

When the player is getting shot at, they are under suppressive fire.

The bar represents the player's focus and will start off full. While being shot at, the bar will decrease in intervals until it is completely empty. The size of intervals is dependent on the distance of how close the shots were relative to the player's position and the size of caliber.

Being near the path of enemy gunfire and explosions will cause the player's screen to flinch. Flinching makes the player's screen suddenly move slightly in a random direction and throw off aim. The amount of flinch also corresponds to the distance of incoming shots and the size of caliber.

When suppressed, the player's screen will begin to slightly desaturate into a sepia color and the soldier's heartbeat will be audible. Objects and buildings will also begin to slightly blur and glow.

If the bar is completely empty, the player will no longer be able to steady aim until the bar begins to regenerate.

If the player is no longer being shot at or no longer near explosions, the bar will slowly regenerate.

Stamina

When the player sprints or steadies their aim, they consume stamina.

The bar will start off full and will begin to deteriorate when they player sprints. Weight will also contribute to the rate of how much stamina the player consumes.

The player will also consume stamina when they steady their aim while aiming down sights. Players cannot steady aim when the bar is 1/8 full.

When players stop sprinting, stop steady aiming, or the bar runs out completely, there will be a few seconds before it slowly regenerates.

Ammunition
On the bottom right of the player's screen, several magazines of the weapon the player has in their hands will be present. This represents how many magazines they have available. Due to the vast array of weapons, there are different ammo systems implemented.

 Detachable Magazines 

This includes Semi-Auto Rifles, Battle Rifles, SMGs, and LMGs.

Available magazines will be white when the magazine is full. When rounds are fired from a magazine, the display of the magazine in use will begin to darken black. When the magazine is empty, the display of that magazine will disappear.

Magazines that were used but not empty may be tactically reloaded. This causes the used magazine to be put back into storage while the player reloads a new magazine. If the player has used all of their magazines before, they will instead reload the magazine with the most bullets. If the current magazine is the one with the most ammo, the player will not do anything.

 Integral Magazines 

This includes Bolt Action Rifles, Lever Actions, and Shotguns.

Available magazines will be displayed by a number of how many rounds they can make a full reload. Once the number reaches 0, all of the reserve ammo will have been loaded.

If the player tactically reloads, they will cycle an unspent cartridge and reload the required amount of cartridges to fill the magazine. The unspect cartridge is discarded and not put back into reserve; this essentially means the player is wasting an extra cartridge whenever they make a tactical reload. However, if the player did not cycle the next cartridge and reloads while a spent cartridge is still in the chamber, they will instead cycle the spent cartridge while reloading and not waste ammo. The number of available magazines will not change unless the amount of cartridges needed to fill the magazine corresponds to the amount required for a full magazine. For example, if the player has a bolt action rifle with a magazine size of 5 and reloads 3 cartridges, the number of available magazines will still display its current amount. Once the player reloads at least 2 cartridges, the number of available magazines will decrease by 1.

This does not apply to the Double Barrel. If the player reloads the Double Barrel when only 1 shell was shot, the unspent shell will be put back into reserve.

If the player interrupts a tactical reload with any manually operated rifle, the player will need to cycle the rifle again to fire. If the player ejects the last unspent cartridge by reloading and interrupts the reload, they cannot cycle the rifle and will be forced to do a full reload.

Combat
Even though there are basic combat actions available, there are still several underlying mechanics that are essential to the game's combat.

Bullet Penetration
Colloquially known as wallbang, each firearm has a specific penetration value. The penetration value dictates how far fired rounds can penetrate through a material.

Wallbanging allows players to shoot enemies through cover. However, bullets shot through material will have their velocity drastically reduced. This reduces the damage, although the reduction is somewhat minor.

Third Person View
Players have the option to zoom in and out of third person view.

Although this was made for players to view their own cosmetics, a side effect to it is peeking. This type of view can be useful in peeking over cover without exposing the player.

The player can still aim and use weapons in third person, but it's not recommended.

Closed Bolt and Open Bolt Weapons
Several detachable magazine fed weapons different from closed bolt and open bolt designs.

Closed bolt weapons will spawn with an extra round in the chamber. Tactically reloading will replace the used magazine with one that contains more rounds. If the player proceeds to do a full reload, the chamber of the weapon will need to be racked. The player can reload again in order to utilize the extra round in the chamber along with their most filled magazine. Although it may seem miniscule, players argue that the extra round in the chamber is a difference maker in specific situations.

Open bolt weapons are the opposite of closed bolt. Tactically reloading will just replace the used magazine with one that contains more rounds. If the player proceeds to do a full reload, they will rack the charging handle before they replace the magazine. The extra round in the chamber does not exist for this design.

Damage
Every weapon and firearm has a base damage. This is the damage that initially affects the player, followed by bleeding. This only applies to the rounds fired from the firearm; melee bashes will give consistent damage based on their own stat. All bullets will cause bleeding.

Every firearm and shovel can be used as a melee to do a melee attack. These weapons are given their own melee stat and dictates how much damage they give. They follow the body part damage multipliers below. Primaries will cause the player do a buttstroke and strike with the stock. Secondaries will cause the player to pistol whip with the grip. The shovel's melee is toggleable and will cause the player to adjust it into a melee grip to do a slash attack when prompted. The player cannot do a melee attack when sprinting. Throwables, medicine, and WireCutters cannot be used as melee weapons.

Explosives have a blast radius. Players will not be hit by shrapnel if they far away enough from the blast radius. However if the player is inside the blast radius, several pieces of shrapnel will be lodged into their body parts. Being hit by shrapnel will cause bleeding.

Dying by gravity is possible with fall damage. Fall damage occurs when the player drops from tall heights. The amount of fall damage the player will incur is based on the height of the fall. A bone cracking sound effect can be heard when the player takes fall damage and the red vignette will appear or possibly worsen if they took any damage before. Fall damage does not trigger bleeding.

Firearms have a margin of damage that is -10 and +10 of their base damage. This means a weapon that has a base damage of 80 is capable of dealing damage between 70-90. This only applies to the bullets and not melee bashing.

Each body part has a specific multiplier of damage dealt:

Head: 1.5x (Speculative.)

Torso: 1.0x

Arms and Legs: 0.5x (Speculative.)

Each body part will have a different rate of bleeding:

Head and Torso: Fastest

Arms: Slowest

Legs: Medial

It should be noted that the exact numbers for rate of bleeding is unknown.

Muzzle Velocity and Bullet Drop
Every firearm has their own muzzle velocity. Muzzle velocity is how fast the bullet travels when it is being fired.

Muzzle velocity corresponds to the firearm's bullet drop. Bullet drop is the parabolic trajectory that fired bullets will travel due to gravity. Weapons with higher muzzle velocities will not have a very noticable bullet drop compared to weapons with lower muzzle velocities.

Players must learn how to compensate for bullet drop by aiming slightly higher than the target when firing at longer ranges.

Gamemodes
There are currently 2 gamemodes.

It should be noted that not every map will have both gamemodes available.

Conquest


An equal oppurtunity gamemode, teams must attack points whilst also defending their previous point. The team who has the majority of points will slowly drain the enemy team's tickets.

Both teams will spawn on opposite sides of the map and spawn points are dependant on points they currently have captured.

The first team to exhaust their enemy team's tickets and capture all of the points is victorious.

Breakthrough


An attack/defense gamemode, one team must defend points from being captured by the attacking team. Should the attacking team capture the point, the defending team will be pushed back to another point.

Defenders spawn initially and spawn closer to the point under attack.

Attackers will have more reinforcements. They spawn farther away, but their respawn timer is shorter.

Timer starts at 10 minutes; every point captured adds 8 minutes.

Defenders win if time runs out before the attackers capture every point.

Attackers win if they capture all points before time runs out.