Viewpoint True Ballistics

Real bullets for Project Viewpoint. Whenever you aim in first or third person, each shot is simulated as a physical projectile: it leaves the barrel, flies toward the point under your crosshair, takes time to get there, drops, shatters glass, stops in walls and hits whichever body part it actually touches.

Invisible target picking is gone. Aim at a car and you hit the car, not the zombie standing beside it.

Features

Bullets as objects. Each round leaves the gun's muzzle and travels to wherever your crosshair sits, in both first and third person.

Flight time and drop. Rounds lose speed and sink over distance. For long shots, aim high or zero your sight.

Walls and cover. Walls, closed doors, cars, trees and sturdy furniture stop rounds. Glass shatters and the round keeps going. If your barrel is behind a corner, the corner takes the hit, even when your third-person camera can see around it.

Hit locations. The body part hit is determined by where the round met the skeleton. Players are wounded in exactly that spot, down to hands and feet. Zombies take vanilla head, torso or limb damage accordingly.

Penetration. A rifle round with enough energy can go straight through one body and hit whoever is behind it.

Shotguns. Every pellet is a separate projectile.

Skill still counts. How tightly your shots group depends on your Aiming level, the weapon's accuracy, movement, moodles (panic, stress, tiredness, drunkenness, pain) and weapon condition.

Project Viewpoint ADS & Optics support. When aiming down sights, rounds follow the actual sight line, recoil included. Each sight has its own zero, and spread is tighter through the sights since ADS already simulates how you hold the gun.

What stays vanilla

Ammo, chambering, jams, reloading, sounds and noise, recoil, muzzle flash, Aiming XP, weapon wear, damage rolls, crits, armour and hit reactions.

Modded guns work without patches: their ballistics are taken from their ammo type.

Requirements

• ZombieBuddy a Java mod loader that must be installed into the game itself; see its page for instructions.
• Project Viewpoint
• Optional: Project Viewpoint ADS & Optics

Multiplayer server setup

The mod works in multiplayer without its server part, but hits are then limited to the gun's vanilla range. For full range and server-side hit validation, the server needs to run ZombieBuddy as well.

1. Copy ZombieBuddy to the server

Take the files from ZombieBuddy's libs folder: workshop/content/108600/3619862853/mods/ZombieBuddy/libs/

and put them in the server's main folder, the one containing ProjectZomboid64.json:

• Linux server: ZombieBuddy.jar
• Windows server: ZombieBuddy.jar and zbNative.dll

2. Launch the server with ZombieBuddy

Open ProjectZomboid64.json in the server's main folder and add one line at the very top of the "vmArgs" list. Leave all the other lines as they are.

Linux:

"-javaagent:ZombieBuddy.jar=policy=allow-all",

Windows:

"-agentlib:zbNative=policy=allow-all",

policy=allow-all is required because a server has no screen on which to approve Java mods. It loads every Java mod in your mod list, so only run ones you trust. A game update or a file integrity check can reset this file, so recheck it after updates.

3. Add the mods to the server settings

WorkshopItems=3619862853;3809306528;3812864848
Mods=ZombieBuddy;Viewpoint;ViewpointTrueBallistics

Append them to your existing lists, separated by semicolons. If you also use ADS, add 3812612054 and ProjectViewpointADS.

4. Confirm it works

The server console should show:

[TrueBallistics] Viewpoint True Ballistics 1.1.x loading (dedicated server)
[ZB] Found patch class: vtb.ServerPatches$WeaponDistance

After joining, the player's console.txt should contain:

[TrueBallistics] server answered: java=true version=1.1.x
[TrueBallistics] server runs True Ballistics 1.1.x - full ballistic range enabled

If you see java=false, the mod's Lua is running on the server but ZombieBuddy isn't. Go back over steps 1 and 2.

Sandbox options

All options are on the "Viewpoint True Ballistics" page.

• Global velocity scale (default 0.4): a bullet speed multiplier. At 1.0 speeds are realistic and drop is barely visible; lower values make flight time and drop more noticeable.
• Max projectile distance (default 3× the gun's range, capped at 200 m). For sniping, 5× lets any gun reach the edge of the loaded world.
• Spread scale (default 1.0): lower it for tighter groups at range.
• Plus: Zero distance, Gravity, Drag, Damage falloff, Penetration, Hit locations, Furniture collision, Server hit validation, Use in isometric view.

Keep in mind: the game only loads around 75 tiles around each player. Nothing beyond that can be hit, no matter how high you set the range.

Console commands

These require debug mode.

• VTB_status(): shows what's currently running.
• VTB_debug("trajectories", true): draws flight paths.
• VTB_tracers(1): turns every round into a tracer.

Compatibility

Don't combine it with other mods that replace firearm hit detection.

Gun packs with their own ammo names are recognised by calibre. Their authors can fine-tune values with VTB.registerAmmoProfile / VTB.registerWeaponProfile; see the mod's docs folder for details.