The Jessie War Journal
Weapons Review Department
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This review has been reposted from the old blog to serve as a part of a buyer’s guide. It has also been updated to reflect the latest version of this weapon.
The updates follow this note, and after that section comes the original post, which has been modified as little as possible.
Grammar and photos have been changed.
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Overview
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Weapon: Mistral Munitions HK416
Price: $400L
Prim Count: 116/147
Mistral Munitions HK416
Mistral Munitions HK416
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UPDATES
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It is good to know my reviews can inspire changes and updates in products, as the new Version HK416 from Mistral Munitions did change the model based on my critique of the read drum sight. The new update however seems to have been a bit hastily put together to compete with other companies in the price range, and unfortunately, seems to have created more errors than it fixed.
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Changes
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-Script changes (Not sure if it is anything beyond error correction and new feature addition)
-Change in effects (Muzzle smoke texture changed)
-Optional M203
Ok. I like seeing script improvements and tweaks, but I am not sure what exactly was done fron the version change. Unlike other manuals I have read, the Mistral manuals don’t list anything about changes. I have come to the realization that this is because there seems to be only one manual (which explains why they aren’t named as the gun, and why they say “if equipped on your weapon). It’s not frustrating from a user stand point, but the more technical among us would like to know what makes this version better than the others.
The new muzzle smoke texture is not as good as the old one. Its edges are hard and it doesn’t seem natural.
The M203 grenade launcher is now included with the HK416. What I noticed right away is how it was packaged: one gun/sling set without the M203, one gun/sling set with the M203. The only other company I have seen do this is Ironsight Armaments, who have been doing so since their M203 equipped rifles came out several months ago. This leads me to believe that Mistral is feeling pressue in its market, not only from Ironjsight Armaments (which seems to me to be their biggest completion), but also from Titan Industries, who recently entered the price range with their older/less featured (but by no means lower quality) weapons. Now, this isn’t the first time I noticed Mistral seeming to follow behind Ironsight Armaments and copy their styles, and I normally don’t care (unless the copying of styles is done in an illegal fashion), but what makes the M203 on the Mistral stick out to me is that it seems to have been a hastily done upgrade. Upgrades with new features are great (and will help sales as any business person can tell you) but if it’s not done right, it’s not worth it.
The grenade launcher lacks performance and range, is unpolished, and is buggy. My first test was distance, which was perhaps the biggest disappointment. The purpose of a grenade launcher such as the M203 is to extend your range for grenades (and possible replace a grenade HUD all together), but the M203 on this gun can barely cross a New Jessie city street, and has a hell of a time going upwards. It also fires with the “C” or “PageDown” button, which is bad news for people who use many of the commercial grenade HUDS’s. Animations for the reload also do not exist. After firing the M203, you precede to play the basic AR-15 style reload animation (Which I have found in some Mistral non-Stoner type rifles and SMG as well). This is a bit of a disappointment, but not a major issue, as the Mistral weapons aren’t the best for looking that spectacular anyways. Sounds again drove me crazy with the “I know I have heard that before but not where”. Then another combatant heard and pointed out where they were from: Call of Duty. I promptly logged off SL and started up COD4 and put on my headphones. I went around firing several AR’s and SMG and the M203 in the game. Just for extra reference, I grabbed the sounds with a Audacity to play back later. Back in SL I played the sound over and over, and sure enough with my Grado 80i’s I could hear all the quirks. I even fired the rifle, and found the same thing. Call of Duty Report sounds. This really makes me uneasy, as not only do I find the sounds to be wimpy, but it makes me wonder about effort put into some of the Mistral weapons. Bug wise, there are some of the usual errors found in the general gun, but namely it is very easy to kill yourself with the M203, as the combination of “c” and “PageDown” firing, plus the fact that it is able to fire out of mouselook, will have you killing you and your team at least a few times.
Further things I noticed while seeing what may have been changed in the new scripts were a variety of input and feature malfunctions. The input is extremely unforgiving, as it is both case sensitive, requires colons in specific places, and in the case of velocity, will accept negative commands. Negetive bullet velocity sends bullets flying back at your face, and while trying to recreate “The Matrix” with your own rifle is fun, you will get screwed over if you mis-type in battle or forget to change it. It also seems that the reset command does not fully reset all parts of the rifle. The animation disabling option also seems to forget to actually stop the animations, just prevents future ones from playing, which leaves you to run around stuck in a pose. Bullets also seem to be visibly smaller, but are still the same large alpha tube/cylinder with a small visible hole for texturing. Unfortunately, it may be because of this they seemed to phys-lock a bit more than the past version.
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Unchanged
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Build
Aside from the changes to the read sight, I did not notice any changes to the model. My small nit-picks are still there, as texturing and detail still need improvement, and the sculpted rails still like to flicker in and out. However, as I stated before, Mistral Munitions weapons are more for function over form. They are simple and work, but are far from the best looking weapons (though far from the worst as well).
Animations
No changes found.
Sounds/Effects
I found out where they are from and a new sound has been added for the M203. Otherwise, no changes. Muzzle smoke has been changed to a less appealing texture.
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Overall, a few new features that are nice and work well, but not flawlessly and the “big” new features are buggy. This seems a bit rushed, and I almost prefer the performance of the old version better. It still remains a solid weapon.
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New Flag Rating
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This is what a perfect 5 Flags looks like [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~]
Performance: [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (4.0)
Build:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (3.0)
Texture:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ (2.5)
Animations:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (3.0)
Sounds:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JW (2.5)
Ease of Use:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (4.0)
Value:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (4.0)
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ORIGINAL POST
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–Manual Credits–
None
Inspection Credits
Build: Sera Otoro
Scripts: Sera Otoro
Animations: Sera Otoro (Aim/Hold), Tenaki Kupferberg(Reload), Timmahy Widget(Crouch)
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Flags
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This is what a perfect 5 Flags looks like [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~]
Performance: [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JW(4.5)
Build:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (3.0)
Texture:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ (2.5)
Animations:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (3.0)
Sounds:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JW (2.5)
Ease of Use:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (4.0)
Value:[~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] [~JWJ~] (4.0)
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First Impressions
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Even before I unpack the weapon, I can infer from the vendor images and the box itself that this is going to be a basic, all business weapon made for combat. The manual that pops over my screen on unpack continues this, telling me little more than commands, what they are, and what they do.
Clean, simple, and to the point.
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Aesthetics
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The HK416 is a weapon of modest appearances. It doesn’t scream for attention, it doesn’t grab the eye so much as suggest a look, and doesn’t ooze of photo-realistic textures or micro prim details.
The build fits together well. Prims fit with one another with only few seams. Prim details are well done, subtle, but noticeable. A few points of the rifle’s build look odd and out of place however. The back sights have sides that are too thick, and the drum, typical of Heckler and Koch weapons, is not hollow. The ejection port’s cover flap is to long and to thin and looks fixed in place, rather than hinged so it could pop open with the first shot. The rails on the foregrip look far too rectangular, and don’t seem the right size. The charge handle seems oddly shaped, and halfway between a pull.
Textures are adequate, but a bit too plain and generic in my opinion. There is a base texture that seems to cover the entire gun, tinted differently to add depth in certain parts, and a texture for the barrel. What stands out the most though is the much higher detailed textures that are in odd spots around the gun. The front barrel guard has a higher detail texture for the holes, the left side of the receiver has a etched texture for the fire selector, and the magazine has a its own texture. The magazine texture is also oriented wrong, as it suggests I have tried to shove the magazine into the lower receiver upside down ( the black indent that is on the bottom of the this magazine is where it should hook onto the magazine catch inside the gun).
Sounds are average. Firing sounds are clear, but are quite quiet and the unsilenced sound could use more of a sharp bang at the beginning. The reload sound is very odd, as it is so quiet and full of what sounds like background noise (as though recorded from a game), I wonder if I am reloading or if there is a guy 15m behind me reloading. There are no sounds for attaching or detaching the silencer.
Animations are basic and to the point. They fit the gun, though the aim isn’t at eye level, and work well together. The biggest issue is there is no walk for the crouch. I simply slide around on the ground in a crouched position. That’s going to wear out my shoes very quickly!
Effects included on this rifle are good in looks, but lacking a bit in execution. The both muzzle smoke and shell ejection dont seem to sync with the firing, and seem to start and stop randomly of their own accord.
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Performance
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I felt quite confident with this weapon in my hands. Bullets always rezzed, the gun never lost controls, and never faltered. Even in the most severe lag I encountered, the gun kept firing. However, the bullets did like to physlock in moderate-heavy lag, but I was able to predict this, and know when to cease fire. The physlocking is not unique to this weapon however, and the bullets are very large.
A large plus to this gun, something I love seeing on SL weapons, is that spread decreases as you switch to burst and semi auto fire modes, meaning you get something in return for slowing down your fire rate.
The animation and effect toggles work as described, and the velocity adjustment comes in handy.
However, on default settings this rifle was more than capable of taking out targets at all ranges, including when I was calling for combatants in New Jessie, and two people ran up the stairs behind me. I was able to shoot them both without worying about velocity. One was quite close to me (within 10m), while his partner was in the doors about 23m away. I was able to fire a burst at the first target, round the corner while reloading and take out the other one. I was quite pleased.
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Overall
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The Mistral Munitions HK416 may be lacking in aesthetics, but it more than makes up for it with performance.
The weapons earns 4.0 flags for its above average performance. Build is average at 3 flags, and is solid prim work, though it won’t win any beauty pageants. Textures are there, but rather generic and earn a flag rating of 2.5. Animations and sounds rank at 3 and 2.5 flags respectively. They are good and simple, though each has its own downsides (animations lack a crouch walk and the aim is a bit too low, sounds are quiet and not as violent/gun like). Ease of use is very good and scores four flags, though I just wish there were some key combos for things like reload and crouch. Value is above average if looks aren’t your number one concern, as you get decent performing rifle for such a modest price
The MM HK416 is a solid companion on the battlefield, but if you are looking for something to stun on lookers and perform beyond your expectations, you may want to look elsewhere.
And as Caine would like me to remind you, if you’re interested in the Mistral Munitions HK416 Assault Rifle, it is available in the New Jessie Armory.
