ArmA III ACE Medical Much-Needed Feature: Limb Disabling/Conscious Wounded State

The ACE Medical mod and its various components, despite their clunky flaws, are arguably the most realistic health system ever utilized in a main installment of the ArmA series (and in fact, probably one of the most realistic health systems ever utilized in a video game, period). That said, there is one glaring feature that is missing: limb disabling, otherwise described as a "conscious wounded state."

What do I mean by this? A player or a.i. unit that receives enough damage to a given limb should no longer be able to use that limb. If someone is shot through the leg or pelvic area, for example, he should be forced to crawl. If someone is shot in the arm, he should drop his weapon and should no longer be able to hold a weapon. This, of course, differs from the Terminator-like abilities of units under the default ACE Medical System to absorb bullets without meaningful consequence (only limping or increased weapon sway) until they reach a high enough damage threshold to lose consciousness or die. IRL, if someone's muscular or bone structure is shattered by high-velocity projectiles, he's going to go down and not be able to stand up or return effective fire, even if the injuries do not result in unconsciousness of death.

Before anyone says that a limb-disabling wounding system would be "too realistic" and "not fun to play," please remember that this feature has actually been available, in one form or another, in all other main ArmA games since the original "Operation Flashpoint" in 2001; ArmA III is the exception. Despite its primitive wounding system, Operation Flashpoint/Cold War Assault would force both players and a.i. units to lay prone if they received enough damage to their legs. Similarly, ArmA 2's first aid module would cause a unit receiving a non-lethal hit anywhere on the body to enter into a "wounded" state, writhing in pain on the ground and unable to move quickly, until receiving first aid from a comrade. If this feature was available with the simplistic wounding systems of past-generation games, could we not have limb-by-limb, hitpoint-specific, debilitating injuries with ACE Medical?

I have experimented with the Project Injury Reaction, Advanced Wounding System, and Death & Hit Reactions mods, which attempt to introduce reactions and/or limb-disabling/conscious wounded state features into ArmA III, but each mod has some major downsides.

Project Injury Reaction uses a "wounded state" similar to the ArmA 2 First Aid module, but it is unfortunately somewhat inaccurate to real-life first aid procedures (apparently, a tourniquet is required to stop bleeding, even if the wound is on the torso), and the health system often leaves players totally helpless, rather than being able to apply self-aid like ACE Medical (thus making single player difficult). Additionally, PIR does not simulate body armor well. If you configure the mod to have a unit fall down & crawl when hit in the pelvic area below its body armor, the unit will also fall down and crawl when hit in the armor. (There are plenty of videos online of people being shot while wearing ballistic plates, both in tests and in real-world combat, who hardly flinch when hit).

The Advanced Wound Reaction (AWR) and Death & Hit Reactions mods, played together with ACE Medical, incorporate hit reaction animations and rudimentary limb-disabling, but the execution of these features is not ideal. When a unit drops his weapon due to a hit in the arms or is forced to crawl due to a hit in the legs under the AWR mod, it still follows its waypoints -- just without a weapon. The appearance is actually rather comical; a hoard of injured enemies rabidly crawls toward the enemy, despite having no weapon and being critically injured, in a way that reminds me of Call of Duty: Zombies. The only workaround is to utilize event handlers or triggers to disable a.i. movement when the "incapacitated" state is triggered by the Advanced Wound Reaction mod, but then another problem occurs: injured units cannot be dragged to safety; an animation error is thrown when a player uses the ACE interaction menu to drag the injured unit because no dragging animation exists for AWR "injured" position, which leaves units laying on their stomach.

Overall, I would like to see a feature introduced into ACE Medical in which a player or a.i. unit whose arms, legs, or body reach a certain damage threshold will drop his weapon or fall down and be forced to crawl, preferably playing some sort of animation to indicate injury (such as grabbing the damaged limb).

Maybe my preference for morbid realism exceeds what most players would prefer, but if this setting is configurable like other ACE Medical settings, players who prefer a more arcade-style of play would be able to avoid it. All in all, I think this type of a limb-disabling/conscious wounded state feature would take ACE Medical realism to the next level and ensure that ArmA III remains the go-to game for realistic military simulations.