Today I am deploying one of the largest core engine, gameplay, and content updates in the history of Direct Contact (Fubar Mode)! As a solo developer, I have completely overhauled and expanded the game's foundation: introducing the full Campaign Directive Missions across 2 Major Operational Chapters (Operation Shieldwall & Operation Eagle Recovery), my new procedural Left-Hand IK & Ergonomic Grip Overhaul, the dedicated Weapon Holster Mechanic ([H] Key), an expanded Safehouse Command Office & Interactive Tactical Radio, the physical 3D Operations Directive Terminal, a full Texture Remaster & Optimization Pass across all Weapons, Barrels, Handguards, Scopes & Attachments, the next-generation Procedural Environmental Acoustics Subsystem, the complete Helicopter Extraction & Seated Netcode Overhaul, and comprehensive Multiplayer Security & Server Authority Hardening.
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| DIRECT CONTACT: CAMPAIGN DIRECTIVES & CORE OVERHAUL |
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| 2 Storylines | Procedural Hand | Weapon Holster | 3D Terminal |
| Directive Nodes | IK & Grips (UE5) | Toggle [H] Key | & New HQ Office |
+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
| Tactical Radio | Weapons & Attach | Ray-Traced Room | Helicopter [F] |
| Comms System | Texture Remaster | Acoustics (C++) | Seated Netcode |
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Campaign Operations: 2 Narrative Storylines & Directive Nodes
I have expanded the mission architecture with dedicated operational directive trees across two distinct operational theatres, accessible directly via the Safehouse Directive Terminal:
Operational Chapter [1] — Operation Shieldwall (Maryland Compound):
- Operation Shieldwall – 1 (Courier Recon: Night Insertion): Infiltrate compound grounds under cover of darkness and covertly plant an active GPS tracking beacon on the commercial delivery transport in the front driveway. Reward: +500 XP, +1,200 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 2 (Casualty Assessment: VIP & Spouse): Execute a systematic ground-floor forensic sweep to confirm the status of the Spouse under the central staircase AND the Vice President inside the master bathroom suite. Reward: +1,750 XP, +12,000 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 3 (Data Breach: Executive Office): Breach the 2nd-floor executive quarters and defend your position during an encrypted decryption hack on the central cyber terminal. Reward: +1,000 XP, +4,500 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 4 (Perimeter Breach: Outbuilding Breaker): Tap the outbuilding fuse box to disable perimeter alarms and inspect the reinforced security door. Reward: +800 XP, +3,200 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 5 (Hillside Haven: Red Cabin): Advance up the hillside perimeter, secure the vantage gazebo, and clear out hostile presence inside the smoke-filled red cabin. Reward: +1,500 XP, +8,000 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 6 (Woodland Interception: Suppressed Scout Fireteam): Ambush and neutralize an elite enemy reconnaissance patrol operating in the surrounding perimeter forest. Reward: +1,800 XP, +9,500 DC.
- Operation Shieldwall – 7 (Foreign Intervention: Russian Airborne QRF): Hold off and eliminate an incoming airborne quick reaction force attempting to extract classified compound materials. Reward: +2,500 XP, +15,000 DC.
Operational Chapter [2] — Operation Eagle Recovery (Ukraine Frontline):
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 1 (Signals Intercept): Establish frontline signal intelligence relays, tune field frequencies, and intercept active hostile communications. Reward: +600 XP, +1,500 DC.
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 2 (Downed Eagles: Crash Sites): Locate the wreckage of downed allied air assets across contested terrain, secure the black-box flight cores, and neutralize local recovery squads. Reward: +1,100 XP, +5,000 DC.
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 3 (Armored Interdiction: Highway BTRs): Ambush mechanized convoys along the primary supply route and destroy fortified BTR-82A combat vehicles. Reward: +1,580 DC Bounty, +450 XP.
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 4 (High-Rise Overwatch: Concrete Ruin): Infiltrate and secure multi-story urban concrete ruins to establish long-range sniper overwatch and eliminate hostile spotters. Reward: +1,400 XP, +7,000 DC.
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 5 (Freight Terminal Sweep): Clear out a heavily fortified industrial rail yard and freight depot containing contraband weapon shipments. Reward: +1,900 XP, +10,500 DC.
- Operation Eagle Recovery – 6 (Warhead Disarm: Subterranean Vault): Breach a reinforced underground bunker complex, neutralize defensive garrison forces, and safely disarm an armed tactical warhead. Reward: +3,000 XP, +20,000 DC.
Procedural Left-Hand IK & Ergonomic Grip Overhaul
I have completely rebuilt the procedural weapon handling and inverse kinematics pipeline in Unreal Engine 5, eliminating unnatural left-wrist bending, arm overextension, and visual clipping across all weapon platforms:
- Rebuilt Procedural Left-Hand IK Solver: The animation pipeline dynamically calculates both hand location and 3D rotational alignment directly from active weapon and attachment socket data, ensuring anatomically correct wrist, elbow, and forearm orientation across all combat stances.
- Full-Roster Attachment Socket Calibration: Every individual handguard, vertical foregrip, angled foregrip (AFG), handstop, and rail accessory across the entire weapon catalog (M4, HK416, MK18, LMGs, Glock pistols, and precision rifles) has undergone a socket calibration pass.
- Natural Ergonomic Grip Stances:
- Bare Handguards: Realistic modern C-clamp / thumb-over-bore forward grip with relaxed forearm alignment and proper thumb placement along top rail sections.
- Vertical & Stubby Grips: True-to-life vertical fist grip with zero wrist distortion or unnatural forearm angles.
- Angled Foregrips (AFG): Proper 45-degree tactical hand support with natural elbow positioning and organic finger placement.
Weapon Holster System ([H] Key Toggle)
I have added dedicated tactile control over active weapon readiness:
- Dedicated Holster Keybind ([H]): Pressing [H] holsters your active primary or secondary firearm onto your sling/holster rig, freeing up your hands for non-combat traversal, tactical navigation, and safehouse operations.
- Movement & Stamina Advantages: Holstering weapons lowers your profile, slightly boosts sprint acceleration, and provides smoother movement fluidity when navigating tight interiors and climbing obstacles.
- Seamless Unholster & Draw Sequences: Pressing [H], switching weapon slot (1), or tapping ADS immediately initiates a rapid, fluid weapon draw animation directly back into ready-stance.
- Multiplayer Replication: Holstered weapon states, physical sling physics, and back-mounted weapon meshes are fully replicated across all connected network clients.
Safehouse Command Office, Tactical Radio & 3D Directive Terminal
I have expanded the Safehouse interior with new interactive operational hardware:
- New Safehouse Command Office: Fully expanded interior featuring a dedicated Executive Planning Office inside HQ_FUBAR with detailed briefings, map tables, tactical warboards, and immersive ambient lighting.
- Interactive Tactical Radio System: Integrated a new operational base radio console allowing operators to tune across DC music's.
- Physical Curved Ultrawide Command Terminal (AFubarHQDirectiveTerminal): Situated directly inside the command room, featuring custom curvature, dedicated standing anchors, and cinematic camera framing, If you encounter that the ultrawide screen doesn’t fit your monitor, please contact me on Discord or on the patch notes (not here), so I can adjust it. My monitor is ultrawide, so I may have oversized it..
- Seamless Viewport Camera Transitions: Approaching the terminal and pressing [F] executes a smooth cinematic camera blend (SetViewTargetWithBlend) directly into the terminal interface, seamlessly restoring first-person view upon exit.
- Terminal Audio Cue Integration: Added authentic acoustic startup boot sequences and logout audio cues upon interacting with and exiting the terminal.
- Multiplayer Slate Virtual User Replication Fix:
- Resolved an Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer networking conflict where multiple players shared Virtual User Index 0, previously causing button focus loss, hover flickering, and broken On Clicked events.
- Dynamically allocates PlayerId into Set Virtual User Index and Set Pointer Index on BeginPlay for locally controlled characters.
- Both Host and remote Clients can now simultaneously hover, click, scroll, and manage world-space 3D monitors without stealing input focus or desyncing.
- Resolved an Unreal Engine 5 multiplayer networking conflict where multiple players shared Virtual User Index 0, previously causing button focus loss, hover flickering, and broken On Clicked events.
Operations Directive UI Suite & HUD Task Pinning
- Tactical Command Interface (UFubarTaskDirectiveWidget): Designed with a high-contrast dark navy palette, cyan data telemetry accents, dynamic operational status badges, and animated progress bars.
- Dynamic Multi-Chapter Accordion: Left-hand sidebar dynamically organizes operational chapters and contracts with responsive text auto-wrapping and card spacing.
- Rich Operational Briefing Intel: Task dossiers dynamically load official department emblems (TaskIcon) via soft texture referencing alongside integrated high-resolution satellite and reconnaissance photos on the right-hand briefing card.
- Live HUD Objective Pinning: Squad leaders and operators can pin active contracts directly to their in-game HUD via the OnPinnedTaskChanged replication delegate, complete with animated on-screen HUD toast notifications (e.g. PINNED TO HUD: Operation Shieldwall - 1).
Hacking Terminals & Squad-Shared Objectives
- Server-Authoritative Decryption Timers (AFubarHackingTerminal): Cyber terminal hacking progress and Matrix countdown sequences are strictly managed by the server and replicated cleanly across all clients.
- 25-Meter Squad Objective Sharing: Completing a hack executes an authoritative 25-meter radial squad check, granting full task credit, XP, and Direct Coin rewards to all nearby teammates deployed on the same objective.
Weapon & Attachment Visual Remaster + Modular DMC Architecture
Every firearm, barrel, optic, and tactical attachment currently in the game has undergone a complete texture remaster, visual upgrade, and backend data overhaul:
- Comprehensive Firearm & Barrel Retexture: Re-authored all weapon receivers, frames, stocks, and individual barrel lengths with my updated high-contrast tactical art style—featuring dedicated textures per barrel, crisp edge wear, realistic metallic micro-roughness, and matte polymer detailing.
- Handguards, Underguards & Muzzle Adapters:
- Brand-new threaded muzzle adapters calibrated per barrel caliber and thread pitch.
- Fully updated, high-detail textures across all tactical handguards, underguard rail sections, picatinny covers, and forward grips.
- Brand-new threaded muzzle adapters calibrated per barrel caliber and thread pitch.
- Complete Optics & Scope Remaster Suite:
- Mid & Hybrid Optics: Completely remastered high-resolution textures for ACOG 4x combat optics and HAMR hybrid sights with top-mounted red dots.
- Long-Range Precision Scopes: High-magnification sniper optics re-textured with crisp exterior housing finishes and anti-reflective tube coatings.
- Reflex & Holographic Sights: Crisp housing retextures with calibrated PBR optical glass and realistic multi-coated lens glare catching room lighting naturally.
- Mid & Hybrid Optics: Completely remastered high-resolution textures for ACOG 4x combat optics and HAMR hybrid sights with top-mounted red dots.
- Universal Attachment Texture Overhaul: Suppressors, flash hiders, tactical flashlights, laser aiming modules (LAM), and extended magazines now match the new high-fidelity visual standard across every weapon setup.
- Modular Attachment & DMC Leveling Data Architecture: Rebuilt the backend weapon data tables and attachment socketing framework to provide a robust, future-proof foundation for weapon mastery leveling, dynamic attachment unlock progression, and upcoming DMC (Direct Modular Customization) attachment packs.
- High-Efficiency Texture Streaming & Optimization: Re-packed and compressed texture channels (Albedo, Normal, Roughness, Metallic, Ambient Occlusion) to drastically cut VRAM overhead and eliminate texture popping during rapid weapon swaps and ADS transitions.
Tactical Helicopter Extraction & Seating Netcode Overhaul
I have completely re-engineered extraction helicopter boarding, seat replication, and character orientation mechanics:
- Interactive [F] Key Boarding: Boarding is now an intentional, responsive interaction triggered by aiming at the helicopter and pressing [F] within 800 units (RequestBoardPlayer / Server_BoardExtractionHelicopter). Touch-based collision auto-boarding has been removed to prevent accidental exfil triggers during active LZ firefights.
- 5-Seat Multi-Client Synchronization & Late-Join Protection: Verified and synchronized physical socket alignment across all 5 helicopter seating slots (Seat1 through Seat5). Seating states are fully replicated across dedicated servers, listen hosts, and Steam network clients with built-in late-joiner state recovery.
- Crouch-to-Board Transition & Baseline Seating Anchors:
- Resolved an issue where entering the helicopter while crouched caused the character's half-height capsule offset to push their head through the ceiling.
- Added a 0.25-second stand-up transition delay: crouching operators cleanly stand up before boarding.
- In SeatPlayer and Multicast_SeatPlayer, capsule height (90.0f) and mesh location (Z = -90.0f) are explicitly anchored to the seat cushion baseline, guaranteeing consistent seating height regardless of initial entry stance.
- Resolved an issue where entering the helicopter while crouched caused the character's half-height capsule offset to push their head through the ceiling.
- Upper-Body Seated Aim Twist & Torso Smoothing:
- Disabled actor root rotation while seated (bUseControllerRotationYaw = false, bUseControllerDesiredRotation = false) to lock the operator's pelvis and legs firmly forward in the seat.
- Maintained aim rotation networking so upper-body looking replicates cleanly to all clients.
- Updated AnimBP to drive upper-body pitch and yaw via replicated Get Base Aim Rotation smoothed with an FInterp To solver, eliminating snapping and keeping torso rotation natural.
- Disabled actor root rotation while seated (bUseControllerRotationYaw = false, bUseControllerDesiredRotation = false) to lock the operator's pelvis and legs firmly forward in the seat.
- Extraction Audio Synchronization & Echo Elimination:
- Assigned bAlwaysRelevant = true and NetPriority = 3.0f to AFubarExtractionHelicopter, preventing distance-culling drops on extraction radio events.
- Deduplicated radio triggers: RadioCallInSound, RadioTouchdownSound, and RadioDepartureSound now execute cleanly once via replicated state transitions with single-play protection, eliminating playback echoes.
- Assigned bAlwaysRelevant = true and NetPriority = 3.0f to AFubarExtractionHelicopter, preventing distance-culling drops on extraction radio events.
- Extraction Tick Optimization: Removed runtime reflection string lookups (FindPropertyByName) from AFubarExtractionHelicopter::Tick, eliminating micro-stutters while seated inside the aircraft.
Procedural Environmental Acoustics Subsystem (C++)
I have integrated a real-time ray-traced acoustic geometry simulation subsystem that dynamically calculates environmental sound propagation, physical surface reflections, and room reverberation on the fly:
- Real-Time Geometry Probing: Continuously casts 8 radial horizontal traces paired with vertical ceiling height detection (up to 35 meters) and physical material analysis to assess the surrounding volume and architecture.
- Environment-Specific Acoustic Profiles:
- 🏭 Industrial Concrete Warehouses & Multi-Story Facilities: Massive Convolution Impulse Response (IR) reverberation with aggressive concrete and metallic slapbacks.
- 🏚️ Wooden Barns & Timber Outposts: Warm wooden slapback micro-delays (0.45x) paired with rich, localized room resonance (0.55x).
- 🏠 Furnished Residential Buildings: Dry, punchy acoustic reflections with natural soft-material damping (eliminating artificial metallic ringing).
- 🚇 Underground Tunnels & Drainage Networks: Deep, cavernous, hollow tube reverberation.
- 🏔️ Mountain Valleys & Rocky Gorges: Distinct rock face slapbacks accompanied by distant rolling thunder acoustic tails.
- 🌲 Open Plains & Dense Canopies: Wide, natural open-air sound dissipation without artificial boundary reflections.
- 🏭 Industrial Concrete Warehouses & Multi-Story Facilities: Massive Convolution Impulse Response (IR) reverberation with aggressive concrete and metallic slapbacks.
- Dynamic Physical Wall Occlusion (Low-Pass Filtering): Gunfire and high-energy audio obstructed by cover dynamically filters high frequencies down between 300 Hz and 1100 Hz, delivering an authentic, muffled physical thump through brick, concrete slabs, and solid wood.
- Cross-Boundary Indoor/Outdoor Attenuation: When operating inside structures, distant outdoor firefights and ambient atmospheric tails are realistically muffled through the building envelope. I will also be adding this feature for the AI to reflect the system, and it will be included in a future update. Since I need to add all weapons to the AI system, it will take a few days to complete.
Soldier Movement & Footstep Acoustic Integration
Character locomotion is now wired directly into the procedural room acoustics engine:
- Real-Time Room Footstep Reverberation: Walking, sprinting, landing, and crawling inside any building (ground floors, upper concrete slabs, or wooden structures) naturally triggers authentic room reflections, slapbacks, and acoustic tails.
- 30 Physical Surface Types (1:1 Enum Mapping): Resolved an array indexing offset in USoldierSFXComponent, ensuring all 30 physical surface types (Concrete, Wood, Carpet, Metal, Rock, Glass, Gravel, Mud, Water, Snow, etc.) map with 1:1 precision.
- Framework Separation & Audio Routing: Completely cleaned and isolated static framework overrides, ensuring character movement and acoustic notifies route cleanly through SoldierSFX_Component_BP on OWL_Character_BP.
Dynamic Carried Weight Audio Scaling
Your total loadout mass, armor tier, and equipped weaponry now directly dictate your movement acoustic signature:
- Lightweight / Scout Kit (0–5 kg): 0.65x volume — Quiet, low-friction footfalls optimized for light reconnaissance and stealth infiltration.
- Standard Combat Load (15 kg): 1.0x volume — Baseline military footstep impact and gear rattle signature.
- Heavy Combat Kit (35 kg): 1.40x volume — Noticeably heavier boot impacts and louder tactical equipment movement.
- Overburdened / Juggernaut (50+ kg): 1.80x – 2.20x volume — Heavy, punishing stomps reflecting extreme carried mass and dense extraction hauls.
Weapon Fire, Full-Auto Looping & Audio Polish
- Unified Ballistic Acoustic Pipeline:
- Semi-Auto Fire: Every individual shot fires a crisp direct muzzle crack, environment-specific Convolution/Room Reverb, mechanical bolt cycling, and a realistic rolling distance tail.
- Full-Auto Fire: Continuous automatic gunfire loops (acs_Loop) dynamically route into room convolution and clean submix chains, ensuring sustained bursts resonate realistically off surrounding walls and interior partitions.
- Semi-Auto Fire: Every individual shot fires a crisp direct muzzle crack, environment-specific Convolution/Room Reverb, mechanical bolt cycling, and a realistic rolling distance tail.
- Zero Ghost/Phantom Reverb on Dry Fire: Resolved an issue where releasing the trigger with an empty magazine caused a distance reverb tail to play. Trigger releases on empty weapons are now 100% silent.
Multiplayer Security, Anti-Cheat & Trader Loyalty Decoupling
I have locked down networking layers, decoupled trade gating, and moved critical transactions to full server authority:
- Trader Loyalty Decoupling (FubarTrader.cpp): Decoupled item rarity from trader level requirements. Required Level and Required Task ID are now explicitly configured per item listing.
- Animated HUD Toast Routing: All purchase outcomes (Success, Insufficient DC, Out of Stock, Level Locks) and Cargo Extraction sales now broadcast directly to OnNotificationReceived for animated HUD banners.
- Server-Authoritative Trader Pricing: Buy and sell transactions calculate prices, discounts, and currency deductions exclusively on the server, eliminating client-side price tampering.
- Cross-Player Inventory Theft Protection: Added strict server-side access permission checks to all container transfer RPCs. Players can only move items between containers they legitimately own or valid loot/death stashes.
- Trader Interaction Proximity Enforcement: Added physical range verification requiring player pawns to be within interaction range of an NPC trader before any financial or barter transactions are processed.
- Secure Save File Sanitization: Incoming client inventory snapshots are deserialized through a server-side sanitizer that validates item IDs against official data tables and clamps progression variables.
Operator Selection & Faction Expansion Architecture
- Multi-Operator Team Coordination: Multiple players in a co-op or multiplayer lobby can select different operators from the same faction simultaneously.
- Live Occupancy Status: If a squadmate claims an operator (e.g. WCU Assault), the card dynamically displays [OCCUPIED] in red while keeping navigation arrows active so remaining players can cycle to open roles (JTAC, Machine Gunner, Sniper).
- Base Game vs. DLC Faction Separation:
- Western Coalition Unit (W.C.U): 4 Base Game classes (Assault, MGRifle, JTAC, Sniper) unlocked and selectable by default.
- Upcoming Faction Expansion Packs: Special Activity Center (S.A.C), Vostok Operations (V.O.K), and Global Security Group (G.S.G) are securely locked with [DLC SOON] badges and server-side entitlement checks ahead of future content drops.
- Western Coalition Unit (W.C.U): 4 Base Game classes (Assault, MGRifle, JTAC, Sniper) unlocked and selectable by default.
- Input Focus & Hover Fix: Fixed an issue where viewport UI focus was lost upon world spawning, ensuring smooth card flipping and responsive button hover animations at all times.
Server-Authoritative Weapons, Ammo & Ballistics
- Server-Authoritative Magazine Counts: Magazine pickups and reloads read ammo counts authoritatively on the server, preventing fabricated ammo states.
- Cyclic Rate-of-Fire Verification: Implemented server-side firing interval timestamp checks to ensure all firearms adhere strictly to their authentic cyclic rate of fire.
- Magazine Cycling Fix: Improved magazine-to-pouch indexing to guarantee that cycled magazines retain their exact remaining rounds during tactical reloads under fire.
- Suppressor Durability Network Replication: Suppressor wear, heat, and degradation replicate seamlessly across the network with dedicated event hooks.
- Weapon Scrap Validation: Workbench weapon scrapping re-verifies that target actors are valid weapon pickups before destruction.
Death, Extraction, Stashes & Strike Safety
- Full Death-Stash Metadata Preservation: Death stashes preserve exact item durability, custom serialized weapon attachments, and item grid rotations.
- Mission Return & Extraction Reliability: Fixed snapshot merge logic to ensure the "returning from mission" extraction flag correctly triggers safehouse return transitions.
- Squad-Wipe Return Fallback: Implemented a C++ fallback to guarantee that all squad members safely return to HQ if the entire fireteam is wiped.
- AC-130 Gunship & Strike Range Safety: Added boundary safety checks to prevent out-of-bounds airstrikes and resolved a potential crash during AC-130 gunship possession.
- Welfare Top-Up Cap: Emergency Direct Coin (DC) welfare top-ups after elimination are capped to once per session to prevent exploit loops.
Backpack Grid Fix & Physical Currency Architecture
- Cosmetic Grid Preview Bug Fix: Resolved an issue where previewing backpacks only cosmetically unlocked the inventory or erroneously opened all grid slots. The inventory container now strictly updates, resizes, and locks slots based on the true tier and data of your equipped backpack on both client and server.
- Physical Currency Stacking & Merging (Internal Testing Phase): Completed native C++ drag-and-drop stack merging, multi-cell overlap detection, capacity limits in UFubarItemData, and a 20% Black Market laundering fee. Currently undergoing internal validation before public live deployment.
Performance, Cloud Sync & Quality of Life
- Asset & Cloud Synchronization: Synchronized all updated skeleton assets, weapon blueprints, attachment meshes, and animation layers across cloud storage servers.
- Debounced Asynchronous XP Saving: Experience gains are batched through an asynchronous debounced save system, eliminating micro-stutters and disk I/O hitches during intense firefights.
- Accurate Progression & Rank HUD: Fixed rank progress calculations when referencing custom rank data tables, and eliminated false "Level Up!" notifications upon initially joining a server.
- Log Optimization: Demoted high-frequency per-shot and per-drag logging to Verbose, keeping engine performance clean and focused.
📝 Developer Note
"Building Direct Contact as a solo developer means every single system—from procedural IK hand solvers and ray-traced room acoustics to server authority and mission scripting—is crafted by hand to push tactical realism to the absolute limit. Having two complete campaign storylines across Maryland and Ukraine, an interactive 3D directive terminal, dedicated weapon holstering with [H], and fully remastered weapons and attachments completely elevates the entire experience. Jump into the Safehouse, plan your deployment, and let me know your thoughts on Discord!"
— Ed (Mountain 81)
Thank you for your ongoing support as I continue pushing the realism and stability of Direct Contact! Track ongoing development in real-time on my live Operations Board at directcontact.no/operations.
— ED (Mountain 81) - Bare Handguards: Realistic modern C-clamp / thumb-over-bore forward grip with relaxed forearm alignment and proper thumb placement along top rail sections.
