The great weapons testing thread

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Note: Blue Sun Mod 1.5 & latest Unofficial Patch were installed

There were a number of things about the game mechanics that continued to elude me, specifically the exact effect of gun balance on accuracy, and the effect of a foregrip, to name a few (I hope R@S soon sheds some light into the effect of foregrip before I lose my mind ). I had theories about front-heavy guns (anything with a suppressor really) being slower to draw while being more accurate in burst fire mode. I also had ideas that higher calibre guns pack more recoil, and are thus harder to control in burst fire mode. After all, 7.62 High Calibre seems to contain some rather not-so-obvious, if not hidden, elements. Overheating, or gun temperature, to name one.

So did my testing ultimately answer these questions? No. But I did make a few fun discoveries, or observations, during the brief testing and decided to share them with you.

This first image shows the grouping of bullets fired from the AK type machine gun (forgot the name), a long aimed burst from prone position, at rather close range (I'd say 20-30 meters). The rectangle inside the circle shows the spot where the first bullet hit, or at least where I THINK it hit. As you can see, the pattern is wonderfully vertical, and the recoil really pushes the gun upwards.






The next four images involve the 5.56mm Minimi machine gun. Two long bursts fired from medium and then longer range. Shooting position: prone. Buttstock: extended. Selected accuracy: aimed shot. Note that the gun has a bipod.

Burst 1 - medium range



Burst 1 - the grouping



Burst 2 - longer range



Burst 2 - the grouping



As you can see, it's a wonderfully accurate machine gun. And best of all, the second burst sent over 90 rounds and the gun didn't even overheat! It is worth noting that the gun uses Heavy Weapons skill, so go nuts and build up your HW skill with this gun!


I also played around with a MAC-10 (with and without a suppressor), a G36KE (with and without Masterkey, the underbarrel shotgun), the 6.8mm H&K assault rifle that had a foregrip, and also the Minimi machine gun with a foregrip.

MAC-10, .45cal
Suppressor didn't seem to affect accuracy at all, and in fact, nothing that I did to the gun didn't seem to affect that department. Standing, kneeling, prone, buttstock extended, collapsed, with and without suppressor, aimed shots, snapshots... unnoticeable differences at about 30m range. Perhaps I should've tried closer?

G36KE, 5.56mm
Now this gun turned out be bit more interesting. I added the Masterkey to this weapon simply because it's so heavy that it drops the gun's balance to 0. Was there a visible difference with and without Masterkey? Sadly, I didn't see any. However, it's worth noting that the bursts seemed to go from left to right, which is consistent with R@S' observations (the author of Blue Sun Mod). In fact, if you fire longer bursts, it seems that the soldier tries to compensate for this, and at one point, after going far enough to the right, the bullets seem to start to fly in more random fashion, centering around the intended impact point. To me this translates into that you should fire not-too-long bursts and either aim at torso or perhaps one of the arms, so that you sweep the bullets across the enemy's upper torso.

H&K assault rifle, 6.8mm, w/ foregrip
Just like the G36KE, this gun also exhibited the left-to-right behaviour with bursts. Other than that, there isn't anything worth mentioning here. Except that it is a very expensive and deadly gun, if memory serves me correctly.

FN Minimi, 5.56mm, w/ foregrip (ordered from Stefan Uribe)
I've always had some concerns that the foregrip, that was introduced with Blue Sun Mod, doesn't actually do anything, but rather (unintentionally) duplicates the effect of the bipod. I fired a few hundred rounds with this gun and... well, I'm afraid my suspicions were confirmed. But don't get me wrong! The Blue Sun Mod is a wonderful addition to 7.62mm HC and it is a very enjoyable mod. So, I compared this gun to the one without a foregrip, fired from kneeling and prone positions, and indeed the accuracy of both of these guns seemed identical. Specifically, when I fired the foregrip version from prone position and saw how accurate the gun became, I was convinced that the foregrip on the FN Minimi is merely a bipod in disguise. From the kneeling position there wasn't any difference either - both guns equally inaccurate at about 70m range. Whether this is true to all the other guns with a foregrip as well, I have yet to test and see.

The value of the first shot
As I fired single shots or short bursts with the Minimi, I noticed that the first shot is noticeably less accurate than the consecutive shots. Make good use of this information, I know I will. Before firing a long burst with your machinegunner, fire one or two single shots first, then let loose a hail of bullets.

Final words
The brief haphazard testing I conducted provided wonderful insight on how some of the guns behave, but not before leaving me with more questions. I (or someone) should explore the effect of calibre on the accuracy in burst fire mode. Like I said, there are not-so-obvious things about 7.62 HC. For example, the manual states that AP rounds fired from a short barreled weapons have lesser effect than when fired from a longer barreled weapon (page 53). My wish is that this thread gets flooded with research conducted in in-game field tests and the conclusions thereafter