I took pride in saying it doesn’t matter to me whether three or three thousand people visit my site, it was a proof that information presented here, as well as my personal points of view, stayed objective. It was a testament that me spamming links to relevant articles in online discussions was not me trying to get traffic for my site, but me trying to provide someone with easy access to useful information. 

A lot of time has passed, PlanetSide changed and so did I. I’m no longer creating new content for PlanetSide 2, and the site is instead maintained by our very own uzzi38. So I feel fine about using ads to at least cover the costs of hosting it, since I’ve been keeping it up out of my pocket for the last few years. 

That said, let me know if you see any bad ads, with scams or inappropriate advertisements. 

At the end of November 2018, I received a weird e-mail saying that Daybreak Games wants to send me some holiday gifts, and requested my shipping address.

The e-mail didn’t come from Daybreak Games itself, and the person on the other end wasn’t anybody I knew from PlanetSide 2 team. And as an owner of a small, but steady website, I receive a pile of spam and scam email every week. I also made a few enemies over the years. So I was quite suspicious, and reposted the e-mail to PlanetSide 2 reddit, but later was assured by Roxxly there was no foul play involved.

And indeed, today I finally received the package. Inside was a one-sided postcard, two metal mugs with “Daybreak Game Company” written on the side, and two pieces of delicious Belgium milk chocolate on a stick.

Needless to say, I’m very grateful for this gift. It may be small, but the recognition from the developer team of one of my most favorite games ever is priceless, and the mugs will serve as a lasting reminder of all the fun times I had with it.

HPET is most precise timer available to the system, but whole generations of CPUs are affected by what’s been called “HPET bug”: for them, accessing HPET takes ~7 times longer than it should. Similar to Meltdown and Spectre, this is a hardware issue, and cannot be fixed entirely. 

Skylake X and Kaby Lake X have the worst of it, but it seems to also affect Threadripper, Coffee Lake, and Ryzen.

You can read all the technical details in these articles:

• Anandtech – explains where it all began and gives a thorough explanation of system timers
• Overclockers.at – has a shorter summary and a specialized benchmark to highlight the issue

By default, HPET is simply on the list of the available timers in Windows 8 and 10. Different timers will be used for different purposes, which is the best case scenario. 

However, certain pieces of software, such as Ryzen Master and potentially anything related to overclocking, benchmarking or monitoring hardware, can force HPET to be the only timer used by the system. This may be necessary for the normal operation of that software, but on the systems that are affected by the HPET bug, it can lead to a decrease in performance, sometimes quite significant. 

HPET Configuration

HPET can be configured in two places:

1) On some motherboards, HPET can be Enabled or Disabled in BIOS.

2) Windows Command Prompt can Force HPET to be always used as the only timer, or you can set Default Settings.

So there are four total combinations of these settings:

1) Enabled in BIOS, OS uses Default Settings: HPET will be used as necessary. This is the desired configuration.

2) Enabled in BIOS, Forced in OS: HPET is always used. If your system suffers from the HPET bug, this is where performance problems occur.

3) Disabled in BIOS, OS uses Default Settings: HPET is not available at all. 

4) Disabled in BIOS, Forced in OS: HPET is not available at all and there could be a performance impact.

It is not recommended to keep HPET Disabled in BIOS, as it can cause stability issues. Additionally, if HPET is Forced in OS and Disabled in BIOS, it can result in skipped frames or otherwise impact your performance.

How to configure HPET through Windows Command Prompt:

• Windows Search for “CMD”
• Right Click the Command Prompt and click “Run as administrator”
• To Force HPET, type: bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
• To set Default Settings, type: bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock
• Reboot

If the command you entered has successfully changed something, you will get “operation successful” message. If the command was already active, then you will get an “error occurred” message.

For Intel

Use the Command Prompt to set HPET to Default Settings. If you get “operation successful” message – congratulations, you are likely to get increased performance. If not – too bad, not today.

For Ryzen

During Ryzen launch, there was a pronounced issue with HPET, and AMD gave an official recommendation to disable HPET in BIOS. However, those issues were supposedly resolved.

To find out whether your system benefits from completely disabling HPET:

1. Update your BIOS to the latest version.
2. Use the Command Prompt to set HPET to Default Setting. Restart your PC.
3. Run the TimerBench at low resolution with HPET Enabled in BIOS.
   • Do not click “Enable HPET” button in TimerBench, as it will force the system to always use only HPET, which is not desirable.
4. Run TimerBench with HPET Disabled in BIOS.
5. Compare results. If you see no difference, then keep HPET Enabled in BIOS and set to Default in OS.

A note on TimerBench: you can see a “Enable HPET” button, but it doesn’t actually enable HPET, it forces the system to always use HPET in all situations, which will cause a performance drop if your system is suffering from the HPET bug. This is the same as Forcing HPET through Command Prompt.

Similarly, the “Disable HPET” button in TimerBench does not actually disable the HPET. It does the same thing as setting Default Setting through Command Prompt. Only the BIOS setting can truly disable HPET.

My Benchmark Results

I’m using a Core i5 7600k, overclocked to 4.4 GHz on MSI Z270 Gaming M3 motherboard. I ran two sets of benchmarks, one with TimerBench – a benchmark produced by Overclockers.at to specifically demonstrate the performance impact of the HPET Bug.

I also ran a primitive benchmark in PlanetSide 2 – I just drove a Prowler near a tower in VR Training and fired HESH shells and Gatekeeper bursts for a minute, using FRAPS to record frametimes and these graphics settings.

As you can see, on my machine the performance impact of the HPET bug is quite significant.

According to that article from Overclockers.at, how much your particular system is affected by HPET bug – if it all – will depend on your specific hardware and what kind of games you’re playing. The impact seems to be most noticeable when your game is CPU-bound – paired with an overly powerful Graphics Card, in other words. This is a fairly common situation for PS2.

Credits

Huge thanks to /u/Oottzz for bringing this issue to my attention and to /u/DastardlyCoxcomb for his input in the same thread.

PlanetSide 2 is an MMO game released in 2012, with potentially hundreds of players in any given battle. As a consequence,  PlanetSide 2 puts more load on CPU than most games, and it’s less demanding to the Graphics Card. It is built on DirectX 9, which is more sensitive to CPU frequency and per-core performance than number of cores and multi-threading.

– PS2 Performance Guide

Depending on the amount of money they were willing to spend, I would offer them one of these typical builds, and then adjust it based on their wishes. Here they are, from cheapest and worst performing to most expensive and best performing.

Notes on listed prices:

• • They will vary a lot depending on where you live.

• • Prices include only the PC itself. Keyboard / Mouse / Speakers / Headset / Monitor / Windows are not included.

• • Prices assume a “barebones” build, so no SSDs or additional case fans. Cheapest case is used, which won’t be very convenient to build and maintain.

• • Stock CPU cooler is used whenever possible.

• Motherboard / Graphics Card and Hard Drive are selected based on good combination of price / performance / reliability / amount of features / upgradability. I don’t just blindly pick the cheapest components.

Finally, keep in mind that prices and recommendations are actual as of July 2018, and will no doubt change with time.

Ultrabudget

Ryzen 2400G Build

Approximate build cost: $420 USD
RAM: 8 GB

This is the cheapest build that can run PlanetSide 2 at all. It will require a lot of fine tuning and overclocking to squeeze the most performance out of weak hardware. There will be some tough compromises to make in terms of graphics settings, but you might squeeze more or less stable 60 FPS out of it.

The heart of the build is Ryzen 2400G CPU, which has 4 cores / 8 threads and comes with an integrated Vega 11 GPU and a stock cooler.

This is the second generation of Ryzen CPUs. The first generation featured a lot of cores and threads for considerably lower price than what Intel was offering at the time, and at first AMD razed some hell for sure, but gamers quickly realized that 1st gen Ryzens had poor per-core performance, and most games don’t benefit from multi-threading THAT much. So Intel remained better for gaming, while Ryzens offered a lot of cores for professional applications that benefit from such things.

The second generation of Ryzen CPUs (2000 series) improved upon many imperfections, and flagship Ryzen CPUs are a much better competition to similarly priced Intel CPUs.

Unlike Intel CPUs, Ryzens don’t typically come with integrated graphics, but 2200G and 2400G are exceptions. They use a cut-down version of the Vega GPU, which is the best GPU currently offered by AMD.

Typically, integrated graphics solutions are looked down upon by gamers, and rightfully so, but AMD was having none of that. Integrated Vega GPU is several times more powerful than iGPUs from Intel, and you can actually do some gaming on them.

It’s not quite enough to run PlanetSide 2 well, but it will work. Here is a testimony from a player with a similar build.

Entry-level Gaming

Core i3 8100 / Ryzen R3 1200 + GTX 1050 Ti / RX560

Approximate Intel + nVidia build cost: $550 USD
Approximate AMD build cost: $530 USD
RAM: 8 GB

This is the cheapest build that can run PlanetSide 2 at minimum settings with actually decent performance. Aside from intermittent performance bugs, you’re guaranteed stable 60 FPS no matter what, and you could potentially even turn certain settings up so the game doesn’t look that terrible.

Intel + nVidia build offers better performance out of the box, and doesn’t require overclocking or any additional fine tuning. Heart of the build is Core i3 8100, a budget 4-core / 4-thread CPU. GTX 1050 Ti is middle-of-the-road budget graphics card. It is said to be able to run many modern games at medium settings at 60 FPS, and it handles PS2 just fine.

The Ryzen R3 1200 is similar to Core i3 8100. It too has 4 cores and 4 threads, but worse per-core performance and doesn’t include an internal GPU. However, it is cheaper, and with some overclocking – which can be done with stock cooler and on cheap B-series motherboards – it can almost reach the performance of i3 8100. This build makes more sense if you plan to upgrade to a more powerful Ryzen CPU in the future.

The RX560 offers about the same performance as GTX 1050 (the non-Ti version). Depending on current prices and availability, it can potentially make a more economical choice. AMD Graphics Cards can be preferable if you use or plan to use a monitor that supports FreeSync technology.

PlanetSide 2 Specialist

Core i3 8350k + GTX 1060 3GB

Approximate build cost: $700 USD
RAM: 8 GB

This build tries to achieve the best PlanetSide 2 performance while spending as little money as possible. It can easily run PlanetSide 2 at mostly maximum settings and with 100+ FPS, but there are significant tradeoffs in terms of future proofing and convenience.

The i3 8350k has 4 cores and 4 threads, and it can be overclocked by multiplier, significantly boosting its per-core performance. It’s one of the most powerful 4-core CPUs out there, like a small racing car. Exactly what PS2 needs.

However, it’s not optimal in other ways. It doesn’t have a stock cooler, costs almost as much as 6 core i5 8400, and requires a more expensive Z-series motherboard in order to be overclocked.

The GPU is GTX 1060, which is often called the best Graphics Card for 1080p gaming. The 3GB version is chosen because PlanetSide 2 barely uses 1 GB of VRAM.

PlanetSide 2 faces some nasty effects when GPU-bound – weapon Rate of Fire is reduced and you can feel some input lag. Which is where the GTX 1060’s powerful processor comes in, pushing out the framerate at which you become GPU bound.

The big downside of this build is that it’s not so great at playing modern and upcoming games; it’s not future proof. 3GB VRAM / 8 GB RAM / 4 CPU threads may not be enough in the nearest future.

Another downside is that you will have to overclock the CPU, which is an additional step you have to go through, and it can potentially have negative effects, most notably it will void your CPU warranty.

Mainstream Gaming

Core i5 8400 + GTX 1060 6GB

Approximate build cost: $800 USD (including $300 for a GTX 1060 6GB)
RAM: 16 GB

This build tries to reach a healthy compromise between running PlanetSide 2 and more modern and upcoming games. With more RAM, VRAM and more CPU threads, it’s much more future-proof at a little premium, and it would run PlanetSide 2 almost as good as heavily overclocked i3 8350k build above, without any need for complicated fine-tuning or using an after-market cooler.

I believe this build accomplishes all you could ever want for 1080p gaming while spending a sensible amount of money. PC hardware is heavily subjected to diminishing returns; for every extra frame per second you have to pay more and more money.

For example, a typical GTX 1070 costs ~66% more than GTX 1060 6GB, while offering 30-40% better performance. This is even worse for CPUs, where an i5 8400 can accomplish in gaming 90-95% of what an i7 8700k can do, which is twice as expensive.

So past this point it’s better to invest into quality peripherals and other components, such as SSD and case.

December 2018 Addendum:

The core of that build is Core i5 8400 + GTX 1060 6GB, and it’s still a good combo, though not necessarily the best one, in terms of maintaining good bang-for-the-back while ensuring enoughperformance to run PS2 well.

The market for graphics cards is in turmoil, the release of new consumer-grade GPUs, is almost upon us. You can still easily buy a great GPU, but it’s a choice between buying something that’s gonna get outdated basically tomorrow, or waiting a few months and paying a premium for brand new hardware, which makes it less cost effective.

As far as current prices go, the RX 590 is probably the best consumer grade GPU, as it has better performance than GTX 1060 while being cheaper, but there are some tradeoffs as well. It has a major stock overclock and is prone to thermal throttling, so you must ensure good ventilation inside the case, and be more picky about GPU’s cooling system.

Situation with CPUs is also messed up. Prices for Intel CPUs – which you would normally want for PS2 – are on the rise due to production difficulties, while prices on AMD CPUs are lower than ever, so it’s a choice between getting decentperformance at dirt cheap (AMD), or paying an unjustified price for an Intel CPU to get better performance.

AMD builds ensure really great performance at low prices, but they are also more problematic, and it shows in everything. CPUs and memory must be overclocked to ensure competitive performance, but at the same it’s more difficult to do properly, especially for a beginner in the art of PC building. AMD BIOS is more complicated, the CPUs are more picky about the RAM, the GPU drivers for AMD are traditionally a bugged mess.

Meanwhile, Intel and nVidia are basically plug and play, no complicated setup whatsoever, and they will perform better with PS2, but they will also be more expensive, especially now. It still should be quite possible to fit a decent build into 800$, though.

So in short, I would recommend to get either Intel Core i5 8400 or Ryzen 5 2600 (overclock) for CPU, and still GTX 1060 or RX 590 for GPU. A Ryzen build should be combined with compatible RAM overclocked to 2800-3000 MHz in order to ensure good performance in PS2.

The rest of the components should be picked based on these core components.

A fellow redditor alluded that this may be potentially caused by PhysX somehow being tied to weapon mechanics, and PhysX does run on GPU by default. 

So I decided to run a series of tests to determine whether forcing PhysX to run on CPU fixes the problem. Too long, didn’t read – it doesn’t.

I’ve used Shadowplay and Sony Vegas to record and measure how long it takes to fire one 125 round magazine from Watchman. I’ve ran multiple tests, using these settings in all cases.

GPU Bound refers to setting Render Quality to 2.0 in UserOptions.ini. This forces the game to render at quadruple resolution, significantly increasing the load on the Graphics Card.

FPS Cap refers to setting MaximumFPS to 60 in UserOptions.ini. In my previous tests, this provided the best results in fixing the FPS vs RoF problem.

For one final test, I set the frequency of my Core i5 7600k to 1200 MHz to emulate a weak PC and create a CPU-bound scenario.

As you can see from the numbers, it doesn’t matter whether you run PhysX on CPU or GPU.

– Iridar

EDIT: 18th June – I’ve spent most of the weekend reworking Beginner Guides. About 90% done with them, just gotta proofread, improve lacking aspects, and add more crosslinking. Also about half done updating the Construction System guide. The rest will have to wait until the next weekend, unfortunately – too busy with work this week.

EDIT: 24th June – Updated Construction System Guide this weekend, but that’s all I had time for due to how many testing needed to be performed. Should have more time during the week, though.

EDIT: 29th June – finally finished revamping Beginner Guides.

How to access ASP

Any character with Battle Rank 100 or above can enroll into ASP using the “My Character” screen of the main menu. 

Non-members have to pay 10 000 (ten thousand) Certification Points to enroll, which is, incidentally, the maximum amount of certs a non-member character can have.

Enrollment is free of charge for premium members. You keep your ASP if cancel your membership afterwards.

Upon enrollment, your character’s Battle Rank will be reset to 1, but you will keep all your unlocks and certifications. You will also receive a new shoulder decal and title, and you will have a star icon near your Battle Rank number.

Your new maximum Battle Rank will be set at 100, which means your character will no longer be able to reach Battle Rank 120. If additional decals and titles are important to you, consider reaching BR120 before enrolling into ASP.

At Battle Ranks 1, 25, 50, 75 and 100 you will earn an ASP token, which you can spend on ASP unlocks.

ASP Unlocks

Each ASP unlock costs 1 ASP token.

Attention! For now there is no way to refund or reset spent ASP tokens. Be careful with your choices!

Universal Unlocks

These unlocks affect all classes. 

Sidearm Primaries – Allows use of sidearms in the primary weapon slot. Currently lacks any actual combat-effective application. Possibly does not provide access to Auraxium Sidearms.

Universal Smoke Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Smoke Grenades on all classes. Could be useful if smoke wasn’t so inconsistent. Try them on Light Assault before you spend an ASP point.

Universal Decoy Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Decoy Grenades on all classes. Could potentially be useful in 1 – 12 / 1 – 12 battles. Try them on infiltrator before you spend an ASP point.

Light Ground Discount – Reduces Flash cost by 50% and Harasser cost by 20%.

Ground Transport Discount – Reduces ANT and Sunderer cost by 20%.

Combat Armor Discount – Reduces Lightning and Main Battle Tank cost by 20%.

Light Air Discount – Reduces ESF and Valkyrie cost by 20%.

Heavy Air Discount – Reduces Liberator and Galaxy cost by 20%.

Class-specific Unlocks

• These unlocks affect only one specific class.
• You can click on each class’ name for more info.
• Flash Grenade Access unlocks only class Flash Grenades, not the Quick-Det variant.
• Perks that provide access to additional weapon types do not allow to use Auraxium weapons (directive reward weapons).

Infiltrator

Sticky Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Sticky Grenades on the Infiltrator.

Flash Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Flash Grenades on the Infiltrator.

Light Assault

SMG Secondary – Allows use of SMGs in the secondary weapon slot.

Concussion Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Concussion Grenades on the Light Assault.

Combat Medic

Battle Rifle Secondary – Allows use of Battle Rifles in the secondary weapon slot.

Carbine Access – Unlocks access to Carbines on the Combat Medic.

Concussion Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Concussion Grenades on the Combat Medic.

Engineer

Shotgun Secondary – Allows use of Shotguns in the secondary weapon slot.

LMG Access – Unlocks access to LMGs on the Engineer.

Assault Rifle Access – Unlocks access to Assault Rifles on the Engineer class.

Anti-Vehicle Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Anti-Vehicle Grenades on the Engineer.

EMP Grenade Access – Unlocks access to EMP Grenades on the Engineer.

Heavy Assault

Reserve Hardlight Barrier Access – Allows use of Reserve Hardlight Barriers in the Utility slot.

Flash Grenade Access – Unlocks access to Flash Grenades on the Heavy Assault.

Heavy Weapon Secondary – Allows use of Heavy Weapons in the secondary weapon slot.

T9 CARV-S – the TR’s “adaptable” LMG, which has a large selection of attachments. Never was popular.

SVA-88 – the faded star of the VS arsenal, which used to offer 75% ADS speed, same as Orion, but with better controllability. The weapon has been rebalanced since then, and fell behind the Pulsar LSW in terms of viability. 

Pulsar LSW – can be treated as a slightly more CQC-oriented version of SVA-88 with a different recoil pattern and attachment selection.

MGR-L1 Promise – a newly released NC LMG with an exquisite and unique model, artfully crafted by /u/d0ku. The general theme of the weapon is ease of use and controllability over time, with some stats and mechanics intended to make sustained fire less punishing.

Let’s take a closer look and figure out if any of these weapons are worth using, and what circumstances would benefit them the most.

Stats

Damage Output

All of these LMGs share the damage model of 143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m, which puts them in a weird place.

At range, they deal carbine-tier damage, and cannot really compete with weapons that deal more damage per shot, even if they’re not specialized towards ranged combat. It feels that you cannot kill an enemy 50m away without filing a notice two weeks in advance.

On the other hand, strictly average DPS makes them inferior in close quarters combat. 

Historically, weapons like that are shunned by players, and for a good reason. You would think that being average would make them versatile, and give them passable performance in every situation, but in reality it rather makes them mediocre. 

SPA and HVA are available to some of these LMGs, and they’ll have an impact on their performance:

Notes:

• At best, SPA provides a 2% DPS boost or a 0.086 second TTK reduction at 15m.
• At best, HVA provides a 7% DPS boost at 65m, or a 0.086 second TTK reduction between 42m and 52m.
• In terms of damage per bullet, HVA overtakes SPA at 30m.

Bullets-to-Kill and Time-to-Kill

Standard Infantry

 Heavy Assault

For the sake of brevity, BTK and TTK are listed only for the first threshold.

Notes:

• The only time SPA really makes a difference is the 7 -> 8 BTK Threshold in the 10m -> 15m range bracket. Otherwise, it’s merely a nice little boost.
• Same as with SPA, the only time when HVA is at a real disadvantage is in the 7 -> 8 BTK Threshold, and even then only when compared to SPA. This disadvantage can be sidestepped by landing at least one headshot.
• When talking about 100% headshots, there will be no BTK Threshold all the way up to ~40m. This is because 143 damage weapons kill an enemy with headshots with a good amount of overkill, and this is where they will differ from 167 damage weapons. 143 damage will take slightly longer to kill at close range, and slightly shorter beyond that range.
• Ammo choice doesn’t play a meaningful role against shielded Heavy Assaults, especially if you land some headshots.
• 6 headshots within maximum damage range deal 1430 damage, and an NMG HA has up to 1438 damage, so the only way it’ll take actually 6 headshots to kill them, is if they activate the overshield right when they’re being shot. Otherwise, NMG energy drain over time will eat those 8 energy, and 5 headshots will be enough. Thanks to /u/madoka_magica for pointing that out.

Both ammo attachments don’t make a big impact, especially for a moderately competent player, who goes for headshots at close ranges most of the time.

When both ammo attachments are available, pick depending on whether you want better performance within 30m or outside of that range. I’ll note that among skilled players CQC performance is generally deemed more important.

If only one attachment is available, you should use it, though it’ll be fairly low priority compared to other attachments.

Effective Range

Hip Fire Accuracy

All of these have a bad case LMG-tier Hip Fire accuracy, and won’t be able to hip fire effectively outside of few meters.

While the SVA has better Hip CoFs, it also has a nearly mandatory Compensator, which would bump up the Hip CoFs to be the largest of the four.

ADS Accuracy

T9 CARV-S, Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 have standard ADS CoFs for LMGs, which are rather bad, though all four LMGs can get an accuracy advantage for being still for the first several shots.

Promise has slightly better starting ADS CoF, and this is almost as good as it gets for LMGs – TR’s MG-H1 Watchman is the only LMG to have a better ADS Standing Moving CoF. 

As a more unique feature, Promise has reduced Maximum ADS CoFs for most of the stances, meaning that its CoF will not Bloom past a certain point. The CoF of 1 degree more or less guarantees 100% accuracy on the center mass of an infantry-sized target ~25m away. 

This means that Promise is vastly more effective in magdumping at close ranges, or when you start engaging out of a jump or a fall, though you will still have to burst fire when going for headshots, which you’ll definitely need to do if you want to kill enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

ADS Cone of Fire Bloom

Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 have reduced ADS CoF Bloom. However, Promise starts firing at lower CoF Bloom, so it’ll have better CoF for the first 5 shots, after which Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 will match and overtake it.

I’d consider this a point in favor of Promise, since at ranges where CoF matters you won’t be firing in overly long bursts anyway, and even with the CoF Bloom advantage, it’ll take 5 more shots for the lower bloom weapons to accumulate a 0.05 degrees of CoF advantage.

Recoil

Promise has negative recoil scaling, meaning its maximum Vertical and Horizontal Recoil will reduce with each shot, until they become the same as minimum values. This happens at the following rates, per shot:

• Vertical Recoil Increase: -0.05
• Vertical Recoil Increase Crouched: -0.1
• Horizontal Recoil Increase: -0.05

Recoil Analysis

Presented values are calculated for 10 round bursts, and account for FSRM and recoil scaling mechanics, assuming Standing stance and average recoil per shot.

Numbers in the table are pretty telling, so I’ll highlight only the biggest outliers.

Vertical Recoil

From the get-go, it’s obvious that Promise has by far the best Vertical Recoil per Second. In fact, it’s one of the lowest values for automatic weapons, and the lowest for all LMGs. The only ones that come even in close are NS-15M2 and T32 Bull, when they’re used with Compensator.

As mentioned, these numbers assume average values and take recoil scaling into account, but Promise will have excellent VRPS even if you get the worst possible values all the time. 

It’s worth noting that Promise requires only 2 shots to fully scale Vertical Recoil, if you fire them while crouching. It’s a neat feature to quickly stabilize the weapon from the get-go, though you shouldn’t go out of your way and crouch in every engagement. It’s mostly useful when you’re engaging a remote and exposed enemy from a safe position.

Horizontal Recoil

In terms of Horizontal Recoil, the classic trio is pretty close to each other, and not particularly good. CARV-S is slightly ahead of the VS LMGs, but Promise, once again, beats all three pretty soundly, and remains nearly twice as good.

Since Promise has unprecedented Tolerance size of 5 degrees, it can potentially have a huge amount of consecutive kicks in one direction, but this is unlikely to happen. The chance of 3 kicks in one direction is 12.5%, and 4 kicks is ~6%.

You’ll almost never see Promise slide along Horizontal plane for long. What’s more likely, Promise will shake around the middle, but every once in a while that middle will shift by one or two shots, and you will have to adjust your horizontal aim. 

Besides, just after 4 shots, Promise will have the lowest Horizontal Recoil per Shot among all automatic weapons, and you will barely notice Horizontal Recoil at all.

Picture to the left demonstrates a typical horizontal recoil pattern for Promise, though it doesn’t take recoil scaling into account, and values are not up to scale.

On the following two pictures, you can compare the Horizontal Deviation Probability Distributions for MGR-L1 Promise, T9 CARV-S and SVA-88. Pulsar LSW would have an identical pattern to SVA-88, so it’s not listed. All weapons are presented with a Forward Grip, and the results are averaged out between tenths of thousands of simulations.

On this graph you can see that Promise spends ~85% of the time within 0.1 degrees of the original crosshair position, and about 92% within 0.2 degrees, 95% within 0.3 degrees. This is basically showing how likely you are to have 4 kicks in the same direction in a row. Statistically, Promise can go further, but it’s highly unlikely. 

If you take a look at CARV-S and SVA-88 further below, you’ll that their recoil pattern is somewhat less consistent. 

For example, CARV-S spends about 52% of the time within 0.12 degrees, and about 82% within 0.3 degrees, which is already slightly worse than for Promise. 

You’ll notice that SVA-88 has about 10% chance of kicking all the way to 0.42 degrees. 

Recoil Angle

Pulsar LSW is the only LMG of the four to have a Recoil Angle. It has medium “strength” to the right, and overall doesn’t affect weapon handling in a meaningful way.

Promise is in a weird place. It has average Recoil Angle of zero, but 10 degrees of variance, so it’ll shake about a lot, but without bias to any particular direction. This will be especially noticeable and annoying during first few shots, while the recoil per shot is still comparatively large. Once recoil scaling fully kicks in, you won’t notice it much. 

Tap Firing Speed

Tap Firing Speed is measured in Rounds Per Minute, same as Rate of Fire, and it depends on weapon’s First Shot Recoil and Recoil Recovery statistics. 

Recoil Recovery Mechanics don’t really matter outside of tap firing or shortbursting, so Tap Firing Speed is the maximum RPM at which you can fire single shots, and still have the crosshair fully recenter between shots.

It’s a fairly useless statistic for normal gameplay, since usually you’ll fire more than 1-3 shots per burst, but it can be useful when dealing with tiny targets such as deployables, or when an exposed enemy is vastly outside of your effective range.

You’ll notice that Promise holds a huge advantage over other LMGs in terms of Tap Firing Speed, which is both due to lack of additional Recoil Recovery Delay, as well as best in class Recoil Recovery Rate.

Velocity

The classic trio is fairly close together, and has good projectile velocity, slightly above average for LMGs. SVA-88 is slightly ahead, especially with HVA, showing the weapon’s inclination towards ranged combat. 

Promise is noticeably behind, and its stock velocity is below average. There is a caveat – its SPRW Ammo attachment will increase velocity by 25% at the cost of reducing magazine size from 100 rounds to 75.

Conclusion on Effective Range

All of these weapons don’t particularly shine outside of 50m, for various reasons.

* – requires attachment.

Due to just average DPS and LMG-tier hip fire accuracy, none of them particularly shine at closer ranges either. Their sweet spot seems to be the infamous “medium range” somewhere between 20m and 50m. 

The problem is that within that range bracket ANY LMG will serve perfectly fine, including those oriented towards CQC. In fact, this is why weapons like LA1 Anchor are so popular.

Sure, CQC LMGs will be clearly inferior in terms of effectiveness at range, but it’s not a big deal. The nature of ranged engagements is that you often can just walk away into cover from an unfavorable fight, especially thanks to Heavy Assault’s overshield.

And if you’re engaging in favorable conditions, having slightly longer TTK is not a big deal. Thanks to LMGs’ large mags, you can keep sending rounds down range until target is dead. At worst, you’ll miss out on a kill, but you won’t die to your weapon’s inaccuracy. 

Situations where you have to fight effectively or die, and don’t have an option to run, are much more common in CQC, hence why CQC performance is generally preferable. Additionally, as a HA you’re expected to aggressively push the frontline, and that’ll often mean engaging at close ranges.  If you want to be useful to your faction, you don’t really get an option to play around your effective range, and purposefully stay out of close quarters.

Open field battles usually aren’t required, but even if you get stuck in one, you’d probably want to equip a ranged LMG or a Battle Rifle. Or even switch to Infiltrator.

This is a general philosophical problem with any non-CQC LMGs, what I’d like to refer as “the LMG problem”. 

Utility Stats

Ammo Capacity

* – uses Smart Feeder ammo attachment, which increases Reload Time by 0.325 seconds.

Nothing especially noteworthy. VS LMGs lag behind in terms of capacity, while Promise has the largest Ammo Pool to make sustained fire less punishing, which is the general theme of the weapon.

Note that Promise has two Ammo Attachments that affect Magazine Size, but no effect on damage. 

Reload Speed

Notes:

• Pulsar LSW enjoys the fastest reload, which definitely makes it more convenient.
• SVA-88 is not that far behind, but it has a much bigger Long Reload penalty.
• Surprisingly, Promise has the longest Reload, especially with Smart Feeder attachment. Running SPRW Ammo and having to reload more often is likely to cause issues.
• CARV-S has typically LMG-tier slow reload times.

Equip Time

CARV-S is about average for an LMG, while Pulsar LSW and SVA-88 are slightly below average. Having a short Equip Time is especially important for Heavy Assaults, who tend to switch to their Rocket Launchers and Med Kits a lot. And this is where Promise drops the ball. Even such a giant as Gauss SAW with a Forward Grip has Equip Time of 1.25 seconds. 

Long Equip Time of the Promise will definitely let you down in close quarters, and whenever you’re switching back and forth, you have to be ready to drop everything and equip your sidearm instead. 

Comparisons to Competition

Overall, none of these weapons look particularly appealing, and this is mostly the fault of their mediocre damage model; it lacks focus. Why would you ever use a 143 @ 698 weapon over 167+ damage LMGs, which are much more effective at the same medium range bracket and beyond? 

143 @ 698 LMGs do hold some advantages. For example, higher RoF makes a weapon more consistent, especially in close quarters. They’ll have slightly better recoil than CQC-oriented LMGs, and higher DPS than range-oriented LMGs, though that weapon class is another can of worms entirely.

None of this is really enough to compensate for inferior damage. Let’s go weapon-by-weapon and see what kind of competition they have to go against.

TR are left with TMG-50 as the only 167 damage option. I personally hate that it has 2 tiers of damage degradation and relatively poor recoil, especially the Tolerance. However, even TMG-50 will fare better than CARV-S at medium range and beyond, though there will be a significant reduction in effectiveness in close quarters, especially when comparing TMG-50 with HVA to CARV-S with SPA.

As another alternative, MSW-R has almost the same recoil as CARV-S. There are some noticeable disadvantages in ranged combat, such as smaller Magazine, lack of HVA and lower velocity. However, MSW-R comes with massively better performance at closer range, and makes a decent competitor overall. 

For VS, there is a similar situation for Pulsar LSW / SVA-88 and Orion VS54, which actually has slightly better Horizontal Recoil, though noticeably stronger Vertical Recoil and no Ammo attachment options, as well as smaller magazine battery.

Flare is generally frowned upon, but even it will be better at medium range than both of the 143 @ 698 LMGs.

For NC, you can take pretty much any 167+ damage LMG and it’ll be more effective at medium range, and depending on choice, better in CQC or at longer range. However, only the Promise has such low and smooth recoil, which is rather uncharacterestic for NC, and some people will certainly enjoy its controllability.

The recoil is non-existent. It’s almost a laser beam. It’s not a very strong laser beam, but a laser beam, which is good if you can aim.

– KosViik

If you’re looking for combat effectiveness, I’d say it’s better to learn to deal with recoil, though. Promise has a couple of other cool perks, such as limited Max ADS CoF and best in class Tap Firing speed, but those aren’t easily leveraged as advantages. 

Closing Thoughts

On overall spectrum of the effective range and effectiveness within that range, 143 @ 698 LMGs are between CQC LMGs and 167+ damage LMGs with ~matching DPS. The problem is that these waters are so muddy that there’s no reason to settle for this mediocre option.

Something like GD-22S will perform much better at range, and not particularly worse in CQC. And Anchor is basically a meme at this point, being one of the most versatile LMGs in the game. 

143 @ 698 LMGs seem to be in a bad place. They need to have their Minimum Damage Range extended at least to the levels of Assault Rifles, and their advantages over CQC LMGs in terms of recoil and controllability are not big enough. Hell, in some aspects they are even worse! 

Pretty much the only real advantage of 143 damage weapons at medium range is consistent BTK when engaging with headshots, and except for Promise, none of these guns are particularly good at it. 

As far as how 143 @ 698 LMGs relate to each other, I’d rank them as follows:

Promise > Pulsar LSW > SVA-88 > CARV-S

Overall, Promise is a unique case of a weapon. Its recoil pattern is one of a kind. Typically, LMGs have a ton of recoil, and while there are some exceptions, they usually come with below average DPS. I’d say Promise is a good weapon for newbies and casual players, and has even some role-play potential with its sustained fire feature.

There are some noticeable disadvantages, such as long Reload and Equip times. Promise also lacks attachments to boost the damage ranges, though as we’ve established, it’s not a big deal for this damage model. 

Promise also lacks an option to equip a Suppressor, not that it would be a good idea with this damage model.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the Promise, and something I haven’t mentioned yet, is the inconsistency of its first few shots. First shots are often the most important, and can easily decide the outcome of a firefight, and between high Recoil Angle Variance and highly variable Recoil, there’s definitely some annoying shake.

It’s not so bad, though. Realistically, even if your get the worst possible Recoil values every time, Promise will still have less recoil than other 143 @ 698 LMGs. It’s just that it can be annoyingly inconsistent, albeit on a small scale, and it still goes against what a competitive player would look for in a weapon.

As a final thought, don’t be discouraged by my negative outlook on these weapons. In the end, they’re perfectly capable killers. It’s just the differences between PlanetSide 2 weapons are so minuscule, that every little detail gets blown out of proportion. Worse is worse, even if it’s just by a few percent.