• Part 1 – Configuration
• Part 2 – Shooting Mechanics and 1v1 Basics
• Part 3 – Improving Aim and Positioning
• Part 4 – Movement Tricks

Other Infantry Guides

• Aiming Encyclopedia – Curated by Ascent
• Parkour Guide – Abandoned by CuteBeaver
• Close Range Sniping Guide – Originally written by Davregis
• Gunplay Guide – Created by Iridar

Loadouts

• Gunslinger
• Nightshade (Infiltrator)
• Swiss Army Knife (Combat Medic)

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. 

Players have been asking for an LMG like this for a long time, and now that we have it, let’s take a deeper look to try and figure out how fast should you be throwing money at the monitor.

The following guide will be taking a good close look on the weapon, but if you want just a short summary:

It’s a great weapon for short range up to 20-50 meters. If you mainly go for headshots, it is very easy to kill multiple enemies inside buildings.

– /u/flub1337, the first player to earn an auraxium medal with Watchman

Stats

DAMAGE	125 @ 10m – 100 @ 55m
RATE OF FIRE	857 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	125 / 375
RELOAD TIME	5.525 sec / 7 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Auto

Damage Output

Watchman’s damage output is above average, equal to 143 @ 750 weapons, like T9 CARV and Orion. This is pretty much as high as LMGs go, and it’s a solid amount of damage. 

Watchman has two tiers of damage degradation, which is typical for LMGs. However, low damage-per-shot weapons lose less absolute damage over range, though higher damage-per-shot weapons have longer Minimum Damage Range. So while they lose more damage over range, that process happens slower. For example:

• LA1 Anchor: 167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m -> loses 42 damage (25%) over 65m.
• T9 CARV: 143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m -> loses 31 damage (21.6%) over 50m.
• Watchman: 125 @ 10m – 100 @ 55m -> loses 25 damage (20%) over 45m.

If you imagine a Super Anchor with 641 RoF – that’s what it would take for a 167 damage weapon to match Watchman’s DPS – and compare how their DPS changes over range, you will notice that Watchman starts dealing more DPS at ~61m.

Of course, it doesn’t mean Watchman will actually be more effective at range than Anchor. Higher damage-per-shot weapons are naturally more effective at range.

Watchman has access to two Ammo attachments that affect its performance in a meaningful way, and it should be always used with one of them:

• Soft Point Ammunition (SPA) – increases Maximum Damage Range from 10m to 15m at the cost of reducing Projectile Velocity by 5%.
• Impact Ammunition (IA) – increases Minimum Damage from 100 to 112 at the cost of reducing Magazine Size from 125 to 100 rounds.

In terms of raw DPS, SPA is better within 20m, and IA is better outside that range. 

• SPA is most powerful at 15m, where it has a 1.6% advantage.
  • DPS: 1785 @ 15m – 1428 @ 55m
• IA is most powerful at 55m, where it has a 12% advantage.
  • DPS: 1785 @ 10m – 1600 @ 55m

As a 125 damage weapon, Watchman has very consistent and clean BTK Thresholds. As long as the standard infantry target is within Maximum Damage Range, it will be killed without any overkill whatsoever, both with headshots or bodyshots, with or without Nanoweave. Going even 1cm outside the Maximum Damage Range will increase the BTK by 1 and TTK by 0.07. The main function of SPA is to postpone this effect by extra 5m.

However, Watchman has a super high Rate of Fire, and among other advantages, it means Watchman’s TTK is not as penalized when going to the next BTK Threshold. For example, the 500 RoF Gauss SAW requires extra 120ms to kill an enemy 1m outside of the Maximum Damage Range, while Watchman requires only extra 70ms.

Impact Ammunition provides a noticeable damage boost at range, and makes damage degradation even less of an issue. For example, if we take our previous example with Super Anchor, but add ammo attachments this time, you’ll notice that Watchman starts dealing higher DPS at any range further than 20m.

Or if you compare Watchman with Impact Ammunition to CARV. Both degrade to 112 damage, but one fires at 857 RPM, and the other one at 750. Watchman will overtake CARV’s DPS at 15m already.

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

• Within Maximum Damage Range, Watchman kills in 4 headshots, same as 143 damage weapons. Given Watchman’s higher RoF, it makes for an incredibly fast headshot Time-to-Kill, rivaling the infamous AF-4 Cyclone.
• Against Heavy Assaults, Ammo Attachment choice has no effect on TTK all the way up to medium range. Depending on enemy health and overshield energy, there could be some situations where SPA still kills faster, but since SPA deals at most 2 extra damage, these situations are highly improbable. 
• Against full-health targets, Impact Ammunition doesn’t come into play until 35m against standard infantry, and 48m against Nanoweave Infantry. 

Effective Range

Hip Fire Accuracy

Watchman has better than average starting Hip Cones of Fire, same as dedicated CQC LMGs like MSW-R and LA1 Anchor. It’s still pretty far from being able to comfortably hip fire at everything that moves, but you can land some decent shots at the center mass of an enemy a few meters away, and high Rate of Fire ensures good consistency. 

Laser Sight provides a few extra meters of effective Hip Fire range, but it’s nothing breathtaking, and it will not confer any new combat options, like being able to reliably hip fire for headshots, or being able to take on enemy Heavy Assaults without ADSing.

ADS Accuracy

On one hand, Watchman has fairly terrible Cones of Fire for stationary positions. Even in situations where you can afford to stand still, you cannot squeeze any more accuracy out of the weapon. It is definitely one of the meaningful downsides of the Watchman.

On the other hand, the 0.3 ADS Standing Moving CoF is hands down the best among all LMGs, period. Most other LMGs have 0.35 or 0.4 CoF.

This is honestly a weird and unexpected quality on a “bullet hose” type of weapon. However, this is somewhat compensated by relatively high Cone of Fire Bloom.

Cone of Fire Bloom

Despite dealing only 125 damage per shot, Watchman has the same Bloom per Shot as 143 damage weapons.

Watchman starts with better Cone of Fire, and it will hold an accuracy advantage for the first 8 shots – up to 2000 damage. After that, CARV and other similar 143 @ 750 will have a more efficient Cone of Fire. However, this doesn’t really matter outside of prolonged magdumping scenarios.

For example, by the time both weapons would fire 3000 damage, CARV’s CoF advantage would be only 0.05, and a 0.1 advantage by 4000 damage. Basically, as long as you keep your bursts within 15 rounds or so, you will not feel any downside to higher Bloom per Shot, but there will be a meaningful accuracy advantage for the first several shots. 

Recoil

Recoil Analysis

Watchman’s Vertical Recoil has a bit of random to it, but it’s not a big deal. The gun fires so fast that recoil will average out, and you won’t notice it. Vertical Recoil per Second is slightly lower than for MSW-R, and generally isn’t very high for an LMG with such a high DPS. 

First Shot Recoil and Multiplier are somewhat high, but still better than for competition.

As a more interesting feature, Watchman has some negative scaling applied to its Horizontal Recoil. 

After just a few shots, Watchman’s Horizontal Recoil scales down to the level of T32 Bull, which is downright incredible for a weapon with such a high DPS. 

These numbers are calculated for 10 round bursts and take scaling into account. Without Forward Grip, Watchman’s Average Horizontal Deviation is only 7% higher than for MSW-R and Orion with a Forward Grip.

T9 CARV has noticeably worse Horizontal Recoil Tolerance than all three, and will have ~60% higher Maximum Horizontal Deviation. 

Recoil Angle is average. A slight bias to the right with a bit of Variance to it. Most of the time you won’t even notice it, though statistically it will result in a minor impact to overall accuracy, giving the Watchman a slight nudge towards being a bullet hose.

Recoil Recovery

Watchman has better Recoil Recovery than vast majority of other LMGs, and this is good, because it increases the effectiveness of burst fire, making it easier for Watchman to repeatedly take advantage of its better starting Moving CoF. 

Velocity

Watchman’s velocity is average for a CQC LMG, and it’s about average on the overall velocity spectrum as well. It’s not too low, but you will definitely have to do some conscious leading when engaging enemies beyond medium range. 

Conclusion on Effective Range

Due to bad minimum Cones of Fire and low damage per shot, as well as high-ish FSRM and average velocity, Watchman has a somewhat limited effective range overall. 

However, Watchman gives you a lot of tools to keep itself under control, such as its affinity for burst firing, stable recoil and good Standing Moving ADS CoF.

So within that “limited effective range”, a properly handled Watchman will be more effective than your average CQC bullet hose like T9 CARV.

Another thing is consistency. The effective range of other CQC LMGs is roughly equal to Watchman’s, but their performance becomes noticeably worse as the range grows, while Watchman – especially outfitted with Impact Ammunition – will perform nearly equally well at 20m and 40m.

Just keep in mind that no matter the user skill, there eventually will be a stone wall of range where Watchman is simply not effective, and hitting shots and getting kills relies mostly on luck and enemy Exposure Time. 

Exposure Time is how long the enemy spends out of cover, susceptible to your shots. Given enough Exposure Time, pretty much any weapon can kill any target at any range, but Exposure Time is the one thing you have the least control of. 

Finding exposed targets is easier for flanking classes, such as Light Assault and Infiltrator, but it comes much less naturally to Heavy Assaults. Often you have to land shots on just a tiny part of enemy hitbox sticking out of cover, and Watchman may well let you down, if the enemy is too far.

And when you do stumble on an exposed enemy, often you’ll have just a few moments before they make it into cover, and you won’t have enough time to pepper the enemy with weak Watchman’s shots.

Utility Stats

Ammo Capacity

Watchman has a respectable ammo capacity, overall close to the bountiful T9 CARV, and more or less keeps up even while using Impact Ammo.

Reload Speed

Watchman takes a lot of time to reload, which makes it somewhat annoying to use, especially for those who suffer from reloaditus – an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces the player to reload their weapon after every engagement.

If we wanted to assess how efficient is the Watchman, we could calculate how much “damage” it reloads per second, and compare it other LMGs:

Reload Damage per Second = Average Damage * Magazine Size / Reload Speed
Where Average Damage = (Maximum Damage + Minimum Damage) / 2

We can see that Watchman has good efficiency, though it’s still ~10% below average.

However, the issue is not time efficiency, but the fact that reload takes so darn long. Every second added to the Reload Time has an exponentially increasing negative impact, increasing chances of being engaged on, or missing a kill opportunity.

All that said, in terms of Short Reload, Watchman is very comparable to CARV, and as long as you avoid the unusually punishing Long Reload, you’ll be fine most of the time. Seriously, d0ku, what the hell were you thinking, putting the charging handle so far to the right and front?

Equip Time

Watchman’s Equip Time is about as expected for a full-sized LMG, and roughly equal to CARV overall.

Pros and Cons

Recommended Attachments

Tips and Conclusion

On the surface, Watchman looks like a typical bullet hose, but it’s actually a bit more nuanced, and to take advantage of everything it has to offer, it needs to be properly handled. You have to fire in bursts, which is made easier by excellent Recoil Recovery statistics. At the same time, high FSRM may make Watchman feel less controllable than it is. 

At the end of the day, Watchman’s most defining feature is short headshot TTK within Maximum Damage Range. Otherwise, it is effectively a sidegrade to the default T9 CARV. 

Apart from the First Shot Recoil, Watchman requires noticeably less recoil management, but more Cone of Fire management – burst firing, in other words. 

You have to be mindful of Watchman’s reload. Unlike MSW-R, you can’t just reload on the go, and you have to be ready to switch to a sidearm in case you get caught while reloading. At the same time, Watchman’s reload disadvantage is somewhat overblown – as long as you avoid being hit by a Long Reload, it won’t be much different from other “big” LMGs.

Overall, Watchman is a welcome addition to the Terran Republic arsenal. It provides veterans with a stylish answer to Anchor’s headshot TTK, and this time without the TR Recoil.

Easy recoil makes Watchman a suitable option for less skilled players as well, and it’s not like Watchman is too difficult to handle. Just remember to cut your bursts at about 10 shots at the most, and you’re good to go.

Watchman’s biggest downside is its inability to reach out to distant targets. Even when you can afford to stand still, there won’t be any accuracy boost. Couple that with low damage per shot and you can pretty much forget about even trying, unless the enemy will be exposed for a long time. That’s the price you have to pay for the combination of high DPS and easy recoil.

Boy was this one a pain to make. The hardest part is the actual montage after I already wrote the script and conducted all of the tests. Still 100% worth it though, learned a ton of new things myself in the process.

Biggest surprise was definitely Air Walking. I’ve been flying like that for years, but only recently confirmed it’s actually faster. The funny part is that I don’t even remember who originally came up with it.

Was also interesting to learn about Icarus Strafing, turns out their horizontal movement wasn’t so terrible as I thought.

The second video contains a few more tips for Ambusher Jets:

Step 9. Learn about Infantry Classes

Step 16. Keep learning!

Congratulations, we’re done with PlanetSide 2 basics! But there is still much for you to learn. Explore the world of PlanetSide 2, make friends and enemies.

You can always come back and learn more in-depth information about the game in the main section of the site.

If you have a question, you can always ask in the comment section below or come to PlanetSide 2 Subreddit, official forums or community Discord.

Scout Rifles are a primary weapon class, available only to Infiltrators. Semi Auto Scout Rifles are precision weapons with good mobility, and they focus on taking out enemies with several headshots at medium-long range. Full Auto Scout Rifles are medium range ambush weapons, and handle like weak Assault Rifles. 

Despite looking different, Scout Rifles are perfectly mirrored between factions. 

You can find general tips on using PlanetSide 2 weapons in the Gunplay Guide and some Infiltrator-specific tips in the Infiltrator Guide.

Semi Auto Scout Rifles

SA Scout Rifle Mechanics

Scout Rifles follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. Semi Auto Scout Rifles are overall similar to Semi Auto Sniper Rifles, but with these differences:

• Deal less damage per shot, and require more bodyshots. However, they still kill most targets in the same number of headshots.
• Higher effective Rate of Fire.
• Larger magazines and faster reload. 
• Can mount Flash Suppressors.
• Higher Projectile Velocity, much better ADS Moving and Hip Fire accuracy.
• Less Vertical Recoil.

SA Scouts suffer from the same Tap Firing Issues that plague Semi Auto Sniper Rifles, albeit to a lesser degree:

Refire Time: 0.235 seconds.
Cone of Fire Recovery takes: 0.25 seconds after a shot
Recoil Recovery takes: 0.243 seconds.
With Compensator: 0.225 seconds.

Source of the numbers: Toolbox. Assuming no Forward Grip.

To put it into words, it takes SA Scouts longer to recover CoF Accuracy than to move crosshair down after a shot. If you fire while the crosshair is moving, or right after it stopped moving, CoF will not have time to recover, and your shots will have reduced accuracy. 

It also means the Compensator is a trap certification and it should be avoided. 

DAMAGE	334 @ 15m – 280 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	255 RPM 240 RPM when Tap Firing
VELOCITY	570 m/s
AMMO	12 / 84
RELOAD TIME	1.95 sec / 2.4 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

You can find some tips on how to play with a SA Scout Rifle in CQC Sniping Guide by Davregis.

Scout Rifles play a bit differently to CQC Bolt Action rifles, but only in the way you move and fire. Both reward hit and run play and quick headshot takedowns. If you can’t reliably get your headshots – avoid 1v1s and float around a fight, using cloak to find and pick off stragglers and wounded enemies.

– Unknown redditor

NS-30 Vandal

DAMAGE	334 @ 15m – 280 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	255 RPM 240 RPM when Tap Firing
VELOCITY	520 m/s
AMMO	15 / 90
RELOAD TIME	2.6 sec / 3.5 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 799

NS-30 Vandal is a cross faction scout rifle. It is very similar to faction-specific SA Scout Rifles. In many cases, it has slightly worse base stats:

• Has a Recoil Angle
• Lower Velocity
• Longer Reloads

However, it has a larger magazine, and most importantly – it has 0.75x ADS Movement Speed Multiplier, which arguably makes Vandal the best SA Scout rifle, as it often operates at ranges where having higher ADS Speed gives a crucial advantage. 

Vandal is the best SA Scout for leveraging their main advantage over SA Sniper Rifles: mobility and ADS accuracy.

Full Auto Scout Rifles

FA Scout Rifle Mechanics

Scout Rifles follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. Full Auto Scout Rifles are overall similar to Assault Rifles, but aside from low damage degradation, they have absolutely unimpressive stats. 

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 125 @ 60m
RATE OF FIRE	652 RPM
VELOCITY	530 m/s
AMMO	24 / 240
RELOAD TIME	2 sec / 2.64 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

Artemis has 20 m/s lower velocity, but doesn’t have any bullet drop. Artemis is also incredibly silent when used with a Suppressor.

NSX Tomoe

DAMAGE	112
RATE OF FIRE	750 RPM
VELOCITY	520 m/s
AMMO	22 / 286
RELOAD TIME	2.1 sec / 2.9 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 799

NSX Tomoe is a cross faction automatic scout rifle. It has a slew of unique features:

• Low bullet damage without any damage degradation.
• Increased headshot multiplier, to ensure that despite low damage per shot, Tomoe kills standard infantry in 4 headshots at all ranges.

Overall, NSX Tomoe is a unique case of an automatic precision weapon with high Rate of Fire. Tomoe’s weaknesses include horrible Hip Fire accuracy, low damage per magazine and long TTK with bodyshots. 

Tomoe kills very fast with headshots at medium range, but suffers whenever it’s not possible to easily get multiple headshots.

You can learn more about Tomoe in its Highly Technical Weapon Guide.

It’s worth noting that Tomoe doesn’t count towards Scout Rifle Directives, and instead counts for Nanite Systems Exports directives. Kills with Tomoe will count as Scout Rifle Kills for Infiltrator Directives, though.

LMGs are a primary weapon class, available only to Heavy Assaults. LMGs in PlanetSide 2 fulfill a different role than in real life, and basically play like heavy Assault Rifles. Each faction has a lot of LMGs, but there is surprisingly little variety. Half of them could be removed, and little of value would be lost.

You can find general tips on using PlanetSide 2 weapons in the Gunplay Guide and some LMG-specific tips in Heavy Assault guide.

LMG Mechanics

LMGs follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. LMGs are characterized by these traits:

Lots of ammunition, but longer reloads. This allows LMGs to comfortably lead several engagements back-to-back, without reloading, and unleash a sustained stream of damage on MAXes and light vehicles.

Low to average DPS. This means that LMGs often have to go for headshots in order to have a competitive TTK. This is somewhat offset by the fact that Heavy Assaults have an overshield to outlast the enemy.

Heavy recoil, especially Vertical Recoil. Most LMGs require conscious and deliberate recoil control when engaging enemies at medium to long range, more so than any other primary weapon class.

Bad initial accuracy on the move. LMGs have either 0.35 or 0.4 ADS Moving CoF, which means that LMGs have to fire in shorter bursts than most other weapons to maintain the same CoF accuracy. 

When engaging targets at longer ranges, LMGs earlier encounter the threshold where the user has to remain stationary in order to land even a shot on a target.

Low Recoil Recovery Rate and high First Shot Recoil. While LMGs have to burst fire more, they are simultaneously worse at it.

Longer Equip Times. LMGs take more time to equip, and take longer to recover after a grenade throw or quick knife swing. That’s kind of a big deal, since Heavy Assaults spend a lot of time switching back and forth between their primary weapon and their rocket launcher.

Worse Hip Fire accuracy than Assault Rifles’, but still notably better than Sniper Rifles’. For most LMGs, hip firing isn’t an option outside of few meters. 

Some LMGs also get access to Extended Mags rail attachment, which in most cases doubles magazine size.

Attachment Availability

LMG Tier List

This tier list has been compiled by /u/miniux, a very skilled an experienced player from the infamous Das Anfall outfit:

…I’ve done the LMG directive about 10 times (all factions at least twice) along with an aurax of every one.

– /u/miniux

In this tier list, Miniux gives each LMG a subjective score, that shows how much a skilled user is likely to benefit from the weapon. 

In other words, a low score doesn’t mean a weapon is completely unusable and struggles to kill anyone, and a high score doesn’t mean the weapon just kills everyone by itself, and all you need to do is point it at the enemy. Score is more about how efficiently the weapon can convert skill into kills.

The main goal is to showcase which weapons are considered “good” by the more skilled part of the community, and why.

Starting LMGs

These LMGs are available by default. They come with free Forward Grip, 1x Reflex Sight and a bit of faction flavor.

T9 CARV

T9 CARV is a bulky and oppressive machinegun. It has lots of firepower, and thanks to the large magazine, can dish it out for a while. However, CARV also has a ton of recoil, and its accuracy leaves something to be desired. 

T9 CARV is an ADS powerhouse… if you can control it.

– [RMIS] nicigee

NC6 Gauss SAW

Gauss SAW is a controversial weapon. It deals the highest damage per shot among all LMGs, and in skilled hands becomes an amazing weapon for medium to long range combat. Basically, a portable autocannon, with enough ammo to last for days. 

However, it faces a number of issues and gets a lot of heat for:

(1) One of the highest values for Vertical Recoil per Shot. When coupled with low RoF, it makes for very choppy, rough recoil pattern. It can be especially hard to get under control to an inexperienced player. 

(2) For that reason, it’s not recommended to use SAW with a scope with magnification stronger than 1x. Which creates another problem: it’s a ranged LMG and you can’t even get decent magnification for it, as it would make your aim jump all over the screen.

(3) Strong vertical recoil makes Compensator a mandatory attachment, which carries penalties to Minimap Firing Detection Distance, and to hip fire accuracy, which is already fairly terrible.

(4) Due to low Rate of Fire and damage model, SAW gets hard countered in close quarters by Nanoweave Armor, and has to go for headshots to compensate.

(5) Poor initial ADS Moving accuracy means SAW struggles to reliably land multiple headshots on enemies outside ~20m, despite being a hardcore ranged LMG. 

(6) Finally, ranged LMGs are simply not needed a lot of the time. Most of the “useful” fighting happens at ranges where most other LMGs would be just as effective, without sacrificing so much close range power.

SAW is high risk, high reward. Frustrating most of the time, but there is no better feeling than 3 tapping an enemy at long range. A Nightmare for inexperienced players, and more of a meme weapon if you compare it to a real “tool” like a GD-22S, Pulsar LSW or T32 Bull.

– [RMIS] nicigee

Many players have spoken against the fact that Gauss SAW is the default LMG, saying that GD-22S should fulfill that role instead, as it’s much more versatile. 

But it’s not all bad. There are some redeeming qualities as well:

(1) Consistent performance over range. SAW has only 1 tier of damage degradation, and kills standard infantry target roughly in the same amount of shots at all ranges. Headshots are especially devastating. 

(2) SAW’s Vertical Recoil per Second isn’t that big. It is actually only above average for LMGs even without the Compensator, and below average with one.

(3) As said, SAW has potential for amazing ranged performance. It’s an excellent weapon for open field combat. It just takes a bit of getting used to its recoil pattern. SAW is actually very controllable and accurate for an LMG.

Orion VS54

Orion is the staple close range LMG for Vanu Sovereignty. Overall, it handles more like a big Assault Rifle, and it’s noticeably more mobile than most LMGs. It has faster reload, shorter Equip Time, and its hip fire accuracy isn’t that bad. It also has a good damage output, but pays in magazine size. Similarly to CARV, it has a ton of recoil, and will require some deliberate handling to be effective at medium range. 

One of the more unusual features is that Orion has reduced Cone of Fire Bloom, so it can fire in longer bursts than most other LMGs. 

Unlike other Close Range LMGs, Orion doesn’t get access to SPA nor ALS, but it has better Hip Fire accuracy from the get-go, so even with basic Laser Sight it gets roughly the same Hip Fire accuracy as other Close Range LMGs with ALS. 

Close Range LMGs

These LMGs behave more like big Assault Rifles. They have increased Hip Fire accuracy, shorter Equip Times, faster reloads, as well as access to Soft Point Ammo and Advanced Laser Sight. However, they have smaller magazines, worse handling and shorter effective range than most other LMGs.

For VS, Orion is the dedicated CQC LMG.

MSW-R

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	750 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	50 / 250
RELOAD TIME	3.045 sec / 3.305 sec
UNLOCK COST	325or 250

MSW-R is the TR workhorse. One of the most popular LMGs, and for good reason: it’s cheap, simple, reliable, effective. Everything you’d want for breaching points and taking the fight to the enemy. It deals good DPS and doesn’t have any issues killing with just bodyshots at close range. 

LA1 Anchor

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	600 RPM
VELOCITY	570 m/s
AMMO	50 / 250
RELOAD TIME	3.37 sec / 4 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Another wildly popular LMG. It deals more damage per shot than other Close Range LMGs, but due to lower RoF has lower overall DPS. However, Anchor has excellent accuracy for a CQC LMG, and within 10m (15m with SPA), it kills standard infantry in just 3 headshots, which makes for a shorter TTK. 

Most beastly CQC LMG in the game. Works great on public servers and dominates competitive scene. Possibly the best LMG overall, once you figure out the recoil, which is still much simpler than for MSW-R. Hip Fire is the only noticeable disadvantage.

– [RMIS] nicigee

Adaptable LMGs

These LMGs have access to a wide variety of attachments, and can be specialized for any range. Their concept is similar to Select Fire Carbines and Assault Rifles, but unlike them, these LMGs don’t get access to anything unique, like underbarrel attachments. 

They have middle-of-the-road stats, which makes them rather boring, “just another LMG” type of weapons.

T9 CARV-S

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	698 RPM
VELOCITY	600 m/s
AMMO	100 / 400
RELOAD TIME	4.64 sec / 5.58 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

CARV-S can be treated like a variant of the CARV that sacrifices raw DPS in favor of better recoil and more attachment choices. CARV-S actually has higher Vertical Recoil per Shot than CARV, but due to lower RoF, it boils down to less Vertical Recoil per Second, especially when equipped with a Compensator. It also has nearly a second faster reload.

Overall, CARV-S makes for a typical general-purpose LMG that doesn’t stand out in any particular area.

T9 CARV-S is a part of this Highly Technical Weapon Comparison with other similar LMGs.

NC6S Gauss SAW S

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	577 RPM
VELOCITY	630 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	4.24 sec / 5.02 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

Despite having a similar name to the starting NC6 Gauss SAW, the SAW-S has a different damage model, and overall is much closer to EM6. They have only minor differences:

• SAW-S has better Horizontal Recoil properties, and marginally better Hip Fire accuracy, reload speed and Projectile Velocity.
• In return, SAW-S sacrifices Magazine Size and overall Ammo Pool, and has marginally lower RoF.

Overall, SAW-S makes for a decent general-purpose LMG, and it’s arguably better than EM6. 

Flare VE6

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	577 RPM
VELOCITY	600 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	4.24 sec / 5.225 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

Flare VE6 deals higher damage per shot than majority of VS LMGs. In combination with Soft Point Ammunition, Flare has excellent headshot Time-to-Kill within 15m, which is a fairly competitive range bracket. 

Mild Vertical Recoil makes Flare easy to handle up to medium range, but comparatively high Horizontal Recoil and damage degradation limit Flare’s effectiveness at range. 

Flare is overall similar to Ursa, so a detailed comparison between these two weapons was made.

Point Hold LMGs

These LMGs have an interesting combination of traits:

• Their Maximum Damage Range is extended to 20m.
  • Some of them also have access to SPA, which further increases Maximum Damage Range by 5m.
• Good accuracy and easy recoil.
• 100 round magazines, with Extended Mags boosting them to 200 rounds. 
• An extra spare magazine.
• Low raw damage output.

The main feature, of course, is unusually long Maximum Damage Range. It gives these LMGs very consistent performance. They have roughly the same bodyshot TTK against nanoweave targets within ~30m, and maintain headshot TTK within ~50m. 

While they don’t have as much raw DPS as some other LMGs, thanks to extended Maximum Damage Range, they can actually deal more effective DPS at certain ranges than weapons with higher RoF.

T16 Rhino

DAMAGE	143 @ 20m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	659 RPM
VELOCITY	640 m/s
AMMO	100 / 500
RELOAD TIME	3.96 sec / 4.925 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

T16 Rhino gets access to Advanced Forward Grip and High Velocity Ammo, but not Compensator. Fortunately, it already has low Vertical Recoil per Shot. With Advanced Forward Grip, Rhino has roughly the same Horizontal Recoil as T32 Bull with its basic Forward Grip. 

Overall, Rhino sort of has an identity crisis:

• It tries to be an LMG for fighting within 30m, but unlike other Point Hold LMGs, it doesn’t get Hip Fire accuracy benefits, nor access to SPA and ALS.
• Its attachment options – AFG and HVA – suggest that it wants to be a ranged LMG, but it has comparatively high damage degradation. 

So Rhino gets stuck without a place to call “home”, and there’s no reason to use it, aside from the combination of low recoil and ability to sustain fire.

EM1

DAMAGE	143 @ 20m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	659 RPM
VELOCITY	630 m/s
AMMO	100 / 500
RELOAD TIME	3.5 sec / 4.465 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

EM1 is comfortable and controllable, and it’s one of the few 143 damage LMGs available to the NC. Other perks include slightly increased Hip Fire accuracy, though not as great as for Close Range LMGs.  EM1 gets access to SPA and Advanced Laser Sight. 

VX29 Polaris

DAMAGE	143 @ 20m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	659 RPM
VELOCITY	625 m/s
AMMO	100 / 500
RELOAD TIME	3.925 sec / 4.925 sec
UNLOCK COST	650or 499

VX29 Polaris features the best hip fire accuracy among LMGs, sharing the first place with NS-15M2, and it also has access to SPA and Advanced Laser Sight. When equipped with it, Polaris gets hip fire accuracy slightly better than an average stock Carbine, which is quite impressive for an LMG.

Polaris has controllable recoil, and overall makes for a surprisingly decent LMG. Its only real weakness is low damage output. 

General-Purpose LMGs

These LMGs share a couple of traits: they remain effective at a variety of ranges, but don’t particularly stand out in any field. Their attachment availability and stat allocation are all over the place, though.

TMG-50

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	577 RPM
VELOCITY	615 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	4.24 sec / 5.225 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

TMG-50 is the only TR LMG that deals more than 143 damage per shot. It’s also slightly more accurate on the move than most LMGs, and has access to HVA and Compensator, but not Advanced Forward Grip. Fortunately, it has great Horizontal Recoil by default, so the basic Forward Grip is enough to facilitate good accuracy.

If not for two tiers of damage degradation, TMG-50 would make a decent ranged LMG. It’s not a terrible weapon, but usually doesn’t get much love from players.

GD-22S

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	577 RPM
VELOCITY	620 m/s
AMMO	50 / 250
RELOAD TIME	2.275 sec / 3.765 sec
UNLOCK COST	325or 250

GD-22S can be treated as a more general-purpose variant of the Anchor. GD-22S is more accurate and easier to control, and its Hip Fire accuracy and DPS are only slightly worse. 

GD-22S is also dirt cheap and has an amazingly fast reload for an LMG. It’s a simple and effective weapon, and its only real disadvantage is scarce attachment choices. However, having such great base stats, it doesn’t really suffer from it.

GD-22S often gets recommended as the starting point for anyone willing to play NC Heavy Assault. 

I would recommend GD-22S for less experienced players, but even I enjoy using it, because it’s so user-friendly. 

– [RMIS] nicigee

EM6

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	600 RPM
VELOCITY	570 m/s
AMMO	100 / 400
RELOAD TIME	4.655 sec / 5.655 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

EM6 has access to a variety of attachments, and overall makes for a typical, versatile LMG.

Where other LMGs have built in specializations, the EM6 just got tired and decided it would let its attachment do the work.

/u/unit220

Pulsar LSW

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	698 RPM
VELOCITY	620 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	3.09 sec / 3.9 sec
UNLOCK COST	325or 250

Pulsar LSW can be treated as a variant of Orion, with less raw DPS and worse Hip Fire accuracy, but much easier recoil and larger magazine. Similarly to Orion, Pulsar LSW gets the reduced CoF Bloom per Shot, so it can fire in a bit longer bursts than most LMGs. Great weapon overall. 

Pulsar LSW  is a part of this Highly Technical Weapon Comparison with other similar LMGs.

SVA-88

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	698 RPM
VELOCITY	630 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	3.38 sec / 4.7 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

SVA-88 is stunningly similar to Pulsar LSW. The main difference is that instead of Flash Suppressor and Extended Mags, SVA-88 gets access to HVA and Compensator. 

SVA also has more Vertical Recoil, but no Recoil Angle, and marginally better Hip Fire accuracy. With the Compensator, SVA-88 has roughly the same Vertical Recoil as Pulsar LSW, and HVA gives it a slight edge in ranged combat. 

Overall, SVA-88 can be treated like a more expensive variant of Pulsar LSW with more inclination towards ranged combat. 

SVA-88  is a part of this Highly Technical Weapon Comparison with other similar LMGs.

Long Range LMGs

These LMGs have only one tier of damage degradation, which gives them an edge in ranged combat over the majority of other primary weapons.  

The dedicated Long Range LMG for NC is Gauss SAW. 

T32 Bull

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 125 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	659 RPM
VELOCITY	640 m/s
AMMO	60 / 300
RELOAD TIME	2.89 sec / 3.28 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

T32 Bull is one of the more unusual LMGs. It gets the best Hip Fire accuracy, amazing recoil pattern, high projectile velocity and fast reload. It takes no effort to hold on target, and low damage degradation ensures the damage remains consistent at all ranges. 

Unfortunately, low damage output makes Bull undesirable to competitive players, and its ADS accuracy doesn’t do anything for it in close quarters. 

Additionally, Bull is very close to NS-15M2, which also gets higher ADS Movement Speed, making it a much better choice overall.

T32 Bull is my weapon for everyday use. It’s easy to use and lets you focus on your playstyle, without any compromises. It rewards good aim, but doesn’t punish bad aim, like Gauss SAW would, for example. It is the perfect platform for your daily squadplay and biolabfarm adventures.

– [RMIS] nicigee

Ursa

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 143 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	550 RPM
VELOCITY	640 m/s
AMMO	75 / 300
RELOAD TIME	3.72 sec / 4.7 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Ursa is the dedicated ranged LMG for VS. Ursa has a mild recoil for an LMG, but its low damage output limits its effectiveness outside of ranged combat.

Ursa is overall very similar to Flare VE6, so a detailed comparison between these two weapons was made.

Empire-Specific LMGs

This set of empire-specific LMGs has interesting mechanics or unique attachments, as well as unusual models and sound design.

MG-H1 Watchman

DAMAGE	125 @ 10m – 100 @ 55m
RATE OF FIRE	857 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	125 / 375
RELOAD TIME	5.525 sec / 7 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Auto

Mechanically, Watchman is an LMG version of TORQ-9 Assault Rifle. It has the highest Rate of Fire among all LMGs, though it deals only 125 damage per shot.

In terms of raw DPS, Watchman is very close to default T9 CARV. Watchman has limited effective range due to bad Cones of Fire while being still, as well as low damage per shot and somewhat low Projectile Velocity. However, fairly stable recoil makes Watchman easier to handle within that range. 

Watchman has good Hip Fire accuracy for an LMG, but it’s still far from being able to hip fire comfortably.

Soft Point Ammunition is also available, and it will make Watchman more competitive in close quarters, while the Impact Ammunition increases Watchman’s damage outside of 20m, and it’s a great choice if you don’t intend to specifically focus on the most competitive performance within 15m. 

Overall, Watchman is an effective LMG that trades effective range for easier handling, and in certain situations it can kill faster than CARV or MSW-R.

You can learn more about Watchman in this Highly Technical Weapon Guide, and enjoy some juicy lore in this video by Cyrious Gaming: 

MGR-L1 Promise

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 112 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	698 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	100 / 500
RELOAD TIME	4.75 sec / 5.775 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Modular Gauss Rifle, LMG-1 “Promise” has low Recoil and high Rate of Fire, which is uncharacteristic for NC. Promise is also the first weapon where Recoil Scaling plays a big role.

With each shot, Promise’s recoil gets lower and lower, up to a certain limit. Vertical Recoil specifically decreases even faster if you fire while crouched.

Promise also has reduced values for Maximum ADS Cones of Fire, for most stances equal to 1 degree. This makes sustained full auto fire much more accurate than for most other primary weapons. For some context, 1 degree is the diameter of the center mass of an infantryman about 25m away.

SPRW Ammunition is available to Promise, increasing Projectile Velocity by 25% at the cost of reducing Magazine Size by 25 rounds. Promise’s base velocity is below average, and can make it challenging to hit moving targets at medium+ range. SPRW Ammo bumps it up to respectable 687 m/s, which is the highest value for LMGs. 

Smart Feeder is a unique ammo attachment, available only to Promise. It increases Magazine Size by 50 rounds at the cost of increasing Reload Times by 0.325 seconds. Since this is an ammo attachment, it is mutually exclusive with SPRW Ammo.

Between SPRW Ammo and Smart Feeder, Promise allows you to choose between focusing on volume of fire or precision. 

Overall, Promise makes for an interesting medium-range LMG with decent firepower. After ~4 shots it becomes the most stable LMG in the game, and it’s not bad during first 4 shots either.

MGR-L1 Promise  is a part of this Highly Technical Weapon Comparison with other similar LMGs.

VE-H Maw

DAMAGE	167 @ 10m – 125 @ 75m
RATE OF FIRE	600 RPM
VELOCITY	550 m/s
AMMO	60 / 300
RELOAD TIME	3.45 sec / 4.6 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 699

Maw is intended to compete with NC’s Anchor as a high-damage, close-medium range LMG. Maw has good damage output, including the infamous 3-headshot kill within maximum damage range.

Maw is tied for the first place for Hip Fire accuracy with a few other LMGs, but it’s the only new LMG to also have access to Advanced Laser Sight. When used with ALS, Maw gains Hip Fire accuracy comparable to a stock carbine, which is impressive for an LMG.

Unstable Ammunition is available, which increases projectile size making shots easier to hit at the cost of reducing Headshot Damage Multiplier to 1.2x. When coupled with ALS and UA, Maw has potentially the best Hip Fire among LMGs. 

Vented Power Core rail attachment is available, which removes Long Reload penalty at the cost of increasing Recoil Angle by 5 degrees. Not recommended.

Cross-Faction LMGs

These LMGs can be used by all factions. If you purchase them with Daybreak Cash, they will be available on all your characters, regardless of faction. They have white tracers. 

NS-15M2

DAMAGE	143 @ 10m – 125 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	625 RPM
VELOCITY	600 m/s
AMMO	55 / 275
RELOAD TIME	2.15 sec / 2.5 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 799

NS-15M2 is basically an LMG variant of NS-11A Assault Rifle. It features the best Hip Fire accuracy and ADS Moving Accuracy, a fast reload and short Equip Time. Most importantly, it’s the only LMG with 75% ADS Speed. 

Its recoil isn’t the best, but still one of the easiest to control, and it has only one tier of damage degradation, similar to Long Range LMGs.

NS-15M2’s only disadvantage is the lowest raw damage output among all LMGs, and fairly small magazine. 

NS-15M2 is wildly popular among good players, who can compensate for low damage output with good headshot accuracy. 

NS-15M2 has a ton of cosmetic variants, including NS-15M1. Differences between them are purely cosmetic. 

NSX Naginata

DAMAGE	150 @ 10m – 125 @ 65m
RATE OF FIRE	659 RPM
VELOCITY	490 m/s
AMMO	90 / 450
RELOAD TIME	3.2 sec / 4.4 sec
UNLOCK COST	1000or 799

NSX Naginata is unique. Its defining feature is that while remaining still, your Cone of Fire will not bloom past a certain point. In other words, while standing still, you can fire at full auto almost without losing accuracy. 

While normally standing still in a firefight isn’t a good idea, there is an advanced trick you can employ. 

Normal weapons have to stop firing to let their Bloomed CoF to recover. Naginata, on the other hand, can use movement to “reset the burst”.

You fire the Naginata while moving, as you would with any other LMG, but when your CoF Blooms too much, you simply stand still for a moment, and that will reset your CoF, even if you keep firing the whole time.

You don’t have to stand still for long either. Simply releasing all your movement keys for a moment will do the trick. 

Overall, Naginata is the only LMG that can truly sustain fire without losing accuracy. Other Nagainata’s traits include good damage model, decent reload speed and excellent Horizontal Recoil and Recoil Angle Properties. 

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

Naginata has gigantic, absolutely mindblowingly horrible Vertical Recoil. It is so bad that even with Compensator Naginata has more Vertical Recoil per Shot than infamous Gauss SAW. And due to higher RoF than SAW, Vertical Recoil per Second is through the roof. 

This makes Naginata difficult to control, effectively making it terrible at its intended role of application. Other downsides include low projectile velocity. 

It’s worth noting that NSX Naginata does not count towards LMG directives, and instead counts for Nanite Exports directive.

You can learn more about Naginata in this Highly Technical Weapon Guide.

Auraxium LMGs

These prestige variants of starting LMGs have a cosmetic auraxium shader, as well as unique combination of attachments or special mechanics. You cannot modify any attachments, except Scopes.

The only way to obtain one of these LMGs is to complete the auraxium level of LMG Directives, by getting auraxium medals (1160 kills) with 5 LMGs.

Keep in mind that not everything classified as “LMG” counts for these directives, so make sure to check your directives tab.

T9A “Butcher”

T9A “Butcher” is the variant of the starting T9 CARV, and features slightly higher Rate of Fire and 50% larger magazine, as well as marginally better Hip Fire accuracy. Butcher has the highest raw DPS among all LMGs. 

Butcher’s downsides come from inability to mount the Forward Grip or a barrel attachment. 

Overall, Butcher is a bullet hose with terrible accuracy and a redundant amount of ammunition, almost a TR weapon meme.

NC6A GODSAW

GODSAW is a variant of the starting Gauss SAW. Its main feature is a secondary Armor Piercing firemode, which changes GODSAW’s Damage Resist Type from Type 2 – Small Arms to Type 4 – Heavy Machine Gun. This lets the GODSAW damage even heavily armored vehicles.

However, in Armor Piercing firemode GODSAW will deal less damage to infantry, so you have to remember to use the right mode for the right job. The firemode indicator near the ammo counter will show which firemode you’re in:

GODSAW has other differences from Gauss SAW: 

• Massively higher Projectile Velocity.
• Minimum Damage Range extended by 20m. This lets GODSAW deal marginally more damage at range. 
• Smaller magazine, but more than 2 second faster reload. 
• Marginally better Hip Fire accuracy.
• Lower Vertical Recoil and Horizontal Recoil, as if GODSAW had some form of Compensator and Forward Grip. Gauss SAW with Advanced Forward Grip and Compensator has slightly less Horizontal Recoil and more Vertical Recoil. 
• GODSAW has the same Equip Time as Gauss SAW with AFG.

Overall, for most intents and purposes, GODSAW is a direct upgrade over Gauss SAW, but faces many similar issues, like being somewhat lackluster in close quarters. 

Betelgeuse 54-A

Betelgeuse 54-A, also known as “Beetle Juice”, is a variant of the starting Orion. Instead of conventional ammunition, Betelgeuse uses the Heat Mechanic, which effectively gives you unlimited amount of spare ammunition. 

Betelgeuse also has 0.25 seconds longer Equip Time.

Overall, Betelgeuse is an interesting and popular weapon, but suffers from strong recoil and poor accuracy, and it cannot even mount a Forward Grip to improve the situation.

Heat Mechanics

Heat Capacity: 1000
Heat Per Shot: 20
Heat Recovery Delay: 0.5 sec
Heat Recovery Rate: 240 per sec
Overheat Penalty: 3.28 sec

Firing the weapon accumulates Heat. When you stop firing, after Heat Recovery Delay, the weapon will start cooling down, at Heat Recovery Rate. If you overheat the weapon, instead of Heat Recovery Delay, you will suffer the Overheat Penalty.

Betelgeuse can fire 50 shots before overheating. This is confirmed by in-game testing. It takes 4.58 seconds to recover heat from 49 shots, and 7.44 sec if you overheat the weapon. 

Betelgeuse will cool down even when not equipped, which makes it very convenient for Heavy Assaults: you can engage an enemy, and then switch to a sidearm or Rocket Launcher, and Betelgeuse will be fully “reloaded” by the time you equip it back again. 

How to make an API Query

Information in the API is distributed between many collections. Each collection contains entries with typical structure for that collection. Each entry contains fields with information.

Usually, information about in-game objects is distributed between many different collections. For example, to pull full stats of one weapon, you have to access as many as 17 (!) different collections.

Fortunately, you can access several collections at once by joining several queries together.

Before you proceed, It is highly recommended you get a JSON formatter plugin for your browser. Google it.

List of collections: https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/

Census website: https://census.daybreakgames.com/

Some queries pull a lot of info at once, and if you intend to make several queries in a short time frame, you may be required to register a Service ID.

Basic Queries

To query a collection, you simply write its name in the link. For example, let’s query the “item” collection, which is basically a huge list of all items in game:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item

This will return a JSON string with the first entry of the “item” collection. In this case, it contains information about Mag-Cutter.

To query a collection for multiple entries, you have to specify the amount using a c:limit modifier. One does not simply access ALL entries in a collection.

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?c:limit=5

This will give you first five “items”. However, there is an overall limit to query size, and querying for several thousand of items will get hard and messy, so it’s a method best kept to “small” collections of several hundred members.

To query specific entries, you can search entries with a field containing a certain value. For example, you can query a weapon by a name, or by an item_id.

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?name.en=TRAC-5

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?item_id=43

Weapon name has to be written exactly as it appears in game, it is sensitive to letter case and spaces. Notice how we also specified the language of the name field. Collections with localized fields, such as names and descriptions, will contain all languages at the same time, which can get cluttering. You can specify a language like this:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?name.en=TRAC-5&c:lang=en

You can search for multiple entries with a certain value in a field. For example:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?item_category_id=8

This query will display the first entry in the “item” collection with the item_category_id of 8, which is the Carbines’ category ID. To show all entries with that item_category_id, you have to again use the c:limit:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?item_category_id=8&c:limit=400

Joining Collections

Joining several collections in one query makes it easier to access full information about something. For example:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?name.en=TRAC-5&c:lang=en&c:join=item_category^on:item_category_id^to:item_category_id

This query will join item and item_category collections, so you can access a weapon by a name, and see its category right away.

“On” is the name of the field in parent collection, “to” is the name of the field in child collection. In some cases you can forego specifying the “on” and “to” parts of the joining. In this case, you can simply write: 

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?name.en=TRAC-5&c:lang=en&c:join=item_category

Sometimes on and to can be omitted and the join will still work. That’s because if you don’t specify them it will use item_id by default.

Most times using only on to specify which field from the parent collection to use is enough. For example instead of item_id you might want to use item_category_id or there is no item_id in the collection so there is no default.

But there are times when you have to use to as well. That’s when the joining field from the parent collection has a different name from the identifying field of the child collection.

For example joining attachment item info to the attachment list of a weapon. The attachments list collection uses attachment_item_id to identify the attachment, but the attachment info collection uses item_id.

-/u/H_Q_

You can also specify the name of the join:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item?name.en=TRAC-5&c:lang=en&c:join=item_category^on:item_category_id^to:item_category_id^inject_at:Category

This can make large queries more readable. If the child collection contains several entries with that identifier, you need to specify that you want to join all of them.

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2/item_category?name.en=Carbine&c:lang=en&c:join=item^on:item_category_id^to:item_category_id^list:1

This query will show all weapons in the “Carbine” category.

Multi Join

You can string several joins together by separating them with commas:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item?name.en=M77-B&c:lang=en&c:join=item_to_weapon,weapon_datasheet

This identical to using several join commands in one query:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item?name.en=M77-B&c:lang=en&c:join=item_to_weapon&c:join=weapon_datasheet

Multi-Level Join

You can create multi level joins by using round brackets: ( and ).

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item?name.en=M77-B&c:lang=en&c:join=item_to_weapon(weapon)

This query will display some of the weapon’s stats, stored in the “weapon” collection. It has the following structure and query response:

Collections

You may find this map of the API useful. All credit goes to /u/Arklur.

item

This collection contains meta information about an item, such as its localized name and description. This is the starting point for queries of weapon stats.

Fields

Category: item_category_id

You can figure out item’s category by searching for the specified item_category_id in the item_category collection, or joining it.

Description: description

Contains all languages by default, but you can access specific language by writing the language’s two-letter code after a dot, for example: description.en, or using a &c:lang=en modifier.

Faction: faction_id

These field will specify which factions can use the weapon. Faction IDs can be accessed in faction collection.

Item’s Image: image_path

This can be used to access item’s in game icon. Simply paste the path after the basic census link: 

https://census.daybreakgames.com/files/ps2/images/static/963.png

Some images are missing from the API, and will give a page_not_found error when you try to access them. There is nothing to be done about it, but you can datamine weapons’ icons from client files by using PS2LS tool. Images are stored in .dds format, and you can use any free converter to convert them into .png.

Image Set: image_set_id

The API usually stores several icons of different sizes. The image_path contains the address of the largest image, you can access smaller images by searching or joining the image_set collection.

weapon_datasheet

Parent collection: item

Join key: item_id

Magazine Size: clip_size

Ammo Pool: capacity

It’s worth noting that Ammo Pool includes the ammunition already loaded into the weapon, so 40/240 in the API will appear as 40/200 in game.

The rest of the fields in weapon_datasheet collection are misleading and should not be used, as they refer to the old format of displaying weapon stats in game, basically somehow correlating with the number of bars in certain categories.

fire_mode

Parent collection: item

Join key: item_id

This collection contains some of the weapon stats, related to Damage and Reload times. However, the fire_mode_2 collection contains the same information and much more, so it is preferable to use that when possible.

It is important to understand that in-game firemodes, such as “semi-auto” and “fully-automatic”, and the API “firemodes” are different.

As far as API is concerned, “semi auto” and “full auto” are fire groups, and “fire modes” make the distinction between hip firing and ADSing.

Attachments like Underbarrel Grenade Launcher function by attaching an additional fire_group to a weapon. 

Each API firemode contains a complete set of parameters and keys to entries in other collections that define how a weapon functions. So it is technically possible to give a weapon completely different functions in different firemodes; that’s how NSX Amaterasu works.

The fire_mode collection will usually have multiple entries for each weapon, all using the same item_id key. So when joining the item_id collection, remember to use ^list:1 modifier, or when searching the fire_mode collection manually, remember to use &c:limit=400 modifier.

Cone of Fire Bloom: cof_recoil
Short Reload: reload_time_ms
Reload Chamber Time: reload_chamber_time_ms
Pellets Per Shot: pellets_per_shot
Pellet Spread: pellet_spread
Magnification: default_zoom
Projectile Speed: muzzle_velocity
Minimum Damage: damage_min
Maximum Damage: damage_max
Minimum Damage Range: damage_min_range
Maximum Damage Range: damage_max_range

Resistances: damage_target_type, damage_resist_type

weapon

Parent Collections: item -> item_to_weapon

Key: weapon_id – required to join fire_group collection.

Sprint Recovery Time: sprint_recovery_ms

A delay before a weapon can be fired after you stop sprinting.

Equip Time: equip_ms
Unequip Time: unequip_ms
Scope In Time: to_iron_sights_ms
Scope Out Time: from_iron_sights_ms

Unused or unknown fields

weapon_group_id, turn_modifier, move_modifier

fire_group

Parent Collections:  item -> item_to_weapon -> weapon_to_fire_group (list)

For each weapon_id there are one or several corresponding entries in fire_group collection.

Each fire_group entry refers to weapon’s in game firemode, such as 3x Burst, Semi Auto, etc. 

Each fire_group entry has an index, which refers to the order of in-game firemodes. Index of 0 corresponds with weapon’s first firemode. 

Most fire_group entries have two firemode_ids. The first defines how the weapon behaves while hip firing, the second – ADSing. 

Example

Link to example query. First, we have to access TRAC-5’s weapon_id by joining the item_to_weapon collection. TRAC-5 has two in-game firemodes, semi auto and auto. This is represented in the API by fact that there are two entries in weapon_to_fire_group collection with TRAC-5’s weapon_id. But first you have to join the item_to_weapon collection to access TRA

Each weapon_to_fire_group entry contain a fire_group_id and index. 

The entry with index of 0 refers to TRAC-5’s default in-game firemode – the full auto one. Pressing the in-game Change Firemode key basically increases weapon’s current Fire Group index by 1.

For each fire_group_id, there are two entries in fire_group_to_fire_mode collection.

Again, each fire_group_to_fire_mode entry contains a fire_mode_id and index.

The entry with index of 0 refers to hip fire stats of the weapon, index of 0 refers to ADS stats.

Each fire_mode_2 entry completely describes how a weapon performs, so in theory, a weapon can have completely different performance between hip firing and ADSing. Same goes for different in-game firemodes. This is why it’s possible for Spiker to have a secondary charge up mode.

Additional Fields

For some specific weapons, fire_group entries also contain some crucial stats:

transition_duration_ms – how long does it take a weapon to switch to this fire group.

chamber_duration_ms – how long does it take to cycle a Bolt Action or Pump Action weapon between shots. To calculate actual time between shots, you need to add together the chamber_duration_ms and refire_ms.

can_chamber_ironsights – whether a Bolt Action or Pump Action weapon can be cycled between shots while the user Aims Down Sights.

spool_up_ms – how long does it take for a spool-up weapon to reach its maximum Rate of Fire. Ex. T7 Mini-Chaingun

spool_up_initial_refire_ms – initial Refire Time of a spool-up weapon.

fire_group_to_fire_mode

A pass-through collection between fire_group and fire_mode_2. In addition to fire_mode_ids, also contains indexes of relevant fire_modes.

fire_mode_2

This collection is much trickier to access than fire_mode, and requires a multi-level join. However, in return it provides a much clearer structure and more stats.

Collection: fire_mode_2

Parent collections: item -> item_to_weapon -> weapon_to_fire_group (list) ->
fire_group_to_fire_mode (list) -> fire_mode_2

Check this example to see which keys you need to specify for each join.

Join key: fire_mode_id

Contains keys: player_state_group_id, damage_direct_effect_id, damage_indirect_effect_id

Step by step

item -> item_to_weapon

To learn weapon’s weapon_id.

 item_to_weapon -> weapon_to_fire_group (list)

Here you get a list of weapon’s in-game firemodes, such as “3x burst” and “semi-auto”. Each fire group has an index. Index of 0 refers to weapon’s default firemode.

weapon_to_fire_group (list) -> fire_group_to_fire_mode (list)

Here you get a list of fire modes for each fire group. Usually this will be hip firing and ADSing. Each mentioned firemode will also have an index. Usually, index of 0 usually refers to hip firing, and index of 1 to ADSing.

fire_group_to_fire_mode (list) -> fire_mode_2

Finally, you get to weapon stats for each firemode.

Fields

fire_mode_2 collection has the same fields as fire_mode collection, and more:

automatic – defines whether the weapon will continuously fire if you hold the “fire” key.

move_modifier – a multiplicative modifier to player’s movement speed in this firemode. This is how you access weapon’s ADS Movement Speed Modifier.

cof_scalar, cof_scalar_moving – multiplicative multipliers to Cone of Fire values written in Player State Group entries. For example, Laser Sight functions by reducing cof_scalar of hip fire fire_modes. Moving CoFs are already affected by cof_scalar, so cof_scalar_moving is an additional variable. 

Projectile Velocity aka Muzzle Velocity: projectile_speed_override

Each projectile in PS2 has a pre-defined velocity. This field will override projectile’s pre-defined velocity. This is a convenient way for developers to set different velocities for different weapons that use the same projectile (e.g. bullet).

Magnification: zoom_default

This is the field that gets overridden by optics attachments.

Pellet Spread: cof_pellet_spread

For non-shotgun weapons, this will be equal to 0. 

Cone of Fire Bloom: cof_recoil

Headshot Damage Multiplier: damage_head_multiplier

Increase this is by 1 to get a total multiplier. E.g., damage_head_multiplier of 1 means the weapon deals 2x damage on headshots.

Legshot Damage Multiplier: damage_legs_multiplier

Subtract this value from 1 to get the total multiplier. E.g. damage_legs_multiplier of -0.1 means the weapon deals 0.9x damage on legshots.

fire_ammo_per_shot – determines how many rounds a weapon spends with each shot. E.g., shotguns fires multiple pellets per shot, but spend only one round per shot. While NSX Masamune fires all 4 rockets at the same time from the hip.

fire_auto_fire_ms – sets the weapon’s Refire Rate in fixed burst firemodes.

fire_burst_count – sets the weapon’s burst length in fixed burst firemodes.

fire_charge_up_ms – determines for how long can you hold the fire key before releasing to fire. E.g. Lancer. It is unclear where the information about different charge levels is stored.

fire_delay_ms – determines the amount of time that passes between you clicking to fire, and the weapon firing. E.g. NSX Yumi, RailJack.

Minimap Fire Detect Range: fire_detect_range

Refire Time: fire_refire_ms

The amount of time that must pass between shots. Refire Time also plays an important role in CoF Recovery and Recoil Recovery processes. Can be used to calculate weapon’s Rate of Fire:

Rate of Fire = 60 / Refire Time.

Pellets Per Shot: fire_pellets_per_shot

How many projectiles a weapon fires with each shot. Important for shotguns and other similar weapons.

Maximum Indirect Damage: max_damage_ind
Maximum Indirect Damage Radius: max_damage_ind_radius
Minimum Indirect Damage: min_damage_ind
Minimum Indirect Damage Radius: min_damage_ind_radius

Go here to learn about Indirect Damage Mechanics.

Recoil Statistics

Maximum Recoil Angle: recoil_angle_max
Minimum Recoil Angle: recoil_angle_min
First Shot Recoil Multiplier: recoil_first_shot_modifier

This is the total multiplier, no need to add or subtract anything.

Maximum Horizontal Recoil: recoil_horizontal_max
Minimum Horizontal Recoil: recoil_horizontal_min
Horizontal Recoil Tolerance: recoil_horizontal_tolerance

Maximum Vertical Recoil: recoil_magnitude_max
Minimum Vertical Recoil: recoil_magnitude_min
Recoil Scaling Stats: recoil_increase, recoil_increase_crouched, 
recoil_horizontal_max_increase, recoil_horizontal_min_increase

Recoil Recovery Delay: recoil_recovery_delay_ms
Recoil Recovery Rate aka Recoil Decrease: recoil_recovery_rate

recoil_recovery_acceleration – no solid information on how it functions, presumably the value of 1000 means there is no acceleration. 

Unused or unknown fields

grief_immune, sprint_fire, turn_modifier, use_in_water, cof_override, cof_range, armor_penetration, shield_bypass_pct

effect

Parent Collection: fire_mode_2

Join keys: damage_direct_effect_id, damage_indirect_effect_id

This collection’s entries contain effects caused by weapons. Usually, they just repeat the weapon’s damage values, but there are exceptions.

For example, accessing Rocket Launchers’ Indirect Damage Effect allowed to discover the Hidden Scaling of Indirect Damage based on Rocket Flight Distance.

Similarly to zone_effect collection, you can join the effect_type collection to get textual description of what effect’s parameters do.

player_state_group

Contains some information about weapon’s Cone of Fire properties, but less than player_state_group_2.

Parent Collection: fire_mode_2

Each fire_mode_2 entry contains a player_state_group_id. The player_state_group collection contains multiple entries with the same player_state_group_id.

Each entry contains the textual description of the player state, like “Standing” or “CrouchWalking”, and weapon’s Minimum Cone of Fire in that state.

Fields: player_state, min_cone_of_fire

player_state_group_2

Basically the same as player_state_group collection, but with more stats.

Parent Collection: fire_mode_2

player_state_id – determines which player stance is being described in this entry.

can_iron_sight – whether the user can Aim Down Sights in this state. This is likely the field that was changed when players lost the ability to Aim Down Sights while jumping and falling.

cof_grow_rate – degrees per second, the speed of Cone of Fire expansion when it blooms or when the player moves to a stance with larger Minimum CoF.

cof_recovery_rate – degrees per second, the speed at of Cone of Fire reduction when the user stops firing or moves to a stance with lower Minimum Cone of Fire.

Maximum Cone of Fire: cof_max
Minimum Cone of Fire: cof_min
Cone of Fire Recovery Delay: cof_recovery_delay_ms

I assume this functions by the same principles as Recoil Recovery Delay.

Unused or unknown fields

cof_shots_before_penalty, cof_recovery_delay_threshold, cof_turn_penalty

fire_mode_to_projectile

A pass-through collection between fire_mode or fire_mode_2 and projectile collections.

projectile

Contains information about the projectile used by a weapon in specific fire_mode. 

Parent Collection: fire_mode_2 -> fire_mode_to_projectile -> projectile

Projectile Speed aka Muzzle Velocity: speed

Keep in mind that this field will be usually overridden by projectile_speed_override in fire_mode_2 entry.

Projectile Lifespan: lifespan
Dumbfire Rocket Acceleration: acceleration
Dumbfire Rocket Maximum Speed: speed_max
Projectile Gravity: gravity

drag – unknown field. Possibly a delay between weapon “firing” and projectile appearing. It seems to be greater than zero only for grenade-like weapons. Drag > 0 query.

Projectile Flight Type: projectile_flight_type_id 

This field can be used to search or join the projectile_flight_type collection. This is a small collection with only a few entries:

• Ballistic
• True Ballstic – Uses Real Gravity
• Dynamic
• Proximity Detonate

These descriptions can be used to speculate how the projectile will behave in game.

• Ballistic type is likely to “detonate” and disappear upon hitting anything. 
• Dynamic type is assigned to grenade-like projectiles, so it means it will bounce around until the lifespan is over, and then it will “detonate”.
• Proximity Detonate type likely means the projectile will “detonate” when near an eligible enemy object. E.g. flak weapons.

By “detonate” I mean the projectile will apply its effects. E.g. a bullet will deal direct damage, a rocket will explode and deal direct and indirect damage, a Smoke Grenade will puff out smoke.

Lock-on Turn Rate: turn_rate 
Lock-on Lose Angle: lockon_lose_angle
Lock-on Lifespan: lockon_lifespan
Lock-on Acceleration: lockon_acceleration

Still no idea how it works.

item_attachment

PlanetSide 2 weapon attachments are also a part of the item collection. The item_attachment collection contains entries with item_ids of attachments, available to a weapon with a certain item_id.

Example query. Example response.

Parent Collection: item

Then you can join the item collection to get the item entries for all attachments, available to a weapon.

zone_effect

Among other things, this collection contains effects of all weapon attachments. 

Parent Collection: item

Most attachment item entries have a passive_ability_id field. You can use this to join it with ability_id of zone_effect entries. 

Example query.

zone_effect_type

This collection contains textual descriptions of values stored in zone_effect entries.

Each zone_effect entry has a zone_effect_type_id field. It can be used to create a join with zone_effect_type collection.

Example query.

Attachment Effects Examples

Figuring out attachment effects can get kinda messy, so let’s go over a few examples so you get the general idea of how it works.

Scope

Query. Here we are interested in four things.

1. The attachment affects all fire_groups.
2. The attachment affects only fire_modes with index of 1 (usually, ADSing).
3. The attachment changes weapon’s default zoom in affected firemodes.
4. The value is changed by adding “1” to it.

M-77B has Default Zoom of “6”, so the 7x Scope Attachment simply adds “1” to that value.

Forward Grip

The “string1” description tells us the affected weapon statistic is Maximum Recoil Angle.

“param1” and “param2” are set to “-1”, which means that all weapon’s Fire Modes are affected by the attachment, i.e. regardless if you hip fire or ADS and from which stance.

“param3” is not set for this effect.

“param4” is set to “-25”. Description of param4 is “PcntAddend”, where “pcnt” stands for “percent”. So this effect of the Forward Grip reduces Maximum Recoil Angle by 25%.

But there are other effects of the Forward Grip.

For example, here we can see that for TRAC 5 Forward Grip also increases Equip Time by 150ms.

Suppressor

Here we can see that Suppressor for TRAC 5 reduces Max Damage Range by 5m and Min Damage Range by 20m.

HS/NV Scope

Increases the time it takes to ADS by 150ms.

For comparison, by default it takes TRAC 5 another 150ms to ADS:

Underbarrel Grenade Launcher

Example query. We can see that Underbarrel Grenade Launcher attachment adds a Fire Group to a weapon. Let’s query that Fire Group. Here’s what we get:

This way we can access exact stats of the Grenade Launcher, and learn that it takes 0.8 seconds to switch to it.

Ability Effects Examples

zone_effect collection also contains effects of passive and active abilities, such as Zealot Overdrive Engine of VS MAXes. Example query.

We can query the armor_info collection and learn that ZOE 1 increases incoming damage  by 20% from all sides except Bottom. 

Armor and Resistances

You can learn about Armor and Resistance interactions here.

profile_2 – contains unit names and their profile_ids.

profile_armor_map, profile_resist_map – contains armor_info_ids and resist_info_ids for built-in armor and resistance values for all profiles, using profile_id as key.

armor_facing – contains descriptions for different armor_facing_ids. You need those to learn which armor_info is applied to which unit’s projection.

armor_info – contains the actual information about units’ armor, both built-in and acquired from items and abilities, using armor_info_id as key.

resist_info – same as armor_info, but for resistances. resist_info_id is key.

resist_type – contains textual descriptions for different resist_type_ids. Incomplete and sometimes not exactly accurate. 

For example, it doesn’t contain Damage Type 9 – Tank Mine and Damage Type 11 – C4. It also won’t tell you that AV Grenades use Damage Type 34 – Infantry Rockets.

All of these collections are utilized in the “Resistances” and “Built In Resistances” pages of the Toolbox, which calculates weapon damage to vehicles. 

This multi-join query will show you built-in Armor and Resistance values for the Lightning.

Credits

Huge thanks to /u/L33-the-3rd, /u/shaql, /u/fisu_, /u/Wrel and /u/nehylen for teaching me how to use the API. You guys are awesome, wouldn’t be here without y’all.

You’re going to need:

1. Understanding of Weapon Mechanics.
2. Knowledge of how to use the Daybreak Census API to access detailed weapon stats
3. A set of tools, such as Weapon Simulator and Toolbox
4. At least 100-200 kills with the weapon are highly recommended.

It’s worth noting that Weapon Analysis is essentially theorycrafting, and theory can and will differ from practice, and practice always takes priority. The main point of Weapon Analysis is to explain WHY a weapon behaves a certain way.

Damage

There are many ways you can look at weapon’s damage. First is damage itself:

Max Damage @ Max Damage Range - Min Damage @ Min Damage Range

You can read all about it here. To quickly recap:

Bullet Damage is more important for ranged combat, where individual hits are easier to get than sustained automatic fire. High bullet damage also makes it harder to regulate incoming damage on the receiving end. 

In close quarters, DPS becomes a more important statistic. 

DPS = Bullet Damage * Rate of Fire / 60

Overall, it’s preferalbe to use DPS rather than TTK to judge a weapon’s damage output, since DPS is always objective, and does not depend on the target having a certain amount of HP or resistances. PlanetSide 2 targets are diverse, and besides infantry can include a lot of other targets. Infantry health itself is highly variable as well. 

We can’t talk about damage and DPS without mentioning Rate of Fire. High Rate of Fire is crucial for CQC, as it makes damage output more consistent, and makes it easier to always inflict at least some damage to the enemy. 

Of course, we can’t completely ignore TTK. It is an important tool for analyzing weapon’s performance against typical targets. The most common scenarios are standard infantry (1000 effective HP) and full nanoweave infantry (1250). I prefer to go for “worst case scenario”, and mostly look at full nanoweave numbers. 

Contextually, it may be important to take a look at TTK against Infiltrators (900 effective HP). A good example would be Commissioner, which has noticeably lower TTK against them.

For semi auto weapons, Bullets-to-Kill is arguably more important than TTK, as it determines how many “clicks” you need to kill the target. 

BTK = Round_Up(Target Health / Bullet Damage)

TTK = (BTK - 1) * Refire Time

Refire Time = 60 / Rate of Fire

Weapon’s damage will change depending on range to the target, and so will DPS, TTK and BTK. It’s important to analyze the weapon fully, over its whole effective range. Many people make the mistake of taking a look only at maximum damage numbers. 

Headshot and Legshot damage modifiers are important as well. 

Magazine Size

This stat on its own is fairly useless, since it doesn’t take bullet damage into account. Damage Per Magazine is a more objective statistic, so that’s what you should be mainly looking at. 

DPM = Damage * Clip Size

DPM affects how reliably a user can take out at least one target before needing to reload, and how many enemies can be killed in one magazine, which is useful in flanking situations. 

Obviously, the more DPM- the better, but after a certain plateau of ~6000 DPM, it stops mattering in regards to reliably killing one target, and we enter the realm of the weapon being able to sustain through several engagement, or continuously damage MAXes or light vehicles.

There is also a certain plateau where DPM can get dangerously low. Eridani and Tomoe are such weapons. I’d say the weapon needs at least 4000 DPM to be wielded somewhat comfortably. Anything lower, and you get a strictly 1v1 ambush weapon. 

Due to damage degradation, DPM will vary at different ranges, so you’ll have to take that into account as well. 

More DPM reduces the chance of being forced into Long Reload. 

Ammo Pool

This is the amount of ammunition a player carries with him. More ammo is always good, and it decides how independent a player can be; how much does he need to rely on things like Ammo Belt and Ammo Printer, and how tethered he is to engineers and terminals.

Ammo Pool isn’t a factor for most weapons, as they have more spare ammo than an average player can realistically spend in one life, but there are exceptions, such as Stalkers using burstfire sidearms.

Same as Clip Size, you should take bullet damage into account. Up to you which range you want to use.

Reload Time

Reload time mostly speaks to user comfort rather than combat effectiveness. Mostly you should be looking at Short Reload, since it’s much more likely to encounter, unless we’re talking about a weapon with low DPM. 

Reload time is more important for CQC weapons. Ironically, they usually have longer reloads than ranged weapons. Reload time is less important for Infiltrator and Light Assault, since they often can find a safe haven to reload & recharge, or die during attempted ambush before having a chance to enter a reload. 

Effective Range

Initial Accuracy

Hip Firing

For Hip Firing, you want to mainly be looking at Standing Moving CoF. 

For high damaging semi-auto weapons, the smaller the CoF – the better. Commissioner is a great example – due to its great initial accuracy, it can land devastating headshots from the hip even if the enemy is a quite a few meters away. 

For automatic and burst fire weapons, smaller CoFs are better only to a certain plateau of ~1.5 – 2.0 degrees. Smaller than that and Hip Fire becomes too accurate, and it becomes difficult to spray enemies in close quarters.

Aiming Down Sights

All CoFs are relevant, and you always want them to be as small as possible. However, you are still mainly looking at Standing Moving CoF, since it is the most common and safest stance. 

Cone of Fire Bloom

There are several ways you can look at CoF Bloom.

1) CoF Bloom per shot itself. It’s more important for semi-auto weapons, especially those that don’t spam shots, like Semi Auto Sniper Rifles. 

2) CoF Bloom Per Second = CoF Bloom * Rate of Fire / 60

This statistic matters only in one specific scenario: if the user goes full auto, but momentarily loses crosshair placement on the target. I.e. he’s shooting past the target for a few moments.

A weapon with low CoF Bloom Per Second can just return the crosshair placement on the enemy and keep firing.

A weapon with high CoF Bloom Per Second will likely have to restart the burst, losing a bit of TTK, and subjecting the user to FSRM and Recoil Recovery. If the user doesn’t restart the burst, he’s risking to lose even more TTK, because CoF blooms too much.

3) CoF Bloom Per Point of Damage Done = CoF Bloom / Bullet Damage

This statistic with an extra long name ties weapon’s damage output to accuracy loss. This allows you to objectively determine which weapon requires more burst firing, even with perfect accuracy, and regardless of weapon’s RoF or DPS.

CoF Recovery

It seems that all weapons follow the same principle: after a final shot in a burst, the weapon waits for a Refire Time, and then starts recovering CoF at a rate of 20 degrees per second. 

PS2 weapon mechanics allow to have an additional CoF recovery delay, but none of the weapons use it.

Knowing this you could calculate ideal delay between bursts, based on accumulated CoF, but it would be next to impossible for a player to take advantage of it. 

Burst Firing

Together, Initial Accuracy and CoF Bloom determine how much you need to burst fire a weapon. But how good is a weapon at burst firing is mostly determined by recoil statistics. 

Angular Size Research

There is no single definition for weapon’s effective range. I prefer to use this one:

Effective range is range where an automatic weapon can reliably kill an enemy in one long burst, ignoring recoil and assuming perfect crosshair placement. 

Normally, we would rely on Angular Size research to determine the effective range of the weapon, but unfortunately it was proven to be wrong, and at this time there is no way to even approximately calculate it.

Recoil Analysis

All of these recoil statistics can be calculated via Toolbox. 

Stability

Average Horizontal Deviation

This is the average distance between the crosshair during firing and its original position. Small AHD statistically guarantees the weapon will not deviate from the center too much, and it’ll be easier to hold aim on target. 

Maximum Horizontal Deviation

This statistic doesn’t matter very much, but abnormally big difference between MHD and AHD can indicate that the weapon can sometimes spin out of control, despite being fairly controllable otherwise. A Probability Distribution Graph should show how likely it is. 

On average, MHD should be about 2.5 times larger than AHD. Lower is good.

Recoil Angle Variance

RAV = ABS(ABS(Maximum Recoil Angle) - ABS(Minimum Recoil Angle))

High RAV can mess with the whole Recoil Pattern, and it makes burst firing especially hard. 

Rate of Fire

The faster a gun fires, the faster Horizontal Recoil can screw you over. 

Ease of Handling

Vertical Recoil Per Second

VRPS = Vertical Recoil / Refire Time = Vertical Recoil * RoF / 60

VRPS is a more objective alternative to Vertical Recoil Per Shot, and it’s directly proportional to the speed at which you need to drag the mouse to compensate for Vertical Recoil. 

Low VRPS makes a gun considerably more convenient, it increases weapon’s effective range, effectiveness of burst firing, and makes it easier to get multiple headshots with first few shots. 

Rate of Fire

With VRPS being equal, it is preferable to have higher RoF. A combination of Low Vertical Recoil Per Shot and High RoF is more comfortable for the user than high Vertical Recoil Per Shot and Low RoF.

The best example would be the notorious Gauss SAW, which gets a lot of heat for its Vertical Recoil, despite the fact that it has lower VRPS than CARV and Orion even without the Compensator. 

Average Recoil Angle

ARA = (Maximum Recoil Angle + Minimum Recoil Angle) / 2

In theory, it’s possible to fully compensate for the Recoil Angle, as long as there isn’t too much variance. In practice, same as with Vertical Recoil, lower angle is always good, and it is preferable to have the gun recoil straight up.

Recoil Recovery

These statistics are important for tap firing and burst firing. 

Projectile Speed

Determines how comfortable is the weapon at range, how much the user needs to compensate for bullet drop (if this weapon’s bullets are affected by Gravity at all), or lead a moving target, how fast can the user adapt to target’s movement.  

High velocity increases weapon’s affinity to being Suppressed. It doesn’t matter that much on CQC weapons, but generally – the more, the better.

When coupled with Projectile Lifespan, determines weapon’s maximum range. Usually it’s not important, but can be crucial in certain edge cases, like super long range sniping:

Spectre’s bullets have lifespan of 1.25 seconds. Normal velocity is 570, suppressed velocity is 570 * 0.6 = 342. That would put theoretical maximum range at 712m normal and 427m suppressed.

Misc. Stats

These stats are of some importance, and should be considered and put on display. 

Equip Time determines how good is a weapon for quickdrawing. For example, a Combat Medic might prefer a weapon with a shorter Equip Time to be able to faster switch to it if he gets caught with a Med Tool in hands. Same thing for other classes. 

Equip Time also affects how fast a weapon recovers after a quick melee attack or a grenade throw.

Faction. Having a cross-faction weapon can be both a blessing and a curse, since it will make it impossible for both allies and enemies to identify the user as belonging to a certain faction, judging by the sound alone. 

This is just something to keep in mind, since  the overall impact of this factor cannot be measured objectively. 

Scope-In Time. How long does it take to ADS. Normally, it would be a crucial stat, but it’s usually the same for weapons within their category, so it’s not an important point for weapon analysis.

Sprint Recovery. A delay before a weapon can be fired after you stop sprinting. Especially important for CQC weapons, though, once again, it’s the same for most weapons.

Fire Detect Range. Self-explanatory.

ADS Speed Multiplier. The higher, the better. A lot of people don’t understand relationships between percentages, and don’t realize that 75% ADS equates to 50% faster movement during ADS. 

Higher ADS Speed is a survival trait, as it allows to dodge more of enemy fire while dishing out accurate shots yourself. 

Specific Cases

Bolt Action and Pump Action

For these weapons, the most important statistic is Chamber Duration, as it determines their effective rate of fire. 

Spool-Up Weapons

Some weapons, like T7 MCG, start firing at lower RoF, and then gradually spool up to their maximum rate of fire. So you have to look at three stats:

1. Initial RoF
2. Spool Up Time
3. Maximum RoF

Shotgun

Total Damage Per Shot. Mostly important for quick-melee combos, and determines weapon’s performance in ideal situations, though it’s important to realize that shotguns very rarely meet them. 

Damage Per Shot = Pellet Damage * Pellets

Pellets Per Shot. Speaks to weapon’s consistency. With all else being equal, it’s better to have as many pellets as possible, as it reduces the effects of RNG. 

Pellet Spread. Affects weapon’s effective range. It’s always important to take into account Cone of Fire as well, and look at Pellet Coverage:

Pellet Coverage = Pellet Spread + Cone of Fire

This is shotguns’ version of “Initial CoF”.

Cone of Fire affects where Pellet Spread can land, and overall makes the weapon less consistent by double dipping into RNG. Ideally, you don’t want to have any CoF at all.

Pellet Spread is what makes a shotgun, so while smaller Pellet Spread makes the weapon more accurate and increases effective range, you still want to have some spread. 

Ideally, you want Hip Pellet Spread to be somewhere around 1.5 – 2.0 degrees, and ADS Pellet Spread around 0.5 – 1.0 degrees.

Burst-Fire Weapon

Very similar to analyzing an automatic weapon, but with a concession that the weapon can be harder to use optimally.

The requirement to click at a very specific rate of fire can make it harder to reach maximum rate of fire, and it can be harder to keep the crosshair over the target, as the user also has to compensate for uneven recoil while clicking. 

Complete lack of a semi-auto mode on a burst weapon should be counted as a disadvantage, as it means the gun can’t be tap-fired to snipe deployables or players massively out of weapon’s effective range, though obviously those are niche uses that are likely to be meaningless for most players. 

In addition to shots to kill, it may be prudent to also look at “bursts to kill”. 

Obviously, First Shot Recoil Multiplier plays a big role. It’s kind of controversial. On one hand, you want FSRM to be as small as possible, to ensure the first two shots in a burst land as closely as possible. On the other hand, you want FSRM to be close to 1x, so the recoil is evenly distributed during the burst, so it is easier for the user to emulate a fully automatic weapon. One thing is certain: you definitely don’t want FSRM to exceed 1x.

Vertical Recoil Per Shot is important as well. On weapons with long bursts, Vertical Recoil Per Second could be a more objective stat to look at. 

Look up this on how to calculate damage per second and damage per minute of a fixed burst weapon, and keep in mind that burst weapons tend to have recoil scaling.

Semi Auto Weapon

For semi auto weapon, Vertical Recoil and Tap Firing Speed, as well as CoF Recovery are the most important statistics. 

When looking at TTK and BTK, it could be prudent to look at how many bodyshots a weapon needs after a headshot opener. E.g. one of big advantages of Commissioner over Underboss is that Commissioner has much longer range of 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot combo. 

Or the fact that Blackhand reliably kills an enemy with 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot within ~60m, makes it considerably more comfortable to use.