Tag Archives: mechanics

Claymore

Claymore Guide by Bvllish

Originally posted on Reddit by /u/Bvllish

PS2 Claymore

From my testing, the claymore appears to deal damage in the shape of an isosceles triangle. The damage is a constant 1300 throughout the triangle, so the in-game “1300 at 3m 350 at 6.5m” is bullshit; Claymore deals no damage outside 2-3m.

PS2 Claymore positioning

With the newly added 0.32 second detonation delay, the claymore can no longer cover the entirety of a doorway. From in game experience, it appears to cover less than half of a doorway now. This is because if an enemy is close enough to the claymore, he can just run straight through it taking no damage.

Depending on the exact amount of time it takes for a character to run through the detonation zone, it may be beneficial to place the claymore at an angle to enlarge the kill zone.

Knowing the detonation delay of 0.32 seconds and that sprinting player moves at 6.32m per second, we can calculate the distance a player can cover during the delay: 0.32 * 6.32 = ~2.02m, which means that a player can potentially spring right through the claymore without getting damaged, which is confirmed by in-game testing.

Toolbox stats page

Weapon Stats

PlanetSide 2 weapons have a lot of statistics that define how they function in-game. But only a portion of those statistics is shown in-game. This is how you can access the rest:

PlanetStats

This should be your go-to resource. Lists all weapons in a convenient, sortable form. You can also select and compare several weapons. This source would be ideal, if not for a few issues:

  • Sometimes weapon stats take too long to load. 
  • Some numbers are rounded too roughly. For example, it will show 0.225 as 0.23.
  • Some stats, like Recoil Recovery Delay, are not shown, and Equip Time is incorrect for some weapons.

Daybreak Census API

This online database is owned and controlled by Daybreak – PlanetSide 2 developers. It contains information about player characters and weapon statistics. This is where PS2 informational sites pull data from.

To pull information from the API, you have to put a query into browser’s address bar. Here is an example of the simplest request:

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

You will receive a JSON string. I highly recommend you use a browser plugin that formats JSON strings to make them more readable, or at least use a JSON formatting site.

Normally, you can view JSON strings right in the browser, but some browsers prompt a download of the .json file instead. In that case, you can open it with any text editor, such as Notepad.

However, that simplest query does not give you any useful information about the weapon. This is because Census database is fairly complex, and weapon data is stored in several different tables, with different key fields. So if you want to pull all available information about a weapon, you have  to pull information from several places at once, and the query becomes much bigger.

Full Query

Go here if you’d like to learn how to put together your own queries.

These versions of the query pull all information about the weapon, including what cannot be accessed in-game, such as Recoil, Equip Time, Projectile Lifespan and exact effects of attachments.

By Item ID 

By weapon name 

Implant Effects 

Vehicle Attachments

Nanoweave Armor

Built-in Armor and Resistances

These 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.

Both queries above pull information in English. If you want to pull all languages, simply remove &c:lang=en from the query.

Or you can specify another language: de, en, es, fr, it, tr

There are other queries you can make to the Census, as explained here and here.

How to find out weapon’s Item ID?

You can make a query using weapon’s name: 

https://census.daybreakgames.com/get/ps2:v2/item?name.en=Force-Blade

Make sure to type the name exactly as it appears in game, including blank spaces, if there are any. The Item ID will be listed in one of the first fields, e.g: “item_id“: “19”

If you’re having trouble typing the weapon name properly, or if you don’t know the name, then another way is to make a query of all weapons of certain category.

Or query for a list of categories:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item_category?c:limit=500&c:lang=en

Examples of queries for all weapons in “Carbine” category:

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item_category?c:limit=500&c:lang=en&name.en=Carbine&c:join=item^list:1

https://census.daybreakgames.com/s:iridar/get/ps2/item?item_category_id=8&c:limit=500&c:lang=en&c:show=item_id,name

Weapon Analysis Toolbox

This Excel Sheet can:

  • download weapon stats from Census API and display them in formatted form, including information about weapon’s projectile
  • make manual query to Census API about a weapon with a simple double click
  • analyze and calculate weapon mechanics, such as Bullets to Kill, Time to Kill, bullet damage at certain range, analyze weapon’s Cone of Fire and Recoil properties.

DasAnfall

An alternative to PlanetStats. It displays more weapon stats, but can potentially be outdated, and you still have to know weapon’s Item ID. DasAnfall may be necessary to find out such weapon stats as:

  • Equip and Unequip Times
  • Projectile Lifespan
  • Projectile Gravity
  • Weapon’s Fire Modes

For example, you can use PlanetStats to find out that TRAC 5 has ID of 43.

Then link to the DasAnfall page of TRAC 5 will look like this: 

https://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/civ/index.php?id=43

As you may notice, DasAnfall lists weapon stats several times. This is done because PS2 weapons have separate stats for each fire mode.

For example, TRAC 5 has 4 modes: single shot, full auto, single shot while ADS, full auto while ADS.

Most weapon stats are identical in different fire modes, but it’s important to understand that as far as game engine is concerned, those are all completely different weapons. 

It is theoretically possible to make a weapon that will function like a full auto grenade launcher while firing from the hip, and like a sniper rifle while ADSing, and could also switch into a Flak Turret fire mode.

FISU

An alternative to PlanetStats.