Tag Archives: tool

PlanetSide 2 Weapon Simulator

05.06.2016PlanetSide 2calculator, mechanics, tool, Weapon CalculatorIridar

This tool is outdated, use Weapon Toolbox for up to date weapon stats.

This program is a standalone simulator of PlanetSide 2 Weapon Mechanics.

It can simulate Cone of Fire, bullet hits, recoil, analyze the effects of attachments on each weapon, and compare different weapons to each other.

This is a work in progress, so please inform me of any bugs or suggestions.

>> Download v1.7 PTS here <<

Known issue: since it’s program in an archive, this might get flagged as potentially harmful. Windows Smart Screen and Avast have particular issues with it.

I assure you, no harm will come to your PC. Ignore the warnings. Use any online virus scan if you don’t believe me.

New in the latest version:

Version 1.7 PTS includes changes from the 14/10/2016 PTS patch to damage and range. Recoil and CoF changes are not included.

Instructions

Select Program Mode in the top right corner. Select a weapon from the list on the right. You can preview selected weapon’s stats in “Weapon Stats” module, and add attachments in “Attachments” module.

“Add to comparison” button copies currently selected weapons with all attachments. You can then select a different weapon or attachment combination.

“Weapon Stats” textbox only displays stats for currently selected weapon. To access stats of weapons copied for comparison, click “Get stats” button under weapon’s name and they will appear in a message box.

Attachment restrictions

I hate when programs try to be smarter than the user, so I let you decide which attachments can be put on which weapons. If you don’t know which weapons can accept which attachments, you can check that in-game (preferable) or on PS2 Wiki if you’re lazy.

Each weapon should be properly affected by attachments, but there are a few notable points:

Extended Mags won’t do anything for weapons it’s not available for.

Some weapons come with attachments already installed. For example, MKV Suppressed comes with a pre-installed suppressor, so there’s no need to put a second suppressor on it.

Directive Shotguns in-game have Smart Choke equipped by default, but in the simulator, you will have to equip it yourself.

Slug Ammunition speed is predetermined as 300 m/s for all shotguns, even though slugs supposed to inherit the velocity of the shotgun, with Baron being the only exception.

Simulation Mode

Simulation Mode allows you to test fire all selected weapons. Press Left Mouse Button or “Fire Fixed Burst” button to fire.

The program will simulate recoil and bullet hits in accordance with PlanetSide 2 Weapon Mechanics. Bullet drop and travel time are not accounted for. The recoil magnitude should be more or less up to scale with first person shooting in game.

Right Mouse Button toggles ADS. ADSing applies magnification from chosen optic, and lets the weapon use ADS CoFs.

Holding Middle Mouse Button will let you move the window around, and Mouse Wheel to zoom in and out. You can drag around recoil patterns using the blue circle in the bottom part as an anchor.

Bullets to Kill Module

The simulator will automatically calculate the number of bullets required to kill a target at different ranges. Number in the brackets is time to kill (TTK).

You can specify target’s health and damage resistance in text boxes above. The “Legend” button will display a table to remind you which targets have what amount of health and damage resistance.

You can also specify the number of “Bonus Headshots” the target receives before BTK calculations. This is useful if you want to calculate the amount of bullets to kill a target after you open with a headshot.

Draw Target toggle

Makes an enemy dummy target visible. You can drag and drop the target using the blue anchor at the bottom.

Target should be up to scale as if it’s 5m away from you in game. You can press W and S to move closer / away from the target.

Target scaling is zeroed at 5m, the more you away from it, the less accurate the scaling will be. But I did use my Angular Size research to get the target scaling as close to in-game as possible.

The “TTK Simulation” window will tell you the damage your weapon would do at that range.

TTK Simulation Module

This module is only visible when “Draw Target” is enabled.

My program cannot detect bullet hits, but you can do it manually by pressing “Head”, “Leg” and “Body” buttons.

The program will calculate damage you have dealt, and the remaining target health,
as well as how long it took to fire that amount of shots.

“Reset CoF” button will reset weapon’s CoF, and adjust “time elapsed” for the time
it would take to reset CoF in game.

“Record Pattern” mode is there for demonstration purposes.

Normally, the direction of Horizontal Recoil is chosen randomly. Record Pattern mode allows the user to choose the recoil direction with A and D keys.

This mode is only useful if you want to draw a specific recoil pattern to take a screenshot.

Configuration Module

On the first launch, the program will create “settings.ini”. You can use “save” and “load” buttons to store your preferred configuration. To reset to factory defaults, just delete the “settings.ini”.

To-Do

Already on my to-do list:

Let user manually add weapons
Add Recoil Simulation mode that will let the user control recoil with mouse
Let the “Save configuration” button save selected weapons as well.
add recoil pattern width and recoil per second calculations into weapon stats window, and calculated stat values (DPM, FSRM).
add TTK graph mode
add sorting by weapon class and faction to the weapon list
add a way to automatically update weapon stats through census API or accept export from Toolbox
add BTK thresholds to the left side of the bullet damage graph
add BTK thresholds graph

Changelog and archive

v1.0 – Initial Release

v1.1 – Bugfix

Fixed a bug with Decimal Symbol in different locales.

v1.2 – Function update

Users can now choose a firing stance.
Added weapon comparison.
Recoil patterns can be dragged around using the small blue circle at the bottom.
Also updated the weapon database to include velocity changes.

v1.3 – Bugfix

Fixed a bug that prevented weapon stats from updating properly with HVA, SPA and Suppressor attachments.

v1.4 – Function update

Added an option to draw weapon damage graphs.
Useful for comparing weapon damage at different ranges and with different attachments.

v1.5- Function update

Now the target from “Draw Target” option can be dragged and dropped using the blue anchor at the bottom of the target.

v1.5a – Function fix

Now the drawn target scales relative to center mass.

v1.6 – Function update

Added “BTK Thresholds” window. It will calculate the amount of bullets needed for a
weapon to kill a target with specified health and resistance at different ranges.

v1.6A – Function update

“BTK Thresholds” window will also display TTK.

v1.7 – Function update

Updated for the latest patch, and added “TTK Simulation” module.

v1.7 PTS – Database update

Updated for the latest PTS patch to highlight some weapon changes.

As a closing word, huge thanks to /u/L33-the-3rd for formatting the PS2 Weapon Database into CSV for me.

Ideal Burst Length Calculator

12.05.2016PlanetSide 2calculator, mechanics, toolIridar

Attention! This tool is based on the wrong research and should not be used.

Useless wrong tool

This Excel sheet will calculate ideal burst length at different ranges from 5m to 70m for any PlanetSide 2 weapon.

Download links

>> Main download link <<

Google mirror

Excel 97-2003 Version

Excel 97-2003 Google mirror

How to use

1)Pick a weapon and find its stats in game or at PlanetStats. You will need:

Maximum Damage
Maximum Damage Range
Minimum Damage
Minimum Damage Range
Standing Still Cone of Fire
Standing Moving Cone of Fire
Cone of Fire Bloom (also known as Cone of Fire Recoil)
Rate of Fire (optional)

2)Download and open the Burst Length Calculator.

3)Input weapon’s stats into orange boxes in Stats block:

CoF Recovery Rate is “20” for all known weapons, you don’t have to touch it.

Rate of Fire is optional, you will only need it if you want Time-to-Kill calculations.

Target Health – 1000 is default, 900 for Infiltrators, up to 1450 for NMG / Adrenaline Shield Heavy Assault.

3)Additional configuration

By default, calculations are done for Center Mass. Enter “0” into orange box in Choose Aiming Point block to calculate for headshots instead.

Headshot Damage Multiplier field is there “just in case”, since only shotguns use semi-auto or auto fire modes with 1.5x headshot multiplier. There’s also T7 MCG, but it has static ADS CoF.

Heavy Assault with active Resist Shield takes 1.2x headshot damage.

Body Damage Multiplier allows you to add Nanoweave into calculations. Naturally, this field is ignored if you calculate for headshots.

Heavy Assault with active Resist Shield takes 0.6x body shot damage (does not stack with Nanoweave).

5)Analyze results.

Burst Length will tell you the maximum amount of rounds in one burst that are guaranteed* to land on target at a certain Distance.

* – In order to keep calculations pure and simple, this calculator ignores recoil completely and assumes the player keeps his aim exactly at target’s center.

No Human Element whatsoever, only Cone of Fire mechanics participate in calculations.

If a Burst Length value of 1 turns yellow, it means that even 1 hit is not guaranteed, because target is smaller than starting Cone of Fire. This will be especially noticeable with headshots at longer ranges.

Bursts to Kill will tell you the amount of bursts necessary to kill an enemy with Target Health with a certain Burst Length.

Ideal TTK column will show you time-to-kill with full auto fire.

Burst Delay will tell you the amount of time necessary for CoF to reset between bursts.

Adjusted TTK will tell you the amount of time it will take to fire off Bursts to Kill with Burst Delay between them.

Considerations

While the resulting Burst Length is a very specific number, you should treat it for what it is – an idealized model. If a robot was playing PlanetSide 2, he would shoot this way. For a human it is impossible to disregard recoil, nor to keep aim exactly at the center of a target.

Calculator itself is not perfect, as Target Sizes are hard to measure precisely. My way of measuring gives an error of ~1 pixel, which can be a huge deal at longer ranges, where that pixel constitutes ~25% of the target.

If I had access to 4k video or screenshots, that would quadruple Calculator’s precision.

How to benefit

The Calculator will tell you what is the best theoretical performance your weapon can give you.

It’s not about your personal performance, it’s about what your gear is capable of.

Write down or print your calculated results and go to VR training. Equip Sweeper HUD implant, and learn to judge distance to the enemy in ballpark of tenths of meters. You can use crosshair notches or Red Dot as reference.

Or use these screenshots.

Now, with weapon’s capabilities in mind, you can establish rough engagement guidelines for yourself.

Example of Analysis

Let’s use AC-X11 as an example:

EDIT: I forgot to account for mandatory HVA in this example, but since it’s slated to receive some changes, I’m gonna hold off on updating this example.

First, let’s find a cutoff point where an enemy can be realistically killed in one burst while standing moving.

At 30m, AC-X11 takes 7 hits to kill a full nano target, while its CoF can support only a 9 shot burst. So margin of missing is only 2 shots, which is a bit too close for comfort. AC-X11 has rather harsh recoil and unimpressive bullet velocity, so misses are very probable.

This is also the point where you consider your personal skill as a shooter. Accuracy grades from your character stats at FISU should give you an idea of where you stand among other players. If your accuracy is below average, consider giving yourself a higher margin for error.

At 20m AC-X11 can sustain a 15 shot burst, which is way more than enough.

So I would call 25m the cutoff range for realistic 1-burst kill in the heat of combat.

If there is an opportunity to stand still and aim carefully, it’s probably possible to 1-burst enemies 35m away.

Naturally, these values will go up or down depending on enemy. An AFK infiltrator can be 1-bursted from greater ranges than shielded HA, actively dodging incoming fire.

Between 25m and 60m we want to fire in bursts of 10 to 5 rounds depending on distance, expecting a 2-3-burst kill most of the time.

We can also see that it’s nearly pointless to fire at enemies >60m away while moving.

Now let’s take a look at headshots.

It’s immediately apparent that AC-X11 struggles at getting headshots at ranges greater than 25m while moving.

So we can set 25m as the cutoff range for 1-bursting an enemy with headshots. And if we want to go for headshots at greater ranges, we need to remain stationary for the whole burst.

Let’s recap on our guidelines:

While moving, enemies can be 1-bursted with either headshots or bodyshots within 25 meters.

While moving, enemies can be 2 or 3 bursted with burst length of 10 to 5 rounds, depending on range.

While standing, enemies can be 1-bursted with either headshots or bodyshots between 25m and 60m.

Given a choice, enemies further than 60m should not be engaged while moving.

After you formulate these guidelines for yourself, all that remains is to learn to put them into practice. Training and mental discipline!

Have fun theorycrafting your way to victory. Please inform me of any issues with the Calculator.

Note: for calculating bullet damage at different ranges and finding out Bullet Damage Thresholds, use Bullet Damage Calculator.