- Not to be confused with Recoil.
Accuracy describes a ranged weapon's ability to land shots close to where it is aimed, and how close to its reticle will multiple shots land over a given period of time. This is not the same as player accuracy, which is percentage of shots fired by the player that hit an enemy target.
Mechanics[]
While some weapons—including full-automatic weapons—are capable of landing shots directly onto the center of their aiming reticle upon their first shot, a weapon's accuracy value determines the chance of these shots spreading away from the reticle: the lower the accuracy, the higher the chance of the shot straying off the reticle. Consequently, accuracy determines the weapon's shot deviation over multiple shots in a given period of time: a high accuracy weapon will see multiple successive shots land close to one another, while a low accuracy weapon will see the same shots spread out further apart in different directions.
In other words, the accuracy stat shown in the arsenal is not a percentage. Instead, for players, it can be used as a metric to compare weapon accuracies relatively. Typically, a weapon with a 100 accuracy rating will be be more "accurate" than a weapon with 25 accuracy. Technically, the accuracy stat is the inverse of the average spread range multiplied by 100 (see #Internal Representation for more details).
Note that Sniper Rifles and bows list their accuracy as being fired from the hip and not scoped, or zoomed in (default hold RMB ). These weapons typically have 100 accuracy while scoped or zoomed.
Shooting a weapon while aiming will typically increase the weapon's accuracy rating. Though the accuracy increase differs from weapon to weapon.
There is no accuracy stat for Melee weapons, thus melee is not affected by any accuracy modifiers. Area of Effects are also unaffected by accuracy modifiers.
Performance Brackets[]
Informal categorization of some common accuracy ranges. The longer a weapon is fired and the farther its target, the more it will reflect on its accuracy rating.
Category | Accuracy Ranges | Spread Ranges | Example(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Extremely inaccurate/extreme spread | 0-4.9 | >20° | Zarr's Barrage Mode and Bronco |
Highly inaccurate/high spread | 5-14.9 | 6⅔°-20° | Tigris and unzoomed Vectis |
Inaccurate/medium spread | 15-24.9 | 4°-6⅔° | Dual Cestra and Acceltra |
Accurate/low spread | 25-49.9 | 2°-4° | Grinlok and Kuva Twin Stubbas |
High accuracy | 50-99.9 | 1°-2° | Baza and Plinx |
Pinpoint accuracy or arcing projectile | 100+ | <1° | Synapse, Tenet Flux Rifle, Perigale and Penta |
Effects on Performance[]
A weapon's accuracy value generally becomes more important the higher its rate of fire is, as the weapon's successive shot grouping worsens the faster it fires. For example, while the Stradavar has a lower listed accuracy value in its automatic mode (14.3) compared to the Grakata (28.6), the Stradavar can much more consistently land each of its shots with closer grouping at longer range due to its lower fire rate, while the Grakata's high fire rate makes its shots spray out at longer ranges. However, the Grakata is capable of landing shots even more precisely than the Stradavar if fired slowly, or one shot at a time. This is because the Grakata actually has a lower starting spread value of 2° compared to the Stradavar at 6°. Because accuracy values are more important for weapons with higher fire rates, it is more applicable to assault rifles and machine pistols, while less important for weapons such as semi-automatic rifles.
Certain weapons like the Flux Rifle possess perfect accuracy (an accuracy value of 100) where all of their shots land directly on the reticle regardless of range or fire rate, while other weapons like the Ignis can mostly disregard accuracy as a mechanic due to their unique area-of-effect characteristics, capable of hitting multiple enemies regardless of aim.
Multishot[]
Accuracy also affects Multishot characteristics. In the case of hitscan weapons, the lower the weapon's accuracy, the more likely that every pellet generated from multishot will deviate from the trajectory of the main pellet. But for non-hitscan weapons with projectile travel times, even the trajectory of the main projectile can be off-centered by using multishot, with the effect being more pronounced the slower the Projectile Speed value is. Therefore, using mods that decrease accuracy like Heavy Caliber on projectile-based weapons, can be extremely detrimental for medium to long-range use if it is combined with multishot.
Thrown Weapons and Arcing Projectiles[]
Thrown weapons such as Castanas and weapons that shoot arcing projectiles like the Tonkor will typically have an accuracy stat of 100. Despite having a high accuracy rating, these weapons still possess notable spread and deviation in the projectiles' trajectory away from the reticle.
Spread[]
The term spread is used to describe the size of the "cone" of fire from a weapon, either while under full rate-of-fire, or from a single shot with weapons that have innate multishot, like shotguns. In WARFRAME, spread is internally represented as an angle in degrees from the reticle, with each weapon having a defined minimum (first-shot) and maximum spread. The average value between the minimum and maximum spread is synonymous with the inverse of the accuracy value shown in the arsenal. Reducing accuracy increases the area of the "cone", while increasing accuracy reduces it.
Bullets fired from weapons with innate multishot, or with the use of multishot mods like Split Chamber, will have random trajectories angled away from the center of the reticle to varying degrees, with the accuracy value reflecting how wide that angle can be.
- Weapons with 100 accuracy or above will always land their shots on the reticle regardless of its rate-of-fire or how many pellets it fires at a time, except in the cases of extreme range.
In addition, the faster a weapon fires, the larger the size of the "cone" around the reticle, assuming the weapon has an accuracy value of under 100.
Shotguns, as well as any hitscan-based weapons with multishot mods, fire at least one of their pellets close to if not directly centered on the reticle, with all other pellets taking random trajectories within the spread cone.
Continuous Weapons such as the Glaxion have little to no spread on their beam attacks and thus are practically unaffected by mods that decrease accuracy like Heavy Caliber.
For the purposes of modding, a weapon's base (average) spread can be calculated as such:
Inverse Spread[]
Some weapons have a unique behavior where the longer it is fired, the more accurate the weapon becomes:
Uniform Spread[]
Some weapons have a unique behavior where shots are spread uniformly on the horizontal:
Unique Spread[]
Accuracy Modifiers[]
Note that accuracy modifying mods do not alter the accuracy linearly (e.g. putting Heavy Caliber on a weapon with 100 accuracy will not reduce accuracy down to 45). Instead, the game takes in the mods' hidden spread modifier (flat value) and/or spread bonus (percentage) and produces a value based on the equation below:
For example, a Arca Plasmor (9.1 accuracy) with Vicious Spread at max rank will have:
Positive[]
Sources that increase accuracy/decrease spread:
Negative[]
Sources that decrease accuracy/increase spread:
Accuracy vs. Recoil[]
- Main article: Recoil
Unlike spread, recoil is an entirely separate mechanic, but it can also affect how accurately the player can shoot, as it nudges the weapon's reticle and field of vision with each shot. As such, a weapon with high accuracy but high recoil may still be difficult to shoot accurately at higher rates of fire (the Cestra being one example, as well the recoil of the Vectis Prime compared to the Rubico Prime, despite their same accuracy stats).
To distinguish the two, accuracy is about how far from the reticle the weapon might shoot its projectile, but recoil is how far the reticle and camera gets nudged after the weapon is fired.
Internal Representation[]
Internally, a weapon's accuracy is stored in /Lotus/Types/Game/WeaponProperties/Accuracy/Weapon/
with additional details defined in their LotusWeaponProjectileFireBehavior
. For Attica, some relevant details on its accuracy include:
"fire:LotusWeaponProjectileFireBehavior": {
"AIMED_ACCURACY": {
"Spread": {
"SHOOTING": {
"range": [0, 5],
"rate": 2,
"type": "ST_EXPONENTIAL"
},
"recoveryDelay": 0.050000001,
"recoveryRate": 70
}
},
"HIP_FIRE_ACCURACY": "/Lotus/Types/Game/WeaponProperties/Accuracy/Weapon/TnoPrmryXbowWeaponHipAccuracyInfo",
"AttenuateSpreadForCharge": 0,
"IgnoreSpreadOnFirstFireIteration": 0,
"MaxChargeSpreadAtten": 1,
"MinChargeSpreadAtten": 1,
"MultishotAmmoSpread": 0,
"SpreadExtraProjectiles": 0,
"SpreadInverse": 0,
"SpreadRatioHorizontal": 0.5,
"SpreadRotationOffset": 0,
"UseFanSpread": 0,
"spreadUniform": 0,
}
To calculate the accuracy rating from developer-defined data, take the average of the minimum and maximum spread range, inverse that value, and multiply by 100. For example, in the Attica's case, its minimum and maximum spread range is 0 and 5 respectively, so to get its accuracy value of 40 as listed in the in-game Arsenal:
As such, spread modifiers can be interpreted as upgrades that apply to both minimum and maximum spread ranges:
Weapons that don't have an explicit minimum or maximum spread value defined will have its average spread set to 1 (100 accuracy) for purposes of modding.
Enemy Accuracy[]
Enemies determine their total accuracy via an AimGraph
. The graph explicitly maps the target range and hit probability to determine their accuracies. Each enemy weapon is assigned with a different AimGraph
, with each weapon type possessing different AimGraphs
depending on their role.[1] For example, enemies aiming with a pistol are far more accurate up close, and the hit chance drops off as the target range increases. On the other hand, units with a sniper rifle are far less accurate up close, but get more accurate at medium and long ranges before dropping off slowly. Additionally, when enemies are made aware of the players, they will need some time to maximize their aim.
References[]
- ↑ Brewer, Daniel (2015, February 3). Npc Accuracy. Accessed 2022-04-06. Archived from the original on 2022-04-06.
Patch History[]
Update 15.5 (2014-11-27)
- Enemy Accuracy Changes:
Enemy accuracy will now be affected dynamically depending on what movements players are doing. Sprinting, sliding, jumping, and wall-running will all decrease enemies accuracy, and the faster you move the better that penalty becomes.
Update 15.0 (2014-10-24)
- Added a new algorithm that can improve enemy weapon accuracy. (So, bad guys won't shoot like Storm Troopers).
See Also[]
- Recoil, a related, but separate mechanic.