Ammo stats?

[ancient sierra]

Alright so a question in another thread led me to this one. What in the world is going on with the ammo stats and does anyone on the dev team have an explanation for it? It sometimes seems logical, only to make absolutely no sense and contradict the logic. The first grizzly and second bison were shot the 338 magnum, the second grizzly and first bison were shot with the .30-06. This test was conducted to see if the stats were the end all be all or if the stats were how ammo performed on an animal of the highest class. Here we have a class 8 and a class 9 animal. Looks the same to me so it must mean that stats are absolute. No so fast eager mcbeaver, let’s see how these two do against lions and let’s throw the 357 magnum into the mix. First two lions, .30-06. Third .338. Last .357. So the 30-06 gets maybe a little less than the 338, signifying that maybe the stats are relative to the highest class, only for the 357 which tops out at class 6 to equal if not out penetrate the 338. All distances for each species were kept to within 5 yards for consistency sake. Would a developer here like to explain this?

[odd valley]

Ballistic performance has consistently been the worst part of the game since release. As frustrating as it is, I've just given up on hoping it would be fixed or improved. Weapons are just skins and caliber designations are arbitrary.

[lone sonnet]

Honestly at this point I'd be happy if the devs just said they don't plan on fixing it for 'simplicity sake' as long as we have some transparency

[lone sonnet]

Something else worth noting that's odd is that the .303 British and the 9.3x74R have identical stats on both soft point and Polymer tip ammo (20P, 53E and 40P, 12E respectively)

Also the .45-70 has the same pen but worse expansion for both ammo types (20P, 27E and 40P, 6E for hollow point & Soft point flat nose respectively)

I've attached a photo of .303 British next to 9.3×74R for reference

[tidal rivet]

Ammo in this game is totally nonsensical and we have never had a dev explain their planning or thought process behind it ....

When @sand oriole was around we had an advocate with the dev team who would occasionally get them to answer some questions .... But now they just treat us like a bunch of mushrooms ....

...
I think that's why they use generic terms in their ammo descriptions .... That way they make it do whatever they want behind the scenes without being called out on it ...

It's all arbitrary and they call it balance but they never explain what balance means to them .... What are they trying to balance?

[lone sonnet]

I went and tested the .303 and the 9.3X74R and got some interesting results. I tried to account for the possible variables (animal class, level, gender, distance of shot, angle of impact etc.) so I was shooting Wildebeest and Gemsbok at about 150M, broadside.

So the result show that although .303 British and 9.3X74R both have identical stats, the penetration of 9.3X74R is indeed slightly better, which further brings into question the point of the ammunitions stats.
Time to kill seemed indistinguishable though so I assume expansion is ok

[tidal rivet]

Ive never seen them display the real number in the stats, only the whole number ... This could be the difference observed in outcome ???

[lone sonnet]

That's probably the most likely reason

[ancient sierra]

Correct me if I'm wrong but arent the stats for the 9.3 and 7 mag the same except for the classes? Further questioning the thinking.

[lone sonnet]

They seem to be yes

[junior wind]

I guess the pen and exp stats are only half of the information. I guess there are more parameters ingame than those two values. E.g compare the .300 mag with the .308... on the values on the paper the .308 has more penetration - but ingame the .300 goes deeper as the class range also would suggest. Maybe some values like bullet speed or weight or ballistic coefficient are also considered but not shown to us as player ?! Those two values (pen and exp) do not represent the bullet's behavior ingame at all. There must be more to it, than we players get displayed

[ancient sierra]

It's so strange. As I showed, sometimes the stats are correct, sometimes it seems like its relative to the animal class, sometimes it says f all and does what it feels like. It would be really nice if we could get something that makes sense.

[ancient sierra]

Some more nonsense. First is .308 second .243 last two 7.62x54r (had the high hit that got both lungs and spine so I threw it out). All soft points since the mosin only has soft points and is equal in stats to the 243 softs but most ppl know it performs way differently. The .308 has higher stats all around including penetration, and the 7.62x54r got more. WHERE IS THE LOGIC?

[junior wind]

I barely use the exp and pen stats to compare 2-4, 4-8 and 7-9 rifles/ammunition. Those numbers aren't worth using them for more than that. In fact, i have my favorite rifles and am happy, that they perform good and ignore mostly the stats, since the .308, .30-06 and .375 are great (and hopefully stay this way). It's sad, but those values do not represent, how an ammo performs.

I would like to see the algorithm and the variables behind the penetration and damage mechanic.

[ancient sierra]

Yeah, there's really not much explanation for ammo anymore, at least not one that makes sense with all weapons since the newer ones seem to behave correctly when comparing new to new but old to new leads to some nonsense at times. Also the newer weapons just feel a bit more realistically powered compared to the old and especially base game weapons, which were from the era of the devs wanting everything balanced when in reality there are cartridges that seem pointless when this other one exists and does everything better. Point is in reality everything works but some work better than others.

[sleek birch]

You have to just use the polymer tipped ammo like it's the only thing in the game and pray. You probably won't get good luck most times but occasionally you will

[junior wind]

I am pretty sure, the barrel length of the respective weapon also comes into play. Iirc there was as statement of the community manager that the chosen barrel length of the community weapon pack rifles which were in the poll affected the weapons ballistics, like it would do in the real world. E.g. the content creator "Pantoffelplays" said in his video that the new .30-30 performs quite well. And if you watch him use this rifle, it seems to have a longer barrel, than the old .30-30.
I guess there is really more influence to the terminal ballistics than just penetration and expanaion value of the use ammunition.

[ancient sierra]

I ain’t too sure about that one. All the .30-06s seem to be equal with varying barrel lengths. The 45-70 pistol somehow makes a slight bit more power with a way shorter barrel.