sorry from the posts I read previous the bullet velosity part was a given in my eyes so I did not mention it, I only aimed to clear up any confusion people had regarding damage.
your post seemed to indicate that soft point ammo decreased the distance between max and min damage, when the dev clearly said there was only one downside to soft point that being the lower bullet velocity
You're cute. The spreadsheet never actually extracted the data about the various attachments' effects, and only gave approximate values for most items. We also have no information on how these 'tests' were conducted and verified. I'm personally much more willing to take the word of a developer/representative from SOE about SPA's mechanics than a third-party source.
actually it's relatively easy to test ... the current assumption about SPA is the lowering of min damage by one tier - e.g. the Gauss compact S has 125dam@65m, lowering it to 112dam@65m. so you take now one of those rifles that has access to SPA, get a buddy in your squad, drop a squadwaypoint where your buddy sits and you go beyond 65m of his position. then you start shooting him. and you count the bullets it takes to kill him with bodyshots. e.g. in case of the Gauss compact S it should be 8 shots for non-lowered min damage and 9 shots for lowered.
The dev only stated that it did not decrease minimum damage, but the people testing out soft point ammo probably had some reason to believe that damage was decreased at longer ranges. One plausible explanation that does not necessarily mean that minimum damage is decreased is that the lowered velocity results in damage dropoff being higher per m simply due to damage dropoff happening at a set rate. With a slower bullet and rate of dropoff still being the same, damage dropoff per m would be higher. If I do get to testing it out, I'm personally probably going to go with measuring the length a health bar drops at multiple distances from a single shot, using the Cyclone.
He was pretty clear in saying there are no downsides to softpoint, other than lowered projectile speed. I hope he comes back to clarify 100%. Suddenly I am seriously considering SP bullets on my CQC weapons.
I lost all my engi friends when the sunder exploded and I drifted off with my drifter jets. I think they are still trying to make it to ceres.
mmm, I don't have the certs for soft point ammo yet (I think I'm around 40 right now), anyhow, if you want to add me in game we can test it out some time once I do have it. (Or maybe you haz it? :S)
The Cyclone is so good I wouldn't be surprised if it got nerfed, like legitimately nerfed, not just to sell a new weapon. I made a fresh character to try it out and ended up going 34-4 just milling around an Amp Station. The Armistice feels quite poor in comparison.
Welp, since atm I'm actually too lazy to bother finding out if it really effectively weakens damage at range, for now I'll just assume that it doesn't and use it... at least until I manage to convince my brother to halp me :S
So I guess you have never tried the GD-7F? Im still confused how anyone thinks the Cyclone is notably better than the CQC carbines. I get how a average or worse shot(like me) could do better with it maybe because its easy to aim and forgiving for misses - but if you are good enough to go 34-4 with the Cyclone you should be able to do even better with real gun.
The first 4 shots of the Cyclone (hip fire) are all more accurate than the GD-7f's first shot. I notice a considerable upgrade when using the SMG over my advanced laser GD-7f. Though, ADS from the GD literally destroys the Cyclone. So pick your poison.
Yeah, with adv. laser sight the hipfire is very nice. However, in terms of ADS, I actually prefer the Cyclone at medium range, since I tend to move during a fight at that range, which the Cyclone is better than the GD-7F at. (50% higher move speed while ADS and slightly better accuracy from slightly better COF and because Cyclone has slightly less bloom per damage.)
