i was told while playing with someone that red dots and only red dots are bugged to give the damage reduction of suppressors. i didn’t believe him so i did some testing of myself, and its true. Am i missing anything obvious? i still cant believe this is true. ( damage reduction seems to be about 20%)
What platform do you use? Also, how did you test this? I would like to test that on my PS4 to see if something changed after the latest update.
The latest update just was a hotfix against some crashing issues. I wouldn’t expect any other changes, as they aren’t mentioned in the patch log.
steam, i tested with the ai-76 and both kvms, i counted how any round it toon to kill a prototype tank. did about 3 tanks per with and withount.
Doesn’t sound like a reliable testing method.
Three guns with full auto mode and still a chance to miss the target with some bullets… And almost no control of what you hit with every shot.
Keep in mind: Every shot is unique.
How much damage you do depends on
- the used weapon and its class
- the used ammo
- whether you hit armor, a component, both or just a part of the machines that’s none of it…just steel.
- the importance of the hit component
- your skills
- your used augmentations
- the type and class of machine
- other effects (marked targets for example)
And maybe even more.
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Damage also varies within a set range, regardless of any other variable. All other things being equal, one shot may do “10%” damage, the next shot might do “8%” damage, and the next after that might do “11%”…
I’ve got a method that seems to be consistent (considering the damage variances noted above), and using it some time back I found that the suppressors/silencers did have a negative impact on damage. I didn’t notice any difference at the time from using different optics, however—from the 2x RDS, to the 1-4x, the 4-8x, or any other scope. (I do not consider the damage decrease for using a suppressor to be a problem…it isn’t necessarily correct, you can use a suppressor without swapping to less powerful/subsonic ammunition, but it has always been a pretty commonly accepted trade-off for being sneaky. If there IS a damage loss for using different sights, THAT I WOULD consider a problem!)
Speaking of attachments and their questionable effects, though, what good are barrel extensions? In my testing, which is far from ideal, the only difference I saw when trying any barrel extension was that the damage varied more wildly from shot to shot—and it DIDN’T trend upwards… Seemed to be less damage done overall, less consistent/reliable values from one shot to the next.
I’ll have to break out a few duplicate weapons and try with and without the RDS again, see if there seems to be any truth to the rumor the OP was told…
As an aside, this is exactly the sort of reason why some sort of target with damage readouts would be nice, somewhere. Either a purpose-built dedicated test range put on the map somewhere, say in some military base or bunker, or a special target that players can build and place at any control point, specifically for weapon/attachment/build testing…
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Agreed. I would prefer second.
At least having something like that would be nice for some of us players, but for devs and testers as well, as they could directly test changes in skills, weapons, attachments, augmentations,… If they don’t actually have other ways for testing them and their values.
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Compensator (pistol, smg, lmg): RECOIL REDUCTION
Silencer (pistol, shotgun, smg, ar, hr, lmg): NOISE REDUCTION
Barrel Extension (smg, ar): VELOCITY INCREASE
Choke (shotgun): SPREAD REDUCTION
I’m not asking what they’re SUPPOSED to do, but what they ACTUALLY do. I do know what they’re supposed to do, what they claim to do based on their titles and descriptions.
As far as I can tell, though, the barrel extensions don’t do anything positive. Flight time of a projectile seems to be the exact same, so no velocity increase…damage output does not seem to trend upward, increase, or improve, so no damage increase from a velocity increase…nothing that I have been able to determine.
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After some more testing, I’m pretty confident that optics/sights do NOT have any damage penalties tied to them. The ONLY weapon attachment I was able to consistently see a damage penalty with was the suppressor.
As for the barrel extensions, I still haven’t detected any improvement to muzzle velocity, decreased time from “shot fired” to “shot hit”…nor have I seen any improvement in bullet flight path/trajectory over range. I’ll test further to see if there is improved performance against armor, but as far as damage goes I haven’t seen any improvement yet. Rather, damage seems to vary more wildly with a barrel extension fitted than with any other option—the others are all more consistent—and there appear to be more “low damage rolls” with the barrel extension! A downward trend in damage, rather than upward!
I’ve detailed my testing method elsewhere, but I can copy it here if really needed.
This has definitely piqued my interest and I would love to see this conclusively proven one way or the other. Thanks for bringing it up.
I really like the barrel extensions. I’ve always imagined the increase in velocity to have some sort of benefit whether slightly increased damage, slightly increased AP damage (velocity increase should correlate to better striking power). Although I don’t know if any of those are affected positively in-game. Never tested for that so I would love to hear from you or anyone who may know?
One test I ran a few years ago was firing the AI-76 ( I think) with and without an extension, at a wall while prone, at a specific distance (enough to see some bullet drop in the pattern of shots that appeared on the wall). If I remember correctly there was a noticeable decrease in bullet drop and a somewhat tighter grouping which should indicate increased velocity, however that could well have been broken since then and that may be why there’s an issue now. Not an fool proof test I know, but a change was noticable.
I will test this again and see if I can find anything. I will also test for any issues regarding the red dot on damage penalties! I’m very interested in these issues!
Update: I completely messed up when I said I tested an AI 76 with a barrel extension and noticed an improvement with the pattern and grouping of the shots.
It was the recoil compensator I was testing and it was an HP5. 
Not sure how I mixed those up. Lol. It was a long while ago. The recoil compensator does in fact, compensate!
As far as the barrel extension, I ran a similar test today and found hardly a difference in the pattern. In fact, if anything it almost seemed to reduce recoil… but like others have stated It doesn’t seem to do anything else unfortunately. I really hope we can get to the bottom of this!
Right. As I understand it, there WAS some actual effect applied by the barrel extensions previously…but it seems like they got broken at some point, and either nobody noticed or at least nobody started screaming their lungs out about it.
They definitely should have some positive impact, but no test I’ve run has shown anything yet. I’d expect better effective range—more damage, less bullet drop, quicker flight time—and, yeah, better/deeper penetration, if that all works like it should.
I have run a second battery of tests against the spaced armor plate on the knees of a certain Military Class Tank—southwest of Algbacken control point, in a field near an electrical tower, facing an ambushed convoy. That tank seems to ALWAYS show up there, at least in my worlds, so it makes a great test target… Still got more tests to run, there. Plenty of possibilities. Could simply be I need to test against a different part of the machine—the face plate, perhaps.
This latest battery of testing was done at 40~41m, instead of the short range of previous tests. Larger target gives me a better margin of error, and I wanted to move out farther to see if the barrel extension’s effects would be more apparent at range. Could be I still need to move out farther—which makes me wonder if, on the plain old XB1 with the reduced render/spawn range, I’d be unable to move out far enough to see a difference… If the difference only becomes apparent beyond 250m, I won’t be able to see that currently.
Anyway, against that armor plate on the knee, I’m still not seeing any improvement from the barrel extension. I figured against armor instead of “just structural steel, non-vitals” it might show some difference.
As an aside, however, I have also tested FMJ vs. AP (5.56mm, 7.62mm, and 9mm thus far) and SP vs FMJ (.243, .270). There IS a definite difference between these normal ammo types, when used against either armor pieces, weapons, or weak points like fuel tanks or other components. For military calibers, AP does indeed do more damage to armor pieces, and I think also weapons, at least. Likewise for civilian cartridges, FMJ is better against armored components… Reasonably confident I’ll see the same for handgun cartridges, FMJ vs AP and HP versus FMJ, but I’ll check them again just to be absolutely certain. So, can mostly confirm the game doesn’t lie to us about certain rounds being better against armor at least, which is good.
Against Military Class Tank knee armor plate, from the front, at 40~41m:
4C AG4, naked: FMJ - “17%.” AP - “20%.”
+5C Suppressor: FMJ - “14%.” AP - “17%.”
+5C Extension: FMJ - “17%.” AP - “20%.”
4C AI76 saw the same exact results. Hence my continued complaints about the AG4 being underpowered, elsewhere. These two weapons should NOT have the same damage per shot.
5C AT-WAD: FMJ - “16%.” AP - “19%.”
5C N16, naked: FMJ - “12%.” AP - “14%.”
+5C Suppressor: FMJ - “10%.” AP - “12%.”
+5C Extension: FMJ - “12%.” AP - “14%.”
4C PVG 90: FMJ - “65%.” AP - “100%+.”
5C PVG 90: FMJ - “74%.” AP - “100%+.”
With AP, the two .50 BMGs tested consistently one-shot the knee armor, blowing it off. (The knee joint behind the armor would not be damaged, however. This detail was consistent for all weapons, standard ammo types, and attachments tested, thus far. Hitting certain other armored parts, like the face plate, may deliver different results—testing continues…)
5C .270, naked: SP - “50%.” FMJ - “66%.”
+5C Suppressor: SP - “45%.” FMJ - “58%.”
I also re-ran some earlier tests using different ammo types from before, AP in military calibers and FMJ in civilian cartridges against the Runner knees which I had previously only bothered using the ‘lesser’ basic rounds. Against “just steel” there was no difference in overall damage done, whether using FMJ or AP, or using SP or FMJ, for a given weapon.
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Very nice post. I will be using that info as a reference when testing myself, so thank you for all that work you put in.
Apologies for mis-remembering my test on the extension. I got ahead of myself there. My memory is getting bad these days…
So it’s safe to say based on your tests and others’ experience that the barrel extension is not working at all and dead. If true that is tragic IMO. The barrel extension effects would be very valuable to a discerning Resistance fighter…
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