What happened

[Truth Bringer]

I literally was at 150 y from a deer and it just told me i wouldnt kill it if i hit it. I know this because the dot doesn't turn white/yellow and every time i take a shot it literally does nothing to it. This is frustrating that i can't take a shot i can hit from a long way away because of the energy. This is stupid in my opinion like if i shoot a gun and that bullet hits something in the chest its going to die. This is the most disappointing thing i have seen in a long time.

Just let me kill what i shoot if i shoot at the correct spots

[Blue4eva]

Not entirely sure what you are on about but did you change your zeroing on your gun ? You say you can hit things from a long way away, but up close did you alter your zeroing on the scope ?

[Truth Bringer]

Originally posted by Blue4eva:

Not entirely sure what you are on about but did you change your zeroing on your gun ? You say you can hit things from a long way away, but up close did you alter your zeroing on the scope ?

Yeah I did. I have the dot that turns a different color when you have a shot on them/ kill shot. (so if you are out of the velocity distance that dot turns red as in it will not kill it even if you hit it in the lungs because i have done it before ) It just won't kill it. I am sitting there 150meters i think before i said yards that was my bad and no matter where i put my sights on the gun it refuses to allow me the ok to kill it.

I can only assume it has something to do with the bullets velocity .(even though i am pretty sure i was still in it.) If a piece of metal off of a gun hits you it doesn't matter how far away you are unless you are using a very very very small round ( maybe a bb gun? ) there is no way you are living through that if it hits the lungs and there is no aid.

[Razamanaz]

If your zeroing is wrong and you're using hunter sense you will see a red dot. You should also see a very small white dot somewhere. The white dot is where the bullet will hit.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Actually, your zero range setting doesn't really matter, although when you 'dial the elevation turret' to match the range to the target (well, to the closest predefined set point), you don't have to hold over as much when adjusting your point of aim. Another way of putting it - the HunterSense targeting circle stays closer to the center of the reticle crosshairs.

The HunterSense targeting circle is really a prediction of the probable point of impact of the shot on the target. The in-game ballistics are such that your projectile will impact the target somewhere within that circle - the inner circle represents the high-probability region, the outer circle the lower probability region. In real target shooting terms, that circle represents the dispersion of the rifle+ammunition - that is, the group spread you can expect when taking several shots using the same point-of-aim. The game simulates this effect by adding a random error to the trajectory.

So, when you adjust the zero setting, you are simply moving your point of aim (where you place the center of the crosshairs) closer to the predicted point of impact.

[VictoriaHuntress]

The next thing to know about the HunterSense targeting mechanism is that it is energy-based. It changes colour when you place the targeting dot on an animal - if the predicted terminal energy of the bullet is within the recommended energy range for that species, it will change from red to gold (the default colours), or whatever you set up the Game/Accessibility UI.

So, the terminal energy could be higher than the maximum recommended energy or lower than the minimum recommended energy when the targeting dot is red. If you are in fact on the high end, you'll have more than enough for a good shot to do its job, at the expense of more meat damage. If you are below, it is still possible for a perfectly placed shot to kill the animal, perhaps even instantly if you hit the heart or cervical spine, but the margin for error is very low.



Now, in order for this to work, the targeting dot has to 'lock on' to the animal, and you have to hold it in place as you are aiming - if it drifts off the target or something in front of the target (like tree branches) obscures the animal, you will lose the target lock and you'll have to reacquire it.

This can happen because of aim sway, which you can reduce by:
1. getting the aiming perk(s)
2. shooting from a prone position (standing = most sway, crouched = less sway, prone = least sway)
3. holding your breath.

It can also happen if the animal moves while you are trying to aim.

\When the predicted terminal energy is within the recommended range, this is not a guaranteed kill shot - it simply means you are within the optimal energy range for that species.
It does not mean you will get an instant kill.
You still have to aim (LOL) for good shot placement (in the vital areas), minimum aim sway (because the motion of the muzzle will introduce a transverse velocity component into the bullet's velocity vector, and take into account the random trajectory error (see my previous post).

There isn't much you can do about that last factor, though.
If the angular diameter of that circle is large (as it is for the Remington rifles, compared to the Steyr rifles), the best you can do is to consider the point-blank-range limits (near and far) for the animal's vital zone size (you can Google how that works, or just go to JBM Ballistics).
The deer targets at the shooting ranges (in Nez Perce Valley and Transylvania) illustrate this very nicely.
The inner target circle has a diameter of 10cm and the outer circle has a diameter of 20cm. For a Moose, if we had such targets, the vital zone circles would be about twice as large (give or take).

[VictoriaHuntress]

The last thing to know is that the last patch nerfed the ammunition so that bullets don't retain as much energy downrange as they did before. Either they lowered the muzzle energy or they changed the ballistics coefficient (reduced the value or switched from a low-drag bullet type to a high-drag type). The designers admitted that they did this and that it was a mistake, so hopefully in the next update we'll get better exterior ballistics back and perhaps some improvements to the terminal ballistics (the animal damage models).

So for now, we can't take those really long range shots with ammunition tiers that match the animal tiers. It used to be that I could take down the largest bull moose with the 300 Win Mag out to 500m with a single, well-placed shot; now that range has decreased to about 250m.

You'll just have to get closer, avoid quartering shots (stick to broadside presentations) and focus on good shot placement.

About terminal velocity:
It is true that in real life hunting, bullets have a minimum terminal velocity required for effective penetration and expansion, so that really defines the maximum effective range for that ammunition. Most people talk about energy, but the real physics depends on both kinetic energy ( m * v^2 / 2 ) and momentum ( m * v).

Whether or not the game's damage model takes this into account, we don't know - that is, I don't think anyone has tried to analyze shot damage effects in this particular way. I'll have to include it in my statistical machine learning model.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by Razamanaz:

If your zeroing is wrong and you're using hunter sense you will see a red dot. You should also see a very small white dot somewhere. The white dot is where the bullet will hit.

For riflescopes, there is no separate red dot - there is only the HunterSense targeting circles (inner + outer).

For bow sights and reflex sights, yes, there will be a red dot indicating the point of aim, and a targeting dot, indicating the point of impact.

[unknown]

So You said that the dot didn't turn that yellow color when on an animal correct?

There are only 2 possible reasons I can see this not occuring.

Senario 1:

You are aiming past a branch or tree trunk and the game is reading that area as being part of a solid object even though you can see on the other side of it. You can notice this a lot when seeing the range-finding on your binoculars. Remember that this is a game and the collision on the trees is a bit larger than the textures.

Senario 2:

The deer may be bugged and it might not actually exist. I have not seen this or heard of this, but its the other option

Senario 1 seems the most likely because that would basically either cause your bullet to miss or to simply stop your bullet by having it hit an object that is invisible. Considering that many branches and tree trunks have a larger hit box than their texture this seems to be what is going on.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by unknown:

So You said that the dot didn't turn that yellow color when on an animal correct?

There are only 2 possible reasons I can see this not occuring.

Senario 1:

You are aiming past a branch or tree trunk and the game is reading that area as being part of a solid object even though you can see on the other side of it. You can notice this a lot when seeing the range-finding on your binoculars. Remember that this is a game and the collision on the trees is a bit larger than the textures.

Senario 2:

The deer may be bugged and it might not actually exist. I have not seen this or heard of this, but its the other option

Senario 1 seems the most likely because that would basically either cause your bullet to miss or to simply stop your bullet by having it hit an object that is invisible. Considering that many branches and tree trunks have a larger hit box than their texture this seems to be what is going on.

I alluded to your Scenario 1 in my second post, above, but didn't really explain it.
Thanks for providing the details

[[NRG] Michal]

To clarify, the Hunter sense aiming dot will change color if the bullet is going to hit the animal, and is going to hit it within the ideal hit energy range (the "goldilock zone" on the ballistic graph in the bullet camera screen). Assuming you hit a vital organ while aiming like that, the animal will almost certainly go down.

Whether or not the aiming dot will turn gold is a function of shot distance and your caliber :)

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by NRG Michal:

To clarify, the Hunter sense aiming dot will change color if the bullet is going to hit the animal, and is going to hit it within the ideal hit energy range (the "goldilock zone" on the ballistic graph in the bullet camera screen). Assuming you hit a vital organ while aiming like that, the animal will almost certainly go down.

Whether or not the aiming dot will turn gold is a function of shot distance and your caliber :)

That last statement is really too much of an oversimplification of the ballistics.

Why does it depend on distance? What does the caliber have to do with it?

First, a bit of terminology.
Caliber does not mean what you seem to think it means. The game uses this term when it really should be using Cartridge.
Caliber is a dimensional quantity, having units of length. In ballistics, it refers to a diameter, and in fact only appears very indirectly in the exterior ballistics equation of motion (via sectional density and the ballistics coefficient).
For a rifled barrel, there are two diameter measurements:
1 - the bore diameter, measured from one land to its diametrically opposite land
2 - the bore's groove-to-groove diameter, again measured across a diameter.
This is also the diameter of the corresponding bullet, as measured at its largest cross-section of the bearing surface, that is, the surface of bullet that will be in contact with the barrel's bore surface).

Cartridge, on the other hand, refers to the entire ammunition package: the case, primer, propellant charge and the projectile.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Now my longer answer regarding cartridges:

Thus, in SAAMI specfications, all 30 caliber rifles and ammunition have the following diameters:
Rifle Bore: Land-to-Land = 0.300" ; Groove-to-Groove: 0.308"
Bullet Diameter (measured across the bearing surface): 0.308"

Similarly, all 28 caliber rifles and ammunition:
Rifle Bore: Land-to-Land = 0.280" ; Groove-to-Groove: 0.284"
Bullet Diameter (measured across the bearing surface): 0.284"

Cartridge naming convention, however inconsistent, generally consists of two parts:
(a) a caliber specification, and
(b) a cartridge design specification

Thus, the following cartridges, for example, are all classifies as 30-caliber types
30-30 Winchester
30-06 Springfield
308 Winchester
300 Winchester Magnum
300 Weatherby Magnum
300 Winchester Short Magnum
300 Remington Ultra Magnum
300 PRC
30 Nosler
7.62mm x 39 NATO ( = 308 Winchester, sort of)

Even though these use the same caliber bullets, every experienced IRL shooter knows that the 300 Win Mag produces significantly more muzzle energy than the 308 Winchester, all other things being equal (same bullet type and weight), and outperforms it at all downrange distances.


whereas these cartridges are all classified as 28 caliber types:
7mm-08 Remington
7mm Remington Magnum
7mm Weatherby Magnum
7mm PRC
7mm Remington Ultra Magnum
280 Ackley Improved
28 Nosler
284 Winchester

and so on

Again, every experienced IRL shooter knows that the 7mm Remington Magnum will outperform a 308 Winchester, in exterior ballistics, both shooting the same bullet weight and design.

[VictoriaHuntress]

And my even longer answer regarding the ballistics

The rifle + cartridge serve to propel the bullet along the bore of the rifle barrel through the combustion reaction of the propellant charge, converting it to a high pressure, high temperature gas. This is what provides the bullet's kinetic energy and momentum when it leaves the muzzle.

At this point, the trajectory of the bullet is completely and uniquely determined by its initial conditions (position and velocity vectors in 3D space) and the exterior ballistics equation of motion - this accounts for the forces acting on the bullet along the flight path: gravity, aerodynamic forces, and Earth-based forces, which we can ignore for now).

The simple explanation is that bullets lose energy after leaving the muzzle because of aerodynamic drag (air resistance)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3333066980

I converted the in-game energy range for Rocky Mountain Elk from Joules to Foot-Pounds for this purpose. Note: the ballistics calculations for each cartridge/bullet are not necessarily representative of the in-game ballistics for similar projectiles.
I will be adding this type of graph to my ballistics calibration spreadsheets, which I've discussed elsewhere.

This, I think, clearly shows the optimal ranges for these ammunition loads and the dependence on distance to the target.

On a side note, conventional hunting wisdom amongst most hunters in North America suggests that the minimum terminal energy for an Elk-sized animal is about 1500 ft-lbs, so the 2100 ft-lbs minimum energy shown for the Elk seems to be too high. Six hundred ft-lbs is a significant difference - the major grid lines on the energy axis are spaced 500 ft-lbs apart - on this graph, that difference can amount to 200 yards or more of effective range, depending on the ammunition load.



https://appliedballisticsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Aerodynamic-Drag-Modeling-for-Ballistics.pdf

How fast a bullet will lose energy downrange depends (in a somewhat complicated and non-linear way) on:
- the initial muzzle energy and momentum ( or equivalently, the bullet mass and the muzzle velocity)
- the bullet's shape
- the bullet's length
- the bullet's caliber

and
- altitude
- air temperature
- barometric pressure
- relative humidity
These affect both the local speed of sound along the bullet's flight path as well as the actual viscous forces (drag) acting on the bullet

- wind speed and direction

The reason for the caliber not being used by the ballistics calculator is because this is implicitly included in the bullet's sectional density = ( bullet weight / diameter^2) and the ballistic coefficient, which is sectional density / bullet-form-factor (compares the bullet's shape to a standard bullet design, like G1 or G7).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_coefficient

A bullet that starts out with a high muzzle energy can be outperformed by one with a lower energy after some distance downrange, simply because the second bullet is more aerodynamically efficient than the first.



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3332906841

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3332919370

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3332927429





I'd highly recommend that readers of my posts try out an online ballistics calculator, like Hornday's Standard and 4DOF models with various cartridges of the same and different calibers to see how this works out. You can start on the Rifle Ammunition Page, choose the cartridge(s) you want to view and then select each from the list.
(Click on the left-most column entry). That will take you to the ammunition specification page with the basic data. At the bottom there is a 'Show Data in Ballistics Calculator" button, which will take you to the Standard Calculator, with everything filled in. All you have to do is edit the range step size and maximum range, and the wind velocity, if you want the wind drift as well.

[AidanC86]

lol you talking way to much about stuff that doesn't actually matter because none of what you are talking about is actually in game.

[Truth Bringer]

Originally posted by AidanC86:

lol you talking way to much about stuff that doesn't actually matter because none of what you are talking about is actually in game.

Hey don't down play him. Some people like to educate themselves and smart people know why. Because there is only a benefit in having more knowledge gives options, choices and confidence. Youll never know when something wil come in handy.