Whats Accuracy for?

[IceFoxx]

Before you say "oh that Question has been answered a lot before" - well it seems that it has been answered wrong.

What I was told in the forums is that Accuracy is the shaking/movement when you look through a scope. So I took some rifles with VERY different Accuracy values - for example the 7mm Magnum (Accuracy 35) and the .300 Canning Magnum (Accuracy 80)

I switched between both guns, looking through scope, and found out that the shaking/movement is exactly the same. So conclusion is, Accuracy is meaning something different. But what.

[Cohaagen]

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

[VictoriaHuntress]

did you perform the comparison while aiming in the prone position and using breath-hold?
Which scope did you use? The aim sway is much more noticeable in the high-magnification scopes - use at least the Hyperion 4-8x at 8x magnification; if you use the Argus 8-16x, it's even more pronounced.
Try it as well with the 22's with 100% accuracy.

Also, it is best to do this test at the shooting range in Hirschfelden so that you have a measurable target picture as your background. Pay attention to both the amplitude of the aim sway and the apparent angular speed.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by Morgi:

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

Well, no, since accuracy is defined as the actual point of impact relative to your intended point of impact (your aim point, corrected for bullet drop and wind drift). A skilled marksman can compensate for bullet drop (by dialing the elevation turret or using an elevation holdover) and hit the target . You can confirm this for yourself at the shooting range in Hirschfelden.

Velocity will factor into wind drift - a slower bullet takes longer to reach the target than a faster one, so (assuming the two bullets have the same ballistics coefficients) will experience more deflection due to the wind; again, a skilled marksman can read the wind and compensate, and get accurate shots. PRS long range shooters regularly shoot out to 1000m+ and be very accurate.

Bullet velocity also factors into bullet drop - all other things being equal, a faster bullet has a 'flatter' trajectory than a slower one.

Accuracy is also determined by the alignment of the rifle scope axes (line of sight, cross hair orientation) and the barrel bore axes. If the scope is mounted improperly, you will have a systematic error in the accuracy of the POI. In fact, this game does (or did) have this problem - the center of the cross-hairs was offset from the center of the screen. In most cases, the offset was relatively small, but for one rifle/scope combination it was way off (the Hudzak + Galileo scope). It seems to have been fixed now. I think we can assume misalignment is no longer a significant problem.


The limiting factor is how stable the rifle platform is when aiming - all other things being equal, aim sway is what is going to affect accuracy, if for no other reason that the muzzle (and the scope's line of sight) is moving in some random way (actually, based on Lissajous motion), meaning that the POA is not really where you want it to be, and the motion of the barrel imparts an extra velocity vector component ( in the direction of motion of the barrel, perpendicular to the bore axis) to the bullet's muzzle velocity vector.

The rifle's weight can be a factor in stability as well, but that can also be somewhat subjective, depending on the shooter's upper body/arm strength. I can shoot my little 17 HMR bolt action rifle quite well, even standing (it's nice and light), whereas I would not consider holding my X-bolt 7mm Rem Mag rifle unsupported (so I have a BOG Death Grip Tripod to keep it stable) - it just sways too much for me otherwise because it is about 2x the weight of the 17 HMR, but that's just me.

If accuracy is not related to aim sway in the game, what other parameter could it possibly be? Why does the aim sway decrease when crouching or prone, with the steady hands and breath-hold stability perks?

The difficulty in sorting out the effects of the weapons and ammunition parameters is that we don't know exactly how the game is programmed to use them. Someone took a stab at measuring bullet trajectories for each rifle (at the shooting range) and did come up with a relative comparison metric (it's in the Guides section), but other things are much harder to measure experimentally.

It does turn out that you MUST apply elevation holdovers when shooting long distances, either by using the zeroing perk (which is a rather coarse-grained dialing of the elevation turret) or applying an estimated elevation holdover. IIRC, the trajectories are relatively flat out to the distance specified by the ammunition's effective range parameter (although this has more to do with retained energy and effectiveness for the ammo's maximum class).

[VictoriaHuntress]

The accuracy parameter is misnamed - it should be called stability instead. I suppose non-shooters IRL might not understand how stability affects shot placement, so accuracy might be a more meaningful term to them.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Morgi:

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

Just curious if you've ever shot a gun with a scope in real life?

[Cohaagen]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

Originally posted by Morgi:

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

Just curious if you've ever shot a gun with a scope in real life?

Yes.

[yogisgoat]

Originally posted by Morgi:

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

It's not just the scopes. The red dot sight for the bow is absurdly accurate. I believe I could drive nails with it.

[Martin]

It could be a number of things, maybe it has to do with swaying when holding breath, or like penalty when letting go of your breath. It's also possible that it's bloom of sorts, that the bullet dosen't hit exactly where you aim, or it could be that but only on further ranges.

It's really hard to tell but I do notice a difference when firing with a high accuracy weapon vs a low accuracy one and I tend to miss more when it has lower accuracy.

[IceFoxx]

Originally posted by VictoriaHuntress:

Originally posted by Morgi:

Perhaps it relates to bullet drop or velocity or something. All the guns in COTW felt like laser beams to me regardless of their accuracy stat. I never noticed any deviation from where my scope was pointed.

Well, no, since accuracy is defined as the actual point of impact relative to your intended point of impact (your aim point, corrected for bullet drop and wind drift). A skilled marksman can compensate for bullet drop (by dialing the elevation turret or using an elevation holdover) and hit the target . You can confirm this for yourself at the shooting range in Hirschfelden.

Velocity will factor into wind drift - a slower bullet takes longer to reach the target than a faster one, so (assuming the two bullets have the same ballistics coefficients) will experience more deflection due to the wind; again, a skilled marksman can read the wind and compensate, and get accurate shots. PRS long range shooters regularly shoot out to 1000m+ and be very accurate.

Bullet velocity also factors into bullet drop - all other things being equal, a faster bullet has a 'flatter' trajectory than a slower one.

Accuracy is also determined by the alignment of the rifle scope axes (line of sight, cross hair orientation) and the barrel bore axes. If the scope is mounted improperly, you will have a systematic error in the accuracy of the POI. In fact, this game does (or did) have this problem - the center of the cross-hairs was offset from the center of the screen. In most cases, the offset was relatively small, but for one rifle/scope combination it was way off (the Hudzak + Galileo scope). It seems to have been fixed now. I think we can assume misalignment is no longer a significant problem.


The limiting factor is how stable the rifle platform is when aiming - all other things being equal, aim sway is what is going to affect accuracy, if for no other reason that the muzzle (and the scope's line of sight) is moving in some random way (actually, based on Lissajous motion), meaning that the POA is not really where you want it to be, and the motion of the barrel imparts an extra velocity vector component ( in the direction of motion of the barrel, perpendicular to the bore axis) to the bullet's muzzle velocity vector.

The rifle's weight can be a factor in stability as well, but that can also be somewhat subjective, depending on the shooter's upper body/arm strength. I can shoot my little 17 HMR bolt action rifle quite well, even standing (it's nice and light), whereas I would not consider holding my X-bolt 7mm Rem Mag rifle unsupported (so I have a BOG Death Grip Tripod to keep it stable) - it just sways too much for me otherwise because it is about 2x the weight of the 17 HMR, but that's just me.

If accuracy is not related to aim sway in the game, what other parameter could it possibly be? Why does the aim sway decrease when crouching or prone, with the steady hands and breath-hold stability perks?

The difficulty in sorting out the effects of the weapons and ammunition parameters is that we don't know exactly how the game is programmed to use them. Someone took a stab at measuring bullet trajectories for each rifle (at the shooting range) and did come up with a relative comparison metric (it's in the Guides section), but other things are much harder to measure experimentally.

It does turn out that you MUST apply elevation holdovers when shooting long distances, either by using the zeroing perk (which is a rather coarse-grained dialing of the elevation turret) or applying an estimated elevation holdover. IIRC, the trajectories are relatively flat out to the distance specified by the ammunition's effective range parameter (although this has more to do with retained energy and effectiveness for the ammo's maximum class).

Is this answer available as audio-book? :-D

[IceFoxx]

Conclusion

thanks for all your replies.
so there are still some questionmarks about this topic Accuracy.

tohz mentioned youtube video from shfty showed that he made experiments with markers of movement and showed them afterwards in a graph. there to see there are small, nearly none differences - all rifles, altough high variances in accuracy level, have nearly exactly same sway movement.

Only difference to see is in the rifles with small caliber and 100 Accuracy, here is the sway nearly zero.

Which is curious as there is nearly no difference if you compare a gun with 33 Accuracy to a Gun with 80 Accuracy - BUT - there is a HUGE difference from 80 to 100

So in 100 percent sureness we will never know, exept one of the Devs is answering this. But as they dont even fix basic issues/requirements, and they didnt feel like making a basic manual with explenations - they will keep on making dlc's for making cash, with no interest what is really asked from us