[Lulei]

Might as well have this deleted since half the formatting died and other things have vanished (wtf). It's a dead topic anyway.

Recoil Mastery Guide

Original Guide By: LessThanPi
Edits and Additions By: Lulei

Table of Contents:

• About this guide
  
• Introduction
  
• Spread/Recoil patterns
  
• How to use this information
  
• Misc

1. About this Guide

This thread is a guide about mastering the various recoil patterns of the guns available for use in S4. Information provided here is not to be a "how to play" guide so much as a "this is how it works" guide. Remember:

"Recoil is a small part of mastering S4 as a whole, and there are a lot more basic things one should master before coming here." ~ LessThanPi

As stated in the topic description this is a remake of LessThanPi's original recoil master guide you can find here. I am in no way claiming ownership of his work! The purpose of this guide is to update and rework the original into something more newbie friendly and make use of the resources available at S5! Some of this will include rewriting the original while attempting to maintain (necessary) information and neutrality.


2. Introduction

"I always like to tell the readers a little bit about myself whenever I write a guide, just so they know my credentials and through that why they should even bother reading to begin with. I like a lot of S4 players just recently picked up the game when EUS4 open beta was released. I took a big liking to the game and have already put a good amount of hours in. And while using various weapons from the cannonade to the smgs to counter. And while I wouldn't say that makes me a great player by any means I can say this I through all of this playing I have gotten a deep understanding of the many game mechanics, one of these mechanics I've been able to get the most use from is understanding weapon recoil and using it to my advantage. I hope to use this guide to share my understanding with you." ~ LessThanPi
And I, Lulei, am a noob that just wants to get better at the game and have fun. Knowledge is power.

So what is this spread and recoil people keep referring to?

"Spread" or "Recoil" are terms used to describe the the effect of bullets not landing on the crosshairs. That is, (with the exception of the Burst Shotgun, Handgun, Smash Rifle) each weapon follows a preset firing pattern.

Why do we care?

Depending on the circumstances of the situation only a few of your shots may actually strike, even if the crosshair is directly on a target. Knowing the spread of each weapon as well as how to adjust for it will allow you to land the extra shots that just might make a difference at the end of the game. An extreme example are those who land 4 critical shots with smg's at long range or can snipe with an HMG!



3. Spread/Recoil Patterns

There several recoil patterns known with SMG and Semirifle sharing "Ribbon" and Handgun and Smash Rifle Sharing "T-Type".

"Rising" - Gauss Rifle

This weapon fires 5 shots that rise further from the crosshair with each shot. The first shot is always on the crosshair and the last shot is at least twice the distance from the fourth shot.



"Ribbon" - Semi & SMG
These weapons first the first three shots in the form of an isosceles triangle around with the crosshair and a fourth shot directly on the crosshair for each click. LessThanPi also described this form as an upsidown "Y" and coined the term "Ribboning" for describing the motion that would force all four shots to land on the same point. In many situations partial ribboning is preferable to a full ribbon, as shots 1 & 4 only require vertical adjustment while shots 2 & 3 only require horizontal adjustment. Doing so increases the number hits while greatly simplifying the movement pattern. Despite sharing the same pattern, it should be noted that Semi Rifle has a much narrower spread than SMG. The following picture from the S4 Project Wiki show's the firing pattern of these weapons.

http://wiki.s4project.net/images/d/d6/SubmachineGun-Pattern.jpg



Heavy Machine Gun
The overall spread pattern of the HMG is that of an "x" overlaid on a "+". Bullets will only hit on multiples of 45 degrees (0*, 45*, 90*, 135*, ect...). This is clearer in the following image taken from the S4 Project Wiki.

http://wiki.s4project.net/images/c/c4/Hmg-pattern.jpg

It is possible and many people do claim to snipe using the HGM. "Learn the clusters" is a common theme for anyone wanting to try this.



Revolver

The image below from the S4 Project Wiki summarizes the spread. All shots all fired simultaneously. I will not be making a video for this, it's really unecessary.
http://wiki.s4project.net/images/8/8c/Rev-pattern.jpg
Image from S4 Project Wiki

Burst Shotgun (sg)

The sg is one of three weapons to fire in a partially random pattern. Each shot will strike five points simultaneously. These points are randomly selected from 7 available as seen in the video. I am unable to spot a pattern to which points are hit and it does not repeat between reloads.



"T-Type" - Handgun and Smash Rifle
These weapons fire individual shots that strike one of four randomly selected locations. Thanks to Atmoskian we can see each position has about a 25% chance of being struck. The order and location of hits is random and does reset with reload.
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9439/crosshairhg.png

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMbItL6P-rk

Cannonade and Railgun
These weapons will always hit on the reticule (ignoring the cannonade's area of effect or railgun's delay).

4. How to use this information


So you've seen how weapons fire, but where do you go from there?

A good start is learning to use spread to your advantage (or rather, everyone else's disadvantage) by compensating for it when you aim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUR5aO-dUo

Of course there are times when it may be more advantageous to do the exact opposite. Perhaps someone uses an evasive pattern difficult to hit, at that point it may be more effect to use a weapon with a wider or larger spread and bank on luck landing the hit where normal aiming methods could not.

Finally, none of this is useful without practice. Pictures and videos can only go so far to demonstrate spread, but using this effectively depends on many factors. The most important one being range. The following is an image that may have been the source of much joy or hatred in geometry known as similar triangles.

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/713/similartriangles.jpg

The effects of spread follow this image in that overall width of the effect is proportional to the distance to the target. The only way to learn up how much you need to compensate for the effect is by practicing.

What about the weapons that don't follow a set pattern?

In these cases spread should be considered in conjunction with your goals to determine if it's worth taking the shot.
For sg and revolver where shots are fired simultaneously the spread may be too large to obtain worthwhile damage given the range. By the same token, a large spread at range may be useful to deal chip damage or get a desperate killing blow.
For weapons like handgun and smash rifle it's sometimes better to think as gambling. With a slower rate of fire and smaller clip it may be preferable to use handgun as a close range sidearm given the low damage and difficulty of critting at range with its random spread. On the other side smash rifle has a larger clip and higher rate of fire, giving more chances to land a hit in a shorter time than it's counterpart. In both cases it may be wise to adjust aim to take advantage of the spread. Since "T" recoil has two points aligned vertically with the lower point on the crosshair in game it's possible in some cases to aim at the body with the upper point on the targets head. This increases your chance of hitting a target from roughly 25% to 50% with 25% crit per shot. By making a simple adjustment by account for spread average damage per second of both weapons has increased by over 100%.

5. Misc

Thanks to:

• LessThanPi for making the original guide this one is based off of.
  
• Atmoskian for research into the handgun.
  
• Adora for confirming suspicions on HMG snipers.

LessThanPi said:

Big thanks to S5
Sanjo for pointing me in the direction of the game
Thanks to Reiki for the (original's) Guide approval

PM or post here with thoughts, suggestions, and criticism. I will update and manage this as I have time (granted, it's pretty low maintenance).

Todo: project
Project: measurements

This post has been edited by Lulei: 30 March 2010 - 11:05 PM

[Lulei]

Reserve and testing.

[Jello]

Awesome! This gives me more insight on how to fix my HMG aim.

[Andy]

I'm new in Guns mode so it's a good guide for me.
Thanks.

[TheKyoKito]

I hmg snipe, most bullets miss but when other bullets hit it does damage.I try to keep the cursor in the higher middle area so i can get the chest and the head.