Confidence v. Steadiness (Aiming)

[End_Transmission]

So what exactly is the difference between confidence and steadiness? And how do they interact with recoil and time to aim? I’ve gotta say, in general, without a good understanding of these mechanics, I find that rifles have really diminishing returns at ranges where they should be shining, like 6-18 tiles after several turns spent aiming I’m only getting grazing hits or mediocre hits. And I’m not talking some dinky .22 LR bullshit, I’m talking something like an RM88 or an LSR523 (or whatever) which should by description be some of the most devastating single shot rifles in the game. Of course, it’s possible my Rifles skill is just lacking (it’s been in the 2-4 range for recent trials).

(IMHO Shotguns and high caliber handguns remain pretty much the king of firearms. It feels weird carrying around an M4 or an AK and then switching to a Ruger .44 or a Remington 870 when the going gets tough instead of the reverse, but automatics spray way too many underwhelming bullets with too little damage and accuracy, ain’t nobody can afford to waste that many bullets. Rifles seem to almost always miss at more than 10 tiles or less than 5 and have shit-tons of recoil. Shotguns and .44s are where it’s at. I know it’s possible to play the game/build your character to be a melee death machine, I just haven’t tried for that in a while, primarily for what I guess what could be called RP reasons?)

[Azrad]

I vaguely remember reading that confidence affects the chance for headshots/criticals. Might be effected by skill level, and the distance of enemies. Steadiness also affects accuracy, but you have some degree of control over it by waiting or making aimed shots. High recoil weapons will reduce steadiness, so just firing wildly without aiming drops steadiness to nothing, greatly reducing accuracy even if the enemy is just three tiles away. Getting attacked reduces steadiness as well. Anyway, aiming is a must for pretty much most guns with high recoil.

I find that handguns are pretty much sidearms. For situations where there isn’t enough zombies to justify bringing out a rifle. Often, handgun dispersion is usually worse than rifles, even with giving them as many gun mods as possible. Main problem with handguns with high-power ammo like the .454 or .44 ammo is that it’s rare to find enough bullets. Shotguns are excellent though, good power and accuracy, and its ammo ignores the hard to hit ability of skeletons and smokers. Rifles do take longer to aim, though they have the most room for gun mods and second only to rifles in terms of reducing dispersion. SMGs… well, main experience with it is using the MP5, and that can easily mow down hordes with ease.

[DeWolf]

These are my statistics as I see them. Pistols,shotguns and smgs are good at short range with low or rather high sight and regular dispersion however there is another stat to keep in mind and that is aim time which again for those weapons is really short making them great in close quarters. Rifles on the other hand have long range and lower sight and regular dispersion but they take longer to aim thus rifles should perform better at longer ranges where you have the time to aim with obvious exception being the lmgs. However I do agree that my experience with trying to use a kitted out rifle with 0 for both dispersions, mod level skill I think 6 for guns 4 for rifles and I have a hard time hitting stuff at max range with 556s so yeah.

[Coolthulhu]

Confidence is the hit chance. If you’re playing my patched version, it’s exact hit chance. Otherwise it’s approximated (possibly badly, didn’t check) hit chance.

Steadiness is how well are you “aimed in”.
Internally, steadiness is an inverse of player recoil. Player recoil isn’t gun recoil.
Player recoil starts at 600 and you lower it by aiming. It is set to 600 when you stand still without aiming or move. You can lower it to your gun’s sight dispersion, but not lower.
Shooting can increase recoil indefinitely, meaning steadiness can go negative.

[Outcast]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:4, topic:14033”]Steadiness is how well are you “aimed in”.
Internally, steadiness is an inverse of player recoil. Player recoil isn’t gun recoil.
Player recoil starts at 600 and you lower it by aiming. It is set to 600 when you stand still without aiming or move. You can lower it to your gun’s sight dispersion, but not lower.
Shooting can increase recoil indefinitely, meaning steadiness can go negative.[/quote]
Thank you for explaining Recoil.

I’ve been trying to understand the finer points of ranged combat in Cataclysm: DDA for a while but it was still a mystery.

So if I understand what you are saying correctly:

[ol][li]Player Recoil is the value that is your current hit chance.
[/li]
[li]
This starts at a high value and decreases as you aim until it is equal to your weapon’s Sight Dispersion.
[/li]
[li]
Weapon Mods that lower recoil decrease the value that Player Recoil begins at when you start aiming. (Thus you aim faster.)
[/li]
[li]
Firing a weapon increases Player Recoil by your Weapon’s Recoil value, this increase has no cap so firing again and again without recovering could quickly put your hit chance to 0% and keep it there.
[/li][/ol]

[Coolthulhu]

2 and 4 are right, 1 and 3 are not

Player recoil is not a hit chance, but rather one of penalties to accuracy. There is also gun dispersion, which is separate from gun recoil. Gun dispersion can’t be lowered by aiming, only by altering the gun.
By aiming, you can lower your player recoil to sight dispersion, but gun dispersion (and other penalties, such as skill penalty) will still be added on top of that.

Weapon mods that lower recoil only lower the weapon recoil. When you fire a gun with a good stock, it won’t “kick” as much and won’t ruin your aim by increasing player recoil.
Player recoil always starts at 600, unless it was much higher than that in which case it can take few turns to drop to 600 (but that doesn’t depend on gun used, unless you aim).

[End_Transmission]

Guns have a lot of stats, most/all of which are then effected by the ammo loaded in the gun. Someone should like publish a guide that at least explains what are the cases where a high number is good (damage, penetration, range) and where a low number is good (presumably everything else, like dispersion and sight dispersion, recoil, I think there were others?). I would do it but my basic knowledge of the underlying mechanics is way too shitty. Underneath the hood, Cataclysm is a complicated, complicated beast.

[hdggDalton]

I’ll answer the question: what is the difference between confidence and steadiness? Confidence looks like this
Confidence = [*******+++++++++±----- ]
^ ^ ^ ^
headshot hit (normal) graze miss
and it affects whether you headshot, hit, graze, or miss. It’s most affected by your marksmanship skill and weapon skill at longer ranges (archery, rifles, shotguns, handguns, etc.). I think it is simple, get higher skills and you will hit and headshot more, you will also graze and miss less. It’s also dramatically affected by range. Aiming a shotgun point blank at a zombie is a guaranteed hit and a likely headshot, while aiming a longbow at a moose 40 tiles away is very hard to even graze. Recoil also heavily affects confidence, so try to wait a while until firing again (doesn’t apply to bows and crossbows). Finally, steadiness also greatly affects confidence. Steadiness looks like this
Steadiness = [*********************** ]
^ ^
steady not steady
and it affects confidence, which in turn affects hit chance. It starts at 0 steadiness (meaning an empty bar) but you increase it by aiming with .

In conclusion, you can shoot without steadiness, but because it affects confidence, and thus, the hit chance, shooting without steadiness will make you miss out on the potential hit chance you could get if you had max steadiness.

IMHO Shotguns and high caliber handguns remain pretty much the king of firearms. It feels weird carrying around an M4 or an AK and then switching to a Ruger .44 or a Remington 870 when the going gets tough instead of the reverse, but automatics spray way too many underwhelming bullets with too little damage and accuracy, ain’t nobody can afford to waste that many bullets. Rifles seem to almost always miss at more than 10 tiles or less than 5 and have shit-tons of recoil. Shotguns and .44s are where it’s at.

Automatics are generally bad because they use a lot of ammunition for very little damage and cause a lot of recoil. I would agree with you that shotguns and high power handguns are king.

[Wyzack]

I seriously dislike how pathetic the effective range on rifles is in this game. How is it that a police sniper with a great deal of skill (around 5 or 6) can only reliably hit slow moving human sized targets at less than ten meters

[End_Transmission]

@hdggDalton: THANK YOU FOR ACTUALLY ANSWERING THE QUESTION. No hate to anyone else in the thread, but that explanation actually makes sense.

So pressing . to aim increases steadiness, which will eventually increase confidence, but doesn’t directly increase confidence, and confidence is the stat that ACTUALLY directly effects your chance to hit/miss/critical/headshot/graze?

[DeWolf]

I seriously dislike how pathetic the effective range on rifles is in this game. How is it that a police sniper with a great deal of skill (around 5 or 6) can only reliably hit slow moving human sized targets at less than ten meters

Speaking of which what factors account for low confidence at long range. Like for example does a low hit chance always low when at max range, so if the max range for a 0 both dispersions gun with 30 dispersion for the ammo. So when the max range is 33 and if you get **••••|||| for that at max steadiness, would that still be the same if the max range was boosted to say 60 (yes I know that is either at or at least around the edge of the reality bubble)?

[DeWolf]

Ok yeah confidence is constant. Max range of weapon does not affect confidence at non max ranges.

[hdggDalton]

[quote=“End Transmission, post:10, topic:14033”]@hdggDalton: THANK YOU FOR ACTUALLY ANSWERING THE QUESTION. No hate to anyone else in the thread, but that explanation actually makes sense.

So pressing . to aim increases steadiness, which will eventually increase confidence, but doesn’t directly increase confidence, and confidence is the stat that ACTUALLY directly effects your chance to hit/miss/critical/headshot/graze?[/quote]

Yes, pressing . once won’t increase confidence directly, but it increases steadiness, which will eventually increase confidence, which affects the chance to headshot/hit/graze/miss. Also, if you get melee attacked, even if it misses or does no damage, you will lose ALL your steadiness. Don’t aim for too long.

There’s a different confidence for throwing things; the more confidence, the more likely it will go where you aim your throw. But it is only affected by range, unlike gun/bow confidence which is affected by a myriad of factors.

[Coolthulhu]

Also, if you get melee attacked, even if it misses or does no damage, you will lose ALL your steadiness.

It’s not exactly that.
You may actually get negative steadiness that way. If you choose numeric confidence/steadiness display, you’ll see negative steadiness.
Effects aren’t low-capped at 0 - you can lose accuracy indefinitely.
If you lose too much of it, you’re literally better off holstering the weapon and drawing it again, just to reset the accuracy.

I’ve PR’d a fix for that