Supressor question

[crossroads]

I was looking at the symthic charts for battlefield 3 and saw that the damage suppressed was 7% for assault rifles. Does that mean damage at both close and long range is decreased by that amount therefore taking one more bullet to kill at both ranges? Or does that only apply to damage falloff? Because if so then maybe i would consider taking it off for some weapons.

Also:

You are my bro, bro.

[turdferguson]

The suppression percentage is referring to the "suppression effect" game mechanic that blurs your screen when you are getting shot at. A lot of people are getting confused by that on those forums.

The higher the suppression%, the more blur will be caused per shot. As far as anyone knows (as far as I've seen), suppressors do not reduce damage. They do reduce bullet velocity, slightly reduce vertical recoil, slightly decrease hipfire accuracy, and slightly decrease random spread when aiming down the sights. And they keep you from showing up on the map when firing.

That is my understanding, anyways. If someone knows more, that would be great.

[crossroads]

Wow, i was conflicting with myself about whether i should use a suppressor or not on my m16a3. Now that i know it doesn't reduce damage there's no reason to use anything else.

[didjeridu]

No, that's the number for suppression. As in, when you shoot a bullet near an enemy with an AR, it does 7% suppression on the enemy (just an example, I have no idea how the percentage works for suppression). As far as I know, the silencer only reduces your max damage range. So your weapon damage starts gradually lowering to the min value sooner. So max and min damage are the same as unsilenced, just the ranges are changed.

At least that's how I understand it. Maybe someone more into the nitty gritty can shed some light.

Edit: Beaten to the punch. But yeah, no reason to not use a silencer unless you're primarily fighting at mid to long range. It's still doable of course, but not showing up on the map isn't a big deal when you aren't even on the enemies' map.

[saucejockey]

honestly, i prefer the laser sight. that delicious hipfire accuracy without any downsides is too good to pass up. suppressor i'll occasionally use in close range maps like metro or seine, mostly on my m4.

[rubionubio]

I don't know if I'd say the laser sight doesn't have "any downsides", unless you *always* remember to turn it off the instant you spawn you're going to alert enemies to your presence frequently just by aiming near their head, and by seeing your beam around corners, etc. I have personally ambushed dozens of people using laser sights this way, and I can count four specific times where the extra warning of the laser sight dazzle effect allowed me to go prone, avoiding any damage whatsoever and, worse for the shooter, alerting me to his location when he fired his gun, missing me but now showing up on the mini-map for all to see.

I'm not disagreeing with you per se; In fact if I'm not using a silencer I almost always use a laser in that slot, but 95% of the time I just turn it off when I spawn and never touch it again, unless it's a super CQB map or something.

And I'd just like to take this moment to curse all my teammates who insist on using the portable supernova known as a tac light. It's beyond awesome for CQB maps against enemies, but man does it screw your teammates over good sometimes.

[crossroads]

Yeah it's mainly laser sight vs suppressor for me. But now that i know that the suppressor reduces minimum spread by 50% on top of recoil reduction and stealth i'll use it more than laser sight.