What is more significant? Idle sway amount or speed?

[Megaqwerty]

I ask this for comparison of the Lynx Quarterback to the Tack-Driver.

Both guns' demerits are identical except that the Tack-Driver has lower penetration.

Both guns are the only Lynx variants with decreased sway, except for the 13 Twist, which has both more sway amount and speed over the Quarterback, rendering it obsolete.

So we have the Tack and the Quarter.

Variant	Amount	Speed
Tack-Driver	25	1
Quarterback	18	1.3

So, which is ultimately more accurate? With ballistic CPU, both sets become 21.3/0.9 and 15.3/1.1, respectively. Just multiplying these numbers by each other produces 18.1 and 16.9, respectively, suggesting that the Quarterback is better overall, but I don't know if this is meaningful analysis in this context.

I'll play around with both to see which I prefer.

If the Quarterback is indeed more or even comparably accurate, then it's a better gun overall due to its higher penetration.

[probaddie]

May 11, 2015 18:35:59 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

I ask this for comparison of the Lynx Quarterback to the Tack-Driver.

Both guns' demerits are identical except that the Tack-Driver has lower penetration.

Both guns are the only Lynx variants with decreased sway, except for the 13 Twist, which has both more sway amount and speed over the Quarterback, rendering it obsolete.

So we have the Tack and the Quarter.

Variant	Amount	Speed
Tack-Driver	25	1
Quarterback	18	1.3

So, which is ultimately more accurate? With ballistic CPU, both sets become 21.3/0.9 and 15.3/1.1, respectively. Just multiplying these numbers by each other produces 18.1 and 16.9, respectively, suggesting that the Quarterback is better overall, but I don't know if this is meaningful analysis in this context.

I'll play around with both to see which I prefer.

If the Quarterback is indeed more or even comparably accurate, then it's a better gun overall due to its higher penetration.

If we take the average angular speed of the point of aim to be our measuring stick, then Amount and Speed are equally important: angular speed is linearly dependent on both of these quantities.

So, in your specific case, (25 / 18) * (1 / 1.3) ~= 1.06, meaning you should expect the Tack-Driver to be less accurate (not by much).

Edit: I'll show my work later on if I have time.

[fpsdredd]

My understanding is off. How is the amount and speed applied?

edit:
My current understanding is that the amount is an area of some sort, likely a box with some motion (i have no idea how the motion is defined) at some speed.

Assuming that is true, I would still opt to have the lower speed with greater amount in practice though. Once you center your sight on target you are making small adjustments to counter recoil and everything else. With the Lynx though, the recoil while prone is zero or very nearly zero and you are just combating the idle; the idle is the biggest factor when firing on target in my opinion. The faster I aim on target and the faster I fire my bullets minimizes the effect of idle amount. If I was playing with a campy playstyle sitting in a corner ADS'd then idle amount would have a greater impact because I can't keep my sights trained in on a certain small area (a headgl*tch for example). The idea is that I am going to drag my sights on target and then once it's there speed will be the larger factor at play.

[asasa]

Lower amount; speed is not very important. The faster you snipe, the less amount matters. Of course, longer distance makes speed become more important.. but for aggressive sniping, speed is far less important than amount.

[fpsdredd]

May 11, 2015 23:22:46 GMT -5 asasa said:

Lower amount; speed is not very important. The faster you snipe, the less amount matters. Of course, longer distance makes speed become more important.. but for aggressive sniping, speed is far less important than amount.

"The faster you snipe, the less amount matters" and then right after, "for aggressive sniping, speed is far less important". Make up your mind son.

[brcm]

Anecdotally, I have the same reply as probaddie: QB is slightly better. I recently did the weapon master challenges, experimented with all my variants (including the tack-driver and others), and found the QB was the easiest sniper to get headshots/longshots with in the game. I should also note that I was playing much slower and less aggressively so I could focus on those headshots.

[Megaqwerty]

May 12, 2015 9:12:17 GMT -5 fpsdredd said:

"The faster you snipe, the less amount matters" and then right after, "for aggressive sniping, speed is far less important". Make up your mind I son.

These aren't mutually exclusive. Fast sniping is firing quickly after aiming down sight. Aggressive sniping is quick scoping, etc. You can and generally should snipe quickly even at range.

That said, I think low speed is more important for pinpoint accuracy, such as when going for the head shots. However, the difference between the Quarterback and the Tack is marginal and the Quarterback is superior for other reasons.

[fpsdredd]

Megaqwerty Care to explain how your definition of aggressive sniping is affected more so by amount than speed? Also how does it apply to a semi auto sniper?

I agree that both guns are close but would be careful not to label either as better. The tack driver is a gun where you are trading penetration for the low speed. I can see how this will perform better in some area and worse in others but not enough to justify a label of best gun either way.

[fpsdredd]

probaddie can you explain how speed and amount are equated? I don't see how you made that consideration

edit:

I don't know how the movement of the idle is defined. Is the angular velocity accelerating?

2nd edit:

Has to accelerate... obviously, just want to know how.

[Megaqwerty]

May 12, 2015 10:17:30 GMT -5 fpsdredd said:

Megaqwerty Care to explain how your definition of aggressive sniping is affected more so by amount than speed? Also how does it apply to a semi auto sniper?

I agree that both guns are close but would be careful not to label either as better. The tack driver is a gun where you are trading penetration for the low speed. I can see how this will perform better in some area and worse in others but not enough to justify a label of best gun either way.

Well, that was just my interpretation of asasa's post. I don't necessarily agree with him.

That said, when firing quickly after aiming down sight and far away from the target, low speed is preferable because even slight deviation from the original point of aim will throw off the cross hairs significantly. In contrast, if closer to the target, low amount is preferable as slight deviation may be tolerated so long as the cross hairs do not quickly move away from the original point of aim.

To reiterate, the guns' accuracies are clearly similar enough that I believe the Quarterback is objectively superior, especially when using ballistic CPU. If using an attachment that increases speed (i.e. the variable scope), this may not be true, although probaddie's analysis does not reveal this as the speed multiplier of 2 cancels.

[probaddie]

Alright, I may as well use this space to do a quick treatise on idle sway - it'll help show why Amount and Speed matter equally in answering Megaqwerty's question.


The mechanics of idle sway in Call of Duty are modeled after a class of curves known as Lissajou curves. The basic premise is that the components of the curve (in our case yaw and pitch) oscillate in a sinusoidal manner to produce an overall curve. Depending on the phase (initial timing) and angular velocity (speed) of the component parts, it is possible to achieve many different shapes. To produce "simple" shapes (ellipses, lines, figure-8s) the ratio of the speeds of the component parts must be "simple", i.e., representable as a fraction with relatively low numerator and denominator. The "uglier" the ratio of the speeds, the more "space" the curve fills and the more random the pattern appears.

In Call of Duty, the ratio between the yaw and pitch speeds is 0.7 to 1. The resulting curve looks like so:





The point of aim of every weapon (if nether Amount nor Speed are zero) will traverse this path. The equations that describe each component part - I will call them x and y instead of yaw and pitch, respectively, from this point on - are given by:




where A is the amplitude (in degrees) and v is the angular velocity (in inverse radians). For Call of Duty, the amplitude is given by Amount / 100. The angular velocity is given directly by Speed for weapons without an overlay reticle and given by twice the value of Speed for those that do; long story short, scopes (almost always) have double the Speed and, consequently, double the angular velocity applied to the x and y components


The amount of time it takes for the pattern to complete one cycle (period) is given by:





In the case when Speed = 1 and you're using a non-overlay reticle, it takes 20 * pi = 62.83 seconds to complete one cycle.

Now, to Mega's question. Using the equations for the component parts, we can find the velocity of the component parts by taking a derivative with respect to t:





The overall speed, then, is given by:




Thus, both Amount and Speed are relevant - and equally so - in determining the overall speed of the aiming reticle. If one doubles Amount, then the expected speed of the reticle at any given time is doubled. But the same goes for Speed: doubling Speed will also increase the expected speed of the reticle at a given time.

If one is only concerned with how far from the origin the reticle will be at a given time, then a similar analysis - operating on the equations of the components directly, rather than their derivatives - shows that only Amount is relevant.

In conclusion, butts.

Edit: I should point out that, in the part about cycle time, the point of aim will return to the origin twice in each cycle. But as you can see from my diagram, it returns moving in the perpendicular direction relative to how it begins.

[fpsdredd]

Megaqwerty agree with the first part for sure. I'd choose amount for close range assuming you can make the cone(square?) of fire small enough. It's the whole shotgun style of aiming.

I think of the tackdriver as us knowingly placing stat points into a stat that's suffering from diminishing returns and it suffers a higher cost elsewhere. A highly specialized weapon if anything. Does that make it the worse gun? Let's disagree.

[fpsdredd]

probaddie Not done reading but do we have the coefficient for the scopes' speeds that are different?

[fpsdredd]

Deleted my last post. Was having trouble understanding the math. Math ability is perishable

[dunsparceflinch]

I would think speed is better because it means the follow up shot that will be needed for the Lynx is more likely to close enough to the same spot. Same with the na45.

With the MORS and atlas 20mm I would think sway amount is more important because you are trying to line up for the single shot.

[Megaqwerty]

May 12, 2015 17:02:25 GMT -5 fpsdredd said:

Math ability is perishable

Have you tried refrigerating it?

[asasa]

May 12, 2015 13:29:48 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

May 12, 2015 10:17:30 GMT -5 fpsdredd said:

Megaqwerty Care to explain how your definition of aggressive sniping is affected more so by amount than speed? Also how does it apply to a semi auto sniper?

I agree that both guns are close but would be careful not to label either as better. The tack driver is a gun where you are trading penetration for the low speed. I can see how this will perform better in some area and worse in others but not enough to justify a label of best gun either way.

Well, that was just my interpretation of asasa's post. I don't necessarily agree with him.

That said, when firing quickly after aiming down sight and far away from the target, low speed is preferable because even slight deviation from the original point of aim will throw off the cross hairs significantly. In contrast, if closer to the target, low amount is preferable as slight deviation may be tolerated so long as the cross hairs do not quickly move away from the original point of aim.

To reiterate, the guns' accuracies are clearly similar enough that I believe the Quarterback is objectively superior, especially when using ballistic CPU. If using an attachment that increases speed (i.e. the variable scope), this may not be true, although probaddie's analysis does not reveal this as the speed multiplier of 2 cancels.

I actually wrote that wrong. I meant that the faster you snipe, the more amount matters. Speed becomes less important as if you fire instantly upon ADS, you will never experience it. However, at longer ranges, speed can become a nuisance when you try to quickly snipe (before scope settles) but aren't necessarily "quickscoping". Then you are stuck trying to counter the high-speed sway and get on to the target. Still, as long as you aren't really aiming for more than 1/2 hundred ms or so, and the speed isn't totally absurd (like post out-of-breath sway), amount matters more.

The only way I can imagine valuing speed more, with aggressive sniping play, would be if the high speed/low amount settled significantly slower than the low speed/high amount. No matter how good you are, there will be times (headglitches, long range, etc) when you need the scope totally still. This is fairly uncommon though, as most shots can be landed with the sway even at mid-long range.(Where long is defined as more like medium-long in Black Ops 1 maps.)

[banana]

I'm pretty sure in aw your sniper is always swaying

[asasa]

May 16, 2015 9:27:32 GMT -5 banana said:

I'm pretty sure in aw your sniper is always swaying

I think the only time this wasn't the case was mw3, where it might have only been a visual glitch, but it started dead center with snipers regular scope before jumping into a full sway pattern, or built sway with acog.

Also debatably not with initial sway which was more predictable and accurate than normal sway, but penalized hard scoping

[dunsparceflinch]

May 15, 2015 15:58:53 GMT -5 asasa said:

May 12, 2015 13:29:48 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

Well, that was just my interpretation of asasa's post. I don't necessarily agree with him.

That said, when firing quickly after aiming down sight and far away from the target, low speed is preferable because even slight deviation from the original point of aim will throw off the cross hairs significantly. In contrast, if closer to the target, low amount is preferable as slight deviation may be tolerated so long as the cross hairs do not quickly move away from the original point of aim.

To reiterate, the guns' accuracies are clearly similar enough that I believe the Quarterback is objectively superior, especially when using ballistic CPU. If using an attachment that increases speed (i.e. the variable scope), this may not be true, although probaddie's analysis does not reveal this as the speed multiplier of 2 cancels.

I actually wrote that wrong. I meant that the faster you snipe, the more amount matters. Speed becomes less important as if you fire instantly upon ADS, you will never experience it. However, at longer ranges, speed can become a nuisance when you try to quickly snipe (before scope settles) but aren't necessarily "quickscoping". Then you are stuck trying to counter the high-speed sway and get on to the target. Still, as long as you aren't really aiming for more than 1/2 hundred ms or so, and the speed isn't totally absurd (like post out-of-breath sway), amount matters more.

The only way I can imagine valuing speed more, with aggressive sniping play, would be if the high speed/low amount settled significantly slower than the low speed/high amount. No matter how good you are, there will be times (use mind bulletses, long range, etc) when you need the scope totally still. This is fairly uncommon though, as most shots can be landed with the sway even at mid-long range.(Where long is defined as more like medium-long in Black Ops 1 maps.)

The way I would see it is this:

Imagine a sniper with ridiculously high sway amount (500 we will say), but ridiculously low sway speed (0.01). Said sniper would be great if it were for old man sniping and two round sniping (Lynx and na45), but horrible for quick scoping or any sort of aggressive sniping.

Now imagine a sniper with the opposite. Really high sway speed, but really low sway amount. Said sniper would be great for quick scoping and aggressive sniping, but horrible for old man sniping and two round sniping.

Personally, I find the tack driver great for the Lynx because I am going for two shots and because of the low speed that second shot is near where my first shot is.

[LeGitBeeSting]

May 16, 2015 9:27:32 GMT -5 banana said:

I'm pretty sure in aw your sniper is always swaying

That's what no scopes are for.

[banana]

May 16, 2015 21:32:44 GMT -5 dunsparceflinch said:

May 15, 2015 15:58:53 GMT -5 asasa said:

I actually wrote that wrong. I meant that the faster you snipe, the more amount matters. Speed becomes less important as if you fire instantly upon ADS, you will never experience it. However, at longer ranges, speed can become a nuisance when you try to quickly snipe (before scope settles) but aren't necessarily "quickscoping". Then you are stuck trying to counter the high-speed sway and get on to the target. Still, as long as you aren't really aiming for more than 1/2 hundred ms or so, and the speed isn't totally absurd (like post out-of-breath sway), amount matters more.

The only way I can imagine valuing speed more, with aggressive sniping play, would be if the high speed/low amount settled significantly slower than the low speed/high amount. No matter how good you are, there will be times (use mind bulletses, long range, etc) when you need the scope totally still. This is fairly uncommon though, as most shots can be landed with the sway even at mid-long range.(Where long is defined as more like medium-long in Black Ops 1 maps.)

The way I would see it is this:

Imagine a sniper with ridiculously high sway amount (500 we will say), but ridiculously low sway speed (0.01). Said sniper would be great if it were for old man sniping and two round sniping (Lynx and na45), but horrible for quick scoping or any sort of aggressive sniping.

Now imagine a sniper with the opposite. Really high sway speed, but really low sway amount. Said sniper would be great for quick scoping and aggressive sniping, but horrible for old man sniping and two round sniping.

Personally, I find the tack driver great for the Lynx because I am going for two shots and because of the low speed that second shot is near where my first shot is.

But what if your first shot isn't on target

[Marvel4]

May 16, 2015 21:32:44 GMT -5 dunsparceflinch said:

Personally, I find the tack driver great for the Lynx because I am going for two shots and because of the low speed that second shot is near where my first shot is.

Except you missed the fact that increasing idle amount also increases speed.

[kylet357]

May 17, 2015 5:30:27 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

May 16, 2015 21:32:44 GMT -5 dunsparceflinch said:

Personally, I find the tack driver great for the Lynx because I am going for two shots and because of the low speed that second shot is near where my first shot is.

Except you missed the fact that increasing idle amount also increases speed.

It does?

[Marvel4]

May 17, 2015 6:59:35 GMT -5 kylet357 said:

May 17, 2015 5:30:27 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

Except you missed the fact that increasing idle amount also increases speed.

It does?

Did I stutter?

[kylet357]

May 17, 2015 8:43:59 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

May 17, 2015 6:59:35 GMT -5 kylet357 said:

It does?

Did I stutter?

Did you?

[Megaqwerty]

May 12, 2015 14:28:37 GMT -5 probaddie said:

Thus, both Amount and Speed are relevant - and equally so - in determining the overall speed of the aiming reticle.

May 17, 2015 9:15:56 GMT -5 kylet357 said:

May 17, 2015 8:43:59 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

Did I stutter?

Did you?

Marvel's enunciation is fine, but your reading comprehension could use work.

[kylet357]

May 17, 2015 13:33:46 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

May 12, 2015 14:28:37 GMT -5 probaddie said:

Thus, both Amount and Speed are relevant - and equally so - in determining the overall speed of the aiming reticle.

May 17, 2015 9:15:56 GMT -5 kylet357 said:

Did you?

Marvel's enunciation is fine, but your reading comprehension could use work.

I do have bad eye sight, and haven't gotten new glasses in a while.

[dunsparceflinch]

May 17, 2015 5:30:27 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

May 16, 2015 21:32:44 GMT -5 dunsparceflinch said:

Personally, I find the tack driver great for the Lynx because I am going for two shots and because of the low speed that second shot is near where my first shot is.

Except you missed the fact that increasing idle amount also increases speed.

I did. My bad. I guess my experience with the tack driver must be placebo then.