Accuracy Math

[.Diabrete.]

Hi, im confused about this and maybe someone can explain why this happens.

So i put heavy caliber on ogris, and the accuracy goes from 100 to 1.7! my math says if the accuracy is supposed to suffer 55%, i should have, 45 units of accuracy.

 

[Tsukinoki]

The accuracy stat in the arsenal UI is useless, as is the number on the mod.

The accuracy number there is actually the resulting number from a bunch of different stats that are combined behind the scenes and weighted differently per gun that we never see.
The accuracy stat is a conglomeration of stats such as:
 -Initial Cone of Fire
 -Maximum Cone of Fire
 -How quickly the CoF grows/shrinks
 -Accuracy of first shot
 -Chance of shots not landing on reticule(shot deviation, which has a much larger impact on projectile weapons vs hitscan)
 -How quickly said chance changes through continued fire and not firing
And a few more beyond that.
Now the tricky part comes in: Every gun weights the different accuracy sub-stats differently.  A phage has no weight on the accuracy of the first shot as that's fixed so it doesn't play into the accuracy number at all for example.  Anyways the arsenal UI takes all of the sub-stats for accuracy, feeds them through a function that combines them with the weight the weapon puts on those accuracy stats and spits out the singular accuracy number you see in the aresenal....which is basically useless due to all of the behind the scene math and weighting.

So now that that is out of the way what about the accuracy effecting mods?
Well, it has its own internal weights and numbers for each of the substats that it affects and boils it down through a similar function to spit out a singular number, such as "-45% accuracy" in much the same way the guns do.  Again a basically useless number due to all of the behind the scenes math and weightings being used.

So what happens when you combine an accuracy effecting mod with a weapon?  Well the mod changes the base stats of the weapon.  In fact it changes each weapon the same way.  For instance (and this is random for examples not actual numbers) it could make the initial cone of fire 20% bigger.  The weapon meanwhile takes the accuracy stats with these modifiers and applies its weights to those numbers to re-calculate the number given in the arsenal UI, which is why the number can change so drastically on some weapons and not much at all on others.
For example: If the accuracy mod drastically increases shot deviation within the CoF this wouldn't have a huge effect on an automatic weapon but would have a massive effect on a sniper rifle, but the mod changes both weapons the same way.  But since the different weapons weight it differently the automatic weapon won't show nearly as large a change to the accuracy number as the sniper rifle would if all other accuracy-relating stats stayed the same.

Basically it boils down to: That arsenal UI accuracy number is complete and utter BS and DE really needs to make accuracy a far more transparent system, especially with the mods that interact with it.
Hopefully DE actually gets around to doing that....

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

Heavy Caliber affects each weapon differently. We don't know why, but it does.

The devs have never released the Accuracy formula, and no one has been able to reverse engineer it, so we can't calculate accuracy.

 

 

EDIT ^He^ put it much better than I could.

Edited April 28, 2017 by -AoN-CanoLathra-

[(PSN)zeltwang]

I tried HC on my Ogris and it is AWFUL.  Forget what the numbers say, it is straight up garbage with HC on.  You have ZERO clue where that shell is going.  You won't need to calculate anything other than the mod will not work on the Ogris. 

[.Diabrete.]

Thanks for the explanation, and yes it's not a great combination, HC + Ogris.

So we're all in the same page, and this is not a bug, you know, because it seems like a bug since the difference is huge.

Thanks again.