The best ammo

The Best Ammo

Updated: December 25th, 2020

Ammo types in EFT have several performance variables:

1. Caliber
2. Velocity
3. Penetration power
4. Damage
5. Fragmentation chance 

So how to determine the best ammo? If we consider the effect on target, then the two main parameters of the terminal ballistic performance of a round are penetration power and damage.

This first post will explain character health and ammo performance basics

Note: For a per-ammo sheet on ammo types, click on this link or navigate to the top of the blog or to the side bar.

 Character Health

Each hit location has a different amount of hitpoints and the whole body has 435 hitpoints in total. Let's take a brief look at how damage to bodyparts affects the player:

• A shot to the head will kill the player instantly if the damage is at least 35 hitpoints. Almost any hit to the head is a guaranteed kill with a few exceptions.
• A chest hit has no negative consequences currently unless the damage reaches 80 points. Then the target will be dead instantly.
• If the stomach is zeroed out (or "blacked out" as it is referred to in EFT), the character will start losing water at a higher rate. Once the water reaches zero, the character is dead after a short time. This can be stalled by continously drinking water, but it can not be fixed in a raid.
• Zeroed out arms will cause the aim to shake and stamina to deplete very quickly when aiming down sights. This can be compensated for by pain reducing medical items (painkillers, morphine and similar). 
• Zeroed out legs will cause the target to limp and prevents running or sprinting. Unless painkillers are applied, then running and sprinting is possible but it will cause further damage to the character and it will emit pain sounds, possibly ruining covert movement.

An additional effect is fractures. These can happen to arms and legs when hit by bullets. They can be fixed by applying splints. To alleviate the effects for a short time if not splint is at hand, various painkillers can be used.

 

New in 0.12: Compact Surgical Kit
The CMS can heal a blacked out bodypart in the raid, one application takes 16 seconds to complete.

 

Ammo Performance Basics

This graph shows the caliber average for each ammo type. The x-axis (horizontal) is for hp damage and the y-axis (vertical) is for penetration power. Ammo in the top-right combines hard hitting penetration power with hp damage. As we follow the graph to the bottom-left, ammo gets progressively worse. 

However, there are ammo types that deviate from this. The more an ammo type deviates, the more specialized it becomes. Two extreme outliers are the .366 and the 4.6x30. The .366 excels at hp damage while remaining in the upper pistol range for penetration power. The 4.6x30 is a specialized armor-piercing caliber that compromises hp damage for armor penetration. The 0.12 patch added the 12.7x55 caliber which marks the highest damage for ammunition fired from rifled barrels. The absolute highest damage is generated by shotgun ammo (which is further examined in another paragraph).

The intermediate AR calibers (5.45x39, 5.56x45, 7.62x39) cluster in the center of the graph. Their position indicates the versatility they provide as they do not deviate into specialized ammo.

Fragmentation chance

When a bullet strikes anything solid, a human target, wooden box, or a piece of metal, it has the chance to fragment into pieces. These pieces then travel on their own until they either get stuck in the object they fragmented in, or run out of kinetic energy and fall to the ground or bump into anything solid.

Fragmentation on human targets

When a bullet fragments on hitting a human in EFT it inflicts more damage than the base damage of the bullet. An example: A target is hit in the chest with an M855, the target drops dead from it, although the damage output of this bullet is 50, 30 points fewer than required to one shot a chest. What caused the one shot kill is the bullet shattering on contact with the chest and applying at least 30 extra damage. How much damage a bullet fragment does is not possible to determine with ingame tests.

Softer ammo types tend to fragment more. The 5.56 HP has a 70% fragmentation chance. However some more armor-piercing capable rounds like the 5.56 M855 offer 40% fragmentation chance. And if you wonder if bullet fragmentation interferes with armor penetration, it does not. We have observed in our tests that bullets can penetrate, then fragment and apply extra damage.

The fragmentation chance is virtually a chance for a one-shot kill to center of mass.


Important note: Very soft (low penetration) ammo appears to be bugged and will never cause bonus damage on targets. This has been a long-standing issue. Weapons like VPO-209 suffer from this the most as its  high fragmentation chance never applies. If you would like to see this fixed ,then write to BSG in support tickets about this bug. The full potential of soft slugs and .366 depends on this.

Fragmentation on solid objects

This can be observed by shooting at an object and checking its backside for exit bullet decals. If only one bullet hit the object, but the far side shows two or more exit holes, then it fragmented and the fragments had enough energy to exit on the other side. It is also possible for a bullet to fragment but for its fragments to get stuck in the object without exit holes.

Penetration 

When a bullet strikes armor, the following set of events happens:

The bullet's penetration power is compared against the armor class and the amount of armor points left. The penetration borders of the armor classes we determined as follows:

 

These numbers were dialed in over the last two years with many live tests and expensive, new-condition armors.

Bullet strikes armor

If the bullet strikes an armor class that can resist it, then the game checks the amount of armor points left. If the armor points are sufficiently low, the bullet will successfully penetrate. The next part was extensively tested and is a coarse approximation of what "sufficiently low" means.

Armor fails when penetration power matches the armor points left.

An example:

• A 7.62x25 PST (19 pen) breaks through class 3 armor when there is 15-20 armor points left.
• A 7.62x25 LRNPC (5 pen) breaks through class 3 armor when there is 5-10 armor points left.

Bullet checks for penetration

Once these armor checks are completed, the bullet can either penetrate or not. If it fails to break through, it might still inflict small amounts of blunt damage. The damage depends on the force of the projectile and the armor class.

Bullet penetrates

If the armor successfully penetrates, then it can get stuck or overpenetrate and fragment in both cases. A fragmentation inside the target applies extra damage. Overpenetration causes the bullet to exit the target and keep flying. Whether the target's armor suffers extra armor point loss on over penetration is not known.

If the bullet penetrates (without fragmenting) then its damage can be reduced (because it was slowed down by the loss of kinetic energy left in the armor). The damage reduction depends on penetration power and armor class. The M855 round will lose 38% of its damage, while a 7.62x51 would completely smash through with 0% damage reduction. Harder ammo delivers more damage through armor.