Battlefield 3 Ballistics: Description and Formulas
I’ve made a few ballistic tables based upon the information available about Battlefield 3 mechanics and weapon stats; these tables are only meant to be a rough guide to where you place your shots in Battlefield 3, and probably are not an entirely accurate representation of in-game mechanics and physics. Bear in mind that the author has no (dependable) experience in ballistics, physics, maths, or in-game physics, so please excuse any confusion over terminology, phrasing, etc. Information for providing feedback can be found below. This is a work in progress.
The tables can be accessed here:
As an excel file:
Terms used:
Distance: horizontal distance at which the bullet drop is calculated or horizontal distance between the muzzle and the target in meters.
Bullet Drop: vertical distance (or angle) from horizontal plane when the projectile path crosses certain distances; calculated assuming that the projectile is fired at 0m height and 0° elevation.
mrad: a unit of angle, concatenation of miliradians, or 1/1000 of a radian; functionally the same as NATO mil (in mil-dot). Note: in-game mil-dot 6x and 8x scopes are not representative of the NATO mil. Calculations pending.
MoA: abbreviation of minutes of angle, or 1/60 of a degree; also known as arcminutes/arcmin
Elevation: angle between barrel and horizontal plane—in this case, the elevation needed to compensate for bullet drop.
Time of flight: the time needed, in seconds, for a projectile to reach said horizontal distance. (It appears that projectiles have a lifetime of 1.5s, beyond which the engine would not recognize hits.)
~~ Stats about weapons with sound suppressor is temporary, not confirmed ~~
Sources of information:
Projectile speeds and gravitational acceleration:
http://denkirson.xanga.com/756891604/bf3/
Formulas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajectory_of_a_projectile
Formulas:
Assuming that DICE did not introduce air friction into their Frostbite 2 engine, the bullet drop, elevation compensation, and time of flight can be calculating using simple formulas for projectiles and their trajectories.
Bullet Drop:
The equation used for bullet drop is derived from this one. The letters for specific variables remain the same.
Elevation
Formula source.
Time of Flight
Source (ignore the rightmost part)
Feedback
If you have tested the values, want to contribute, want to contact me for any reason relating to this, add me on battlelog (“RaptorActual”), or PM me on Reddit (“RaptorActual”). Please thank redditor sipa as well as he contributed considerably to the calculations, scope conversions, tables, and graphs.
To-do
- Ballistic tables for other weapons (Assault Rifles, Carbines, SMGs, etc.) (done)
- (?) Elevation compensation in metres? (done)
- (?) Amount of lead at each distance when target is running or sprinting
- (?) Line chart (done)
- (?) Relevance to weapon scopes, etc.
- (?) Suppressed weapons