Bullet drop

WoW. They could at least make the mil dots useful then instead of guessing.

I actually like this, in theory. In practice though, compensating for it with just a generic crosshair will be annoying.

But hey, theoretical skillgaps and whatnot.

Bad inclusion. Kinda breaks the lore of mass effect field based weaponry. The projectiles should be moving so fast that drop shouldn't be an issue at those ranges.

Love it, the first cool thing I did not expect to see in ME:A. Though the drop is a little much for 200 meters, I used to shoot a lot long range matches with a .300WM target rifle, at 200 meters drop with my very hot loads was only like 15 centimeters / 6 inches when using a 100 meter zero.

That drop is a little much for a precision rifle that far in the future, but this might be a gameplay choice .


Would have loved to see a christmas tree / mildot holdover though. Like the Horus H59 scope: 

Yeah, it really makes no sense, this weapon appears to be hitscan (as railguns should be at these ranges), so how the hell does the projectile have time to drop that much before it hits its target?

I actually think it could be explained, or at least explained well enough not to talk about a total design flaw. 

Recoil is a thing, even with guns far in the future, if stuff comes out of the barrel Newtons third law kicks in. When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. Period. 

With velocity energy and recoil increases exponentially, so increasing the velocity by only two times results in absolutely dramatic increase in recoil. With velocity you quickly enter the territory of producing so much recoil the gun itself becomes a projectile, propelling itself through the wielders shoulder. 

To combat the effect of recoil you can do two things: make the gun much heavier or decrease the weight of the bullet. A lot. The second option is obviously far more practical for small arms. 

The problem is, at a certain scale projectiles become increasingly ballistically unfavorable, despite their streamlined shape and blistering velocities. With decreasing size the ballistic efficiency decreases exponentially, meaning while the projectiles leave the barrel at super fast velocities they are so lightweight and tiny they shed their velocity really fast due to air friction and bad ballistic coefficient, resulting in noticeable drop at extended ranges.  Thats why real life long range rifles shoot relatively large projectiles, they retain their velocities much better than small projectiles. 

So, in a nutshell, it could be explained that the projectiles are VERY small and lightweight to make recoil bearable at those crazy velocities, resulting in said projectiles slowing down fast at extended ranges resulting in drop. -> If fired on planets with atmospheres. 


One thing makes no sense though, drop is just a side effect by time of flight of the projectile, so besides drop they should also make the projectile actually get to the target. So you have to compensate for drop and lead the target if its moving.  

Who knows?
As a gameplay mechanic to limit the effectiveness of the precision rifles it would make sense to make the effectiveness dwindle the further the projectile travels, - otherwise large open scale areas would turn into complete sniper parties with people shooting each other in the face from several thousand meters distance. Physics is whats prevent this from happening in real life too.

Real life bullets lose a lot of velocity due to air friction, a typical rifle bullet starting out at mach 3 is only a tad above the speed of sound at 1000 meters, resulting in time of flight of up to 1.7 seconds and lots of energy loss.   

And jump height/ walk speed. It would make for a compelling gameplay system, but I doubt see something like that.

That part of the lore was never fun and only an excuse to avoid angry newbs complaining about bullet drop.

Get gud now.

Dat FPS. It's so beautiful.

*struggles at 30fps*

Looking at that video again, bullet drop seems to be there, but not bullet travel time. It just hits lower than your crosshair, immediately upon pulling the trigger.