Battlefield 2042 Weapon Mechanics

This page contains information regarding the functioning of weapons in Battlefield 2042, throughout which multiple abbreviations may be used for brevity. Their individual meanings are as follows:

ADS	Aim Down Sight
BTK	Bullets to Kill
EFTK	Estimated Frames to Kill
FTK	Frames to Kill
FSM	First Shot Multiplier
FSSM	First Shot Spread Multiplier
HRec	Horizontal Recoil
IRM	Initial Recoil Multipliers
SDec	Spread Decrease
SIPS	Spread Increase per Shot
TTK	Time to Kill
VRec	Vertical Recoil

When using a controller, a player's weapon will receive the following benefits:

• 0.75x FSM
• 0.75x VRec
• 0.75x HRec

When using the selected semi-automatic or burst-fire mode of a select-fire primary weapon, the weapon will receive the following benefits when firing while aiming:

• 0.8x FSM
• 0.8x VRec
• 0.8x HRec
• 0.8x SIPS
• 0.8x Min. Spread
• 0.8x Max. Spread

    A player's weapon will receive the following benefits depending on their soldier's stance:

• Crouched:
  • 0.9x FSM
  • 0.9x VRec
  • 0.9x HRec
• Prone:
  • 0.85x FSM
  • 0.85x VRec
  • 0.85x HRec

Spread is applied per-shot (spread increase per shot, or “SIPS”), as it has been in previous Battlefield titles. Spread decreases even when the gun is not idle (see: in between shots while firing at max rate of fire), decreasing at an accelerating rate per frame.

- Spread exponent: Dictates rate of spread decrease acceleration
- Spread offset: Fixed value for spread decrease per frame
- Spread coefficient: Beta for spread decrease acceleration

\[ \text{spread}_n \; = \; \text{spread}_{n-1} - \frac{1}{\text{simrate}} \cdot (\text{coef} \cdot (\text{spread}_{n-1} - \text{minspread})^\text{exp} + \text{offset}) \]

Note: "n" designates the current frame, of which current spread is calculated, simrate = Battlefield 2042's logic loop of 45hz

This new system for spread decrease results in a spread curve that is vaguely logarithmic, with diminishing spread penalties for further sustained fire. ADS (zoomed) spread uses uniform distribution over radius, which features an inner bias. Hipfire uses a uniform distribution over the area meaning that shots are distributed evenly throughout the area of the spread cone.

In Battlefield 2042, idle spread decrease is non-linear due to spread decrease offset values of zero. The spread decrease offset effectively sets the number of degrees of spread decreased per frame, where the idle time dictates the number of frames after a shot is figured that must be surpassed before the idle spread decrease rates are used. Idle spread decrease is only in consideration for transitions in movement or firing state (ADS/zoomed to hipfire/unzoomed), or very slowly pacing/tapfiring shots.

Compared to Battlefield V, spread decrease will not scale as aggressively thanks to having an exponent of 1 and an offset of 0. Instead, it is largely dependent on a given weapon's coefficient value.

As with all Battlefield games since Battlefield 1, vertical recoil is a fixed (non-randomized) value. While vertical recoil can accelerate, the increases and decreases are at discrete, known intervals. Horizontal recoil works as it always had in previous games, consisting of a number line (e.g. -0.3 to 0.3), where a randomly generated value is produced, with a uniform distribution.

Battlefield 2042 has introduced an additional recoil system, to be called Initial Recoil Multipliers (IRM). IRM, when present, provides a set of multipliers to be applied, in order, to an amount of rounds fired from a weapon equal to the amount of multipliers provided. IRM can be applied to both HRec and VRec separately.

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For example, say IRM provides a weapon, with the recoil values of 0.5 up, 0.15 left, and 0.2 right, the multipliers of:

VRec = [1.8, 1.5, 1.3, 1.1, 1.0]

HRec = [1.2, 1.2, 0.8, 0.8, 1.1]

The resulting recoil for the first five shots of this weapon would be:

Up:    0.90, 0.75, 0.65, 0.55, 0.5

Left:  0.18, 0.18, 0.12, 0.12, 0.165

Right: 0.24, 0.24, 0.16, 0.16, 0.22

Not only is each of these five shots unique to one another, but all are different compared to the base values of the weapon.

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It should be stated that not all weapons have IRM. Those that do have IRM may differ in IRM severity and duration compared to other weapons. Even within the same weapon, IRM may not have the same amount of values (or values at all) for both VRec and HRec.

Recoil decrease works as it does since Battlefield 1, persisting even when the gun is not idle, and decelerates as time passes.