Odyssey Falloff and Increased Range Mods
How Far Does your gun shoot?
Odyssey foot weapon falloff turns out to be very simple. With the exception of the L-6 rocket launcher, all guns have a maximum range of 200 meters, and falloff is linear from the Optimal Range point until 200 meters. The following image is raw data from taking shots at an SRV, measuring range with the HUD and watching shield levels drop as a consistent number of shots were fired (usually a full clip, but the Executioner tests used single shots). Guns with an applied Increased Range mod are marked "Range" (for the Oppressor and Executioner).
The trend lines are clear: all weapons (except one) show a trend line zeroing out at about 205 meters; we believe that the extra 5 meters are the size of the SRV's shield bubble as observed Executioner damage at 195 meters measured exactly mapped to predicted damage at 190 meters, and shots at 205 meters did not impact. So, 200 meters.
The lines are across the board in terms of absolute damage because it was a grab bag of available weapons. The Aphelion ripped up shields and the C-44 didn't. The Oppressor with Range is less damage than the one without because we used partial clips with that G5 weapon to avoid overwhelming the SRV's shields, vs the G2/G3 used for the base range test. The raw numbers aren't critical - the point is that the trend lines are consistent.
The exception to consistency is the Zenith. At 150 meters range, the burst fire simply wouldn't stay on target. But all its data points up to 100 meters are in line with everything else, so I'm comfortable throwing that one data point at 150 m out as an outlier.
Increased Range
One of the (irreversible once applied) engineering mods available to guns is Increased Range: +50% to the optimal range of your gun. Sounds great on something like the Tormentor pistol (15 m Optimal) or the Intimidator shotgun (7 m Optimal), high-damage weapons that want their individual shots to really count! Push off falloff as long as you can!
Well... not really. The Tormentor goes from 15 meters to 23 meters with Increased Range. That is, its falloff is linear over 185 meters or over 177 meters - a difference of 4%. The Intimidator is worse (but the mod also appears to tighten the spread of the weapon, which is its own benefit). A 35-meter falloff weapon (a Zenith or an Oppressor) sees at most a 9% damage improvement from Increased Range, if used at its new Optimal Range of 50 meters. Below 35 meters, no difference at all. Anywhere but the new Optimal Range inflection point, less than that 9%.
Long-range rifles (the 50-meter AR-50, 70-meter Aphelion, and 100-meter Executioner) see potentially larger effects because their falloff trends are steeper. However, that's balanced by the ranges at which those gains are found. Below is a table with all weapon falloff categories shown with normalized damage and the point of maximum damage difference highlighted.
So, what does that mean? Judging distances on foot is tricky, as the HUD generally doesn't show personnel as targets. Below are comparison shots of the Aphelion and AR-50 at 50 meters and 100 meters, both aiming down stock sights. At 50 meters both guns are doing full damage (but the AR is at its limit). At 100 meters the Aphelion is down to 77% damage and the AR-50 down to 67%; with Increased Range, those damage values would rise to 100% and 80% (+23% and +13%), respectively.
Thanks to CMDRs JVMMs, Aya Lott, and Jack Borson for shooting at my SRV for this test.