As a fellow kneecap enjoyer, I've noticed discrepancies between several calibres and the flesh damage they are capable of. Specifically, calibres that can hit certain breakpoints in damage far outperform those that can't.
PMC's have 440 health, so, for example, a bullet that does at least 88 damage will kill a full health PMC in 5 shots, while a bullet that does 87 or less will take at least 6, excluding damage from bleeds. Here's a table showing the first couple breakpoints for damage:
| Minimum Shots to Kill | Minimum Damage Needed |
|---|---|
| 2 | 220 |
| 3 | 147 |
| 4 | 110 |
| 5 | 88 |
| 6 | 74 |
| 7 | 63 |
Beyond 7 bullets, you're probably better off aiming for the face in my opinion.
Here's a table comparing calibres that actually have a flesh damage round and their fastest firing guns:
| Calibre | Bullet | Damage | Best Gun | Best Gun Firerate | Hits Needed | Optimal Time to Kill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9×18 | SP7 | 77 | Klin | 1000 | 6 | 0.36 seconds |
| 9×19 | RIP | 102 | MP9-N | 1100 | 5 | 0.27 seconds |
| 7.62×25 | LRNPC | 66 | PPSh | 1000 | 7 | 0.42 seconds |
| .45 | RIP | 137 | Vector | 1100 | 4 | 0.22 seconds |
| 12/70 | RIP | 265 | Saiga-12/MP-155/MP-153 | 40 | 2 | 3 seconds |
| 5.7×28 | R37.F | 98 | P90 | 900 | 5 | 0.33 seconds |
| 5.45×39 | HP | 74 | AK-74 | 650 | 6 | 0.55 seconds |
| 5.56×45 | Warmageddon | 85 | HK416 | 850 | 6 | 0.42 seconds |
| 7.62×39 | HP | 87 | Mutant | 650 | 6 | 0.55 seconds |
| 7.62×51 | Ultra Nosler | 107 | SA-58 | 700 | 5 | 0.42 seconds |
| 12.7×55 | PS12A | 165 | ASh-12 | 650 | 3 | 0.27 seconds |
| .366 | Geksa | 110 | VPO-209 | 600 | 4 | 0.4 seconds |
Not included in the table: .300, 4.6×30, .338, 7.62x54R, 20/70, 23/75, 9×21, and 9×39
Important point! This table completely ignores recoil, bleed chance, recoil and accuracy buffs or debuffs, and cost or availability of the bullets and guns.
There's a lot of info in this table but there's a couple key takeaways I think are relevant:
Pistol calibres are strictly better than rifle calibres in terms of flesh damage and TTK
The in-game values for the firerates of shotguns is wrong; I can definitely shoot faster than every 1.5 seconds. As estimation I would say the actual TTK is close to the 0.5 second mark
In the interest of promoting variety I think the rifle calibres should be buffed so that they are more comparable to the SMGs in terms of optimal TTK. Importantly, even if the bullets were buffed to be competitive, the SMGs would still be king of legs due to higher firerate and lower recoil.
Here's what I would change:
Warmageddon -> at least 88 damage (+3) -> TTK goes to 0.35
7.62 HP -> at least 88 damage (+1) -> TTK goes to 0.46 and provides a meaningful difference between 5.45 HP and 7.62 HP
Ultra Nosler -> at least 110 damage (+3) -> TTK goes to 0.34
As you can see, these proposed changes would not put any rifle ahead of the best SMGs, merely make them able to compete. It only involves adding a total of 7 damage in total! I also think these changes might help bullets that must be some of the most infrequently used in the game see some light.
There's one last change I would suggest, and that's for 12/70 RIP. Not listed in the table is SuperFormance HP, which does 220 damage and has a recoil reduction modifier of -15 whereas RIP has an increase of +35 for the exact same TTK. Furthermore, the wiki says they have similar bleed probabilities as well. Thus I think RIP should be buffed to at least 294 damage. Why? My understanding of how limb penetration works is that the first limb hit takes full damage and then the second takes half. Thus, at 294 damage, you would be able to instakill someone with RIP if you hit both their legs with one shot, a tradeoff between SuperFormance and its low recoil or RIP and the one-shot potential.
Thoughts? Not sure how the rest of the community views legs as a viable combat tactic.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/s5lwwj/lets_talk_about_leg_meta_balance/
