Vocab/Important Concepts

Time-to-kill/Kill speed (TTK)

For some, this term may be new to you, but is important to understand when discussing/learning about the nebulous art of “balancing.”

What is it?: Time-to-kill (TTK) is what it describes: How long it takes for something to kill something else. For example, a Drozd might have a TTK of 5 seconds against a human wearing M86 armor, which means when shooting said human with the drozd it takes 5 seconds to kill the opponent, or a Dravon might have a TTK of 15 seconds against a plastitanium wall.

Why is it important?: TTK is essential to know about when balancing weapons, as it can be used as a measure of something’s effectiveness against something else. However, it is always hard to compare TTKs between gear due to the situational nature of every measuring - it is best used to estimate something’s effectiveness, and if it consistently has too high or too low of a TTK, it might be a sign something about the gear should be tweaked.

Accessibility

Accessibility is another important aspect of gear that should be accounted for when balancing an item.

What is it?: Accessibility describes how easy it is for someone to acquire a given piece of gear, or acquire stuff to make said gear function. For example, a one-of-a-kind weapon may have different balancing than a gun every schmuck starts out with, and a gun that uses really expensive bullets may also have different balancing than a gun that can always fire. Common things that determine a piece of gear’s accessibility include prerequisite research, material cost, and limited copies.

Why is it important?: Accessibility is important for balancing gear as it can set the standard for statistics in a given gear’s category. If every person spawns in with 50% protection armor, that becomes the default statistic for armor due to its accessibility. The same goes for ammunition or other things needed for gear to function - if strong ammo becomes too common then most of the time you’ll just encounter the strong ammo.

Gimmicks

Gimmicks and other fun differences can define a piece of gear. If every weapon was a marginally different type of SMG or rifle, ground combat would not be fun - Variety is the spice of life.

What is it?: “Gimmicks” are things that set a weapon apart in terms of function compared to other weapons. This can be as simple as “it shoots faster but weaker”, to “it has a long ranged scope”, to “it uses a different ammo type, has invisible tracers and can store a spare magazine”.

Why is it important?: As said above, gimmicks are important to make a weapon stand out. RESPRITES AND VERY SLIGHT TWEAKS OF EXISTING WEAPONS ARE VERY BORING!! Gimmicks should still keep in mind accessibility, TTK, and other advantages that come with said gimmicks. A gimmick should never make a piece of gear so powerful as to make it “the meta,” and due to the quirkiness of gear gimmicks it is hard to tell when this is the case.