Information on the effects of Familiarity

[Tonicboy]

Hey all,

 

I just thought I'd share some info on the effect of a weapon's Familiary attribute. First of all, I have two snipers that are almost identical. Both are Lvl.13, have Shooting skill of 129, and have the exact same Skills. However, one was using an SVT-40 whereas the other was using a Mosin Scoped. Personally, I highly prefer teh SVT-40 but they are not all that common in the game so, what can you do, eh? But eventually I came upon another SVT-40 and decided to equip the other sniper with it (my main character is also a sniper and uses the coveted Carbine 98K Silenced).

 

So, at this point, we have controlled almost all variables except for the sniper's Familiarity with said weapon. And by the way, Arvin, my sniper who had been using the SVT-40 for a while had a Familiarity of 20 while Zinaida, obviously, had a Familiarity of 0. So, I lined up both snipers in the exact same spot (one after the other), and had another character stand far away, just inside the range of the rifle to see what their hit percentages were. Both characters were shooting Snap Shot.

 

Arvin had a To-Hit of 79% while Zinaida had 51%. I then proceeded to train up Zinaida on the SVT-40 and took some more measurements at various Familiarity levels. At level 10, her To-Hit was 66%. At 15, it was 73%, and at 20, it was 80%. It should be noted that a small contamination was introduced because, somewhere around achieving level 10 Familiarity, Zinaida's Shooting skill went up to 130, which explains the discrepency between Arvin's To-Hit of 79% and Zinaida's 80% at level 20 Familiarity.

 

So, there you have it. I hope that helps shed some light on the effects of Familiarity, which I have seen many people ask about. The bottom line is, Familiarity is very much worth the trouble of developing, as it can increase your To-Hit by 50%. And by the way, in case anyone was wondering, it takes roughly 500 shots to develop your Familiarity to 20 (and, of course, the Increased Familiarity skill).

 

-Tonicboy

[Crimsomnia]

Well, that was nice to know. I really never thought familiarity would have THAT great effects on shooting accuracy.

 

Too bad the familiarity points don't seem to rise very fast. I'm pretty close to the final mission of S², but the familiarity points of my characters arent's still very high. Even my sniper has been using the same weapon for half of the game, but familiarity lies still below 5. It isn't very high on any other characters either, but I've made the use large variety of weapons, mainly because there are situations where SMG's are the number one choice, and situations where pistols do the damage. And of course I've always changed the old bullet sprayer for a better one, and then the familiarity points have to start generating from the start.

 

Let's see what happens when I decide to replay the game.

[Tonicboy]

Well, I make it a point to do target practice for at least 5 minutes at the end of every mission to hone my characters' shooting skill. If you do that, it's fairly easy to develop Familiarity quickly, not to mention increase your Shooting skill! The hardest jump to make in Familiarity is from 0 to 1, which takes something like 100-200 shots (more if you have Increased Familiarity which slows the rate at which it is increased). Also, I regularly swicth between Rifle, SMG and Pistol myself, so this is not necessarily detrimental. Switching weapons for one or two rounds will not affect Familiarity at all - you need to ignore a weapon for dozens of turns to have any effect.

[Crimsomnia]

Switching weapons for one or two rounds will not affect Familiarity at all

 

I can't agree with that. I had Zinaida to use her sidearm pistol to kill couple renegades who got too close(sniper rifle would've been a risky choice at point-blank range. it doesn't always hit.), and her familiarity with the rifle dropped by one point after I had her fire the first shot from the pistol. The second(and the final) shot however didn't decrease the familiarity anymore.

[Tonicboy]

I can't agree with that. I had Zinaida to use her sidearm pistol to kill couple renegades who got too close(sniper rifle would've been a risky choice at point-blank range. it doesn't always hit.), and her familiarity with the rifle dropped by one point after I had her fire the first shot from the pistol. The second(and the final) shot however didn't decrease the familiarity anymore.

Ok, after some more experimentation, I would have to agree with you. The good news, though, is that it seems that your Familiarity with a weapon drops with exactly the amount of shots (or bursts) you take with another weapon. So, if you switch to your pistol and take 5 shots, it takes exactly 5 shots with your rifle to get back to your previous level. So, this is not really a big deal at all because you should only be using your secondary weapons sporadically, and losing 1 point of Familiarity occasionally is nothing.