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Most weapons in Planetside 2 can be loaded with soft-point or high-velocity ammunition. Shotguns have slugs, and crossbows have explosive and sensor bolts.

It should be fairly obvious what their general effects and purpose are. However, hard data (with numbers. Numbers are good) is nowhere to be seen. What are the exact values of things?

  • How are damage, range, bullet velocity and trajectory affected?
  • Does slug damage depend on the shotgun?
  • Are these different for each empire and NS weapons?
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  • this is kind of answered in game when you look at the stat comparisons when messing around with the different ammo..?
    – Rapitor
    Mar 1, 2014 at 18:14
  • @Rapitor I just went back into VR training and checked. All it gives is a general description like "high-velocity ammo is faster", which is less than what I'm looking for. Nothing shows up in the numbers, not even extremely obvious things like extended mags.
    – Pvt. Grichmann
    Mar 1, 2014 at 18:59

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Attachment stat changes were data-mined from the game in September 2014. Here is the spreadsheet I will use as a source.

Soft Point

  • Increases maximum damage range to 15m (Effectively reduces hits to kill by 1 in the 10m-15m range)
  • Reduces bullet velocity by 5% for all weapons (Negligible change)
  • Widely considered the best ammunition slot attachment.

High Velocity

  • Increases bullet velocity by 5% for most weapons with some exceptions listed below (Negligible change)
  • Increases vertical recoil by 10% for all weapons except 7.5% for Battle Rifles (More difficult to keep bursts on target)
  • Increases minimum damage range by 10m (Reduces shots to kill in a tiny number of scenarios for SMGs and Carbines)
  • Widely considered to be pointless, as the drawbacks are more significant than the benefits when equipped for its intended purpose of long range combat. May be okay on the few exceptional weapons that gain more than 15% velocity.

Slug Ammunition

  • Decreases number of pellets per shot to 1
  • Increases damage per pellet based on shotgun class: 500 @ 8m -> 334 @ 40m (Automatic and Semi-Automatic) 800 @ 8m -> 400 @ 40m (Pump Action)
  • Increases cone of fire by 75%
  • Does not change the 1.5x headshot damage multiplier of shotguns compared to other weapons 2x
  • Widely considered to be amusing, but not particularly effective with the exception of pump action slugs having the potential to 1HKO on a headshot within about 15m.

High Velocity Exceptions

  • T32 Bull: 670 -> 672 (0.3%)
  • CME: 670 -> 672 (0.3%)
  • Gauss Rifle Burst 650 -> 650 (0%)
  • NC6S Gauss SAW-S 630 -> 650 (3.2%)
  • Razor GD-23 560 -> 650 (16.1%)
  • Reaper DMR 555 -> 650 (17.1%)
  • T1B Cycler 580 -> 650 (12.1%)
  • T5 AMC 570 -> 650 (14.0%)
  • T9 CARV-S 600 -> 650 (8.3%)
  • Corvus VA55 600 -> 650 (8.3%)
  • Equinox VE2 Burst 615 -> 650 (5.7%)
  • SVA-88 630 -> 650 (3.2%)
  • Gauss Compact Burst 500 -> 600 (20%)
  • HC1 Cougar 520 -> 600 (15.4%)
  • TRAC-5 Burst 490 -> 600 (22.4%)
  • Solstice Burst 515 -> 600 (16.5%)
  • AC-X11 480 -> 550 (14.6%)
  • NS-11C 450 -> 550 (22.2%)
  • Pulsar C 515 -> 550 (6.8%)
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  • It's worth noting that slug ammo also does not change the velocity, making it more effective at long range on the 400 velocity shotguns compared to 300 velocity shotguns. Unfortunately, since the Baron cannot equip slugs, this is only useful for the NC MAX's Mattocks.
    – RHINO_Mk.II
    Dec 10, 2014 at 19:17
  • EDIT: Looks like the Baron can equip slugs after all.
    – RHINO_Mk.II
    Dec 14, 2014 at 4:24
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Soft-point ammunition:
Most weapons have damage drop-off starting at 10m, meaning until 10m they do maximum damage, after that they linerarily do less damage the further away the target is. Soft-point ammunition increases the range at which they still do maximum damage to 15m but also decrease the distance at which they still do more than minimum damage by IIRC 5m. It's a straight up buff to very short ranges but lowers your DPS at longer distances, so it's the preferred choice on close quarter weapons like SMGs.

High-velocity ammunition:
HVA increases the speed of your projectiles so they have less vertical drop-off at range and require less leading of targets, making it overall easier to hit targets with single shot or burst fire. However, to compensate, HVA increases the recoil and so makes the weapon harder to handle, reducing it's performance at ranges where you would prefer full-auto. It's the preferred choice for long range weapons. The exact speed and recoil difference is different on each weapon.

Slug ammunition:
Slug ammo damage depends on the shotguns but is always significantly lower than the damage you would do if you hit an enemy with all pellets. I do not remember the exact values, but I think it was 500 for pump action and semi-auto shotguns, 400 for the full auto shotguns. Slug ammo still does a lot of damage, so if you can compensate for the high drop, it's theoretically possible to use them as mid-range sniper rifles or alternatives to battle rifles.

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  • Thanks! That explains a lot. Any hard numbers? Are the range/speed modifiers absolute or percentile?
    – Pvt. Grichmann
    Mar 4, 2014 at 18:08
  • As far as I know, they are percentile. However, SOE has never released any numbers and I'm not aware of any known data mining or experimentation that provided hard numbers either.
    – user1978
    Mar 5, 2014 at 11:00
  • Most of that is correct, however I would like to point out the soft point does not decrease the distance for minimum damage, rather it slows the bullet velocity. Also, high velocity ammo increases the distance for minimum damage for carbines by ~80% and ~40% for other weapons. That second correction was not in effect dbemerlin answered though, as it was introduced on March 21st.
    – user72819
    Mar 26, 2014 at 17:46

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