What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and in this video I want to take some time to fully explain
how exactly Kali’s new the new Sniper Rifle, the CSRX 300 will work in terms of its damage
and damage drop-off and also how damage is dealt when multiple operators are hit due
to the new target penetration mechanics (for the CSRX 300 of course but also for all other guns).
Let’s jump straight in!
The unthinkable has actually materialised.
Players have been wondering about a bolt-action sniper rifle in Siege for quite a while now
but I for one was never expecting it to appear because of the fast paced, close range nature
of the game.
To me, the idea of a really slow firing rifle never really made much sense because to make
up for the slow fire rate, the gun would have to be super powerful, which could then easily
lead to frustration when you suddenly die to one shot out of nowhere.
But, oh wonder of wonders, the devs seem to have actually come up with a solution that
might just work out.
I still think that a slow firing gun like this will be very challenging to do well with
for most players but let’s discuss that more later on.
As you will probably know by now, the CSRX (… I’m going to say: “Combat Sniper
Rifle – Xtra”) has a special mechanic that allows it to down any operator, at any
distance with a single body shot, even when shooting through soft walls or other operators.
This is a special ability that is a completely separate mechanic layered over the top of
the gun’s regular damage profile because there is no way in which you could achieve
this effect with regular damage modelling, right?
Every operator has 100 hit points and then an additional 20 HP of “down but not out” health.
So in theory, damage of 120 or more would mean instant death for 3 speed operators but
at 120, 1 speeds would only take 96 damage with a body shot, so they wouldn’t even get downed.
Getting consistent 1-shot-downs is impossible and that’s without even taking damage drop-off into account.
I think that adding a 1-shot-down mechanic is a pretty clever solution here because it
limits the frustration effect of Kali (at least you’re not dying instantly to a single
shot) but at the same time it makes a bolt action weapon kind of viable.
But, when you don’t hit the head (which is of course an instant kill) or the body,
the listed damage of the gun and the behind the scenes damage drop-off still applies.
So that’s basically arm and leg shots that then over-penetrate without passing into the
upper body or head of the enemy.
And at this stage, before going into the damage and damage drop-off of the CSRX 300, it might
be worth interjecting some info about how the new penetration system works.
A few months ago, they changed penetration to soft surfaces, this season they add in
penetration to character models so let me recap all of that briefly before we move on!
For almost 4 years of Rainbow Six Siege, guns used to be able to shoot through an unlimited
number of soft walls which meant that in theory, you could die to a single shot, through 3
or 4 walls, fired randomly into a wall from halfway across the map.
Well, maybe randomly but most likely by a closet hacker who knew exactly where you were
and then immediately typed into the chat: “OMG WUT CRAZY HOW HOW HOW???
LMAO OMEGALUL WTF!!!”
Getting a super lucky kill through multiple different walls, was a pretty cool thing to
happen (as long as you were the one pulling the trigger) but let’s be fair, there would
always be a huge dose of luck involved and for the person on the other end, that kind
of thing was just frustrating.
And so, 2 season ago, the wall penetration system was changed to so that all weapons
(that had been released up until then) could only shoot through two layers of soft surfaces
(i.e. one wall) and after that the bullet would impact the next surface but not go through.
And of course as before, every surface that a bullet travels through reduces its damage
by 30% but since for standard weapons that can only be up to two surfaces now, the multiplier
can either be 0.7 or 0.49.
Now the new system of character model penetration coming with Operation Shifting Tides makes
things pretty complicated when you want to sit down and calculate all of the different
damage modifiers that are stacked on top of each other but the way it’s looking to right
now, it should actually make the game far more consistent in practice (at least for
most weapon classes).
Way back in the day, arms in Rainbow Six Siege used to have the same damage modifiers as
legs (i.e. 0.75 for 3 and 2 speeds and 0.65 for 1 speeds).
That was changed ages ago though and arms were simply counted as part of the upper body
because of the way the operators carry their weapons.
You could hose down an opponent with well-aimed fire at the torso but because of the arms
being held out in front of the body, the actual damage you would do was quite arbitrary.
Some of your bullets might get lucky and pass by the arms and others might not, resulting
in lower damage that had nothing to do with your aim.
Changing the arms to be part of the torso hitbox definitely removed this problem and
I honestly would have been happy with this as a permanent solution but at the same time,
I think the new system is really cool and introduces some fine nuances that are a definite improvement.
Arms have been grouped together with the legs again with the old damage modifiers but most
weapons will now over-penetrate the limbs and strike whatever is behind and out of all
of the strike zones that are hit, it’s the highest one that will count.
So for example, hitting the arms and then the body, will count as a direct body shot
and do 1x damage.
Hitting the arms and then the head will result in a headshot, which has now been confirmed
as a 50x damage multiplier and will always mean instant death.
Only if you hit the arms from the side and the rest of the body is not in behind them,
do you get the relevant limb damage multiplier and that all makes sense so far, I hope.
Because here is where things become a little complicated.
You may well have seen this graphic over the last week or so, showing us the new penetration
classifications for each weapon class in Siege and as you can see, there are now three different
types of penetration.
The graphic is a great starting point but it does leave a number of questions open.
Like what does simple penetration actually mean?
Do the bullets from these guns go through arms and hit whatever is behind them?
What about legs, do they work the same?
And when it comes to full penetration, how many bodies are we talking about?
Let’s just start at the top and work our way down and first up is “No Penetration”.
Shotguns and machine pistols will not penetrate body parts and that basically means no change
then because that is the way guns have always worked in Siege, right?
Well, yes but now that the 0.75 & 0.65 arm damage multiplier are back, it seems that
when it comes to shotguns and machine pistols, we’re returning to the bad old days of Siege
where you could aim straight at the chest of an opponent but get almost randomly punished
with lower damage because the arms got in the way.
And headshots of flashed or stunned opponents can still be blocked by the hands…
I’m honestly not a fan of this.
Ok, shotguns are extremely random anyway but do we really need them to be even more unreliable
because of arm shots?
And if the goal here is to nerf machine pistols, then surely there are more consistent and
fairer ways of doing this rather than taking us back in time to the point where arms could
almost randomly punish you even though your aim is spot on…
Yeah, definitely not a fan of this.
If you really want to keep these guns in a weaker category to themselves, then at least
allow them to do full upper body damage to the arms… but even that is just a compromise really.
Why should we still have to put up with the old bullet proof hand in front of the face
problem with these specific guns when there is a system that helps avoid this issue?
Shotguns don’t get a headshot multiplier anyway, so they don’t matter and why should
secondary SMGs randomly be punished with an inconsistent feature like this?
In my opinion, the best thing to do is just to scrap the “no penetration” category
altogether and upgrade these weapons to the “simple penetration” group.
It’s not really even a buff, it just means more consistency and more fairness.
The simple penetration group is worth discussing as well, because not all is quite what it
seems in this group.
My initial assumption for this group was that these guns would be able to penetrate limbs
but not heads or torsos but that’s not actually how it works.
I ran some tests where I shot opponents in the arms with another character or a soft
wall in behind, to see if the bullet would pass through and do damage and it does not!
Simple penetration is not penetration at all really, it is more of a mechanic that adds
more consistency to the damage to a single character.
So if the arms or legs cover up either the head or torso of a character, the game can
recognise this and apply the relevant 1x or 50x damage multiplier instead of the 0.75x or 0.65x one.
But no bullet actually passes through to do damage to objects or other characters in behind.
If you shoot an opponent in the arm while it is covering their head, that’s a headshot
but if you shoot the character in the arm while it is covering another opponent’s
head, that will do zero damage to the character behind.
Does that make sense?
It’s a weird and maybe somewhat counterintuitive mechanic but actually once you get it, it’s
a pretty cool solution to add more consistency to the game.
You do the damage you were supposed to do to the operator you’re hitting but you won’t
randomly harm anyone else in behind; it’s gamy and unrealistic but I like it.
And finally, the DMRs, slug shotguns and Sniper rifles are getting a bit of a buff under the
new system because not only will they use the “simple penetration” system as other
guns do, but they will now also be able to over-penetrate operator models and can hit
whoever is behind that.
When passing through operators, the bullets lose 30% damage each time, just like when
they pass through destructible surfaces.
This is of course unrealistic and simplified because you would imagine that a bullet that
goes through someone’s hand should retain more of its energy than one that passes through
a bullet proof vest, then a whole torso and then another layer of vest…
But from a gameplay perspective, I like the consistency here.
This system is not supposed to be realistic; it’s supposed to make the damage more reliable
and therefore the game simpler and fairer.
So shooting through an opponent will always result in a 0.7 damage multiplier being used
for each character you pass through.
That means 0.7 after the first one, then 0.49, then 0.343, then 0.2401.
I ran a few tests to check what would happen if your shot first passes through the arms
and then the body of a character before going on to hit another guy and the damage reduction
is still only 30% instead of 51% so over penetrating a single character always counts the same
as one layer of dry wall, no matter which or how many parts of that character you have to go through.
Again, that’s not how it would work IRL but I think it’s good to keep things simple
and consistent in Siege.
In our tests, we were able to discover that when you hit the torso, “full penetration”
bullets will pass through up to four characters and then get stuck in the fifth person.
In a five on five game, that’s really all you want from a gameplay perspective and considering
that all of these guns (except for the new CSRX 300) can only pass through two layers
of dry wall, that’s actually quite extreme, especially when you consider that most of
the R6 operators are wearing some form of body armour.
When you hit the arms or legs, the bullets will over-penetrate even more.
In our tests, we managed to hit up to 7 characters in one shot although, that could have been
down to 2 of the characters not being perfectly aligned and so my assumption here is that
with limb strikes only, you could probably hit literally all 9 of the other characters in the game.
All in all, I am in favour of this mini buff for single shot and semi-auto rifles.
The weapon class is not in a bad place overall but this will give it a bit of a unique edge
and will help them compete with the full-auto options just that little bit more.
Still, going through up to 4 bullet proof vest wearing characters is completely unrealistic,
especially when the same bullets can only pass through two layers of plasterboard.
In fairness though, the chances of all five of your opponents lining up for you are very
slim, so maybe it doesn’t even matter.
But that’s finally it, urgh…
This was not meant to be such a huge part of the video but hopefully you found the insight
into this rather complex system interesting nonetheless.
And while the system itself is rather convoluted, I think the effect on the game will be more
consistency and that’s a great thing.
My summary is: Scrap the “no penetration” tier, it just adds inconsistency for no reason.
The “simple penetration” is great and the “full penetration” tier could maybe
be limited to just over-penetrating one operator (so being able to hit two) for all of the
DMRs and shotguns, with only Glaz and Kali being able to hit up to 5 enemies in one shot.
But other than that, I really like the look of this new system.
And now with all of that background info out of the way, I can finally go back to discussing
the damage drop-off and penetration characteristics of the CSRX.
The listed damage of the rifle is 97 points but shooting the arms or legs comes with a
damage multiplier or 0.75 for 3 & 2 speeds and 0.65 for 1 speeds and those modifiers
are of course layered over the top of the armour modifiers for each operator speed and
therefore results in following close range limb damage:
3 speeds take 72 points of damage per shot 2 speeds take 65 damage
And 1 speeds take only 50 damage with each direct hit from the Completely Super Rifle Xtreme 300.
Keep in mind though, that this gun is a “full penetration” weapon and so arm shots will
only do this damage if you don’t end up hitting the character’s torso in behind.
If the arms are in front of the body, it’s an instant down.
The damage drop-off for the CSRX is interestingly not that of the DMRs (25-40m) but instead,
that of the assault rifles, starting at 25m and bottoming out at 35m where the baseline
97 damage points go down to 78 point.
But of course those are only a theoretical numbers because body shots are all still one-shot-downs
and so the actual minimum damage can only be limb damage of 58, 52 and 40 points against
each of the three armour types.
Rook armour adds another 0.8 times multiplier and that gives us the same damage as long
range shots without plates and over 35m the stats will be 46, 41 & 32 but the plates will
not save you from getting insta-downed with body shots, even when you are playing on double
health, like I usually do in my test setups.
The bottom line for damage is that if you hit the head or upper body, you will kill
or take down your opponent in one shot but for limb shots, you will need at least 2 or
3 shots OR if Rook is involved even 3 to 4 shots and that’s for direct hits only, when
the penetration multiplier comes into play this number could go up significantly.
Like check this out, shooting through 3 walls on this corner in Themepark with this scarily
powerful rifle results in…
literally 5 hp of damage.
This means that landing the body shots is key because to fire off the 5+1 bullets that
you can carry in the rifle will take you almost 6 seconds, which gives us a fire rate of around about 50 RPM.
Without the one-shot-down mechanic, this gun would be a literal joke, it simply wouldn’t work.
Reload speeds are pretty standard for high damage weapons at 3.1s for a full reload and
2.5s for a tactical reload.
The aim down sight time is another factor that has been specifically chosen to limit
the frustration that the CSRX can cause to defenders.
Quickscoping with a one-shot-down weapon could end up being intensely annoying to opponents
and so the aim down sight time for the rifle has been set at a leisurely 0.5s.
This is slower than any other weapon class in the game right now with the exception of
shields and their 0.6s ADS time.
This makes it very hard, if not impossible, to react to sudden threats and forces Kali
players to push while aimed in with a scope that is labelled at either 5x or 12x zoom.
I tested the zoom levels for myself by the way to make sure that the advertised multiples
are in fact accurate and… yeah, they’re relatively close.
I took three screenshots while aiming at the same location and then blew up the hip fire
image to match those of the two different ADS states.
This gave me a measured zoom of 5.29x and 12.75x times instead of the advertised 5x
and 12x but that’s close enough, I guess.
The point is that this gun has quite a bit of zoom and a pretty slow ADS time and for
most players, this well mean that pushing into opponents is going to be a challenge.
Holding long angles and watching the flanks is going to be what Kali will really be good
for at higher level of play and in more casual environments or amongst less experienced players,
I can see her becoming a more extreme version of Glaz, where she will frequently be the
last surviving attacker, still sitting outside with 20s left on the round timer.
The CSRX 300 is a powerful but unwieldy gun that might be really useful in some niche
scenarios but in a heads up fight, most defenders with regular SMGs or even shotguns at close
range will almost always win out.
The one-shot-down mechanic gives the gun at least some viability but all in all, my prediction
is that Kali will just be another one of those attackers that end up with a negative Win
Delta and will be a slight detriment to the team most of the time.
But that’s just my opinion!
Let me know your thoughts in the poll on screen now or leave a comment below with more details.
If you enjoyed the video or learnt something, feel free to leave a like and with that, many
thanks to the members of the Rogue-9 Discord server who helped me with the testing of the
over-penetration mechanic and thanks to you for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video
and I will see you in the next episode!