Can someone explain "firing arc" ?

[Galtin]

I'm primarily flying the basic Republic strike fighter. It comes with two primary weapons, a Rapid Fire Laser Cannon and a Heavy Laser Cannon. When you look at the tooltip stats of those two weapons, the RFLC has an accuracy of 91.00 and the HLC has an accuracy of 106%, a 15% increase. In the games pressing the 1 key switches between the two weapons. With the RFLC active, the blue circle in the middle, which I assume is the firing arc, is large. When I switch to the HLC with higher accuracy, the blue circle in the middle is a lot smaller.

 

Does that mean the smaller the circle, the more accurate the weapon?

[Yorumi]

Firing arc is a stat on the weapons and independent of accuracy. In preferences you can turn on more detailed weapon tool tips. You are correct the circle is the firing arc, it basically represents how far off center you can fire your weapons. Your guns can basically move in 4 directions, so the amount of mechanical motion on your guns is your firing arc.

[drwcroaker]

This is a very good question. I would like to know the answer too.

 

All I know is that I have to be hitting inside the little red "lead" circle at the end of the short red line leading from the enemy ship or I ain't hittin' nuthin'.

[JeepWithGuy]

Think of your guns as individual turrets. They can only hit targets between A and B

 

A |----------| B

 

That is your firing arc. When you expand it, your turret covers more area space.

 

A |-------------------------------| B

 

So when you have a bigger firing arc, your targeting reticle covers more area. It's like shooting out of a small hole, versus a large window.

 

Edit: Here's a much better visual aid.

Edited December 5, 2013 by JeepWithGuy

[Yorumi]

This is a very good question. I would like to know the answer too.

 

All I know is that I have to be hitting inside the little red "lead" circle at the end of the short red line leading from the enemy ship or I ain't hittin' nuthin'.

 

That's the lead indicator, since your weapons need time to travel to the target it won't hit if you fire directly at the ship. The lead indicator is the game calculating where you need to fire to hit the target taking into consideration it's speed and direction of travel.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I had always thought that "firing arc" means a ... well, imagine an arc, which represents a certain angle,

if you look at a circle, it basically consists of 4 arcs representing 45 degrees. Like can be seen here in part : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circle_slices.svg The "outer rim" of an sector is an arc.

And the "firing arc" represents the cone of shhoting fire, so to say.

 

Uh, very difficult to explain for me, especially since English isn't my first language ...

[psandak]

I'm primarily flying the basic Republic strike fighter. It comes with two primary weapons, a Rapid Fire Laser Cannon and a Heavy Laser Cannon. When you look at the tooltip stats of those two weapons, the RFLC has an accuracy of 91.00 and the HLC has an accuracy of 106%, a 15% increase. In the games pressing the 1 key switches between the two weapons. With the RFLC active, the blue circle in the middle, which I assume is the firing arc, is large. When I switch to the HLC with higher accuracy, the blue circle in the middle is a lot smaller.

 

Does that mean the smaller the circle, the more accurate the weapon?

 

No the "firing arc" is the area of effectiveness. A target within the firing arc can be potentially hit. Anything outside the firing arc...you are wasting ammo/energy trying to hit it. The HLC firing arc is smaller because of the slower rate of fire and the fact that the "turrets" don't move as much.

 

Accuracy is better translated as margin of error. As you know, in order to hit a target your targeting reticule has to overlay a circle in the (projected) flight path of your target (the system helps you to lead the target). Lower accuracy means that overlay has to be more exact in order to inflict damage and higher accuracy could be translated that a "near miss" can actually hit.

[Yorumi]

Accuracy is better translated as margin of error. As you know, in order to hit a target your targeting reticule has to overlay a circle in the (projected) flight path of your target (the system helps you to lead the target). Lower accuracy means that overlay has to be more exact in order to inflict damage and higher accuracy could be translated that a "near miss" can actually hit.

 

I think accuracy is actually calculated in a more traditional sense. The game first decides if a shot will collide with the target, then it does a traditional accuracy - evasion calculation to see if it actually does hit.