Health and Damage

Health and damage  
Max health 100 HP
Hit locations 12 body parts
Friendly fire Bullet damage to a teammate is halved; Large Hammer damage to a teammate is cut by 70 %
Health regeneration None outside Deathmatch (none found in the game code; see Downed and Revive). Deathmatch: 5 health per tick after 10 s without damage

Every infantry player starts with 100 HP. A hit takes health off that total, and the amount depends on the weapon and ammo, the part of the body that was hit, any armor covering that part, and how far the bullet travelled. This article covers the body parts. Armor, Ballistics and Penetration and Ricochet cover the other factors.

Overview

A player can be hit in twelve places: the head, neck, three parts of the torso (upper, middle and lower), the pelvis, the upper and lower arm, the hand, the thigh, the calf and the foot. The head is the most dangerous place to be hit, and the hands and feet are the least. Damage is worked out per hit, so every bullet is its own calculation.

How it works

  1. The game finds which body parts the bullet’s path passes through. A hit on the chest counts as an upper-torso hit, a hit on the forearm as a lower-arm hit, and so on. If the path crosses more than one part, the damage is worked out for each and the highest result counts (see Hit Registration).
  2. Each body part has a base multiplier, and each weapon class adds its own multiplier for that part. The two multiply together.
  3. Armor covering that body part reduces the result (see Armor).
  4. The remaining damage comes off health. When health reaches zero the player is downed (see Downed and Revive).

Friendly fire is part of the same system. A bullet that hits a teammate does half the damage it would otherwise do, and a Large Hammer hit on a teammate does 30 % of its damage. The damage tables give no friendly-fire reduction to explosives or fire, so a teammate’s grenade, mine, C4 or Molotov fire is not reduced there.

A bullet also does less damage once it has slowed. Its speed is compared with a reference speed for the weapon, and the damage is scaled by the ratio (see Ballistics).

Numbers

Base multiplier per body part, before the weapon class is added:

Body part Multiplier
Head 1.00
Neck 0.75
Upper torso 1.10
Middle torso 1.00
Lower torso 0.95
Pelvis 0.90
Upper arm 0.60
Lower arm 0.50
Hand 0.30
Thigh 0.60
Calf 0.50
Foot 0.30

Head multiplier added by each weapon class: assault rifles 2.35, SMGs 2.1, LMGs 2.35, shotguns 1.5, DMRs 2.45 and sniper rifles about 4.27.

Arm damage class. Each bullet also has an arm damage class, set by its caliber. It belongs to the bullet, not to the armour the target wears.

  • Small: 9 mm, .45 ACP, .45 Colt, 7 mm buckshot and 12 gauge rifled slug.
  • Medium: 5.45 mm and 5.56 mm.
  • High: the 7.62 family (7.62x39, 7.62x51, 7.62x54R), .308, .338 Norma Magnum, .50 AE, 30 mm, and the combat and explosive arrows.
  • Special: .50 Cal.

Damage per hit with the M4 (full metal jacket ammo, no armor) and the number of hits that kill an unarmored player:

Body part Damage per hit Hits to kill
Head 65.8 2
Neck 49.4 3
Upper torso 27.3 4
Middle torso 27.2 4
Lower torso 25.8 4
Pelvis 25.2 4
Upper arm 15.1 7
Lower arm 12.6 8
Hand 7.6 14
Thigh 15.1 7
Calf 12.6 8
Foot 7.6 14

These values are calculated from the game’s multipliers and the M4’s base damage. The full table for every weapon and ammo type is on Damage by Weapon and Ammo.

The same bullet does different damage to different weapons. A sniper rifle such as the MK22 does 118.8 to the upper torso and 192.0 to the head, so one hit kills an unarmored player in either place. A pistol such as the GGX 17 does 25.4 to the upper torso and 46.2 to the head, so it takes four body shots or three headshots.

Tips that follow from the numbers

  • Aim high. With the M4, two headshots kill an unarmored player, while four torso hits are needed. Head and neck hits matter most.
  • Limbs are a poor target. Hands and feet take 14 hits from an M4, and arms and legs 7 to 8 hits.
  • Armor changes the count. Covering the torso with heavy armor raises the M4 torso hits to kill from 4 to 8. See Armor for the full effect.
  • Teammates are not a safe target. Bullets that hit a teammate do half damage, so friendly fire still hurts, just less.

See also

Sources