Muzzle Flash

Muzzle flash  
General  
Flash sizes stored Per weapon: size for you (first person), size for other players (third person), lifetime, distant flash
Muzzle device assets 47
Weapon flash recipes 32 infantry weapons, 16 vehicle guns
Typical flash lifetime 0.05 s (0.06 s for sniper rifles)

The muzzle flash is the burst of light at the end of a barrel. The game stores one flash recipe for each weapon, a multiplier set for each muzzle device, and a colour override for some ammunition. The flash size is purely visual: nothing here says how visible a shooter is to the AI or whether the flash counts for detection.

Overview

Each weapon has two flash sizes. One is what you see on your own screen. The other is what other players see when you fire. For nearly every weapon the other players’ flash is larger, because the first person flash is kept small so it does not hide your sights.

Flash size by weapon

The sizes below are in the game’s own units, which are not given in metres or pixels. Compare them with each other.

Weapon Your view Other players’ view
M4 10 35
AK74 15 35
A-91 15 30
KH-2002 15 30
Galil 15 52.5
FAL 18 57
M500 30 50
MP43 30 50
Judge 25 35
Deagle 25 35
M1911 10 20
MP5, Bizon and other submachine guns 15 25
M14, SVD, SKS (marksman rifles) not set 35
MK22, Mosin Nagant, SV98 25 37 to 40

What this means in play: the FAL and Galil throw the largest rifle flash at other players, shotguns (tied with one sniper rifle) the largest at your own screen, and pistols such as the M1911 and the GGX 17 the smallest. Marksman rifles and sniper rifles have a long distant flash (300 for most, 350 for one sniper rifle), so they are the easiest to spot from far away.

Suppressors and muzzle devices

A weapon’s factory muzzle multiplies the first person flash by 1.5 and uses a light strength of 0.1. The suppressor and flash hider assets cut this sharply:

  • First person flash: x0.3 to x0.7 (most are x0.35 to x0.5).
  • Other players’ flash: x0.5 to x0.7.
  • Distant flash: x0.75 to x0.85.
  • Muzzle light: 0.05, half of the factory value.

So fitting one of these devices both shrinks the flash on your own screen and dims it for people watching you. The game does not say which shop muzzle device uses which of these assets, so the table above cannot be broken down device by device. See Muzzle Devices for what each device does to recoil, spread and aim time.

Ammunition colour

Every ammunition type uses the same orange flash. Only the 7.62x54mm rimmed round also changes the sparks to a red-orange and uses 2 to 3 of them.

Vehicle guns

Vehicle guns have their own recipes. Rocket launchers, the tank main guns and artillery spawn a separate flash effect. The tank coaxial gun and some mounted machine guns reuse the M249 SAW muzzle. The numbers for these are on the data page below.

See also

Sources

Categories: Game Mechanics