User blog:EvilAnnihilator/EvilAnnihilator's Guide to Becoming a Better Player

EvilAnnihilator's Strategy for Maximized Survival - 6/30/2018 [Incomplete]
Numerous players who begin playing Phantom Forces may often feel lost or troubled regarding choosing a "good" loadout, or understanding what right combination of attachments and what guns to use. Not to mention, most players seem to lack the knowledge on what to do and not to do when faced with a certain circumstance. In the next few sections, we will cover each type of circumstance and what to do when faced with any situation. But first, we will go over on how to choose a weapon and how to utilize attachments to potentially reduce its' negative aspects.

Choosing a Weapon
Choosing a "good" weapon may be the hardest choice to make. There are many different weapons that come with a variety of pros and cons. To make this choice, it is suggested that you look in Phantom Forces Wiki: Weaponry to research all your unlocked weapons. After researching, choose a primary weapon that meets your satisfaction based on the following: the pros, the cons, maximum damage, minimum damage, range, fire mode (auto, burst, or semi), and rate of fire (abbreviated as RoF). Some people enjoy and do better shooting short-range, others enjoy long-range. Others enjoy shooting with shotguns, while some enjoy using designated marksman rifles (DMRs). It is up to you to decide which weapon meets your need. Do the same for your secondary. Secondary weapons are typically used when you are either (a) out of primary weapon ammo, and/or (b) when you are in close quarters combat (CQC). For your melee weapon, look for any weapon that deals great damage while having a long blade range. Melee weapons are sometimes an alternative to when you would typically use a secondary.

Also to note, on top of choosing your primary weapon, choosing a preferred choice of a sniper rifle is also suggested for large maps. For instance, a sniper is useful when enemies are on top of the crane in Crane Site. Therefore, it is preferred that you have a sniper on hand. We will discuss further on how to use a sniper in terms of bullet-drop compensation later on.

After choosing your loadout, it is time to test them out. This is to determine the aim stability, the horizontal/vertical recoil (how badly the weapon shakes and bolts upon firiring), hip stability, and overall accuracy. Once you have a feel for all these factors, it is time to customize your weapon(s) with attachments to reduce those undesired factors.

Applying Attachments
The number of kills needed to unlock certain attachments is a good amount of time to allow you to determine what undesired factors you want to counteract. You can identify the number of kills needed to unlock certain attachments in Phantom Forces Wiki: Attachments.

Similar to choosing a weapon, applying attachments requires your own research to determine which ones may be beneficial for your weapon. It is highly recommended that you check out this page to develop an intuition for what attachments impact your weapons and how.

An example on choosing a weapon and applying attachments is discussed in the next section.

Example One
Assuming that we are at rank 0, we have the following weapons unlocked: M4A1 (carbine, primary), AK-12 (assault rifle, primary) , MP5K (PDW, primary) , M60 (LMG, primary) , Intervention (sniper rifle, primary) , M9 (pistol, secondary) , Knife (one handed blade, melee).

For someone who enjoys short-middle ranged shooting, an M4A1, AK-12, M60, and MP5K are all perfect candidates. However, when comparing their statistics on accuracy, hip accuracy, and sight accuracy, we find that both the M4A1 and MP5K generally score higher than the others. Both are great weapons but the M4A1 has greater range for its' maximum damage than the MP5K. For someone who likes short range, the MP5K is perfect for them, though they may have to reload ammo more often. For someone who wants to shoot short-middle range, the M4A1 is great.

Let's say the individual enjoys and does better at short-middle range and thus, we will go ahead and choose the M4A1. Not only does the M4A1 have low recoil, it also has a good RoF.

Therefore, our loadout is as follows: After spending considerable time shooting with the M4A1, attachments become unlocked one-by-one. Attatchments are useful for (a) increasing accuracy, increasing/lowering hip accuracy, and increasing sight accuracy, (b) lowering horizontal/vertical recoil, and (c) dealing more damage through the use of armor piercing/hollow points.
 * Primary: M4A1
 * Secondary: M9
 * Melee: Knife

Why is lowering hip accuracy a good thing? Lowering hip accuracy increases hipfire spread which scatters bullets around an area. This can be potentially useful when there are many enemies in a small area. What is the difference between armor piercing and hollow points? Generally, armor piercing favors dealing more damage at longer ranges with a small damage penalty for shorter range. Whereas, hollow points favors dealing more damage at shorter ranges with a small damage penalty for longer range.

After gathering some insight in the wiki on attachments, we decide on using the Comp Aimpoint for optics, R2 Supressor for barrel, Vertical Grip for underbarrel, and Armor Piercing for other. A reasonable explanation why these attachments are useful is because: Finally, we have successfully chosen a primary weapon and added attachments to improve its' performace. We can do the same thing for the secondary weapon by doing the same kind of research on attachments in the wiki.
 * the Comp Aimpoint allows for a magnification of the intended target with better peripheral vision
 * the R2 Supressor keeps us hidden from the radar, and adds small damage penalities for maximum damage and minimum damage rather than a large damage penalty at either maximum damage or minimum damage
 * For weapons with high recoil, this can be substituted with a compensator or muzzle brake which both mainly work to reduce horizontal or vertical recoil, respectively.
 * the Vertical Grip increases hip accuracy and lowers recoil
 * the Armor Piercing allows us to deal greater damage at farther distances, as well as, giving us the ability to potentially shoot through walls/barriers

NOTE: THIS GUIDE IS INCOMPLETE. MORE INFORMATION WILL BE ADDED LATER.