The Infinite Zenith’s Firing Range: Sabagebu!-style

“Maybe some arm shots or leg shots. Maybe, you know, try to stay away from that head.” —FPS_Doug, Pure Pwnage

For this Firing Range, I’ll be doing a talk on Maya Kyoudou’s preferred loadout from Sabagebu!, and in keeping with Maya’s lack of sidearms and other equipment, I’ve just rolled with the M4A1 with a random assortment of squad specialisations. In Sabagebu!, Maya runs with the M4A1 with Close Quarters Battle Receiver and an XPS variant of an EOTech holographic sight. The shortened barrel makes the weapons more compact and allows it to excel at close quarters, so for gathering footage here, I’ve stuck primarily with close-quarters engagements. To mirror Maya’s loadout, I’ve equipped my M4A1 with the holo sight and a flash suppressor. In Battlefield 3, the M4A1 is considered to be the best all-around carbine for the engineer class, with a high rate of fire (800 RPM), low recoil and fast reload time (1.85 seconds if there’s a round chambered, or 2.48 seconds from empty). In close quarters, this weapon is roughly the same as an assault rifle with regards to damage output, but thanks to the low recoil, the M4A1 remains useful at longer ranges, allowing one to perform reasonably well in a variety of situations. Outfitted with the flash suppressor and the holographic sight, I found that the flash suppressor did not do too much for the weapon, as the vertical recoil is already quite low. The holographic sight, on the other hand, helps with longer range aiming, affording a bit more magnification while retaining the same aiming speed as the red dot sights. At close quarters, the weapon is quite accurate even when fired from the hip, and allowed me to hold my own against assault rifles and even shotguns.

• My typical setup for the M4A1 is a red dot sight, foregrip and heavy barrel for longer range combat, or a laser sight for close-quarters death match battles. The laser sight helps improve hip-firing; in older games like Halo and Half-Life 2, hip firing is the norm, and aiming down sights is only used for weapons with optics; when I go back and play classics, I have to remind myself not to keep trying to aim down sights.

• It’s been more than half a year since I bought Battlefield 3 Premium, and it was only recently where i was able to play a match on Wake Island, a classic Battlefield map. I wound up joining the losing team, but somehow managed to make my way into first place on my team in the scoreboard on the virtue of capturing many flags and, on top of that, maintaining a positive KD ratio all the while. This stands contrary to my typical performance in Conquest matches, where I wind up dying a lot but score many points for my team.

• Because the M4A1 is a carbine, this post will feature a lot of carbine ribbons. I recall that, back when I first started playing Battlefield 3, my KD ratio was roughly 0.65, but I’ve managed to raise it. Because I’m an objectives-focused player, my KD ratio tends to be quite low, but my score per minute remains quite good. These metrics are fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously, although I have experienced several cases where there were people using aimbots (it’s easy to tell when someone’s killing me from across the map with a G17, which does 13 points of damage past 50 meters).

• I admit that a lot of my headshots with automatic weapons happen without me thinking about them too much. As of late, the setup on Kharg Island means that it’s become one of my favourite places to go and play around with different loadouts. In team DM, The map consists of a large building on one end and containers on the other. Some players immediately parachute onto the roof, which overlooks the entire map and proceed to snipe players, but I’m familiar enough with the containers’ layout so I know where to counter-snipe without being too open a target. During this particular match, I went on a short killstreak and got another combat efficiency ribbon, but died shortly after.

• I’m quite comfortable with the M4A1 now, and up next in the Firing Range series will probably be a talk on Upotte‘s L85A2, or “Elle-chan”. I’ll roll out talks on Sora no Method and Amagi Brilliant Park this Friday, and as I’m a ways into Shirobako, so a talk on that should be out by Hallow’s Eve at the very latest. I’m pushing back the Aldnoah.Zero talk indefinitely, as I’ve encountered some difficulties with the post and will work on it only if time permits. I also noticed that my feed at some anime aggregators have stopped working, probably because I have too many gaming posts; it’s their loss, since I offer unusual discussions not found anywhere else.

What is the verdict in Maya’s loadout? One would be inclined to say that Maya probably is just really unlucky, because the M4A1 performs quite well. Except at extreme ranges meant for sniper rifles, I was able to perform quite consistently at close and medium ranges, scoring headshots on targets up to 50 meters away and holding out at close ranges against even shotguns. Through this loadout, I warmed up to the holographic sight, as well. The flash suppressor was chosen to best mimic the Close Quarters Battle Receiver; the M4A1 in Battlefield 3 has the standard barrel. Flash suppressors are intended to reduce muzzle flash and make one less visible on a map; as well, they reduce the vertical recoil. The already low recoil means that typically, I would probably prefer a heavy barrel to improve long-range engagements (the hip-fire accuracy can be supplemented with a laser sight, which I did not equip for this discussion). Ultimately, the M4A1 is an immensely versatile weapon, and Maya’s loadout is effective in and of itself: her infamous propensity to get shot down first is a part of the humour in Sabagebu! and does not suggest that her weapon and customisation was a poor choice.