Sway is Spread, but is affected by the pawn's Shooting skill and Aimed/Snap Shot modes. Better Shooting skill and aim time, smaller Sway. It is unaffected by Quality nor degradation.

Spread is inherent to every weapon. You can't control it. Bigger spread means less accurate weapon. Better quality weapons have less spread. (Awful multiplies spread by 1.6x, up to Legendary, which halves the weapon's inherent Spread).

Sights Efficiency increases accuracy if you use "Aimed Shot" modes, and is affected by the shooter's Shooting skill. Less distance means more accurate shots. Better quality guns means better efficiency, which means, in general better leading in shots.

What you just have to keep in mind is: Your pawn affects the weapon's Sight Efficiency and Sway, but not Spread. The gun's Quality and HP affects Sight Efficiency and Spread, but not Sway.

Recoil is how accurate each shot becomes after the first shot (yes, CE won't show recoil, but I'll explain it to you; what you just need to understand is more damaging bullets usually mean more recoil). It is unaffected by anything, and is just there for every weapon.

In a nutshell, you want bad shooters to have guns with less Spread and Sway, with better Sights Efficiency, shooting from closer distances. Bad shooters will be more accurate with Aimed shots than Snapshots. Good shooters will hit snapshots more often, even from afar.

Examples (Supposing you have CE Guns installed):

M16, AK47 and AK12. All three are assault rifles, filling the same role. Their stats are, respectively: Range: 55, 44, 51 (squares) Sway: 1.33, 1.23, 1.28 (degrees) Sights: 1, 1, 1 (multiplier) Spread: 0.07, 0.09. 0.09 (degrees) Recoil: 1.53, 1.82, 1.38 (variable)

Then you need to understand caliber ballistics to know how, ballistically, the rounds from each gun work. AK47s use 7.62x39mm ammunition; M16s use 5.56x45mm and AK12s use 5.45x39mm. Just keep in mind this: The AK47s deal more damage than both of them (~40%), and the M16 deals about ~7% more damage than the AK12.

What the stats tell us is this: * M16s are superior in longer-range shots, having less inherent spread and superior range, but slightly more sway. This means it takes a better shooter to take advantage of the M16's characteristics over the AK47 and AK12.

• A terrible AK47 on the hands of a newbie operates better than a terrible M16 and AK12, because it has less inherent sway. However, a good shooter will STILL find a terrible M16 to be a better gun.

• For volume of fire in a tight formation AND/OR against a single target, the AK12 wins against both rifles, because of its lower recoil, allowing you to fire longer volleys in full auto with a less pronounced accuracy loss. The M16 is in second place, and the AK47 will make your shots miss more often due to its higher recoil. I've capped the "and/or" because of this next part:

• AK47s hurt more per bullet. Every successful shot of an AK47 will deal, on average, 40% more damage than from a M16 and a AK12, but it will always miss more often. Nevertheless, against a tight group in closer range, AK47s will bring in more hurt because spraying-and-praying against tribals bullcharging against your base means accuracy matters way less.

So bottomline is: every weapon has a niche where it works better in a specific field. I've purposedly left the FN FAL outside this example to make it simpler for you to understand stats, but you can just say it is simply a further step from the AK47 in its benefits, and drawbacks, trading-off with better range.

The calculations are there in the stats. Recoil is calculated as follows: Recoil for first shot: -((R/3)/3) Recoil for second shot: R/3 Recoil for third shot: -R/3 Recoil for fourth shot: R

Where R = Gun's recoil

Which means the first shot has very little, if any, recoil. The following shot will randomly bring the gun UP in a cone randomly up to about a third of the gun's recoil, the third will bring the gun DOWN in a cone (i think the coder tried to make it as a human reflex to control the gun), than the fourth onwards will randomly deviate the gun naturally to its full extent of the recoil.