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A Zoom is an effect of "seeing things bigger". This effect can be noticed when looking through a scope or iron sights, or even when just sighting a weapon.

Scopes[]

Each weapon (sub) category has its own scope, with different shapes and optics. From a mechanical/stats point of view though, all the scopes share the same stats and effects. A Revolver with a sight2 will gain the same benefits as a Sniper Rifle with a sight2. Any visible difference between the weapons will actually come from the weapon category, and not the scope itself.

The scopes are:

  • sightnone (sometimes spelled sight_none)
  • sight1 (sometimes spelled sight1_)
  • sight2 (sometimes spelled sight2_)
  • sight3
  • sight4
  • sight5

The only exception to this rule is Support Machine Guns: While their names are also sightnone, sight1 and sight2, they have their own stats.

FOV[]

FOV (Field Of Vision), is defined as the angle of view represented on the screen. When the game wants to implement a Zoom, it takes a lower FOV, and then displays it on a surface of the same size as that of the original FOV (in this case, the monitor). The resulting effect is that everything appears bigger: a Zoom.

In this article, the metric "Zoom" is defined as the ratio of the old Zoom over the new Zoom. So for example, going from 85° to 28° will produce a 3.0× Zoom.

Base FOV[]

When standing still, the player has a natural FOV of 85°. When aiming, each weapon category will have a "Base FOV", which is the FOV the player get from aiming with a scopeless weapon (or would be getting for weapons that always have scopes). These base zooms are:

Weapon Base FOV Zoom Equivalent:
Rocket Launcher 65° 1.30×
Pistol 62° 1.37×
SMG 58° 1.46×
Revolver 56° 1.52×
Assault Shotgun 60° 1.42×
Combat Shotgun 54° 1.57×
Support Machine Gun 48° 1.77×
Combat Rifle 48° 1.77×
Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle 36° 2.36×
Repeater Sniper Rifle 36° 2.36×

Note: Sniper Rifles actually have a very powerful "no scope" zoom. Whitting's Elephant Gun has a unique scope with an FOV penalty: it does not represent what a Sniper Rifles' scopeless zoom would look like.

Scope Effect[]

Given the above "Base FOV", when sighting a weapon, the player will benefit from a percentage based bonus of that base FOV. Keep in mind that the formula uses the Borderlands "inverse opposite" formula:

NewFov = BaseFov / (1 - BonusFOVEffect)

The actual bonuses are:

General Scopes
Scope Bonus Effect Zoom Bonus Equivalent
sightnone -0% 1.0×
sight1 -40% 1.4×
sight2 -70% 1.7×
sight3 -100% 2.0×
sight4 -200% 3.0×
sight5 -300% 4.0×
Support Machine Guns
Scope Bonus Effect Zoom Bonus Equivalent
sightnone -0% 1.0×
sight1 -80% 1.8×
sight2 -40% 1.4×

So for example, a Combat Rifle with a sight2 will have an FOV of:

48° / (1 - 70%) = 28°

This would be equivalent to a zoom of 3.0×.

Weapon Card Zoom[]

It is not clear how borderlands rates the Zooms on its weapon cards. Inside a same weapon family, a bigger multiplier is, of course, better. However, given two weapons with the same scope, the one with the biggest Zoom will actually have the lowest displayed multiplier!

Here Are two table recapitulating the data:

  • - : Zoom not displayed
  • N/A: Scope not available on this weapon
Weapon Card Zoom
RL P SMG RV AS CS MG CR SASR RSR
sightnone N/A - - - - - - N/A N/A N/A
sight1 1.9× 1.8× 1.7× 1.6× 1.7× 1.5× 2.1× 1.4× 1.0× 1.0×
sight2 2.7× 2.6× 2.4× 2.3× 2.5× 2.2× 1.4× 2.0× 1.5× 1.5×
sight3 3.2× 3.1× 2.9× 2.8× 3.0× 2.7× N/A 2.4× 1.8× 1.8×
sight3 4.3× 4.1× 3.9× 3.7× 4.0× 3.6× N/A 3.2× 2.4× 2.4×
sight5 4.9× 4.6× 4.3× 4.2× 4.5× 4.0× N/A 3.6× 2.7× 2.7×


Actual Zoom
RL P SMG RV AS CS MG CR SASR RSR
sightnone N/A 1.4× 1.5× 1.5× 1.4× 1.6× 1.8× N/A N/A N/A
sight1 1.8× 1.9× 2.1× 2.1× 2.0× 2.2× 3.2× 2.5× 3.3× 3.3×
sight2 2.2× 2.3× 2.5× 2.6× 2.4× 2.7× 2.5× 3.0× 4.0× 4.0×
sight3 2.6× 2.7× 2.9× 3.0× 2.8× 3.1× N/A 3.5× 4.7× 4.7×
sight4 3.9× 4.1× 4.4× 4.6× 4.3× 4.7× N/A 5.3× 7.1× 7.1×
sight5 5.2× 5.5× 5.9× 6.1× 5.7× 6.3× N/A 7.1× 9.4× 9.4×

See also[]

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