Different Sensitivities

There are various sensitivities you need to be aware of before you get deep into infantry play –

Mouse Sensitivity

This is your hip-fire sensitivity

Scoped Mouse Sensitivity

For aiming down sights with 3.4x and 4x scopes, and 6x – 12x sniper scopes

Aimed Mouse Sensitivity

For aiming down sights with iron sights, 1x and 2x scopes

Other Sensitivities

Check out ——- for vehicle sensitivity and ——- for aircraft sensitivity

DPI and Sensitivity

First and foremost, make sure you know your DPI. If you have a Gaming Mouse this can be as simple as opening up whatever software came with it (Razer Synapse, Logitech Gaming Software) and taking a look. If you do not have this software it can be found online with a quick google search.

If you do not have a gaming mouse, you should be able to find your Mouse’s DPI by another quick google search using the information on the mouse. 

Whatever DPI is the default on your mouse will be good enough for the purposes of what we are doing, but knowing your DPI will come in handy an infinite amount of times in your FPS career. 

If you change your DPI for whatever reason, please keep in mind: Higher is not always better!

Research your mouse and its capabilities, mice are often built with certain DPIs in mind, and changing it to be outside of the limitations of the device will result in a loss in accuracy. 

Note: (As of late 2018, mouse-sensitivity.com no longer works for planetside)

Moving on to Sensitivity, an important thing to remember is that the only hard rule is to keep your Aimed Mouse Sensitivity sensitivity on the low side. No two players are alike, and what’s best for me may not be best for you. But keep it low.

I recommend being in the ballpark of 18 Inches for a 360 when Aiming Down Sights (Aimed Mouse Sensitivity), and 8 when hip-firing (Just mouse sensitivity in the settings). Get a feel for what works best for you, but try to stay around these.

For comparison: It takes me 20.9868 Inches of mouse movement to turn around when Aiming Down Sights, but only 9 hip-firing. Because your normal sensitivity is separate from when you are aiming down your sights, you can afford to have your Aimed Mouse Sensitivity as low as you can tolerate, while also being able to comfortably navigate the world. 

Finding your sensitivity

Rule of thumb: you don’t need to turn more than 180° in any direction at any given time simply because if you are being shot from behind you can turn either left or right. If you turn more then 180° it means you are wasting precious time turning in the wrong direction. Really. Don’t.

If you find yourself turning more then 180° in a single mouse stroke (usually 9-10 cm / 4 inches) you have a too high sensitivity. If you work with your WASD you can reduce that even further while still being able to pull an instant 180° flip with a single stroke. So, starting point 180°/10cm while hip-firing. I’m around 160°/10cm.

While would you want a low sens? One of the greatest FPS newbies misconceptions that “if I have a higher sensitivity I can be faster!”. While that’s true to a degree, it also means you are WAY more inaccurate. All reside in finding your own balance. But the 180° rule is always true. That’s where you start.

For ADS it’s down to preference, but once again you’ll want a sensitivity that’s low enough to help you in keeping your crosshair where you are aiming but not too low so that it won’t allow you to track your enemy head.

Testing your Sensitivity

Tracking Tests

Stand about 30 meters away from the trainee and ADS strafe with a 0.5x ADS Movement weapon. Tell the trainee to maintain tracking your head while ADS. When they can consistently keep their crosshair on your head, switch to a hip-fire strafe. After that, move closer by 10 meters and repeat. At 10 meters both players should only use hipfire crosshair for tracking.