Ballistics
Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets and the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Third-person shooter; action-adventure mechanic
- Developer
- Naughty Dog
- Platform
- PlayStation (PS3, PS4)
- Combat framework
- Cover-based with free-aim option
- Thrown projectiles
- Grenades
- Molotov cocktails
- improvised explosives
- Protagonists
- Nathan Drake (UC1–UC4); Chloe Frazer & Sam Drake (The Lost Legacy)
Lore & Background
The earliest known ballistic projectiles were stones, spears, and the throwing stick. The oldest evidence of stone-tipped projectiles, which may or may not have been propelled by a bow, dating to c. 280,000 years ago, were found in Ethiopia. The oldest evidence of the use of bows to shoot arrows dates to about 10,000 years ago. The first devices identified as guns appeared in China around 1000 AD. The discipline of ballistics was initially studied by Italian mathematician Niccolò Tartaglia in 1531. Galileo established the principle of compound motion in 1638. Ballistics was put on a solid scientific and mathematical basis by Isaac Newton with the publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687.
Reader's Guide
Ballistics is often broken down into four categories: internal ballistics (the study of the processes originally accelerating projectiles), transition ballistics (the study of projectiles as they transition to unpowered flight), external ballistics (the study of the passage of the projectile in flight), and terminal ballistics (the study of the projectile and its effects as it ends its flight).
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