# Deadline balancing guide

This document describes how to reason about balance changes. See [stats.md](stats.md) for stat behavior and units. The root CSVs remain authoritative for the values they define.

## Goals

Balance work should support four goals:

- **Fairness:** no option should dominate its alternatives without a meaningful cost.
- **Variety:** options should create distinct strengths, weaknesses, and use cases.
- **Realism:** real equipment should be the starting point for relative performance.
- **Aesthetics:** realistic and visually coherent builds should be encouraged.

## Comparison scope

Compare an attachment against the alternatives a player can actually choose between it and. Attachments that only fit one weapon do not need to match another weapon's equivalents: FAL handguards sitting far above G3 handguards is not itself a problem. What matters is that interchangeable options compare well.

The exception is aggregate movement. If a whole class shifts in one direction, such as every FAL handguard gaining a few points, that changes the weapon's ceiling and is worth noting as an inter-weapon effect.
