Damage ranges; Addressing community's complaints, by standardizing

Quite simply, change damage stages over ranges to be time-based, so the further the round goes in an allotted time-window, the further out that damage window will stretch. Basing the distances a certain damage is kept up to on time and velocity. This way players wanting to extend damage ranges, can increase velocity to push the range further out.
Or in the case of desiring to reduce potency for balance reasons, the system can be used to take two equal caliber chambered weapons and balance them through both barrel length AND ammo type, by adjusting unlock order and loadout cost of the components.

This would additionally allow for using different attachments as choice-based balance factors, so you might have two equal velocity barrels, but one is a "heavy barrel" version that gives less spread/bloom at an increased cost, whereas going for the cheaper cost one with more spread might free up loadout points and allow for equipping long-range ammo of some form that gives increased velocity and extends damage ranges further out and frees up loadout points to maybe equip other things the more accurate heavy barrel version can't if it wants that same ammo.

In short, for instance how far the round has gone in 0.025 sec would be the range it does one stage of the damage at, and then maybe the next stage is at 0,05 sec, then 0,075 sec of travel time, and then the next at 0,1 sec travel time, etc. So the further the round goes in the same amount of time, the further out the damage stages are extended.

This would give players a way to feel like they're picking potency by choice, and also allow for balancing close-range focused weapons through having considerably higher starting damage that drops off rapidly over range with time-segments, that then can be "built a loadout" for extending, and could even be applied to headshot multiplier effects as well to balance shotguns instead of having the awful 1.00x headshot multiplier for them (opening up for having a lethal headshot multiplier for all shotguns up to 5m for 1 shot fired, but tapering off rapidly for shorter shotguns to balance them, as having shotguns that cannot oneshot at point blank range feels illogical and disconnected for players, but can be used to balance the different shotguns as options based on the range you desire to use them at). Some weapon groups are meant to be dominating at certain ranges, and doing it as such would make more distinct dominance to the groups at their respective ranges, and also allowing for the "outside of the genre-bounds" weapons like the PW7A2 and USG-90 to reach out and touch a bit further out than the regular pistol-caliber SMG's.

This additionally (with the recent change to the suppressors) would open up for adding in sub-sonic ammo as an option, removing the spotting while using suppressors outright, at the cost of vastly reduced damage-ranges because the rounds would now be slower, and thus no longer having the "reach out and touch"-potential as their louder counterparts, effectively making them a choice-made loadout preference for use in CQB without having to switch to another weapon, at the cost of "nerfing yourself" to have increased potency in the CQB-ranges or for stealth.

This all would greatly benefit balancing for REDSEC as well, without having to adjust the armor plates to account for desired balance of guns in REDSEC.