What is the spotting cooldown in Battlefield 4?

Battlefield 4 brings back spotting; press RB or Q with an enemy in your sights and he's spotted for your whole team to see. Spotting wins games! It also comes very cheap, it doesn't really slow you down or cost you anything. So I tend to spam spot a lot.

Does spotting have a cooldown and if so, what is it? Is there anything from preventing me from spotting 60 times a second? If there's a cooldown is it different after a successful spot vs a failed spot? Is there any way to measure the cooldown precisely? I've tried testing it various ways and can't really figure it out; it kind of feels to me like maybe there's a 1s cooldown only after a successful spot.

Battlefield 3 is generally assumed to have a spotting cooldown although I've never seen a source for exactly how long it was. The StackExchange discussion and this other one both mention BF3 made a noise if you try to spot during the cooldown. I don't think that noise is in BF4.

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2 Answers

one spot a second /5 spots per 5 seconds. overheat lasts 5 seconds that is since bad company 2 i think. So one spot each second if faster than 5 sec cooldown. The only think they was messing around in the BF4 is the spotting range and accuracy, in BF4 you have to look directly to an enemy in order to use the spotting. Hope that helps.

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Spotting in BF4 differs in game mode. There are also perks which wil unspot you faster. As I see it when an enemy walks in the open he will be spotted for a longer period of time. Probably it depends on visual contact of other team members which can see a spotted enemy. When an enemy is spotted but dives behind cover and no one can see him anymore he is unspotted faster than when he walks in the open.

To me that sounds really logical. Its not realistic if you can track an enemy even though no one on your team has visual contact. In hardcore you don't even have a indicator. However spotted enemies appear on the map.