So, i was wondering, what is considered to be the best rifle? the m-24, the m-16, or the R4 charge rifle?
The way I run my colony (16 current colonists), I have my two best shooters with M-24s as counter snipers, I have ten with M-16s because they have a longer range and create just a storm of bullets, and then I have four with R-4s for people that get closer. I may balance it out more to be more or less even between M-16 and R-4.
That depends largely on the engagement range. The M-24 is the best if you're shooting over open terrain at a lone target which is much shorter ranged, such as a lone pistoleer or a psychotic muffalo.
M-24 sniper squads with free lines of sight are devastating. That goes both ways, though, so it's not recommended that the player attempt to exploit this, as the raiders will have a lot more gunners than the colonists will, and much better shots to boot.
At closer ranges, the R-4 charged rifle is pretty much king. The M-16 out-ranges it by a few tiles, but not many. The other weapons, I find, are simply not worth even bothering with - shotguns are very short-ranged and don't have the devastating effect that you'd expect a short-ranged shotgun blast to have, nor do they have the spread or accuracy bonus you'd want from a shotgun blast in a video game. Uzis have the single advantage that they recycle and fire quite quickly, but that's all they have - they're doing pistol damage and have bad accuracy compared to a rifle, and sadly suppressing fire doesn't exist. The Lee-Enfield is just a less-accurate, less-ranged sniper rifle, which is a real shame because IRL the Lee-Enfield is a wonderful gun. A person in a survival situation could hardly ask for a better bolt-action rifle. The T-24 incendiary launcher is utter dogshite. It takes a long time to fire, isn't terribly accurate, only fires one round, and if it hits it only sets the guy on fire. He'll run around for a few seconds and either put it out himself, or he'll run around, burning to death, and setting your base on fire.
So basically, you want to set things up so that the bad guys come into an enfilade of R-4 charge rifle shots with turrets to draw their fire. Or, alternatively, you just want to set explosives, lure them into a perfect explosive killbox, and blow them all to kingdom come, which results in many fewer casualties and much greater simplicity for you. Also, even blowing up fifteen miens at once is cheaper than losing three turrets in a pitched battle.
QuoteOr, alternatively, you just want to set explosives, lure them into a perfect explosive killbox, and blow them all to kingdom come.
Haha, yeah I'm beginning to utilize this more and more. One of my defence angles that only sees action maybe once in twenty raids relies mainly on drawing them into a hallway lined with explosive. My main defence area is supplemented with lots of explosives as well.
Extra: Do you know if explosive damage stacks, or will two side by side charges only do the damage of one?
I have succesfully evaporated a group of 20 raiders, their bodies and weapons with one blast... so I would say it stacks :P
QuoteI have succesfully evaporated a group of 20 raiders, their bodies and weapons with one blast
Haha good to know. I've made the last line before my sand bags stacked so it's just a huge chain reaction and you usually end up breathing in raiders for a while. If they ever manage to get through the first door, while they pile up in the room trying to get the second door open I've got it rigged so the whole room would just fill with fire and chaos.
The R4 is a bit better at crowd control I find. The M24 has great power, but it's reload time kills me and if you don't micromanage it correctly you end up wasting a lot of shot. That and it's really only effective in the hands of someone who's got high shooting.
If raiders don't have M24's or the range to use them, then the R4 is probably the best option.
Yeah That's why I only have two snipers. They get the first, high damaging shots at enemies, they take out the other snipers, then they can just sit back taking pot shots at everyone.
Shotgun COULD be good if the priming time between seeing / firing was faster (maybe pistol fast, but a longer reload of course) and a much higher damage. That way it would be fairly realistic to a real shotgun.
As for rifles, the r4 for anything closer than super far away.
But most important is managing which guy shoots which raider, if your snipers are shooting at pistol raiders while sniper raiders are dialing in, that's going to end bad.
The shotgun main use was to stop grenadiers. On previous versions, the R-4 (along with the M-24 and M-16) was hard to come by, as there weren't any merc/sniper squads, so it requires a combat supplier to drop by and the RNG to be favorable.
It was quite accurate and the short range means your shotgunners weren't likely to spend time shooting at farther targets, but with the R-4 dropping like candy right now the shotgun is no longer quite useful.
Same goes for the Uzi. Those were quite useful as semi-crowd control as they have a high rate of stunning. Sadly, the R-4 blows it out of the water.
The Lee-Enfield is quite nice when you didn't have enough sniper rifles to go around, and massed T-24 incendiaries can throw raiders into sheer havoc and flush them out of cover. Again, all of these weapons become obsolete when v.250 came around and merc/sniper squads pop up all over the place. The more powerful weapons became common and well, your colonists are at a disadvantage if you don't use said powerful weapons.
I get that its not BAD, I'm just saying in terms of shotguns in real combat, its used for quick, relatively easy fire at close range.
Thats why its so favorable for guerrilla warfare, you can see a guy and kill him pretty damn quick with it. Thats why I think a shorter "fuse" time, and higher damage would help, along with perhaps a range nerf. That way raiders rolling in deep to your base might be countered by shotguns blasting them as they round a corner.
Alternatively, perhaps giving it falloff damage, huge damage at point blank, less at range.
Quote from: mumblemumble on November 10, 2013, 07:09:22 AMThats why its so favorable for guerrilla warfare, you can see a guy and kill him pretty damn quick with it.
Wow. Just... wow.
AK47 and 74 kill "pretty darn quick" as well with the added pro of being way, way away from the other 20 guys around the target ;)
You laugh, but its true, you don't need to be as accurate due to the spread, and what I said is historically accurate. Sure an AK is just as fast in firing, but shotguns spread means accuracy isn't AS important, not to mention the smaller frames can mean more maneuverability / speed on getting a shot when in a dense area.
What I said shouldn't be a surprise at all... and real life aside, isn't that the functions of shotguns in literally any other video game?...doom, quake, cs, half life... I think they all operate that way, fast snap-firing close range powerhouses, and with the exception of CS, shotguns wipe the floor with other guns at point blank.
And in-case you didn't understand, guerrilla warfare is referring to fighting in jungles with limited visibility, which often lead to troops bumping into each other in spitting distances from each other. This is why the shotgun was favored, in that split second, its easier with the spread and tighter frame to get a shot off than with a rifle.
Just saying.
Ah... I see... VIDEO GAMES SHOTGUNS...
Try some green tactics with M16 and then tell me what you think of switching to shotgun ;) And for "wiping floors" I would still prefer a P90 or one of MP5's, its much faster to address multiple targets, doesn't suffer the small chamber issue and allows for medium to long range engagements as well. No tactical scenario is ever CQC only. Also, guerilla warfare relies heavily on sneak attacks, ambushes and hit&run where - again, a sub or assault does way better. Shotguns do well for a secondary arm, with the ability to breach, but suffer for fine-aim capabilities, range and chamber. Even when handling shotgun it is good to carry a small arm in case reloading is out of the question.
Yeah, Smgs are also more adapted, but the long barrel of rifles gets in the way for close range in many scenarios. And I'm speaking purely for "who can get a successful shot first" idea, sure it would be close, but a shorter barrel, and the spread means its easier to get the shot to hit than much more accurate bullets, even if they fire fast. You still need to aim more than you would for buckshot, since the spread is much more forgiving on if you hit or miss.
But, we are getting incredibly off topic here...Pm if you want to "debate" more.
Quote from: Galileus on November 10, 2013, 07:34:16 AM
Ah... I see... VIDEO GAMES SHOTGUNS...
Related:
(http://s10.postimg.org/4z98zvxmt/large.jpg) (http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/748)
Shotguns would be useful if shots hit the first thing in their way, and not merely what they were calculated to hit, and so spread out. I know shotguns don't spread that much in close combat, but if you were using a wide, flat choke, they'd have some spread - enough to fill a 1-tile hallway and make life absolutely suck for the jackasses sprinting down said hallway.
Of course, for that to work, weapons wouldn't need to take forever and a day to acquire targets and fire. By the time they do that, the bloody raiders are in melee.
That would also recreate the turrets problem all over again. Get shotguns -> win doesn't sound like an interesting strategy.
Not entirely, if a shotgun was quick to FIRE, but slow to cycle (guns have a "prime" time, and a reload time) then it would work fine, giving people a quick strike, even if they couldn't fire as rapid like pistols.
And assuming range is kept at a good low, I don't see it as OP, considering there are very specific circumstances they become better than the charge rifles / snipers
Then what good would it be? You nail the first guy in the corridor, get soft-stunned, and the second guy beats your face in. Even if you have two guys at the end of the corridor, then it just means the third guy gets to beat your face in.
Quote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 10, 2013, 04:51:41 PM
Then what good would it be? You nail the first guy in the corridor, get soft-stunned, and the second guy beats your face in. Even if you have two guys at the end of the corridor, then it just means the third guy gets to beat your face in.
Your point? You want to kill all and everything without doing nothing, right? Seriously, this is getting boring. All you ever post is "gimme a magic one hit kill gun or god mode! otherwise too hard". Turn the darn difficulty down, there's no shame in that. Other people want to have their enjoyment too, you know?
Seriously, there IS an easy mode for ya. You can turn it on whenever you want.
Quote from: Galileus on November 10, 2013, 05:08:13 PMYour point? You want to kill all and everything without doing nothing, right? Seriously, this is getting boring. All you ever post is "gimme a magic one hit kill gun or god mode! otherwise too hard". Turn the darn difficulty down, there's no shame in that. Other people want to have their enjoyment too, you know?
Seriously, there IS an easy mode for ya. You can turn it on whenever you want.
You know what the point of battle is?
It's to inflict enough damage on the enemy that they stop fighting you, whilst taking as little damage for yourself as possible.
And in this game, we're outnumbered both tactically (number of raiders on the map versus the number of colonists
very quickly goes pear-shaped,) and strategically (infinite raiders waiting to drop in and go suicide fanatic on you,)
and the raiders have vastly superior gunnery skills.
So yes. We do need magic guns, because that's the only way to survive a raid without having taken ridiculous casualties that leave you pretty much incapable of fending off the next raid, and utterly incapable of fending off the raid after that. So, quite honestly, two guys at the end of a narrow corridor should constitute
complete and utter death for any raiders attempting to traverse that hallway - they file in, they drop like flies.
Because strategic positioning and control of the battlefield are the
only defensive mechanisms we have.
Quote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 10, 2013, 05:12:53 PMSo yes. We do need magic guns, because that's the only way to survive a raid without having taken ridiculous casualties that leave you pretty much incapable of fending off the next raid, and utterly incapable of fending off the raid after that.
So either we have magical guns already - because me and few guys here are doing fine with more and more ridiculous handicaps - or you REALLY should drop the difficulty level instead of whining on and on about it.
SERIOUSLY, I don't get it. While right now Cassandra The Sadist may be too much, a lot of folk started posting up their stories about no turrets/no funnelling games where we are doing quite well. And we're having a blast doing so - if anything we do the same, we have a lot of fun. Every guy who tries the no-cheeze approach said the same thing - it plays awesome. And it is awesome. Just one guy whines it's way, way too hard and insists that EVERYONE ELSE drops on difficulty levels.
There's a lot gold in these forums. More importantly, there's a lot of folk that are excited for a game that takes itself for real - AT LAST! No hand-holding, no 3h long unstoppable tutorial videos, the good old hardcore ways. And there's a lot of folk that want just to build. And we all find our places and our storytellers. Just you don't. It's about time to think if it's you or everyone else who does something wrong.
Those "no funnels, no waffles, no turret guys" have massive defensive fortifications, you realize, right? They have cheesy escape tunnels through which raiders cannot burst without spending time beating on doors, and other BS like that. In the end, it's more effective than turrets, it just exposes your colonists to more incoming fire.
Why would you? Why would you expose your people to fire when you can build a first line of defense in the form of turrets to soak up the fire? You wouldn't, unless you're a goddamn moron. You're also going to lose people more often, and frankly, losing people is like getting kicked in the crotch. The raiders don't scale down.
Quote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 10, 2013, 06:18:07 PMYou're also going to lose people more often
THAT'S THE POINT! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LOOSE PEOPLE!
Quote from: Galileus on November 10, 2013, 06:32:56 PMQuote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 10, 2013, 06:18:07 PMYou're also going to lose people more often
THAT'S THE POINT! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LOOSE PEOPLE!
No, that's the point of getting kicked in the crotch.
Every single dorf/colonist I lose is a kick in the crotch.
It means I fucked up. I fucked up, and because of it, I have suffered an increased chance of fucking up in the future, and decreased ability to correct for future fuck-ups.
THAT IS NOT FUN!Following up a fuck-up with increased chances of failure, even if they correct the problem that led to the fuck-up in the first place, is kicking the player when they're down.
You know what else feels like that? Going into depressed Detroit with a sign that reads "poor people are stupid and deserve their lot in life." (Replace with different places and different offensive slogans.) Watch how quickly you'll get "the point" of being knocked down and then kicked repeatedly when you're down.
Quote from: ShadowDragon8685 on November 10, 2013, 06:51:09 PMYou know what else feels like that? Going into depressed Detroit with a sign that reads "poor people are stupid and deserve their lot in life." (Replace with different places and different offensive slogans.) Watch how quickly you'll get "the point" of being knocked down and then kicked repeatedly when you're down.
How does that relate to point at hand? Not at all. Does developer himself pointed out his vision? He did. Is there a way to go onto an easier mode? There is. Is you post anything else than spewing hatred at anyone having different vision than you? I do think so.
I'm sorry, but I gotta report this. You listen to no reason, you negate every piece of a fact someone would throw at you, you completely ignore the fact that you can change difficulty at any time and - worst of all - you push through with more and more post about removing raiders or keeping TD play-style with more and more hateful tone.
Wow guys, really? Galileus, you are going to report him for what? Not sharing your opinion? The forum is a place to discuss topics, if you don't want to discuss with ShadowDragon then DON'T. Getting back to topic....I personally enjoy the M16 due to its 8 tile range advantage (Pretty sure this is correct), but I am going to try out the R4 in my next few games.
QuoteI personally enjoy the M16 due to its 8 tile range advantage
As do I. The majority of my pawns always have M-16s with a side of R-4s. If everyone had R-4s, while you may be doing higher damage, you'd be pooched against M-16s.
I prefer to let raiders into my base to negate any ranged advantage the sniper rifles have and equip my colonists with R4 rifles and other high dps weapons. Urban combat can be very effective because you can move through buildings, retreat behind fairly sturdy doors and the buildings divide and isolate raiders. This tactic is fairly micromanagey but it adds to the strategic feel of the game.
I've tried the "urban" close range fighting, but most of the time raiders will stay just outside and light the walls on fire / piss on all over my day without coming close enough to get shot. Gets kind of annoying actually.
lol all i wanted to know was what people thought was the most effective rifle, not unleash an avalanche of insults and flamewars over something unrelated
Quote from: SimpletonSnowman on November 11, 2013, 05:38:30 PM
lol all i wanted to know was what people thought was the most effective rifle, not unleash an avalanche of insults and flamewars over something unrelated
Welcome to the internet then, you must be new here ;)
On a more serious note, the flaming and stuff really does not have to be like it happened here - it serves little purpose.
The general consensus seems to be pulse rifle, with some M24 for long range and counter sniping. IMO, the M24 is a horrible weapon if your colonists do not have the skill - they make little use of the great range (their accuracy drops off like mad with 6 or so skill), and almost never hit if they are below 8ish skills. If they go to 11+, they kill stuff dead with ease.
The game is a bit off with the raiders. I had two games where raiders almost never bring uzi's and shotguns - and if they do much later than lee-enfields and even M16/M24. When you have a M16, you laugh about the uzi.