Charge rifles are too common

[NickB0]

From the start I seemed to acquire at least 1 charge rifle every pirate raid, later on getting about 5 per raid. It seemed very uncommon for the raiders to be equipped with survival rifles, shotguns and LMG's and I haven't even seen a single one use an assault rifle (I was playing tribal start, Randy Extreme and most of the raids have been sappers/all melee/tribals. Its possible this problem is because of the difficulty and lack of normal attackers)

This ruins the balance because charge rifles are just in general better than all other guns (except sometimes snipers). After nearly 4 years, a colony total wealth of 275,000 and 23 colonist, instead of having varied soldiers with assault rifles, survival rifles, LMG's, Heavy SMG's, shotguns, I just have everyone use the superior charge rifles, which feels kind of boring. And unlike armor which deteriorates and can be damaged by attacks, as long as guns are equipped or indoors they can easily last the entirety of the game at 100%.

Anyone else notice this too? I think it would be fair to have the charge rifles be a late game weapon used mostly by power armored pirates. BTW this isn't me complaining about the difficulty, I just want to see more varied firearms in combat.

[Serenity]

Yeah, they seem to be too universally good. The only downside is the short range, which is bad in some situations. So I keep some sniper rifles and assault rifles around. Those are also great weapons for hunters.

The only other weapons I use at that stage is a minigun for some of the bad shooters when outdoors and replace that with a shotgun for indoors (when fighting insects).

But the other weapons I only use at the beginning of the game

[Tynan]

Yeah, you're right. I'm rebalancing weapons overall and I will be keeping this in mind.

[DariusWolfe]

I must be super unlucky, then. I've literally never seen one in-game, except on a trader, more expensive than I'm willing to pay.

[mcgnarman]

Yeah, you're right. I'm rebalancing weapons overall and I will be keeping this in mind.

Noooo my glorious charge riflesssssss....

Jk, I get endless clubs.

[MikeLemmer]

Nah, there's definitely an increase in the number of charge rifles at the higher difficulties. On my normal Randy game, I had 3 charge rifles after 2 years. On my Intense Cassandra game, I had 3 within less than a year.

[Serenity]

Even on Cassandra Rough I could have 8 people with charge rifles now. Just another raid with three of them, though they were all aweful/poor. But that entire raid was half-assed. In any case there isn't really a point in researching them and building them yourself.

[Shurp]

They're worth building yourself if (a) you have lots of plasteel lying around and can't be bothered to build a ship and (b) you want to use *good* rifles instead of the shoddy/damaged ones the pirates drop.

[Serenity]

Building them is more reliable of course, but I usually have enough pirates dropping good quality rifles in perfect or near perfect condition. Maybe if you have one of those huge colonies, but I tend to have less than a dozen people.

I've seen the same happening in Let's Play videos

[Stormfox]

The problem with charge rifles isn't just that they are pretty powerful and relatively common/easy to make. The problem is that there are no workable alternatives. The following weapons are what I consider actually usable given the difficulty of the game in general and the toughness of mechs in particular:


A few Snipers are good to force enemies to come closer and have a response to enemy snipers. Also they are good against mechs and when hunting dangerous animals. They suffer from low dps and a dead zone, so they cannot be used as a mass infantry weapon.

Survival Rifles are an okay substitute and have no "dead zone", but are overall too low on dps and still too low on punch to be more than a stop-gap solution until better stuff is available for everyone.

Bows are a way to make your guys have a decent ranged weapon that is almost free before you have enough loot/tech.

Charge Rifles pack a solid punch, are very strong against un/weakly armored foes and are plentiful and not that expensive to craft. Their only downside is one that is shared by half of the weapons not listed up there and manageable in solid defensive positions.

And, well, that's it.
Everything else sucks.

Since even medium sized animals have a bazillion hp, quite some opponents have decent armor and animals are hard to hit, those pistols, smgs, assault rifles and miniguns simply deal too low damage. Most of them suffer from cannot-penetrate-mech-armor-syndrome heavily. The shotguns are almost there because they pack decent punch, decent dps and good accuracy - but they cannot even be used to safely hunt a potentially aggressive animal because you are dead before firing the second shot.

A full weapon rebalance is very much needed.

[Shurp]

Agreed, the problem is not so much that charge rifles are awesome as that all the other weapons (with the exception of sniper rifles and survival rifles) are awful.

The assault rifle and the LMG are the worst offenders.  Assault rifle damage should be the same as the hunting rifle -- especially if it's an AK-47.  So should LMG damage, and the LMG should be capable of putting out 100 rounds per minute without overheating. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCwjRfzlHng

The operator will probably wear out before the rifle does... although you will want someone else carrying all the ammo and the spare barrels.

[iceteazz]

 _ Charged Rifle is the best weapon for common shooters although it lacks of range and good accuracy like Assault Rifle. The key is damage ! 13 damage per shot is just insane, 3 shots per burst, means 39 damage potentially. While other weapon lacks of damage vs armored foe, or very high hp monster.

_ Survival rifle is low on dps except vs human withou armor, because the rate of fire is subpar. Charged Rifle is a all round weapon, very good accuracy, long range, but the damage per shot is 7, it's just some scratches to centipedes or thrumbo, even muffalo could withstand those damage. LMG is good, but still too low accuracy, mini gun is for non shooting skill colonists because of it's hardcode in missing accuracy at range.

_ So we have no choice but Charged Rifle, the best dps Rifle. Even though it's pretty short range and so so accuracy, the dps is just so high and enough to pierce through high armored foes.

_ The game needs more weapons, rifles etc to fill the gaps between bows and guns, and between Assault rifle, Charged rifle and Sniper rifle.

p/s: i personally love to add AK-47 into the game lol

[RazorHed]

Maybe weapons need to use ammo. Small ammo for pistols and auto pistols , shotgun shells , medium ammo for assault rifles and large ammo for snipers, and charge packs for charge rifles . Maybe grenades and molotovs could have a limited number of uses too

small and medium ammo made from steel
Large made from steel and plasteel
charge ammo made from plasteel and uranium at a new charge station bench



then a new piece of clothing , the ammo belt could be made , otherwise youd need stockpiles of ammo nearby

[ruddthree]

Are they? Maybe I haven't gotten to that wealth level yet (I don't pay much attention), but during late-game, I usually have at least one charge rifle per raid/siege.

[christhekiller]

Really? I'm in about my third year and I've only been seeing them since like, middle of year 2? And it's still only one or two per raid.