Your ranged weapons of choice

[TheMeInTeam]

Early-mid game: best you can find (not craft)
Late-game: miniguns. They are way better than any other weapon in the game and don't need shooting skill. I also keep few other weapons for specific situations (sniper rifle for sieges and mechanoids, assault rifle/shotguns for mining)

This is nearly exactly what I did in B18.  In 1.0 bullet intercept has been nerfed, so I'm not sure miniguns are as dominant now.  Centipedes can't drop them anymore either so no way of getting them before late game tech.  As a tribe you're almost certainly not getting them before year 3 in 1.0, maybe later depending on how you progress/what techs you prioritize (deep drills got nerfed too).

[BLACK_FR]

Early-mid game: best you can find (not craft)
Late-game: miniguns. They are way better than any other weapon in the game and don't need shooting skill. I also keep few other weapons for specific situations (sniper rifle for sieges and mechanoids, assault rifle/shotguns for mining)

This is nearly exactly what I did in B18.  In 1.0 bullet intercept has been nerfed, so I'm not sure miniguns are as dominant now.  Centipedes can't drop them anymore either so no way of getting them before late game tech.  As a tribe you're almost certainly not getting them before year 3 in 1.0, maybe later depending on how you progress/what techs you prioritize (deep drills got nerfed too).

I made a ship and flew away in year 3.5 (on naked brutality extreme), made miniguns long before (not remember excatly how much before but before deep drilling and ship research). I think I still could get them relatively early in 1.0 but bullet inercept is a pretty big nerf to miniguns, may be they not worth it anymore and assault rifles take their place.

[TheMeInTeam]

Early-mid game: best you can find (not craft)
Late-game: miniguns. They are way better than any other weapon in the game and don't need shooting skill. I also keep few other weapons for specific situations (sniper rifle for sieges and mechanoids, assault rifle/shotguns for mining)

This is nearly exactly what I did in B18.  In 1.0 bullet intercept has been nerfed, so I'm not sure miniguns are as dominant now.  Centipedes can't drop them anymore either so no way of getting them before late game tech.  As a tribe you're almost certainly not getting them before year 3 in 1.0, maybe later depending on how you progress/what techs you prioritize (deep drills got nerfed too).

I made a ship and flew away in year 3.5 (on naked brutality extreme), made miniguns long before (not remember excatly how much before but before deep drilling and ship research). I think I still could get them relatively early in 1.0 but bullet inercept is a pretty big nerf to miniguns, may be they not worth it anymore and assault rifles take their place.

1.0 slowed research skill increase so unless you happen on two 10+ skill pawns early enough you're going to be a bit delayed.  I definitely went deep drill before miniguns in B18, by the time I could research either I'd have sustainable defenses and miniguns were more convenience than mandatory (plus centipedes + raiders brought some for me anyway).

I think sub 5 year launch is still possible for tribe tech start, though you're still more likely to be gated on resources rather than research (especially if you've bad luck with uranium).  1.0 does require an advanced component to build multi-analyzer, so you must get at least one from ancient danger/trade/quest/whatever and that could delay things a bit too.

Research curve is slow at first then picks up thanks to better bench + pawn skill growth.  1.0 definitely makes early goings a bit slower but nothing too major.  AR has nowhere near the DPS of minigun in crowds, the latter was pretty unique in terms of being able to force fire 6-8 and just mow down an arbitrarily large number of enemies pressing into a choke.  If that's no longer possible it might be worth doing shenanigans with explosives (mortar or otherwise) or temperature abuse (sneak shutting a vented kill box and making it super hot) as these are the only other things that scale up AoE to quickly destroy dozens of enemies.