Weapons discussion for 1.0 specific

[mndfreeze]

I'd like to hear some other peoples choices in weapons with 1.0 so far.   I play on harder scenarios like tribe or a nothing start and apparently there were enough changes to the weapon systems that I'm getting my ass kicked.

I remember assault rifles always being pretty much some of the best overall weapons for versitility.  Long range, good damage, decent fire rate.  SMG's were good for high damage at shorter ranges.

SMG's don't seem nearly as good these days, and I saw in another thread someone mentioned LMG's being really good now.  Has their accuracy and overall usefulness been improved?

I'd like to hear what sort of weapon choices you guys go with for the early game, the mid game and the late game.   More melee builds, 50/50, more shooters, what sort of loadout you do for em, what factors are coming into play for your decisions like a low skilled pawn vs high skilled or trigger happy vs careful shooter.

Looking at just raw stats bows still seem pretty powerful, but I know there are numbers I'm not fully seeing/understanding as it's a lot more then just raw damage.

[XeoNovaDan]

I too used to like Assault Rifles and Heavy SMGs, but not so much anymore. The one big thing that seriously changed up the ranged weapons that I'd use is the introduction of ranged stagger. Generally speaking, these are now the only ranged weapons I'd really consider maining in my colony:
* Recurve bow (in certain situations)
* Greatbow (this can even stagger centipedes, unlike a bolt-action or sniper)
* Revolver (early-to-mid-game)
* Bolt-Action Rifle (early-to-late-game)
* LMG (mid-to-end-game)
* Charge Lance (late-to-end-game)

There are only a few non-staggering weapons I'd use:
* Machine Pistol (for weak shooters)
* Charge Rifle (for weak shooters late-game)
* Minigun (its DPS somewhat makes up for the fact it can't stagger)

And these are the weapons I used to like but don't anymore:
* Assault Rifle (used to play a major role in my mid-to-end-game arsenal)
* Heavy SMG (used to heavily favour this for close-quarters until late-game, but not so much since the gap between machine pistol and HSMG has narrowed, and MPistol's range is worth more to me)

As for melee, I've gone somewhat 30/70 nowadays, rather than the old "you're not a brawler? Have a gun!" policy I previously adopted. With the accessibility of shield belts and the buff to melee weapons, melee has certainly become a much more viable option. Lancers seem to go down pretty easily to melee rushes, and melee's also useful for distracting centipedes. Regarding weapons, I usually favour the gladius since it's relatively cheap yet dishes out pain fairly quickly.

[mndfreeze]

Cool.  Is the weapon stagger listed in the stats of the gun info section? I'm at work so I can't look right this second. 

I'm struggling a lot more in the early and mid game right now, for more reasons then just the weapons of course, but it would be nice to hear what people are switching too and is working for them and why.  Game keeps giving me characters with terrible combat skills.  Like 0 shooting and 2 melee and stuff like that.  Right now my current tribal play through has *1* shooter (with like an then the other 4 people have 0 to 2 shooting, and like 3 to 6 melee, so they are all melee people.  Issue is raids keep coming with all shooters and they start breaking and burning everything down before I can trick them into following me inside somewhere.  I'm not sure if it would just be better to have low skill people still using some revolvers or something even if their terrible shots.  The stagger might be worth it.

I do have a few normal recurve bows.  Better or worse then poor quality auto pistols/revolvers you think?

[zizard]

Standard guns worth using late are LMG, charge lance, minigun, and situationally sniper, hsmg, incendiary. Charge rifle is a noob trap weapon, only slightly better than a machine pistol LOL.

[mndfreeze]

Standard guns worth using late are LMG, charge lance, minigun, and situationally sniper, hsmg, incendiary. Charge rifle is a noob trap weapon, only slightly better than a machine pistol LOL.

Yeah this is exactly the kind of things that makes me question my decisions.  When doing a rich explorer start the charge rifle is really nice in the beginning, and keeping it around late game (at least in prior versions) was never an issue because I always had a ton of people with assault rifles, snipers, etc all mixed in, but the fact that its presented like a very late game weapon and statistically it's really not that great makes me really wonder what else is off.  Like how bows are presented in the game.  From a stats perspective I glance at the tab and see high damage numbers, not insanely slow recharge fire rates and wonder why some later guns seem weaker and what I must be missing.  Of course, when I try to use an army of bowmen against a mix of raiders with guns I still get my ass kicked. lolol.

[Tynan]

Charge rifle is a noob trap weapon, only slightly better than a machine pistol LOL.

Why do you say this? From the ingame analyzer the CR has an average DPS of 7.18 (with 7.24 at medium range) while the MP has an average of 5.65 (3.86 at medium range). Plus the CR has much better armor penetration.

[mndfreeze]

Tynan how come DPS is listed for melee weapons in the info section in game but not for ranged?  Is this something we can get, even if its just best guess estimates or something?  It would be helpful.

[zizard]

Why do you say this? From the ingame analyzer the CR has an average DPS of 7.18 (with 7.24 at medium range) while the MP has an average of 5.65 (3.86 at medium range). Plus the CR has much better armor penetration.

It shouldn't use the average over ranges that the weapon can't fire at. Medium range accuracy is mostly irrelevant since medium is 30 and both weapons have max range of 22. Sure there is some LERP from 15 to 22, but that is not even halfway to 30 and makes no real difference.

Low values of AP (i.e. 100/AP >> 1) have very small effects due to superlinear scaling of EHP with AP. In the low armour regime, armour is negligible. In the high armour regime, low AP weapon damage is negligible.

[Greep]

I hadn't tried the mingun lately because I read that 50% of missed shots just straight up miss rather than go on to hit other things which was the strength of that gun.  Was that reverted or was the minigun buffed to compensate?

"--Missed shots now have a 50% extra chance of hitting nothing; this will make missed shots less likely to hit random things (but doesn't change the chance of missing)."

Since miniguns always miss that looks like a whopping 50% reduction in damage.

[Oblitus]

I hadn't tried the mingun lately because I read that 50% of missed shots just straight up miss rather than go on to hit other things which was the strength of that gun.  Was that reverted or was the minigun buffed to compensate?

"--Missed shots now have a 50% extra chance of hitting nothing; this will make missed shots less likely to hit random things (but doesn't change the chance of missing)."

Since miniguns always miss that looks like a whopping 50% reduction in damage.

They don't always miss anymore. They just have absolutely awful accuracy. Expected hit rate on aiming target is nearly the same, but area effect is now halved.

Charge rifle is a noob trap weapon, only slightly better than a machine pistol LOL.

Why do you say this? From the ingame analyzer the CR has an average DPS of 7.18 (with 7.24 at medium range) while the MP has an average of 5.65 (3.86 at medium range). Plus the CR has much better armor penetration.

Have no idea where ingame analyzer is.

Hit changes are from ingame tolltip. Pawn with 20 shooting, pirate target on max range, no cover, max range.
MP - 43% to hit with 3x6 damage = 7.74 avg damage per burst, 514 RPM
CR - 58% to hit with 2x15 damage = 17.4 avg damage per burst, 180 RPM

Same pawn, timber wolf target.
MP - 36% to hit = 6,48 per burst
CR - 49% to hit = 14.7 per burst
Tested by spawning hungry timber wolf. Managed to do 2 bursts with CR and 4 bursts with AP. Expected damage for MP 25.9, for CR 29.4 (target is moving here but it doesn't matter much since accuracy change should be proportional)
According to this test, CR is 13% better.

All tests ended poorly for my pawn, since wolf not even once was neutralized before getting to melee range. Godlike shooter with weapon which is positioned as best ingame can't fend off a wolf... I guess it's all you need to know about ranged weapons now.

MP has 514/180 = 2.85x better fire rate.
CR has 2.5x better damage per shot.
CR is 1.35x more accurate.
According to this data, CR is 14% better DPS-wise.

[Golden]

In my opinion, the damage done by firing with any type of rifle with decent accuracy and skill should always do enough to take down that type of target, especially if several hits are successful.  Melee shouldn't be required.

[Oblitus]

In my opinion, the damage done by firing with any type of rifle with decent accuracy and skill should always do enough to take down that type of target, especially if several hits are successful.  Melee shouldn't be required.

But then you are missing a great chance to get your limbs torn off! Just think what a great story it is:

I was a godlike marksman. Once I took my ultra-advanced spacer-tech assault rifle and went to a walk in the woods, where I met a hungry wolf. I started shooting from maximal range (15 meters) and let out two deadly volleys (2 shots each), shooting off wolf's ear, which caused him to go manhunter. Then he got to me and tore both my hands off. Luckily, then when he forgot about me, since manhunters don't finish off their targets and went to traders caravan, where he got killed by the doomsday launcher, killing half of the caravan as well, which caused our reputation with them to go downhill. They were a weapon dealer and spilled a ton of their goods, but it is so cheap to sell that we don't even bother to collect it.

[Serenity]

All tests ended poorly for my pawn, since wolf not even once was neutralized before getting to melee range.

The CR used to be able to kill a bear reliably. The rich explorer starting with was a huge deal

[mndfreeze]

They don't always miss anymore. They just have absolutely awful accuracy. Expected hit rate on aiming target is nearly the same, but area effect is now halved.

Hmm. So is the minigun a lot more worthwhile to give to a pawn with high shooting than it used to be?  I seem to remember back in the day they were almost better to give to someone with garbage accuracy and shooting but a trait like trigger happy and just let them spray inside a killbox type area, because the gun in itself was almost just as useful there as it was in the hands of a super skilled shooter.  I never used em much before unless I didn't have a choice or was in a really specific situation for that one fight because over all they always felt a little underwhelming or risky. 

[Oblitus]

Tests after the last update.
First challenger - our old friend Timber Wolf.
Second challenger - level 20 pawn (scar on shoulder so 87% manipulation). He is a wimp, so any scratch downs him. All weapons are normal quality. Wolf starts from the current weapon's max range.

Charge Rifle: 4 : 1. Pawn has the time to do 2 bursts, usually 1-2 hits. Chance to hit at 26 range 35%.
Machine Pistol: 5 : 0. Pawn has time to do 3 bursts. Chance to hit at 20 range 33%. Hits quite consistently, but damage is simply not enough.
Chain Shotgun: 4 : 1. Pawn has time to do 1 burst. Chance to hit at 13 range 47%.
Minigun: 3 : 2. Pawn has time to do 1 burst. Chance to hit at 31 range 13%. Lucky burst can cripple target enough to give time for second burst.
Revolver: 4 : 1. Chance to hit at 26 range 28%. That one success was thatks to stopping power buying time. Won't work with bigger target.
Heavy SMG: 4 : 1. Pawn has time to do 2 bursts. Chance to hit at 23 range 27%. Single victory was from lucky first burst that shot off one paw and heavily damaged another.
Assault Rifle: 4 : 1. Pawn has time to do 2 bursts. Chance to hit at 31 range 37%.
Pump Shotgun: 3 : 2. Pawn has time for 2 shots only. Chance to hit at 16 range 60%. Stopping power is huge thing here. A good hit basically means that pawn cat hit one more time.
LMG: 3 : 2. Can do 1-3 bursts, depends on success of previous. Chance to hit at 26 range 22%. Stopping power is a huge factor. Brain shot can be deadly.
Bolt-action: 4 : 1. Pawn has time for 3 shots. Chance to hit at 37 range 46%. Stopping power does little due to low rate of fire.
Incendiary Launcher: 4 : 1. Only one chance to hit. And even successful hit gives no warranty.
Charge Lance: 2 : 3. Pawn has time for 2 shots. Twin brother of bolt-action. Same range, same accuracy. Three perfect headshots. Not exactly representative.
Recurve Bow: 5 : 0. Pawn has time for 2 shots. Chance to hit at 26 range 41%.
Great Bow: 5 : 0. Pawn has time for 2 shots. Chance to hit at 30 range 41%.
Sniper Rifle: 4 : 1. Pawn has time for 2 shots. Chance to hit at 45 range 44%.

Overall score:
Wolf - 58
Human - 17

Summary:
- All ranged weapons suck hard and successful use is very RNG-heavy.
- Since tests are on unarmored targets, low damage weapons would show worse (can be worse?) performance in combat against tougher targets.
- Tests are done with a mod that improves threat response, so pawns start shooting immediately when the wolf gets into range. Otherwise pawn would only shoot from range 10, and in this case pump shotgun is your best bet.