SVD upgrades.

[Egg]

What can you upgrade the SVD under barrel slot with? Some of the rifle upgrades don't work on it, I have installed the rifle drum magazine and the compensator. I know you can add the stock upgrade if you can find it but the under barrel slot won't take the custom barrel support.

[Nordom]

The barrel support specifies it's for crossbows, the underbarrel on rifles is generally limited to flashlights and bayonets unless there is something else I have yet to see in shops.

[Egg]

Custom barrel support says; rifle, shotgun and crossbows

[Nordom]

Originally posted by X-Egg:

Custom barrel support says; rifle, shotgun and crossbows

You're right I was thinking about the guide rod, the custom barrel support is a stock slot item and the SVD along with a number of other rifles don't frequently have that slot as an upgrade.

Edit: Which is why the dragonuv and sks with optics tend to be worse sniper rifles than the one you can make and just regular rifles you can attach scopes too IMO.

[Sithicus]

Yeah, I use Sniper Rifle for my build. Works way better for several reasons:

Ammo is cheap and plentiful
+4% Crit chance

Mods:
Zenith x4 which gives +16% to ignore armour, +8% to hit head/eyes, +2% crit chance
Ergonomic stock -1 reload cost and -1 attack cost -> aimed shot costs 3 AP, reload 2 AP
Extended Rifle Magazine -> 10 rounds capacity
DTK-VIKHR flash supressor

299 Rifle skill so ignore 30% of armour and 100% of evasion
+20% Damage from Firearms Academy Perk
+10% piercing and + 10% Damage from True Grit
+10% Aimed Shot Damage from Gunsmith
+15% Critical Damage Chance from Amputator
+30% Critical Damage Chance for head or eye shot with scope

I get 4 aimed shots per turn (with Fast Reaction), 5 if I initiate combat. Average crit ratio is above 60% and usually each crit is a kill shot.

Sniper Rifle gets me through the final fight without any problems.

[Nordom]

A number of better parts out there exist:
Weighted magazine for rifles +12 mag size, +1 jamming chance (doesn't matter with the perk that makes homemade weapons jam of course),
8x optical scope +25% ignore armor, +12 to hit limbs, head, eyes, +10 chance to hit with aimed shots, -25% chance with unaimed shots, +4% crit chance,
There are 2 better DTK compensators with the best being
DTK STORM +5 chance to hit with no aim, +14% chance to hit with aimed shot, +9% chance to hit for every next bullet in burst, +5 max range

Pays to check out those faction/seventh heaven merchants late game, you'll even see some really rare weapons like the saiga shotgun and the strelok crossbow which holds 6 rounds and has a 2 ap regular/3 aimed/4 reload, 1/2/3 with that ergonomic stock.

[Falka]

I also mainly use sniper rifles, but at higher level, I feel like crossbow is a better option. Rifles have more mod slots, but most of the buffs are simply chance to hit, which is kinda useless if you have 299 in your proficiency, and high enough attention. Crossbows have better buffs from the mods, 3 good tier 4 skills and that 20% buff from homemade weapon skill. Their low range limitation is fixed by the skills and the mods. Their damage is way higher, and for a very cheap cost, we can also get useful perks for grenades, which is too easy to get compare to ATOM RPG. I can use one hand for grenades and the other for crossbow, then I have CC and insane single damage.

Haven't tried that launcher from the armor yet, but it's also in throwing weapon category iirc.

[Sithicus]

The mods I've put are the ones I've got currently equipped, hoping to get best versions soon.

What annoys me is that siding with one faction locks me from purchasing goods from the other one, there should be some top tier merchants independent of the factions with the best and most expensive stuff.

[Queegon]

Originally posted by Sithicus:

The mods I've put are the ones I've got currently equipped, hoping to get best versions soon.

What annoys me is that siding with one faction locks me from purchasing goods from the other one, there should be some top tier merchants independent of the factions with the best and most expensive stuff.

Police = assault rifles, machine guns, rifles
Revolutionaries = shotguns, rifles, smgs
Jacek = pistols
There is an independent merchant with top trade stock in 7th Heaven.

Anyway, modded heavy crossbow with 3/3/1 costs > anything else.

[Nordom]

Originally posted by Queegon:

Police = assault rifles, machine guns, rifles
Revolutionaries = shotguns, rifles, smgs
Jacek = pistols
There is an independent merchant with top trade stock in 7th Heaven.

Anyway, modded heavy crossbow with 3/3/1 costs > anything else.

Modded strelok crossbow with 1/2/3 cost and 6 round magazine begs to differ. Five aimed bolts to the eyes a round.

[Falka]

I used the console to test between Strelok and Heavy crossbows, so far I think they're kinda on par.

- Heavy crossbow (3/3/1): much higher damage (due to higher base damage + that 20% from homemade skill) + higher range (3 cells which is 3% critical chance more) + 4% more base critical chance. It needs 11 AP to shoot 3 as / round
- Strelok (1/2/2): 5 as / round for only 10 AP.

The heavy crossbow delivers about 25% more damage + 7% more crit chance. However, since most foes in this game is kinda like papers, you don't need all that damage from the Heavy crossbow, kill more enemies / round is better. The only problem is that there are hardly any encounters with that many enemies (I haven't gotten into the Heaven yet), and that according to a thread I found, the Strelok crossbow is only available on the Seventh Heaven, by which I guess it's almost end game already, so most of the time, there are not much difference between these two.

The biggest difference is that for heavy crossbow, since you have to reload every time, it's easy to forget switching back to aimed mode, it's almost a breaking deal to me, the game should really reserve the current attack mode after reload instead of switching back to single every time.

[Queegon]

Originally posted by Nordom:

Modded strelok crossbow with 1/2/3 cost and 6 round magazine begs to differ. Five aimed bolts to the eyes a round.

I mean...ok, sure, but I have yet to see it in-game in two full runs unless it's in a fixed location I had missed. Heavy crossbow is something you create in the first 30 minutes of your game session. Ergonomic stock you can buy from Jacek and needed skills are obtained in char creation.

[Sithicus]

Originally posted by Queegon:

There is an independent merchant with top trade stock in 7th Heaven.

Thank you! He was just the person I was looking for. When I've finished my first playthrough in Early Access I got to 7th Heaven after Machine Factory riots (sided with Revolutionists) and the place was bombed by the Northerner terror cell and he wasn't there. Looks like in my next playthrough I'm gonna get some serious cash to bribe my way in and buy those sweet, sweet guns & mods.

BTW - this Strelok crossbow you guys mentioned - is the location fixed or is it a random chance in the shop?

[Faat]

Originally posted by Sithicus:

BTW - this Strelok crossbow you guys mentioned - is the location fixed or is it a random chance in the shop?

It can be bought from the seller from the 7th heaven with some small chance
I had to spend more then a week chilling near the seller until I was finally able to buy it

[Nordom]

The faction merchants can get it to I assume, since I did see a rare Saiga shotgun in the police armory late game.

[Sithicus]

Damn. I need Saiga for my collection. Guess I'll need to keep checking her inventory every day hoping it shows up.