Smartgun

[dgresevfan]

I haven't unlocked this yet but from the item screen it seems a bit odd. 1 bullet per burst? Both this and the pulse rifle should be more like 3-4 bullets per burst based on the movie.

And the stats are weirdly similar to the pulse rifle. So what exactly is the advantage of the smartgun?

What it SHOULD do is massively raise the marine's accuracy. Is there some hidden stat I haven't noticed that does this?

[Jhea]

the smartgun is not an autotargeting one.
just coz some early AVP games made them autoaim, in order to give them some difference from the normal guns in said game, doesn't make it canon.

otherwise we could just as well argue, that having a carbonite gun on yavin would've made vader or luke win that battle with 2 or 3 shots, just coz we saw that in dark forces2 (jedi knight: mysteries of the sith)

[Falaris]

Burst fire:
Each time you pull the trigger, a pre-chosen 3(or X) bullets fly. No more, no less. The idea is that more is a waste if you're on aim (or off, for that matter), and 3 is better than 1. More chance of hitting, more damage.

If you do NOT fire in bursts, the amount of bullets depend on how long you press the trigger, or, in the case of the smartgun, how long you have a living target in your sights. For the smartgun, bursts would be a unnecessary limitation, not a bonus.

At least going by normal game/world logic, but of course, I haven't gotten the thing yet.

The gun doesn't automatically shoot for you, in canon - it helps identify targets, marks them, and the harness even steers the gun towards the target, but it's a cooperative effort - the gunner still presses the trigger, and can jostle the aim on (or off) target by their own motion.

[ThatZenoGuy]

The smartgun absolutely auto-aims in canon, the technical manual says so.

[Jhea]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

The smartgun absolutely auto-aims in canon, the technical manual says so.

"some guy wrote it in a book, so it must be true"

insert "onepunchman ok"-meme here

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by Jhea:

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

The smartgun absolutely auto-aims in canon, the technical manual says so.

"some guy wrote it in a book, so it must be true"

insert "onepunchman ok"-meme here

The Colonial Marine Technical Manual is one of the earliest and most detailed Aliens lore written lmao.
The smartgun auto-aims in lore, simple as that. You want to argue against the OG film?

[Dregora]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

it's roughly on par with the pulse rifle damage wise, but you do have 50% more bullet per magazine (and magazine do matter in this game), but the class itself (gunner) get an upgraded suppressive fire for the team (slows even more), and you get +10 precision when you manually target things. so they tend to hit more overall.

also you can transform their gun into a sentry on demand.

they are good to have on any team really.

I guess the sentry thing is taking the place of regular auto-aim in this. Not terrible, but the smartgun should be auto-targeting enemies with almost 100% accuracy.

That's what it's FOR. Getting a bonus by targeting a specific enemy seems a little odd. That's the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do.

Suppressive fire is also the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do. I mean, it should be hitting seeing as the gun targets enemies by itself. Suppressive fire is basically shooting to miss.

While I understand what you're saying from a lore perspective, if it would just auto aim with 100% accuracy, it would literally invalidate everything else. From a gameplay and balance perspective, this would be horrible.

The only other option i'd see is if it becomes a special weapon instead of a main weapon, so you get x amount of seconds where it does what it's supposed to do, but is limited by command points.

If you can just use it and it does what it does lore wise with no negatives, it'd be incredibly OP and no reason to use anything else. It would invalidate the whole game.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

it's roughly on par with the pulse rifle damage wise, but you do have 50% more bullet per magazine (and magazine do matter in this game), but the class itself (gunner) get an upgraded suppressive fire for the team (slows even more), and you get +10 precision when you manually target things. so they tend to hit more overall.

also you can transform their gun into a sentry on demand.

they are good to have on any team really.

I guess the sentry thing is taking the place of regular auto-aim in this. Not terrible, but the smartgun should be auto-targeting enemies with almost 100% accuracy.

That's what it's FOR. Getting a bonus by targeting a specific enemy seems a little odd. That's the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do.

Suppressive fire is also the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do. I mean, it should be hitting seeing as the gun targets enemies by itself. Suppressive fire is basically shooting to miss.

in this game, the gunner provides a massive more "slow" effect to the suppression skill, regarldess of who uses the skill.

Supression reduces aim by 20 but provides a 50% ish speed reduction of everything in the cone, and trust me you will want that in tiny corridors when a whole hive attacks you.

Remember you will meet varied Aliens, the first one are only the drones, later on you also meet Runners (extremely fast ones from alien 3), you also will encounter Warriors (much tougher with a leap attack) and also Praetorian (apex alien gards)

you do not want them to reach you, hence suppression will be your best friend.

i do get that the smartgun design is a bit weird, to be fair, most weapon are just roughly on par with what they do, damage wise, with the exception of the plasma rifle (lvl10) which is just superior in almost everything to all 3 other guns.

first rifle is basic but provides grenade launcher (always useful to have)
smart gun is only for the gunner but is barely better than the first one, you lose the grenade, but get a possibility to use it as a turret, and you can use your second gun (which have unlimited ammo i believe)
then you have the Heavy rifle, which is ... meh ? just 25% more ammo, same damage as first gun, and you still lose the grenade.
then plasma which has a very strong active skill which is basically a plasma lance that just delete everything in a straight line, and does 50% more damage than any other rifle.

i have 4/5 marines with the plasma rifles and 60% accuracy, they delete pretty much everything on sight. last one i left him with the grenade launcher cause it has use case where it's just the best (eggs, and behind cover ranged units)

[RobOda]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

I guess the sentry thing is taking the place of regular auto-aim in this. Not terrible, but the smartgun should be auto-targeting enemies with almost 100% accuracy.

That's what it's FOR. Getting a bonus by targeting a specific enemy seems a little odd. That's the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do.

Suppressive fire is also the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do. I mean, it should be hitting seeing as the gun targets enemies by itself. Suppressive fire is basically shooting to miss.

While I understand what you're saying from a lore perspective, if it would just auto aim with 100% accuracy, it would literally invalidate everything else.

Checking the Aliens wiki (and the AvP wiki and various others);

It auto targets and aims via infrared, so doesn't work on aliens, which iirc don't show up on infrared at all.

And, any auto tracking, whilst it does auto-target, still requires manual targeting to filter out false positives or decoy targets.

So, assuming this is the case, all smart guns in this game would have to be manually aimed etc, hence it missing so much is probably true to lore.

[Cat]

I do notice the smart gun has a box that shows up on an alien it's targeting, not sure if that's just visual or provides an aim boost however

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by RobOda:

Originally posted by Dregora:

While I understand what you're saying from a lore perspective, if it would just auto aim with 100% accuracy, it would literally invalidate everything else.

Checking the Aliens wiki (and the AvP wiki and various others);

It auto targets and aims via infrared, so doesn't work on aliens, which iirc don't show up on infrared at all.

And, any auto tracking, whilst it does auto-target, still requires manual targeting to filter out false positives or decoy targets.

So, assuming this is the case, all smart guns in this game would have to be manually aimed etc, hence it missing so much is probably true to lore.

Xenomorph infra-red lore is a bit spotty, they exhale water vapor which logically means their temperatures are different than their surroundings, ergo they show up on infra-red.

The reason they couldn't track them in the film was that they were in the fusion generator area, which was very hot, hot xenos don't show up in hot rooms.

[Muntz&TheKuntz]

Originally posted by LoR Team Triss:

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

In Fireteam Elite? I never noticed it preventing me firing.

Really? I have. It at least stops you once the target dies.

I think they patched this in recently, because you’re right it wasn’t always like that

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by Dregora:

While I understand what you're saying from a lore perspective, if it would just auto aim with 100% accuracy, it would literally invalidate everything else. From a gameplay and balance perspective, this would be horrible.

The only other option i'd see is if it becomes a special weapon instead of a main weapon, so you get x amount of seconds where it does what it's supposed to do, but is limited by command points.

If you can just use it and it does what it does lore wise with no negatives, it'd be incredibly OP and no reason to use anything else. It would invalidate the whole game.

yeah i definitely agree with that, if the Smart gun actually did what it's supposed to do, it would just break the game, why even bother to have accuracy on a marine when you can get 100% accuracy using a gunner with smart gun.

but yeah ... in lore it does not entirely do everything, it does TRACK and pre-aim for you, the operator still has to fire and let the gun aim.

the real "auto target" gun would be the upgraded M57 smartgun, which has smart round able to individually target and retarget mid flight.

but to be fair, they gave a 150 ammo count to the smartgun when it should have 500 rounds per magazine as well.

also worth noting, but the M56(and later models) target with INFRARED, and technically speaking aliens are invisible to infrared. so ... if you follow the lore, the smartgun should not be able to "smart fire" on aliens.

so if anything, this game follows the alien lore PERFECTLY, for not actually auto aiming, unlike other games.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

Originally posted by Delta_Assault:

The smartgun’s tracking system works by infrared.

Remember how the aliens don’t show up on infrared in the movie?

“Maybe they don’t show up on infrared at all.”

Smartgun is depicted as locking onto Xenos in most fiction.

I do recall something about the lockon not working perfectly in the aliens colonial marines technical manual. But I'd have to re-check it.

the M56 aka smart gun (and later models) target with INFRARED, and technically speaking aliens are invisible to infrared. so ... if you follow the lore, the smartgun should not be able to "smart fire" on aliens at all.

If anything, this game follows the alien lore PERFECTLY, for not actually auto aiming, unlike other games, other games with smart gun actually being able to target lock alien is a fallacy.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

also worth noting, but the M56(and later models) target with INFRARED, and technically speaking aliens are invisible to infrared. so ... if you follow the lore, the smartgun should not be able to "smart fire" on aliens.

so if anything, this game follows the alien lore PERFECTLY, for not actually auto aiming, unlike other games.

Xenos have an obvious temperature gradient relative to their environment.

[WRAITH]

Originally posted by dgresevfan:

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

it's roughly on par with the pulse rifle damage wise, but you do have 50% more bullet per magazine (and magazine do matter in this game), but the class itself (gunner) get an upgraded suppressive fire for the team (slows even more), and you get +10 precision when you manually target things. so they tend to hit more overall.

also you can transform their gun into a sentry on demand.

they are good to have on any team really.

I guess the sentry thing is taking the place of regular auto-aim in this. Not terrible, but the smartgun should be auto-targeting enemies with almost 100% accuracy.

That's what it's FOR. Getting a bonus by targeting a specific enemy seems a little odd. That's the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do.

Suppressive fire is also the opposite of what I'd expect this thing to do. I mean, it should be hitting seeing as the gun targets enemies by itself. Suppressive fire is basically shooting to miss.

It's an RNG engine, not a shooter.

Good hunting.