More Veteran Weapon Evaluations

[Nifty]

Snipers:

Lynx - cheap to upgrade and arguable one of the best pure snipers in the game maxed out 10/10. If you want to hold your breath and one shot headshot in a firefight this is the gun.

Vintar - exceptional performance at all levels arguable one of the most powerful weapons in the game when set to semi auto in skilled hands. Can also fight mutants at point blank.

Lavina - ghetto vintar isn't really worth the materials the weapon is made of. It's main selling point is the increased magazine size but take it from me eating through extra ammo at worse performance means you should bench this guy immediately.

Sk 3 - exceptionally, prohibitively expensive to upgrade. I would say to stick with the linx 100% and we'll see this trend elsewhere also

Western sniper - well I sure hope you enjoy shooting your total of 50 308 rounds? Veteran ammo scarcity makes this weapon impractical.

M1 grand - read above 308 rounds don't exist and therefore neither do these snipers.

Pistols:

1. Skiffs gun - great weapon, but not the greatest. Once again that ounce of dmg won't drop monoliths because of armor negation.

But it can kill blind dogs, mutants, and most other things assuming you put 100 rounds through it. Can't break, can't be stolen, but it cuts off mid game.

2. Usp compact - 20 rounds is better then 13, assuming your goal is to spray clips at max semi auto speed. Which is how you use pistols viable on Veteran.

3. Gambit - it's the same pistol but also used widely popular smg ammo. Shoot forever all day long with this ammo economy.

4. Deadeye - it has a sight but is inferior to all other pistols otherwise

5. Rhino - one shot headshots zombies on Veteran. It also uses vintar ammo which is pretty common late in the game. Very good for hardmode.

6. Gangster- wow where did my ammo go? Not in the other man that's for sure!

Shotguns:

1. Cracker - obviously a very good shotgun with the box clip + laser sight. Generally overperforms given it's availability early on.

Saiga - a lot get said about the Saiga and rightfully so. 3 shot burst to drop the hardest human enemies in the game.

Everything else - this is where we get into the akward territory of the spas not really being a necessary transition weapon between these two options.

AR's;

M4 - unique in that it gets a 50 round clip and you'll know from the way we've evaluated weapon so far that on Veteran sometimes more is just better. Not the best Western AR but surprisingly decent.

G2 - gas powered assult rifle with a built in scope, and quick swap magazines. It's a mid game powerhouse, stick it on burst and watch it down with 0 recoil.

Aks - both aks are super out shone quite fast, I can't think of many reasons to keep using them past the point that you gain decent equipment.

Fora 221 - it's a straight AK upgrade, built in sight, 0 recoil with upgrades, full endgame viability on semi auto. Not expensive to upgrade or maintain.

Deni, kahrod - can't be upgraded till the last safe house, and the upgrades are too expensive anyway. But they are good straight vanilla which is nice.

Smg:

Viper - probably the most viable if the beginner gear. The mp5 sports high accuracy in burst mode, 40 rounds, and solid performance.

Rat killer - 50 rounds, better stats, basically a beefed up ar, nothing bad to aay here.

Integral - needs the 30 round capacity mod to be useful, and then it is an upgrade over the Viper and a valid choice depending on preference.

Bucket s2 - you'll be tripping on these by endgame, so they are nice to have in a pinch, and they use different ammo economy.

Conclusion: there is usually a sweet spot with weapons in Stalker 2 in terms of their ammo economy, coupon economy, and killing power.

Where the spot lands for you will be up to you.

There will be players who use skiffs pistol, drowned AK, and Skah's mate the entire game.

Then there will be players who put 200 vintar rounds into Streloks head cuz they chose the fun difficulty.

[HiggsLP]

Ive grown to like Bucket S2, througd Duga and its a very good sinper support. Especially given u can carry for the load of other ARs gun the s2 + enough ammo for same stopping power.

If I didnt like Bucket so much then Spitter- on paper its just another AK 47s, but its accuracy and weight makes it so viable that I dropped using Fora. With 40 round mag u can drop 2 Exos on close- mid range.

ERM- absolutely useless gun, no ammo for it, takes ages to killl anyone and by the time u get one pod wiped ure out of all ammo. Seems good on paper, bad in reality.
It goes on same boat with Vintar, its kinda good but lack on handling and economy side. If Exos start shooting back the stagger negates any positive sides those guns have.

Whip ofc- great 1 shot sniper in mid game pack of ammo is too much for it bc 1 bullet= 1 kill.

APSB- besides it being awesome pistol, its behind fun puzzle. Even on mid game drops exos with 1 HS burst. Great way to start stealthy approach by droppin 2-3 enemies on outer perimeter. Or to quickly draw out to finish last standing who ever.
Thats my quilty pleasure in Veteran run, expensive to repair but extremely fun.

Spas- found it in early game, right out of Lesser Zone, good and fast shotty to mag dum into BS face.
Till RAM- just looks cool as hell, has a bit more range than Saiga. Also found in a great puzzle(if u could call hiding it in plain sight a puzzle;)).

AR side, AR14 is useless, but SOFCOM is awesome early game gun and then u can switch it out for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, though its very expensive to repair.

[Nite69]

you are missing several op, here is a complete list

https://game8.co/games/STALKER-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl/archives/484338

[Nifty]

Yes on Veteran you have to chose your encounters and the value proposition in checking Stalker stashes.

It's very unlikely you will 100% the game on this difficulty.

So my goal was to outline a series of workhorse weapons that make the difficulty easier.

While outlining the weapons you won't have enough ammo or coupons for to invest your resources into.

I'l give an example, getting your 1st gauss rifle requires you to run away on Veteran.

The resources to kill 2 pseudo giants on high difficulty would be so prohibitive as to be impossible wasteful.

Like maybe 500 heavy MG rounds and several rockets for 2?

Instead you grab the loot and run, all of Veteran difficulty is like that, almost survival horror light.

[Absalom]

Sledgehammer needs more love.

I used the Sledgehammer well before I got the Saiga. While the Saiga wins overall because it can be magazine fed (an important thing when you're facing three bloodsuckers at the same time), you can literally dump all 8 shells of the Sledgehammer in under a second while keeping the barrel pointed at the target (an amazing feat considering the Saiga has horrible recoil). In addition to that, you can upgrade the Sledgehammer where the spread is super tight and the damage dropoff is further. In other words, in skilled hands the Sledgehammer is surgical and easily one of my favorites in the game. If it wasn't for the slow manual reloading, I'd toss the Saiga aside.

On that note, all shotguns do the same damage at point blank. Some have less damage dropoff at distances. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pellet count that gives you partial damage for those shots that aren't quite center mass.

[StormhawkV]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Absalom:

On that note, all shotguns do the same damage at point blank.

Actually their damage varies between 140 and 180.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

So far on Veteran I'm getting a steady supply of 308 ammo for my M701. If I get low in 308 I simply fast-travel to Rostok and purchase the ammo from Eugene.

[StormhawkV]

Ursprungligen skrivet av GrenadeMagnet6:

So far on Veteran I'm getting a steady supply of 308 ammo for my M701.

Yeah, I'd just ignore these comments. This one in particular is insane.

[Absalom]

Ursprungligen skrivet av StormhawkV:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Absalom:

On that note, all shotguns do the same damage at point blank.

Actually their damage varies between 140 and 180.

Interesting. That implies there is some RNG involved.

[StormhawkV]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Absalom:

Interesting. That implies there is some RNG involved.

The buckshot spread is indeed RNG and you can decrease it by installing those spread decrease mods but the damage numbers are for different shotguns assuming all pellets hit. Those with faster rate of fire deal less damage.

[Udenszirnis]

Rhino revolver with upgrades best sniper. Pair with Zubr-19 with long mag for maximum weight reduction.

[Othobrithol]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Absalom:

Ursprungligen skrivet av StormhawkV:

Actually their damage varies between 140 and 180.

Interesting. That implies there is some RNG involved.

Each large bar on the display is 20 damage, so it can only display up to 100.

In the data files you can find the damage values. The lowest is the Rhino converted to buckshot, at 115. Most including Saiga and the underbarrel one are 140. Ram is 150, Texan 180.

M701 is 160, Gauss 500 for instance.

[StormhawkV]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Othobrithol:

Gauss 500 for instance.

That would be nice but it's only 180.

[Othobrithol]

Ursprungligen skrivet av StormhawkV:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Othobrithol:

Gauss 500 for instance.

That would be nice but it's only 180.

I'm just quoting

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L6jBHJtw8AZrJZmOiFekiS2YVudHS3rQVGQN-oOaNMk/edit?gid=2000689774#gid=2000689774

but I've used both extensively and the Gauss does a lot more damage than the m701

[StormhawkV]

So they must have buffed its damage since I used it last time. 500 damage would actually make it useful.

[Othobrithol]

They buffed it 1.1.1