SMGs feel so bad towards the end...

[Crimzon]

Why do they sucks so much... As soon as everyone is rocking lvl5+ armor they just take forever .45 gets like 35 pen and 5.7 33 pen and 9mm gets 30 pen...Least pistols can get 'armor, no problem' all shots get addition 20% to pen armor. Meanwhile 5.56, 7.62x39 and 9.39 all get ammo with 50+ pen. The only rifles that suffer are the poor 5.45 with 40 pen lol.
I get it in real life rifles are miles better than smg at defeating armor but this a game with many cool guns why make some guns feel useless after a bit?

[Aldourien]

SMGs still work against mutants. You're intended to swap weapons between raids, or carry the SMG in your backpack as a backup whenever you decide to fight mutants.

[↓↓ Val]

Shotguns, SMGs, and pistols are only good for early game, and killing mutants.

For killing people, you want a DMR, AR, or Sniper.

[D.Kay]

Originally posted by Crimzon:

Why do they sucks so much... As soon as everyone is rocking lvl5+ armor they just take forever .45 gets like 35 pen and 5.7 33 pen and 9mm gets 30 pen...Least pistols can get 'armor, no problem' all shots get addition 20% to pen armor. Meanwhile 5.56, 7.62x39 and 9.39 all get ammo with 50+ pen. The only rifles that suffer are the poor 5.45 with 40 pen lol.
I get it in real life rifles are miles better than smg at defeating armor but this a game with many cool guns why make some guns feel useless after a bit?

Well. Can understand your point since I love playin' SMG which goes "BRRRRRR" and it's just way more fun to play than an AR. (which playin' SMG is sub-optimal than playin' AR in this game)

If you want a cool and PAINFUL experience of what every weapons would be viable without the range system, I can guide you to the Escape from Zarkov mod. This will break ... Your anus. NGL. I've got two shotted with a shotgun more than once in a permadeath run. Everything works (weapons wise) in this mod and everything will works against you too.
You will also need to scavenge for Meds / food since the mod disabled Barman refill or makes it that healing yourself at Doc cost a f* kidney.

[Feuver]

Originally posted by D.Kay:

Originally posted by Crimzon:

Why do they sucks so much... As soon as everyone is rocking lvl5+ armor they just take forever .45 gets like 35 pen and 5.7 33 pen and 9mm gets 30 pen...Least pistols can get 'armor, no problem' all shots get addition 20% to pen armor. Meanwhile 5.56, 7.62x39 and 9.39 all get ammo with 50+ pen. The only rifles that suffer are the poor 5.45 with 40 pen lol.
I get it in real life rifles are miles better than smg at defeating armor but this a game with many cool guns why make some guns feel useless after a bit?

Well. Can understand your point since I love playin' SMG which goes "BRRRRRR" and it's just way more fun to play than an AR. (which playin' SMG is sub-optimal than playin' AR in this game)

If you want a cool and PAINFUL experience of what every weapons would be viable without the range system, I can guide you to the Escape from Zarkov mod. This will break ... Your anus. NGL. I've got two shotted with a shotgun more than once in a permadeath run. Everything works (weapons wise) in this mod and everything will works against you too.
You will also need to scavenge for Meds / food since the mod disabled Barman refill or makes it that healing yourself at Doc cost a f* kidney.

It's kind of a real world issue with SMGs and Shotguns, faced with most kind of modern armor, they tend to have penetration/energy transfer problems that actually disables or kills the target. This is even worse in the Stalker/Zone-verse, where late-game armor are more akin to power-armor with self-contained filters and all the fancy jazz. What I usually do is play the Witcher-Route, where I have one weapon for human/armored targets and one weapon for mutants/trash.

Plus, assuming you have a thick armor yourself, and you know these guys will use AP ammo against you, it's better to tackle these threats from a safe distance/force them to close the gap than it is to rush them and risk getting one-shotted. So AR/DMR/Snipers are usually your safest bet when you're going to kill a camp full of enemies.

but AR/DMR/Snipers are really bad with mutants. They shoot too slow, they overpen (it is a factor in this game), and if you need to reload in a pinch you're caught pants down. With the late-game infestation having like 5-12+ mutants rushing at you, grabbing a 5 round sniper and a 30 round AR that takes 3 seconds to pull out is almost instant death. Which is why pistol/SMGs are much faster to pull out and tag mutants with.

Shotguns are kind of mid until you can get one with a large magazines (Just like the Stalker games), because if you're in that close range with something that wants to eat you in melee, you really don't have time to reload.

[D.Kay]

Originally posted by Feuver:

Originally posted by D.Kay:

Well. Can understand your point since I love playin' SMG which goes "BRRRRRR" and it's just way more fun to play than an AR. (which playin' SMG is sub-optimal than playin' AR in this game)

If you want a cool and PAINFUL experience of what every weapons would be viable without the range system, I can guide you to the Escape from Zarkov mod. This will break ... Your anus. NGL. I've got two shotted with a shotgun more than once in a permadeath run. Everything works (weapons wise) in this mod and everything will works against you too.
You will also need to scavenge for Meds / food since the mod disabled Barman refill or makes it that healing yourself at Doc cost a f* kidney.

It's kind of a real world issue with SMGs and Shotguns, faced with most kind of modern armor, they tend to have penetration/energy transfer problems that actually disables or kills the target. This is even worse in the Stalker/Zone-verse, where late-game armor are more akin to power-armor with self-contained filters and all the fancy jazz. What I usually do is play the Witcher-Route, where I have one weapon for human/armored targets and one weapon for mutants/trash.

Plus, assuming you have a thick armor yourself, and you know these guys will use AP ammo against you, it's better to tackle these threats from a safe distance/force them to close the gap than it is to rush them and risk getting one-shotted. So AR/DMR/Snipers are usually your safest bet when you're going to kill a camp full of enemies.

but AR/DMR/Snipers are really bad with mutants. They shoot too slow, they overpen (it is a factor in this game), and if you need to reload in a pinch you're caught pants down. With the late-game infestation having like 5-12+ mutants rushing at you, grabbing a 5 round sniper and a 30 round AR that takes 3 seconds to pull out is almost instant death. Which is why pistol/SMGs are much faster to pull out and tag mutants with.

Shotguns are kind of mid until you can get one with a large magazines (Just like the Stalker games), because if you're in that close range with something that wants to eat you in melee, you really don't have time to reload.

I have ... Nothing to say more than what @Feuver said cuz all of it is true:
-Shotgun are mid at best.
- DMR/SNIPER are bad when killing mutants
- I do disagree with him / her about AR being bad. if you take an AR with the perk that reduce the debuff on close quarter distance by 40% and you run HP in your inventory, you can mostly destroy any mutant with an AR on HP bullets quite easily.
Sure it won't have the stopping power of a shotgun or the rate of fire that an SMG may have, but it's still a decent option when you want to challenge both Mutant and NPC.
I do agree about the fact that if you're in a pinch, switching to an SMG or a pistol is faster than the AR tho I also admit that if you just go full AR with HP from the get go. you won't have a problem against mutants.

[Feuver]

Originally posted by D.Kay:

I have ... Nothing to say more than what @Feuver said cuz all of it is true:
-Shotgun are mid at best.
- DMR/SNIPER are bad when killing mutants
- I do disagree with him / her about AR being bad. if you take an AR with the perk that reduce the debuff on close quarter distance by 40% and you run HP in your inventory, you can mostly destroy any mutant with an AR on HP bullets quite easily.
Sure it won't have the stopping power of a shotgun or the rate of fire that an SMG may have, but it's still a decent option when you want to challenge both Mutant and NPC.
I do agree about the fact that if you're in a pinch, switching to an SMG or a pistol is faster than the AR tho I also admit that if you just go full AR with HP from the get go. you won't have a problem against mutants.

Do agree that AR can be kind of good against everything, but that's also the point that they're a jack of all trades and not a master of any scenario. Sure, in a situation where you don't know what you'll face, having an AR will always help more than having the wrong tool. But as you said, you really can't take the 1-2 seconds to swap to an AR and then swap to HP/AP ammo in a pinch. It is annoying though because it does mean having to carry several ammo type and weapon types and leveling all of those.

[Kanjejou]

Im dissapointed that shotgun with slug and then AP slug dont work vs human in armor...

Even high level armor rank6 in real life struggle to stop slug and dont stop AP slug from shotgun

its insane a guy eat 3Kj of energy and shrug it of like its a paper ball

even more annoyign seeing the weight and price of shotgun ammunition

AND THE LACK OF high quality ap round for smg alos,o make them bad to play since penetration is so important...

[Boss]

Shotguns better not be only good for early game. Slugs are no joke.

[Kisama]

smg is always terrible if you're using it on humans that aren't level 1 bandits in forest. It's for mutants. The same thing applies to stalker and most other games like this. SMG's in every game in history are a delicate balance between working and being insanely op.

You could always bring 3 weapons or use one that isn't as good against mutants for your 2. I don't see why you would though Sniper works on basically every human as long as you keep it up to date with what you're fighting.