What do Rate of Fire and Recoil do on weapons?

[Coldhands]

Like, Argenta's bolter says it's rate of fire is 4 and recoil is 40%, but what does that mean in gameplay terms?
Thanks.

[OnwardSumo47113]

rate of fire is for the burst attack, 4 bolts and it can be upgraded with skills later, the recoil is how strong the gun kicks back and why shots miss a lot, there's ways to lower it I just happen to find some gloves that are great, but less recoil = better to hit that's why las weapons hit but don't do much because they have no kickback being just a laser unlike the bolter which is a giant rocket bullet around the size of your hand

[Sotanaht]

When you use Burst Fire, you fire your Rate of Fire number of shots. There are also some talents and items that specifically interact with rate of fire (eg muzzle velocity causes your burst to do +ROF damage on the first shot).

Recoil is a malus to your accuracy on the second+ shot of Burst Fire. So if you have 50 recoil, all shots after the first will have -50% hit chance.

[Warhunter]

rate of fire is for when you use burst fire
also some abilities use rate of fire for their effects (soldier's heroic ability gives you free shots based on rate of fire)

recoil reduces accuracy of burst fire after the 1st shot
so with a recoil of 40 you reduce accuracy by 40 for 2nd shot and everything after for burst fire (so if you have a 70% chance to hit centerline, if you have 40 recoil you now only have 30% for every shot after the 1st)

[Coldhands]

So is high recoil why Argenta sucks so bad in the early game? She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and when she does it's for less damage than my officer does with his stub revolver.
Like, I'm the first fight after picking her up right now, and he hit chance on two enemies, out of cover, 3 and 4 squares away is 34% and 0% with her burst fire. I could just space bar her whole turn and it'd barely change how this battle is going.

[Faith]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

So is high recoil why Argenta sucks so bad in the early game? She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and when she does it's for less damage than my officer does with his stub revolver.

Ballistic skill = chance to hit(most imporant vs cover), Perception = enemy dodge negation. You must "hit" before you roll enemy dodge, but its dodge that gets you most early since everyone has quite a bit of dodge by default.

A shooter needs both perception helps the most early, argenta has mostly agility which is dodge chance.

[Faith]

Originally posted by Faith:

Originally posted by Coldhands:

So is high recoil why Argenta sucks so bad in the early game? She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and when she does it's for less damage than my officer does with his stub revolver.

Ballistic skill = chance to hit(most imporant vs cover), Perception = enemy dodge negation. You must "hit" before you roll enemy dodge, but its dodge that gets you most early since everyone has quite a bit of dodge by default. Also make sure to pay attention to weapon effective range, outside of range your chance drops a lot.

A shooter needs both perception helps the most early, argenta has mostly agility which is dodge chance.

[OnwardSumo47113]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

So is high recoil why Argenta sucks so bad in the early game? She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and when she does it's for less damage than my officer does with his stub revolver.

yea pretty much, but with buffs and getting up close with a big groups I'm able to fire 8 shots and lately like 4 or 5 one guy and he's dead immediately, it may have low damage but good crit and rapid fire has like 3 skills which are useful to fire more for less damage and to hit better

[OnwardSumo47113]

the single shot is good for far targets and run and gun lets you fire again with a slight disadvantage but it's better than nothing and still hit good, Plus using a officer on her let's her multi times which is very deadly, I sadly forgot to get dash and now she slowly get's around the place

there's a meme on the reddit of 2 or 3 of psykers and officers and they all buff her and let her kill everything instead with extra turns

[Warhunter]

ya argenta's starting bolter is not great
you can get around the penalties by lining up burst fire against a group of targets
preferably split up so one enemy in a row so any missed centerline shots hit the enemies on either side

if you get the rapid fire ability it doubles rate of fire and makes the hit rate fixed at 20% center line 40% minor deviation and 40% major deviation (minor hits centerline while in weapon's effective distance)
recoil doesnt affect it so you can use it as a way to get better accuracy with high recoil weapons

[Sotanaht]

Early game I recommend picking up the Longlas (it's station where you recruit cassia) It has huge boosts to hit and dodge reduction, plus high enough damage to compete with most early game burst fire weapons even if those bursts could actually hit anything. In the long term burst is great, but early game you need the extra boosts from a sniper type weapon and the longlas is the best one you can find until the end of act 1.

[dolby]

it's not that simple bust fires is different to normal fire it lets you fire the same number of shots as the rate of fire is, but those have a chance to deviate from the central line you picked with targeting.

That is effected by ballistic skills the threshold is set by it and (by recoil after the first shoot)and the higher BS is the more shots will have a easier time rolling for that central line. Cos every shot has a roll to see where it goes... In straight line or +1 or +2 cells over...after that it works normally you get the normal dodge rolls to those hits.

If you shoot at beyond effective range that gets cut in half so shot will go all over the place but will still hit something if anyone is in that grid cell not like normal weapons that just miss do to the roll so it could be bad or good.

In short i think low recoil just lowers that thresholds so basically all your shots go into straighter line as you can see if you use machine spirit skill from Pasqal.
Rapid fire skill comes with a cost of +1 ap - 25% to damage easily countered by camaraderie way better then and the first shot will not always go in a straight line like it normally goes.

My advice would be always get Concentrated fire skill it works with burst...

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by Faith:

Originally posted by Coldhands:

So is high recoil why Argenta sucks so bad in the early game? She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and when she does it's for less damage than my officer does with his stub revolver.

Ballistic skill = chance to hit(most imporant vs cover), Perception = enemy dodge negation. You must "hit" before you roll enemy dodge, but its dodge that gets you most early since everyone has quite a bit of dodge by default.

A shooter needs both perception helps the most early, argenta has mostly agility which is dodge chance.

Thanks for the breakdown! I appreciate it.

And thanks everybody for the advice! It makes the game even more fun.

[Coldhands]

Followup: Thanks to the advice here, I figured out how to make Argenta good. Officer buffs and understanding where to spend her level ups, and now she's mowing down cultists like a Sister of Battle should.
Officer seems quite strong.