Small weapons worth using?

[Bones]

Small weapons just don't seem very good, every time i load up a mech with a small weapon mount it just seems like trash?

Any reccomendations of small weapons worth using? Or should I just not bother with them?

[Boss Tweed]

In order to still be useful compared to larger weapons, small mounts tend to be far more specialized. The Carlos for example isn't very good against shielded targets and fires slowly, but it'll absolutely drill an unshielded one. The alternate small cannon mount, the Donkey, is great damage all around but extremely short range. The Temblor laser specializes on destroying environment, while the Pinch and Lockdown are anti-shield weapons for AoE and single target damage respectively. Basically so long as you restrict it to 1 job, that small mount should still be able to do it.

[Sachiel]

Yeah, You gotta think about specific roles you would like to take, then tailor each engagement to your strength and weakness (also considering your special ability). That said, if you're a small-small mount, taking something like active camo or sonic pulse is just masochistic, especially for longer runs.

I'll take the bonesaw and the Carlos most of the time, because i feel it's the most flexible on small-small mounts. use the Bonesaw like a whip to stir up your prey and to slash at their shields, then jab at them with the Carlos like a duellist pokes his estoc into the heart of his foe.

If you're running something with speed or significant boost, you may be able to engage with more short-ranged weapons or high damage, long cycle time weapons, but if you're slow or just want to be methodical, use soemthing with significant range and punch.

Ultimately, IMO nothing beats chook with Stutter and Belter as it's basically like going into a fight and just swinging two curved swords around the room, and it's got a modest 2.0 payout multiplier.

high risk high reward though, friend :)

If you're after significant bang for buck however, the party van is quite good with a 3.0 and significant boost and shield, with the killdozer coming also quite close as i believe it's been bumped up to a 3.0 albeit with a much slower speed and traverse.

All in all, it's how you're playing. I loaded up the Rat King recently after halloween and had a gay old time with dual lasers. I melted face, but got overconfident on a linear solo nobre run and got overwhelmed due to my gung-ho attitude.

[Derp Ravener]

I agree with what else has been said here, small weapons are highly specialized. To use them effectively, you want to select each around your other weapon. If your other weapon is not also a small, that'll probably be your primary, and the best option is a small that complements it. Is your main weapon good against single targets? An AoE or rapid fire small weapon is a good complment. Is your main weapon best against hulls? You might consider an anti-shield small to help open up enemy vehicles for damage. And then small-small builds are just this to the nth degree, where a complimentary set of weapons is chosen at the same time, instead of picking one weapon first and then the other around it.

There are two other things about smalls that I think are worth mentioning as well: they have great ammo efficiency, and they are by far the most quiet weapons. I find that, as a rule in Brigador, the smaller the weapon, the less you need to worry about restocking, which can make life easier and/or safer.
And, some small weapons are practically silent. Lockdown, Tremblor and Black Hand make pretty much no noise if I remember right, which lets one run highly specialized builds that the enemy almost can't track.

[Aradia Megido]

Originally posted by Nition:

If all else fails, you can do a LOT with dual Donkeys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFpw8t6H4YA

beautiful

[Nition]

Oops, I decided to post that in the "post your videos" thread so I deleted it here so as not to be too spammy, but you've caught it before I did. That's why my post seems to be missing now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFpw8t6H4YA

But yeah, double donkey rules, though watching that video back I noticed I should totally be using the spacebar stomp/slam a lot more to finish things off as well instead of waiting for a Donkey to reload.

AKP also helps a lot, especially for taking out stuff that explodes.

[ImHelping]

Most of the light weapons do their gimmick niche very well. The Carlos is also surpisingly strong for it's size, well enough for me to make it through all the Mog campaign missions killing everything (Suck it, Zeds).

The Faker and Bonesaw though? They are very much dissapointments. You can't even pull the "Highly specialized" card with them.

Hard to brag about a mortar that is incapable of killing an orbital gun with a direct hit, unless it's already surrounded by gas pipelines.

[Sar]

Faker is able to one-shot Treehouses. Not bad for a Small mount IMO.

[MrUnimport]

The Faker isn't bad for cheap shots on clumps of enemies, as you might find is true in the final set of campaign missions. It's surprisingly potent for a Small weapon, especially at killing lumbering superheavies. As with all artillery though, you need a solid backup weapon with plenty of ammo, so I think it makes a better complement to a bigger gun on a bigger vehicle than anything I'd stick on a Small/Small.

Of course, some might disagree that double Faker loadouts are a bad idea...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cgqa-uWW4AAJgAO.jpg

[Black Hammer]

The Donkey is thoroughly confusing the first time you use it if you don't read the fine print of how it works.

[Nition]

On something slow like a Mongoose I suck at using the Donkey because I don't always have the patience to wait behind walls or in chokepoints. I like Hoker + Donkeys because I don't even have to worry about hiding, I have the speed. Plus you can't hide with an AKP.

[Sar]

Pinch is very good. Slows enemy down, strips their shields and sets them up for something like Stutter/Duchess/Kraken to finish the job. As a bonus, it's really good for clearing groups of infantry since the miniscule Hull damage it does is enough to kill them. The only problem is huge AoE triggering alarms.

[[YAK]Kingpun]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

The Faker and Bonesaw though? They are very much dissapointments. You can't even pull the "Highly specialized" card with them.

Hard to brag about a mortar that is incapable of killing an orbital gun with a direct hit, unless it's already surrounded by gas pipelines.

The Bonesaw is great for sweeping around and spreading tiny ambient damage. Who wants to think about enemy tuk tuks?

[MrUnimport]

Also the Bonesaw is an MG42 that kills tanks.

[TheGrimCorsair]

Originally posted by MrUnimport:

Also the Bonesaw is an MG42 that kills tanks.

Just has a pitiful TTK to round out those nice things like accuracy, RoF, ammo pool, and generally being reasonably efffective against everything you point it at.

[Gaius]

I personally don't like small/small, but I use black hand as my go-to small secondary because it's conceptually so cool, and also because killing ignoring ALL cover is absurd good from time to time - specially agains those damned fast Ugravs with tiny hull pools. Get stuff with shields down, they will never have a chance to see you.