Anyone use just bolt-action rifles?

[imwithdummy]

Because I'm just checking them out here and compared to the assault rifle, it doesn't seem much of a step down, if one at all. Of course, I've no real idea, I could be wrong, but anyone with some decent game experience ever tried sticking with just the bolt-action through the mid-game? Does it hold up pretty well?

[SuburbanHermit]

It holds up for a really long time, sure. Especially in the hands of an accurate shooter against lightly or unarmored pawns. I would still prefer an assault rifle though, just because of the rate of fire and 3 round bursts - Could get a lucky headshot, or heart, or lung with more lead going downrange.

Once you start getting enemy pod drops and mechanoids though, it's mostly useless anymore. I tend to skip over using sniper rifles unless some pirates drop 1 or 2 of them for me.

[imwithdummy]

Just curious...why''s that? Sniper rifles a little too slow for you?

[Defektiv]

Early game I use them as much as I can. You can turn a lot of early game raids around before they get into firing range with 2 or 3 of them.

[SuburbanHermit]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Just curious...why''s that? Sniper rifles a little too slow for you?

I think it's just my play style with how I use my defenses. I kinda use a killbox and let enemies walk through a corridor with my pawns/turrets flanking them. I usually have 1 or 2 pawns with long range - I still use snipers when they become available, but I'm more likely to use assault rifles or LMG's and shottys because of the strategy I use. I also go pretty heavy on turrets by mid/late game.

[メ♰คķꜱ♰è𝕣ツ]

I play a UK mod so you only get plasteel knives and even then you're risking most of your silver if you get caught with it outside your bedroom.

[Ma Bufang Chinese Warlord]

Originally posted by Jorah Friendzone:

I play a UK mod so you only get plasteel knives and even then you're risking most of your silver if you get caught with it outside your bedroom.

FREEZE THIS IS BRITISH POLICE

[snuggleform]

They are decent and relatively easy to acquire (cheap to build, and even if you can't build them raiders seem to drop them enough to equip all of your pawns with relatively quickly). They have excellent range, and stagger targets up to size 1.5.

I will say that I don't like to use them forever though. I find that dps is very important and the bolt action's damage is very mediocre. The chain shotgun is the first gun I craft en masse. Look at the charts on its dps and you find it's extremely useful in that regard. The range might seem problematic, but I build my base so that the enemy is funneled into their range (dont' just randomly fight out in the open where enemies will find cover and use their range against you) and of course I hide behind sandbags.

After I build chain shotguns I try to acquire 3-5 sniper rifles for anti siege/centipede reasons, and then I try to manufacture enough charge lance for everyone specifically for ht and run vs centipedes because those raids are extremely problematic as the game goes on.

Tldr: chain shotgun are amazing for drop pod raids and raids where the enemy funnels into your kill zone because they have excellent damage (and stagger up to size 3.0) at short range, then you want snipers and eventually charge lances to deal with the super tanky centipedes. (i.e. default have a lot of people with chain shots, switch them out to charge lances if you get centipedes, you always have time to switch vs centipedes and siege).

[stevasaur]

The only thing more disappointing than watching a Bolt-Action Rifle shot get wasted by completely destroying the target's ear is if that shot had been from a sniper rifle.

(Basically, the higher-damage your weapon, the more likely you are to "waste" damage against weaker enemies/enemies with lots of irrelevant body parts)

[The Last Helldiver™]

Good range, easy to roll 100% in most ranges with little effort or crafting skill and a solid 18 damage, good armor puncture.

Not entirely 100% sure if they were altered much for B19/1.0 but in B18 they were pretty much endgame stuff, with assault rifles being used for larger crowds.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by stevasaur:

The only thing more disappointing than watching a Bolt-Action Rifle shot get wasted by completely destroying the target's ear is if that shot had been from a sniper rifle.

(Basically, the higher-damage your weapon, the more likely you are to "waste" damage against weaker enemies/enemies with lots of irrelevant body parts)

True dat.
Shot a jaw clean off from a raider and the consequences? Them not being able to talk and barely eat. No pain, no bleed, nothing that would help to down them faster, well, maybe having 1 less location to hit on consecutive shots. Maybe.
And then another raider from the same group also got shot to jaw but this one was left with couple hp left so they were in tremendous pain and bleeding.

[Tarshaid]

The bolt-action rifle is the first gun I start producing when I have the technology for it. Sniper rifles don't feel like they're the much of an improvement to me, and can easily be a liability. I used them moderately in previous versions where they dealt 40 damage per shot, and at least had the advantage of seriously incapacitating/killing outright the enemy as long as they hit an actually useful bodypart. Now, if I want a precision weapon, I'll stick with the bolt-action until I can get charge lances.
Now, between those and the assault rifle, right now it depends whether or not my pawn is a careful shooter, as my current colony has lots of them. Careful shooters get precision weapons and make the most out of them, unless I eventually craft a really high quality burst weapon, then I'll consider. Non-careful shooters with high skill are the ones to get assault rifles, since it's still a great combination of damage, accuracy, and range. Mediocre shooters get burst weapons with shorter range, since any range is wasted on them, and I invested in a couple miniguns in case I need to dispatch a lot of targets at once, but I don't really do much out of those.

[Sminky]

great for hunting throughout the game, latter on with raids you'll probably want faster firing weapons that can still hit hard.

[ambi]

I use the bolt-action rifle as my main weapon. They're especially good for hunters (good range + accuracy, potential for one-hit kills, not too slow). Half of my soldiers are equiped with bolt-action, the others with assault rifles + charge rifles. Anyone else gets high output weapons like LMGs.

[Nightmyre]

I pretty much only use a few of the weapons, if I have the choice.

Early-to-mid game, it's bolt-action for all my pawns that have decent shooting skills, and whatever I have lying around for the rest.

Late-game, it's sniper rifles for all my pawns that have decent shooting skills, and assault rifles for the rest.

For the pawns without good shooting skills, what matters is just throwing out as many shots as possible, since there's a good chance they're only going to be fighting in close range anyway. Assault rifles have the best bang for your buck, from my experience - they have much better range than the other guns, so you can actually get some shots off from behind your turrets, while they also do very well in close-range.

[imwithdummy]

Thanks guys, really upped my understanding of how guns work, pawns' shooting skills etc. Yeah, I was looking at it and a little surprised by the stats...damage and accuracy are amazing. But if you can afford it, maybe a mini-gun for your level 7-10 shooters, huh? Or...just get a lot of bullets out there quick, however.