Charge weapons vs. Conventional

[Honey Badger]

Is it better to have a mix of charge + conv. or all charge/all conventional?

[starbabylon]

I would not give up on all my miniguns for charge rifles for sure. So I think mix is best, and melee is good too.

When I think about Rimworld, the word "balance" comes to my mind.

[HunterSilver]

Charge weapons are generally better against empire soldiers and mechanoids because of their higher armor penetration. Otherwise weapons like assault rifles fire faster and have more range, giving them huge advantages in open combat and allowing for longer/larger kill boxes. In cramped spaces the chain shotgun is an absolute murder machine.

In general I find it best to have assault rifles equipped for day to day activities with charge rifles, emp launchers, and sniper rifles set aside for specific combat uses. That way you're ready to handle sudden emergencies, such as drop pods landing in your base, while problems like mech clusters and sieges give you enough time to grab the appropriate weapons to efficiently deal with them.

Ideally in a fight everyone should be putting out as much dps as they possibly can at all times, so the only inoptimal weapons are ones with a range so short that they cannot easily target enemies and melee weapons if you don't have some way to safely get them to enemies such as hallways with corners, the skip psycast, invisibility psycast, etc..

[gussmed]

- Charge rifles are your best single-target firepower, offset by somewhat short range.

I'll take a charge rifle over an assault rifle for almost any situation. They don't have quite the range of an assault rifle, but the rate of fire is much, much higher. Usually having to get a little closer isn't enough of a drawback to matter.

- Charge lances trade some firepower for range. Typically you're using these so you can pick away at the enemy without exposing yourself to short-range enemy weapons. Usually the enemy will close, so you don't get to keep the range advantage unless you're kiting.

- Miniguns put out astounding firepower, but almost all the shots miss unless you're targeting a crowd. Truly amazing against big crowds, though. 2-3 of these will absolutely shred a big manhunter pack, or a bunch of tribal bowmen.

- Sniper rifles outrange anything but Mech turrets, but are very slow. Generally you want charge lances for range advantage, not these, because they're at a severe disadvantage if the enemy gets in range. I've used them successfully to kite centipedes, but a lancer's going to give you trouble because they'll get in range and fire while your sniper rifle guy is still aiming.

They're still handy to keep around once you have charge lances, mainly to get in that first shot and pull a group, but typically you don't want more than one for that.

[Narrowmind]

That really sums it up. Typically, I've just gone with assaults to simplify matters, but late game when you're facing 50 plus swarms, does that mean the minigun always wins?

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by Ratlegion:

That really sums it up. Typically, I've just gone with assaults to simplify matters, but late game when you're facing 50 plus swarms, does that mean the minigun always wins?

Depends on your setup. A killbox that funnels them into a tight space also forces them to get bottlenecked and spread apart. This means that assault rifles and charges rifles won't get overwhelmed but also means that miniguns lose a lot of their advantage.

In more open spaces where enemies have the chance to bunch up the minigun will have a higher but less concentrated dps.

Originally posted by gussmed:

I'll take a charge rifle over an assault rifle for almost any situation. They don't have quite the range of an assault rifle, but the rate of fire is much, much higher. Usually having to get a little closer isn't enough of a drawback to matter.

Charge Rifles have a fire rate of 300rpm while Assault Rifles have a fire rate of 360rpm, I'm afraid assault rifles are 20% faster. Charge Rifles also have a cooldown of 2s while Assault Rifles have a cooldown of 1.7s.

[Narrowmind]

Thank you, sir.

[gussmed]

I've never fielded more than 3 miniguns. Besides the obvious issue, which is that they're pretty terrible at putting down single targets, they have a huge potential for friendly fire problems. You don't want to shoot one of those anywhere near a colonist or ally.

I did recently use one against some insects melee attacking one of my mufallo. Injuring a mufallo is a risk I'm willing to take. The big brute even lived through the attack.

One exception to "bad at single targets" - they do tend to hit big targets like centipedes multiple times. They're not my preferred anti-centipede weapon for a variety of reasons, but they're not terrible in that role.

[gussmed]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Charge Rifles have a fire rate of 300rpm while Assault Rifles have a fire rate of 360rpm, I'm afraid assault rifles are 20% faster. Charge Rifles also have a cooldown of 2s while Assault Rifles have a cooldown of 1.7s.

I must be confusing the contrast with something else. I recall the first time I looked at the stats on a charge rifle it didn't look that great, but then I noticed the rapid cycling time (aim + cool down).

In any case, the charge rifle DOES have a significantly higher DPS and armor penetration.

[KalkiKrosah]

Originally posted by gussmed:

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Charge Rifles have a fire rate of 300rpm while Assault Rifles have a fire rate of 360rpm, I'm afraid assault rifles are 20% faster. Charge Rifles also have a cooldown of 2s while Assault Rifles have a cooldown of 1.7s.

I must be confusing the contrast with something else. I recall the first time I looked at the stats on a charge rifle it didn't look that great, but then I noticed the rapid cycling time (aim + cool down).

In any case, the charge rifle DOES have a significantly higher DPS and armor penetration.

Charge rifles have a higher burst count, 4 projectiles vs. the Assault rifle's 3. Charge rifles are better for less numerous but more durable targets. So mechanoids, megaspiders and raiders in power armor. Assault rifles work better on the more numerous soft targets: animals and tribals namely.