Best Gun?

[Hucks]

Which is the best gun? Is it the charge lance or is it the minigun?

[Astasia]

Neither. The best overall weapon is the Charge Rifle. Everything else is situational, and there are dozens of threads about this that will break it down for you, or you can check the wiki and read about each weapon and their strengths/weaknesses. But very briefly:

Charge Rifle - Best general use weapon
Assault Rifle/Heavy SMG - Cheap general use weapons
Sniper Rifle - Kiting
Minigun - AoE
Chain Shotgun - short range (insects, melee raids, complex raiding)

Nothing else is particularly relevant late game (in terms of damage), but can have a good use earlier in the game depending on quality.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Neither. The best overall weapon is the Charge Rifle. Everything else is situational, and there are dozens of threads about this that will break it down for you, or you can check the wiki and read about each weapon and their strengths/weaknesses. But very briefly:

Charge Rifle - Best general use weapon
Assault Rifle/Heavy SMG - Cheap general use weapons
Sniper Rifle - Kiting
Minigun - AoE
Chain Shotgun - short range (insects, melee raids, complex raiding)

Nothing else is particularly relevant late game (in terms of damage), but can have a good use earlier in the game depending on quality.

I'd add that the Machine Pistol is the best gun choice for stopping a prison break, since it's the least likely to maim or kill the prisoners.

[hardy_conrad]

Yeah context matters, but even if you do have an armoury allowing you to pick and choose according to the situation you may not have time to get there (drop pods for example). Charge rifle is something I only started using recently and I'm wishing I'd clued in sooner, heh.

[Hucks]

I have miniguns for all my guys and they work so well, Maybe I will try charge rifles instead

[Tamiore]

From my experience, the most versatile combo is
bolt-action rifle + chain shotgun

chain shotgun for anything without ranged attacks that you can keep your distance from
bolt-action rifle for everything else

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

From my experience, the most versatile combo is
bolt-action rifle + chain shotgun

chain shotgun for anything without ranged attacks that you can keep your distance from
bolt-action rifle for everything else

Bolt action SEEMS like a good choice due to its longer range but the assault rifle or even better the charge rifle are way better in terms of DPS. Bolts really aren't all that it's cracked up to be. Yes extra range but not that much DPS and most enemies with shorter range weapons will engage you at closer distances than the assault rifle or the charge rifle anyway.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

From my experience, the most versatile combo is
bolt-action rifle + chain shotgun

chain shotgun for anything without ranged attacks that you can keep your distance from
bolt-action rifle for everything else

Bolt action SEEMS like a good choice due to its longer range but the assault rifle or even better the charge rifle are way better in terms of DPS. Bolts really aren't all that it's cracked up to be. Yes extra range but not that much DPS and most enemies with shorter range weapons will engage you at closer distances than the assault rifle or the charge rifle anyway.

You would be right if extra weapons didn't contribute to wealth. But that's not the case. Having extra high-quality charge rifle adds 2K+ extra wealth per weapon, increasing both the number of enemies you face and the chance that one of them will have a long-range weapon (thus making safely out-ranging them impossible to begin with).

While bolt-action rifle adds to wealth just a quarter of what a charge rifle does, while ensuring you can safely out-range anything short of another bolt-action rifle or a sniper rifle.

P.S. Also, this "most enemies with shorter range weapons will engage you at closer distances than the assault rifle or the charge rifle anyway" is quite misleading. All kinds of centipedes outrage charge rifles, but not bolt-action rifles, for one.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

You would be right if extra weapons didn't contribute to wealth. But that's not the case. Having extra high-quality charge rifle adds 2K+ extra wealth per weapon, increasing both the number of enemies you face and the chance that one of them will have a long-range weapon (thus making safely out-ranging them impossible to begin with).

You would need ~11 masterwork charge rifles to add one mercenary sniper enemy to a raid on 100% scaling, or ~14 masterwork charge rifles if you were upgrading from bolt actions. This is absolutely not a factor in raid sizes and you are much better off doing over twice the DPS with the charge rifle over the bolt action.

It's also trivial to add an outer wall to your defenses to make sure enemies can't out-range your charge rifles.

People often grossly overestimate the effect of wealth on raid scaling, it's really not something that should be factored into your decision making beyond the idea of not hording lots of things you don't need. Upgrading gear and weapons is always going to be worthwhile and make the game much easier.

[teravisor]

Depends. IMO:
Small killbox vs unarmored enemies - Chain Shotgun.
Small killbox vs armored enemies - Charge Rifle.
Large killbox - Minigun with supplement of Assault Rifles to kill small targets. Possibly Charge Lances, depends on size of killbox but I don't like them because they shoot rarely and a hit-or-miss. They can oneshot if hit head or do nothing and hit a finger.
Outside of killbox vs long ranged - Assault Rifles with few Sniper Rifles and melees with shields. In some cheese strategies on mechanoid clusters a lot of Sniper Rifles.
Outside of killbox vs tribals - Assault Rifles plus Chain Shotguns. Obviously add melees.
Outside of killbox vs armored - Charge Lances, shock troops with Charge Rifles and melees to tank first line.

By small killbox I think about "singularity killbox".

There is no "Best Gun" for all cases. If you want one universal enough to equip in all cases then Legendary Assault Rifle. As raiders don't come with masterworks/legendaries its armor piercing is too weak to be universal weapon, but barely enough to deal with anything armored, it has enough range to be viable anywhere and shoots fairly often so that even low skilled soldiers can make some use of it.
Second choice is Charge Rifle, it melts everyone, although its range is lacking which is a big detriment in open field.
Third choice is bolt-action rifle, its dps is severely lacking, but it works against pretty much anything.

[Hykal]

I've been pro-AR for the longest time but I've been giving CRs to everyone and damn, it makes a difference. Definitely a CR guy now.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You would need ~11 masterwork charge rifles to add one mercenary sniper enemy to a raid on 100% scaling, or ~14 masterwork charge rifles if you were upgrading from bolt actions. This is absolutely not a factor in raid sizes and you are much better off doing over twice the DPS with the charge rifle over the bolt action.

It's also trivial to add an outer wall to your defenses to make sure enemies can't out-range your charge rifles.

I am not comparing bolt-action vs charge rifle as your only weapon. I am comparing bolt-action rifle vs charge rifle as a secondary weapon to supplement chain shotgun.
As such, chain shotgun is already "there" for kill-boxes and the like.

Originally posted by Astasia:

People often grossly overestimate the effect of wealth on raid scaling, it's really not something that should be factored into your decision making beyond the idea of not hording lots of things you don't need. Upgrading gear and weapons is always going to be worthwhile and make the game much easier.

Depends entirely on your threat scaling %.
On 500%, you absolutely do need to keep only what's most efficient.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by Astasia:

You would need ~11 masterwork charge rifles to add one mercenary sniper enemy to a raid on 100% scaling, or ~14 masterwork charge rifles if you were upgrading from bolt actions. This is absolutely not a factor in raid sizes and you are much better off doing over twice the DPS with the charge rifle over the bolt action.

It's also trivial to add an outer wall to your defenses to make sure enemies can't out-range your charge rifles.

I am not comparing bolt-action vs charge rifle as your only weapon. I am comparing bolt-action rifle vs charge rifle as a secondary weapon to supplement chain shotgun.
As such, chain shotgun is already "there" for kill-boxes and the like.

Originally posted by Astasia:

People often grossly overestimate the effect of wealth on raid scaling, it's really not something that should be factored into your decision making beyond the idea of not hording lots of things you don't need. Upgrading gear and weapons is always going to be worthwhile and make the game much easier.

Depends entirely on your thread scaling %.
On 500%, you absolutely do need to keep only what's most efficient.

Then you'd be better off dropping both the chain shotguns and bolt actions and just using charge rifles, combing the two weapons is almost the same value. CRs perform nearly as well in short range as the chain shotgun, especially against armored targets, but the double range on the CR allows you to make a better defense and gives you more time to drop melee enemies before they can get close. CRs really are the end-all weapon, they are at the end of the tech tree and so expensive for a reason, they excel at everything except kiting.

500% scaling is a gimmick and completely different game, it's basically pure tower defense and AI manipulation, and most normal gameplay mechanics fall apart on it.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Then you'd be better off dropping both the and bolt actions and just using charge rifles, combing the two weapons is almost the same value. CRs perform nearly as well in short range as the chain shotgun, especially against armored targets

... no?
CR performs slightly worse than chain shotguns against armored and noticeably worse (about 70% the DPS) against unarmored at close range. And that's just DPS. Chain shotguns also stagger much better.

Originally posted by Astasia:

but the double range on the CR allows you to make a better defense and gives you more time to drop melee enemies before they can get close.

No, they don't.
Because, a) chain shotguns stagger, flat out stopping enemies from advancing and b) best defensive positions throttle enemies in killboxes shorter than 12 tiles, making extra range of CR pointless.

Originally posted by Astasia:

CRs really are the end-all weapon, they are at the end of the tech tree and so expensive for a reason, they excel at everything except kiting.

Except chain shotguns excel at pretty much everything that does NOT involve kiting even more than CR's do.

Originally posted by Astasia:

500% scaling is a gimmick and completely different game, it's basically pure tower defense and AI manipulation, and most normal gameplay mechanics fall apart on it.

I can say the same about 100%, claiming that "normal threat scaling falls apart on it" if we take 220% as baseline.

[XelNigma]

This topic pops up once a month and as usual your all wrong.

Heavy SMG is the best gun hands down, no contest. Only down side it has is range which is hardly an issue when a sniper is lucky to get two shots off before a knife is stabbed in their chest.

The heavy SMG has really high accuracy meaning even amiture shooters can land shots most of the time, hits hard so your not likely to be spreading the damage over their entire body.
Has good fire rate, armor peircing, cool down and even 3 round bursts.
It's better than an assault rifle in every stat besides range which is a non factor.

I am serious that the heavy SMG is the best gun, but I'm making this post with an antagonist flair just for the fun. So chill.

[Hykal]

The best short ranged gun is actually a legendary plasteel longsword, legendary monosword if you have Royalty.