what weapons do people like using? early game onwards

[ᔑᓭ∴ᔑリ⊣]

i have a couple hours in the game but i always prefer farming/trading side of things than fighting so ive kinda ignored the other half of the game, i finally decided to pay some more attention to it now and i have no idea what im doing xd
should i give all my colonists handguns? are sniper rifles useful? i never pay attention to guns even in real life and it feels dumb going into the info tabs of every weapon and trying to compare them, or at least i think its melting my brain into dumbness..
unironically i dont think ive ever even researched gunsmithing once before

tl:dr whats the best weapons i should focus on throughout the game? are there certain types not worth keeping in the colony at all?
keeping in mind i have a couple mods such as one that lets colonists dual-wield (dont think i have many others that affect combat other than this and achtung)

i love playing with biotech and if its possible to ignore this entirely in favour of machine superiority ill take that route but it seems a bit dangerous to put all my eggs in one metal basket is all

[atikhona]

Hello, i think, that casual rifle is the best opinion, it has good range, damage and fire rate.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Assault Rifles and Heavy SMGs do well, with a dual wield mod you may find some handguns useful or the machine pistol. A sniper is good, but you don't want many. A couple of chain shotguns are handy for clearing out infestations alongside (uranium) Warhammers.

Charge lances are meh, charge rifles have less range than assault rifles but may be useful against heavier armoured foes like Tunnellers. Most handguns are trash normally, bolt action rifles are decent but ROF is usually more important than range as you are usually outnumbered.

[Veylox]

Most handguns are kinda useless. Rifles can be useful in select situation (mainly if you want to pick a VIP target while outranging them, but it happens really rarely)

You can't go wrong with chain shotguns, assault rifles, charge rifles, plasmaswords and zeushammers. Early on thrumbo horns can be an unexpected boost too

I guess miniguns are okay but I wouldn't go out of my way to get them


Picking your weapon depending on your killbox is usually a good idea, you kinda wan't shotguns for compact designs and rifles for really long corridors or shooting ranges

[MadArtillery]

My absolute fav is the Zueshammer with Warhammers and Maces right behind. Blunt damage takes a lot of the rng out of the combat and I enjoy rolling in instant kills. Gotta be made of uranium of course.

For ranged I really love the Incinerator, fire is great and a shield belt allowed ranged weapon is so useful. Assault Rifles and Hellcats for the rest of the crew if I'm doing ranged combat that run. Very long range, good fire rate, decent dps given the range. Outranges most things you'll face making killing things like mechs quite easy if you have some movement speed and ranged cooldown reductions. Only having pikemen and minigun pedes able to even fire back can be useful especially as it's not like the minigun centipedes are going to ever get a shot off if you are aim cancelling. Usually melee is my primary go to though.

[The Blind One]

The bread and butter for ranged weapon in this game are the rifles;

However for close up ranged weapons the Chain Shotgun is absolute King. If it is within range of the Chain Shotgun (13 tiles), you can be 100% guaranteed that the Chain Shotgun was the best pick you could have made for that distance. Anything within those 13 tiles is going to get absolutely shredded. However it cannot shoot further than 13 tiles and therefore is completely useless in medium range engagements.

And that's where the rifles come in, starting from 13 tiles and onwards up to 31 tiles distance, the Assault Rifle is the next best thing on the list. If the Chain Shotgun is king at short range, the Rifles are king at medium range. There is no better pick in terms of dps.

While the Charge Rifle is better than the Assault Rifle this difference only really matters in the late game where charge rifles have better armor penetration (35 vs 19) which works better against mechs and heavy armored enemies. For all other cases the regular Assault Rifle is superior in the sense that it has a slightly longer range (31 vs 26) and a tiny weensy bit more accuracy.

Charge Lances while more expensive than Charge Rifles are effective vs large enemies such as centipedes but are terrible at targeting smaller enemies. So theoretically they can be better but in practice they are worse in every way possible due to the enemy variety. They are still better than anything else in the game though so be sure to take them along but you are safe to switch them out for something like a charge rifle. You probably should never make these yourself as you are genuinely better off just making more charge rifles.

Honorable mention is the Heavy SMG, it sits right between the Chain Shotgun and the Assault Rifle. It has a max range of 23 tiles and at short ranges from 12 to 20ish distance it will outperform an assault rifle in terms of dps. The added benefit is that it also staggers enemies with its bullets slowing them down if they get hit, the weapon is more easily researched and produced as well making it a favorite for early colonies.

Every other weapon has a super specific niche that while in theory makes them great at something, in practice it is too far and few in between that it will outperform the great three.

Charge Rifle
Assault Rifle
Chain Shotgun

As for melee.

It's simple. Plasteel Swords and Spears are the basics but anything high tech such as monosword is just superior but is harder to come by since they are only handed out in quests or trader so be sure to pick them up for your melee pawns when they are offered.

And if you have none of these weapons and have to optimize,

Think of it like this, bigger dakka is bigger damage 😂

Charge Rifle > Assault Rifle > Chain Shotgun > Heavy SMG > LMG > Machine Pistol > Autopistol > Revolver

Sniper rifles are a niche weapon btw, use them to bait enemies or snipe them from afar but they are not better in a straight up gun fight due to low DPS. They are almost entirely just to pull enemies or do skirmishes.

[Steelfleece]

Even if a rifle says it has 90% accuracy at long range, that doesn't take into account the shooter's skill. Low skilled shooters have a huge accuracy loss at longer ranges, so unless you have a very skilled shooter, early colonists may better off with autopistols than rifles for repelling raiders (hunting is a bit different).

Sniper rifles are pretty niche. Their damage over time isn't great. Nice for hunting or disabling turrets though.

Very early game, don't ignore bows. Cheap and fast to make, so if you have a surplus of wood you can have a crafter skill up by trying to make excellent+ short bows or, in a tribal start, recurves. Granted, as soon as you can make or scavenge better firearms, do so.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

so unless you have a very skilled shooter, early colonists may better off with autopistols than rifles for repelling raiders (hunting is a bit different).

I'd argue against this. There is only an extremely small niche case in which this is even remotely true. Only if the enemy is right in front of you within 3 tiles is the autopistol better than an assault rifle. We're talking so close they may as well be in melee range. You're better of taking multiple potshots at enemies with the assault rifle at range and hoping one lands despite the bad accuracy due to skill.

[MadArtillery]

Ah yes I suppose they did say early game as well. Plasteel Knives are actually crazy good and buying some cheap ass bioferrite for a sword or two or spending the $$$ on uranium blunts or plasteel other melees are really well worth it. One masterwork mace can carry a run for an incredibly long time so pamper that crafter from the very beginning for those inspirations. Thrumbo horns are also great early weapons. Recurve bows can be pretty decent, I'm also fond of pump shotguns.

Don't make weapons or armour out of steel ever. It's both useless for equipment and you really don't want to run out of it before you get some sort of sustainable source. Even masterwork steel equipment is worthless.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

so unless you have a very skilled shooter, early colonists may better off with autopistols than rifles for repelling raiders (hunting is a bit different).

I'd argue against this. There is only an extremely small niche case in which this is even remotely true. Only if the enemy is right in front of you within 3 tiles is the autopistol better than an assault rifle. We're talking so close they may as well be in melee range. You're better of taking multiple potshots at enemies with the assault rifle at range and hoping one lands despite the bad accuracy due to skill.

Didn't mention assault rifle. I'm talking early game here, so logically the comparison would be to the bolt action you start with by default.

[MadArtillery]

I've honestly gotten pretty good use out of auto pistols early on. Especially that masterwork one in the mechanitor scenario, that was bloody hard to replace. I like them

[kennygnu]

Bolt actions are the best early game weapon. You only need to complete 3 research projects: smithing, machining and gunsmithing. The bolt action is very low wealth and has such incredible range only the sniper rifle outranges it. The accuracy on the bolt action is also great. Even poor shooters will stand a better chance at hitting something if they are armed with bolties.

Other weapons I use only if their quality is excellent or higher. Revolver, autopistol etc. All have too low range and/or not enough bang for their buck in my opinion. Shotguns have excellent accuracy and are a good weapon for poor shooters, but the range is a handicap.

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

Didn't mention assault rifle. I'm talking early game here, so logically the comparison would be to the bolt action you start with by default.

Ah okay yeah your absolutely right then. They do outperform bolts in close engagements.

I should have mentioned that bolt actions were the superior early game rifle.

It's bolts then move on to assault and then charge.

I usually speed run assault rifles and skip bolt production entirely and just scavenge them from raiders in the early game.

Once I get assault rifles for all my guys I'm confident enough that I'll be able to hold out to most of what the game can throw at me for the foreseeable future.

[kennygnu]

I often stick with assault rifles and do not even switch to charge rifles, simply because the range is so great on assault rifles. You can kite a lot of bad raids outside your walls using weapons that outrange all the raiders. Charge rifles have a range that kind of begs you to do a killbox set up optimized for their range, but they are devastating.

[MadArtillery]

Can't say I like bolties too much. Isn't great for being outnumbered and misses are pretty punishing for the low shooting skills likely on display early. Range is pretty nice for skirmishing though. Certainly useful on good shooters or speedy ones if you have one early. Generally I much prefer melee early on regardless.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Pila. If someone gets hit by a pilum, they know it.