What Weapon to Standardise?

[apud.harald]

My combat teams have 3 different weapon categories.

A: Zeus Hammers for melee
B: Charge rifles ( etc) for marksmen
C: a mixture of SMGs and Miniguns for the rest.

Should I standardise SMGs or Miniguns for category C?

[di eshor ribly]

I would argue that group C should be your sniper rifle squad.

A: Zeus hammers are good. High damage, emp bursts break shields and wreck mechanoids... no complaints here.
B: Charge rifles (or assault rifles) are a solid general purpose firearm. The more the merrier.

Heavy smg's are pretty good to start, but AR/Charge Rifles replace them.
Miniguns are really only good for large clustered enemies where the minigun's accuracy penalties don't apply as much... and in which case you could use a rocket launcher instead.

Now, if you're using the "Rapid Fire Miniguns" mod and a bunch of accuracy buffs (implants, ranged specialist, careful shooter, etc.) then you can turn a minigun into a solid stream of death.

The big "standard issue" gap you have with your set up is weapon range. An issue easily solved with a few sniper rifles.

[whatamidoing]

The charge rifle is a great all-round ranged weapon. If the reason you're not just giving anyone with a ranged weapon that as a general weapon is that you can't manufacture them due to tech or resource cost, I guess you'd probably want the heavy SMG or the assault rifle, depending on the distance you'd rather engage the enemy from. Miniguns are good for defending a static position against a crowd, at the cost of being quite expensive, slowing pawns down, and a huge warmup and cooldown period that makes them not very good against single targets or moving around. If you're fighting very close-up, the chain shotgun is excellent.

[apud.harald]

Yes, I do love me some Zeus Hammers for the reasons mentioned. I buy good ones whenever they show up.

C squad mostly operates inside the kill box. Not the hunters/roamers etc, who all are in B squad. Kill boxes have a way of sorting out range issues, and seem to cause the bad guys to bunch up.

Over time, I am not really worried about the tech cost, it just means that the standardisation proceeds slower. But I do have a legacy arsenal that includes individual items high quality bought from traders, and a lot of booty weapons. It leaves the question of what items to manufacture, given that I only have a few pawns with great crafting skills ( who may have other tasks beside crafting weapons ).

[XelNigma]

well... I would say LMG, MINI or grenades. for the cc aspect. by the time you have enough for so many weapon groups your going to be fighting large groups and will need the extra aoe

[MadArtillery]

Out of all the guns generally it's hellcats or assault rifles for me as a general weapon for ranged people to hold. I'm quite fond of piles of dead enemies before they get in range, and well, fire is pretty much emp for organics.

[apud.harald]

LMGs get replaced with Miniguns over time. Not a fan of grenades, risk of friendly fire too high.

[XelNigma]

oh man, grenades are the best. expectantly against melee raids.
Just like you cant friendly fire for the first 4 square or w/e it is. grenades cant get caught on walls and stuff for the same. so target the right square and you can safly throw grenades all day into a swam of manhunters or tribals.

But if you have biotech, the incinerator is also amazing. a wall of fire works just like an embrasure as in you can shoot over it, but they wont walk through it.

[WildStargazer]

I always give miniguns to my 3 shooting specialists and assault rifles to the rest.

[Triple G]

I´d give sniper or bolt action rifles, or later charge lances to the marksmen - and charge rifles to the common ones. I usually also give weapons for roleplay to the people.

But in general it´s all about what distance You want to fight, or if it´s offense or defense.

I don´t like the minigun very much, and would only give it to people, when i already have a good set of fighters.

[Astasia]

I would never really consider the minigun a valid option TBH. Most of the DPS comes from the burst, the burst instantly ends if the target dies causing a 5 second delay before it fires again. It's only really effective if you pick the right target in a big crowd and make sure your other characters aren't shooting the same thing, and get a lot of the misses to to hit, making it a very micro and situational weapon. The "real DPS" in an average hands-off situation is going to be abysmal, as it warms up and starts bursting on a tribal or something only for it to die before a few rounds of the burst can get out, then the colonist stands there and does nothing for ages before they try again. 1v1 against a centipede it's decent, I personally consider it trash tier everywhere else in the game. I did an "all miniguns" RP run once and it was not a good time, I just simply don't use them at all ever anymore. SMGs and Assault Rifles blow it out of the water in an average killbox, and chain shotguns and charge rifles are on an entirely different tier if you design around those or have the resources respectively.

Also since most of the DPS comes from the burst, things like reduced aiming time or weapon cooldown time don't increase the effectiveness as much as with other weapons. They make it "less bad" but it gets to a point where other weapons just objectively out-DPS it even in optimal situations.

[apud.harald]

Well, it does sound like SMG is the superior option in my case, considering all things.

[Radiosity]

> I would never really consider the minigun a valid option TBH.

Honestly, miniguns are mostly there for use against the player. And to get new players excited at using a minigun, only to be horribly disappointed ;p

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Radiosity:

> I would never really consider the minigun a valid option TBH.

Honestly, miniguns are mostly there for use against the player. And to get new players excited at using a minigun, only to be horribly disappointed ;p

Miniguns are useful, they can hurt a lot of seperate targets while still being able to shoot at quite a long range. Like a sniper grenade, it is at least a unique niche though requires a lot of manual targeting so it's not aiming at the front guys. Useful vs very large raids, I do wish they'd keep shooting all their shots even if the target dies though.

[Radiosity]

Nah, I agree with Astasia, it's too situational to be worth bothering when things like LMGs and assault rifles are more versatile.

[apud.harald]

Why assault rifles rather than charge rifles?