How good are heavy weapons?

[Nihilum]

I usually go for Bows and Rifles on my characters, albeit with only the bare minimum investment, occasionally doing a pistols run every once in a while. My favourite weapon, the phase cannon, is now categorized as a heavy weapon since the most recent patch which has me wondering what the weapon class is like as a whole. Looking at the skills, of which there's only three, two negate penalties of having heavy weapons and the last only seems to have niche use. On top of that, strength requirements are high.

Are they worth using?

[glass zebra]

Heavy weapons are really good as weapons themselves, while rifles and pistols let you focus on them more through skills. Heavy weapons are absolutely worth using, but the skill points have to go somewhere else and you need to get higher agility if you want to make up for the 4 you are missing from skills and still want to snipe. You also need a lot of ammunition for a few of them.

Some of them are much more devastating on closer range, so you might want to focus on being an actual tank and only get agi so high that you can get over enemies DV instead of sniping them or you can focus on other stuff like tinkering (nanon chain lasers are nice). Basically: get some strength up for the skills and to carry them and their heavy ammunition, then sprinkle on something else to combo with them.

Going full on on heavy weapons and nothing else and using them like rifles or pistols will probably get boring quickly and cost a lot of money/resources. Some of them are also somewhat hard to get.

Note: The Rifle skill "kickback" can work with them.

[I blame Earthshaker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Nihilum:

Are they worth using?

Depends on why you might need one. Doesn't really matter in the long run; by the time you really need them, a player should have enough skill points to get at least part of the skill tree anyways. But the phase cannon being reclassified isn't really surprising, it effectively neuters some of the challenges of the end game.

[I blame Earthshaker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

Note: The Rifle skill "kickback" can work with them.

Doesn't that really only apply to two-handed ranged weapons in general? If the game were to add a 1 handed heavy weapon, I don't think that would work...

[yeah]

I don't prefer using them, but the phase cannon is worth it. The others are kinda niche, or you might need to get creative to make them good. Some will benefit from the gas tumbler or the high-energy thermo cask. I don't know how long chain laser is useful but you could make it nanon (and vibro with some effort).

[glass zebra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von I blame Earthshaker:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

Note: The Rifle skill "kickback" can work with them.

Doesn't that really only apply to two-handed ranged weapons in general? If the game were to add a 1 handed heavy weapon, I don't think that would work...

It fully depends on how many hands you are using to use the weapon. If you install giant hands with a true kin and use a phase cannon, it also stops working. That is why I put the "can" into that sentence. I was just hinting that the description does not say "bow and rifle" but instead "two-handed weapon" and it's not a typo.

On that note: akimbo with them works too.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von wormed94:

I don't prefer using them, but the phase cannon is worth it. The others are kinda niche, or you might need to get creative to make them good.

I think the chain gun is pretty straight forward too. Arc cannons are also cool, but they aren't that easy to get. Those also stay relevant later on if you add plasma.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von wormed94:

I don't know how long chain laser is useful but you could make it nanon (and vibro with some effort).

There is also the linear cannon which is the only "default" vibro ranged weapon in the game, though some others ignore armour altogether.

[I blame Earthshaker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

If you install giant hands with a true kin and use a phase cannon, it also stops working.
...
On that note: akimbo with them works too.

The one time I was playing around with True Kin and the giant hands cybernetic, I wasn't really trying to kick anything out of the way. But Akimbo with 4 giant hands, very fun! Plus, figure it would be cool for game to eventually drop at least one heavy weapon pistol, most likely just a big 'ole armor piercing revolver or at least a pistol with some interesting but not OP heavy weapon effects. But most likely if a heavy weapon pistol were to be added it would be something like the following:

https://youtu.be/AO9ybRh79YQ

[glass zebra]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von I blame Earthshaker:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

If you install giant hands with a true kin and use a phase cannon, it also stops working.
...
On that note: akimbo with them works too.

The one time I was playing around with True Kin and the giant hands cybernetic, I wasn't really trying to kick anything out of the way. But Akimbo with 4 giant hands, very fun! Plus, figure it would be cool for game to eventually drop at least one heavy weapon pistol, most likely just a big 'ole armor piercing revolver or at least a pistol with some interesting but not OP heavy weapon effects. But most likely if a heavy weapon pistol were to be added it would be something like the following:

https://youtu.be/AO9ybRh79YQ

Most of the late game stuff gets into energy based territory. Light rail/hand rail are the two highest, flat PV based spamable rifles/pistols right now. The weird linear cannon is pretty much the "armour piercing" bullet ranged weapon (and the highest lead slug weapons in the game too). I would argue Hellboy just has giant hands.

You should still be able to use giant hands + kickback if you use a gigantic ranged weapon (if those exist outside of the default one), since that gets them down to 2 hands.

[I blame Earthshaker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

Most of the late game stuff gets into energy based territory. Light rail/hand rail are the two highest, flat PV based spamable rifles/pistols right now. The weird linear cannon is pretty much the "armour piercing" bullet ranged weapon (and the highest lead slug weapons in the game too). I would argue Hellboy just has giant hands.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of a late-game heavy weapon pistol using ammo that cleaves, but if I get bored enough once 1.0 drops, I might just mod one in anyways.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

I would argue Hellboy just has giant hands.

I'm actually surprised the game doesn't have some sort of combo cudgel/shield stone hand mutation, but maybe that seemed TOO obvious to add. Just one more thing to maybe mod in once code is relatively stable, I guess.

Edit: Forgot to add regarding "Clobbering Time!" stone hand(s), it kind of makes more sense when one considers how game's player has both literal multiple limbs (minimum two at start), but also a single "worn on hands" slot; game maybe can't handle only having a mutation on a single side that doesn't exclude an entire equipping slot (yet). But that just kind of begs the following question: Why not? Game already averages between multiple limb sets, but I guess can't yet average one hand vs. two hands (how does it handle .5 AV?).

Ursprünglich geschrieben von glass zebra:

You should still be able to use giant hands + kickback if you use a gigantic ranged weapon (if those exist outside of the default one), since that gets them down to 2 hands.

Haven't really played around with gigantic/colossal creatures yet, but its addition is both reasonable and understandable. Kinda surprised the cragsmensch aren't considered colossal...