does the arc cannon suck?

[Icedfate]

title. . .

(i'm editing the title to be more appropriate)

[2olluxander]

What enemies are you using it on? I've found it to be pretty effective against enemies in the level range its rarity is at, but it's easy to mistake it for a higher-level weapon than it actually is - I know I certainly did pre-launch.

[glass zebra]

Overload does a lot to boost that damage (almost 60% damage increase) like with the other electrical weapons, but it is still only a tier 4 gun, yet has perfect accuracy and very high pen.

[Icedfate]

well, it seems like it ought to be stronger than it is. with 15 pen, against an 8AV enemy, i would think it should do more than just 1-2 damage. . .and it seems like it ought to be getting multiple penetration more often.
sometimes i do get an x3 or an x4 and then still only do like, 7 damage.

i did look at the wiki and the wiki says it's electric damage which gets reduced by resistance.
i was shooting irritable palms with it, and the wiki says those have 15% resistance.

here's the thing, it's 1d6 electric damage which has to roll to penetrate.

meanwhile, the arc winder, does 4d4 electric and doesn't need to roll.

plus, the arc winder is an aoe, plus, it's a pistol, which means it can be dual wielded.

why would someone want to use the arc cannon over the arc winder?

[glass zebra]

"which has to roll to penetrate" also means that it can penetrate multiple times, while the arc winder always only gets its base damage (like a static 1 pen) and the arc cannon has an astonishing 15 PV for a tier 4 weapon. 4 pens with 1d6 are basically 4d6 damage, which is more than 4d4. Getting 7 damage with 3-4 pens is just bad luck, since that is the average of 2 pens with that weapon. Overloaded you would have already gotten 9-12 damage with a minimum roll.

"gets reduced by resistance" also means that it gets increased by negative resistance, which most robots (all now?) have to electrical damage. E.g. saw-handers run around with -50 electrical resistance and 5 AV, which means you are getting ~4.6 pens on average with 1d6 and a 50% damage increase from the resistance, resulting in 24 damage on average or 38 if overloaded with perfect accuracy.

The arc winders having AOE and being pistols can definitely be nice, but the arc cannon can pick off targets on higher ranges without much risk of friendly fire or missing the target. It also costs less than a quarter the charge per shot and is 1 tier lower than the arc winders, so you are comparing it to a higher tier and more expensive weapon.


The palms have somewhat high AV and don't move, so neither high range nor pen based combat are exceptional against them. For other enemies (especially lower ones) the arc cannon can be nice. The arc winders should still be more useful most of the time and not just for damage.

[Icedfate]

palms have 8 AV. the arc cannon has 15 PV, but i was rarely getting more than x1,x2,x3. I did hit once with an x5 and did 20 damage, but these things with 120 hp each, while most turns, i was doing only 1 damage or 3 damage. . .
it took an everage of 15 shots to kill each palm and yeah, they don't move. i could just sit there plinking away, but the fact that i had to sit there and plink for 15 turns to kill just 1.

I did consider that the arc winder does friendly fire and i hate the friendly fire, because i tend to play diplomatic and make as many enemies friendly as possible. I figure if i'm gonna be overleveled to the point they give no xp, may as well have positive rep so i don't have to fight them.
so okay, that's an argument to not use the arc winder aoe.
i mean, arc winder is also low damage. when the enemies i needed to use it on (saltbacks, decarbonizer) have 900-2000 hp and i'm doing 15-20 damage per shot.

the arc cannon just still feels deceptive, like it's not as strong as the stats would seem to suggest.

the light rail seems stronger, even with the lower PV of 13, but i'm not a fan of the light rail either, since it disintegrates the corpses, denying the butchering opportunity.
Light manipulation has that same issue, but it's so strong, doing 100+ damage at high level , but then light manipulation has the problem of so many late game enemies being downright immunemor just flatout reflecting it back.

i usually end up using the eigenrifle, but that also has friendly fire.

it seems every high tier gun has some caveat to it.

[eb]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

it is still only a tier 4 gun, yet has perfect accuracy and very high pen.

To add to that, tier 4 gear is in a weird spot where unless something is part of the loot table of a specific creature type, you'll almost never see it, because generic loot tables including some of these items are absurdly rare (compounding with specific item rarity), and no merchants reliably stock them either since, I think, there are no guaranteed merchants in that range. This often results in only finding your first arc cannon much later (IF you ever find one), giving the impression that it's a high tier item.

[Icedfate]

yeah, come to think of it, i'm not sure i ever saw an arc cannon sold by a merchant. Don't even remember where i found the one i have. I just saw it in my inventory after clearing out a mid tier historical site unidentified and i had to examine it to find out what it was.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by eb:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

it is still only a tier 4 gun, yet has perfect accuracy and very high pen.

To add to that, tier 4 gear is in a weird spot where unless something is part of the loot table of a specific creature type, you'll almost never see it, because generic loot tables including some of these items are absurdly rare (compounding with specific item rarity), and no merchants reliably stock them either since, I think, there are no guaranteed merchants in that range. This often results in only finding your first arc cannon much later (IF you ever find one), giving the impression that it's a high tier item.

That is true for the arc cannon, since it is not inside any of the normal loot tables. It seems to only be in BaseRelic_Rifle4 and not in any of the Gun or Missle weapon loot tables that are used for traders etc. I do find quite a lot of laser rifles though.

It has kind of been shadow removed from the game (when Arcwyrks got removed, but there were not patchnotes about them) and you basically only get it from arc cannon turrets now, which are pretty rare. Even before that they were rather rare, but you could hunt for them better (I remember when I tried that, which still took some time).

Originally posted by Icedfate:

the arc cannon just still feels deceptive, like it's not as strong as the stats would seem to suggest.

the light rail seems stronger, even with the lower PV of 14

It is as strong as the stats would suggest, since it only has very high PV but not high damage. Even the laser rifle has 1d12, which almost twice the average damage (but at much lower PV of 9). That is also the reason why overloaded does more to that gun than most others, since it just adds +2 damage to the die, which is more impactful with low damage and high PV.

The lightrail has 13 PV, but also 1d12 and it also tier 6 and not tier 4, so it would be weird if it would not be stronger. PV numbers are not everything or even the best indicator for how a weapon would perform. Arc cannons are rather weird in design, since e.g. several rifles and pistols follow some kind of almost uniform progression with similar damage and just increasing PV and the arc cannons has super high PV and even lower die than a laser pistol. That they also do electrical damage despite being PV based is even weirder, but they can perform well in tier 4.

It is also the only general-use accurate weapon for heavy until you get the tier 7 linear cannon. Not that that makes them super desirable when rilfes without skillpoints are basically as good as heavy weapons on long range.

[Icedfate]

i don't use the laser guns because only 9 PV and also the problem of so many enemies reflecting it.
and yeah, that was a typo on the light rail/hand rail when i wrote "14", i meant 13. The spaser has 14, but i don't understand the spaser. I get that it sprays plasma and that plasma lowers resistance. I guess the spaser is meant to be ised in combination with something that does elemental damage(?), like shoot once wotn spaser, then open inventory and equip someelse?

i do see the arc cannon has only 1d6 for damage and thought that was weird and really low, but i also thought that the high PV ought to overcome that by getting a higher multiplier, no?

i'm actually using the arc cannon right now. I modded it with phase harmonic and can kill an astral tabby in 2 shots and i like the super accurate shots, but those only have 30 hp.

at worst, arc cannon seems to be a straight upgrade from electrobow and electrobow is one of my favorites early game weapons to find, even if it does less damage than carbine, imprefer electrobow until i get access to eigenrifle.

TBH, it feels like most of the ranged weapons have low damage for what their stats suggest, at least compared to melee weapons.
and i agree with the design that melee weapons should be stronger and do more damage as they are more risky to use.

maybe i'm using the ranged weapons wrong? i dunno. i use bows+rifles skill mostly, but mostly only take the first 2 skills in the tree. I don't understand all the suppressing fire and deep cover fire skills that take multiple turns to setup. Mark target says it increases accuracy, but doesn't seem to make much difference.

pistols seem weak to me, i guess because you're supposed to use akimbo? of which i tried that once but didn't like it, because it's hard to control the shots and if the first shot kills the enemy, the second shot hits whatever was behind the enemy, which leads to more friendly fire mishaps.

i stopped using disarming shot the first couple times an enemy reflected my shot back at me and caused me to disarm myself. .

i mostly avoid heavy weapons, because they are heavy, with low ammo capacity or heavy ammo, and movement penalty, which can be nullified with skill points, but requires skill poonts.

[Halcyon]

I think it's important to mention to essentially all of your points that there is no one omnipotent best type of weapon, but rather that you can and should choose the weapon to use based on the type of enemy you'll be fighting. Electric weapons are powerful against robots but have friendly fire issues and low damage against resistant. Lasers can be reflected but are accurate and powerful. All weapon types have advantages and drawbacks.

Pistols are quite powerful for a variety of reasons but, yes, they do more or less require using akimbo to stack up to rifles or heavies in terms of sheer damage output. That said, most pistols have weird unique properties like space inverter, di-thermal beam, nullray, or psychal fleshgun, and are never objectively better than other weapons but provide you with specific use cases where they excel.

As for Spasers, keep in mind that plasma is a gas, and that it causes damage to enemies and terrain without destroying items. If you use spasers, you're effectively committing to a corrosive gas cloud strategy, with the added bonus that plasma prevents passive cooling of the target, so you can heat them up until they disintegrate.

Speaking of disintegrate, if you're looking for a 'basic' type of ranged weapon that is reliably damaging in most circumstances, eigen-weapons are usually a solid pick. You have to be a bit cautious about projectile pass-through but otherwise they're usually able to hit and damage most targets at a good rate.

Heavy weapons likewise often have specific use cases, like the blast cannon which is for stunning and the phase cannon for enemies that are out of phase or have very high defense, but are honestly at their best in the (giant) hands of a true kin, preferably one with a gun rack as well as giant hands. Wielding four phase cannons at once is truly the apex of firepower, even if they drain the power cells at an alarming rate. This is also a solid way to use spaser rifles, since you effectively have a shoot/move/shoot pattern in which you pump the target area full of plasma, relocate and let it deal damage, then repeat as needed.

[glass zebra]

So many enemies reflect lasers? Apart from psychics who can roll light manipulation randomly, hardly any enemy reflects lasers (and light rail is also a laser). You don't need to equip another weapon to deal elemental damage. Throwing a grenade or using some mutations works just as well. Shooting plasma at something and then using a thermal grenade is basically a kill for many enemies, since they will just burn until for a long time, take some damage and just watch you kill them. Same for freeze grenades.

Ranged weapons have exactly the damage that their stats suggest. There is no hidden multiplier that lowers their damage output or something like that. Melee weapons usually have some cool skills to use, while rilfes are mostly about utility skills and pistols about auto attack damage boosters. If you don't want to use any of the rifles skills (surpressive fire e.g. can make enemies never move towards you until they are dead, since the root lasts longer than it takes time to apply and there is no cooldown and wounding fire can give lots of blood/oil) and want to focus on melee, ranged weapons are definitely there for the utility (e.g. covering in plasma or freeze raying someone) and for the enemies that seem to scary to melee.

Yes you are absolutely supposed to use akimbo and all of the attack time reducers with pistols (and the passive disarm). If you have the problem of the enemy being already dead when your others shoots arrive, that is probably a good sign for the strength of the pistols. They can kill enemies very quickly for the downside of lower accuracy and a bit lower than per shot than rifles. They also have more utility guns to offer than rifles do.

Heavy weapons do seem more niche and you can mostly skill them altogether, but you can do some cool combos with them. The flamethrower is regarded as the strongest weapon in the game by some and phase canons can also do quite a lot damage, while others can provide cool utility, but unless you have a lot of strength or resources to offer them, they seem rather unalluring.


I am not sure where you are running around that you find so many reflecting enemies. Very few boss-like enemies should have reflect and you can work around that too. The worst part about disarming shot is playing with follower, but otherwise it is such as strong ability if you have some agility and a good reason to take water-cooled chain pistols with you even long after they do significant or even any damage.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Halcyon:

This is also a solid way to use spaser rifles, since you effectively have a shoot/move/shoot pattern in which you pump the target area full of plasma, relocate and let it deal damage, then repeat as needed.

You can also aim + shoot to ignore the 1 turn cd of the weapon. The plasma gas from the rifle is not that dense though. Even with 3 overloaded gas tumblers it deals like 6 dmg per shot per turn. The alternating shots also do not work anymore when you go over 100 QN :/

[Icedfate]

by "reflecting enemies".

cherubims all reflect shots.
and 90% of esper hunters refelct light. .or seem to. .

maybe the purple cloaked seeker servants of ptoh might not, but the n-dimension starcrabs definitely do and once the glimmer gets high enough, you're seeing multiple n-dimension crabs every few screens. (maybe the hunters are different for every seed, i dunno, that's just what i'm seeing in both runs where i had high glimmer)

I was thinking in terms of endgame, mind you.
I love light manipulation in the early to mid game, just shooting down dawngliders, baboons, bears, antelopes, slumbelings, svardims, putus templars. .

it's when i start seeing those top tier enemies and the light manipulation stops working, better have an alternate means.
i didn't consider laser guns mostly because their PV is only 9 which seems mid. especially since eigenrifle stars appearing right around the same time.

as for "pistols being so powerful they kill the enemy before all the shots get there". that's not what i meant.
I meant that with akimbo, you always fire twice, regardless whether the first shot kills your target or not. I didn't mean that I'm OHKOing targets. I meant like say, an enemy has 50 hp and i shoot twice, do 10 +10, shoot twice 10+10, shoot twice again do 10 (enemy dies) + next shot goes off into the distance and hits a friendly and then now everything on the map is hostile to me.

i know the eigenrifle can have that same problem and so can arc winder.

the light rail, i didn't like the light rail despite the 13 pv, because it disintegrates targets, just like light maniipulation and the light manipulation annoys me with that too especially in early game (as an esper), when i have no meat and i have to rely on the light to kill enemies and keep on destroying their corpses.
I know butchery is not necessary, but i don't like leaving potential loot sources behind.
that's a me thing.

maybe the arc cannon isn't so bad, when it stacks up against other weapons of similar type. I haven't found overcharged mod on my current run so haven't been able to try it out.

[Erei]

You're lucky to have found one. I haven't. You need to find the turret, which are rare to begin with. Heavy weapons are not in a good place IMO. They have good guns but it's more like a bandaid on an otherwise bland and unfinished weapon tree IMO.



While I do love heavy weapon, I feel like of all the weapon type, they are the ones who got the less love.
Only 3 skill, 1only is active. This is literally the smallest weapon tree ever. Most weapon tree have 7skills (or more), twice more than heavy weapons. 6 is the lowest if you count shield as a weapon tree. This is even more sad when you get to the skill themselves. 2 of those skill are just there to make heavy weapon usable. And that active skill is super janky with energy weapons (you are spammed with "change battery" menu) which is basically all but one heavy weapon.
Of the weapons, only 2 are viable as your regular primary (chaingun early, chain laser later). The rest have lots of situational weapon that truly shine in specific situation and utterly fail at everything else (like normality/fungicide/defoliant pump). Or they are terrible in the ammo management part and not sustainable long term.

Also, all those weapons are expensive and rare. You really want tinker just so you can use them. You also want a way to disarm to farm turret for those weapon, and that's another skill tree (sword or pistol). And then you want akimbo for the rack build, which is yet another tree (pistol).

And yes, they shine best with true kin weapon rack+giant hand. But consider this, you could be a true kin with weapon racks + rapid release finger flexors and fire the same amount of gun, just pistol instead. Which have a much better progression, amount of viable weapons and a better skill tree.

Finally, there is no progression whatsoever. It's another weapon type early on because you don't get a choice at all, chaingun when you get to grit gate, then chain laser to the end. I think it's only the weapon type no archetype start with.


I'm not saying it's all bad, but the whole thing rely on auto attack only and 2-3weapons, basically. Besides chaingun/chain laser, phase cannon are really good but they go empty on even antimatter cell super fast. Even the biodynamic power plant can't handle a single one of them (5K generation vs 7500used). And since it doesn't recharge jacked battery for some reason, you'll need to recharge manually all the time.
Linear cannon is another, as it allow for good damage (for a vibro weapon).
Swarm rack is powerful but it's more a meme at this point.

[glass zebra]

Did you mean N-dimensional starshells? The tortoises? I don't know which crabs you could mean that have a similar name, but starshells do not reflect any shots by default. If you see multiple glimmer enemies every few screens, you definitely have a rather specific game going with super high glimmer, which is not a common case.

Laser guns are 1 tier below eigen rifles and you cand find them around BS. Friendly fire with akimbo is something you can avoid most of the time if you are not shooting into a big unknown area. It takes some practice, but is then mostly irrelevant. Doubling (or more) your damage is usually pretty good, but of course you can also play more accurate and slower.

The arc cannon is definitely more of a side arm e.g. for tinkerers and the whole heavy weapons tree is very much a side arm tree imo. There is some comobing you can do and with high strength chars you can have a few for specific situations.. but grenades also already do that. If you are thinking late game, you can very much forget about that one. For rifles light rails are pretty much the best all-purpose rifles. If you want to get corpses with that one, you can e.g. kill with stacked wounding shots or some other damage source.