Feelings on Sparq and Ion Pulse

[Rosenthal]

I'm probably half way through now, hoarding problem aside I've come to realize I need to come to terms with the sparq gun's true worth, since I just picked up the pulse rifle.

Basically, how do you guys feel about ditching sparq for ion.

Personally I don't think it's worthwhile. Currently I like the sparq for poking, the magnum gets most of the work done especially when it's coupled with the grenade launcher. I'm iffy between the shotgun and the magpulse, I would carry both but the hotbar is only good for 4 weapons. Since magnum/emp is great the shotgun has better utility when it comes to fleshy targets. I don't think I've seriously cared for the pistol, smg, and the assault rifle so far. I'm saving railgun for bosses.

If I take the Ion Pulse then it would conflict with the magnum, which is fine, but then it becomes a game about retreating to the nearest energy station as soon as possible because unless it's urgent I'm not using batteries at all. Keeping the Ion would also mean that it would really start dipping into time that could've been spent running/jumping or shielding.

[☠WARSLUT☠]

I ran out of ammo for everything around engineering and security, there's plenty of weapons lying around in security though so i ended up with completely different weapons by the time i left. I stuck with the ion rifle since the mode switches gave me enough utility i felt, i mostly destroyed cameras with the low setting and shot bots with the 2nd.
you can get the plasma rifle in security if you lower the security level and that pretty much replaced both. the vast majority of enemies past that point are bots so the shotgun and stuff lost their value quick.

[bl_4u]

I took Ion because it was better dmg than upgraded sparq for nearly the same energy cost at lowest setting, but I have so much pistol ammo I use that for stuff like shooting out cameras or killing weak enemies instead. Magnum has been more useful than shotgun because I can snipe flying targets in a couple of shots - it has served me way better than shotgun.

So I guess Ion is useful because I can control the amount of energy per shot even at a high setting?

[Solaron]

I was surprised how long I was using the Sparq compared to the original game, in which I had replaced it with the ER-90 Blaster by the time I reached the Flight Deck, not in this game though--there is no ER-90, so once I got the Ion Pulse Rifle I dropped the Sparq pretty quick.

It's still great for taking out cameras at low power, and once I find a recharge station on a level, I set the charge to high and just run back to recharge if I don't have batteries in stock.

Speaking of which, the high charge Illudium-Cadmium batteries only show up in the last quarter of the remake, really bizarre choice there as they would have been mega useful early on.

[lazyd00d]

Regarding the hotbar, i dont know why the devs chose the categorized hotbar as default. Btw you can change to an unrestricted hotbar in the options as "standard"

[Rosenthal]

I'm glad to know the game is working as intended then. Maybe I'll be forced to use the ion pulse soon.

[Sparky mark phillips]

Ion is great if a recharge station is nearby i'm on the bridge and pretty much camping the charge station with the ion rifle to save ammo it's great for the normal enemies, on the bosses i use the emp to stun and either heal or unload a railgun charge or some penetrator rounds seems to be working pretty well.

[Crypto Gamer]

Yes hotbar choice is very stange but if you set it to standard you can use your hotkeys for weapons good if you do not use much grenades.

[weirdee]

You should do it after you get the upgrade for ion, but until then, sparq will carry you through pretty much anything. The upgrade for sparq makes it nearly on par with upgraded ion.

Sparq is only really worth using on power setting 2 or overcharge in combat, 1 is just for shooting cameras or making noise when you want the enemies to cluster up into a killbox.

[Rekkin]

I'm having a hard time justifying the ion rifle, because the sparq fully upgraded is more energy efficient and takes up 2 fewer inventory spaces. I feel like the weapon upgrades make graduating to better weapons a bit less important, unfortunately.

[Crypto Gamer]

What is the upgrade for the ion riffle?

[Kuda White]

I feel annoying that you cant upgrade energy at least. First, energy weapon and on top of that, shield/item sense/enviro protection/your boots for jumping/sprinting energy usage. Not to mention, the indicator to show whether enabled/disabled is pretty poor to zero. Getting hit while shield is on is another hell of a story.

[weirdee]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

What is the upgrade for the ion riffle?

It increases the energy efficiency of the weapon, making it actually worth considering over the sparq.

[SupidSeep]

As an OG player, the ER Blaster was far more energy efficient than the Ion Rifle. In Remake I treat the upgraded Sparq as the ER Blaster.

I have been using the Sparq extensively when playing on levels with ready access to energy recharge, hoarding my ballastic ammo for now (Reactor Stage, having explored Storage and Flight first). However in future I may replace with Ion Rifle and only use near recharge stations.

As the game progresses, enemies will be more deadly and energy should be conserved for Shields.

[Knocks (I BUY MICS)]

Last 1/3 of the game, shields became hugely important for survivability (Combat was difficulty 3), so I actually ditched the SparQ and Ion. I had a rail gun and laser rapier for large tanky robots (with the slowdown time item and the melee Berserk item, you absolutely wreck bosses and enemies), magnum, smg, assault rifle. Shotgun was super useful mid game but kinda sucked for late game so I ditched it. My setup worked great.
Never even really used the Ion, Pulse, and purposely ignored the grenade launcher due to lack of space. Still, I was satisfied with the weapon variety.

[divvy82]

My personal tier list for remake weapons is:

1. Skorpion - Best all-around weapon. Most importantly it's the best weapon for getting surprised by a big bad. Pop shield and just drill them down with the top DPS Skorpion provides. One clip of Teflon is enough to kill almost anything without reloading and it empties in a few seconds. Just make sure to use Teflon rounds, the regular ones are bad for anything with armor.

2. Assault Rifle - The Skorpion Lite once full-auto upgraded. Smaller clip, bigger recoil and lower DPS limit it's power in "oh ♥♥♥♥"-situations, but its still a solid all-rounder. As a bonus, it works well even with regular rounds against armor.

3. Magpulse - Two pumped shots will kill almost anything in this game, provided it's made of metal and stays in the bubble. Great weapon for when you have the initiative, just popping around a corner to take a shot and going back to cover to let the bubble do it's work. It's weakness is "oh-♥♥♥♥"-situations, where it's just too slow to kill big baddies and you get torn to shreds without cover.

4. Grenade Launcher - A single EMP grenade will mostly guarantee a zero-damage-taken victory over almost any single endgame enemy. Great weapon for "oh ♥♥♥♥"-situations and reavers. The stun will buy enough time to kill endgame enemies with Skorpion, Assault Rifle, or even a Shotgun. Diego seemed resistant, the stun didn't last the normal duration. Other grenade types aren't as useful. Mutants are easy so gas grenades are overkill and frag just didn't do enough damage to enemies that mattered.

5. Railgun - Almost guaranteed one-shot kill for almost any enemy in the game. Would be higher if it was guaranteed one-shot. Very good way to chunk something in an "oh ♥♥♥♥"-situation and then switch to something like Skorpion to finish them off quickly, in case they didn't die to the first shot.

6. Magnum - Reliable workhorse before you get the Assault Rifle and Skorpion. Fairly low DPS makes for a bad weapon in "oh ♥♥♥♥"-situations tough.

7. SparQ Beam - Best weapon until you get the Magnum. Still decent later if you get the damage upgrade. Could possibly be higher on the list, but I ditched it early for lack of space. Take this rank with a grain of salt, it might be better than Magnum had I given it a chance.

8. Shotgun - The range and clip limitation are a bit crippling and even at close range, it's not _that_ powerful. Decent enough until you get Magnum. After that, it's mostly useful for conserving ammo when fighting easy mobs, or drilling something down after an EMP stun without wasting more important ammo.

9. Ion Pulse Rifle - Too much energy drain and inventory space for the damage. Energy-hungry Magnum on high-setting. Way too slow on overcharge to be safe to use.

10. Plasma Cannon - Massive energy drain for damage that is barely more than an Assault Rifle or Skorpion. Overheats too soon. Alternate fire is random suicide. Top place for biggest disappointment, but at least it's faithful to the original in that regard.

11. Laser Rapier - It's not really feasible to melee anything really dangerous in this game. Could be used to save some ammo killing easy mobs but you'd probably take a shot or two closing the gap and I'd rather just shoot at things from cover. Not enough damage to really go ham on any big bad, but could be combined with EMP grenade to save some ammo. Still not worth the space imo.

12. Mini-pistol - Useless against anything remotely dangerous. Can't even be used to save ammo because the best weapon uses the same ammo.

13. Other melee weapons - See Laser Rapier, but with paltry damage. Useless once you have Mini Pistol and SparQ.