The spear is hard to use?

[Laseen]

what am i meant to do with it?

[Little Critter]

Not use it and just use the Recoilless instead.

[Rebol]

Pray to the god of randomness ( of your choice ) and hope lock on succeeds and it hits where it hurts

[DarkFenix]

Pray, mostly. You try to lock onto an enemy and pray the weapon a) chooses the correct target to try locking and b) actually locks on to it. Functionally speaking you'll achieve a lock something like 10-20% of the time.

[Chaos]

You are meant to pray to rngesus to bless your lock on to work.

[Xarko]

Poke someone with the pointy end.

[Ferrix]

Unfortunately the lock-on is buggy as hell right now, but it'll be improved soon-ish. It's not supposed to suck as bad as it does right now.

[JaCRO]

Originally posted by Laseen:

what am i meant to do with it?

Not play with it, main purpose.
Broken like many other things but it's probably a feature.

[Spooky Cat 🐾💕]

It is possibly bugged, I believe. It's supposed to be an upgraded recoilless rifle that on paper should guarantee a one-hit-kill, but it seems like half the time the target remains alive, not to mention the targeting system is beyond awkward and takes ages to lock on (sometimes in the heat of battle refusing to lock on at all), and if the target is too close (like Chargers), it might miss completely even if you get the blasted thing to fire.

It's basically a Recoiless Rifle with less ammo and clunky aiming for now. I hope it will get reworked.

[CopperTear]

Amazing for taking out bot buildings at long range. Kind of useless for everything else.
It has the most janky target system, too. I find usually you have to have the target at the bottom corners of the targetting circle.

[Idouts]

Originally posted by Laseen:

what am i meant to do with it?

Its a lock on reliant missile like a Javelin. You cant dumb fire it and unfortunately the lock on is incredibly inconsistent. They need to fix it.

[shelledfade]

the spear is absolute garbage, doesn't work 90% of the time from what I've seen.

on an unrelated note, I've also been killed by the railgun when it wasn't even near 90% capacity.

Seems like they introduced a ton of bugs with their updates.

[Chaos567 [GER]]

I mean the spear has a huge problem with ammo. If you take a ammo pack you recive no ammo. Only with supply packs you get 1 rocket. You cant 1 shot a hulk the target aquire system is doing his own thing.... 1 huge benefit is you can destroy turret cannons and fabricator with 1 rocket and the downside its not reliable for the rest of his job.

[Trig_Zero]

i find it easier to lock on
in first person view
instead of waiting for that triangle to zoom in on 3rd person view

[TheCeron]

It's finicky to use sometimes. One major factor is range, you can't be too close to a target or the lock-on might simply not work. The lock-on has a similar problem that the arc thrower has: if a short wall or other obstacle is blocking the lower half of the target than it will usually not work.

Generally, if you can see the bottom half of what you're aiming at, like a robot fabricator, it will lock on fine. It one shots automaton buildings like fabricators and tower cannons; and does it from extremely long ranges.

I find you have to kinda move around and re-aim a lot if the lock on doesn't work on the first try. That will be easier to understand from practicing with it, as it's hard to describe exactly how to do that.

Like others have said, it can be inconsistent, heavies might not die off the first rocket. The only bug it's good against are bile titans, but it will consistently two-shot hulks and tanks. That doesn't sound like much but if you're fighting large groups, getting to a hulk or tank's weak spot gets a lot harder.

That said, it still needs to be more consistent, it CAN one shot a hulk if you aim at it from behind, and sometimes the rock will hit a tank's vent.

[Captain Vredesbooty]

Originally posted by Ferrix:

Unfortunately the lock-on is buggy as hell right now, but it'll be improved soon-ish. It's not supposed to suck as bad as it does right now.

Not picking an argument with you, just jumping in on the 'it'll be fixed soon' - there is too much in this game that needs to be fixed and too many "the devs said they know and they'll fix it". How the devs didn't know about these things before release is mind boggling to me. It's Bethesda levels of ignorance to obvious bugs.

The overall quality and dev's response to it are really poor. This should have released in early access or in another 6 months after some proper testing.



OT: As other's have said, the lock on sucks. Given the way the devs responded to the out cry about primary weapons being pea shooters, I've seriously wondered if it sucks ass by design and it is an example of the devs being hell bent on railroading their chosen narrative down player's throats instead of making the game challenging but fun.


It CAN be used effectively, but it requires a bit of planning so if you're caught short you're going to have a bad time. Essentially, you need to be able to spot targets early so you can have the opportunity to get a good line on the target.


Make sure there are no rocks, buildings, foliage and absolutely no suggestion of fog/smoke between you and the target (or too close around the target) or your lock chances will drop dramatically. Seriously, even the very edge pixels of a piece of foliage or a tiny wisp of fog/smoke will make lock on chance plummet


To make it more effective, ff you can, angle so you are facing head-on. I have an approach worked out with my group so that as long as I can actually achieve a lock, I can get a headshot 3/4 times. Basically, get to a position where you can get a positive target lock and if the target isn't facing you head on, have a party member plink it with their primary/secondary so it turns then fire. Last week it WAS a 100% effective approach but something has changed and I keep finding the missile veers off at the last second 1/4 times and hits side armour even if the target is head on, on flat open ground and coming at you.


I've not been able to replicate a 1 shot kill with the recoilless rifle against a Charger or Bile Titan like a lot of people around here seem to suggest, I've only ever done it with a statagem or the SPEAR. The best approach I've found with the recoilless is two shots to a leg, preferably the front legs because they provide a better target usually. That or a shot to take down the side armour and a second in the same spot which I find harder because you have to be side-on and be able to hit the dead centre of the wound. I've tried shooting it in the butt, but that can take up to 3/4 rounds for some reason so I'm not sure if that weak spot is bugged or I'm just not hitting the area properly.



I want to leave a note here in the seemingly exceptionally unlikely event the developers bother to read what their players have to say beyond their frothing HD1 verterans: You guys actually made a positive move changing the SPEAR so that it can rearm like other weapons. More of that kind of change please and less of this "we know how you should have fun better than you do".

Though knowing the devs, they'll see that I've suggested there is a way to have fun with the SPEAR and will be all "Absolutely not!!!!"