Your favorite weapon in each category?

[Haarlock]

Given the options in each tech tree and the wild variety of unique weapons, I wanted to get everyone's opinions for how you chose to spend your DCT and equip your troops.

My list:

Rifles: Brown line - the extra damage per shot is highly useful for scouts and engis, especially when you get high enough tier for extra shots per mag. That really helps with interception fire, and the accuracy isn't low enough to be a real concern..

Machine Guns: Mags or Reising line - this depends a lot on how you use your shocktroopers. If you use them as a defense line for overlapping fields of interception fire, I find that the accuracy of the Mags is the best choice. If you use them as active line breakers like I do, the extra shots per mag in the Reising line provides the best overall damage by a good margin.

Anti-Tank Lances: SB9 - the enhanced accuracy gives the lancer a much larger practical engagement range and helps when setting up combined fire. It also increases your ability to headshot infantry, which is useful if you get caught away from immediate support.

Sniper Rifles: LF-ASR - I find that the 3 shots per mag is incredibly useful for tough enemies and interception fire, and the range/accuracy is long/high enough for 90% of the situations I need a sniper for. Course, there's something to be said for the GSR when you can literally reach out across the entire map and nail someone with pinpoint accuracy.

Mortars: All of them - the is the only tech tree I've found where all the options are worth researching and using. Hartman is glorious for anti-infantry work; combining with the blast radius order lets you wipe entire strong points with one shot. Sanders is best at interception fire by a small margin since it has the highest accuracy for that use. Elias is a viable alternative to lancers, especially when combined with orders to boost damage and/or ignore defenses - it's also highly useful for interception on tank-heavy maps since it eliminates all AP on an interception hit.

Glory: This one is a toss up between the main cannon and the flamethrower depending on how you use it. The main cannon loadout is used just like the Hafen, though the superior accuracy is better for nailing weak spots and stationary turrets. The flamethrower makes the Glory the single best infantry/turret killer in the game; it's immune to all interception fire except anti-tank cannons, the flamethrower kills all infantry except bosses in one shot, and it sweeps a wide enough area that pretty much any target in front of the tank is going to get hit. Only downside is that you need to get close enough for lancers and other tanks to be an enhanced threat.

[Young Erusean Officer]

I agree with everything actually besides the Sanders being better for interception.

[Kameraden]

Honestly Disappointed because much of the time the choices are quite obvious. Accept for the mortars. No taste and personality with most of the weapons in this game. Unlike the original I often had a mix of units using everything for specific missions and specific roles. This game it isn't really necessary as some of them are just so much better than everything else that there isn't much of a real option.

Rifles: Brown absolutely dominates over the other rifles, bar none. Gallian's range/accuracy isn't worth it's insanely bad damage, 10 points less per shot often than it's tier rival Brown. It's just too great of a difference. Extra range doesn't matter at that point. Even if you aim for the heads, it still doesn't matter, Browns Alpha will still be superior.

Machineguns: Leaning towards the Robinson at the moment. Mags too little damage. Reising too little accuracy and range. Unless you know what the enemy is going to do being able to intercept enemies is important, very important. So Reising perhaps I see it as great on a 2nd play through but it's just not safe enough to use.

Anti Tank: SB9 was my choice as well. Difference in damage isn't really enough to make it not worth using.

Sniper Rifle: Never been a fan of snipers on VC games so I've not experimented much. I've mostly just stuck with the GSR and Wasp back and forth. Used the ASR a few times, wasn't that impress. Being most enemies just take one good shot anyways.

Mortars: Frustrate me. Wish they just had ammunition instead of different mortar types, I never know which one to bring until the battle has already proven I've brought the wrong one along. Not enough unit slots to bring them all without recalling someone. I want to burn mortars with fire!!!

Tanks: Cactus APC with Scout movement Range that can carry anyone you want anywhere. Mortars, Snipers. It's a Good command point saver when you have short range units you need to keep up with an advance. Glory isn't worth it, when you have the Hofen doing much of the heavy tank lifting anyways. I often play it safe and bring the Cactus along even when I find out I don't need him. Maybe later when I know the missions by heart I will start using Glory. It's kind of the same story as the light tank on the original game, it was there, sure it's awesome sometimes, but didn't need it, so I didn't use it much.

[Haarlock]

Originally posted by Kameraden:

Machineguns: So Reising perhaps I see it as great on a 2nd play through but it's just not safe enough to use.

I've never had much of a problem with it because I tend to use shocktroopers as my first or second set of moves in a turn. If something goes wrong or a move triggers an ambush/spots a new enemy dangerously close, I have enough CP to either pull out or bring in support.

Shocktroopers + snipers is actually the reason I favor the Reising and ASR. For the aggressive short-range playstyle that's my favorite, being able to output a lot of damage with minimal use of CP trumps most other concerns; and tanks + interception fire is sufficient to guard against the remnants after I've gutted that section.

Originally posted by Kameraden:

Mortars: Frustrate me. Wish they just had ammunition instead of different mortar types, I never know which one to bring until the battle has already proven I've brought the wrong one along. Not enough unit slots to bring them all without recalling someone. I want to burn mortars with fire!!!

This is honestly a fantastic suggestion that fits the game in every respect; I can't believe I didn't think of it. Use the Sanders for range and accuracy as the base gun, replace all the tech tree gun options with shell options for the same cost, build the damage and blast radius around the shells. It's brilliant.

Originally posted by Kameraden:

Tanks: Cactus APC with Scout movement Range that can carry anyone you want anywhere. Mortars, Snipers. It's a Good command point saver when you have short range units you need to keep up with an advance. Glory isn't worth it, when you have the Hofen doing much of the heavy tank lifting anyways. I often play it safe and bring the Cactus along even when I find out I don't need him. Maybe later when I know the missions by heart I will start using Glory. It's kind of the same story as the light tank on the original game, it was there, sure it's awesome sometimes, but didn't need it, so I didn't use it much.

The way I see it, both Glory and Cactus serve the same purpose, just through different mechanisms; the wide-ranging application of variable damage to different enemies. Glory works by mounting that damage directly to the tank, with the benefit of usually-infinite ammo, superior firepower, and defenses that almost rival the Hafen. Cactus does that through superior movement speed and sub-contracting its damage out to various infantry units.

Again, for the short-range aggressive style I prefer, Glory works better. And I can't overstate just how fond I am of killing two and three infantry units with every flamer shot.

PURGE THE UNCLEAN!

[Mark]

This message is not about weapons, but who can tell where (or on what mission) can get order: "attack weak spot"?

[Kameraden]

Originally posted by Tom:

This is honestly a fantastic suggestion that fits the game in every respect; I can't believe I didn't think of it. Use the Sanders for range and accuracy as the base gun, replace all the tech tree gun options with shell options for the same cost, build the damage and blast radius around the shells. It's brilliant.

They could keep the Mortars, could just have perks using different ones outside of damage. Maybe have different status effects, on top of combinations of accuracy/range. Longer Range = Lower Accuracy, but longer range would also = higher max "arch" for shooting over buildings. So in open field you can say the shorter range ones would of been great, but in cities the longer range less accurate ones would of been great, at the cost of accuracy. HEAT like anti armor shells could of been treated like Flamethrowers as an unlockable seperately researched toy when the class hits Elite. Just in time for those very hard tank invested battles, like the Ultimate Tanks... and the last two engagements vs Walz in which by that time the normal mortar's start lacking heavily vs armor and anti tank ones are necessary. Just like 'Grenades' you just have to hit (2) to switch to them and they would also use up your ammunition, ie your still limited to 3 shots in a Turn.

[Lanzagranadas]

Rifles: Brown series because of their extra power and because from the M5 iirc onwards they have 7 shots, which is pretty helpful as some enemies will require 4 headshots to kill. I see basically no reason to use other rifles. If I want perfect accuracy or increased range I'd rather use a Sniper.

Smgs: This is a bit tricky. The first half of the game I basically ignored R&D and just used those Reising with 220 range rewards from missions, since they can safely kill enemy troopers before they can start firing. But later in the game those weapons lack of power and can only kill via consistent headshots, but are totally useless for interception fire, so I ended up switching to regular R&D Robinson. The ZM MP series are also effective in the post-game since they pack really heavy interception fire.

AT Lances: SB9 series. Since 95% of the time you have to go for instant kill radiator shots anyway, the extra power of the regular Lance is pointless, it's just better to prioritize accuracy. The SB9 has enough power for that, and for killing any turret, anti-tank cannon in the way.

Mortar Lances: Well, this is pretty much an entirely different type of Lance, with just one R&D branch so there's not much to choose from. Not an extremely useful weapon but the Lancaar-SH did help me in certain missions.

Sniper Rifles: Whatever has the best accuracy among those that fires 3 shots. The insane range of other rifles isn't really needed except for a few situations (like the mission with Parabombs)

Mortars: Between the Anti-Personnel variants I usually prefer the R&D Sanders because of the more reliable accuracy. Then the Elias are their own thing and have their own purpose. I found all three types of Mortars useful to be honest.

Glory: Flamethrower, because how else would you nuke an entire enemy base with just one CP and no interception fire damage taken while also leaving the sandbags intact?