New Gun

How much skills do you got, or more importantly, what profession levels are you at in BLP and Laser? i.e.:
BLP Pistoleer (Hit)
BLP Sniper (Hit)
Ranged BLP (Damage)
Laser Pistoleer (Hit)
Laser Sniper (Hit)
Ranged Laser (Damage)

Do you know if you want BLP or laser, pistol or rifle?

Are you looking for an economic gun or is high damage more important? High damage/sec?

With 2000 PED you can definitely get yourself a really good gun! Wish I would have that much to spend... :)

 

Do you have a preference for rifle or handgun?

(oops - this started as a short post and turned into an essay - sorry :hehe: )

Weapons with SIB (skill increase bonus), especially the (L) weapons, supposedly help you gain skills a little faster, and might be less wasteful on ammo as you might hit the target more often ( faster gain on hit ability ).
The downside is that once you pass the skill bonus level, you need a higher level weapon to gain the skill increase bonus again. Also the (L) weapons cannot be repaired, so you need to loot or purchase a replacement gun over and over.

I'm sure there might be clever ways to maximise the benefits from the (L) weapons, and if anybody can post their suggestions that would be great. I can only offer my own opinion based on the weapons I have tried so far.
Being a stubborn old coot, I chose old fashioned repairable non (L) weapons, so that I could always repair them and never had to worry about replacing them.
The choice of gun can involve balancing things like range, ammo used each shot, the damage per shot, the damage per second, number of shots per minute, and the decay of the gun. A gun that does 60 damage per shot, but only fires twice per minute, will do much less overall damage than a gun that does 10 damage yet fires 50 times a minute. Also a long range gun is less attractive when you find that, because of slow reload, the distant mob has time to run close to you before you can fire the second shot.
Decay is also worth considering - a gun with fantastic damage might be very expensive to keep using if you regularly need to repair it, compared to a less powerful gun that has lower decay, and so lets you hunt longer before needing any repairs.
Finally to choose Laser or BLP. :-? Although some of the new (L) and unlimited guns may be changing this, generally I think laser guns are better for economy/less decay/less ammo burn/less damage per second compared to BLP guns with higher decay/higher ammo burn/higher damage per second. Some colonists choose to specialise in BLP skills from the start, so that they are better skilled later to use the higher damage weapons for pK or against tough mobs. This might be a more expensive path but perhaps worth considering if you can afford it.
Another option might be to use a different weapon type for rifle and pistol ( eg laser rifle and BLP pistol ) so that you gain a mix of rifle, handgun, laser tech and BLP tech skills as part of normal hunting.

My personal choice which has served me well since soon after I arrived at Port Atlantis has been an A-3 Justifier MkII rifle ( laser, low decay, nice damage and range, fairly inexpensive ) and an Omegaton M2875 pistol ( laser, low decay, nice damage and very fast rate of fire, still not too expensive if you shop around ). Both of these can make full use of laser amps up to A106.
If you also buy a couple of A104 laser amps, one for each gun, then you have a lot of firepower which both give you laser tech skills, and I think you might still have change from your 2k peds for a little ammo. :)

:handgun: :Sniper::handgun:​

 

The main benefit I find of (L) weapons is the increased HA/CH. This makes a big difference to the economy of the weapon if your skills aren't high. Sure, it's a bit of a pain to have to keep replacing the weapon, but crafters are churning the main ones out at a high rate.

But OTOH I've never looked at how the cost of replacing the gun effects the economy, so maybe it all evens out...

Erach.

 

I'm only sticking to (L) weapons so far. Think I will do that until I at least got 2.0/10.0 in HA with unlimited weapons. (Any comment on this Burger? Or any other experienced un(L) hunter) I'm a little afraid of all those misses if I have lower HA.
On the other hand, the replacing of (L) weapons could prove to cost a lot if the markup on them is high. So far I've had no problems with this as I've only faced markups of <110%. But look at when you get to Riker UL3 (L), markup 130%, or Montgomery Anabolic (L), about 250-300%! I haven't made a comparison, but then it definitely feels like there's a similar unlimited weapon that would be (in economical aspect) a better choice.

A tip when using (L) weapons, amp them! You can say there is a markup on the decay of the (L) weapons, as they aren't repairable. So using an amp (unlimited one) raises the damage you get for the paid markup on the gun. Discussion about it here:
http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76321

 

I have 10/10 on guns like the Korss H400 and on a few laser (L) rifles, yet I don't really notice any less missed shots with them than using a plain gun. Usually if I miss shots, I take a step backward or sideways. I think sometimes if a mob is close to you, that the server has problems detecting your position relative to the mob. Walking back or sideways a step usually helps improve this.

 

Alright. Here is a very good tool which compares different weapons:
http://www.entropiatools.com/avgdmgpec.php

It also says 0.0/10.0 HA means you will miss 20% of the time, and with a maxed gun you will miss 8%.

 

Nice work Una, that is a great weapon calculation page.
M-O-H if you want to check your HA and stats on weapons you don't own, have a look in the auction or shops, as you can right click on the weapon to view your actual stats based upon your skills.

 

Yeah I've been studying that tool for some 15 minutes now. A quick solution I can make is that you will need to be at level 40-50 in the Hit profession before the unlimited weapons will start to be as economic as a maxed limited weapon. This might be a bit different between the weapon types though (I checked with Laser carbines).

Just an example:
Riker UL2 (L) is maxed when you reach level 11 in the 'Laser Sniper (Hit)' profession.
According to the tool the average damage/PEC is 2.72 at that point.

Then take A-3 Justifier Mk.II for example, a popular unlimited gun. When you are at level 11 in 'Laser Sniper (Hit)' the average damage/PEC is 2.507. As a matter of fact, you will need to be at Level 70 (!) in 'Laser Sniper (Hit)' to have the same economy as a Riker UL2 (L).

The Mk.II has significantly higher damage/sec than the UL2(L) though... ;) But I think I'm convinced I will stay with the limited guns for quite a while.

 

No problem mate! Thanks to you too, you made me find that wonderful weapon comparison tool :D

Out of curiosity, what gun did you choose?