Maxrebo6 on 27/9/2015 at 01:42
I just picked up the enhanced edition today and it's been a while since I beat the game more than 5 years at least. So I was wondering what weapons are best for which enemies.
I know that the laser rapier is great for the Inviso-Mutants and I remember hearing that the dart gun is useful for something,and I do remember to hoard the teflon rounds but for what I can't remember.
So what I am asking is what weapons are good against what enemies ?
What weapons should I be carrying around and which aren't even worth picking up.
zombe on 27/9/2015 at 02:27
A quote from a few years ago might be of help:
Quote:
Speaking of weapons and their targets ... made a .ods table (~excel) for it today. In pfd form: (
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/19090066/SS1/ss1.pdf) (.odf for odf version of it)
Notes:
* every enemy has two calculated numbers shown per weapon/ammo: (1) How many hits are needed to kill with it. (2) How much time it takes to kill with it.
* all damage goes through 33% penalty (*0.67) that comes with the highest combat difficulty.
* damage types and vulnerabilities are used in calculations.
* gray = does no damage. Bad damage type and/or can not penetrate armor.
* red = terrible. (1) Uses more that 80% of the clip. (2) Takes longer than 5 seconds.
* white = fine, aka not terrible nor good.
* green = good. (1) Uses less than 30% of the clip. (2) Takes less than 2.5 seconds.
* got the base data from I.C.E. Breaker - hopefully with not too many errors :/ ... sounds about right tho.
* clip size for melee/grenade/etc weapons is ... made up to get reasonable colors (all the colors are from "conditional formatting") in regards of hitcount/time.
* ammo line for sparq/etc is ... well how much of the player's max energy (255) the shoot will take.
* ammo line for grenades/etc is the explosion radius.
* clip size for sparq/etc is floor(max_player_energy/shot_per_energy) given min/50%/max setting (No overload. No 50% option for Sparq and Blaster as their energy usage is fairly low even on max setting).
* refire delay is my judgement by firing/using the things ingame ... the ones underlined and in italic i did not specifically test yet - just guessed.
* does not consider +-10% ... as in average it should not matter.
* does not consider criticals ... as the weapons that are that much better than the target die fast enough for it to not be particularly interesting.
* the (2) line for grenades/etc is the same as (1) with 50% damage reduction to simulate non-perfect hit.
Maxrebo6 on 27/9/2015 at 21:20
So from what I read in that chart what I am gonna carry around with me are
Laser Rapier which seems to work on everything and its nice to carry at least one melee weapon
Sparq Beam early on for cheap and decent weapon and later on for zapping cameras
Magpulse for Bots
Rail Gun
Assualt Rifle
Skorpion
and maybe a few others
driver on 27/9/2015 at 22:22
Careful with the Railgun, if you use it in close quarters you'll do as much damage to yourself as the enemies, treat it like a mini rocket launcher.
With the Sparq, you'll want to trade that out for the Blaster then the Ion Rifle when you find them, even at full whack the Sparq is seriously underpowered later in the game.
zombe on 28/9/2015 at 06:41
My take on the weapons and what i tend to carry around:
* [1] pipe: Needed for the few early serv-bots (which are immune to dartgun) and early cameras to spare ammo. Tossed away the moment inventory gets full.
* [1] Dartgun: Works very well against nearly all of the early game enemies due of its sick refire rate. Degraded to camera-duty from second level on.
* [1] Stun-gun: NO! I already have Dartgun that can do the same - ie. nothing of use. I love that thous useless weapons exist tho - makes the game more lively.
* [1] Sparq: Super early game (long-long before getting the pistol in med level) ammo-scarcity-failsafe and decent against all the early critters. Good for cameras early game when ammo levels are low and using the pipe makes you feel like a dorky caveman.
* [1] Mag-pulse: Early game robot killer. Super scarce ammo at first and has serious problems with firing past corners - still worth carrying around till near the end game.
* [1] Pistol: The first actual general use gun. Standard bullets are good enough for plenty of enemies and its camera-duty time lasts nearly to the end of the game. Teflon is the only early game ammo you get in sufficient amounts capable of taking out some specific enemies comfortably easily (most notably): Sec1 bots, Hoppers, Maint bots. Even most of the cyborgs fall fast.
* [1] Magnum: Darn good weapon, but early on it seriously lacks ammo. Nice midgame weapon. Don't waste ammo - use the pistol where appropriate. Super late game camera-duty.
* [R] Flechette: Early game superweapon of mass destruction. Splinters work extremely well in bursts against inviso-mutants (even bouncing back their projectile attacks, which is super useful in the grooves too) and nearly everything else throughout the game. Found the first time you get to visit the reactor level.
* [3] Rapier: I never pick it up ... it is extremely OP as the table shows. Only downside being that you actually need to face your foe (which was the reason i threw the thing away even at the very first time i played the game). YMMV.
* [4] Riot gun: LOLz, no. Not even for moving active mines.
* [5] Blaster: Minor upgrade. Worth throwing away the Sparq for it. However, energy usage goes up a lot - so, not so stellar against cameras anymore.
* [5] Assault rifle: Ammo is too scarce, but i carry it around anyway. Useful for a few tough enemies one encounters (where using magnum would waste a bit too much ammo).
* [6] Rail gun: Much bigger problems with corners compared to mag-pulse as this thing CAN hurt YOU. Has sick refire rate. Only place it is consistently good is at level 8 for clearing the alcoves and ledges - worth carrying till then for that alone.
* [G] Ion rifle: Reasonable upgrade. Worth throwing away the Blaster for it. Nice backup weapon till the end of game. Energy usage is too high for constant usage - might use against cameras when using the magnum feels even sillier.
* [7] Skorpion: Legendary end game superweapon found at level 7 near the elevator.
* [8] Plasma rifle: Mechanically fun gun, but: too slow, massive energy drain, darn corners again, unhealthy to yourself. Meh.
* Grenades: I always try to use them as much as possible, but still end with heaps of the damn things. Love to make piles of "counter-surprises" for reactor level / diego encounters / etc.
terrannova on 29/9/2015 at 05:15
Flechette is amazing for Alpha, Beta, and Delta groves, as well as most Executive Level enemies. During my current playthrough, I decided to go straight to Executive from Level 3 (like I did in the early 90's) instead of going to Levels 4 & 5 first. Makes for an interesting challenge and is more similar to my first extremely challening playthrough all those years ago.
catbarf on 30/9/2015 at 15:09
Minor thread hijack- I just completed level 2 and I'm a little confused by some of the advice I see regarding the Sparq beam. Most guides seem to describe it as an early level camera-destroyer at best, but I've been running around level 2 with a pair of Sparqs set to full power, cycling when they overheat, and I've found that it's a lot faster to zap cyborgs, mutants, and robots than to use darts or pistol rounds, plus power is free unlike ammo. Am I missing something with the guns? Also, is there a way to see my current ammo count in numerical form instead of counting the little dashes that I assume represent full magazines?
driver on 1/10/2015 at 11:21
The tabs on the lower left and right include and 'Info' panel (Second one down, IIRC, under 'Weapon'). I'm not sure exactly how to set them to show your ammo count, but if you collect a magazine and drop it onto the info panel when it's open then it'll show you all the different kinda you're carrying and how many of each. It can also show info on various drugs by doing the same thing with med patches etc.
Sparq Beams are ok for the low level enemies, but I find trudging back and forth between the energy stations a bit tedious (especially if you're playing on higher combat levels). 2-3 darts is enough to take down the humanoid mutants and there's stacks of pistol ammo laying about for the basic cyborgs. You might as well use that because saving it for later enemies is a bit of a false economy as you won't do much damage with it and you'll have plenty of ammo for more powerful weapons by then anyway.
:edit:
Just checked, the second tab down is called 'Item' not 'Info'.
Maxrebo6 on 2/10/2015 at 04:18
Thank to everyone for the information and tips so I am thinking my weapons inventory is gonna look something like this by the end
Laser Rapier
Mag Pulse
Ion Rifle
Skorpion
Magnum
Flechette
Pistol
and of course replace the sparq with the blaster and then the Ion Rifle
I was up to Level 2 Research but I ended starting a new game mostly because the respawn rate was insane and I tried my hands a solving the grid puzzle that disables the robot respawning on level 2 and couldn't figure it out and since I tried my hands at it already none of the solutions on the web would work. So this time I am doing
Combat Level 1
Story Level 2
Puzzle Level 1
Cyberspace Level 1
I have beaten this before and other pretty hard games but I was just sick and tired of Hoppers and one of the other types of bots giving me hell all the time and I was already out of Magpulse ammo.
driver on 2/10/2015 at 08:32
If you're playing Combat level 1 then it's not so much of an issue, but on higher levels the Pistol and Flechette are pretty useless towards the end. As Terranova pointed out, the Flechette is brilliant for the groves, but after that I hardly touch it and ditch it for the Skorpion. The Pistol gets slung for the Assault Rifle, making the Magnum my camera popper (by then I'm getting a steady supply of ammo for it, so it doesn't feel like a waste).
I just finished a playthrough and my inventory looked like this at the end:
Laser Rapier (Mostly for the invisible mutants, but for the odd close encounter)
Magnum (My work-horse)
Assault Rifle (Long range sniping for tougher enemies)
Railgun (For giggles, some times I toss it for the Plasma Rifle)
Ion Rifle (For robots when using the Magpulse might be tricky due to distance or clipping)
Skorpion (Close range tough encounters)
Magpulse (Most robot encounters)
But go with what works for you. With story level 2 there's no time pressure, so experiment with any new weapons you come across.
