I'm not Vanu so can't give first hand impressions of the Equinox Burst, but I am a fan of the burst fire weapons. The only real annoyance of these weapons is having to deal with the first-shot recoil penalty at the beginning of every burst, so in your case that would be every 3 shots. For NC, the burst weapons only fire in 2 rounds bursts, so every other shot has the extra kick but even that is manageable. But the benefit of the burst fire weapons is that your gun is twice as accurate while moving as the automatic version, and you have access to high velocity ammunition. My suggestion would be to go into VR and put it through it's paces. See if you can even manage to control it enough to keep your rounds on target, then take some shots while moving, and see if you can notice the extra accuracy over the Pulsar VS1. Finally try it with HV ammo and see if you can control it. If you have trouble with any of these little trials keep practicing in VR, but pass on purchasing it until you're sure it's going to be a good fit for you.
Plague Rat pretty much hit it on the head. Also, remember that you can field trial the weapon if your VR experience still leaves you undecided.
the third shot will always miss, you don't gain much for the vanu burst fires-might as well just get the full equinox and use its burst mode and have an ubgl
The third shot won't necessarily "always" miss, but even if it does the higher accuracy of the weapon means far more shots will land on target even losing 1/3; most people have an accuracy in the range of 20-30% anyway, so even having just one bullet of every burst hit in the long run (obviously more should hit up close) is advantageous. But someone else said it best already: Trial it, because it's a very strange beast, and though it has a lot of potential it also requires a completely different sort of playstyle from automatics. If you can't hack it, it just isn't worth it trying to use it. If it clicks for you, then you enjoy some considerable advantages, but they're not worth it if you can get better results with an automatic.
There's almost no reason to burst fire. I'll do it to follow up with a knife kill, but really, there's no reason to burst fire, short of long range engagements.
Burst fire in this game is more of a "fire normally for a few bullets" mechanism instead of the traditional burst. For example, in BF3 the AN-94 fires at 600 RPM, but the 2 bullet burst is fired at 1200 RPM at 1.5x first shot recoil. In Planetside you'll find that the weapons simply fire at their rated RPM, which makes them very similar to their counterparts except for the 3 shot limit per click.
Burst weapons need to be changed to have the first shot recoil modifier applied to the last bullet of the burst, not the first, for them to be worthwile.
Yeah honestly I've seen NO difference between tapping left click to manually burst fire vs. actually switching modes to burst and using that. So if you want burst feature functionality just be quicker with the twich click on the left mouse button and you'll achieve the same burst plus have the ability to spray if you need to with out switching fire mode.
Burst weapons' stats are misleading, and their strengths are subtle (yet powerful) and easy to miss. The biggest advantage to burst rifles is their ridiculous accuracy retention while moving. Every burst AR but the SABR-13 gets a moving ADS CoF that no automatic can touch. With practice, this gives you a decisive advantage in strafing gunfights. This is the primary reason to pick up a burst rifle over an automatic, and for those who can make it work for them it works very well. Another thing to consider is that something in the game's code allows many burst rifles to straight up ignore their stated recoil and plant every round of the burst right on top of each other in certain situations. This isn't entirely consistent and seems to happen far more frequently in large battles, but I've been able to use it to good effect on many occasions. I can confirm that this works on the Gauss Rifle Burst, SABR-13, and T1B Cycler, at the very least. The SABR-13 is the only burst rifle that was truly designed for long-range combat. The others are designed to be strafing headshot machines at medium range and closer. Counter-intuitive, yes, but it's the truth.
I can't help but to feel that TR's burst guns should all be 4 round bursts while NC gets 2 rounds and VS 3. Makes sense to me that way.
What Hangrosse said is right on the money and is the reason I love the Equinox Burst. This thing is brutal in mid range engagements, I would love to see it get a .75 speed multiplier instead of the .5 but its ADS accuracy while moving is great, and this statistic can NOT be mirrored by switching a fully automatic rifle to 3 round burst mode. Run on sentence aside I keep the equinox burst as one of my 3 quick layouts and use it depending on the base we are moving to. It is a situational weapon, its decent up close but will usually lose to weapons designed for close quarters combat, and its mediocre for long range engagements where is really has nothing but disadvantages compared to the weapons like the Corvus and similar. Mid range howerver I feel this is the best AR for the VS.
They really need to change the way burst fire weapons work. Right now, it applies the first shot multiplier to the start of every burst. I don't think this should happen. I think that if you don't let the weapon settle fully, you should only get a proportion of the first shot recoil. In fact, if you fire the weapon with perfect timing - ie. at its maximum fire rate - it should be near indistinguishable from its fully automatic counterpart.
See what was said about the burst mode above. Burst version accuracy boost is not meant to be a straight upgrade to accuracy at long range (the high alpha / Low RoF version of AR are there exactly for that purpose, building burst mode for this would be overlapping), burst version special ability is the accuracy on the move. And it works fine.
I use the Gauss Burst on my medic from time to time, and find it to be great for medium-ranged engagements. The accuracy lets me consistantly land 2 rounds on target, and I find that it makes me as a player calm down and watch my targets better. I don't waste near the ammo I do with the normal Gauss. I've dabbled a bit with other burst weapons, but really like the 2-round fire for the NC gauss weapons. When trying those with 3-rounds, I tend to miss the last shot more often than not.
Ya The NC get screwed in close-med range, as we get 2 round bursts, and you can't do that with 2 round burst. All burst variants should have 3 round burst as default, 2 round burst as a secondary fire mode, and single shot as another secondary. Cycle through with "B".
Eh, I think the Gauss burst modes are fine. Provided you've got the gun's "click rhythm" down they're basically the equivalent of using a TMG-50 up close. Not ideal, but very workable with practice, and in my experience the 2-round bursters are actually easier to fire at their cyclic rates than the 3-rounders.
I personally would do FAR better with the option of 3 round burst for when I am close enough to land all three shots, and 2 round burst for long distances. I simply think it should be available. Burst options for a burst gun, not just "Here's the random arbitrary number this gun's saddled with". At least the gun called "Gauss Rifle Burst" could have multiple burst options, rather than just 2x and single fire.
I can't speak for the bust AR's, but I bought the gauss burst carbine on a whim, and haven't look back since. Personally, I think they're one of the games best kept secrets. Snapshots (nay, kills) against moving targets at ranges you wouldn't even bother shooting a carbine are possible- and with fastclick and hipfire, you're not **** in CQB either. There's a high skill-floor and it's a very different style to full-auto, just like everyone says, but they're also some of the most satisfying weapons in the game.
