I'd hate to muddy your calculations based on an extremely narrow band of variables with things like live combat effectiveness, performance overall across the entire playerbase, and personal experience stemming from 6,000 combined kills between the two guns. I mean who could possibly take your theories seriously if those were included. You know it's possible to objectively come up with the completely wrong conclusion, especially in a case like this where you're having to explain away a whole bunch of evidence to the contrary.
Are we talking about the Orion versus the SAW S here? If so, the Orion most certainly does have greater dps than the SAW S, and is more lethal in CQC. The differences become less apparent as distance increases though, starting at 10m when the Orion starts losing damage but the SAW S doesn't until 15 because of SPA. Combine that with less overall vertical recoil (SAW S is 0.45 compared to the Orion's 0.4, but that's per shot and the Orion fires much faster) and a MUCH better horizontal recoil damage profile (equal pull LR for SAW S, Orion's is not only ~20% worse but the recoil angle is also random) and it's my experience that the SAW S becomes a dramatically more lethal gun starting at ~15m. This is all silly though because they're two very different guns. The Orion dominates where it's meant to and the SAW S is just really good at all ranges without truly dominating at any of them. Flare is a better comparison and it's basically the same gun as the SAW S so it's a really boring comparison. Basically, this: The NC LMGs are fun and effective without exception. The SAW S doesn't see much use because until you reach a certain point, there's no real reason to use it. The VS/TR flock to their SAW S knockoffs but for the NC, the lower price of admission of the 22S, SAW, and EM6 make them the natural first places to go.
Orion has a .75x movement modifier with higher DPS (and lower TTK), with better hip-fire and no drop. They also have the same velocity. The Orion is the best CQC LMG in the game while still being effective at a distance due to no drop and solid velocity. There are only two downsides to the Orion. Low magazine size, and it doesn't have a great recoil patten.
The problem is that the bad recoil pattern is both bad and random, which trumps velocity and no drop and makes the gun quite subpar at range. It's just not a good long range gun and it isn't meant to be. With a grip, the SAW S is rock solid at all ranges thanks to the already low horizontal bounce and lower ROF, and that's before the SPA boost and superior velocity is factored in. The Orion should be compared to the Anchor though, not the SAW S And anyway a high ROF is overvalued in this game. A 0.1 second faster TTK <10m isn't worth the loss of accuracy and versatility.
The Orion is a real beast for short range ADSing but the SAW S is more reliably at somewhat greater distances. Now the netcode fixes of a few months ago made high rpm guns a lot more reliable at range (Hello Carv with grip) but I still prefer the steadiness of a good 600/167 or 577/167 gun myself.
Give me 200/500 every day of the week 250/400 could potentially be pretty fun too, with a minimum damage of 200 giving it a 4-5 shots to kill at minimum and maximum range respectively. Also worth noting, that same netcode fix also helped lower ROF guns as well - in fact I would argue lower ROF guns saw the biggest buff - because it allowed the class of gun that's least forgiving of missed shots to miss far fewer shots on moving targets. Having played since near launch, I will tell you that for a long *** time the twin nightmares of the NC arsenal were flinch and bunnyhopping/ADAD spam. Having these addressed has been wonderful. As workable as a CARV/Orion can be at range with a grip, in my experience they still don't hold a candle to even the Mercenary at this particular niche, to say nothing of guns like the Reaper, Gauss Rifle, and SAW
I always thought hte NC had 10m more range cuz their thing was higher damage, which 10m further range gives em, on top of the already higher dmg numbers.
I'm not sure, but AFAIK the only thing that determines minimum damage range is weapon damage. The NC will have the better numbers on average just because we have so many high damage guns. Except in the case of carbines and SMGs, all 167 damage guns I can think of hit minimum at 75 meters, and all 200 damage guns hit minimum at 85 meters. Even the Anchor - a CQC gun through and through - hits min @75m by sheer virtue of being a 167 damage gun. It gets less solid of a correlation at the 143-damage level though, as that tier contains all of the high ROF CQC specialists that gain that ROF at the cost of sharper damage dropoff
There's a big difference between the CARV and Orion at range. But that's more the CARV being awesome than the Orion not being properly-oriented toward its close-quarters role, as it should be. I honestly have grown to prefer 167/577 weapons over 167/600 weapons. Not sure quite why. I think it's just the 577 guns happen to have lower FSRMs and that actually matters on NC guns.
Nail on the head, pretty much. The increase in accuracy that 167/577 guns have MORE than makes up for losing a piddly 23rpm, as well as imparting a much bigger impact than you'd think. The reason the GD-22S is still a beast at mid-long range even with a laser instead of a grip is because of that lower FSRM and lower rate of fire, resulting in the gun kicking around a lot less than a 750rpm equivalent, even with a grip. I won't even mention the Gauss Rifle S because holy **** is that gun fantastic. It wasn't until I realized that the Razor was 167/550 that I pretty much threw out the whole "higher ROF uber alles" mentality that a lot of players have. The Razor, on paper, is terrible - has things that don't matter for a carbine like high velocity and recoil reduction attachments and mediocre accuracy while moving, and none of the things that do like tight hipfire, high dps, and high ROF - but in reality it's likely the best carbine in the game, tied with the Pulsar C (my Vanu love) My favorite guns in this whole game are the 200/500 weapons, and at this point the Cyclone is about as high a ROF as I'll be willing to work with. When it comes down to it, what you want in a gun is next to zero horizontal recoil and a low FSRM for bursting, and the 167/577 tier (and the NC) has these in spades Edit - it's also why I like the Flare/Ursa soooo much more than any of the other VS LMGs, as well as none of the TR carbines and I'm pretty meh about the TR LMGs. The TR assault rifles though, nnnggggh. And weirdly enough the Corvus is a fantastic gun for me as well, though I think that's more because I'm extremely familiar with the ~500rof tier, so excelling with that gun was second nature to me.
This is only thing that could be treated as an objective factor, except SAW is the starting weapon for the NC HA, so obviously the stats are going to be heavily weighted in its favor. Then is the case of the HA being the best infantry class in the game in the first place, so 1v1 results vs. non-HA will always be skewed towards the HA, no matter what weapon he's using. I figure you could have a positive 1v1 K/D as HA using even the pistol. But actually, to all the SAW proponents, can you answer me one question - why? What is supposedly so great about this weapon? Is it the 200 damage per bullet? But the RoF is 500, SAW doesn't really do any more damage per second nor kill faster than the 143 damage, 698RPM Solstice. Is it the perfect first shot stationary ADS accuracy? But that accuracy for ALL weapons is fantastic. You will NOT notice a difference between 0 and 0.03(NC standard value) in actual combat conditions. Hell, you will not notice a difference between 0 and 0.1(TR/VS standard value) in actual combat conditions. Magazine size? SAW isn't the only weapon with a 100 round mag. And the large mag size is balanced by the long reload time. That's hardly a point in the weapon's favor. Horizontal recoil? Again, 0.175 is not exactly rare, even TR/VS have weapons with that value, and if they don't, that's what the grip is for. So what is it? The name? The way the mag clips through your arm? The sound it makes when it fires? Silenced SAW is badass but is that a really a reason to use it? The way I see it SAW is perfectly average in all areas except one, where it's the worst weapon in the game, and which happens to be one of the most important parts of any FPS gameplay.
Here is my 2 cents. Among the longest range infantry weapon in the game and Id say the best LMG at range in the game, its defiantly better then almost any AR. and its not a bad close range weapon. Thats sorta unique. Its a Allrounder weapon that actually excels at something without a massive downside. It can land shots accurately at 100 meters, 50 and isn't terrible at close. Werl does a good review of it you are interested.
Anyway Herp, this is a thread about the SAW S, so get out with this **** and take it to the "does anybody NOT like the gauss saw?" thread?
Personally I can't really stand using the Flare because it's literally a SAW S with worse horizontal recoil both ways, so it feels like instead of balancing itself it just sort of fans out and reduces the range of the gun compared to the SAW S and TMG-50 even with a grip. It also has a **** first shot recoil mod which makes the fact it has a burst mode even funnier. At least the TMG-50 has the lowest first shot recoil of the three, as long as you don't add HVA it's the smoothest to operate and has the fast recoil recovery of the GD-22S, a fair trade for not getting the exmag or SPA options I suppose. For VS guns I like the Ursa because it gets the GD-22S's excellent recoil stats and can add a compensator on top. Lower damage, incredibly easy to use.
Imo its too similar to the EM6 which has slightly better DPS and a larger mag. However I actually quite like it personally. It has better starting hip fire than all the 100 round LMGs, access to soft point ammo and minimal horizontal recoil. It doesn't really need any specific rail attachment so I use it with extended mags. This basically turns it into a good all-around LMG with an emphasis on suppressive fire because you have an amazing mag size to reload speed ratio without sacrificing on really any specific aspect (unlike the EM1).
I will. After I've read that Gauss SAW kills in three shots at max range it's obvious that talking to you is a waste of time; it's like talking to creationists.
