NMS Archer is a complete monstrisity

I have to disagree with this, it's a good weapon against the dangerous mid-long range MAX units just like the AV turret but there's one very important difference between the two: Mobility.

Sure you can set up your AV turret and try to snipe MAX units with that but more often than not that results in your poor turret getting blown to pieces / your head getting shot off by some sniper that happens to be looking in your general direction?

My (driver loadout) Engineer now has: A vehicle with a gunner for armored targets, tank mines / C4 for deployed Sunderers, an AV turret for dangerous MBT opponents and thanks to the addition of the Archer I now finally have a fairly safe way to get rid of those pesky mid-long range AV Maxes which is something that I did not have before as using the AV turret for it often resulted in death due to being a sitting duck.

Nanites.

A "small hole" can actually do a great deal of damage if you put it where the fuel or ammo is stored.

Balance > realism.

Game thrives on asymmetry, so you can't really use that argument.

MAX crash > balance

Ok, you're deluded.

One of these darn things did 17% damage to my Magrider.. we blew up because of the team work between a Vanguard and this monstrosity of a rifle.. yeah, they work.

Had several of them in hills holding back 3 lightnings.. we could not peek out long enough, without getting hit several times..
we had to repair smoking Lightnings over and over again.. until, finally, some air support came in and took out the shooters in the hills.. yeah, they work.

If they don't do damage to infantry, that I didn't know.. and that makes no sense at all. Unless the facial resistance values have magically increased.. you just grin your teeth at these big bullets and they turn to dust?

DBG could have avoided all the "controversy" and angst over this weapon with a simple ammunition definition:
"While the rounds fired by this weapon pack enough punch to damage anything, their real payload targets the nanite configuration used in MAX suits."

I always figured that Sunderers were more like MRAPs, and some of these do resist 12.7mm rounds all-around.

Plus of course PS2's 29th century 20mm is like our 12.7mm today, and 29th century 12.7mm is our 21st century 7.62mm. Everything has kinda gotten bigger over time.

So having a 12.7mm weapon in PS2 would be like shooting a Sunderer with a Kobalt... not much is going to happen.

Anti-material rifles are generally used to put a "small hole" in the engine block of things like APCs and other vehicles. That does a pretty good job of stopping them.

I've got more infantry kills with mine than anything, mostly because any MAXs Charge off into cover after the first shot.

fun=balance

they use special bullets design for armor, not shields

Only thing that bothers me is that you cant defend yourself with 1 headshot or 2 bodyshots or 1 shot+knife swipe if you get dropped with AM7 in hands. So buffing its AI damage within 30, maybe 50 meters would be fine but not more, engi with anti-everything BASR is too much.

This weapon achieves damage output through anti-matter contacting regular matter. When anti-matter and regular matter touch, they burn with 100% efficiency producing photons and heat, while completely annihilating during the process. Both the anti-matter payload, and part of the hit surface (exactly as many nuclei as the AM payload) are annihilated this way.

The shield that infantry have prevents contact of the anti-matter payload with any regular matter besides air particles, thus only the heatwave deals some damage, which is negligible. MAXes, on the other hand, have no shield, and thus the payload is a very effective destructive force against their armor.

yepp, i've found the Archer to be only effective when i am standing in the "second row" with team mates between me and the enemy. that way, picking off weakened/wounded targets got me the most kills so far since a well-placed headshot against a full-health target doesnt kill it.

occasionally though, i do long-range Max hunting when they are in an open field or camp a tower/Biolab landing pad. this has gotten me pretty good kills of oblivious Maxes who still think they are invincible to anything longrange. some of them really dont seem to expect a few Archer rounds coming their way in a quick succession, especially the lower-BR players who think they are inside a walking tank.

PS2 player logic:

• AV max weapons are too effective against infantry and need a nerf, it shouldnt be effective against both infantry and vehicles.
• The new AV sniper rifle is too ineffective against infantry and needs a buff, it should be effective against both infantry and vehicles.

Its no wonder the devs dont follow this cesspit of a forum.

I just wish Infiltrators could use it.... I feel rejected....

I had fun with it yesterday. Took out some ESFs, a burning Lib, plenty of MAXs and even a burning Sunderer. It's absolute garbage against infantry in CQC but that's fine. Against vehicles it seems ok too. Maybe 6 of them together could do some good damage but in that case 6 Lancers would be a lot more effective.

Also one thing I noticed is long range MAXs have no chance anymore. Two hits from this thing and they're forced to hide behind cover, unless they have a pocket engineer stood behind them and even then the damage output from 2 Archers is enough to drop them. So in that regard it works exactly as advertised. You might not always kill the guy but at least you've put a stop to his raven spam.

So I'm a person that likes battle rifles (and you can therefore safely conclude that I have serious brain damage). I mean, yes, I won't be able to kill anything at long range because people move too much, and I won't kill anything at short range because if you wield a battle rifle every enemy at short range automatically turns into a heavy assault. And that is kind of very terrible. But I do get to poke people, and people who are getting poked tend to relocate themselves to avoid the neverending barrage of projectiles that only occasionally hit. It becomes yet another tool in the engi's toolbox, and in turn you too become a massive tool in the eyes of the enemy. That makes me useful right? Right?

So I concluded that the Archer is also kind of a battlerifle, in a sense. It can hit at just about any range, has equal effectiveness at just about any range, and its going to get you killed very frequently at any range. The main difference is that it can also kill MAX units at any range, which is absurd in my opinion. I mean, normally you only get the privilege of scratching those buggers, and now you can actually hold your own. Amazing! However, as a tradeoff every other infantry unit turns into a MAX. Time to grind for some certs to get a secondary that isn't the beamer.

In my opinion, it's okay. Like the battlerifle, its more of a tool and less of a weapon. It's great if you're in a squad, because then you've got people you can rely on at killing all the regular infantry units, while you are playing dedicated MAX-buster. Otherwise you'll have to hang back in case you encounter someone wielding a weapon. Against vehicles, I'm not sure. You can poke with it, but drawing the attention of tanks to yourself isn't really a good idea in general, and I still don't understand how to hit ESF's with it.

Thanks for reminding me why I stopped taking this forum seriously.