But again, why limit yourself with your weapon when you could get a weapon that is functional at all relevant ranges? 5m is asking a lot for a primary weapon and even if you use your pistol you still cut yourself far short of medium range, and even at the pistol's ideal ranges it will be out classed by any carbine easily. I just can't see the current shotgun being useful by any stretch of the imagination. It's a highly specialized piece of equipment and with glaring weaknesses. I see it more as a crutch to teach new LA users how to plan ambushes, and fire from the hip more. Once you've used a shotgun and gotten a gold medal on it or so, you'd be better off switching back to a Lynx with an advanced laser.
every gun in this game is a "limitation" of any sort if you like to see it that way. it always just a sidegrade no matter what weapon you choose. my Longrange is totaly gone (limited) indeed, but what do i need longrange for? its not like i can onehit them. i can still handle midrange pretty well with my pistol and every range i lost, went directly into CQC and thats where i feel at home. and its not like i cant just switch my loadout. usualy there is always a sundy arround ^^ and carbines outclassing pistols ... uhm well, that depends on the situation i guess. out in the open field, some1 unloading his full mag on me? yep im dead, but i would have been dead with my carbine aswell. duels in medrange? (NC) pistols are not gimped at all, only hard to aim. i am probably also the only one out there who is using the drifter jets more then the regular ones, feel naked without my piston and im using a pistol for midrange attacks, so you may not want to not take me to serious on my game preferences.
I love how people talk about how limited and weak the shot gun is in the same paragraph that they also call it a "crutch." Its a trade off weapon by design that requires tactical play by the gamer to be worthwhile.
I think it depends on the player. I find carbines at LOT better for me, I'm a quick CQC headshot move on kinda guy, I found I had to reload to often with the shotgun and the damage output wasn't what I hoped.
Which is why I'm still confused as to why we lost this functionality from PS1. Hell...we can't even holster/shoulder our guns in PS2. In PS1 it was cool to be able to have the option of carrying two main weapons (though you had to find inventory room for their different rounds). When CQC started, I would often run with two shotguns as it was quicker to fire through one's mag and switch to a second rather than reload. Dual gauss rifles too for the same reason. I would like to see both the two weapon thing (for everyone) and the should holster thing come back, but the simple fact of avatar geometry argues against the devs re-adopting it.
Strict tower or biolab assaults, any point where 90% of the fighting (that you do) is going to happen within that magical 5m or less distance. Highly situational but very deadly within that situation. You can of course fall back to "it's not worth the certs for being that situational", but that's a decision for each player to make for themselves. Some may find value in it, others may not.
Any LA worth a damn knows how to maximize effectiveness without using a shotgun in these situations. In these situations you tend to run into clusters of enemies... who are close together... and if you positioned yourself correctly... not looking at you... boom goes the grenade... Shotguns are effective weapons, I won't argue that. But the cut to the TTK you get with them when compared with any other carbine, and the sacrificed made to gain that small advantage, just isn't worth it in the long run.
I like supporting others and sprinting from cover to cover to get really close or along a flank. My main is a engineer. If I could equip something in my turret slot that worked against vehicles I would never change class. I use a NC shotgun+Extended mag with the more damage pistol+laser sight.
This. Shotguns are good in frantic situations, especially with lots of vehicles around where people are ducking into buildings and behind things, because you have people running towards you/the cap point/the generator or running away from other things and you can force fights into just about point blank range over and over again. In more calm situations and pure infantry fights, people won't charge you. They'll be sitting in some corner guarding or they'll come around doors wide looking in from across the previous room or from 25m away out the door, and easily demolish a shotgun user. Yes you can still bump into someone or if you just love the shotgun you could spend a lot of time setting up and sort of make it work, but it's no longer optimal. I am very glad I have my shotgun for when SHTF, and I'm very glad I have my AC-X11 for sprawling medium-long infantry battles, but the other 90% of the time my GD-7F with advanced laser sight is just better at the short-medium I usually find myself in.
Probably because they beat OTHER carbines within CQB, yet can still reach out and kill **** more than 10m away unlike a shotgun.
Stay away from my lynx. I wub it berry much. If I could carry two main guns I might pack a shotgun, but for that one time I needed a shot gun, there are 10 I'd rather a CQC carbine.
You can comfortably get 2-3 kills with an extended mag shotgun before needing a reload, so better chance of taking out that group you came across. With a standard 30 round carbine it's one kill, two if you were reasonably accurate/lucky. Or you're TR and have an extra 10 shots to make things more manageable, making the shotgun a less attractive option in the average kills per reload department over a carbine. Shotguns also force you to navigate the map in a specific way. Being good with a shotgun is less about having godly aim and more about how often you can make the engagements inside your effective range. More or less how a LA should move anyway, but a shotgun reinforces the need to move around the map intelligently to avoid sucking it up. You're also not tempted to try to out pop shot the HAs/Medics at long range like you might be with a carbine. Carbines are far more general use and versatile in a wide range of scenarios.
Solstice SF with underbarrel shotgun, problem solved I bought the underbarrel shotgun two days ago for indoors CQC, where LA's usually get their face punched in by pretty much everyone else xcept infiltrators and I must say I find it quite amusing. Now I just have to learn not to miss half my shots for it to be not only amusing but also effective.
