I love my new shotgun, but I don't feel that my TX-1 Repeater makes the best sidearm when using it. In VR training I'm most interested the cheap and very controllable TX-2 which better compensates for situations where the shotgun is completely ineffective. But the developers must have forgotten to make optics for the empire specific side arms. My other choices are the 3 different kinds of NS revolvers which all have massive recoil, but they all seem to compensate well next to the shotgun.
Not an Expert on the TR Arsenal, but the NS Revolvers carry out their Damage pretty far for a Sidearm, making them a nice company for a Shotgun, which, by definition, lacks damage over range. However, their limited magazine and long reload times make them not as good "Finishers" as the ES Sidearms, and also reduces their effectiveness in hectic CQC situations. I personally prefer the Desperado to go with a shotgun on my NC Character, but that's maybe because I tend to equip Slug Ammo, so a spammy little lifesaver like the Desperado is pretty helpfull. Ultimately, I'd say it comes down to the question if you want a sidearm that either plays in the same field like the Shotgun, hence, TX-1 Repeater, Desperado, and so on, or if you want a sidearm that makes up for the inherent flaws of a shotgun to a certain degree, like a NS Underboss or Comissioner. ~ Xellon out.
Blackhand. It's an amazing sidearm to come with any shotgun, as you can use to engage an enemy at almost any range. Sure it's not as strong up close in straight up fighting, but you got a shotgun for a reason. Baron's tube magazine means you can interrupt a reload process if you meet an enemy while reloading, and as a finisher when your shotgun runs dry but the enemy is still alive, Blackhand is almost just as good as commissioner. The only problem with Blackhand is that it's so good that you will be tempted a lot of time to just engage an enemy at range with the Blackhand instead of closing the distance to use the shotgun. Don't get me wrong, Blackhand has strong limitations, it pretty much requires going for headshots to score kills at range, and it's almost always requires a reload after an attempted engagement. But as long as you're willing to accept these limitations, it's a magnificent tool of destruction. For more specific info visit my sidearm guide at: http://planethead.info/weapons/sidearm-guide#h5-nanite-systems
I recently got the Blackhand and I'm loving it for mid-range encounters. For full on short range panic mode fire you can't beat the Underboss IMO, but you have your shotgun for that.
That's a common misconception. Actually, NS revolves have very strong damage degradation. Commissioner, for example, degrades from 450m @ 8m to 225 @ 42m. That's 50% damage lost over 34m. Now compare this to an actual ranged sidearm, like Emperor, which has damage model of: 167 @ 15m - 112 @ 60m. Not only its degradation starts 7m further, which is huge for pistol-range fighting, it also loses "only" 33% damage over 45m. You got it all mixed up. "Finisher" means that you shot an enemy with your primary and run out of ammo. The enemy is likely to have only a sliver of HP left, and needs only a slight nudge to die. In a situation like that, you don't need your sidearm to have a lot of ammo. You need it to have high damage per shot, so you can finish off the enemy in the least amount of shots possible. Revolvers are best finishers. Sure, in hands of a person that randomly waves his gun in general direction of the enemy, burst fire pistols would likely be more reliable finishers, but we're not talking about personal performance here.
I think I'll start off with the TX-2 simply because it cost less certs. I wish they would have given them some 1 or 2x optics. The iron sights feel like they can get in the way sometimes.
Ah well, I should have expressed my view a bit clearer, lets stick with the Commissioner/Emperor here: Yes, of course, the Revolvers loose a lot more Damage when you just look at the percentages, but even after the min. damage range, you still do double the damage compared to the Emperor. Also, you get the NS Red-Dot Sights and when looking at the Commissioner especially, you also get 450m/s bullet velocity on top. So, wouldn't the Commissioner be the better ranged option of the two, or did I miss something? Yeah, we might not talk about personal performance here, but not every Player is an Iridar, you know? I can agree on Finishers being sidearms to kill someone with only a sliver of health left, but we seem to define "sliver of health" differently. For me, it's somewhere around 200 - 250 HP, which is still ~10% of the total health and can be easily finished with any kind of Pistol in 1 - 2 Shots. Assuming this, I'd rather have a more spammy Sidearm since it lowers my chance of fu**ing it up significantly - I'm surely not a great shot. If you can keep your aim on target even in frentic CQC slaughter, then that's great and all and then Revolvers are indeed the best finishers. But if you can't, ES Pistols are the safer bet, until you've improved enough to use the revolvers to full effect. (IMO at least) Oh, and I was talking about ES Pistols in general - not only the burst-fire ones.
You have to take look a bit beyond just damage. While normally higher damage per shot is preferable for ranged combat, the main problem with commissioner's damage degradation is that it leaves very little wiggle room in the ammo department. Let's compare Emperor vs Commissioner ammo capacity at their minimum damage range: 2352 vs 1350. It is a huge difference, not to mention Commissioner reaches its minimum range 18m earlier. Commissioner basically can't afford to miss more than a shot, and even that when engaging targets without nanoweave. Bullet velocity is 390 m/s vs 450 m/s, is laregely of no consequence, while the Emperor is 2.3x times more spammy, and doesn't suffer from recoiling weapon obscuring the target. Sure, its iron sights suck, that I can admit, but even if you miss half of your shots due to that, Emperor is still better. As a sidenote, poor iron sights can somewhat be dealt with by using Recursion Stat Tracker with Crosshair overlay. Perfectly legal. I didn't mean to show off, my point was - personal adjustment when choosing equipment is always necessary. We can't recommend equipment based on assumptions about the player. We have to compare weapons independently, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and pick a fitting weapon after that. "Sliver of health" is an undefined parameter. It can be anything from 1hp to 1000hp. What you want from a finisher is relability. You suffer a disadvantage because you have to waste time switching to a sidearm, so you want to spend as little time as possible finishing the enemy. The least amount of time you can spend is one shot. And the higher the damage per shot, the higher the chance you will need only one.
i for one am doing fine with my Spiker (autopistol) when i am rocking the Barry. however, you might want to stick to a "longer-range" option in order to complement your short-range primary. best choices here are Commish and Underbo. then again, BlackH i would be careful with due to its low magsize..
