After hearing general opinions, both forum-side and in-game, it seems the community is generally not happy with the TR medic's auraxium assault rifle. I'm curious to know why. It's essentially the T1 with a forward grip and soft point ammo, right? Surely that's an improvement over the original? Or is it like the T1S in that its recoil stats are inexplicably worse?
Probably because the foregrip stats (0.18 horizontal recoil) aren't as good as the base version+grip (0.16875). Then the logic is that SPA isn't worth that loss. Oddly enough, the Prime and Darkstar have the same horizontal recoil stats as the burst variants, while the T1A has more than the T1B (0.17). The T1B's is probably too low though, as the gap between VS1+grip and VE2 burst or Gauss+grip and Gauss burst is way bigger than between T1 and T1B. I remember reading it's not a real foregrip so you should also get the insignificant advantage of faster equipment time (foregrip increases it by 100ms on ARs). It should also be noted the T1A gets one less attachment than its counterparts: The Prime has comp (barrel)+pseudo-grip (rail) + HVA (ammo), the Darkstar has comp+pseudo-grip+infinite ammo, the T1A only gets pseudo-grip+SPA. A compensator on an all-rounder AR is a blatant nerf as far as i'm concerned (found it really annoying with the Darkstar), so i prefer the T1A as it is, but it's still something less. To be perfectly fair, the Prime doesn't benefit from HVA at all on the velocity part, so it's only a penalty on the compensator's full effect (0.3 base vertical recoil x (1+0.10-0.15) = 0.285 effective recoil).
Thanks for the in-depth response! These pseudo-grips sound kinda pants then. Sacrificing the full reduction in horizontal recoil to maintain the standard equip time doesn't really sound worth it. Come to think of it I've read/heard less-than glowing reviews of the Darkstar and Gauss Prime. Guess this pseudo-grip is the main culprit. Negligible velocity increase from the HVA with the extra vertical recoil on the Prime sounds like a PITA, too.
I tried out all 3 of the Auraxium AR's on the test server and I was overall underwhelmed. The only auraxium AR I see as a real upgrade is the Darkstar. Having infinite ammo is a huge advantage to me. It means I can use ASC instead of extra ammo and I'll never be out of ammo! I think that is a really cool and not OP way to give this auraxium weapon a advantage and I commend DB on it. I do believe that these weapons should be an overall upgrade since they are so difficult to get. I would try this. I think the pseudo-grip should be replaced by a real grip on all three weapons. Besides that, keep the Darkstar the same. Give the T1A regular T1 stats except half it's reload speed. Give the Gauss Prime none of the negative effects from it's compensator and HVA.(It's a Prime Gauss weapon it should have unique properties). Now of course I don't know how these would work out in game. It could be a terrible idea or a great one. I think they would make the weapons better than the originals enough for people to really want them, without making them OP.
For the Gauss Prime it gets 0 velocity from HVA, just like the Gauss burst. I wonder if DBG has a bug somewhere that makes HVA stick to some values in their code, or if that's deliberate. As for the directive weapons being an upgrade, i don't agree with that. Simply put that means a veteran player has a superior weapon to your newbie one, on top of having superior knowledge, nanoweave 5, aoe heal 5, adrenaline shield 5... you name it. And the first thing you focus on (at least i did) as a newbie is guns: i thought i had a pea-shooter when everyone was wielding ultimate weapons of doom, which i understood was wrong only after spending very hard-earned certs in guns i didn't need... The only directive guns which could be considered upgrades at this point are the carbines as they are straight upgrades from the default gun with a laser sight. Especially true for the Fortuna considering SPA is quite the boon for low RoF guns and it's still pretty stable without a grip, pseudo or not. Thing is, most players prefer a grip, so they are considered too weak anyway! For ARs they could adopt a similar mindset as they did for carbines in having 2 rail attachments instead of one, but at the cost of raw efficiency. For example keep a pseudo-grip at like 0.19 horizontal recoil for the T1A and a pseudo-laser sight giving +25% better hipfire CoF. I doubt they'll do much anyway, i mean the Eclipse is reverted to the original 25 rounds reloadable version every two patches, and they aren't even correcting that once and for all, the Revenant has no foregrip (contrary to model), the usual velocity penalty for drop, and they don't consider it a problem.
As an Assault Rifle aficionado, here's my two cents: The directive AR's are all lacking. The Darkstar gets a very nice feature in it's heat/infinite ammo trait, but that's something many VS directive weapons get. Here's the improvements I'd like to see on the three directive AR's~ The Darkstar and Gauss Prime should get specialty compensators that don't add to your detection range for enemies on the minimap. After all, being detected sooner means being targeted sooner, and that means being killed sooner. These are ranged weapons (they sure as hell aren't set up for hipfire!), so they shouldn't announce to those who could jump them within their disadvantage area that they're there. That would be counter-intuitive to the weapon's purpose (to be effective while ADS, not to get you killed while ADS). The T1A Unity would get a specialty suppressor. Zero velocity loss. (which is unheard of!) And the SPA gives +5m to max damage distance, which would counter the -5m max damage distance that silencers give. True, the foregrip isn't as good as a standard, and the velocity on the standard is 30 m/s faster, but the standard while silenced would be FAR slower, and can't get SPA to counter the max damage range loss. Both of these would be a HUGE advantage, and put the weapons on the map of unique traits that don't necessarily make them too powerful (just highly valuable from a strategic standpoint). Now the VS have the heat mechanic (which is godly in the right hands), and the TR have the best silenced primary weapon in the game. But NC need something as well. As you may know, the Gauss Prime gets High Velocity Ammo. But it's based off the HVA of the Gauss Rifle Burst. The very same HVA that's broken! It gives +0 m/s (absolutely zero) extra velocity! And the Prime also gets this same flaw. Any other 650 m/s base velocity weapon in the game would get 672 m/s velocity off HVA. I would like to see the Gauss Prime be the Prime (pun intended) weapon for high velocity, at 715 m/s. 715 m/s would be exactly +10% of the standard 650 m/s of the starter NC1 Gauss Rifle, but would also give the weapon the highest velocity automatic infantry weapon in the game (6% higher than any other automatic infantry weapon can get). Velocity is an NC faction trait (though we rarely see it, sadly). Having to lead so little would definitely be a powerful advantage, just like having no velocity loss on a silenced weapon like the Unity would get, or having infinite ammo and the ability to fire your primary weapon, swap to and empty your pistol, and swap back to a fully "reloaded" primary weapon again like the Darkstar already has.
I'd like NC directives weapons to do damage to armor a little bit, but that's my penny. Also 715 bullet velocity sounds amazballs
I thought the same for doing damage to armor, but I am sure the other factions will immediately shout OP. What they should do with the GP in addition to the bullet velocity increase is make it so that its COF and spread is more like that of the reaper or tross. That way it's literally a long range weapon but at a lower damage tier compared to the tross/reaper. I think this will give it a unique taste different from everything else, especially its default cousin. Just a thought.
As a TR player who loves me some stealthy playstyles, I like the idea of still having velocity with my suppressor. And it makes sense to draw less attention to the guy who keeps resurrecting your people, so the bad guys in blue and purple don't kill him. I like these ideas. More faction diversity and uniqueness!
Instead of damage to heavy armor, I think a good trait would be doing 1.5x damage to light armor, HA shields (just the extra shielding of the HA ability, not the whole health pool of HA's. This would take around 1-2 bullets ~depending on the weapon and range~ off the number of bullets needed to drop HA shields) and MAX units. And it fits with NC's "hard hitting, high powered bullets" faction trait.
Well, this evening I unlocked the T1A for myself. I used it for maybe 40 or 50 kills (in all honesty I logged off early, the fights on Cobalt seemed utter sh*t tonight). First impressions: The soft point is a nice addition. The alleged reduced equip time on the hybrid grip is not noticeable at all for me. The model looks as though it has a compensator or flash suppressor on the barrel, but in using I don't think it has either. Am interested to get some more time with it and see how it compares to the stock T1.
Well I finally got around to unlocking the T1A-Unity and I actually get along with it rather well. For me its an improvement over the standard T1-Cycler, better at handling medium ranged encounters. Not my favourite assault rifle but its still a reliable one. It would have been good if they didn't remove the compensator that used to be on it (and is still visible) although the gun is still very accurate.
Cool! And yeah I know what you mean about ranged encounters, with proper bursting it's surprisingly accurate. Actually outgunned a couple NC medics at about 80 metres the other day, was quite pleased with myself
Yeah. IMO, the Unity should get a silencer with only ~10% velocity loss (rather than the default 40%) like the Darkstar/Prime's comp not adding to the radar detection range, but still giving worse hipfire. My biggest complaint for Directive AR's is the Gauss Prime though. I've auraxed it, and it's really dissapointing to say the least. It's nothing more than a Gauss Rifle with a compensator (but a slightly worse grip negates the added help of the compensator). That's because the Gauss Prime's HVA does NOTHING whatsoever for it's combat effectiveness. The extended minimum damage range doesn't do anything to alter TTK (both the default and Prime have a 6 shot to kill from 0-10m, and a 7 shot to kill from 11m and beyond). Then, the Gauss Prime gets the whole ZERO EXTRA VELOCITY. That's right! The Gauss Rifle has a 650 m/s velocity. The Gauss Prime has a 650 m/s velocity. I feel that the Prime should have gotten a flat 8% velocity buff. That alone would make it exceedingly unique, as it would be the first full-auto primary weapon to break 700 m/s velocity (it would hit 702 m/s). NC's faction traits ARE high damage and high velocity after all, so it would make perfect sense IMO. And at 650 m/s velocity, it's already really high, this wouldn't do anything more to aid hitting the target than the weapon already can do out to ~65m. The extra velocity would just let you hit the enemy with a little more ease out at the weapon's max effective combat range when you're using it like a semi-auto to plink at extreme range targets.
That's a bummer about the Gauss Prime. Playing against NC, I'd have no qualms with it breaking 700m/s. It'd give it something that no other AR has, which is just what they did with the heat mechanic on the Darkstar. As a TR medic I certainly like the idea of purpose-built suppressor too. They did it with the comp on the Godsaw - why not do it again here
NC with an actual railgun, VS with an actual energy weapon, TR with an actual tactical rifle... Yes to all of these. They really should've fixed the Gauss HVA bug quite a while ago. Besides, the medic class as a whole is supposed to pick you up when you fall. Having a supressor certainly helps with that for sure. One thing I don't want to see though, would be a spool up on the Unity. It would kill it's intended purpose and make the gun an indecisive love child of an LMG and an assault rifle, while being mediocre at both roles.
