What is everyone’s preferred general weapon loadout before getting the high end tech stuff ( i.e. Laser Weaponary, Bionic weapon, etc…)
Summarised I enjoy using:
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Melee – Loaded Stick ( bludgeon weapon and works nicely with specific weapon martial art) – Kukri ( Cut weapon, nice with a good martial art and decent accuary for “knife” weapon)
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Depending on ammo availability I take 1 secondary and 1 primary
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Secondaries – Glock 19 ( modability, gun and ammo availability) – FN Five-Seven ( good penetration) – Sig P226 (personal preference)
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Primaries – M4A1 (ammo and gun availability, good mod profile) – M14 EBR ( Decent all-purpose Marksman Rifle)
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Throwables – Throwing Knives : 3 to 12 ( depends on loadout, silent, reusable and can cause bleeding) – 2 Molotovs ( Emergency crowd control, building demo) – 1 Grenade ( homemade or military grade, emergency use)
I do use other weapons and switch it up when situation demands, but for general purpose exploration and loot runs I can rely on the above loadout to handle most situations to my personal preferences.
yo great conversation, I am having a lot of fun reading this!
What do you think of long two handed melee weapons like pikes?
Yeah, thanks, I have played a lot and it is enjoyable sharing the knowledge that I learnt.
2-handed weapons are strong, probably easiest way to overcome armour thresholds and have the potential to out dps enemies on the damage per single hit scale.
Pikes are strong with their kiting potential as you can hit enemies 3 blocks away - can kill Kevlar Hulks safely with it, it is a bit slow for general combat as you can get rushed and feels very ungainly when enemies are in your face.
Zweihanders are pretty fun to use as it is has a 2-square range, sweep and knockback
Nodachis are one of the stronger weapons in class and shine best with the appropriate martial art
Lucerne hammer is also good as it is a blunt weapon/ pierce with a 2-square range so it one of the more versatile weapons that is hard for a lot of enemies to resist. Really shines with its martial art.
Steel spears are surprisingly strong, not the best but is a decent baseline weapon
Ironshod quarterstaff and the powered quarterstaff also decent, but feel durabilty takes a hit when in thick combat, probably because of it blocking damage
Naginatas are fun to use, feels like a katana with range, feels stronger but not as durable than katana
War Flails also pretty good on alphas strike, but on the slow end of melee and becomes whether the risk is worth it
As strong as the 2-hander weapons are they are heavier on stamina use, slower to hit and can potentially struggle when swarmed unless you have the right martial art to mitigate some of the damage when it has a ranged attack and if one of your arms get injured then the weapon gets dropped.
This is great information because I would never exhaustively try every one of these weapons, I bet other people will find it useful too.
In your opinion how is the general weapon “balance” and fun in the current state of CDDA? (I put balance in quotes because I don’t mean the weapons have to be perfectly balanced like a multiplayer game).
It is fair it think, there are weapons that just work better or feel better. I think of it as like a tier of weapon that are good for a specific purpose.
I have used a punch dagger to good effect, risky if your character is not melee focused, but performs better than I thought as it has great action economy.
Hatchet is no slouch for early game either
From the weapon I have seen but haven’t used I can see them being useful, feel more comfortable with what I know from experience that suits my playstyle.
Martial arts are also a great tool to make weapons useful and even unarmed can be fun - for example throwing a zombie off a building with a judo throw
I think since I found the monomolecuIar blade cbm like to rely on that and that does base 28 damage and it can kill a lot of things in the game when skilled - even able to kill Frogmothers when suffieciently skilled in melee.
So I like to think of the base damage as a soft guage for threshold
Like less than 20:
Early game, “soft” targets ( low or no armour), great action economy or has some sort of “gimmick” like archery does 10 times more damage on a critical hit.
20 to 30:
Mid game, solid damage and should be able to hurt most enemies, with the right type of levels, skills and martial art( in case of melee) could be able to scale into late game if the correct damage type is applied
30 - 50:
Late game, barring the really strong enemies should be able to quickly take down most enemies, targeting weakness can be lethal damage
50 + :
That is the role of specialization, can get some really powerful stuff like high explosives, .50 caliber, rockets, heavy sledgehammer
If you can hit something in these damage ranges only the strongest stuff will not be pulped on death however the stuff if usually difficult to hit.
Also is in the tier of destroying things like walls and terrain.
Conditional tier :
Just placing here for stuff that is unusual but is really strong for what it specialises in
Insecticide spray is strong against wasps and dermatiks with an added bonus the chemicals cannot be dodged
Flashbangs disorientate ( blind status) things with eyes
Fire is strong to most things and some mutants and animals are scared of it
Emp ( situational) and electricity stuns = free hits
Acid is almost like a less destructive fire, but has more things immune to it
Within that idea, that I admit there are weapons stronger than others but overall considering how many weapons there are I think the weapon balance is good all things considered.
If I recall grenades also ignore armour and like a shotgun do damage per fragment so it can do a lot of damage.
I just remembered if you ever find a slime pit, it is a great place to test noise as the slimes hear a lot better than it sees and because of its huge numbers it is looks almost like a graph when it moves towards sound