Perhaps it’s just me, but autoguns seem absolutely terrible. Their magazines are too small, their sighting mechanisms are inferior and cannot be modified or swapped, they do too little damage with the ammo available, and they do not in any way play to all the accuracy specialties of the Veteran. I wasted like 9000 ducats one the best one I could find and it still sucked. Am I missing some aspect of these things? It seems they SHOULD rock, given the hoard-ish nature of the threat environment.
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Nope, they are just bad for the most part.
You can get some good use out of some of them, but eh. Honestly, I just used a Kantrael (because it gets an actual optic!) or a shotgun (still very good at range) until I got a bolter.
I seriously think we should get some weapon customisation in the form of optical attachments, and I think autoguns should get extended mags.
AND I still want to be able to change my fething firemode, regardless of ADS (which would help out autoguns a lot too):
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The Kantrael Mark IV Infantry Lasgun is what I’ve found to also be the go-to gun, as it balances rate of fire, accuracy, good optic, ammo store, and damage/stopping. I’d love to have a bayonette on it. The ‘feel’ of autoguns is great, and I hope they get a specification boost, as it IS satisfying to unload one into a hoard…it just gets you killed immediately afterward now, lol.
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As stupid as it sounds. I think autoguns being ass is kinda point. Its an assault rifle in the year 40k, its made for chumps lol. But yah it needs a buff for balance wise or give it so much ammo it can just let it rip.
I enjoy the headhunter autogun … but. No optic ? What ? Why.
It probably won’t ever happen but custom optics should definitely be a thing.
But it won’t happen sadly.
edit : actually they are pretty weak and the recoil is super crap just for 2 shots, and the ammo capacity is crap.
Devs should really look into a “damage per total amo”
You can have one for flesh and one for armour, and use those number to balance both.
When I compare the bolter to any autogun, I end up laughing…
As stupid as it sounds. I think autoguns being ass is kinda point. Its an assault rifle in the year 40k, its made for chumps lol.
Have to disagree, for a few reasons:
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Balance. If you appeal only to realism, or things you think follow totally logically one to the other, you end up with bad mechanics and a game that makes total logical sense, but isn’t fun to play. The weapon choices should feel balanced and varied, and players should feel like they have a varied range of viable options for their personal tastes.
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Even going by your logic, it doesn’t work that way. Lasguns are not ‘better’ - their popularity comes from a design philosophy of being very simple and very cheap to make, and reliable because of not having almost any moving parts. Lasguns are not intrinsically more powerful than autoguns - they are often less effective pound-for-pound, for example against armour.
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The braced auto guns are good, especially the “medium” fire rate one, get one with elite damage. Mow down every gunner and berserker/mauler in 1 second
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I haven’t played above malice yet (because everytime I’ve loaded higher difficulties there’s nobody to join), but as Zealot with an axe, the Braced Autogun is my best friend for mowing down a horde since I don’t have some kind of minigun. I wish it had a drum mag.
On the other hand…
The Headhunter autogun with that goofy 3-shot burst is just pure trash. I purchased one with better stats, properties and traits than my current Braced Autogun and that Headhunter could kill any specials or elites without shooting that 3-shot burst about 4-5x. That’s about 4-5x longer than a Braced Autogun to the head, and of course, the Braced autogun is not the DPS king by a long shot.
The Bolter just will kill almost anything quick (but I don’t consider the Bolter that OP because in exchange for extreme damage and small AOE you have low ammo, slow reload, slow weapon toggle, high recoil, and low accuracy)
Also, I love the sound, feel, and look of Autoguns; it has satisfying feedback. It’s just disappointing when you get a Headhunter and it underperforms the Laser Pistol for sniping elites.
I use the Agripinaa braced autogun (MK VIII). I love it. It is not acurate at extreme range, but a few single shots usually hits a target at mid range when trying to conserve ammo. It has a 32 round mag, but it fires much slower than the other two braced autoguns, and packs a bigger punch. It has the stopping power stat rather than the collateral stat. From my understanding, that means it staggers and punches through armor better than the other guns, which send enemies into cover faster and suppress them better.
The braced agripinaa (and other braced autoguns) also has a fairly large amount of spare ammo compared to ADS autogun variants. While the number isnt as high as a lasgun, its slow rate of fire and hard hits make it worthwhile to use. In addition, autoguns do more damage to Flak armored enemies compared to lasguns (at the cost of all that spare ammo/battery packs).
I want to love the semi auto sniper variant autogun. However, as noted, there is no optic at all, and while it packs a mean punch, it has some rather heavy recoil and sway, even with a high stability rating. If I could customize with any kind of optic, i might give it another try, beacuse it was able to punch through armor like other autoguns, but also had great accuracy and just plain hit harder than the full auto ones, especially to weakpoints.
Then there are the standard infantry autoguns with ADS. Too much sway and recoil for Continuous, sustained fire. Even for burst or semio auto fire, the sway makes the ADS unreliable. Add in that the ammo count and magazine size are far too low for sustained fire, you are forced to burst fire anyway, and still end up running out of ammo fairly quickly because the total count is absurdly low.
Finally, there are the burst fire autoguns. No, just no. A single mag allows you to fire 3-4 times before reloading. and the total ammo count is so stupid low that you get about 5-6 spare mags. While the spare mags sound like enough, with how fast you burn through them, its not worth using in my opinion.
To close, I did some tests with the MK4 lasgun (carbine variant - high mag and spare count), the sniper autogun (semi-auto), recon lasgun (full auto), and the agripinaa MK8 braced autogun.
At mid range, against a flak armored rager at malice (in psycharium), shots in the chest to kill. None of the rifles had elite damage % or extra damage to specific enemies. In fact, my agripinaa has reload speed and is my weakest weapon.
- Recon lasgun (full auto) [around 310 rating]= Approx 40-50 rounds (about 30 with vet skill active) out of 93 total rounds in mag.
- MK4 lasgun (carbine variant) [around 280 rating]= Approx 20-25 rounds (about 15-17 with vet skill) out of 102 round mag.
- Semi auto autogun [around 300 rating]= 9-10 rounds (about 8 shots with vet skill) out of a 20 round mag.
- Agripinaa braced autogun [around 230 rating]= 10-12 rounds (about 7-9 with vet skill) out of a 32 round mag.
In the end, it comes down to what you want to use your rifle for. The recon lasguns, with no recoil are great for aiming at head height and strafing back and forth against hordes, or pinpoint hitting weakpoints. Against armor, especially at higher dificulties (3-5), expect to use a mag per elite if you cant get a weakpoint hit. The autoguns tear through armor much better than lasguns, but sacrifice the ammo to do so. Thus making them great for hitting light armored enemies. And then you need to decide, are you looking for volume of fire, or accuracy (ADS vs Braced). Veterans get a bit more leeway with spare mags, so thats also a consideration to be mindful of as well.
Please note, if you havent already, but the heavy armored ogryns (crushers and shield ogryns) have too much armor for even the autoguns. Grab a melee and heavy attack them to save your ammo.
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Oh no I totally agree. Your entire argument is the third sentence the part you didnt quote. It does need to be balanced, issue is DEVS entirely balance the game over bolter weapons so overtuned lol.
What about range though, you have ask yourself can you accurate hit enemies across map when you need to. Las gun would do better at that over autogun, meatgrinder unfortuantely isnt long enough to do so for accurate testing in run enviorment. Thanks for the test though its good know #
Sorry I read your post too quickly and misread your last point - fair enough!
I really feel like damage output and ammo capacity are the biggest reasons that the autoguns suck outside of the braced autogun.
We need larger magazines and larger reserve ammo pools to make them viable. That’s by far the biggest problem. They just can’t stay in the fight long enough. They’re already harder to hit with than lasguns due to recoil so there’s no reason not to give them more shots.
Damage output should also be addressed. Autoguns should be rewarding to hit shots with and need to pack a punch. Raw damage, armor penetration, and collateral damage should be the defining features of autoguns.
Overall, lashings should just be easier to use with little recoil and good ammo economy. But auto gums should be used for the risk/reward of higher damage output that requires good recoil control.
I dont think an autogun should have armor pen compared to bolters and las guns just logically. Bolters barely penetrate 2 so it sounds silly that autoguns could also penetrate 2 enemies as well(collateral damage). They should also not be doing more raw damage. You’re firing bullets, the other two are firing rapidly launched kinetic explosive rounds and extremely hot lasers. Autogun should just get a fk ton of ammo and a lot of ammo pick up on drops to make them viable. obviously with fine adjustment on some other stuff. for the armor epnetration part you’re firing bullets at metal armor made to block off bullets it should be tinking off ogryn and mauler armor. Autoguns already do solid damage already
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First things first, we shouldn’t use any amount of real world logic on what’s probably the most illogical sci-fi universe to ever exist. We have to think of it a game first. Second, anything that is meant to explode on impact logically isn’t designed to penetrate through multiple targets better than a solid slug.
It’s important to note that armor penetration isn’t a yes or no. You can do different degrees of damage through armor depending on how much armor penetration a weapon has. I think that bolters should be the king at destroying carapace armor. Keep them that way. But that doesn’t mean that autoguns should be doing nothing. Autoguns should have a place defeating armor since that gives them a role to fill in-game. If lasguns did that better, there’s just not that much of a reason to use autoguns due to the recoil and low-damage against half the enemies in the game. You can’t have low damage and high recoil, it’s a terrible combo for balancing anything. If a weapon is hard to control, it needs high damage output.
As it stands right now, the recon pattern lasgun fills the role of the autogun better than the autogun ever could. It’s extremely accurate, has no recoil, and has much higher ammo per magazine. Kantrael lasguns have a comparable shot count to the autoguns but do far more damage for each shot while maintaining very little recoil. Even shotguns and revolvers have better utility overall despite having lower round counts because the amount of damage per bullet makes them far more efficient.
Having more ammo is certainly a large part of what would balance out autoguns, but it still needs just a bit more than that. The reason why the braced autoguns are the only usable autoguns in the game is because they have a large amount of ammo and have better damage output than the other autoguns while still having the ability to penetrate through multiple targets. The other autoguns need to follow a similar philosphy before they can be taken seriously in higher difficulties.
Before I end off, I want to say that I want all weapons balanced in a way that makes them viable and fun to use at level 4-5. A weapon is appropriately strong if they can hold their own on those difficulties. Right now, the autoguns aren’t doing that. You can use them all you want on Malice on below, and you can win. But until they have more ammo and have better damage output, they are not going to be picked over bolters or recon lasguns by anyone who is serious about performing well and being successful on Heresy and Damnation.
I mean the issue is the name of the armors literally imply they are suppose to resist bullets. It seems pretty intentional that bullets from autoguns dont penetrate that hard. I’m not saying you’re wrong they need a buff, all guns besides bolter and maybe helborne need a buff. This is a true statement. But I think that buffing all guns to just be better is the wrong way go about it. You can totally use the autogun in 4 right now and win, I just did it accidently when I took it. I’m not sure besides ammo+ what autogun would need, I think personally a small damage buff would be nice and maybe a large accuracy buff maybe idk, but I feel like if you’re taking autogun you should totally expect not to be able to easily kill mauler and what not. I want point out right now if you (on vet at least) activate your skill and blast into mauler you can kill 2-3 with a full mag so its not like its impossible.
Armor is just a tool to vary the types of problems players have to solve for when playing the game. To put things in perspective, the mauler is wearing a welding mask and medieval chainmail. The armor used by the heretics are all salvaged, poorly put together armor pieces that are just barely good enough to take a hit. The knife cuts through them just fine, so there’s no reason bullets shouldn’t.
Also I’m not saying you can’t win 4 or even 5 with an autogun. But people who are serious about pushing their limits aren’t going to opt for autoguns when there are just outright better options. Zealots need the bolter because it is effective against the high health pools of specials at 4 and 5 and is the direct answer to crushers and bulwarks. Veterans tend to run the accatran because the gun itself is just well rounded for killing hoards, specials and more with the infernus blessing. Even when selecting the best weapons, 4 and 5 aren’t easy. So it just doesn’t make sense right now to pick a weapon that would make that any harder.
When it really comes down to it, there’s very few ways to make the autoguns compete on the same level as the bolter and accatran without making them lose their identity as a family of weapons. There really isn’t anything wrong with making the autoguns have damage output that competes with the bolter or accatran so long as it isn’t just outright replacing either of them. There’s nothing wrong with autoguns being strong enough to mulch a mauler because they’re really just another common enemy on heresy and even more so on damnation. In fact, ragers and maulers should be the ideal targets for the autoguns. If autoguns filled that role, they would be much more enticing at higher difficulties so long as they didn’t severely underperform when the shooter mobs and hoards show up.
Overall I think that forcing a weapon to not do certain things based on preconceived notions of the weapon’s archetype limits the ways it can be implemented. Sometimes the mold needs to be broken a bit in order to find a role that the weapon can fill. With how little variety there seems to be at 4 and 5, I really want more options that feel comfortable to use. This is especially important on zealot who really only has access to the bolter for ranged versatility.
Responding to a couple points mentioned. The chainmail armor is considered “flak armor” and the welding mask is “carapace”. You do more damage to the chest and legs due to flak armor than to the head for maulers. Same principle as crushers, who are in all carapace. You can think of the armor as none, light (flak) and heavy (carapace). Shoot enemies in psycharium to see armor when you do damage. Also, flak armor was never meant to stop bullets. It was meant for shrapnel. It isn’t a bulletproof vest.
Another note, and perhaps I misread something, is that none of the autoguns penetrate multiple targets. Collateral stat sends ranged enemies into cover. Higher the stat, the faster and wider the effect. Stopping power supposedly adds a bit more umph to the bullets, hence the stagger effect. This might add damage against armor, but I’m not sure.
Finally, the braced autoguns does surprisingly well at long range to take out enemy snipers. However, of course a ln ADS rifle is better, but accuracy by volume is a thing.
I plan on making the braced autoguns as a vet. I tried everything but a boltgun, but the only one I’ve found was a low damage gray. Considering I spend 70-90% of a match with the gun in hand, I need the ammo and versatility of the autoguns. Don’t get me wrong, I also use recon lasguns, but I much prefer my agripinaa mk8.
Edit: I will say I’d like to see attachment options and all burst rifles with a semi auto selector. Finally, the ADS sway (without shooting or moving) needs to be lowered, a lot. I get the recoil, but trying to aim while your character sways like a drunk just from aiming is ridiculous.
If you want incentive to retry out the bolter, one of its strongest strength that isn’t really noticed is that besides its overloaded stat is how the ammo regen works with Bolter. You get 2 ammo back per elite kill, but with your ability you can oneshot elites effectively allow you to get ammo back. It makes the bolter super ammo efficent, which makes me laugh when everyone talks about the bolter having no ammo. Maybe it would have ammo if you didnt full auto it like it was an autogun lol. Any decent team makes the draw of bolter irrelevant since you can actually just straight up hold the bolter 98% of the time (unless hound) with the stand still perk.
Rifle really need better accuracy ngl.