ON WEAKPOINTS.
I got the impression that the weak points on heavily armored enemies matched the visual design of the armor. It seems to hold true sometimes. Maulers seemed to be weak near the groin and leg area and the back of the head underneath the helmet. And carapace armored ogryns seemingly had chinks in the armor under the chin and by the shoulder and armpit area in the back. But after messing around in the Psykhanium im not sure if I imagined it or not! It would be immersive and great attention to detail if that was the case. And If Itâs not I think the devs should be more creative with the weakpoint mechanic and reward the players that are precise and observant because overall the game has very good attention to detail!
ON AUTOGUNS
One thing I like is how lasguns blow smouldering holes in enemies on impact. But I canât say the same for autoguns. The yellow spark on impact makes sense if itâs hitting armor. But it doesnât make sense when it happens when itâs hitting bare flesh or clothes. You should aim for a different kind of visual feedback when that is the case. A splash of flesh and blood maybe? It has always bugged me.
ON HELBORE RIFLES
On a related note I think a charged helbore shot should have better armor piercing abilities. And more penetration in general when it comes to passing through enemies. Every time I use the Helbore I am so underwhelmed by itâs performance. Take the Helbore MK III for example. It has a sluggish rate of fire even for a Helbore and a slow and weak bayonet attack meaning you get easily overrun by crowds and itâs supposed to make up for these weaknesses with Itâs surprisingly mediocre damage and armor piercing even with a fully charged shot? Even purely situationally I canât make it work. My advice is to give it superior penetration.
Maybe the Helbore had utility in the trenches of Krieg where proper lasguns are hard to come by but in urban warfare on Atoma? Itâs completely useless compared to a Kantrael! And alot of Kantraelâs are much cheaperâŚ
you know that you can use your melee weapon, donât you?
basically, when I take an helbore it is to use it as a sniper gun. I aim heads and delete specials/elites.
The gun is enough strong, but the slow rate of fire implies that you must relies:
on melee weapon
on stealth to reposition yourself (less strong and by far)
To my knowledge there are no weak spots between the armour areas as laid out in the below guide.
I am unclear why some gun shots on carapace show a blue marker (no damage) , then follow up with white ones at the same point, but maybe someone can explain. RNG penetration? Mini crits? Rending abilities triggering?
Shoot a scap shooter in the unarmored areas of his body in the psycanium and youâll see the area is counted as unarmored.
Maulers only have carapace helmets - the rest of their bodies is covered in flak.
Crushers donât have weak spots Iâm aware of.
The helbore III is awkward to use but has the best sight picture of the three â use it as a designated marksman rifle.
The helbore I and II have useful bayonets and decent rate of fire while being the only armor piercing gun with good enough ammo economy. They are far more versatile than the Kantreals - if you take the time to get used to them.
Aaaand akkshully youâd want to use exactly the same type of armament for clearing trenches and bunkers youâd use to clear buildings and sewers.
Maulers are weak everywhere except their head. Carapace is overall the toughest armor type. The Head is Carapace which is also itâs âweakpointâ, but Below the head is flak armor.
However, Crushers are fully carapace and their âweakpointâ is their head and you still do minimal damage with most weapons.
They had an armor based weakspot system like that in War of the RosesâŚwould have loved to see that system in this game and attack descriptions like âassassinâ apply there. Instead of just coping with rending.
Also on the Hellbores if they ever fix the Lucius Mk2 sway values they definitely need to make the Mk1 not have the exact same performance on carapace against it. Mk3 bayonet. Etc, my usual Hellbore comments. Also where is a skin for this gun.
Yeah, this weird thing that Fatshark came up with isnât the real deal. The lucius pattern is just a hotshot, drains the pack quicker. 25 shots instead of the usual.
They went with the wind up on attacks for âbalanceâ reasons. i.e, someone thought it was neat and put it in.
Iâd really like to have a default 98 Lucius pattern and not this âhelboreâ thingâŚ
Why would you assume its a hotshot when the only description it has does not mention that? It is not a squad support weapon, there is no power pack backpack. There are separate miniatures with a power backpack, but all the ones with a Lucius have a backpack similar to the penance one Hestia gives out. Its a laser musket looking thing.
Its literally just supposed to be a more powerful lasgun that drains the battery faster, that part is represented in game. Its the whole variable power and charging thing that is tacked on for flair and mostly a nerf, but whatever it does make it more interesting to use I guess. Its really just swap time and an awful bayonet attack on Mk3 holding it back, to like just behind the best performing weapons in the game. Its a pretty good weapon, but you have to be awake and aiming.
Hotshot power packs exist, they give a stronger shot at the cost of less shots per reload. Nowadays the ones that are connected to a power backpack are Hotshot Volley-guns or Hellguns.
It is a bit weird and unintuitive but from what Iâve mostly seen in lore, the infantry lasgun itself controls the fire rate but the power pack controls the power of the shot. Some lasguns like the longlas can only use hotshot-equivalent power cells because of the power draw it needs.
Yeah and everything infantry las uses the same universal power packs, Lucius included. It has an in universe explanation of using more power per shot and draining it faster. We do not have an explanation for how theyâre able to adjust the power of each shot, but that is gameplay flair and to make it less samey.
Hotshot would be another thing altogether, in fact the Krieg have their own Hotshot gunâŚvery far away from the Lucius, with models that have the 10kg powerpack those units need.
And Iâm saying that hotshot is also a thing for normal lasguns to allow for varying power levels; the lasguns with the power packs are hellguns or volley guns.
If it were a much heavier weapon sure, but the lore doesnât really allow for âhotshot upgradeâ nor does the tabletop. Hotshot weapons are specialty built with cryonic cooled barrels and much heavier construction.
Lore does allow for it (it was in 3rd edition) and itâs an easily accessible upgrade in the tabletop RPGs and in sub-games like Necromunda. You get more power going through your standard lasgun at the cost of reloading more often and burning out the weapon faster. Itâs the power packs (not backpacks) that are modified/built to be hotshots.
There has been lore of guardsmen jury-rigging their lasguns into power infrastructure to turn them into ad-hoc volley guns but because the lasguns and the power source they connect to arenât built for that they overheat and/or explode.