Alright boys, the DLC dropped. The gameplay is solid, and the melee weapons are tasteful (although I’ve seen some complaints about the balancing).
I do have a few pet peeves with the Skitarii ranged weapons, though. To keep it short: there are no variants, the weapon specials are boring, and there are too many small differences from the artwork and tabletop models for my taste.
First, I think everyone can agree that the special attacks for the Skitarii ranged weapons are disappointingly boring. We got three different weapons, and all three just use a weapon bash.
To be fair, a lot of ranged weapons simply have a bash or a flashlight as their special action. Still, I thought Fatshark was moving toward making weapon specials more interesting and unique. For example, the Hive Scum dual autoguns have a fairly boring special, but the dual pistols have a unique animation tied to a specific gameplay mechanic (a massive finesse multiplier that rewards accurate aim). Likewise, the needle pistol lets you switch toxins. While that isn’t the most exciting thing either, changing toxin types has a much bigger impact on gameplay than another generic weapon bash.
My second point:the lack of weapon mark qnd some aesthetic point.
For each weapon , i will go through my aethestic complain then propose one or multiple mark with a suggestion of special to it
Some of you might remember the thread I made before the DLC released. The points I raised there still stand. I understand that the weapons in-game are Moebian-pattern variants, but I’d still like to see weapon marks that are one-to-one recreations of the tabletop models or the official artwork(mars pattern if you like).
Galvanic Rifle
So, the Branx Pattern is basically a Garand in space. The drum magazine/revolver cylinder on the Galvanic Rifle is actually a power coil. Alright, why not? The Galvanic Rifle has always been something of a mix of different historical rifle influences(lee enfield, johnson rifle for exemple even maybe a bit of brown bess), and there was definitely some Garand inspiration in the original design plus I do like the blue light accent on the rifle.The weapon looks almost entirely right
However, I think they leaned too heavily into the Garand. To make it look more like a Garand, they added a lever on the left side of the rifle that wasn’t present on the original design, and they altered the breech, the rear receiver block and the iron sight embelished “stud” so they more closely resemble those of an M1 Garand. I am not a big fan of these changes even though I know it is a popular representation
I don’t even think that what we see on top of the tabletop Galvanic Rifle is meant to represent a breech at all. Here are side views of the galvanic rifle and a model who is closer to the tabletop model.
The drum mag are not shown to glow in the official tabletop look and for most of the artwork. Plus the galvanism can refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action but also the generation of electric current within biological organisms and the contraction/convulsion of biological muscle tissue upon contact with electric current. So while I can see why the most direct interpretation is a gun firing a electrified bullet, I don’t think this was what was depicted before.
From the 7th skitarii codex for the galvanic rifle :" Yet the Galvanic Servitor bullets inside are incredibly advanced. When such a bullet strikes home it causes all the potential energy of the target to burn out in a killing blast of electric force". In the description ,it sound more like the eletric power of the rifle come from the victim itself
So I think the tabletop Galvanic Rifle is in reality a revolver rifle firing galvanic bullets loaded with chemical compounds and techno-babble that, upon contact with the enemy, create a powerful electrical discharge. I don’ think it could be top loaded at all
What I propose for a variant would be the Mark IV Arkhan Pattern, which is the pattern we’re most used to seeing. This pattern would be a drum magazine/cylinder-fed Galvanic Rifle with a larger ammo capacity. Following the classic “more ammo, less damage” pattern we already have in-game, the rifle would hit a little less hard than the one already in the game.
If we keep the blue diode on the drum mag , then you can add the special for the battery variants i spoke of a bit below.
If not, maybe there could be a special making use of the fact the bullet got servitor in them but i do not know how to make use of this without treading the same ground as one of the skitarius ability.
As a massive fan of the Adeptus Mechanicus tabletop models and artwork, this is the variant I’d most like to see added to the game.
Alternatively, if we aim to keep the battery coil on the gun while imitating the look of the tabletop version, I could see a variant based on the one we already have in-game. It would eschew the reloading lever on the left side of the gun and instead be reloaded one round at a time, while dealing more damage. (I don’t mean that the gun would become a breech-loading rifle like the Martini-Henry. Although that would call back to the lore that the Galvanic Rifle is somehow based on ancient Martian flintlock hunting rifles, it would still hold multiple rounds.)
It would look similar to one of the Skitarii concept arts that the Fatshark team shared, although it would still have the breech-looking part that differs from the tabletop and artwork design.
To open the action, you could make use of one of the bolts on the side as a button to unlock the breech, then close it again after loading the rounds.lternatively, if we aim to keep the battery coil on the gun while imitating the look of the tabletop version, I could see a variant based on the one we already have in-game. It would eschew the reloading lever on the left side of the gun and instead be reloaded one round at a time, while dealing more damage. (I don’t mean that the gun would become a breech-loading rifle like the Martini-Henry. Although that would call back to the lore that the Galvanic Rifle is somehow based on ancient Martian flintlock hunting rifles, it would still hold multiple rounds.)
To open the action, you could make use of one of the bolts on the side as a button to unlock the breech, then close it again after loading the rounds.
The battery variants could make use of it in the special to electrify the enemy on impact for exemple
All in all, here is two variants for the galvanic rifle,one drum based which imitate the tabletop look and one based on the concept art fatshark made for darktide. I made my preference clear.
I’m gonna post the arc rifle and phosphor blast pistol in a second post
