Questions

[wretch]

I like the concept of the game a lot. I do have some reservations about the skill system and how some weapons seem to be a trap. For example, I created an atrox crat and I was either going heavy weapons or shotgun. I like the idea of an atrox with a big ass gun. I chose heavy weapons since both heavy weapons and shotgun run of the same statistics (agi, str). I also found it odd that they ran off the same stats. For some reason I assumed heavy weapons would be like str, sta, and agility. Now I am not even level 10 yet but I am starting to think that heavy weapons is a trap. Stacklund doesnt sell a starter weapon and after searching AO weapon databases I can not find an alien weapon. The only heavy weapon I found was sold by a vendor and was a huge 2 dps and also requires assault rifle. I then pondered using this heavy/assault rifle weapon but I talked myself out of it since simply using the starter assault rifle weapon would deal more damage. I also didnt want to waste skill points in assault rifle due to not know what weapons will be available at higher levels. For all I know heavy/assault is a trap and at level 150 I will find a good heavy/ranged energy or pure heavy.

What I would like to know is am I missing something? Is there an actual useable heavy weapon in Arete Landing? Is going heavy/assault rifle or heavy/whatever a trap? Thanks for the info.

[Honorbound]

While I have never been a "walking item DB" type of person, so I may be wrong, the way I remember it, Heavy Weapons, is one of the legacy sort of secondary weapon skills that isn't really used nor useful, at least not on weapons that are considered effective.

Sadly, there are a few similar skills in the game which, I guess were originally planned to be a viable secondary/support weapon skill to encourage weapon diversity, but the weapons themselves which would utilize them either don't exist or way too weak compared to ones that rely only on the "pure" weapon skills, so these skills are mostly a waste of IP to train. Old players know this and ignore them as if they didn't even exist, but for new people they are indeed kind of a trap, because of the "if it's there it must be useful for something" effect, except in this case they really aren't.

Edit: Since you also mentioned Shotgun, that is considered a primary weapon skill of wider availability, there are a number of viable weapons relying on that skill and one or two weapon specials. Assault Rifle is also a primary, although the better ones are Soldier only IIRC. Ranged Energy on the other hand, is also similar to Heavy Weapons, there are a number of weapons (mostly assault rifles and pistols) which use it, but none of them are particularily good, especially at higher levels and/or for expansion content.

[wretch]

Thanks for the info.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Wow, I didn't really realise this before, but if you start to IP a weapon line before level 10 (when the SL perklines are first available to look at), you actually are completely blind as to what weapon lines will be most beneficial/supported by your class, aside from the faint bluish hue on the IP line itself.

@ OP, I certainly don't want to tell you that heavy weapons is a trap. On the contrary, some might say that heavy weapons is not a bad choice, however, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone using it before 110-150 at the earliest.

By my calculations, engineer, which is the third most supported for heavy weapons (after trader and soldier) comes up 100 points short using everything in game to equip the 220 massive bolt charger at level 110. Trader could do it quite easily, soldier it's a moot point since it's a poor weapon choice for solds.

You're right, there are no obvious choices for HW available early on, in fact, for many years it was actually only an endgame choice for doctors. Nowadays, some twinks do use it, but sparingly (I have a 150 engi with a 220 MBC that I recently built and I'm very happy with the choice).

There was nothing in game that told you not to use HW. However, there were a few clues which you either missed or neglected to take into consideration when choosing your weapon. Here they are:

1. the weapons which were in your inventory at startup included pistols (any other?)
2. the IP colour of pistol was lighter blue (this means less expensive than dark blue, for example)
3. at level 10, the SL perk window would have popped up and you may have seen that crats have very few perk supported weapon types (I think only pistol)
4. If you got off arête and had a look at the crat professional implants you would see that pistol is the only weapon skill included on the base implants
5. If you'd read the recent patch notes, you may have noticed that crats were provided the buff: pistol mastery (used to only be for soldiers, but now crat/engi/doc all have it I think).

But that's it, and if you'd made up your mind about not using pistols, you'd kind of have screwed yourself before you even started.

Now, the upside is that the amount you spent on IP is negligible - and if you were really keen on recovering your IP you can do so with an IP reset.

On the downside, crat weapon support is limited at best and for early game you'll have a pretty tough time with any weapon choice outside of pistol. On the upside, crats can do quite nicely with just a pet+nukes, so if you want to go that route, it's not half bad.