Some notes I can add to explain some things: Centipedes, while they are a good target to test on (as they are the most relevant late game enemy) have 180% accuracy multiplier on them due to their size, which can lead to 'overcapping' accuracy. This is why the Assault Rifle 'scales' poorly going to Masterwork/Legendary; the extra accuracy is almost useless vs a Centipede; vs a human target you would see more of a benefit. Also some weapons like the Assault Rifle overcap weapon accuracy (final accuracy is basically weapon accuracy at that range * pawn accuracy at that range * weather modifier * cover modifier * target size modifier which isn't the same as target size, and out of these, only target size can be above 100%) at 100% with Legendary, while the less accurate Charge Rifle/Minigun don't have this issue. This is the reason for some of the weird quality scaling you were seeing. Also some of the reason the SMG is 'more skill friendly' is the simple fact that it has shorter range. The way pawn accuracy works is it takes the listed value (lets say 98% for a skill 14 shooter), and then takes the power of that value equal to the range to the target. This means shooting skill/bionics/buffs matter FAR less at short ranges. So any short range weapon is inherently very 'skill friendly', and this is also why fighting at shorter ranges can sometimes be to your advantage, even if you have longer ranged guns available. Speaking of short range, I have to echo some other comments in saying that the Chain Shotgun is a weapon to ALWAYS be considered. It's ridiculously overpowered tbh, even vs highly armoured targets just due to it's insane raw DPS, and staggers on top of that. I've held off 200+ bugs in a choke point with 1 meleer blocking it and about 6 pawns with chain shotguns standing behind them, just due to the stagger preventing most of the bugs from even getting into melee range. Mass Scythers/Manhunters similarly are trivial to beat and often can't even land a hit if you lure them into a 1 tile wide hallway due to the stagger + DPS. In terms of numbers, a Chain Shotgun usually beats out a Charge rifle by around 30-40% DPS vs unarmoured/low armour humans, about 10-20% vs Centipedes, and roughly breaks even vs highly armoured humans (marine armour and up) at 12 tiles range for both. On top of this, the Chain Shotgun is available very early in the tech tree, and is insanely cheap to make, so it's trivial to equip everyone with them very early in the game (and the cheap cost means 'farming' for masterworks with a high skill crafter is much more viable then with pricier weapons, and a masterwork chain shotgun will DESTROY any excellent weapon), and obviously it has stagger. It's pretty much hands down the best weapon in vanilla vs bugs, vs sappers, and vs drop pod raids (vs mech pods mix with EMP grenades for safety), and sappers/pods are the hardest raid types anyways. Heck in the early game I usually just build a basic sapper lure corridor with a bunch of chain shotgun positions and basically just use that defense up until I start getting larger raids (usually my breakpoint to build an actual 'killbox' is 10 centipedes in a single raid or more). Overall these results fairly closely line up with my spreadsheet I made like 6 months ago (although I calculated DPS but the ratios are similar), although that had the advantage of letting me pick the target range and test many different guns/different shooting skills with just some numbers tweaks so I could see more information about various vanilla and modded guns (spoiler almost every modded gun is either trash or OP but I think everyone already knew that). That also is where I'm getting the rough numbers for the Chain Shotgun from. Biggest deviation is probably that the Minigun is actually much better then your tests show ON PAPER, mostly because ofc of splash damage (however remember there is no more forced miss for the Minigun as of 1.0, so accuracy DOES matter for it now unlike what some people claim). However the Minigun does have one problem vs 'weaker' targets which is that if the target dies before it fires the entire 'burst' it just stops shooting and goes into cooldown mode, which is why people often recommend targeting a wall. The problem with doing that, is because again there is no more forced miss for Miniguns anymore, this leads to some shots being wasted because they ACTUALLY hit the wall you were aiming at, as even if someone is physically in the way of a shot, it is NOT 100% it will actually hit them. Between these two factors and the fact that MIniguns tend to swiss cheese walls which can force you make 'repair cubbies' and waste manpower on that during the fight, makes their amazing on paper damage less impressive in reality and I tend to just go with Charge Rifles or Chain Shotguns. Also not that it's directly related, but it's sad how bad the Charge Lance is in 1.1 with the range nerf. Was nerfed to nerf Lancers, but they really should have added a new long range Charge Weapon in it's place for players, as in 1.1 there are basically two 'long range' weapons, the Bolt and Sniper, and both have serious issues. Means every fight is 31 tiles or less in practice. On a final note, I have to echo some other comments that I'm not sure why you tested with skill 10/go juice/luci. It's a bit of a weird combo, I generally use higher shooting skill values (even a non passionate pawn can quickly build to 12+ shooting skill vs late game raids, and passionate ones will be pushing 16-19). Having said that I don't think it changes that much in most cases as when ranges are similar shooting accuracy is basically the same anyways (again pawn shooting acc is a MULTIPLIER so if the gun is inherently inaccurate vs accurate it doesn't really matter except when considering splash damage).
Centipedes are great test subject cause they pose actual threat late game and early game you just use what you have not what you want. Chain shotguns are nice but have to short range to do anything other than killing mele enemies, great for infestations not so great aganist anything else.
This is a great response! I had never considered the hit box of the centipede. It makes me think that I may have been misusing the LMG and Minigun. In my mind, they were good in large enough quantities in situations where you had many many tribals. Your shots would miss target a lot, but the misses would still often hit and stagger a nearby tribal. I can't say that I ever want to line up against a horde of charging but at least that was how I envisioned them being useful. However, maybe these weapons were designed for taking out centipedes. The 180% hit modifier would make the weapons actually hit when other weapons have diminished returns. What are your thoughts on the optimal use of LMG and minigun?
I mean as the video shows and calculations show, the LMG still sucks even vs Centipedes (it's raw DPS is just too low, it's purely a staggering vs humans weapon). I was just noting the accuracy bonus because it explains why Assault Rifles don't scale well with quality above excellent when fighting Centipedes compared to minigun/charge rifle. That and the armour pen bonus is a multiplier, so it's better for the Charge Rifle then the AR/Minigun due to it's higher base pen. This accuracy overcapping issue only applies above a certain point, in most cases you will still see below 100% final hit rates vs Centipedes, unless your using a very accurate weapon like Bolt Actions/Snipers (which also suffer from weapon accuracy overcapping at higher qualities against all targets), or high quality Assault Rifles with a skilled pawn (which is exactly where it fell off during the testing). As for the Minigun, yeah it's a great Centipede killer, the best one in the game IMHO (again the video shows this too, and it's even better on paper/vs grouped centipedes), if you can deal with the damage to walls/any furniture that happens to be around. Honestly that is probably it's best role due to the issues I mentioned with either overkilling cutting your burst short if you target a human enemy with a Minigun, or missing more shots then you have to if you target a wall with it. As for the previous response, I wasn't trying to say Centipedes are a bad target to test on, just explaining the reason for the results due to the choice of test target. Also I would strongly disagree that Chain Shotguns are anti melee only. They are great vs pod/sapper raids too (esp since you usually don't want to be firing off a minigun and destroying all your own stuff in your dining room when they pod into it). Between pods, sappers, pure scyther raids, manhunter raids, infestations, that covers probably about half of all threats you will face on average. Certainly a situational weapon, but less then it seems at first glance.
@@xzardas541 Centipedes in fact doesn't pose nearly as much of a threat. since you would either be in a position to kite them to death, or they are dropping into the base, in which case u have the close quarter advantage and can mitigate most of their fire power by applying a proper base layout
Thanks for this response! I actually just replied to another comment with similar points about size and high-quality builds or low accuracy weapons and wrote "I read somewhere but don't remember where..." Must have been your doc.
Please continue making these content filled guides. Being able to break the game down like this and understand it from different points of view is really making the difference on getting over the massive learning curve in this master piece. Thanks for all the valuable info!
@@WikterRor2807 They have longer range than all other weapons. There are not for direct combat, just use them to harass the enemy. Works well with increased speed. Works well if the enemy rallies before a siege.
Lol, me too. It is just the right balance between parts used, time spend and skill level when it comes to machining. Plus, my killbox doesn't really need too much help.
Thanks for tutorial and spreadsheet! Consider entrenching test targets with "Set terrain..."->"Deep water" to fix their positions if/when you decide to retest something range weapon related.
LMGs can be useful in a particular part of the game: They unlock with Gas Operation, while the Assault Rifle unlocks with Precision Rifling. The latter requires a high-tech research bench, while the former does not. Get some Masterwork LMGs made by a production specialist on your best shooters and they'll do great. Other notes: Joggers make natural Minigun-wielders, able to more than keep up with other ranged pawns without the trait even with the movement penalty. Forced miss radius as a mechanic has also been removed from the game.
It is wonderful and amazing that you started an Excel sheet. I got super excited when I saw it. I was however very disappointed when you decided not to use it for what it could have been. Since Rimworld gives all the numbers (damage, refire/reload rate, movement, range, etc), it could be very possible to create a spreadsheet that would allow you to use it for ANY weapon against ANY mob. Plug in their stats, and it will give the true best DPS for each weapon, with differences shown in range/movement (bolt action/sniper gets less accurate as the target gets to very close range). The graphs that could produce would be amazing to see.
This was all caused by me running some test on the best weapon for killing infestations. The result did not match what the wiki said. You have to account for range, bug armour, pawn levels plus enhancements etc. Theory crafting if beautiful, however real "world" testing gives you the important info like what's the most cost efficient gun to kill Centipedes with in a killbox. Bug testing vidoe. ruclips.net/video/4zBikWY8U74/видео.html
I'm planning on using the info when doing a kill box tutorial, auto shotguns have a range so short it makes it problematic to create an effective kill box.
Yeah, I didn't use them a lot until recently, but now that I have space-wizard psycasters I've been shortening up my killbox and chain shotguns (and even charge shotguns) are really effective.
@@everinghall8622 shotgun optimal effective range is about 5-6 tiles, which is just inside friendly-fire minimum range as fire support for a melee combatant. SMG's peak at the 2-5 range. I'm not a fan of zeus', both for their wealtlh bloat and the fact emp launchers exist.
Another great video. Every time I think I'm done with a game, you make a video about it and now I want to start up Rimworld again. The two videos I need you to make are a good look at the best way to set up your base for efficiency/defense, and the best way to train up melee/rifle skills.
Thanks for the tutorial! Quick advise - if you make cell with dark background, then make font with light color. For example: red background, white font. These numbers will get reading much better in yours next videos! :)
Super excited to see you cover RimWorld. The combat system is so intricate that there aren't very many guides out there with actual data to back them up. I'm interested to see what the ranking is for a firefight (pirates/lancers), however I feel like range and cover make up the biggest factor in the calculations so getting "fair" testing to compare weapons will be difficult. I feel like people default to Assault rifles because they are a powerful generalist before you can get Charge Rifles. Plus having more range means fewer chances to take damage and less downtime between raids. again, no idea how to fairly test it. Keep up the great content.
What I'm trying to figure out is "realistic" best practices. That involves using kill boxes and dealing with drop raids occasionally. Though the new Psy powers are going to complicate things.
@@FrancisJohnYT from what I understand the psy powers are nuts. I saw a clip Yeti put out where a single pawn enrage a herd of elephants, went invisible and then let them destroy a pirate base. I guess my question is: how would you structure your team to assault a fortified pirate base? I'm only on Ep 23 of your nomadic tribal so I haven't seen any late-game assaults. superb series btw its a really fun watch.
bolt action is great to disturb siege attacks early, especially with a very fast, skilled shooter you can deal decent damage before the assault even started
@@everinghall8622 I personally don't like them because of the long aiming/cooldown bolt action still outranges most weapons and feels a lot more responsive they're also cheaper and available very early but of course not meant for stationary base defense, but seriously fun to take out an entire tribal raid with a single guy micromanaged (you do need bionics/archotech legs or other speed buffs though)
It's important to emphasize the importance of an ideal killbox environment on this testing method, where DPS is king. If you aren't able (or willing) to utilize nice efficient setups, you will get quite a bit more mileage out of the more niche weapons the game has to offer. I'm particularly fond of the bolt-action rifle myself. If you have to engage in a conventional firefight, its high range, accuracy, base damage, and armor pen all become a lot more valuable. Equipping everyone with them is foolhardy, but giving them to a couple of high-skilled shooters in your raiding parties and caravans is a good idea in case you get caught flat-footed. Sometimes a single powerful shot can do what a lot of smaller ones can't. I have not conducted any proper experimentation like FJ has here, but after 1500 hours played I've been caught in plenty of shootouts, where the bolt-action holds its own quite handily.
I find the addition of royalty makes DPS even more valuable. Skip, invisibility, wall raise and jump jet packs allow you to manipulate the battlefield to your advantage. I will admit I have a soft spot for the bolt action, it has saved my bacon a lot of times. For caravans on 500% difficulty you can get swamped with enemies if your not careful, I started carrying doomsdays from mid game onwards. Being outnumbered 5 to 1 by tribals is a death sentence without splash weapons.
@@FrancisJohnYT My comment was more aimed toward newer players who might immediately write off weapons based on their shortcomings in your testing- apologies for not making that clearer. It's a great guide with excellent information that I'm definitely filing away for future use. Much of the Royalty content is still on my to-do list, as I have a short attention span and a host of mods that I generally gravitate towards instead (thank you for eating all of my resources and time, Android Tiers, SRTS, and SoS2). As I get farther into a game I definitely trend towards higher rates of fire as well.
Yeah, a few bolts or snipers can take out triple rocket pirates before they decimate your dudes so its always nice to keep a portion of your fighting force on the longer range weapons unless you are 1)killbox only, or 2) heavily pyscast stacked so you can berserk dudes to absorb the rockets
@@cookies23z there's a reason militaries mix marksman rifles into regular squads even if they're strategically inferior, and that's because the ability to land good shots on priority targets is too valuable to forgo.
Lol look at the most replayed part at around 6:30 Thats the biggest takeaway from this. The Heavy SMG slaps, you use this until level 10 shooting, then you give them a rifle. Contrary to the video I like the charge rifles a lot. They work well with my killbox optimized for uranium slug turrets and heavy turret defense. I like running with a lot of combatitively worthless pawns, so if you rely on turrets anyway like I do, charge rifles are a nice armor piercing weapon in the late game when you have turrets staggering the mechs. I still recommend using heavy smgs and rifles in the mid game and well into the late game though. They're very good.
LMG on early game has the advantage of being lower on the tech tree and cheaper to make than the assault rifle, on late game I play with small colonies, so its not hard to get one or two colonists at crafting 20 churning out mastercraft weapons (10% chance at crafting 20). It is kind of crappy on most scenarios though.
Few things I may add to this: SMG (machine pistol is even better) is excelent capture weapon with high dps and low damage per bullet it will down pawns much more often, perfect to capture some tribals. Minigun totaly rules in killboxes, just aim for wall behind enemies or last enemy(just remember they stop shooting when target falls, so it can be better to aim for walls when facing soft targets) and it will outperform any other weapon when faced big crowds. (despite its lower armor penetration it seems to be better to take on centipedes that tend to cluster in killbox entrance). Other than that charge rifle is the straight upgrade from asalut rifle that simply lacks penetration to take on stronger foes, especialy catarpacts from royality DLC have way to much armor for normal guns to hurt them. LMG was suposed to be early game minigun but has no dakka or penetration for it. Also: Things like shooting skill above 10 and enchanced manipulation or sight have suprisingly small impact on dps, while getting bellow lvl 10 or injuries will throw accuracy to the floor.
I am doing the weapon testing as a prelude to kill box design which is why I specifically targets these weapons and left out the shorter range guns. Miniguns are by far the best all round weapon in my opinion but the move penalty is a big draw back, that is why I keep them near the kill box but have everyone carry sometime else. I was surprised how much you could improve damage above 10 shooting. Take a 10 shooter with an excellent assault rifle, install a Bionic eye and you have increased their damage by 14%
@@FrancisJohnYT Then you should try remowing one eye and see how bad it gets. I usualy throw minigun on anyone with bonus speed, makes suprise drop pods way easier to deal with.
Sorry but "excellent capture weapon" is a myth, pawns have a fixed dead on downed percentage. The only weapons that are bad for capture are those which kill in one shot.
@@jairo8746 There's a minor effect, though psychic shock lances make this whole discussion idle. Some weapons can't destroy an organ with one projectile, some can, and some do enough damage to destroy a limb. Removed limbs and non-essential organs feel no pain and reduce the number of non-lethal targets for a bullet, making incapacitation from death more likely. Peppering a target's whole body with low-damage wounds results in incapacitation from pain, which allows the 'down or dead' roll. I agree that there's no such thing as an excellent capture weapon, but there may be a least bad one.
I usually play with greatbows, but I've found using amr to be the best for killing them so are emp based weaponry. Also really cool that someone made a test to display what weapons do to late game threats really wish I had this when I first started
range also matters quite a bit. SMGs are excellent close-range shooters, while shotguns need some standoff range, and long rifles need around 12+ tiles of distance for optimal range (which can invite friendly fire if shooting into a melee). Optimal weapons change on the enemy. melee and SMG's are going to outperform against manhunters and melee rushes, while AR's and long rifles will perform better against standoff targets (and will likely friendly-fire if shooting at a melee fighter)
It's amazing how little info their was on guns efficiency considering how popular this game is. Make sure you have a way of dealing with mass centipede before they show up, they are the main end game killer.
Few things to note. Centipedes are not exactly the best target - due to their size they are much easier to hit, which skews the accuracy and therefore DPS measurements. There is one major factor people often underestimate, and this is range. Assault rifle has advantage of being the longest ranged non-sniper and non-missile launcher weapon. This means - using it gives you the comfort of always being able to comfortably sit behind cover - only the minigun matches the range. Now, this does not matter in a killbox scenario, where you dictate the range, but not every fight is a killbox. You may not think of it much at first, but when you realise how important it is to NOT have to leave cover to take down the Lancer mechanoid, this gets better and better. Another thing is - DPS is not everything. I was doing some testing with Trigger Happy vs Careful Shooter - and from what I noticed, there are plenty of situations when one-shot kills or one-shot down scenarios are a thing - DPS does not really matter in such cases, accuracy and raw damage does. With that in mind - minigun is generally the go-to option if you have high skilled pawn and you do not care about survivors. Reason being - minuigun's long series of shots tends to hit even dawned pawns and finish them off.
Wow, that quality buff was insane. I still don't know if it really makes legendary gun worth it for it's 5X wealth, but way better than I expected. Maybe tests about Awful vs Poor vs Normal vs Good ect. if you do a round 2. Also, would like to see similar tests about guns at 100% hp vs 80% vs 50% vs 20% vs 1%. And you didn't even do a round with grenades!
I tested armour for deterioration and it turns out it keeps it's stats all the way down meaning deterioration means nothing to armour. Will have to do a little testing on weapons but I think it will be the same. I think the 5X wealth might be worth it, the way I figure it with a minigun you get twice the DPS. To get the same bonus you would have to hire a second pawn, equip them with armour feed and bedroom them. Also you would need a bigger kill box. An excellent weapon already costs you 1.5X anyway.
I did a test with with weapon/armor quality grade not long ago. 10 melee vs 10 ranger with max out skill. 10 melee guys with excellent armor barely take a scratch against 10 ranger guys with normal charge rifle. All melee reach the ranger and 8/10 rangers lost the test (I gave the rangers power claws). Reverse the quality, excellent weapon vs normal armor. Most melee guys died in one volley. Only 1 melee fighter reach the rangers and died melee.
@@kaleidoscope3234 yea armor melee usually beats out armor ranged, the problem is late game there’s either soo many enemies their bullet barrage stager your melee pawns or theirs soo many centipedes your melee are always on fire
@@kaleidoscope3234 also it gets expensive constantly healing melee pawns and making them new armor, it’s more cost efficient to have 1 or two melee pawns draw agro into a one tile hallway with the rest of your pawns behind them with charge rifles or chain shotguns
@@kaleidoscope3234 lastly, melee pawns are really dangerous to your own colony, I’ve lost a lot of games from a full cyborg melee pawn going berserk and slicing up my whole colony , so it’s important if u have a max melee full cyborg to implant a learning assistant so you can safely fry their brain with emp
Miniguns are great for massive waves of soft enemies, like late game tribal raids or manhunter packs, because pretty much you're going to hit something anywhere the bullet lands. Centipedes do not come in large packs, a at it's worse it will be 5 or 6 of them, and because they are so slow your best bet is long range sniping with charge lances, which have more armor penetration, accuracy and range than any other weapon. The only caveat to that is that centipedes almost always come escorted by lancers, and pikemen, and in the latest patches they tend to stay together more than in earlier versions. Assault rifles are the best overall mid game weapon, they are good for hunting, and engaging medium size raids until you can get charge rifles
The strangest weapon in Rimworld has got to be the Pila. They may be a bit niche as a neolithic weapon with excellent stopping power, but being slow and with low range and not being accessible too early essentially means you never use or bother acquiring them. Personally I would have loved to have seen them be a combination Melee/range weapon for combat flexible pawns, but it being a full range weapon really brings down its usefulness when it has to compete with guns. Do ranged weapons ever give any melee combat advantage?(other than blasting from the back lines of course)
Guns all have a melee DPS number associated with them but all the numbers are the same 4.5 which is about twice that of a fist and exactly equal to a beer bottle. Pila are a bit like grenades, they can do a lot of damage but only if the person wielding them does not mind putting themselves in a dangerous position. Since losing pawns is bad we tend to stick to safer weapons.
I actually prefer the bolt action rifle for most stuff in game because I love out-ranging the enemy, so I even use a sniper rifle on one of my guys. The utility of hitting them and them not hitting you is wonderful, and a bolt action can kill any low to midgame enemy in only a few shots, so a basic rifleman team of just a couple guys can drop enemies quickly unless they suck at shooting, which sounds like a you problem.
I am going to do kill box design next, I can't find any good tutorials on it anywhere. For me a good tutorial does not just tell you what to do, it's tell you why it's done that way so you can build on the knowledge.
This may sound weird, but I think you should do one round of testing using a Great Bow, these things pack a surprisingly big punch if you manage to grab a decent quality one
Did a bit of testing and the results are not great, even with a masterwork great bow and all the stacked bonus (Lucy, go juice, bionic eye) it has less damage than a level 10 shooter with an excellent assault rifle. Assuming equal quality both the bolt action and auto pistol are superior to it.
@@Bastit3hman Possible not as a direct result of the target being mechanical (I don't think mechs get a bonus to neolithic weapons, for example), but as a result of centipede's high armour and armour penetration. Even with the high DPS of the great bow, it only has 15% penetration, while the guns are a lot better.
What needs to be considered is material and technologies. You can make the heavy smg earlier and for less resources than assault rifles which makes it early on better especially if you also consider it being better for less skilled colonists. You can also make more attempts at better quality with less material loss.
A few of the weapons have some unlisted bonuses. Machine pistols are great at dropping targets without killing by piling on small wounds but even better at causing brain damage in the process.
great video thanks! will be equipping my noobs with smgs asap. I like to pretend as if my colonists have no idea about alien technology so I stick to ARs and whatever I pick up or trade
One thing that I like doing is setting up orders for "build until you have X number" for things like weapons and then assigning a stockpile for them near the killbox. Counting equipped ones. Once everyone is equipped, I will start modifying the order AND the stockpile to only count weapons of a certain quality and then begin replacing inferior ones. Then once that is done, increase quality again. Eventually the stockpile moves all the way up to masterwork and legendary only. If I have one of those Crafting roles from ideology, i set it to legendary instead since they can reliably mass produce legendary quality items. Nothing is wasted, and it is done gradually so the crafter isn't overwhelmed with trying to just crank out nothing but max quality items all at once. The lower quality ones can just get smelted down for parts or even traded away. As far as weapon DPS goes, minigun has my heart now and forever simply because even if they miss one of their million bullet sprays, it's still gonna hit the guy behind the target. When fighting clumps, nearly all bullets are gonna land. And if there is only one target in range, your big squad of defenders is going to mow down that single target regardless through focused fire.
Hot damn. If I knew masterworks gave that kind of armor penetration alone I would have assigned a dedicated colonist to keep crafting them non-stop until a certain number of masterworks are in stock. Think I'll do just that. Sell all the extras or break them down, ha.
Well if we talking about in base defence then why not Combat shotguns? The only downside of them is the range, but if it's inside the base, then it will be close ranged combat from the start. In everything else combat shotgun is amazing. The DPS is even higher, than SMG, the reload/aiming is good too, but the most important thing - stagger and chance of heavy damage. This weapon is the best for all non combat units, since it's spray'n'pray type.
Have you thought about putting out a tutorial on using debug in rimworld? Love these kinds of tests but never seen anything on how to actually enable the features.
Debug mode is available in the options it's a tick box. Though it is a very unfriendly interface where I still struggle to find things. I just use it mostly for instant build and spawning enemies for testing. For testing different load outs I use a mod "character editor" allows you to equip a pawn with any weapon or armour or any material or quality and copy paste it to different pawns. Can also change stats, passions, traits, mood pretty much anything you want.
It's like comparing apples with oranges. Snipers, Lances and Bolt action all get an aiming penalty at close distance so I would need to extend the kill lanes by a fair distance. I wanted all the weapons to have roughly the same range for a fair comparison. I almost left out the SMG but it was only a few tiles short so I included it.
I just use 1 EMP grenadier, 1 or 2 miniguns, 1 or 2 charge rifles and the rest assault rifles. It's worked fine so far. Top skill level, no saves, naked brutality - all that.
I have massively underestimated the usefulness of both the H-SMG and the chain gun, though I do wonder how they stack up against my master crafted chainshotguns
The SMG is really strong, but only on the beginning. If i´d play on naked brutality, and a Weapon trader caravan had some tragic accident with wild elephants atacking - Best weapon i would get for first raid would be Assault rifle, second the SMG. The Charge rifle would miss to many shots, so the naked dude with the knife would maybe reach my pawn unharmed.
Years ago, I played the wealthy explorer game mode and day 2 there was a manhunting hare. My pawn missed every shot with his charge rifle and got bitten one time before he killed the hare. He died on top of a stack of glitter world meds to infection since it was before self healing was added.
It's not a DPS weapon. It's a sniper. Originally it had the same range as a bolt action and was supposed to be a later game alternative. But it's range was nerfed from 37 --> 30 for balance reasons.
Aaah, so thats why my double archo-eyed masterwork sniper isnt bringing home warg food... kinda figured RNGesus had blessed Bullseye with a killstreak...
BOLT ACTION - A squad can decimate raiders waiting to attack or setting up a mortar position. You can easily pick of raiders and kite them as they try to chase you. Usually the mortar crew retreats before firing a single mortar and the raiders are significantly weakened by the time they attack my base. AUTOMATIC SHOTGUNS - I keep a stash of these puppies when raiders decide to drop pod on top of my base. Need I explain why? :)
@@kaleidoscope3234 No, it's not. Late-game you can pick them off just by using full cover like rock walls that you micro them around to fire, then back into cover, or similar. To go a step further, you can set up small pillboxes/bunkers around the map, which lets you move into position on basically any group that isn't attacking immediately, from a place of safety. Once you either deal with the snipers or at least reduce the numbers sufficiently, then you can attack at your leisure. If you have a psycaster, you can even yoink their components before they can properly build the mortars, preventing them from ever finishing them and removing the only real threat; can even turn them into an artillery shell and packaged meal delivery system by skipping those out of the siege camp and yoinking them.
Centipedes are not good test targets for a variety of reasons. One major problem with this test is that miniguns and LMGs are not single target weapons. They do best against clumps of targets. A proper test would include a variety of scenarios, including a mass of manhunting bears and a horde of tribals (spears or bows). Both are serious threats in real games. Against tribals I often find my miniguns outpace the damage of everything else by a factor of 5 of more.
I'm assuming the sniper rifle and charge lance were not added in the tests due to them taking so long to fire their dps would be dwarfed by everything else on this list?
Pretty much, this was more about determining the best weapons to be used in a kill box or for general combat. The sniper class weapons are more about shooting and running away.
Mr Shift that is true, yet the dps is what matters. I saw this tested by a streamer on twitch recently, and when they used chain shotguns they killed faster than assault riffles and miniguns at the short range and most of the time killed faster than charge at short range
Chain shotguns are amazing. My testing has an ulterior motive though, this is prep work for a kill box tutorial. That is why all the weapons tested had decent range, I almost did not include the SMG due to it's shorter range than all the other weapons. So while auto shotguns are amazing DPS wise the tiny range makes them problematic in a large kill box.
Francis John I’ll tend to build a starting base for my chain shotguns and then I’ll try to build a bigger one for chain shotguns. That’s my personal start tough
You missed the sniper rifle. I've been using a 3 man group to focus down centipedes that are tied up in combat. Maybe I should switch to assault rifles?
Snipers are not a DPS weapon, they are a stay at range and don't get hit back sort of weapon. We tested the Bolt action and it's damage per second was lower than an auto pistol. Late game as fights get bigger you tend to want as much damage per second you can get to shorten fights. I would advise you to try using some charge rifles instead of snipers, they will shred that centipede a lot quicker.
Is the LMG really “trash” though? From a DPS standpoint ok, but the stagger effect seems super useful so long as you have a few other pawns with other weapons. Yeah dump it for a minigun when you can, but up to that point it seems useful to have one as a squad weapon. Every stagger it causes makes a target a lot easier for someone else to take down faster.
Oh yeah it's got it's uses, it's still better than any bow, handgun or bolt/sniper rifle. But if I have SMG's or better I phase all the LMG's out. For me it's all about DPS, staggering someone is all well and good, but what good is staggering someone if the person behind them still manages to close the distance. It's only theoretical use is against bunched up melee humans, outside of that scenario it weaker than the rest of the tested weapons. For bunched up melee humans use a choke point and grenades. I was really surprised how much weaker it was than all the other weapons in it's class.
I've watched all of your rimworld tutorial nugget videos and although ive never played oxygen not included im watching it as well and i had a suggestion for this series and im not sure how anyone would go about testing it, however my challenge to you is finding out what would be "the best" melee weapon to use in rimworld
Do you think this tierlist is very different with the playthrough you're doing right now? (trigger happy + shooting command) I think weapons like the sniper riffle gained a significant dps boost, but i don't think it's enough to compete with the others. In a very long killbox with good shooters maybe.
I think the list would change a bit but the main contenders would still be there. Minigun is the obvious winner, the rest would gain roughly equally. Except for the LMG which would gain the most, though I don't think it would be enough to make it a contender.
Hey, not sure if you still read these comments, what about a couple underrated weapon comparisons, thinking especially of the "average non-hunter pawn", 0-5 skill Unless you're in controlled environments (kill boxes), range is king IMO. If you're assaulting a base, fighting in the open, or have space to move, these weapons are to be considered, mostly because their material cost is lower and they can be spam crafted for higher modifiers. Namely the bolt action and the greatbow. Edit: you went through most of my points later in the video, damn you're thorough.
@@FrancisJohnYT Can you tell me how you set up these tests? I wanted to test some entities against each other but I'm having some problems. 1. I tried to Spawn Pawn -> Select Pawns -> Try to have them fight, but even if they're from different factions they don't fight, they just try to wander out of the map. 2. If I tweak a pawn to specific stats/genes etc... how do I make a copy of that pawn? My idea was to just spawn the entity and have them fight instantly but for some reason entities don't seem too interested in fighting each other.
Have not tried Vanilla Expanded yet, I would need some free time this was about 25-30 hours to do. I'll put it on my list but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.
@@FrancisJohnYT Fair enough. It's just a suggestion; couldn't hurt to have extra ideas for new videos, right? I just liked what you did here, and wanted to see if weapons in the base game and vanilla expanded were balanced, and which from each came out as the best performing.
dude... black numbers mixed with deep red color background?, not very daltonic friendly to be honest, the only thing i was able to see the whole vid was few numbers and a bunch of red lines.
The charge Lance? That is more of a sniper weapon, it's DPS would be worse than the auto pistol and also not really a fair test of it's capabilities. The charge lance should be used for kiting.
@@FrancisJohnYT I wrote that before the video ended and I assumed the regular sniping rifle were included; thanks for the vid though because all signs I've seen pointed towards assault rifle and it's good to know the smg is good for pawns who ate poorly combat orientation
Some notes I can add to explain some things: Centipedes, while they are a good target to test on (as they are the most relevant late game enemy) have 180% accuracy multiplier on them due to their size, which can lead to 'overcapping' accuracy. This is why the Assault Rifle 'scales' poorly going to Masterwork/Legendary; the extra accuracy is almost useless vs a Centipede; vs a human target you would see more of a benefit. Also some weapons like the Assault Rifle overcap weapon accuracy (final accuracy is basically weapon accuracy at that range * pawn accuracy at that range * weather modifier * cover modifier * target size modifier which isn't the same as target size, and out of these, only target size can be above 100%) at 100% with Legendary, while the less accurate Charge Rifle/Minigun don't have this issue. This is the reason for some of the weird quality scaling you were seeing.
Also some of the reason the SMG is 'more skill friendly' is the simple fact that it has shorter range. The way pawn accuracy works is it takes the listed value (lets say 98% for a skill 14 shooter), and then takes the power of that value equal to the range to the target. This means shooting skill/bionics/buffs matter FAR less at short ranges. So any short range weapon is inherently very 'skill friendly', and this is also why fighting at shorter ranges can sometimes be to your advantage, even if you have longer ranged guns available.
Speaking of short range, I have to echo some other comments in saying that the Chain Shotgun is a weapon to ALWAYS be considered. It's ridiculously overpowered tbh, even vs highly armoured targets just due to it's insane raw DPS, and staggers on top of that. I've held off 200+ bugs in a choke point with 1 meleer blocking it and about 6 pawns with chain shotguns standing behind them, just due to the stagger preventing most of the bugs from even getting into melee range. Mass Scythers/Manhunters similarly are trivial to beat and often can't even land a hit if you lure them into a 1 tile wide hallway due to the stagger + DPS. In terms of numbers, a Chain Shotgun usually beats out a Charge rifle by around 30-40% DPS vs unarmoured/low armour humans, about 10-20% vs Centipedes, and roughly breaks even vs highly armoured humans (marine armour and up) at 12 tiles range for both. On top of this, the Chain Shotgun is available very early in the tech tree, and is insanely cheap to make, so it's trivial to equip everyone with them very early in the game (and the cheap cost means 'farming' for masterworks with a high skill crafter is much more viable then with pricier weapons, and a masterwork chain shotgun will DESTROY any excellent weapon), and obviously it has stagger. It's pretty much hands down the best weapon in vanilla vs bugs, vs sappers, and vs drop pod raids (vs mech pods mix with EMP grenades for safety), and sappers/pods are the hardest raid types anyways. Heck in the early game I usually just build a basic sapper lure corridor with a bunch of chain shotgun positions and basically just use that defense up until I start getting larger raids (usually my breakpoint to build an actual 'killbox' is 10 centipedes in a single raid or more).
Overall these results fairly closely line up with my spreadsheet I made like 6 months ago (although I calculated DPS but the ratios are similar), although that had the advantage of letting me pick the target range and test many different guns/different shooting skills with just some numbers tweaks so I could see more information about various vanilla and modded guns (spoiler almost every modded gun is either trash or OP but I think everyone already knew that). That also is where I'm getting the rough numbers for the Chain Shotgun from.
Biggest deviation is probably that the Minigun is actually much better then your tests show ON PAPER, mostly because ofc of splash damage (however remember there is no more forced miss for the Minigun as of 1.0, so accuracy DOES matter for it now unlike what some people claim). However the Minigun does have one problem vs 'weaker' targets which is that if the target dies before it fires the entire 'burst' it just stops shooting and goes into cooldown mode, which is why people often recommend targeting a wall. The problem with doing that, is because again there is no more forced miss for Miniguns anymore, this leads to some shots being wasted because they ACTUALLY hit the wall you were aiming at, as even if someone is physically in the way of a shot, it is NOT 100% it will actually hit them. Between these two factors and the fact that MIniguns tend to swiss cheese walls which can force you make 'repair cubbies' and waste manpower on that during the fight, makes their amazing on paper damage less impressive in reality and I tend to just go with Charge Rifles or Chain Shotguns.
Also not that it's directly related, but it's sad how bad the Charge Lance is in 1.1 with the range nerf. Was nerfed to nerf Lancers, but they really should have added a new long range Charge Weapon in it's place for players, as in 1.1 there are basically two 'long range' weapons, the Bolt and Sniper, and both have serious issues. Means every fight is 31 tiles or less in practice.
On a final note, I have to echo some other comments that I'm not sure why you tested with skill 10/go juice/luci. It's a bit of a weird combo, I generally use higher shooting skill values (even a non passionate pawn can quickly build to 12+ shooting skill vs late game raids, and passionate ones will be pushing 16-19). Having said that I don't think it changes that much in most cases as when ranges are similar shooting accuracy is basically the same anyways (again pawn shooting acc is a MULTIPLIER so if the gun is inherently inaccurate vs accurate it doesn't really matter except when considering splash damage).
Centipedes are great test subject cause they pose actual threat late game and early game you just use what you have not what you want.
Chain shotguns are nice but have to short range to do anything other than killing mele enemies, great for infestations not so great aganist anything else.
This is a great response! I had never considered the hit box of the centipede. It makes me think that I may have been misusing the LMG and Minigun. In my mind, they were good in large enough quantities in situations where you had many many tribals. Your shots would miss target a lot, but the misses would still often hit and stagger a nearby tribal. I can't say that I ever want to line up against a horde of charging but at least that was how I envisioned them being useful. However, maybe these weapons were designed for taking out centipedes. The 180% hit modifier would make the weapons actually hit when other weapons have diminished returns. What are your thoughts on the optimal use of LMG and minigun?
I mean as the video shows and calculations show, the LMG still sucks even vs Centipedes (it's raw DPS is just too low, it's purely a staggering vs humans weapon). I was just noting the accuracy bonus because it explains why Assault Rifles don't scale well with quality above excellent when fighting Centipedes compared to minigun/charge rifle. That and the armour pen bonus is a multiplier, so it's better for the Charge Rifle then the AR/Minigun due to it's higher base pen. This accuracy overcapping issue only applies above a certain point, in most cases you will still see below 100% final hit rates vs Centipedes, unless your using a very accurate weapon like Bolt Actions/Snipers (which also suffer from weapon accuracy overcapping at higher qualities against all targets), or high quality Assault Rifles with a skilled pawn (which is exactly where it fell off during the testing).
As for the Minigun, yeah it's a great Centipede killer, the best one in the game IMHO (again the video shows this too, and it's even better on paper/vs grouped centipedes), if you can deal with the damage to walls/any furniture that happens to be around. Honestly that is probably it's best role due to the issues I mentioned with either overkilling cutting your burst short if you target a human enemy with a Minigun, or missing more shots then you have to if you target a wall with it.
As for the previous response, I wasn't trying to say Centipedes are a bad target to test on, just explaining the reason for the results due to the choice of test target. Also I would strongly disagree that Chain Shotguns are anti melee only. They are great vs pod/sapper raids too (esp since you usually don't want to be firing off a minigun and destroying all your own stuff in your dining room when they pod into it). Between pods, sappers, pure scyther raids, manhunter raids, infestations, that covers probably about half of all threats you will face on average. Certainly a situational weapon, but less then it seems at first glance.
@@xzardas541 Centipedes in fact doesn't pose nearly as much of a threat. since you would either be in a position to kite them to death, or they are dropping into the base, in which case u have the close quarter advantage and can mitigate most of their fire power by applying a proper base layout
Thanks for this response! I actually just replied to another comment with similar points about size and high-quality builds or low accuracy weapons and wrote "I read somewhere but don't remember where..." Must have been your doc.
you know people mean business when they pull out an excel sheet, great video
Please continue making these content filled guides. Being able to break the game down like this and understand it from different points of view is really making the difference on getting over the massive learning curve in this master piece. Thanks for all the valuable info!
Dang, all my playthroughs I've equipped all my guys with decked out LMGs.
@Punished_Luke my special teams are always charge rifles...
Sniper rifles suck balls
@@WikterRor2807 yeah cause you miss, git gud kid
@@WikterRor2807 They have longer range than all other weapons. There are not for direct combat, just use them to harass the enemy. Works well with increased speed. Works well if the enemy rallies before a siege.
Lol, me too. It is just the right balance between parts used, time spend and skill level when it comes to machining. Plus, my killbox doesn't really need too much help.
@@Ha-fh5np Mortars and snipers may miss. Boomalopes in a drop pod do not.
Nice seeing you making tutorials for rimworld, keep it on :D
Thanks for tutorial and spreadsheet!
Consider entrenching test targets with "Set terrain..."->"Deep water" to fix their positions if/when you decide to retest something range weapon related.
LMGs can be useful in a particular part of the game: They unlock with Gas Operation, while the Assault Rifle unlocks with Precision Rifling. The latter requires a high-tech research bench, while the former does not. Get some Masterwork LMGs made by a production specialist on your best shooters and they'll do great.
Other notes: Joggers make natural Minigun-wielders, able to more than keep up with other ranged pawns without the trait even with the movement penalty. Forced miss radius as a mechanic has also been removed from the game.
It is wonderful and amazing that you started an Excel sheet. I got super excited when I saw it.
I was however very disappointed when you decided not to use it for what it could have been.
Since Rimworld gives all the numbers (damage, refire/reload rate, movement, range, etc), it could be very possible to create a spreadsheet that would allow you to use it for ANY weapon against ANY mob. Plug in their stats, and it will give the true best DPS for each weapon, with differences shown in range/movement (bolt action/sniper gets less accurate as the target gets to very close range). The graphs that could produce would be amazing to see.
This was all caused by me running some test on the best weapon for killing infestations. The result did not match what the wiki said. You have to account for range, bug armour, pawn levels plus enhancements etc.
Theory crafting if beautiful, however real "world" testing gives you the important info like what's the most cost efficient gun to kill Centipedes with in a killbox.
Bug testing vidoe.
ruclips.net/video/4zBikWY8U74/видео.html
It was good but you missed chain shotgun, which is probably the only other gun worth testing against charge rifle.
I'm planning on using the info when doing a kill box tutorial, auto shotguns have a range so short it makes it problematic to create an effective kill box.
Yeah, I didn't use them a lot until recently, but now that I have space-wizard psycasters I've been shortening up my killbox and chain shotguns (and even charge shotguns) are really effective.
I find shotgun to be strong for rebels and raidings, or to capture someone, it rearly kills anyone, i think that its good thing to have.
@@FrancisJohnYT if you're in chain shotgun range, you might as well go thr extra mile and just use a zeushammer.
@@everinghall8622 shotgun optimal effective range is about 5-6 tiles, which is just inside friendly-fire minimum range as fire support for a melee combatant. SMG's peak at the 2-5 range. I'm not a fan of zeus', both for their wealtlh bloat and the fact emp launchers exist.
The way you just gave the SMG stat in the end had me dying. You sir have earned a sub
Another great video. Every time I think I'm done with a game, you make a video about it and now I want to start up Rimworld again. The two videos I need you to make are a good look at the best way to set up your base for efficiency/defense, and the best way to train up melee/rifle skills.
Damn, this is some rigorous testing methodology. I really have to give you props for this, man
Great work as always, thanks for the breakdown! Looking forward to the next nugget.
Thanks for the tutorial! Quick advise - if you make cell with dark background, then make font with light color. For example: red background, white font. These numbers will get reading much better in yours next videos! :)
My spreadsheet stuff I usually keep to my messy self, I'm going to have to work on my presentation.
Super excited to see you cover RimWorld. The combat system is so intricate that there aren't very many guides out there with actual data to back them up. I'm interested to see what the ranking is for a firefight (pirates/lancers), however I feel like range and cover make up the biggest factor in the calculations so getting "fair" testing to compare weapons will be difficult.
I feel like people default to Assault rifles because they are a powerful generalist before you can get Charge Rifles. Plus having more range means fewer chances to take damage and less downtime between raids. again, no idea how to fairly test it.
Keep up the great content.
What I'm trying to figure out is "realistic" best practices. That involves using kill boxes and dealing with drop raids occasionally. Though the new Psy powers are going to complicate things.
@@FrancisJohnYT from what I understand the psy powers are nuts. I saw a clip Yeti put out where a single pawn enrage a herd of elephants, went invisible and then let them destroy a pirate base.
I guess my question is: how would you structure your team to assault a fortified pirate base? I'm only on Ep 23 of your nomadic tribal so I haven't seen any late-game assaults. superb series btw its a really fun watch.
bolt action is great to disturb siege attacks early, especially with a very fast, skilled shooter you can deal decent damage before the assault even started
Dont you normally have snipers by the time people start rolling up with mortars?
@@everinghall8622 I personally don't like them because of the long aiming/cooldown
bolt action still outranges most weapons and feels a lot more responsive
they're also cheaper and available very early but of course not meant for stationary base defense, but seriously fun to take out an entire tribal raid with a single guy micromanaged (you do need bionics/archotech legs or other speed buffs though)
It's important to emphasize the importance of an ideal killbox environment on this testing method, where DPS is king. If you aren't able (or willing) to utilize nice efficient setups, you will get quite a bit more mileage out of the more niche weapons the game has to offer. I'm particularly fond of the bolt-action rifle myself. If you have to engage in a conventional firefight, its high range, accuracy, base damage, and armor pen all become a lot more valuable. Equipping everyone with them is foolhardy, but giving them to a couple of high-skilled shooters in your raiding parties and caravans is a good idea in case you get caught flat-footed. Sometimes a single powerful shot can do what a lot of smaller ones can't.
I have not conducted any proper experimentation like FJ has here, but after 1500 hours played I've been caught in plenty of shootouts, where the bolt-action holds its own quite handily.
I find the addition of royalty makes DPS even more valuable. Skip, invisibility, wall raise and jump jet packs allow you to manipulate the battlefield to your advantage. I will admit I have a soft spot for the bolt action, it has saved my bacon a lot of times.
For caravans on 500% difficulty you can get swamped with enemies if your not careful, I started carrying doomsdays from mid game onwards. Being outnumbered 5 to 1 by tribals is a death sentence without splash weapons.
@@FrancisJohnYT My comment was more aimed toward newer players who might immediately write off weapons based on their shortcomings in your testing- apologies for not making that clearer. It's a great guide with excellent information that I'm definitely filing away for future use.
Much of the Royalty content is still on my to-do list, as I have a short attention span and a host of mods that I generally gravitate towards instead (thank you for eating all of my resources and time, Android Tiers, SRTS, and SoS2). As I get farther into a game I definitely trend towards higher rates of fire as well.
Yeah, a few bolts or snipers can take out triple rocket pirates before they decimate your dudes so its always nice to keep a portion of your fighting force on the longer range weapons unless you are 1)killbox only, or 2) heavily pyscast stacked so you can berserk dudes to absorb the rockets
@@cookies23z there's a reason militaries mix marksman rifles into regular squads even if they're strategically inferior, and that's because the ability to land good shots on priority targets is too valuable to forgo.
Lol look at the most replayed part at around 6:30
Thats the biggest takeaway from this. The Heavy SMG slaps, you use this until level 10 shooting, then you give them a rifle.
Contrary to the video I like the charge rifles a lot. They work well with my killbox optimized for uranium slug turrets and heavy turret defense. I like running with a lot of combatitively worthless pawns, so if you rely on turrets anyway like I do, charge rifles are a nice armor piercing weapon in the late game when you have turrets staggering the mechs. I still recommend using heavy smgs and rifles in the mid game and well into the late game though. They're very good.
LMG on early game has the advantage of being lower on the tech tree and cheaper to make than the assault rifle, on late game I play with small colonies, so its not hard to get one or two colonists at crafting 20 churning out mastercraft weapons (10% chance at crafting 20). It is kind of crappy on most scenarios though.
This is certainly one of the scenarios where multiple diagrams display data better
Yeah this was a bit info dense, there was no real way of avoiding it. My spreadsheet kung fu is nonexistent.
Thank you so much for taking the time to test the weapons for us.
Always excited to see your videos!
thanx for these tests :)
ive always wondered what guns did what but had no idea
Take my sub! Great work, I love that you're making content like this.
Few things I may add to this: SMG (machine pistol is even better) is excelent capture weapon with high dps and low damage per bullet it will down pawns much more often, perfect to capture some tribals.
Minigun totaly rules in killboxes, just aim for wall behind enemies or last enemy(just remember they stop shooting when target falls, so it can be better to aim for walls when facing soft targets) and it will outperform any other weapon when faced big crowds. (despite its lower armor penetration it seems to be better to take on centipedes that tend to cluster in killbox entrance).
Other than that charge rifle is the straight upgrade from asalut rifle that simply lacks penetration to take on stronger foes, especialy catarpacts from royality DLC have way to much armor for normal guns to hurt them.
LMG was suposed to be early game minigun but has no dakka or penetration for it.
Also: Things like shooting skill above 10 and enchanced manipulation or sight have suprisingly small impact on dps, while getting bellow lvl 10 or injuries will throw accuracy to the floor.
I am doing the weapon testing as a prelude to kill box design which is why I specifically targets these weapons and left out the shorter range guns. Miniguns are by far the best all round weapon in my opinion but the move penalty is a big draw back, that is why I keep them near the kill box but have everyone carry sometime else.
I was surprised how much you could improve damage above 10 shooting. Take a 10 shooter with an excellent assault rifle, install a Bionic eye and you have increased their damage by 14%
@@FrancisJohnYT Then you should try remowing one eye and see how bad it gets.
I usualy throw minigun on anyone with bonus speed, makes suprise drop pods way easier to deal with.
Sorry but "excellent capture weapon" is a myth, pawns have a fixed dead on downed percentage. The only weapons that are bad for capture are those which kill in one shot.
@@jairo8746 There's a minor effect, though psychic shock lances make this whole discussion idle.
Some weapons can't destroy an organ with one projectile, some can, and some do enough damage to destroy a limb. Removed limbs and non-essential organs feel no pain and reduce the number of non-lethal targets for a bullet, making incapacitation from death more likely. Peppering a target's whole body with low-damage wounds results in incapacitation from pain, which allows the 'down or dead' roll.
I agree that there's no such thing as an excellent capture weapon, but there may be a least bad one.
I usually play with greatbows, but I've found using amr to be the best for killing them so are emp based weaponry. Also really cool that someone made a test to display what weapons do to late game threats really wish I had this when I first started
So do I, would have saved me loads of time :) Though in all fairness I do enjoy figuring this stuff out and the Heavy SMG was a nice surprise.
@@FrancisJohnYT can't argue with that
range also matters quite a bit. SMGs are excellent close-range shooters, while shotguns need some standoff range, and long rifles need around 12+ tiles of distance for optimal range (which can invite friendly fire if shooting into a melee). Optimal weapons change on the enemy. melee and SMG's are going to outperform against manhunters and melee rushes, while AR's and long rifles will perform better against standoff targets (and will likely friendly-fire if shooting at a melee fighter)
Wow, great work. Really well thought out and very helpful
bro you videos were the saving grace for me. I kept getting my ass kicked cause im new and playing with no mods.
It's amazing how little info their was on guns efficiency considering how popular this game is. Make sure you have a way of dealing with mass centipede before they show up, they are the main end game killer.
@@FrancisJohnYT Your Murder Munchkins make such good use of skip and melee that I have to master that technique.
Francis John, next rimeworld game, challenge "blind recruit " no bio checking before recruiting
This is the only way to start a colony :)
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Seeing your analysis the HSMG seems to do the best for arming people in mass early game or just generally large colonies.
Few things to note.
Centipedes are not exactly the best target - due to their size they are much easier to hit, which skews the accuracy and therefore DPS measurements.
There is one major factor people often underestimate, and this is range.
Assault rifle has advantage of being the longest ranged non-sniper and non-missile launcher weapon.
This means - using it gives you the comfort of always being able to comfortably sit behind cover - only the minigun matches the range.
Now, this does not matter in a killbox scenario, where you dictate the range, but not every fight is a killbox.
You may not think of it much at first, but when you realise how important it is to NOT have to leave cover to take down the Lancer mechanoid, this gets better and better.
Another thing is - DPS is not everything. I was doing some testing with Trigger Happy vs Careful Shooter - and from what I noticed, there are plenty of situations when one-shot kills or one-shot down scenarios are a thing - DPS does not really matter in such cases, accuracy and raw damage does.
With that in mind - minigun is generally the go-to option if you have high skilled pawn and you do not care about survivors. Reason being - minuigun's long series of shots tends to hit even dawned pawns and finish them off.
Wow, that quality buff was insane. I still don't know if it really makes legendary gun worth it for it's 5X wealth, but way better than I expected. Maybe tests about Awful vs Poor vs Normal vs Good ect. if you do a round 2. Also, would like to see similar tests about guns at 100% hp vs 80% vs 50% vs 20% vs 1%.
And you didn't even do a round with grenades!
I tested armour for deterioration and it turns out it keeps it's stats all the way down meaning deterioration means nothing to armour. Will have to do a little testing on weapons but I think it will be the same.
I think the 5X wealth might be worth it, the way I figure it with a minigun you get twice the DPS. To get the same bonus you would have to hire a second pawn, equip them with armour feed and bedroom them. Also you would need a bigger kill box. An excellent weapon already costs you 1.5X anyway.
I did a test with with weapon/armor quality grade not long ago. 10 melee vs 10 ranger with max out skill. 10 melee guys with excellent armor barely take a scratch against 10 ranger guys with normal charge rifle. All melee reach the ranger and 8/10 rangers lost the test (I gave the rangers power claws). Reverse the quality, excellent weapon vs normal armor. Most melee guys died in one volley. Only 1 melee fighter reach the rangers and died melee.
@@kaleidoscope3234 yea armor melee usually beats out armor ranged, the problem is late game there’s either soo many enemies their bullet barrage stager your melee pawns or theirs soo many centipedes your melee are always on fire
@@kaleidoscope3234 also it gets expensive constantly healing melee pawns and making them new armor, it’s more cost efficient to have 1 or two melee pawns draw agro into a one tile hallway with the rest of your pawns behind them with charge rifles or chain shotguns
@@kaleidoscope3234 lastly, melee pawns are really dangerous to your own colony, I’ve lost a lot of games from a full cyborg melee pawn going berserk and slicing up my whole colony , so it’s important if u have a max melee full cyborg to implant a learning assistant so you can safely fry their brain with emp
Really awesome job!! Thanks for researching : )
Great video, thanks for all the legwork!
Great breakdown. Blows my mind how popular this game is in (I assume) Ireland and the UK.
United States 28.9%
Germany 5.1%
United Kingdom 4.4%
Canada 3.2%
Poland 1.9%
Well that's what YT analytics tells me.
@@FrancisJohnYT Maybe Yanks aren't pulling their weight when it comes to Rimworld RUclips content then! :p
Bruh the first minigun I crafted in my current save ended up being legendary
Miniguns are great for massive waves of soft enemies, like late game tribal raids or manhunter packs, because pretty much you're going to hit something anywhere the bullet lands. Centipedes do not come in large packs, a at it's worse it will be 5 or 6 of them, and because they are so slow your best bet is long range sniping with charge lances, which have more armor penetration, accuracy and range than any other weapon. The only caveat to that is that centipedes almost always come escorted by lancers, and pikemen, and in the latest patches they tend to stay together more than in earlier versions.
Assault rifles are the best overall mid game weapon, they are good for hunting, and engaging medium size raids until you can get charge rifles
The strangest weapon in Rimworld has got to be the Pila. They may be a bit niche as a neolithic weapon with excellent stopping power, but being slow and with low range and not being accessible too early essentially means you never use or bother acquiring them.
Personally I would have loved to have seen them be a combination Melee/range weapon for combat flexible pawns, but it being a full range weapon really brings down its usefulness when it has to compete with guns.
Do ranged weapons ever give any melee combat advantage?(other than blasting from the back lines of course)
Guns all have a melee DPS number associated with them but all the numbers are the same 4.5 which is about twice that of a fist and exactly equal to a beer bottle. Pila are a bit like grenades, they can do a lot of damage but only if the person wielding them does not mind putting themselves in a dangerous position. Since losing pawns is bad we tend to stick to safer weapons.
wow that's alot of work. Thank you!
I actually prefer the bolt action rifle for most stuff in game because I love out-ranging the enemy, so I even use a sniper rifle on one of my guys. The utility of hitting them and them not hitting you is wonderful, and a bolt action can kill any low to midgame enemy in only a few shots, so a basic rifleman team of just a couple guys can drop enemies quickly unless they suck at shooting, which sounds like a you problem.
Love this! What other tutorial nuggets are you thinking of doing?
I am going to do kill box design next, I can't find any good tutorials on it anywhere. For me a good tutorial does not just tell you what to do, it's tell you why it's done that way so you can build on the knowledge.
@@FrancisJohnYT I was hoping you'd do one! I've been struggling in building them myself.
This may sound weird, but I think you should do one round of testing using a Great Bow, these things pack a surprisingly big punch if you manage to grab a decent quality one
I agree. I've had a legendary greatbow several times and was very conflicted as far as knowing when to replace it.
Did a bit of testing and the results are not great, even with a masterwork great bow and all the stacked bonus (Lucy, go juice, bionic eye) it has less damage than a level 10 shooter with an excellent assault rifle.
Assuming equal quality both the bolt action and auto pistol are superior to it.
@@FrancisJohnYT Could it be that this is due to your chosen target being mechanical in nature?
@@Bastit3hman Possible not as a direct result of the target being mechanical (I don't think mechs get a bonus to neolithic weapons, for example), but as a result of centipede's high armour and armour penetration. Even with the high DPS of the great bow, it only has 15% penetration, while the guns are a lot better.
oh yeah its briliant idea!
holy crap, he's back!
What needs to be considered is material and technologies. You can make the heavy smg earlier and for less resources than assault rifles which makes it early on better especially if you also consider it being better for less skilled colonists. You can also make more attempts at better quality with less material loss.
bonus like for the extra test of masterwork smg :D
A few of the weapons have some unlisted bonuses. Machine pistols are great at dropping targets without killing by piling on small wounds but even better at causing brain damage in the process.
amazing video dude. Thanks for the video very helpful
I knew you were going to do that final test ;)
great video thanks! will be equipping my noobs with smgs asap. I like to pretend as if my colonists have no idea about alien technology so I stick to ARs and whatever I pick up or trade
One thing that I like doing is setting up orders for "build until you have X number" for things like weapons and then assigning a stockpile for them near the killbox. Counting equipped ones.
Once everyone is equipped, I will start modifying the order AND the stockpile to only count weapons of a certain quality and then begin replacing inferior ones. Then once that is done, increase quality again.
Eventually the stockpile moves all the way up to masterwork and legendary only. If I have one of those Crafting roles from ideology, i set it to legendary instead since they can reliably mass produce legendary quality items.
Nothing is wasted, and it is done gradually so the crafter isn't overwhelmed with trying to just crank out nothing but max quality items all at once. The lower quality ones can just get smelted down for parts or even traded away.
As far as weapon DPS goes, minigun has my heart now and forever simply because even if they miss one of their million bullet sprays, it's still gonna hit the guy behind the target. When fighting clumps, nearly all bullets are gonna land. And if there is only one target in range, your big squad of defenders is going to mow down that single target regardless through focused fire.
GREAT TESTS :D
Hot damn. If I knew masterworks gave that kind of armor penetration alone I would have assigned a dedicated colonist to keep crafting them non-stop until a certain number of masterworks are in stock. Think I'll do just that. Sell all the extras or break them down, ha.
I have a plan to get a dedicated crafter to make nothing but Heavy SMGs. Cheap but deadly and we can scrap anything below excellent.
a year later, it's much easier now if you have a production specialist
Well if we talking about in base defence then why not Combat shotguns? The only downside of them is the range, but if it's inside the base, then it will be close ranged combat from the start.
In everything else combat shotgun is amazing. The DPS is even higher, than SMG, the reload/aiming is good too, but the most important thing - stagger and chance of heavy damage.
This weapon is the best for all non combat units, since it's spray'n'pray type.
I love the Chain shotgun, it's amazing. It's just not possible to compare it to the other weapons on the list in a fair test due to it's tiny range.
Hello. Thank! You have done a great job! I am impressed! Thank! Thank! Thank!
The LMG stats make me think it might be good to equip 1 pawn with to lay down suppressive staggering fire
Keep in mind that missed shot can still hit something else. Low accuracy weapons' dps scale with size of battle. LMG isn't that bad.
aierce he mentioned in his tests even in a target rich environment with infestations where the LMG shines it still got outshined by other options
Have you thought about putting out a tutorial on using debug in rimworld? Love these kinds of tests but never seen anything on how to actually enable the features.
Debug mode is available in the options it's a tick box. Though it is a very unfriendly interface where I still struggle to find things. I just use it mostly for instant build and spawning enemies for testing. For testing different load outs I use a mod "character editor" allows you to equip a pawn with any weapon or armour or any material or quality and copy paste it to different pawns. Can also change stats, passions, traits, mood pretty much anything you want.
thank u for very helpfull guide
could u check guns for far distance? like snipers, bolts, put all of them together
It's like comparing apples with oranges. Snipers, Lances and Bolt action all get an aiming penalty at close distance so I would need to extend the kill lanes by a fair distance. I wanted all the weapons to have roughly the same range for a fair comparison. I almost left out the SMG but it was only a few tiles short so I included it.
Thank you so much! The ranged weapons confuse me.
I just use 1 EMP grenadier, 1 or 2 miniguns, 1 or 2 charge rifles and the rest assault rifles. It's worked fine so far. Top skill level, no saves, naked brutality - all that.
the lmg is good but its kinda like a support type gun its great paired with other guns
Great video !
I have massively underestimated the usefulness of both the H-SMG and the chain gun, though I do wonder how they stack up against my master crafted chainshotguns
The SMG is really strong, but only on the beginning. If i´d play on naked brutality, and a Weapon trader caravan had some tragic accident with wild elephants atacking - Best weapon i would get for first raid would be Assault rifle, second the SMG. The Charge rifle would miss to many shots, so the naked dude with the knife would maybe reach my pawn unharmed.
Years ago, I played the wealthy explorer game mode and day 2 there was a manhunting hare. My pawn missed every shot with his charge rifle and got bitten one time before he killed the hare. He died on top of a stack of glitter world meds to infection since it was before self healing was added.
Wait why didn't you test charge lance???
It's not a DPS weapon. It's a sniper. Originally it had the same range as a bolt action and was supposed to be a later game alternative. But it's range was nerfed from 37 --> 30 for balance reasons.
I appreciate this amazinly intelligent expement
Thanks for the video
Aaah, so thats why my double archo-eyed masterwork sniper isnt bringing home warg food... kinda figured RNGesus had blessed Bullseye with a killstreak...
Ive always used heavy SMGs, earlier to get and felt strong; replacing with excellent and masterworks (almost anything, bar pistols)
I wasnt wrong :D
So if I understand this right... then its
1. Charge Rifle
2. Minigun
3. Heavy SMG
4. Assault Rifle
5. LMG
6. Auto Pistol
7. Bolt Action
Got it, LMG = OMG dont use it!
BOLT ACTION - A squad can decimate raiders waiting to attack or setting up a mortar position. You can easily pick of raiders and kite them as they try to chase you. Usually the mortar crew retreats before firing a single mortar and the raiders are significantly weakened by the time they attack my base.
AUTOMATIC SHOTGUNS - I keep a stash of these puppies when raiders decide to drop pod on top of my base. Need I explain why? :)
late game mortars tends to have sniper rifle with them. Bolt rifle will be out ranged.
@@kaleidoscope3234 Late game snipers will out-range Bolt Rifle users, but a squad of them will disable or kill before they fire, typically.
@@KainYusanagi that's early you are talking about. Late game raiders have more snipers than you have pawns.
@@kaleidoscope3234 No, it's not. Late-game you can pick them off just by using full cover like rock walls that you micro them around to fire, then back into cover, or similar. To go a step further, you can set up small pillboxes/bunkers around the map, which lets you move into position on basically any group that isn't attacking immediately, from a place of safety. Once you either deal with the snipers or at least reduce the numbers sufficiently, then you can attack at your leisure. If you have a psycaster, you can even yoink their components before they can properly build the mortars, preventing them from ever finishing them and removing the only real threat; can even turn them into an artillery shell and packaged meal delivery system by skipping those out of the siege camp and yoinking them.
Great video but for the future I suggest not using a dark red with black text. Can be really hard to read for some people.
Just to correct you, but as per Predator, the minigun, is the best gun.
Curious as to how this holds up now, three years later. Accuracy percentages would have been nice too
Centipedes are not good test targets for a variety of reasons.
One major problem with this test is that miniguns and LMGs are not single target weapons. They do best against clumps of targets. A proper test would include a variety of scenarios, including a mass of manhunting bears and a horde of tribals (spears or bows). Both are serious threats in real games. Against tribals I often find my miniguns outpace the damage of everything else by a factor of 5 of more.
Are charge lances of any use?
I'm assuming the sniper rifle and charge lance were not added in the tests due to them taking so long to fire their dps would be dwarfed by everything else on this list?
Pretty much, this was more about determining the best weapons to be used in a kill box or for general combat. The sniper class weapons are more about shooting and running away.
You forgot chain shotguns. chain shotguns tend to do the best dps besides charge rifles
but they have smaller range.
Mr Shift that is true, yet the dps is what matters. I saw this tested by a streamer on twitch recently, and when they used chain shotguns they killed faster than assault riffles and miniguns at the short range and most of the time killed faster than charge at short range
Chain shotguns are amazing. My testing has an ulterior motive though, this is prep work for a kill box tutorial. That is why all the weapons tested had decent range, I almost did not include the SMG due to it's shorter range than all the other weapons. So while auto shotguns are amazing DPS wise the tiny range makes them problematic in a large kill box.
Francis John I’ll tend to build a starting base for my chain shotguns and then I’ll try to build a bigger one for chain shotguns. That’s my personal start tough
@@FrancisJohnYT Maybe the shotgunners could be off to the side, where the EMP grenadier stands.
You missed the sniper rifle. I've been using a 3 man group to focus down centipedes that are tied up in combat. Maybe I should switch to assault rifles?
Snipers are not a DPS weapon, they are a stay at range and don't get hit back sort of weapon.
We tested the Bolt action and it's damage per second was lower than an auto pistol.
Late game as fights get bigger you tend to want as much damage per second you can get to shorten fights. I would advise you to try using some charge rifles instead of snipers, they will shred that centipede a lot quicker.
@@FrancisJohnYT That makes sense, I'll be honest I don't usually survive this long to get to charge weaponry. I'll give it a shot. 👍
why is the charge lance not metioned
It's DPS is very low. Single shot damage is great but the reload time is the killer. It's the same reason the auto pistol beats the bolt action rifle.
You really need to factor in the assault rifle and bolt-actions range. The fact that they can start hitting the enemy sooner is a huge deal.
Is the LMG really “trash” though? From a DPS standpoint ok, but the stagger effect seems super useful so long as you have a few other pawns with other weapons. Yeah dump it for a minigun when you can, but up to that point it seems useful to have one as a squad weapon. Every stagger it causes makes a target a lot easier for someone else to take down faster.
Oh yeah it's got it's uses, it's still better than any bow, handgun or bolt/sniper rifle. But if I have SMG's or better I phase all the LMG's out.
For me it's all about DPS, staggering someone is all well and good, but what good is staggering someone if the person behind them still manages to close the distance. It's only theoretical use is against bunched up melee humans, outside of that scenario it weaker than the rest of the tested weapons. For bunched up melee humans use a choke point and grenades. I was really surprised how much weaker it was than all the other weapons in it's class.
I've watched all of your rimworld tutorial nugget videos and although ive never played oxygen not included im watching it as well and i had a suggestion for this series and im not sure how anyone would go about testing it, however my challenge to you is finding out what would be "the best" melee weapon to use in rimworld
What mod is used to see all enemy’s and all the statistics?
RimHUD, it's also customizable.
Do you think this tierlist is very different with the playthrough you're doing right now? (trigger happy + shooting command)
I think weapons like the sniper riffle gained a significant dps boost, but i don't think it's enough to compete with the others. In a very long killbox with good shooters maybe.
I think the list would change a bit but the main contenders would still be there. Minigun is the obvious winner, the rest would gain roughly equally. Except for the LMG which would gain the most, though I don't think it would be enough to make it a contender.
It would be awesome to see this same type of video with melee weapons
Hey, not sure if you still read these comments, what about a couple underrated weapon comparisons, thinking especially of the "average non-hunter pawn", 0-5 skill
Unless you're in controlled environments (kill boxes), range is king IMO. If you're assaulting a base, fighting in the open, or have space to move, these weapons are to be considered, mostly because their material cost is lower and they can be spam crafted for higher modifiers.
Namely the bolt action and the greatbow.
Edit: you went through most of my points later in the video, damn you're thorough.
Have you done any testing on bolt action vs Sniper vs charge lance?
Is this video still up to date?
I believe so. Some new enemies were introduced but that should not affect weapon effectiveness.
@@FrancisJohnYT Can you tell me how you set up these tests?
I wanted to test some entities against each other but I'm having some problems.
1. I tried to Spawn Pawn -> Select Pawns -> Try to have them fight, but even if they're from different factions they don't fight, they just try to wander out of the map.
2. If I tweak a pawn to specific stats/genes etc... how do I make a copy of that pawn?
My idea was to just spawn the entity and have them fight instantly but for some reason entities don't seem too interested in fighting each other.
how do you change the weapon of the centipes
The mod Character Editor, very useful for testing scenarios.
@@FrancisJohnYT! linkmod Character Editor
Any chance you would do a similar video, applying the same treatment to "Vanilla Expanded Weapons"?
Have not tried Vanilla Expanded yet, I would need some free time this was about 25-30 hours to do. I'll put it on my list but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.
@@FrancisJohnYT Fair enough. It's just a suggestion; couldn't hurt to have extra ideas for new videos, right? I just liked what you did here, and wanted to see if weapons in the base game and vanilla expanded were balanced, and which from each came out as the best performing.
dude... black numbers mixed with deep red color background?, not very daltonic friendly to be honest, the only thing i was able to see the whole vid was few numbers and a bunch of red lines.
My bad, usually my ugly spreadsheet messes are kept to myself. Next time I'll stick with the black and white standard.
It's very difficult to see as someone with all my color sensors going. Francis you absolute mad-lad, haha.
@@FrancisJohnYT eh, doesn't have to be monochrome. White text on red works too.
Skill issue
Now to do the same test against soft targets (Llamas?)
megasloths might be good as they can take many many hits
What I need is a modded meat target, say a slow moving lama with 10 times the hit points and no armour.
What about the Charge Lance?
It's rate of fire is so low it reduces it's overall DPS to a little lower than the auto pistol. It's more of a hit and run weapon.
What if you weren’t looking at DPM and instead looked at how many to would take to keep them out of return fire range?
i just love your voice
I wish u put the other particle weapon
The charge Lance? That is more of a sniper weapon, it's DPS would be worse than the auto pistol and also not really a fair test of it's capabilities. The charge lance should be used for kiting.
@@FrancisJohnYT I wrote that before the video ended and I assumed the regular sniping rifle were included; thanks for the vid though because all signs I've seen pointed towards assault rifle and it's good to know the smg is good for pawns who ate poorly combat orientation