The best load out for the job

[Pigeon]

Basically how you view each guy and how it should be and when it should be used. Now it should be noted typically you want to be aggressive with aliens to deny any get away with that...

Buck shotgun- best all around but horrible versus stuns and long abilities, the workhorse of delta and scourge of lurkers and runners. It heavy counters them though in truth buck is best with a robust group able to quick react to jumps.

Slug- great against tier 1 and tier 2(excluding carrier+hivelord) for the little stun it offer at range, not much else a true utility weapon

Flechette- Armor shredder and can pack a punch, the long range buck more or less expect no ministun. Best verus armored tier 1, 2, and queen as they have horrible armor regen in the first place. Not often seen as people going shotgun are typically going for utility(slug) or raw kill power(buck)

41- if you can hit reliably something and keep the bullets coming the damage can be obscene, issue is hitting. Fantastic in long hallways and against range castes.

39- also nasty if it can hit but a more close range cousin of the 41

42 is just too slow to kill much but still liked for being a discount harassment tool against boilers and people resisting fire in the open but it low burst potential makes it weak vs harassers

Flamer- useful if you got a MD to track and finish or if you use to chase the burning alien otherwise it denys alien movement or helps get a lucky kill through it DoT. Typically seen cooking delta

Pistols- Stupidly high damage and stupidly fast, never knock the sidearms. Not always taken due to lack of slots, IE it is taken by shotgun ammo slot or medical/ammo on pockets though shoulder holster does increase the rate it is seen. Not often used as people get absolutely wrecked before they get a need or a chance to use it.

Add anything else you think about the various guns

EDI:fixing mistakes adding stuff

[diedsniper]

41 i dont like personally it feels like a peashooter since pistols do more damage, shoot faster, and any other gun will outdamage m41 or do the job better. Want long range capabilities, but still do good damage? L42 can even get IFF, Want insane damage up close since the game is 7 tiles of vision and the enemy is melee based? M37 buck will kill any xeno within 5 buckshot granted you can hit all the buckshot and are in melee distance. Or M39 just a wall of bullets warding off bigger enemies. If you wanted a bigger magazine than L42 or m39, HPR exists

42 can kill extremely fast, one mag can kill or heavily wound a majority of the xeno roster, the hallway of death combo is HPR, behind it is a smartgun, and behind the smartgun are B8 L42's , or use L42 as advanced chasing by stripping the stock and having no wield slowdown, and hard hitting shots.

Flamer can go well with alot of gear, as its a timer to xeno health, even a mini flamer will get a kill because somewhere someone with a scope may see them resting and confirm the kill, or stop a runner from teleporting across the map and resting, if you flame a low health xeno or a newbie xeno player they will just move one screen away in one direction making them easy to spot with binos or scopes.

[CABAL]

Again and again with information that everybody knows and those who doesn't, won't see it.

But to keep it less of a shitpost than the thread already is:

Slug doesn't stun all T2's. Carrier and Hivelord are not stunned by anything short of a HEDP. Benos standing up from slug stun are slowed down for about two seconds. It doesn't prevent benos from using abilities, only from changing them. In therms of a T3 its like a milisecond of not being able to change ability, if you blink, you might not notice red overlay on icons as a beno. Very low damage, always pack two handfulls of buckshot in armor, so that benos who think they are hot shit by shorting the distance will get unpleasant suprise.

Don't bother with Pulse Rifle, objectively the worst gun in marine arsenal. The only redeeming quality is UGL, only that. If M39 could take UGL, Pulse Rifle could be as well removed to not be a noob trap. Because its jack of all trades master of none, but also sucks at those trades too.
At being stationary bipod-scope weapon its getting beaten by HPR. At being suppresive weapon its beaten by HPR, at being chase weapon it is beaten by every other firearm besides shotgun, flamer and revolver.
If you don't plan on using UGL, don't take Pulse Rifle.

Flamer.
Option 1): Sidearm on belt slot (not in belt) with rail light. Revolver seems to be the best option as you can mount bayonet, rail light and laser sight to finish off ressiting benos as well as shooting ravs and Queens. Flamer with magharness.
Option 2): Sidearm in belt, MD in Armor slot, rail light on Flamer. Revolver has too much of a kick to use it one-handed, so its better to get Mod88 thanks to a lot of ammo in mags.

M39.
Second only to buckshot shotgun. Take it everytime. Bigger mags, better speed etc. 1 - 3 tiles burst, any further only single fire clicks.

[Snezhinka]

Buck shotgun - The only effective thing to kill xenos. You tend to trigger spoonfed xenos with this.

Slugs - Support use. But then again, why disable and stun when you can outright kill with buck?

M41A - Weak and slow. As CABAL has mentioned the UGL is very useful. You can however slap a QF and bipod on it to simulate full auto. I have killed more then a hundred xenos with that setup. Only issue is that you can only use it at certain locations.

L42 - Powerful yet slow. I've seen people delimb marines with this. I've seen marines with smartscopes standing behind finishing off disabled benos with this safely. Results can vary. Still better then the M41A at base level.....

M39 - Better then the M41A if you just want to spew bullets. Vertical grip is a must for burst spread.

Flamer - Pretty good. You'll never run out of napalm and welder fuel is everywhere. You can also piss off a lot marines and xenos with this thing.

M4A3 - Extremely powerful. Probably stronger then the Mateba overall. I've seen it take out about 60% hp of an Elder Defender in one clip. I think I need further research on its damage value...

[Chocolate_bickie]

Take buckshot. Set harm intent. Pointblank xenos. Pretend this took skill.

[Moosetasm]

Best loadout will depend on what you’re doing, and where you’re doing it:

My personal all-around build:

- Light armor. You all know why; too slow = dead

- Incinerator with 90 gel fuel in the back slot. Gel fuel does shit for damage, but it clears weeds very well, and surprises xenos who think no marine would ever want to use gel, and thus think they’re safe 6-7 tiles away.

- Fuel strap pouch with 2x 60u napalm tanks. These do more damage and burn longer than the Gel fuel, and are great for setting large patches of grass or vines on fire, and clearing them out. It is also good for area denial, making sure that only Queens & Ravagers can go through places you’ve torched unscathed. Never use welding fuel, it sucks.

- Incinerator backpack fuel tank (labeled with my name, because when I don’t, some asshole always steals it). I leave it either at the FOB or carry it to whatever forward safe position has been established. This is for refueling the 90u Gel tank, making it into a 90u napalm tank. Having a fuel tank last 50% longer is beyond incredibly useful. I wish they had a standard issue 90u napalm tank.

- m39 in the armor slot. Attachments are: folding stock, mag harness, laser sight, and suppressor. Anything that kills your accuracy, like the arm brace, barrel charger, or burst fire assembly, makes the thing inaccurate as fuck, and are not worth it, IMO. Great for gunning down anything that laughs at the incinerator, especially if they don’t expect it. I’ve purposefully torched Ravs to bait them into chasing me, only to switch to the m39 once they’re closer, and unload an entire clip into them at close range.

- 5-6 m39 AP clips distributed between armor, and a magazine pouch (or large magazine pouch if someone didn’t take theirs from their veteran kit) With this build, I go with AP ammo only. I’ve murdered close combat T3s that thought my incinerator was the only weapon I had on me, and AP is to thank for that.

- Brown or Black webbing with mini extinguisher (though I only set friendlies or myself on fire maybe once a week now), an MRE, with preference towards chicken tenders (damn things contain like three whole chickens worth of meat), and a flask full of UNGA juice, the last two spots are reserved for in case I need to grab med pens, grenades, or maybe a Walkman.


So, my verdicts on the other weapons that exist:

- M41: this weapon is trash right now. I can’t even get xenos to retreat by emptying a full clip into them with this thing. It doesn’t specialize, which means that, instead of being ok at lots of things but good at none, it’s just bad at most things. The UGL is one of the number one causes of FF, but unlike when throwing grenades, you can’t accidentally prime and then drop UGL grenades by being knocked down. But you’re just as likely to bounce it back into yourself or off another marine so... good job alpha.

- HPR: my experience with this gun is that it thinks that fire volume is equivalent to effectiveness. This would be true if you hit with more than 10% of the shots fired from this thing. Having no IFF and the range it does makes this much more effective at killing fellow marines. Only time this might be worth it is if you know for a fact the entire xenos force is attacking one set of cadelines.

- Pistols: they either do too little damage or don’t have nearly enough ammo to do anything close to respectable damage on a per-reload basis. Being able to fit 5 pistol clips in a belt holster, or 6 clips in a large pistol mag pouch doesn’t make up for the speed with which you’ll be emptying entire clips for mediocre damage at best.

- L42: Decent weapon. I’ve used it to drive off T3s and even the Queen, especially with the AP ammunition. It’s close to impossible to get kills with if you’re the one who starts shooting a xeno, but it is very good at finishing off already wounded xenos.

- m37: potentially the most effective close-range weapon. Buckshot PB is a devastating attack, but it requires skill to dance into range and be able to pull off the shot without being shredded yourself. Is the bane of pretty much all T1s, some T2, and any T3 that doesn’t know how to use their abilities to tear your arms off. Even if you can’t PB, buckshot still does a decent amount of damage and stun at close range. Slugs are very good for teamwork kills. One person slugs a xeno, the other guy runs up and buckshot PBs it. Flechettes... I haven’t seen them used effectively yet, but they should be good at driving off anything that relies heavily on its armor, like the queen or crusher.

- Grenades: just going to say this now: If I see someone use HEFA, I assume they’re antag. HEDP is good when cooked and used well. HIDP is the same way.

- OT Grenades: feast or famine. These things either fizzle out in an intensity 1 fire with almost no radius, or cause an explosion equivalent to an HE mortar shell. If you know OT explosive basics, find out what’s in the nade so you know what to expect. If you don’t know OT, find out who is an OT that round, and make sure it’s someone who knows what they’re doing.

There, I’ve already written more than I prolly should have.

[IMMASPACENINJA]

42 is a better chase gun than 41

Take the stock off, slap a rail light on top. Thats it, you got a hard-hitting gun with no wield slowdown and perfect accuracy.

The only thing m41 got going it it's UGL

[Fortelian]

M4A3 - Extremely powerful. Probably stronger then the Mateba overall. I've seen it take out about 60% hp of an Elder Defender in one clip. I think I need further research on its damage value...

Probably thinking of custom M4A3