Strategy:Assault rifle

0.9.9.7

Agility mods are typically at a premium, since they're frequently used in tactical boots, tactical armor and cerberus armor, so anything that uses three of them better be worth it. Well it's good news then that the Assault Rifle is remarkably powerful, though it doesn't look like it at first. You fire half as many shots, but each shot costs double the ammo, so it doesn't even conserve any. What gives! How could this be worth it?

Ammochain.

An Assault Chaingun has as much base accuracy as a pistol and fires shots that deal 2d5 damage. A level of Triggerhappy lets it fire three bullets, and two lets it fire four. Each bullet deals 6 damage on average before Son of a Bitch, but you probably already have that maxed, so 9 damage compared to the base Chaingun's 6.5, with half the reload time. This essentially means it's doing the Chaingun's theoretical max damage per bullet on average, and can punch even higher, hitting a max damage of 13 per bullet with SoB 3.

Firing four bullets that do ~9 damage vs six that do ~6.5 is actually a slight decrease in average damage, assuming all shots connect, which holds true with pretty much any weapon this assembly is applied to. However, having more accuracy comes in handy in a build that blocks Eagle Eye, like Ammochain, where its ammo cost increase is almost irrelevant but its increase in accuracy, damage per shot, and reload speed are all things the build sorely needs.

A build with Eagle Eye access would probably be better suited with a burst cannon, which would better leverage Son of a Bitch and uses Bulk mods, which are usually not needed for much aside from fireproof red armor and tactical rocket launcher, assuming you're not in possession of enough Firestorm or Nano mods for a biggest fucking gun or a nanomanufacture ammo assembly.

Any build that isn't Ammochain that doesn't want to dip into so many levels of Eagle Eye might want to consider turning their plasma rifle into a Hyperblaster instead, which deals about the same DPS but uses less ammo at a time, allowing for less overkill.Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 11:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

The above guide is flawed, as it ignores the accuracy boost that the Agility mods required for this assembly already give. As a result, the Assault Rifle does not actually give your weapon any additional accuracy boost (in fact, it actually makes the weapon less accurate in 0.9.9.7 than applying the mods normally, where the Assault Rifle only gave a +2 accuracy boost while the requisite AAA mods would give a +3 boost, at least 0.9.9.8 makes it +3 accuracy so you're not making your weapon outright worse). Additionally, the DPS disadvantage grows farther with each level of SoB you have when you're firing half as many shots. Another serious downside not mentioned is that the stronger individual shots will produce knockback (on a Plasma Rifle, you wouldn't even need any levels of SoB for knockback to be an issue on this assembly), which will result in shots pushing enemies out of vision and causing subsequent shots to miss, worsening its damage output and wasting ammo. The only actual advantage of this assembly is the half reload time, but for Ammochain that is a complete nonfactor when you both have Reloader 2 and will almost never deplete your clip in a fight, while this is far from worthwhile enough for other builds to be worth making the weapon so much worse offensively and ammo efficiency wise. Whether in 0.9.9.7 or 0.9.9.8, there's no practical reason to make this assembly, especially not on a Plasma Rifle when the Hyperblaster ridiculously outclasses an Assault Plasma Rifle. Omega Tyrant (talk) 02:21, 7 April 2025 (UTC)