TNM Weapons

[santherus]

I was just wondering to what extent people use the shiny new TNM weapons (this isn't a poke at them by the way): I personally find that I don't use any of them other than the firestaff and the dual pistols

Pump gun - seems a bit underpowered: never use it.
Napalm Launcher - same size as the GEP; why use it instead of the GEP?
Phat Gun - didn't impress me for utility. Am I missing something?
Punches (any) - only stun gloves have something that I'd want to use, but the opportunity cost to reach master means that I don't since the patch to make them the master glove.

Firestaff - Tiny flamethrower (albeit with scarce ammo). Likes - it fits into the inventory nicely.
Dual pistols - all sorts of cool, nice damage, purchasable ammo.

Basically, is there a good reason why I'd prefer the more wacky guns over a DTS or GEP (+Sniper, if that's your style)?

[Jonas]

The EMP pistol is possibly the most useful weapon in the whole game, but otherwise the weapons aren't so much there for their utility as their entertainment value. The GEP is significantly more useful than the napalm launcher, but the napalm launcher fires GELATINOUS BLOBS OF NAPALM that stick to an enemy for a bit until it sets them on fire! What's not to love? Same thing goes for eg. the quad launcher: It's less powerful than the GEP gun, but it's just hilariously awesome: Going on a killing spree with the quad launcher has unparallelled entertainment value IMO.

And the PHAT-Rifle... well, if you don't see the humour in that, I can't help you

As for the pump-gun, if you put a laser mod on that, you end up with what is basically a really overpowered pistol because all the pellets will hit where the dot is.

Then there's the vortex grenade, potentially the most powerful weapon in the game (if you don't kill yourself with it) and the unique versions of the original weapons, namely AO's pistol and ZP's rifle, both of which are incredibly useful.

[robocop]

Well, from the start I wanted to try out every new thing in the game, so for my PDX playthrough, I went with fists, demolitions, environmental training, and pistols. I was playing 1.0.1, so the stun gloves were grossly overpowered given their small skill cost - it was easier to beat down 3 guys in a small room than to shoot them! Ditto about the EMP pistol, and Trestkon's pistols. I was also a fan of the molotovs (by far the easiest way of taking out ZeroPresence, although I never got the chance to try out other flame weapons), the vortex grenades, and the lollerskates (even though I only ever found 1 really good place to use them).

For my ongoing WC playthrough, I'm going with rifles and heavy weapons. Seeing as I'm untrained with lockpicks or multitools, it cost SO much money for me to get enough multitools to get the PHAT rifle, and it turns out to be pretty useless compared to other guns. Maybe it's more effective than conventional weapons against augmented agents or something, but otherwise it's only useful for the rice bags (who the hell thought of rice bags as ammo anyway?). The napalm launcher is essentially the poor man's flamethrower, and I'm only keeping it until I can afford a GEP gun. Using it guarantees that you get shot up, and it doesn't work well (or at all) against many enemies.

I used the pumpgun alongside the sawn-off (I took it off the llama patrolling outside the temple!) until I found an assault shotgun, which really wasn't far into the game. The pumpgun was better than the sawn-off against opponents between 10 and 20 feet away (which is useless since you could generally just run closer with the sawn-off), but it was usefully better than the sawn-off for large groups of enemies as well, with its larger magazine and faster reload.

I never tried the firestaff or quad launcher, as I wasn't trained in the respective skills.

Did I miss anything?

[Jonas]

Well, from the start I wanted to try out every new thing in the game, so for my PDX playthrough, I went with fists, demolitions, environmental training, and pistols. I was playing 1.0.1, so the stun gloves were grossly overpowered given their small skill cost - it was easier to beat down 3 guys in a small room than to shoot them! Ditto about the EMP pistol, and Trestkon's pistols. I was also a fan of the molotovs (by far the easiest way of taking out ZeroPresence, although I never got the chance to try out other flame weapons), the vortex grenades, and the lollerskates (even though I only ever found 1 really good place to use them).

I forgot about the molotovs - those are in fact quite useful because they fill a niche no other weapon does: It lays down a firetrap that enemies are too stupid to avoid.

Maybe it's more effective than conventional weapons against augmented agents or something, but otherwise it's only useful for the rice bags (who the hell thought of rice bags as ammo anyway?).

That would be me. I believe it originated as a slip of the tongue (I was thinking about beanbag ammo, but I called it ricebag ammo by mistake) and we thought it was a hilarious idea that worked well with the party novelty concept of the rifle (perfect for weddings!) so we just rolled with it. Plus, rice can logically be found in pretty much every kitchen in the game. And yes, the ricebag launcher completely justifies the inventory space of the PHAT-Rifle, but it's also really good against bosses because it doesn't care about hitpoints - it always takes the same amount of hits to kill a character, regardless of how tough they are, so the tougher your enemy, the more powerful the PHAT-Rifle becomes relative to other weapons.

[Hassat Hunter]

EMP pistol is the best, and I generally use Trestkon's pistol for Greaselwhacking in the sewers.

Aside from that Digital Ronin's Katana and the Molotovs are pretty nice additional weaponry.

I used the pumpgun in my rifle run to save Assault Rifle ammo, but it really isn't all that effective until you are really close. And that close is rarily good for your health, especially if Trestkon is "fragile". Sniper would win, but the gun is earlier available, and the laser does look awesome on it.

Firestaff is great, but oddly enough ammo is plenty BEFORE you get the staff and becomes rarer after you find it. What's up with that? It still does a great job, but generally I do tend to give up on it favouring another weapon for it's slots, as Molotovs are compacter.

I suck at aiming ricebags and the mainfire of the PHAT is usually getting me killed before the opponent, so I never saw too much use for it either. Does it require less shots to kill with higher Weapons:Rifle skill? I think it should.

Never used the Quad or Napalm launcher because I just don't have the space for these immense things. GEP neither (even though I carried one always from start to end in DX), as LAM's and EMP nades are plentiful.

[Xesum]

The EMP Gun is great.

[DDL]

I really love the fact that people actually use the napalm launcher. Even I think that one's useless (albeit hilariously so). Incidentally, do you know why no NPCs use it? Because they're too dumb to work out how it actually works, so tend to fire globs at the floor about 15 feet in front of themselves, then promptly run at you at almost exactly the right speed to get caught in the blast radius. Hilarious, obviously..but broken.


As for the pumpgun....oh I just love that thing. For what I realise is actually the first time EVER, I am playing DX (well, ok: TNM, but the fact applies to both) as a full on "LOL SHOTGUN IN UR FAEC" character, so full ballistic, speed and ADS and actually USING them (those are pretty much my default choices for those slots even when playing stealthy), and it's fucking awesome.

Llama temple was probably my favourite so far.

ZOOOM BLAM ZOOOOM BLAM ZOOOOOM BLAM GOTO 10

But yeah: the key point is not utility, it's hilarity.

[nopushbutton]

Punches (any) - only stun gloves have something that I'd want to use, but the opportunity cost to reach master means that I don't since the patch to make them the master glove.

I dunno, fists are still ridiculously useful. Not only can you can stun people and knock out robots by maxing out a cheap skill (and using items which you can obtain early on in the game, at least with the right augs), but it takes up no inventory space!

As for the PHAT rifle, it's basically a stealthy counterpart to the assault rifle, and its ammo is common even in high item difficulties-what's not to love?

The pumpgun, as mentioned previously, is useful with the zooming-around-poppin'-heads tactic, but even early on it's pretty useful, as it has pretty good accuracy even with no skills.

[Dark Reality]

Where does one find the EMP pistol? I find charges for it, and pick them up, but I haven't found the actual gun yet.

Trestkon's dual pistols are amazing, my favorite weapon in the game. Ammo is a little scarce but the ammo vending machine at Raving's sells it cheap, so it's all good. (Only problem with that is not knowing what the ammo cap is; my current save has 3-4 boxes of .45 ammo on the floor in front of the vending machine.)

AO's pistol is good, but I've only used it a bit.

The firestaff is highly effective for its size, and it looks cool. It's what I used to take out Athena. Now, it's risky, because if her fire goes out before she dies, it crashes the game. Speed aug on, set her afire, turn off all four valves (and be quick about it) and then 3-4 .45 shots to the face, it's all over.

Am I correct in assuming the foons and sporks are utterly worthless?

Pumpgun. Fond memories. I sided with the Llamas and was hunting Goats. I came upon the gazebo. Took out a LAM. Was spotted. Subsequently chased. Me running backwards with the pumpgun taking them out one at a time was the best fun I've had in the game. Not hard to reproduce either. For the longest time (and still do) I had a save for the original DX where it'd drop me on the rooftop (when you're supposed to meet Dowd) and I'd have a fully modded sniper rifle, full ammo, and rifle set to master. I'd go hunting. Good save to play from every now and then. I suspect I'll set up a similar save for this.

I don't care for either the PHAT-rifle or the napalm launcher. Not a big fan of heavy weapons. (I always take the GEP gun when Paul gives me the choice, to take out that bot in front of the statue, and blow up other stuff that can be opened, since I horde LAMs.)

Kylie's AR is cool but too quiet. Silenced is one thing, this is too much. It throws me off, so I don't use it. Never used ZP's rifle.

[santherus]

Can't believe I forgot about the EMP gun - it's insanely useful.

It's found in WC by the way - on a pedestal on either floor 2 or 3. I actually don't carry the GEP anymore as the EMP replaces it for what I need!

[Jonas]

Now, it's risky, because if her fire goes out before she dies, it crashes the game.

Hopefully we'll manage to fix that for 1.0.3.

Am I correct in assuming the foons and sporks are utterly worthless?

Yep, they're chiefly an NPC weapon, designed to be used against you rather than by you. They originally had the same properties as the throwing knives, but that was incredibly punishing, so we nerfed them completely.

I don't care for either the PHAT-rifle or the napalm launcher. Not a big fan of heavy weapons.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but the PHAT-Rifle isn't a heavy weapon, it's a rifle. I'm considering reducing its inventory space to 1x4 for 1.0.3.

Kylie's AR is cool but too quiet. Silenced is one thing, this is too much. It throws me off, so I don't use it.

Yeah that's a bug too, I believe I've fixed it for 1.0.3.

[MageKing17]

I love the pumpgun's fast reload speed. As soon I got one, I never looked at a sawed-off again. Of course, I haven't been using any shotguns very much at all in my last file, but considering the amount of firepower I'm carrying around, I suppose that's not too surprising (I also haven't used Trestkon's pistols in a while... still hauling around 200 rounds for them and haven't needed to use any of it yet).

I would also like to state that the EMP pistol is the best weapon you can possibly have in TNM. Not only does it allow you to take down Milbots from incredible range (yes, even Milbots can't stand before the might of the EMP pistol... although it uses up quite a bit of ammo, so I don't advise doing it often), but takes up only a single inventory slot, and can be used as a last-ditch prevention against security cameras. If you just can't find the way to sneak up on that one, annoying camera to disable it (or lack the multitools to do so... or the lockpicks/other resources to take an alternate route) you can always just pull out your trusty EMP pistol and shoot it.

Also, I like Digital Ronin's katana. I'm not sure why, I'm usually all for efficient gameplay (which would suggest using the DTS instead, since it's cheaper and kills things dead faster)... I suppose it's because the animations and sound effects for DR's katana are just so much more awesome than for the DTS. First time I equipped that katana, I immediately went, "Now that's what I call a sword!"

Of course, one-hit killing the first target I used it on didn't hurt my opinion of it any either... although one-hit kills aren't exactly unusual to a compulsive sniper like myself. It's definitely got to be the cool-factor that makes me like the katana so much.

I don't care for either the PHAT-rifle or the napalm launcher. Not a big fan of heavy weapons.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but the PHAT-Rifle isn't a heavy weapon, it's a rifle. I'm considering reducing its inventory space to 1x4 for 1.0.3.

I thought the PHAT-Rifle already took up 1x4 spaces? Or were you referring to reducing the napalm launcher?

[Jonas]

PHAT-Rifle already took up 1x4 spaces? Or were you referring to reducing the napalm launcher?

Oh yeah, I was thinking about the quad launcher actually, and I got them mixed up, forgot the PHAT-Rifle was already reduced. Don't mind me.

[Felix3322]

I don't care for either the PHAT-rifle or the napalm launcher. Not a big fan of heavy weapons.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but the PHAT-Rifle isn't a heavy weapon, it's a rifle. I'm considering reducing its inventory space to 1x4 for 1.0.3.

If you did this I would defiantly carry it! Rice bag tot he head!

[Felix3322]

Oh! I did not know you already did! I am sooo getting this gun!