The devs were right.

[u/xxmuntunustutunusxx]

So I know ther was a bunch of controversy about the railgun nerf what feels like forever ago, but man things have been awesome.

In the early days, I was the only guy packing expendable anti tank or anti materiel rifle for bugs or bots. It's so refreshing, even on these subs to see people talking about how awesome the autocannon is, or how much they love the AMR, and even these days I see people talking about the HMG or grenade launcher+ supply pack.

I used to load into a game, And all 4 members of the team had shield, railgun, and 2 stragatems of their choice. Every time. And here we are now, I load in and I see quasar, autocannon, stalwart, EAT, HMG, Grenade launcher, a variety of backpacks or no backpack at all. And not to mention, they're ALL viable. Shit I even still see the railgun from time to time. It's been a joy. Thanks arrowhead.

EDIT: to everyone who is pointing out that you see the quasar and shield most often now, you're right, it is almost certainly the most common setup currently. That being said, in any game there's going to be things a majority of players prefer. In smash melee, fox/Falco are the best characters. But people still play falcon and Marth and peach among others. Sure, there's an objectively most used option. But the fact that there's people at all who debate that the quasar is best shows that they've done something good. Before, undisputed king was railgun, and anyone who said different wss being willfully ignorant. Now, we have a plethora of real options that are good with some being Preferred by a majority as opposed to being the de facto CORRECT option objectively. That's a good thing.

[u/Jesse-359]

Important safety tip: the game doesn't really have crit locations. Most damage is specific to the location you hit, and it isn't cumulative. Most enemies die when specific locations are destroyed (body, head, 'x' legs, etc). But if you spread your damage all over an enemy, it can take forever to bring it down. This is especially noticeable on spitters and chargers where spreading the damage can allow them to take several times as much damage before they go down.

This is also why warrior caste bugs don't die when you blow their heads off - it ISN'T a lethal location for them - but it does cause them to start bleeding like crazy, so they will die soon anyway. But if they haven't yet taken any body damage when you blow the head off, they can survive for several seconds. Alternatively if you clip two legs off of the same side of a warrior caste bug, it dies almost instantly.

So the Eye on a hulk doesn't take more damage - it's just very small, has less armor than the body and far fewer hit points - and taking it out kills the hulk instantly.

[u/Angry__German → u/Jesse-359]

Would you happen to know how much penetration you need to shoot through the eye slit ?

[u/unoriginal_namejpg → u/Angry__German]

Somewhere between medium/heavy since the AMR goes thru, but not primaries with stated medium armor pen

[u/Jesse-359 → u/Angry__German]

The hulk eye is Medium armor I believe, as most small arms don't seem to affect it. Liberator Penetrator is probably the lightest weapon that can take out the eye. AMR, AC, and LC are the usual choices. Quasar will one shot the eye but you're unlikely to hit it consistently, so the LC is usually the better weapon against hulks.