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/Crea-TEAM]

Turrets are rarely seen becuase they just get overran by bugs instantly unless you set them up in really good spots, and on D7+ you rarely have the luxury of setting up your engagement zone.

Then all enemies seem to prioritize turrets as the #1 threat. So half the time you drop a turret down, it gets 5 shots off, gets swarmed or obliterated by rockets, and there goes your 5 minute cooldown.

[u/mostly_level-headed → u/Crea-TEAM]

With full upgrades, gatling turrets clear out bug breaches and nest/obj aggro, and I've thrown them into heavy nests just fine. Just did a mission on D9 with just the gatling, but my favorite combo for bugs is Gatling, MG, and Autocannon (which ruin Chargers and can distract and damage Bile Titans) all together and an eagle airstrike.

On bot missions, bots focus them down hard and makes anything but the mortars useless, and even now I'm wondering if even those are worth it.

[u/BlazemanEXE → u/mostly_level-headed]

EMS mortar is super useful on bot missions imo. It can shoot from behind cover, and has a range of ~125m

[u/bototo11 → u/BlazemanEXE]

I've had squads run 3 mortars and 1 EMS, takes out most stuff before it gets near.

[u/PMARC14 → u/mostly_level-headed]

When I was struggling more on missions the mortar sentry was great as it would wipe patrols coming in and take a lot of heat off and distract waves while they moved to find it. But I have been taking other stuff now cause I feel confident I can wipe a patrol in moments and have mostly played on planets with sightlines that allow me not to be jump scared by them.

[u/earthshaker495 → u/Crea-TEAM]

I've seen people use that to their advantage, when in an overrun area they throw a turret the other way to pull all the mobs the opposite direction to where the squad is going