Clip System Guns

Our three general use guns are the Longshot, the Recon and the Raider.  The Raider obviously has a significant advantage, due to the slam fire and the 35 round drum it comes with.  It's also shorter fully loaded than the Recon is fully loaded, or the Longshot is in a bare bones configuration.  However, it's slightly more prone to jams, really hard to aim without the stock, which limits its customizability, and it doesn't have as many mod possibilities as the Longshot. The Raider is the undisputed champion in CQB and CTF for its ability to fill the air with a solid wall of foam extremely fast.  So the contest instead goes to the Recon and the Longshot, where there is no contest in my opinion.  The Longshot has better range, better ease of use, and therefore better rate of fire, more ammo storage, less dead barrel space, more ammo storage, more stability, more modification possibilities, better performance after said mods and many more things that I don't want to list.  The Recon is far outclassed by the Longshot, as is the Raider in medium to long range battles.  But the Raider does great indoors, and that's common knowledge.  So the question is what is the Recon good for?  First and foremost, size.  As the name suggests, this weapon is easily concealable and therefore great for Scouts and the like.  But there aren't any scouts in most wars, so the size actually translates into a great close-quarters weapon.  In its smallest form, it's slightly smaller than a Maverick, holds the same amount of ammo, gets roughly the same ranges, and reloads quicker, especially if you tape the clips together.  The flashlight thing that comes with it is pretty useless, as it is barely visible at the best of times.  The sight is horrible as it takes a good five seconds to line up a shot, and by that time your target will have moved or shot you, or both.  The barrel extension is worthless unless you add a properly sized barrel, as darts will most likely bounce off the inside of the barrel otherwise.  The stock is actually good quality, it just needs a little more strengthening so it doesn't bend when you put weight on it.  So the Recon is great for close to medium range battles, but its lack of range keeps it from doing anything beyond that.  The Longshot was built for medium to long range battles once modified, and the Raider kicks serious ass in close to medium range battles.  The Deploy is basically a gimmicky Recon, I don't really know anything about the Alpha trooper, and the Stampede is likely to curb stomp everything in close combat when people get their hands on it.  I will still stand by the Longshot in every area, but you can decide for yourself from here.

Handgun Comparison

There are bunch of different pistols produced these days, but there are only a few common ones currently, these generally being the Maverick and the Nite Finder.  At first glance, you'll notice a lot of differences.  For example, the Maverick is quite a bit bigger, holds more shots and fires faster, which makes it a common choice for first time Nerfers.  The Nite Finder, on the other hand, holds only one shot in the barrel and another two in an underslung ammo holder. It's a lot smaller than the Maverick, and cocks different.  From this, you might decide that the Maverick is the better gun.  This isn't so, however.  The Nite Finder consistently gets better range, accuracy and reliability.  The Maverick has a complex cocking and firing system that requires you to pull the trigger rather slowly.  This may not seem that bad right now, but when you're in a battle and a guy's charging you and you need a quick shot and you yank the trigger, the shot misfires and jams up the gun. The Maverick also has a couple pieces in the slide that will snap off after a while.  The Nite Finder, on the other hand, uses a very basic cocking and firing mechanism that has a very low chance of breaking or misfiring.  It only holds one shot at a time, but it's pretty quick to reload.  It's also a good gone to integrate onto other things, or integrate guns into.  This isn't to say the Maverick is a bad gun; it's very well designed, it just has lots of flaws too.  It's best designed for CQB, as long as you have time to pull the trigger slowly.  When modded, it can become a very potent weapon, it just can't ever stand up to the Nite Finder.  Stock, the Nite Finder is good for CQB, just like practically every other pistol on the market.  Once modded well, however, it can become one of the best pistols created recently, with ranges in the 50-60 foot neighborhood, as well as an integration and/or minimization.  So all in all, if you have materials to properly mod the Nite Finder, buy a few.  On the note of the Maverick, an upgraded version known as the Spectre was released recently.  It fixes the issue of the trigger pull, as well as adding a few other features, like a folding/removable stock.  I'll probably buy one and give a report when I do.

Vulcan vs Stampede

In our games, possibly the most feared weapon is the RF20.  It's fully automatic, holds 20 rounds and fires them faster than anything else.  Of course, the most feared weapon changes every year.  Last year it was the RF20, then the Raider for its quick rate of fire, huge ammo capacity and clip system.  The only thing against it was how it you had to work the action for each shot.  The year before last, the most feared weapon was the Vulcan, since it was the only automatic weapon, and it fired very fast, was rather easy to operate and held more ammo than anything else of the time.  The Vulcan is almost outdated now that we have the Stampede, but if it were repaired, it would still be a madly effective point defense weapon.  The Stampede is man portable, can take mags, and by extent can take more ammo than the Vulcan.  However, the Vulcan still has its rather large size, the ability to link chains together, has a manual action just in case the batteries die.  The Vulcan is also easier to use as a point defense weapon.  The Stampede may come with a bipod thing, but the mags are too long to let you use the bipod on flat ground.  The Vulcan on the other hand comes with a tripod that lets you set the Vulcan anywhere.  However, the Vulcan must either have an external ammo box, or a second person to feed the chain.  This second person becomes a necessity if you add two or more chains together, since the combined chain won't fit in the ammo box, and letting it dangle will destroy the rotator piece, and in the short term won't let the chain advance, since the rotator mech doesn't have the power to pull the chain up.  So in the end, the Vulcan and the Stampede are roughly equally matched in most aspects, though they were obviously designed with different tasks in mind.  The Vulcan was designed for point defense, whereas the Stampede was built with assault in mind.  The Vulcan is too heavy to be used for assault, and the Stampede doesn't have the raw firepower to do point defense.