I did cover the spool up time, I said it wasn't enough to really make a difference. The massive range advantage still more than makes up for it.

In cqc the spool up time of the RR is meaningless when soooooo many squads are running around with scanners. When a RR user knows someone is about to come around the corner they prefire the gun so they are shooting the red one he shows his face, thus minimizing the effect of the spool up time.

While this is not necessarily the RRs fault, the current meta gameplay which focuses heavily on scanners has allowed the long range RR to become very powerful in cqc.

Plenty of others have close range success with the RR contrary to your experience with one. You are not supposed to be effective at close range with it, as long as it is still great at medium to long range it will not go extinct. You are seriously making the case that a close range nerf to a medium-long range weapon is going to kill it.

1. I don't want it to be completely useless at close range, but I want close range weapons that only function at close range to have an actual edge against the RR at close range since that is their niche.

2 RR has almost identical DPS compared to the AR, and the spool up time doesn't make enough of a difference in CQC to really give close range weapons the edge they need. Why would anyone use an AR instead of RR?

3 0.5 spool up time would not make it useless in CQC, just give it enough of a disadvantage to balance out its range advantage.

4 I would be fine if the RR's spool up time stays the same, but the DPS (preferably through ROF decrease) was reduced to make the AR shine in its own element. AR should have a clear DPS advantage.

5 I also think you are underestimating the medium and long range weapon usefulness. You don't have to get that close to an objective to make a difference, from 40-50 meters away you can clear an objective from enemies and be very useful.

6 Yeah, I'm an armor tanker, but I don't let it cloud my judgement when it comes to balance; I have always defended the mass driver from claims of it being OP despite being susceptible to it. I didn't make the thread because RRs kill me

if my lr worked just as well in cqc as everything else i wouldnt want the rr nerfed as is when compared to the other weapons in dust its cqc should be nerfed

KAGE, first I have a lot of respect for your opinions and I appreciate the mature and logical approach when laying this out.

My isssue and I think to degree Martin Kirby's is the effect of the charge time is NOT the way to go on balancing this rifle specifically. There are other ways of controlling or shaping the balance of the base weapons. I have a very similar experience with Martin in CQC - the intended effect of the spool time does in fact put me at a real disadvantage. In fact, I routinely switch to my SMG when pushing into an OBJ or transitioning through tight areas of the maps to gain back that critical reaction time.

I don't think anyone doubts this is a difficult area to determine how to use the subtlest of touches to achieve the desired effect on weapon function or balance between weapons. I think the spool time is one of those factors that can legitmately ruin a weapon if you go a shade overboard with the tweak. Additionally, this is one of the few drawback mechanics that do not have some method of offsetting them; examples would be Amarr advantages for SCR overheat, Minmatar bonuses ref. ammo supply, and in the skill trees how you tone down dispersion, recoil, and ammo capacity via SP investment.

The concern of tapping R1 to overcome the spool issue can be fixed. Similar to how large rail turrets work if you balk on the trigger (come off it before firing a round) you incur an increased charge delay.

The most logical area to tweak seems to be the hip fire accuracy. You could lower that factor and that would make a fair amount of sense...this is a pretty common trade off for distance weapons in other games. In the same vein you could slightly increase the hip fire accuracy of the AR to give an even greater advantage to the opposite racial (i.e. caldari vs gallente) weapon.

1) I would like it if 2 players of equal skill fight at close range, one with RR, another with AR, that the AR one always wins. Just like right now if 2 players of equal skill fight at long range, the RR user will win. If the RR user should be able to win at close range if he is sufficiently more skilled than the AR user, but its hard to quantify skill to say how much more skill he would need compared to the AR-wielding enemy.

2-3) Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree whether its enough.

4) I'd willing to take the chance despite their track record.

5) Even on flat terrain, you will win fights at 40-50 meters with an RR because of damage dropoff of other weapons.

6) I made the thread because I found it way too good from experience; I only used the standard one with only lv1 operation, and I found it way too good. I also noticed the "tryhard" protostomp corps are disproportionately gravitating towards is (usually a sign something is OP). Because of these things I decided to do a bit of research, look at the ranges, the DPS, etc and found it in need of rebalancing. It started with a suspicion, but had the numbers contradicted my suspicions, then I would have adjusted my opinion accordingly.