Hey! That's good to know. I'm glad that it seems like they did have a plan all along, though yeah.... It needs more work.
At the moment i look at the guns and think "Do i want to skill into a Scrambler for something different, or stick with the AR/CR/RR."

Personally i feel that the RR should be tactical. It has the range, it has the accuracy. It shouldn't be a CqC weapon at all... And i just don't understand the CR.



But they aren't unique enough for me to notice their uniqueness.... :(

Breach needs love, it's weird and virtually useless.

Also, I thought those AR variants before 1.7 were just placeholders, and were suppose to be removed when the real ones came out in 1.7.

I used the terms differently than how they're currently applied, in order to get four unique racial variants while excluding Assault as a racial type--and this is the crux of the matter.

What I believe is, all of the current grief is because the rifles are backwards.
The Caldari, Amarr, and Minmatar rifles all start with a specialised version of their rifles, while the Gallente start with the assault type.
You have to skill higher, and pay more ISK, to use the assault versions of the Rail, Scrambler, or Combat Rifles, and as I've shown here, they perform almost identically to the normal Advanced Assault Rifle, which makes them a bad investment.
At the same time, no current alternate version of the Gallente Assault Rifle is notably better than the assault, nor is there a version that is as unique or compelling as the normal versions of the Rail, Scrambler, and Combat Rifles.
This leaves the Gallente Assault Rifle a poor cousin to the other races' rifles--so I think we should turn the whole thing around.

Let the Assault version be the default type for all four races (and re-name the Gallente rifle the Plasma Rifle). Then, at the Advanced level, give each race its own special variant.
I believe this is a much more balanced solution.
I also think having four versions of each races' rifle would be not only excessive, but boring, in the end.

Of course, but I don't agree with it. You're approaching this from a perspective that largely accepts the current paradigm, but there's no reason we have to keep that framework.

If the assault rifle is just as valid, why do so many people assert that it's woefully underpowered?
Well, the stats in my first post show exactly why. Its DPS is almost identical to the assault variants of the other rifles, and it has the shortest range. It has no value, except as the poor man's rifle.
If the Assault Rifle is the Gallente base, it needs to be the best assault, just like the CR is the best burst.
So, that's a legitimate option, but I don't think it's the simplest.

What I'm proposing instead is, make each race's base rifle "assault." That way a new player in any race can start with his or her own race's weapon, and be on a level playing field.
Then at advanced level, give each race one unique variant. These would be better, they would be different from each other, and they would require more skill to use.
It makes each race's weapon more meaningful. There's no need for every race to have every flavor rifle, it's too much, it's boring, and it makes the differences between races less special. And because each race does have a specialty, there will still be one race's version of each type that's better than the others, making the other races' pointless.


I deliberately kept my analysis narrow, to make as direct a comparison as possible. Features like different sights are a matter of personal preference, but we can compare some more statistics:

ADV AR magazine 60 rounds, fired in 4.8 s, reload 3 s
ADV Assault RR 42 rounds, fired in 4.45 s (including 0.25 s spool time), reload 3.2 s
ADV Assault CR 68 rounds, fired in 3.4 s, reload 2.6 s
ADV Assault SR 72 rounds, fired in 6.12 s, reload 2.5 s - with a further delay for the cooldown

The differences here, like the differences in fire rate and alpha, are balanced. They suit different playstyles, but no rifle has an inherent advantage. Remember, each of these rifles does an almost identical amount of damage per second. The Scrambler and Assault rifles are suited for longer engagements, while the Combat Rifle is suited to guerilla tactics, and the Rail Rifle would do better at a distance. All of which is racially appropriate.

Just to nitpick, I'm not being incorrect with the terms, "Tactical, Breach, Burst, Charge." I'm suggesting that we redefine them.
If the Gallente variant of the Assault Rifle was the Breach, it would have to be a much better and different version than what we have now. One that in its niche is as powerful as the Rail, Combat, and Scrambler Rifles are in theirs.