I agree on the regular and assault, but I think that the breach should stay as it is. One of my greatest complaints before 1.7 about forge guns was that they were too accurate, and giving it sights (if I read it correctly) would make it too deadly at range. Pilots never know that it's charging for the first shot, so essentially it's a free hit for the forger. Then the follow up shot comes rather quickly, and giving it sights to easily place that follow up shot at max range would make it too powerful.

When I read "burst forge gun," I couldn't wrap my mind around it either. But then an idea came to mind. For a burst forge gun, you charge up your first shot like the assault forge gun where it fires as soon as it charges up. But then if you keep holding the trigger, it keeps it's charge and fires a second shot as soon as you let go of the trigger. I think clip size for this should be two with a charge time about equal to that of the assault, or four shots per clip with the charge time being somewhere between the assault and the breach. As for damage, it's beyond me.

It's burst DPS should be the highest of the forge guns, while DPS over multiple bursts should be the lowest, but not below the breach.

So for the Burst, something like the Beggar's Bazooka?

I think I'm trying to force the Tactical and Breach into the same role. I honestly wish ALL FGs had a ADS mode just so they can have two levels of sensitivity, but maybe make the Breach as powerful as it is and make the Tactical function like the Charge Sniper Rifle (or the TF2 Sniper Rifle more specifically) with subpar damage at low charge, but the ability to release the shot at all levels of charge for varying damage and big bonuses for weakspot hits. And a sight. Tactical Forge Gun would need a sight if its whole role is to hit weakspots. And it wouldn't be a problem for Dropships because of their weak points being so tiiiiiny and mobile.

Yes, just like the Beggar's Bazooka, except you actually dictate when the follow up round gets shoot.

I think for the tactical (and this idea just came to mind after reading your reply), make it behave somewhat like the laser rifle. First it will have a very short (I'm thinking one second) initial charge time. At this point, the forge gun will be able to deal its base minimum damage (which should be rather low, so that firing one second charges will give you a DPS less than the normal variant). After the charge is achieved, the forge gun starts building up heat but the shot will also start gaining damage. When it overheats, it should both discharge (fire the round) and provide feedback damage. I think the max charge time (until overheat) should be equal to the breach (so 6 seconds), but with less damage. Reason being that you remain mobile and you can fire the round whenever if you need to GTFO while still dealing damage.

So a DPS scale would look like:
Breach -> Burst (multiple bursts) -> Tactical/Regular -> Regular/Tactical -> Assault -> Burst (two consecutive shots)

While an alpha strike scale would look like:
Tactical (minimum charge) -> Burst (single shot) -> Assault -> Regular -> Burst (two consecutive shots) -> Tactical (maximum charge) -> Breach

I used Forge Guns WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the good old Craterlake days, and even back then the way they worked made no sense to me. The Lore Hound in me asks 'why do they have travel time if they are explicitly Rail-tech?'

I can appreciate the discussion....but do you really need these extra Forgegun types?

Not sure if I understood your right. I will just say the obvious: rail guns shoot projectiles that are faster than what you can do with explosive conventional/gun powder propelled projectiles. They do have a travel time though. They are not like lasers that are lightning fast.

Do Assault Rifles really need to have the Scrambler Rifle, Combat Rifle, and Rail Rifle's types? It is an exercise in variety and filling out niches, and most other guns already have four versions of themselves. I'd personally love to see each gun either have three versions minimum, or conversely be stripped to one version and have the others be made into more focused niche weapons like the Racial Rifles were. Poor Laser Rifle... :c

Also, Heavy only has two major weapon types. He needs as much variation as he can get, and the Fore Gun is the only truly effective Infantry AV primary, so it makes sense to have a flavor for every occasion. As it stands the Assault is just too good in every role, but if we remove its 'sheer DPS' feature then we need something to fill in the slack, and the other versions cropped up to do just that.

Not sure if I understood your right. I will just say the obvious: rail guns shoot projectiles that are faster than what you can do with explosive conventional/gun powder propelled projectiles. They do have a travel time though. They are not like lasers that are lightning fast.

I can appreciate the discussion....but do you really need these extra Forgegun types?

I used Forge Guns WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the good old Craterlake days, and even back then the way they worked made no sense to me. The Lore Hound in me asks 'why do they have travel time if they are explicitly Rail-tech?' (Balancing obviously, would you want that to be Hitscan if someone was aiming it at you?) The variants, on the other hand, still make me wonder. I'd like to propose a change to the Forge Gun variants so that the tool truly has a reason to have more than Assault Forge Guns. Keep in mind that if an aspect is not talked about, it is kept as-is. All variants are still at the current projectile speed, with the current fire method and current ISK cost, for example.

Forge Guns
Keep them the way they are, the middle ground. Maybe alter their damage abit one way or the other, but keep it consistently the 'jack-of-all-trades' Forge Variant.

Assault Forge Guns
The Assault Forge Gun is, currently, pretty damn superior to the basic. It charges faster, does more damage, and can shoot more charges faster than the other variants, all with the only weakness being an inability to hold a charge. How about we make it a bit more in-line with the other Assault weapons? Bigger clip, more reserve ammo, less damage, all that good stuff? It would have a role in dealing with faster and weaker targets, while not quite getting the sheer DPS you would want for dealing with something large and slow. In other words, an Anti-LAV/Dropship weapon.

Breach Forge Guns
The Breach has the most power per shot, but unless you are firing in tandem with another AV source you will never have a Line of Sight on your target long enough to kill it solo. It also anchors you to the spot, which turns many off the gun from the get-go. We may want to add something special for it, have it 'Breach' a Hardener, possibly by ignoring a set percentage of an enemy's resistances or having an active ability to 'Breach' Active Hardeners for about equal to the Hardener's legths at each meta level. I honestly need more data and ideas from you all about the Breach, as I want it to remain viable, but not make it a oneshotter and therefore the go-to.

Burst Forge Guns: Credit to Harpyja. Here's a link to a similar weapon.
The Burst will have the highest Alpha damage output of all the Forge Guns, but at a cost. With slightly increased clip size and ammo capacity, it will also be able to charge more than one shot at a time. A single shot will be pretty weak, not even a standard Forge Gun's damage and takes longer to charge than the slightly weaker Assault Forge Gun. Then, the second shot will charge (in less time) and give it enough damage output to put it about on level with a Breach. It will, however, take longer to charge to this level than a Breach would. The magic happens at the third level, with three charged rounds. The drawbacks, however, are equally severe.
1. The gun will have high recoil, and fire the three shots one after necessitating tight control and compensation on the user's part to get the full effect that they worked so hard to charge towards.
2. The gun will fire all the shots at once, but in a slight spread like a shotgun. This will mean that the gun MUST be fired at closer ranges to get the full effect, and cannot readily be used against aerial or speedy threats

Tactical Forge Guns: Credit to Harpyja.
The Tactical will have elements of the Charged Sniper Rifle. A Scope, a bonus to weakspots, and a shot that can be fired at weaker levels or charged for a fearsome blast. At full charge, this gun will still be weaker than a Breach unless it fires on the weakspot, so it relies on a Heavy positioning themselves quite well. The weapon will also have a heating function, steadily building heat as it is kept charged. This will prevent someone from hiding away and camping with the fully charged blast just waiting for a chance to fall into their lap, as well as trying to zero in on Infantry using the sights. The gun will reach full power before it overheats, and if it does overheat it will discharge anyway, but you will suffer both seizing and feedback damage. The range may also be determined by the charge level to further discourage using it as an infantry sniping tool, and the precise nature of the weapon will result in exceedingly weak splash damage, discouraging 'mortaring' behaviors.

Good idea, but the tac will be misused as a OKH sniper rifle. Also, what about dropships? A breach nearly 0KHs my Myron. The proposed burst would render flying any dropship other than an assault a nightmare.

Breach is fine anyway i think, i use it over assault

Assault isnt too bad either

But the burst and tactical fg i dunno tbh, even railguns only have 1 varient now and as for rail tech railguns have travel time

Sometimes its better to have a few choices than too many because there is always the change 1 will never get used

In game description puts the projectile speed at 7km/s, iirc. For the purposes for our map sizes, that's instant.