show me the spreadsheet.

Please use comparisons to other weapon DPS rates for reference and comparison.

Dont think range is an issue. I get killed at 8m on average anyways. Its the dps for sure. those numbers should be on a lvl 5 commando with a proto shotgun and a damage mod, not on the weapons baseline stats.

Barbershop test had similar findings ...

* Full damage potential only reached point-blank range.
* Damage output declines exponentially outside of 4-5m.
* Damage variance increases with range.

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Questions for OP:

1) By your math, how many shotgun blasts are needed to kill a well-fit AM sentinel?

2) Why is it a problem that a weapon with a 4m range can out-DPS weapons with 10x - 20x that range?

3) Assuming range was increased and RoF decreased, why use a shotgun if it has far less range and similar DPS to Fine Rifles?

But the range is only mitigatable on scout suits. this shouldn't be. It should be viable on a commando frame as much as a scout frame.

Kind of ridiculous though when you get 2 shots into a heavy and they turn around and spray you down in half a second before the third can be fired.

Shotguns need high dps because range is a huge limiting factor, as range vs dps is the best way to create balance the shotgun should have highest dps of all weapons. The heavy machine gun needs a dps/overheat nerf in order to reduce heavy spam. With less heavies being spammed, less shot gunners need to be present, as they are counters to each other. A heavy can kill any other suit 1 v 1 in its effective range very easily, but this range is too high, it needs more spread or shorter range. Currently using the AR is very hard to kill heavy since few M and heavy has advantage. The hmg range is too high

HMG range is, in fact, too low. Consider just what the HMG is supposed to be- a heavy machine gun. As in, the kind of ordnance that one creative US Marine once used as sniper weapon. Incredible range and firepower... but similarly incredible weight, bulk, and ungainliness.

You should check out Breakin Stuff's thread on that for more information.

With that out of the way... I cannot in any way agree that the shotgun in its present state is a good weapon. The fact that it requires a scout suit to actually make use of it, and is more-or-less useless for medframes and of very limited utility for commandos is simply bad game design. Now, I'm not sure of a 20 meter optimal range; 15 seems like it would be better to at least start with, and then iterate on from there- Rattati has shown a great deal of interest in continued iteration... as evidenced by the continued changes to the racial rifles, and the similar iterations on the Burst HMG and regular HMG heat buildup.

So, overall, I think that the proposed changes are very desirable. 20 meters is, IMO, a tad too much, and 15 would be a better starting point, but that's my opinion on just the range- a rate of fire nerf is pretty desirable IMO, since it keeps the DPS from getting too far out of hand, and the optimal range tweak will nicely compensate for that while also making it much more viable to use on medium frames in general as well as the commandos (most especially GalMando).

Do keep in mind that the proposal doesn't touch the actual damage values in the slightest- a shotgun is still doing just under 500 damage per shot. It just doesn't do it quite as fast, but it does do it from a little further away.

What do you want, ultra-megadeath DPS, or the range to actually apply it and not have to be kissing the eyeballs of your chosen victim?

One thing you have to consider victor is that most times

1400 armour heavy 450 shields with a gun with HIGHER dps than scout

Vs

150 shield 150 armour scout with an extremely short range weapon that takes over 4 shots to kill the heavy



All the heavy has to do is turn and spray and he will instakill the scout, in pc this is prevalent as heavies destroy even good shotgun scouts . In order to remain balanced between killing assaults and killing heavies the alpha damage Cannot be too high, therefore the dps has to be. Landing more shots takes more skill than one large shot since players react, strafe and jump while back-pedalling.

If the shotgun fired a slug, then the thinking in this thread would make more sense.

At 20m, one or two pellets might connect with one blast and five or six in the next. In the best of pellet spread cases, variance would be wild at 20m; militia rifles would put damage on target faster and more reliably than a proto shotgun. Extending optimal to over 9000m! would have the same effect. Because the shotgun does not fire a slug.

If 1000 damage can be dealt in under a second by an unmodified standard weapon, there is a problem.

According to protofits, SG RoF is 85.71 ... I believe that translates to roughly 2 blasts every 3 seconds (rather than 2 blasts every 1 second). Is my math wrong?

0.4 shots rounds down not up. You don't get 2 shots a second