Ok, right now there are 4 base variants of the Assault rifle group.

You have the regular Assault rifle, burst assault rifle, Breach Assault rifle, and the Tactical assault rifle. If you have played EVE, you know that the current description on all AR's is basically a cut and past of the way blasters work in EVE. Thats all well and good, but in EVE blasters are the closest range of all weapons. Which doesn't necessarily fully fit a weapon that is short to mid range. As it is right now there isn't actually much variation other than ROF and damage between them.

My idea is have two classes of AR's. Have two variants set up for CQB, and the other two set up for mid range engagement. For example:

Assault Rifle, would get more spread at longer range, change out the Cam scope for a reflex style sights, more like what the SMG uses, or similar to a modern Reflex sight.

Now the Breach, and Burst are iffy. But, just for the sake of an idea. Make the Breach the second CQB AR, high damage low ROF. With Accurate hipfire at close range, but moderate kick back when using sights for longer range engagement. Again, with a reflex style sight. Could use a slight damage increase to compensate for it's current lower dps. Make this based off a light railgun design. This would in game explain the slower ROF, and higher damage.

Now, the burst should be the lower damage per round long range variant. Obviously being burst fire limits it's usefulness at close range, especially in a firefight. But, gives an advantage at long range as it should limit recoil and spread.

And the Tactical rifle should be the medium extended range AR, High damage, single shot, with an improved scope sight. Could use a bit higher damage per shot that current. And a slow ROF to limit abuse with rapid fire controllers. Add that to the burst as well. Tactical rifle needs a damage increase to make this viable. Make this based off a compact railgun design as well instead of a blaster.

To reinforce the changes, you could model each one based off of the type weapon base or what they're used for. The shorter range guns having the reflex style sight, with a shorter weapon frame. And then the long range variants would have a scope style sight, with a longer frame.

I suggest this because of my experiences with several other games. In those games AR's are differentiated by what they're best used for. For example in Combat Arms, the m416, and the m416cqb. Or for a real life example, the G36E which has a hard scope and longer frame, and the g36C which is a close quarters combat version of the weapon.