So recently I just run across a pair of cellar spiders and somehow even though my arms and eys were pretty unencumbered (like 25 at most) and my rifles were at level 2 (and marksmanship much higher <I’d been playing for over in game weeks>) the little bastards still somehow managed to dodge an ENTIRE semi-auto clip from RM51 at point blank, like some sort of hairy 8 legged keanu reeves. I only hit one of them once, and I think it might have been just been a graze.
Just out of spite I decided to watch the deathcam because all that gunfire surely attracted a horde, but yet even though they were completely surrounded by zombies, they still took zero damage.
Is this just astronomically high luck on the spider’s part of is this some sort of bug (no pun intended)?
For future reference is full-auto better at dealing dealing with pesky agile enemies or do shotguns work best, since they can just spray a whole area with projectiles?
Those brown spiders have always been like that (and for the record rifles lv2 is not that high), what i do (or try) is to lure them out and let them fight the zombies.
On the bright side, the black widows are just sitting targets and free meat/chitin
From my experience, only aspect of full auto that is better than semi-auto, 3rd shot or anything in-between full auto is ammunition spending. And nothing else. I would only attempt burst if I want to waste ammo or desperate.
Most guns that isn’t using .22 will have terrible time hitting anything after 3rd burst shot. I consider any shot afterwords waste of ammo.
Since RM51 is using 8x40… I would estimate every burst shot after 2nd one will be a waste of ammo. And odds are, 2nd shot will probably graze.
My character has 30 Marksmanship and respective individual ranged skill + best gun mod available for each gun, so your mileage will vary.
So I got curious and tested this myself. By only using Accusized RM51 without any gun mods, I have tested accuracy of full auto on Y’boy, Skeletal Juggernaut from range 12 from full steadiness.
Even from that distance, and even though SJ is pretty big guy, I could only hit 2nd shot about 50% of the time. I have never hit 3rd shot.
So there you go. Recoil is a thing, and depending on ammo you should never try burst.
But as I have said before, my personal recommendation is that you should never try burst.
well that’s the thing… I wasn’t using auto or burst, just single shot, so recoil shouldn’t really be all that bad especially since i’m pretty sure I had a recoil stock on.
However I know for certain my arms and eyes were pretty unobstructed so I shouldn’t have had any problems with aiming…
Why would you ever use full auto from 12 square distance in any circumstance? Why even bother testing without gun mods?
Burst fire is for 0-1 square distance and a weapon like P90 or MP7 can probably deliver the entire burst in one round with the same amount of total recoil as a single shot from your RM51.
I tested without gun mods because I assumed only players without experience would use burst. I would not mod my gun to get screwered/“what could have been” result.
Next is on the subject of “use i on 0-1 equare”… Take your own form of advice. Why are you on 0-1 square distance with a gun? Use spear instead if you prefer such engagement range.
Or alternatively, M1014. It is an excellent weapon for taking down… pretty much anything. Even 12 squares away.
I don’t even… understand? I think it’s pretty obvious silencers, forward grips, ergonomic grips and recoil stocks are stock standard no brainer installs in every assault rifle you ever intend to use unless you want something exotic like a folding stock. The less recoil you have, the less you have to re-aim after every semi-auto shot after all.
Because you walked down the stairs in a prison and ended up next to a zombie hulk and his friend the zombie necromancer (and they both need to die fast)?
Or insert situation x where you have multiple dangerous zombies approaching faster than you can kill them without reloading and at least one will get in cqc range?
Or a zombie wrestler pulls you next to him during a night raid?
I could go on but I think it’s again pretty obvious you’re not always in control of your engagement range.
Well… unless you debug 30 all skills and use teleport so you can fire full auto, without gun mods, using a high recoil rifle from what is nearly sniper rifle range in cataclysm.
In fact only situation you will even come close to the enemy is that one house basement, and a lab. Those are THE ONLY two situation that you won’t have control of the situation. Other cases, you know EXACTLY what you are getting. Most house basement have doors before stuff goes down. Surface tactic will be explained below.
Let me teach you about “Silencer”. Or the more correct term is Suppressor.
While it is pretty much mandatory to get one in a muzzle slot because there are no other viable mods in that slot, it doesn’t mean it is “Silenced”. Try it with .223 rounds with suppressor and see how much sound it makes. If you are using any ammo above 9mm, you will be LOUD. Now that we have basics of ranged combat, lets go though your questions!
Or insert situation x where you have multiple dangerous zombies approaching faster than you can kill them without reloading and at least one will get in cqc range?
If you are using a rifle, then you are always loud. Multiple dangerous zombies are always approaching your general location. Do not use ranged weapons unless you know how to. i.e hitting and running/make distractions/etc.
I would say more accurate term is that “You let him get close enough to grab you”?
Either a. You saw him coming and did nothing or b. did not see him coming. I guess second cases do happen time to time, in which case burst is actually useful. I on the other hand would rather drop the gun because I trained unarmed combat for rainy days. Burst empties your gun(that is, IF you had any ammo left) and alert others to your location while your pant is down.
And nearly snipe range? Really? 12? Snipe range? Have you never used SIG 552 with telescopic sight? Not to mention countless rifles using .308? 12 SNIPING RANGE?
I’m pretty sure that cellar spiders and all skeletal monsters, including Juggernauts, have “HARDTOSHOOT”, which, as the name implies, makes them more difficult to shoot. It might apply to general piercing damage as well.
Other spiders should still be easy enough to hit with ranged, but for cellar spiders another attack type would probably be better.
From what I have shot before - as well as modding knowledge - HARDTOSHOOT is a thing. It however only applies to the chance of hitting - since as far as I know of, once you are able to shoot spiders, they die pretty quick.
Skeletal enemies however also have incredibly high resistance to bullets. So not only they are hard to shoot, they are also resistant to shooting. You either need to rely on your melee skill, or need something higher caliber than .9mm/.357/.38. All of the guns using those ammo were very ineffective against skeletal enemies.
But as I said before, Trusty Ol’boy M1014 can and will turn most of them into harmless bones.
Plus, Ammo for shotguns have tag negating HARDTOSHOOT.
The lesson of this story is to not mess with giant cellar spiders until you are proficient at combat. They are 1.5x faster than an average player, have dodge level 7 (for reference that is just one less than the incredibly broken blackbelt profession), have the HARDTOSHOOT flag which makes them auto-dodge 75% bullets aimed at them and are small on top of it all, which makes them even harder to properly hit. All together, this does make them dodge 99% attacks from characters without very high combat skills.
On the other hand they are pretty rare unless you find a horde of them in a basement and they also usually need to be aggravated before they go after you. Their health and armor is miserable, so when you do get a hit or two in they will go down easily. Explosives, cars and shotguns make short work of them.
Just remember whenever you see them that they are one of the strongest creatures in the game at traditional combat, so evaluate the situation accordingly.
come to think of it I can just burn them. however I don’t know if the loot basements have will remain the same. Are metallics like iron tools affected by fire? what about guns and electronics?
Generally from my experience, spider basement can contain up to 3 gun safes, high end aftershock equipment(those are priceless) and more.
The fact that spider basement can spawn those valuable stuff makes them means unless you really want those spiders gone, fire is not an option - although it is a really easy solution.
I did however discovered that frag grenades are excellent method of clearing both webs and spiders with relatively little damage to the loot.
