Topic on Talk:Weapon Guide

A progression as in "Get this first, upgrade to this" and branching as in "if you want to kite upgrade to option a, if you want to killbox upgrade to option b"

Its a guide, its meant to provide advice. That is why they're reading it in the first place after all - if they knew what was good, they wouldn't need the guide in the first place.

And the fact of the matter is that there is a fairly limited set of end-game capable weapons. Technically you could farm enough legendaries and take all autopistols to the endgame. But thats not efficient when they're competing with excellents of the end game weapons - you end up spending more to keep the weaker weapons relevant instead of just upgrading. This means that outside of getting lucky with getting legendaries early on, weaker weapons are phased out and the vast majority of players standardize on HSMGs, ARs, CRs, CSGs or Miniguns. Thats 5 of 27 non-disposable ranged weapons. Of the remainder, grenades, launchers, BAs and SRs serve specific niche roles and are used as needed rather than general issue and can be discussed individually.

Each of those 5 has fairly distinct styles that mesh well with it. (For example, CSGs are fantastic for killboxes designed for them and internal fights, but do worse in field battles and so they push you into turtling. ) You can still narrow down the readers choices to the useful ones by offering them options in how they want to play and then providing progression to achieve it.

So for example, "I want to mainly use prepared defenses and killboxes but don't want to be dependent on them" might go (very roughly):

1. Loot any early guns but try for MPs and the occasional HSMG you might see at this point.
2. Research but skip constructing the Gunsmithing guns because you'll generally be looting better weapons than you can make and steel and components are usually better spent elsewhere.
3. Also research but skip crafting the Blowback operation guns unless you have a great crafter (routinely getting Excellents)
4. Instead try to research Gas operation while looting ARs, LMGs, and HSMGs with ARs going only to the pawns with good skills
5. Once you have Gas Op, switch to crafted HSMGs. Gradually try to get everyone at least Excellent+. MW if you have a production specialist.
6. Research becomes less of a priority, but eventually upgrade to CRs.

You can also get more specific with thresholds for when to swap or maintain - for example, Normal HSMG < Excellent MP < Good/Exc HSMG < MW MP