Weapons

The New Boston Zone is flush with many different types of lethal weaponry.

Weapon Types

Weapons are broken into two broad categories, firearms and melee weapons. All melee weapons are considered "light" weapons, in that you can carry one alongside a "heavy" weapon, or alongside another light weapon.

Firearms

Firearms comprise all of the ranged attacks in the NBZ (as of the time of this writing during Early Access.) All firearms have a finite clip size, after which they'll require reloading. However, CKF permits an infinite number of reloads for all firearms except those which require an I/O Batt charge (E-Rifles and Rail Guns).

Firearms are split into different category types that determine whether they're usable with particular talents. Some talents require "fully-automatic" firearms to operate. Others require semi-automatic, while others yet require single-shot weapons. There are also talents that require very specific weapon classes such as "only shotguns".

Some firearms are heavy weapons, which means they cannot be equipped alongside another heavy weapon on the same character.

Assault Rifles

Type: Fully-Automatic Firearm, Heavy

Assault Rifles (AR) are versatile, loud weapons capable of firing in burst mode or in full-auto mode. Assault rifles have substantial max range, although generally they're not as accurate at the outer periphery of their available range. Assault rifles deal moderate Ballistic Damage and have a moderate chance to shred armor. ARs tend to have the "Precise Burst" property, allowing them partial damage (Glancing Hits) on missed rolls so long as the chance to hit the foe was 60% or higher in the first place. Assault Rifles are typically the weapon of choice for using Overwatch.

The three major downsides to the ARs are their high reload AP, their noise, and to a lesser extend, their recoil. All three of these can be mitigated with modular upgrades and talents.

Submachine Guns

Type: Fully-Automatic Firearm, Light

Submachine Guns (SMGs) are comparable to Assault Rifles. They tend to deal a bit less damage, have substantially shorter range, and only rarely shred armor. However, they situationally make up for this with slightly reduced noise radius, slightly better reloading AP, and most critically, the Rapid Fire characteristic which allows them to be fired with your last 1 AP, instead of always requiring a full 2 AP to fire. This is frequently the difference between firing twice in a turn with some movement and firing once.

Like ARs the SMGs can be fired in burst fire mode or in fully auto mode. Some SMGs have a broader (if shorter) full-auto arc (allowing more targets to be peppered by the same full-auto attack) than ARs.

The theme of SMGs is thus focused on moving and firing, rather than prolonged defense in a gunnery nest.

Urban Assault Rifles

Type: Fully-Automatic Firearm, Heavy

Urban Assault Rifles (UAR) are comparable to the ARs. They are better at closer ranges, including at point blank, than the ARs. Additionally, they have a much broader firing arc for overwatch and full-auto attacks. For full auto, they can target more foes in an attack than the ARs. Additionally, while in full-auto mode, they retain their entire moderate armor shredding capability.

Unlike the SMGs they gain these benefits not at the cost of significantly less damage (although they deal very slightly less in both burst and full-auto mode than the ARs) but rather in terms of recoil. UARs are challenging to fire multiple times against different targets due to the hefty recoil penalties they suffer. Furthermore, the UARs are less forgiving with missed hits. Both SMGs and ARs have the guaranteed glancing hits at 60%+ chance to hit. The UARs have a much weaker 80%+ chance to hit guarantee of glancing hits.

Overall UARs are more geared toward close and mid-range full-auto attacks more than the other two automatic rifle types.

Shotguns

Type: Semi-Automatic Firearm, Heavy

Shotguns deal massive Ballistic Damage at close range (including at point blank if desired). They're very useful for shredding armor, having a significant chance to shred upon hitting. The tend to have slightly higher accuracy than most other firearms, so long as your target stays in its optimal range.

In addition to their short range, they cannot fire in a full-auto fashion, tend to have a smaller clip size than other ranged weapons, and generate substantial recoil. Shotguns have the additional disadvantage of lacking mods to reduce their noise radius.

Sniper Rifles

Type: Single-Shot Firearm, Heavy

Sniper Rifles are single shot weapons with long range, high ballistic damage, and an optimal range that's typically quite far away. Sniper rifles deal massive bonus damage on critical hits, especially if they're also on surprised targets. They have the Glancing Hit guarantee on targets with 80%+ chance to hit like UARs.

Sniper rifles gain their long range perks at a significant price: They are extremely loud. Even with most silencers equipped, they'll be about as loud as an un-silenced AR. They additionally, have a smaller clip size than most weapons and take as much time to reload as an AR. Their armor shredding capabilities tend to be very poor.

Revolvers

Type: Single-Shot Firearm, Light

Revolvers are the classic high-caliber revolvers, holding six rounds at a time with no way to increase the "clip" size. In return these weapons pack a mighty, and mighty loud, punch. They deal moderate Ballistic Damage as well as a sizable amount of Pure Damage, allowing them the versatility to threaten armored foes without shredding them first. They do have a small chance to shred foes, and a medium distance range. A large advantage of the revolver is the enormous amount of damage dealt upon critical hit, carrying the Heavy Hit series of attributes. The level 1 Slugger deals 250% damage upon any critical hit!

Again, revolvers cannot extend their ammunition size, and furthermore cannot attach any silencer to cover their very loud noise. As single-shot weapons, they cannot be used for full-auto attacks. As Light weapons, they can serve as secondary weapon to a Heavy weapon, giving a very powerful set of ranged attacks.

Pistols

Type: Semi-Automatic Firearm, Light

The standard go-to side-arm, pistols deal modest damage with typically no chance to shred foe's armor. They have no full-auto capability and only score guaranteed glancing hit damage at 80%+ accuracy.

In return for these tradeoffs, they are relatively quiet, and can be made extremely quiet with a silencer. They cost extremely little AP to reload, can be fired with your last 1 AP on a turn, have modest recoil, surprisingly decent range, and often deal substantial bonus damage to surprised foes.

Pistols are the weapons of choice if you need to kill or wound from a distance without drawing too much attention.

E-Rifles

Type: Fully-Automatic Firearm, Heavy

E-Rifles are medium range full-auto weapons with a burst fire mode like Assault Rifles. E-Rifles have elevated chances to shred armor, superior to nearly all ranged weapons. They are most comparable to shotguns. While shotguns are close ranged weapons, E-Rifles tend to fire a bit further. Shotguns will shred significantly better than E-Rifles, especially as they can shred two points of armor in a single turn. However, the E-Rifles split their damage fairly evenly between Ballistic Damage and Pure Damage, letting them deal reliable damage prior to shredding.

Unlike almost all weapons, the E-Rifle has a limited number of reloads permitted per mission. (Presumably the power sources used to fire the partially armor-bypassing discharge is heavy and/or bulky.)

Rail Guns

Type: Single-Shot Firearm, Presumed Heavy

Rail Guns have not been released as of the time of this writing (2024-2-10), but have been hinted at as being another limited ammunition weapon akin to the E-Rifles. It is likely they will be a very long range weapon like the Sniper Rifles.

Melee Weapons

Modern swords are deadly and silent. Swords cannot completely miss targets and thus effectively have a 100% glancing hit rate. The accuracy rating on swords indicate whether you're going to deal a full hit instead of a glancing hit. Swords are very useful for eliminating foes without alerting others to the noise. This tactic is particularly useful for the Vanguard (who has an early silent movement talent, and is frequently a top choice for stealthy deployments.)

IO Batteries (Commonly referred to as IO Batts) are an important feature of modern melee weapons in the NBZ. These provide a small number of uses of a powerful ability that differs depending on the melee weapon used. These charges can be refilled at the safehouse for free, or can be swapped out by the use of a consumable item you can carry mid-heist. The weapons are still usable with totally drained IO Batts, but won't be able to use their particular special attack.

Swords

Standard swords (slingblades, and slantblades) deal large amounts of Kinetic Damage, although advanced models sometimes do a small measure of Pure Damage as well. These swords tend to have a moderate chance at shredding armor with any of their attacks. As with many (all?) swords, critically hitting a completely unprepared target will deal bonus stealth critical hit damage.

These swords are outfitted with Plasma charges in their IO Batteries which allow for limited use bonus damage attacks dealing default damage plus a large amount of added Pure Damage.

E-Cutters

E-Cutters are special swords designed to reliably shred armor. While their base chance to shred can sometimes be lower than comparable standard swords, they have a special IO Batt that will guarantee shredding armor when used. The installed IO Batt tends to have more charges than standard swords as well. This can lead to a variety of strategies where a guaranteed shred is followed up by a silence pistol attack at point blank, or an attack from an ally.

The Charged (Armor-Cutter) rule will shred 1 Protection Point of Armor at a cost of one IO-Batt Ammo. This rule takes effect only after testing the normal Armor Shred Chance; only a single Protection Point can be shredded by a single attack, so if the normal Armor Shred Chance succeeds there will be no IO-Batt Ammo cost.

Stun Sticks

Modern stun weaponry of the NBZ has taken a turn for being more lethal. Stun sticks deal less kinetic damage than swords of any variety, but tend to deal a substantial amount of Pure Damage, leaving them more useful against heavily armored foes without bothering to shred their armor. That said, they retain a moderate chance to shred armor with any of their attacks.

The stun sticks have very useful IO Batts that will inflict a stunning effect, causing a surviving foe to miss their next turn, which can be immensely useful against the hardest foes. Additionally, some more powerful stun weapons' IO Batts will also decrease the foe's evasion, allowing follow-up attacks of any type a better chance to fully connect.

Damage

Damage Calculation

Weapon damage is based on the Ballistic, Kinetic, and Pure Damage values of the weapon. Damage delivered is somewhat randomized, ranging from 75% to 100% of the weapon damage value. Armor then soaks some percentage of the delivered damage.

Damage Estimate Bar

The damage estimate bar is a kind of hit point bar with a flashing white section showing how much damage to expect from an attack with the current weapon. The damage estimate is based on the average damage of the weapon in the current weapon mode minus the Armor Soak of the enemy. Because the delivered damage is 75%-100% of the weapon damage statistic, the damage displayed will be 87.5%, and thus accurate to plus or minus 12.5%. However, the damage estimate does not take into account Critical Hits or Glancing Hits. The damage estimate bar is usually marked with a cyan Attack Icon.

When targeting with a weapon in Full Auto mode, each target gets their own Damage Estimate Bar which takes into account how many strikes are targeting them.

Critical Hits

Critical Hits are particularly well-placed attacks that deal bonus Critical Damage. The odds of getting a critical hit start at 0% but are increased by certain weapons, weapon mods, talents, and traits.

Stealth Critical Hit chance behaves similarly but for targets that are Unaware or Suspicious. Stealth Critical Hit chance is added to Critical Hit chance.

Damage is increased by the amount of Critical Dmg % based on weapon and circumstance (regular or stealth bonus, if applicable).

If a weapon is considered a stealth weapon, it has a second Stealth Crit Dmg % which is added to the regular Crit Dmg % in the case of scoring a Critical Hit on an Unaware or Suspicious target. Thus, a Stealth Critical Hit can be considered a special type of Critical Hit and thus reactions that trigger upon scoring a Critical Hit will also be triggered for a Stealth Critical Hit.

Glancing Hits

Many attacks with high accuracy are guaranteed to cause some damage even if the attack roll is technically a miss. This is called a Glancing Hit. Damage from a Glancing Hit is scaled by the accuracy. See Glancing Hit Mechanics for more details. Glancing Hits count as Hits for effects triggered by "on hit", such as certain Talents like Hit Streak or Bio-Coat Bullet.

Damage Types

Damage dealt in combat is split into three types. Different armors can soak different amounts of each type. Different mods can improve the impacts of one type but perhaps not another.

Pure Damage

Uncommon damage type prized for ignoring armor soak. Damage over time also is considered Pure damage.

Pure Damage is not reduced by armor. Buffs that grant Pure Dmg Upgrade add an extra amount of Pure Damage based on a percentage of your regular Damage (10% Ballistic Pure Dmg Upgrade for example would add 10% of your ballistic damage as bonus pure damage).

Pure Damage is reduced by the special, rare, Built-in Armor however.

Ballistic Damage

Common damage type dealt by ranged weapons.

Kinetic Damage

Common damage type dealt by melee weapons.

Weapon Modes

Most firearms use a single unit of ammo and can hit only a single target. Machine guns of various types have two weapon modes: Burst Mode and Full Auto mode. Full Auto uses more ammo and more Action Points but causes a greater amount of total damage that can be distributed across multiple enemies.

When targeting an enemy, the C button toggles between Burst Mode and Full Auto mode. Icons on the Targeting Reticule denote the two modes, with the current mode marked in yellow. In the weapon statistics, Full Auto damage is marked with the number of strikes times damage, e.g. "6 x 88(b)" indicating 6 bullets of 88 Ballistic damage each.

When a target is selected and the weapon mode is Full Auto, the nearest three enemies within the weapon Arc are also targeted. The targets may be at different ranges as long as they are within the firing Arc of the weapon and within the weapon's range. The PageUp and PageDown buttons allow you to change how many of the enemies are targeted and how many strikes each target receives. Each enemy can receive no more than three strikes from a Full Auto attack. This means that firing Full Auto when only a single enemy is within the firing arc wastes strikes; the burst will typically contain 4 to 6 strikes depending on weapon, but only 3 can hit the one target. (More advanced weapons can fire many more Full Auto strikes than 6).

When you make a Full Auto attack, regardless of number of bullets assigned to each target, each target counts as an attack. When the Full Auto weapon is fired, all current bonuses are locked in and apply to all bullets regardless of number of targets and number of bullets assigned to each. Within the Full Auto attack, each bullet rolls its own Accuracy, Glancing, Shredding % and Critical % and Dmg rolls.  Therefore, Hit Streak Crit % bonus, for instance, applies to each shot individually. If one shot rolls a critical hit, it multiplies its individual damage by the critical hit rules. Everything is "boxed" - first shot might glance, second shot might crit, third shot might miss.

Then, at the end the results against a specific target are merged together - if any shot rolled Shredding, then the target gets Shred 1, but never more. If any shot rolled Critical Hit, then the attack qualifies for On Critical Hit passives, etc.

Passive effects which cancel on a failure are counted on each target, but the passive can gain only +1 for the entire Full Auto action if successful. Each target is an opportunity to break a streak for subsequent actions. For example, when using Full Auto on three targets, each of the three targets must get at least one hit in order to extend Hit Streak for another action. The Hit Streak bonus will apply to all targets during the Full Auto action even if one of the targets is not hit. At the end of the Full Auto action, Hit Streak will either cease or will increment by +1 for the next action.

Recoil

Recoil is generated by movement and firing Weapons. It reduces attack accuracy, which is displayed at the top right of the screen while setting up an attack.

For each Action Point or Movement Point spent in movement, the merc gains 2% Recoil. Using a Weapon also adds Recoil. Each Weapon applies a different amount of Recoil, which is listed in the description of the Weapon.

Focused Fire is a counter to Recoil. Focused Fire is a status gained by a character attacking the same target more than once without taking any other action between attacks. For each sequential attack after the first, Recoil is temporarily set to 0. Recoil is still accrued, but it is negated by the Focused Fire effect. If the character takes any action other than attacking the same target, the Focused Fire ends and the character will suffer the effect of all Recoil gained before and during the Focused Fire. Here is an example:

1. Hawkear has 2% Recoil from moving
2. Hawkear takes a shot at Feeble the guard; this is the first shot, so -2% Recoil penalty applies
3. The shot generates 2% Recoil, for a total of -4% penalty
4. Hawkear takes a second shot at Feeble -- this is Focused Fire; while Hawkear would have -4% from Recoil, Focused Fire temporarily negates that: the shot is taken with 0% Recoil penalty
5. The shot generates another 2% Recoil, for a total of -6% penalty
   1. If Hawkear shoots the same enemy again, it is still Focused Fire and they have 0% penalty from Recoil.
   2. If instead Hawkear moves or takes any other action, Focused Fire is canceled; even if they shoot the same target after moving, they will suffer the full 6% + movement Recoil penalty
   3. If Hawkear shoots a nearby drone instead, this is the first shot (see #2) and they suffer the entire -6% Recoil penalty

An inexperienced shooter should double, triple down on the same target to take advantage of Focused Fire. Only a highly trained Soldier is going to be swapping targets with every shot and keeping Accuracy high, using talents such as Marker Sights, Iron Grip, etc.

Optimum Range

While weapons have a maximum range which represents the limit at which you can even attempt an attack, they aren't necessarily great at firing at all such allowed distances. Ranged weapons tend to have a dead zone up close or a dead zone far away with a sweet spot in the middle. Exceptions exist such as some sniper rifles, and with Weapon Mods the optimum range is often shifted, expanded, or contracted. As long as you are firing at a target within the optimum range of your weapon, you will not suffer an additional accuracy penalty to your attack. However, if you're too close or too far away, but still within the possible range of the weapon you'll face penalties that increase with distance from that optimum range. (Due to Glancing Hit Mechanics, a ranged weapon will always hit within 5 meters, but if you're very far away from your optimum range, that glancing hit will deal very minor damage.)

Accuracy Calculation

Strikingly similar to the calculation in Cyberknights: Classic, the accuracy penalty is the square of the distance from the optimum range your target is. If your foe is at range 7.45 meters but your weapon's optimum range is 10 meters to 18 meters, the penalty will be: round((10 - 7.45)²) = round(2.55²) = round(6.5) = 6% penalty to hit.

Thus, attacking a foe narrowly outside of your optimum range such as 1 meter doesn't carry a large penalty, and in fact, moving slightly to compensate might add a recoil penalty equal to what you saved by moving closer/further. But being at the limit of your weapon's range and far from the sweet spot will make for some very challenging hits unless you've lowered your foe's Evasion in advance.