outside of mod88 which firearms actually do stuff? I dont see any people using heavy revolvers nor marksman types.
3 Likes
M4A3 slaps still BUT… only when dealing with low armor targets at close range, use it right and you will melt a lurk or runner at close range.
1 Like
Sidearms got nerfed to hell cuz devs and xenomains didn’t like sidearm meta: revolver stuns not fun for runners and lurkers, m4a3 hp melts t1s too fast, dual mod88s used to melt even ravs. The most significant thing about sidearms is people can dual them.
7 Likes
They would be if we could do this
m10 one handed build can solo warriors in close quarters, I know this because I’ve done this. Mod88 is also fire if you bring enough ammo to support it
2 Likes
@smellyhippie are revolvers viable?
2 Likes
no but that wont stop me.
4 Likes
They are neat flavour. I enjoy carrying one, typically a revolver. Heavy bullets are just about viable as a tactical choice to give yourself room to breathe.
If you want actually useful things to carry its vp or mod 88.
Side arms as a whole are largely obsolete if you have a mag harness. Giving your sidearm to a private thats lost his gun is HRP though…
5 Likes
Combat revolver as a main weapon + machete + throwing knifes poch + light armor = Glass cannon build (Actually it’s just a colossal friendly fire damage build)
1 Like
Using anything that is not m41a is trolling.
2 Likes
They are viable in a place that they matter, which is you lost your main gun, or your main gun is inadequate to the target you are fighting with.
So flamer, slug shotgun, bipod + scope pulse rifle, those sort of things, all it takes is uniform storage slot (shoulder holster) and you are good.
They should never be your main gun, unless you go with meme dual-wield.
Mod88 for ravs and queen, M4A3 for runners. Maybe combat revolver, but only with heavy bullets.
2 Likes
VP and Revolver feel not bad, m4a3 is good in the use cases described above but isn’t versatile. The mod has green ammo that let’s you tell people you’re firing AP, and the ac71 is the best firearm ever constructed by human hands, but the quartermaster has a vendetta against .380 acp so good luck getting ammo.
3 Likes
I futz around with service pistol and revolver as a sidearm for SG specifically to mess with lurkers and runners and it’s snagged me more kills than you might think.
1 Like
As QM, I always have my silver plated revolver. It’s a fucking tradition from the days of RO.
As for doctor/field doc. I carry a SU-6. I’ve actually killed a queen as a field doc after she broke into fob on Forina. She tried to book it around a corner to screech and I just mowed her down with it. I wasn’t expecting to get a kill.
5 Likes
SU6 might just be the best gun in the game……..
3 Likes
The VP is really good for an offensive handgun. Flip the switch to burst and if you can aim well enough, it will deal some serious damage. Close range or mid range, doesn’t matter it performs really well. Just bit difficult to restock on ammo.
Mod 88 is niche in a sense that it’s not the most viable an offensive handgun, not an ideal self-defense either, but a good weapon to fall back to on the front line when you have other people around. For example when pulling a fallen marine, or lost your weapon for some time.
M4A3/A4 is great for self-defense. Puts out a massive amount of DPS at close range only, as there is a chance that not all shots will land. Which will take a massive chunk out of the health bar of most xenos up to T2.
However it’s not really the most reliable as a primary weapon due to poor accuracy at range. Meaning that sweet DPS output will get cut short by missed shots and the frequent reloads you will be doing as you eat though ammo at high speeds.
SU-6 i couldn’t tell you, never really figured it out. I suppose it’s nice when you’re a support/untrained role and just want to be a force multiplier or need something that’s easy to use. Not terrible I guess, but not something I’d chose.
M10 sounds a bit like a gimmick. Mostly it makes you think of the M39 back in the days when it was a one-handed weapon, before dual wielding was a thing. So I wouldn’t really go with it either. So instead just go with the M39, which you’d expect to perform better at the cost of holding more magazines in your belt.
M44 is kind of similar to the mod 88, it may do some damage as a force multiplier with people around you, but I wouldn’t rely on it as much as with the other sidearms. Damage is decent, but you really need to lock in and land those shots to make it count.
tl;dr, yes they are viable, but by the name -side-arm they are not meant to be primary weapons, and each of them has a certain purpose by design.
Rely on your primary weapons.
1 Like
it slaps you can not believe how many times i as a medic have driven off queen screechs earlier that we had any right to, by me just mag dumping the queen from the backlines over all the stunned marines head.
Shit has pretty good AP and high RPM with good accuracy especially with mods, you can’t kill most things on its own but fuck if it will not put the hurt down.
Issues is that runs out of ammo so fast and it hard to get more.
4 Likes
It really does slap as the kids would say.
Don’t let anyone know what happens if you convince three people to dual wield it close together…
2 Likes
I don’t think any of them are actually viable, not even as a sidearm. They are not things you want to fight with, and they largely don’t help you in emergencies either. They can get you kills, but you could have done the same or better with an m39 or second M41 too.
For the most part they have too little ammo, are too inaccurate, or they don’t do enough damage.
Pretty much they’re balanced to not be primaries but the primaries aren’t balanced to not be secondaries, so you’re better off just having two M41’s, two SMG’s, a flamer + M4RA, and so forth, rather than a primary and a pistol.
1 Like
m4a3 has some of the best ap scaling in the game due to its high bullet dmg. It has the highest single marine dps in the game and is limited only by accuracy and click speed. It shreds everything not just squishies, and is overall one of the best guns to take especially since you can put it in pouches or containers. It can be situational but exceptional. It does take some getting used to tho.
My preferred sidearm will always be a grenade pouch with HEDP tho. Handthrown HEDPs are useful for safety in so many scenarios, since the long timer actually helps in keeping xenos away (which means around 5 seconds of an angle being clear of secondary t1s/t2s). HEDP may be skill based in impact because theres some REALLY cool plays you can do with it if you get good at this like escaping almost unescapable situations by using HEDP zoning, but in general usecases it’s not that difficult to figure out how to start utilizing handthrown hedp well. On the frontline it’s pretty obvious when you want to throw a HEDP at a door while a xeno is out for example, or to cut enemies off from a queen whos pushing up, or to single out a target by just throwing a nade at them so others cant go in that general area, etc. It loses much of its killing power outside of preventing escapes though, unless handcooked (which is very risky as a single stun will BLOW U TO SMITHEREENS or enemy might move out of range before you are able to throw nade at them - it situational but stylish).
HEDP destroys resin doors in 1 blast so its very very useful for pushing and clearing angles - anytime a xeno opens a door at me i usually am lightning fast at throwing hedp in if I couldn’t find a way to clear it before.
Handcooking is pretty easy to time if you practice a lil (just use practice nades + firing range), just wait until the beeps end and then throw. (but there is a random duration of beeps, so sometimes it will be LONGER then grenade timer. If it sounds low pitched or slow throw at like 3rd beep instead).
But if I didn’t use HEDP and I had space i’d totally take a m4a3 in my loadout. I need my flares, binocs, injectors, bandages, ointment, and splints to b ez to access especially since I use mou anyway and dont super duper need the burst dmg of m4a3. As a layer of counterplay, HEDP is one of the most powerful counterplays available to marines depending on position, and as a utility, HEDP is the most powerful utility nade by far imo.
VP78 is a mk2 with BC equivalent and no wield slowdown. It’s good and fun
M88 is a mk2 with AP near-equivalent. It’s not as good as mk2 a lot of the time simply because even with non-ap ammo, mk2 is very reliable using burst tracking (and m88’s burst mode is pretty lacking outside of close-mid ranges tbh), but it’s a good sidearm to rely on and has no wield slowdown. Low accuracy though.
Smartpistol is amazing
M10 sucks currently, but after this buff gets merged it will be better then m4a3 for most people (since it near instakills rounys, hiveys, drones, and lurkers), just with horrible ap scaling on base ammo and unusable-at-range falloff (which starts after 3 tiles). However, if the ap ammo gets in, that will also be the highest ap dps in the game and will melt everything: M10 revamp, new attachments & additions. by Zenith00000 · Pull Request #9861 · cmss13-devs/cmss13 · GitHub
M44 is one of the worst or at least hardest marine guns in the game currently to get a kill with, with the niche use of using heavy ammo to push and slow a t1/t2. However, this could also be due to not enough skilled users to show off. M44 has few good qualities and its 0 ap makes it limited in usecase:
Only handgun that can take scopes
High single shot dmg (but the firerate is prohibitively low)
Slightly less falloff dropoff then other handguns due to higher base dmg
Can have ap and standard bullets to swap between (but the dps is very low)
No wield slowdown
3 Likes
They are viable in fact!
As sidearms 
Jokes aside, they are that, sidearms. They can be used to compliment your primary (an example would be taking a HPR, and a mod88 as a sidearm to deal with any armored xenos that get too close), or as a backup especially if you don’t pack a magnetic harness.
The Mod88 is a really nice pistol, same firerate as a mark 2, with free AP ammo. It’s really good for taking out armored xenos that get too close.
The M4A3 is a great pistol IF you know how to use it. It requires a fast trigger finger, and any substantial use of it shreds through the ammo available for it. It also has multiple types of ammo; Hollow point, which can kill any unarmored xeno VERY fast. Regular, which is free, but not as good as Hollow point in raw damage. AP which can do insane DPS to armored xenos. Both are quite scarce (unless you’re an IO), so I wouldn’t make a loadout around them.
The VP78 is kinda shit. It’s okay-ish, but isn’t really good at anyone thing. It’s firerate is shit, it’s damage cannot compare to an M44, it’s AP doesn’t compare well to a mod88, and when using burst mode, it’s inacurate as fuck. Don’t take it unless you get it for free, or it gets buffed.
The SU-6, probably the best sidearm. It’s an M4A3 with IFF practically, also has 15 AP base if I remember right. Though, you do need to get it from REQ, or use vendor points for it, and it DEVOURS ammo like crazy, doubly so because it has IFF, made even worse that it’s ammo is more scarce then the standard loadout sidearms.
The M44, I quite like it, but generally the other pistols are better and easier to use. If you’re good with landing your shots, it can be quite nice with it’s 72 damage a shot. However, it’s capacity of seven rounds means that you REALLY need to make those shots count, or reload fast like your life depends on it. Heavy rounds also no-longer stun, only slowing down. Marksman has increased AP, but nerfs the base damage a lot. I wouldn’t bother with marksman rounds.
The M10 is not very good. It has a niche with it’s drum mags, but until it’s re-work is back on merge, don’t bother with it. It’s scatter means that most of it’s theoretical DPS goes to waste past two tiles, and you shouldn’t be running in screaming with this until it gets it’s AP mags back.
All the loadout pistols only come with two magazines (except the M4A4, you can just use M4A3 mags), so that only reinforces their use as a backup to your main weapon, so there’s no real point discussing them here.
All sidearms have bad falloff and bad effective range. Meaning that no matter which one you pick, it is squarely meant for close range combat. Take a rifle if you want to shoot at any range. In fact, take a rifle of some kind in general.
2 Likes