Mechanoid Weapons

Gear

The minigun is a very heavy, multi-shot ranged weapon that puts a lot of damage downrange in exchange for a move speed penalty.

Acquisition

s can be crafted, each requiring and Expression error: Unexpected < operator. of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter.

They can also be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, and outlander faction bases. They can also be found on the following raider kinds:

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Heavy mercenary	36.73%	Normal	70-320%
Cataphract	?	?	70-230%

Miniguns also spawn on all centipede gunners, including those gestated by a colony. However, it is not possible to loot them. The centipedes carrying it will not drop it on death, downing, or complete loss of manipulation like other weapons.

Summary

The minigun fires -shot bursts of rounds which deal a moderate amount of damage each; a short delay between each shot; a slightly longer time between bursts; slightly longer range and very low overall accuracy.

When equipped, a mechanoid weapons reduces the pawn's base move speed by −0.25 c/s. As offsets such as these apply before multiplicative effects such as from Moving capacity, the actual impact on move speed can be larger or smaller than this value. For example, a pawn with 125% Moving would have their speed decreased by −0.3125 c/s, while a pawn with only 50% Moving would only have their speed decreased by −0.125 c/s. See Move Speed for details.

Analysis

The minigun takes what the LMG has and cranks it up to eleven.

Raw damage per second is, by far, the highest out of all non-explosive weapons in the game. It's almost double that of the chain shotgun, and 2.5 that of the LMG. Even against single targets, the minigun's average DPS technically surpasses the charge rifle past "short" range (12 tiles). In practice, miniguns are poor against single targets for a number of reasons. It is inaccurate, which makes damage highly variable. And it has a long warmup time; by the time a minigun starts firing, a charge rifle would have already completed a burst. Weapons like assault rifles and heavy SMGs are more reliably good against a lone target.

But the minigun isn't meant for single targets. The low accuracy and huge, 25-shot burst makes the minigun extremely good against crowds. Missed shots can hit other targets in the vicinity, negating much of the accuracy. Even low-skill pawns are bound to hit things with so many bullets. But, even then, the minigun is not without problems. The massive warmup/cooldown cycle and movement speed penalty makes it rather inflexible; pawns will become extremely vulnerable if shooting out in the open.

Therefore, miniguns are best used inside a well-defended emplacement, like a killbox, against large, clustered crowds of enemies. Note that they are expensive; not just costly in both production time and resources, but also in research requirements. They won't appear from raiders until the lategame.

Stats

The minigun is most accurate between 12 and 25 cells range, though the exponential accuracy application from Shooting skill means that the minigun is likely to hit its highest accuracy at between 0 and 14 cells, depending on Shooting level (it requires at least Shooting 8 for the best accuracy range to be anything other than 0 cells, however).

Against an unarmored human, a minigun can kill with 4 hits to the torso, 3-4 hits to the head, 3 hits to the neck or 1 hit to the brain; cripple or destroy limbs in 3 hits; and cripple or destroy eyes and digits with a single hit. It'll generally take around 7 hits (~9.8 seconds average) to incapacitate that human from pain shock.

From a strictly primary-target perspective, at a relative short range of 12 cells, a Minigun is best paired with Careful Shooter up to Shooting level 13, and Trigger-Happy at 14+. At a moderate range of 20 cells, Careful Shooter wins up through Shooting 18, and Trigger-Happy at 19+. Careful Shooting wins for all shooting levels at a target range of 24+ cells. However, against crowds of enemies, where accuracy is mostly irrelevant, Trigger-Happy wins at all Shooting levels and all ranges for rather obvious reasons.

Attack table

Mechanoid Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Mechanoid Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
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^{Values shown in Red indicate the weapon is out of range at the reference point for this range band.
The value is provided due to the interpolated nature of accuracy between range points.}

Version history

0.3.410 - Can now spawn on pawns
Beta 19 - forced miss radius removed allowing it to hit single targets; to compensate accuracy has been nerfed. Also received a buff to damage and a nerf to fire rate; the overall damage is slightly higher.
1.4.3523 - New weaponTag added to uniquely identify it for use by a specific centipede variant.