Assault rifle

The assault rifle is a moderately heavy, multi-shot firearm in RimWorld which fires 3-shot bursts of rounds which deal a low amount of damage each; a slightly shorter delay between each shot; a slightly shorter time between bursts; slightly longer range and slightly higher accuracy.

Combat Performance

It'll take 6 shots to the torso to kill an unarmored human with an assault rifle, or around 10-12 shots against a human with a normal armor vest. The assault rifle can also instantly cripple digits, cripple eyeballs in two shots and cause debilitating brain damage if the victim's skull is unprotected. It takes 4 hits on an unprotected human limb to cripple it. Without factoring in any cover or shooter's accuracy, the assault rifle has an average time to down of 9.6 seconds against unarmored people or 12.1 seconds against a human with an armor vest.

Since the assault rifle is multi-shot in nature, has a fairly quick fire rate and good all-round accuracy, it is a fairly skill-friendly weapon at shorter distances but also fairly skill-heavy at the upper bounds of its range. A healthy level 8 traitless shooter, level 4 careful shooter or level 11 careful shooter can somewhat efficiently use the assault rifle up to 22 cells. However, a level 13 traitless shooter, level 9 careful shooter or level 16 trigger-happy is advisable to efficiently use the assault rifle up to its maximum range of 31 cells.

On average, the assault rifle is best paired with a careful shooter up to level 15, then with a trigger-happy shooter beyond that point.

Melee Combat

An assault rifle has a weapon bulk of 100%, but weapon bulk doesn't seem to have any observable effect on actual gameplay.

All possible melee attacks with an assault rifle:

Tool	Attack	Damage Type	Power	Cooldown	Likelihood	Base DPS	Armored DPS
Overall	-	-	9.69	1.869s	-	5.181	4.767
Stock	Smash	Blunt	9	1.8s	31%	5	4.6
Barrel	Smash	Blunt	10	1.9s	34.5%	5.263	4.842
Barrel	Poke	Blunt	10	1.9s	34.5%	5.263	4.842

Obtaining

Assault rifles can be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or obtained from the following raider kinds:

Pirates:

Pirate - 14.4% chance (normal quality on average, 40-150% health)

Outlanders:

Town Guard - 5.6% chance (poor quality on average, 20-200% health)

Mercenaries:

Mercenary Gunner - 13.6% chance (normal quality on average, 70-230% health)
Elite Mercenary - 39.8% chance (normal quality on average, 80-350% health)

Spacers:

Space Soldier - 8.5% chance (good quality on average, 100% health)

Assault rifles can also be crafted at a machining table once the precision rifling research has been completed; from 60 steel, 7 components and 45,000 ticks (12.5 mins) of work.

Comparison & Conclusion

Assault rifles have the longest range out of any standard multi-shot ranged weapon in the game - that is excluding the single-use triple rocket launcher and the forced miss radius minigun. That being said, along with its accuracy profile favoring short-medium range and inferior damage output to most other multi-shot ranged weapons; the assault rifle is the boundary between shorter ranged high damage output weapons such as the heavy SMG and charge rifle, and long-range support weapons such as the bolt-action rifle. The assault rifle also has the same 42 c/s projectile speed as the bolt-action rifle.

In terms of quickness, the assault rifle fires 1.2 bullets per second. This is slower than the LMG at 1.51 BPS, but faster than the charge rifle at 1.13 BPS.

It is also one of the most component-intensive weapons to produce, meaning that mass production will generally be difficult until fairly into the mid-game when a component surplus starts building up.

1 vs. 1 Testing

Methodology

Twenty naked level 8 shooters are split into groups of ten and each group equips one type of weapon at normal quality. These shooters are neutral in terms of traits, completely healthy and at least 18 years old to avoid teenage body size accuracy penalties which would skew the results. Shooters on each side are spaced 2 cells apart to avoid stray shots from hitting somebody else's target and everybody has a single granite chunk for cover. For armored tests, all people are equipped with normal quality armor vests and steel simple helmets.

Every run, each weapon gets a score directly based on how many people with that weapon are left standing - people that were downed and got back up aren't counted, but ties are counted. For both apparel combinations, 10 runs are taken for a total of 100 trials each; the scores are tallied and then divided to get a final performance differential. Runs with changes in weather, trauma savantism or shooting frenzies won't be counted and therefore re-done. Deviations: The standard method was used; no deviations were made.

Testing

At 15 cells, the assault rifle is on par with the LMG, but performs 10% worse when armor is factored in - this could be down to margin of error though. Against the bolt-action rifle, the assault rifle is 196% better and 141.4% better against naked and armored respectively. The charge rifle naturally wipes the floor with the assault rifle though; the latter performs 74.7% worse without armor and 70.1% worse with armor. Finally, against the heavy SMG, things are quite interesting: the assault rifle performs 25% worse than the heavy SMG without any armor, but actually performs 22.2% better when armor is factored in.

Further testing at 25 cells shows the assault rifle assuming a 50% performance lead over the LMG without armor, extending to 80% once armor gets factored in. Things still don't really look any better for the bolt-action rifle, with the assault rifle still boasting a 170.4% performance lead without armor and 153.6% with.

Field Testing

Methodology

The biome's a temperate forest with small hills, with all shooters on both sides being neutral in terms of traits, level 8 in shooting, at least 18 years old and perfectly healthy. The raider group's arsenal consists of one sniper rifle; two bolt-action rifles; one assault rifle; one LMG; one heavy SMG; one machine pistol; one autopistol and one pump shotgun, all at normal quality and mint condition. Five raiders are wearing armor vests, one of which is also wearing a power armor helmet and another wears a steel advanced helmet - all of their apparel is also normal quality. Since the raider group size was originally 11 but cut down to 9 for the purpose of a fairer test, the raider group will route when there's only 3 of them left. The entire colonist group is dressed in cloth jackets, pants, t-shirts and normal quality armor vests, and equipped with six normal quality assault rifles.

Ten trials are taken here (see illustrated screenshot for attack points): three of which are done with route A; two of which with route B; two of which with route C and three of which with ambush point D. Scores are based on how many colonists are left standing, with the total score being tallied up after the ten trials. The total score is then divided by 60, multiplied by 100 and then square rooted to get a final rating, from which the conclusion is drawn.

Testing

As to be expected from the very well-rounded nature of the assault rifle combined with its decent range; it's an excellent weapon for field combat, performing better than the bolt-action rifle. The shooters may occasionally hold the assault rifle back at the upper bounds of its range, but it still held up.

Conclusion

Although expensive, the assault rifle more than compensates for its production cost with its versatility. Although it doesn't excel in close-quarters combat, it offers great performance from the mid-range onwards, handily beating the bolt-action rifle which in turn beats the sniper rifle. Like any other multi-shot weapon, hits from the assault rifle will generally be frequent meaning that the target's manipulation and therefore shooting accuracy will likely go down quicker.

Graphs

The graphs assume a normal quality assault rifle against an adult human that's out in the open in clear weather. For DPS, projectile speed has also been factored into the equation, with the weighting based on the base amount of attacks that it'll take to put the aforementioned target into pain shock.