I just unlocked the Gewehr 43 for Battle of Berlin. I have seen some, but not really many people in battles with semi auto or assault rifles up to this point. From the start I have loved my bolt action rifles, just tearing through squads with them, I barely felt limited by the rate of fire from the bolt action. SMGs feel weak and lack power.
I still expected that there would be some kind of critical weakness added to these semi-auto guns in order to balance them against the earlier Bolt Action rifles, like lower damage, high order cost, or a limit on how many you can put in 1 squad, but its not really the case. Semi Auto rifles seem just flat out superior at the same price, and I see very little reason not to equip every single soldier with one… It’s realistic, but even red orchestra limits it to just a few on both teams for balance.
This leaves me with some questions. Why isn’t everybody using them? Is it because they just haven’t unlocked it yet? If that’s the case eventually everyone will get them and nobody will use bolt action…
semi auto are literally higher level weapon than bolt action, a high lever weapon being better than lower level weapon is super super normal or even it expected to be that way
there’s literally no downside to them. They planned on having them jam but autistic people threw a fit about having their pro MLG gamer swag moves disrupted by RNG.
Only downside is worse damage at range. At 100 meters a stock semi auto is only going to one hit down a full hp soldier if you headshot. While some bolt actions can one hit to the head or chest at close to 200 meters. Semi autos are definitely better but not significantly, and thats how it should be for higher level weapons.
In pre OBT version of the game we had malfunctions and some of us thought that they will be used to ballance semi auto rifles.
But instead, malfunctions got removed and devs gave FG42 to everybody, because apparently nowdays powercreep is a good gameplay design.
Devs removed malfunctions after a few CAT testers who no longer play brigaded the forum for weeks crying about how the malfunctions were ruining the game.
There was one, maybe two proper post about it. I wouldn’t call it “crying”.
Also judging by how many people wanted to make this game into clone of CoD when OBT started, I don’t blame them.
back in CBT and CAT, we had nail guns as semi automatic rifles.
where you needed 3 to 4 bullets for just a singular soldier. and when upgraded, 2 to 3.
is that where everyone wants to go?
just take as example tunisia, italian semi auto rifle has 6 bullets in their mag. you ain’t gonna kill a squad made out of 9 with just 6 bullets ( if the damage is weakened like hell ). by the same logic, should also starter rifle deal less damage?
i don’t think so.
we are speaking of semi auto rifles using bolt action cartridges.
why would you lower the damage
To answer the OP - there was no downside to semi-auto guns apart from cost.
So basically once you started making them that was the end of bolt actions for your infantry - unless you had a major emergency such as Barbarossa was for the Soviets.
Unfortunately the “economy” in Enlisted does not simulate any sort of real economic costs - so everyone wants semi-autos and all you need is enough levels and enough bronze orders.
So to keep BA’s “competitive” the damage from full caliber semi-autos is reduced by about 15%.
but, you still need to upgrade them ( unlike bolt action rifles ) like, in terms of upgrades avilable. 3 for the bolt action rifle, and 4 for the semi auto.
weapon it self, you need alot of weapons to dismantle and upgrade ( although this might change with the upcoming " rework " of the game ) so you need several weapons to make it better.
and lastly, upgrades.
it’s quite time consuming. and therefore i’d say it is balance.
Some semi autos can have 5 or I think 6 stars - not sure off hand how man ythey start with.
Number of stars is a bit of a misnomer - what’s the difference between something that comes with 2 stars and can get 6, or something that comes with 0 and can get 4?? Both require 4 more stars to get to top grade.
From memory the number of spare parts might be a lot more??- again been a while and don’t recall
But in this game you pretty much get unlimited random weapon parts if you want them just for the playing … upgrading allied SA’s in Normandy, Moscow and Berlin has not been very onerous IIRC
You are probably in the least populated campaign at the moment. A lot of people are utilizing the 50% bonus xp in Tunisia at the moment or maxing out Normandy for the new Panther and STG. Berlin’s latest campaign level rewards seemed the least appealing to me.
