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Weapon Mechanics Overview

Weapons are broken up into two main categories: melee weapons and ranged weapons. Melee weapons require you to be close to your enemy and ranged weapons will fire a projectile from a distance.
Melee weapons can be broken down into sub-categories. They are as follows:

Unarmed Combat - Fighting with no weapon equipped is considered melee combat. Brawling is the fastest melee style, but the lowest potential for damage output.

One-handed Sword - One-handed melee weapons are usually bladed and easy to swing. A one-handed weapon is a little slower than brawling, but the weapon will cause more damage than your fists.

Two-handed Sword - Similar to one-handed weapons, these are usually bladed but they are someone heaver. That makes them slower than their one-handed counterparts, but the extra weight allows more damage to be dealt.

Polearm - The largest of the melee weapons, these can be either bladed or blunt. These can sometimes be difficult to wield and as a result they are generally the slowest melee weapons to use. However, the sheer size of these weapons makes them the most dangerous to your enemies.

Ranged weapons are also broken down into sub-categories. They are as follows:

Pistol - These small weapons are easy to carry and even easier to conceal. Their small size yields a relatively low damage output, but they recharge quickly allowing for a rapid rate of fire. The effectiveness of a pistol drops off at long ranges; they are usually used only for short range combat.

Carbine - These are good mid-range weapons. Carbines have a little trouble hitting targets at very long or very short distances, so at these ranges you may want to aim carefully. The capabilities of a carbine weapon allow for moderate damage output along with a fairly decent recharge rate.

Rifle - Made to destroy enemies from afar, these weapons are most effective from long ranges. The sheer power behind a rifle makes it difficult to attack targets at a short range, but from a distance, a rifle has the highest damage potential of any ranged weapon. This does not come without a price however, as the power drain on a rifle makes for a long recharge time and a slow rate of fire.

Additionally, there is also a category of weapons known as heavy weapons. These generally include grenades and rocket launchers, and can only be used effectively by a few professions. The disadvantage to these types of weapons is that they are expendable, and can be used only a limited number of times.

Simply examine a weapon if you wish to check the damage output, attack speed, and range information.

Weapon Attributes

Weapon attributes are the modifiers and statistics found on a weapon. Weapons come from three sources: Crafting, Loot and as part of Quest rewards. Every type of weapon has a unique range of stats which can vary depending on the resources used in crafting or the luck of the player when the game randomly generates stats on a weapon that is given as loot.

There are 29 attributes available to weapons, divided into 13 categories.

1. Variation Of:

This attribute spawns on any weapon that has had its base type name changed. For player crafter weapons this type change occurs when the player renames the weapon from the default given one. After changing the name the weapon now indicates that it is a variation of the specific type that it originated as. For looted weapons, this attribute occurs only on weapons that have been given the exceptional or legendary tags.

2. Certified :

This attribute is present on all weapons and indicates whether the player has the necessary skill certification requirement to use the weapon by displaying a simple Yes or No. Players who are not certified to use a weapon will suffer a damage penalty when wielding the weapon.

3. Condition:

This attribute is present on all weapons and indicates the current hitpoints remaining on the weapon. The left figure represents the current hitpoints on the weapon and the right represents the total max possible hitpoints. A weapon will begin to lose damage potential if it falls below 25% of the max possible condition. If a weapon reaches 0 condition it will lose its damage.

4. Volumn

Represents the current container contents of the weapon.

5. Skill Mods:

This attribute only occurs on some looted exceptional, legendary items or certain quested rewards. Skill mods represent bonuses to a player's skills up to a maximum of 25. Weapons are allowed up to 3 skill mods.

6. Armor Piercing

This attribute represents the armor piercing rating of the weapon. Some weapons have the ability to cause bonus damage in the form of armor piercing. Weapons that do not have this are represented as having none.

7. Damage

Damage is broken up into 4 parts consisting of the type of damage that the weapon does, the weapons minimum to maximum damage range and the wound chance of the weapon. There are a number of damage options available to weapons. These damage types come in the forms of kinetic, heat, energy, cold, stun, electricity, acid, blast and lightsaber damage. These damage types may offer special bonuses versus weak targets. Wound chance represents the chance to cause a bleeding effect on a player when attacking with this weapon.

8. Range modifiers:

This indicates the accuracy bonuses or penalties that a player suffers when using a weapon. Point blank Range indicates the bonus or penalty applied to the player using this particular weapon at 0 meters from the target. Ideal range indicates the accuracy modifier by using the weapon at its ideal location. Max range represents the accuracy modifier applied when the target is being attacked at the maximum possible range for the weapon to attack at.

9. Special Attack Cost

This represents the base HAM costs that a player expends when using specials with this weapon. Special attack ham multipliers are calculated against this base ham cost for each stat pool in order to derive the value taken away from the player's pools.

10. Damage Over Time:

DOT effects

Weapons are allowed to have 1 DOT effect added to them. This dot can be of any type such as poison, fire, or disease. The DOT effect can be to any random ham pool such as health, action or mind. The only exceptions to this are from night sister lances which have an innate health disease dot, and cannot have another disease spawned on the item. Night sister lances can have 2 dots, but as mentioned the second dot must not be a disease.

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