Weapons

There are 8 different types of weapons in AoA. 2 for each race, and 2 "Currency" ones (universal/generic weapons). Currency weapons are swords and missile launchers, nat human weapons are laser & canister guns, neo human weapons are particle and electromagnetic cannons, and enhanced weapons are axes/talons and cartridge guns.

In terms of DPS, there is no "strongest" weapon among the 6 race-specific ones. Uncombined/unranked, they have very different base damages, but also very different intervals, which allows them to keep similar dps.
Once combined/ranked, both their damage and interval become similar among them, thus keeping their dps alike. This is in part thanks to the upgrading crystals, which not only increase the weapon's damage, but also evens out even more the few dps differences among them, bringing canisters on par with the other weapons in terms of 1v1 dps (canister weapons were the weakest at 1v1 even after weapon combining, but the upgrading crystals make them equally as powerful dps-wise as the rest).
This is of course, when it comes to regular attacks. When skill chips are added, emag neos and cart enhs still get the advantage of chips with negative cooldown, cart & laser humans, and part neos, will need to use tf buffs along with their fast attack chips in order to outdps them.

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Currency Weapons:

Swords:



These are the only weapon type that does not require any stats at all. They are used usually by players at low level in order to save knowledge points (until they find a good race based weapon to use), or for the FB20 instance (more on this dungeon in the Instances section of the guide). While melee weapons do not waste money on ammo, they have a higher firing cost on your core's energy. Melee weapons are the only ones that get a base Strike Hitpoints stat, which basically means Critical Chance. For enhanceds, swords will be weaker than their race based combat weapons, so they may just want to stick to axes and talons. Natural humans and Neos would be better off with interval builds along with swords if they want to maximize their dps at bosses, unless they are equipping purple r19 set armors.
For FB20, you'll need a dph of at least ~1.3k, easily obtainable with rank 17 purple arms & legs/r19 purple set, and a 6xx damage sword.

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Missile Launchers:



Missile launchers are the other universal weapon in AoA. These are the opposite to swords in several ways: they have long range reach, AoE effect, and use the most expensive ammo in game. Also, Missile launchers need knowledge points. These weapons also work in an opposite way to other shooting weapons. If you look at the missile launcher I posted above, you can find at least 2 things that dont match with most shooting weapons.
One is the attack intensity, which says 3.2, the other one is the Attack Preparing Time stat (charge time).
Thing is, missiles are the only weapons that are able to get a real -100% interval (interval is the weapon's cooldown, all other weapons have an interval cap at 500 milliseconds - more on interval later on under the Builds section). By getting a -100% interval, you can basically nullify the cooldown, and only leave present the charge time, which is always of 500 ms. Missiles are the only weapon type with a charge time for their normal attacks.
Now, if you take a look at the attack intensity value, you will notice its similar to another value. This one for example:



The hitpoints line on the ammo, and the Attack intensity line on the missile launcher, are the same type of value. They are damage multipliers. Now here is the trick. Any (non missile) weapon ingame will have its hitpoints value be a rather high number, and its ammo's hitpoints a low number. For example, the hitpoints of a laser cannon could say 684, a canister cannon 731, a particle cannon 1259, etc. In turn, the ammo they use could be rank 1 (hitpoints 1.0), rank 2 (hitpoints 1.2), rank 3 (hitpoints 1.4, shown above), rank 4 (hitpoints 1.6), etc.
With missiles, its the other way around. The missile launcher is the one that shows 1.0, 1.7., 2.9, 4.0 (and pretty much any "small" number between 0.9 and ~7), while their ammo shows high values (ammo 1 being 50, ammo 5 is 290).

But what do all these numbers mean anyways? Its simple.
Imagine you have a laser gun, and its hitpoints are 100. If we use ammo 1, we have 100 damage, and a 1.0 multiplier (ammo 1 for "regular weapons" is always 1.0). So then, the gun would do 100 damage * 1.0. Which is still 100. However, if we were using ammo 3, the gun would do 100*1.4, that is 140 damage. As if that wasn't enough, the ammo multiplier is so important, that its done after all your other damage calculations.
For example: lets say you have the 100 hp gun, a 90 hp arm, a Laser enhancer 4 (+50% base weapon damage) and a Fire 4 skill chip (+100% base weapon damage). That would be:
100 hp (laser) + 90 hp (arm) + 50 hp (Laser Enhancer 4) + 100 hp (Fire 4) = 340 hp. The ammo multiplier then kicks in: Ammo 1 would leave it at 340, ammo 2 would be 340*1.2 = 408; ammo 3 would be 340*1.4 = 476 damage.
And for missiles, its similar. In this case, instead of a 100 hp missile launcher, a 90 hp arm, laser enhancer 4 and fire 4 chips; you could be using a +3.2 hp missile launcher, a +1.0 hp engine (some engines add to missile's damage), and a Missile enhancer 4 (missiles don't get any skill chips). That would be:
3.2 (missile launcher) + 1.0 (engine) + 1.6 (the missile enhancer 4 gives +50% of the weapon damage, which in this case is 3.2) = 5.8. This 5.8 total damage multiplier from your weapon is then applied to your ammo, missile ammo 1 (being 50 hp) would do 5.8*50 = 290 damage, and so on. The higher the ammo, the higher the damage. Ammo 2 is 80 damage (5.8*80 = 464 in this case), and rank 5 is 290 (1682 damage in this case).

This brings a few drawbacks to missiles: In order to do good damage, you need to use the highest possible ammo, and will also need a very high multiplier from your missile launcher and parts (and this will come mostly out of missile enhancers and purple r19 set parts). This is because, unlike other weapons, there aren't many parts you can reconfigure to add to your missile damage. Namely, only the engine can be reconfigured for missile damage, and it increases by very small amounts (cores and cabins with little bonuses to missile damage can be found also).

Now, check the Attack Interval on those missiles, 5700 (ms). Missiles have also the slowest interval in game (even slower than particle cannons and their 4500 ms interval). If you use only 1 missile launcher, some of your armor parts will need the - interval of shoulder weapon stat. If you use 2 launchers, this wont be needed. This is because of another difference between missile launchers and regular shooting weapons - the bullet speed. With any other shooting weapon, you can shoot right after the interval time is over (up to 2 shots per second on interval builds). With missiles however, you need to wait until your last missile hits, in order to fire the next one. That means, no matter how low your interval is, you wont be able to shoot again until your last missile lands. And missiles fly very, very slow, specially if you are far from the target. If you use 2 missile launchers, you can fire 1, and while its cooling down, you can fire the other one, if the previous missile hit already.

NOTE: natural humans shouldn't need missiles for pve. Nat humans already get canisters, which are stronger, faster, cheaper, and get skill chips. PvEwise, Missiles should only be used by neos and enh humans who need AoE damage (basically, for the instance map called Exotic Planet - more on EP on the Instances section of the guide). At pvp, with enough funding, missiles can do high damage (except against resistance builds), and are primarily effective against Radar Reflection builds, since that is an evation build, and missiles NEVER miss. Missiles have the best "accuracy" in game: their Error of Weapon Scanning (accuracy) is usually between 1 and 5 (the lower, the better).

The best missiles to use early on, are the Perseid class missiles, since they do much more damage than pri and med ones, while using less knowledge points too (a Perseid 1 -which requires adv 1 missile weapon operation- has a 2.9 multiplier, while many primary 4 and med 4 barely reach 2.0).
Update: combined missile type weapons don't get much bonuses, roughly a +0.1 damage boost per rank or so. For endgame purposes, the best to use might be Andromeda class missiles (adv4 med 3 requirements), for at least 2 reasons:
- the difference when compared the Kylin class missiles (which are adv5 med 3) is almost non existent, roughly a +0.2 base damage increase and a slightly faster interval
- the strongest missile launchers are the TF version of the Andromeda ones (adv 4/med 3 requirements) and have a huge damage (7.2 base damage I believe), while the 5/3 are dps based (low damage, high speed).
Missiles become quite strong when used along with purple rank 19 set parts.

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Enhanced Human Weapons:


Combat:

These used to be the best weapons for enhanceds, pvp wise at least. Like swords, these weapons do not use ammo, although they do require knowledge & attribute points ("Primary"/"Medium" & "Advanced Combat Weapon Operation" , for example). Melee weapons damage the armor durability directly, allowing them to take down enemies "faster", since they don't need to go through the energy shield. This allowed enhanceds to be good at killing bosses (totally skipping their huge amount of energy shield). At pvp, combat weapons used to be specially good against most neo humans, since these have the lowest amount of armor dur in game (many times 1 hitting neos), and used to build their chars around Energy Shield resistance builds (which is skipped by melee weapons). Due to lag at pvp however, its very possible to get lag induced error messages stating that you "aren't close enough to the target" to attack it, regardless of whether you are close or not. Another advantage Combat gets is a pvp-only skill called Tine. This skill depletes the targeted player's core energy, forcing them to use a battery in order to be able to slide, fly, attack, etc. Since the cool down in the skill is almost non existent (50% of your weapon's interval), its very easy to render other players "immobile" by spamming the skill to them, and kill them without much trouble. Combat type weapons come in 2 forms, Axes and Talons. Axes are stronger per hit but slower (higher dph), Talons much faster but weaker per hit (very high dps).

Ranked axes stay with the same speed, so they receive smaller damage increases than weapons that become slower. The same goes for Talons.

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Cartridge:

These are mid/long range weapons for enhanceds. Similarly to other shooting weapons, they consume ammo and damage the energy shield before the armor. Cartridge type weapons are the weakest (per shot) but fastest weapon type in game (dual talons are a bit faster, but they are not a "type" on their own). While being a bit weaker than combat, their dps usually balances this out. At pvp, they are as good as melee pretty much, since while they do hit the energy shields, they are able to damage the enemy earlier (from further away), not to mention that they also get the bonuses from ammo multipliers as well. Note that Tine doesn't work with cartridge type weapons.

Ranked 2h cartridge guns become slower, but in turn receive large damage increases. I don't recall what becomes of the dual handed ones, but I believe they keep their speed, and thus receive smaller damage increases.

Suggestion: Since everybody is going armor res, including Neos, the advantages of going melee at pvp are disappearing, so it may be better to just use cartridge, seeing as how pretty much no one has energy shield resistance anyways. Besides, ammo 3 can be farmed ingame, and it outdamages the 2x% crit chance of any rank 5 melee weapon.

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Natural Human:

Laser:

Laser type weapons are ideal for all 1v1 situations, namely boss hunting and PvP. This is due to the following:
- uncombined/unranked, their dph is slightly slower than canister, but they are much faster as well, thus having higher base dps,
- combined/ranked, they actually become slightly slower than canisters, but slightly stronger as well. However, laser skill chips are quite stronger and faster than canister ones, thus giving lasers the edge here again,
- dps wise, dual type weapons have the highest one, canisters don't get dual type weapons, but lasers do.
- laser type weapons also get a skill called Haze, which for a few seconds stops the targeted player from using any sort of skills and batteries (which means they can only use normal attacks against you). This can lower the damage done to you, since the enemy wont be able to use skills on you. Its also useful against interval builds, since while they do not use skill chips, they do consume batteries very fast, which Haze stops from working as well.

Ranked 2h lasers become stronger but slower, similarly to cartridge weapons (barely slower and barely stronger than them). The dual ones keep their fast interval, and in turn get low damage boosts.

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Canister:

The best pve weapon in game, canisters are slower but stronger per hit than lasers, faster but weaker when combined, and always have AoE damage. This means, that when you target an enemy and fire at it with your canister, all close enemies within a certain range will receive damage too (and damage doesn't decrease with distance, its always 100% of your damage). While their basic blast radius is actually rather small (around 5 meters or so), the Thunderbolt skill chip can greatly increase it (up to around 30m), along with the damage. Due to this, most non natural human players used to create nat human chars, to use them in order to do EP runs more efficiently. Also, some maps (namely Shadon and Luke) have their mobs grouped up in small tight formations, making the leveling process for natural humans extremely faster. Note that while Thunderbolt is perhaps the best skill at pve, it isn't as good at pvp, since the blast radius will not damage players who aren't locked, and it's the second slowest attack skill nat humans get.

Ranked 2h canisters keep their speed, and therefore receive smaller damage increments.

Suggestion: Natural humans should, imo, use both weapons in their build (but don't waste time on primary/medium weapons). Canister is just way too good at general training, item hunting, ammo farming, chip farming, nuking DV/EP, its pretty much a must for pve, while laser is better at pvp & boss hunting.

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Neo Humans:

Particle:

Particle type weapons have the strongest base damage in game, and largest shooting range. However, they also have the lowest accuracy and slowest cooldown (except for missiles, whose cooldown time is even slower). While at lower lvls the bad accuracy will be a hassle (you may even miss at the training mobs at the beginning of the game), their accuracy increases a at higher lvls, and the raw damage they do can will in most situations compensate for it. Basically, the strongest particle weapon is almost twice as strong as its laser counterparts (strongest laser has 70x damage, strongest particle has 129x base damage).

Ranked 2h part guns get large damage bonuses and become faster (opposed to all other 2h weapon types), which actually prevents them from falling behind the other weapons dps-wise. Their accuracy still remains low, but it doesn't matter at pvp since you get missiles for rr people, and neos can also use the scan error jetpacks. I can't recall what becomes of the dual type ones.

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Electro Magnetic:

Somewhat an opposite to particle weapons, these are weaker per shot (strongest emag weapon is 90x damage) and have a slightly shorter range (though emag weapons still have the 2nd largest shooting range and 2nd highest dph ingame), but in turn are much faster and have higher accuracy.

Ranked emag 2h cannons keep their interval, and get smaller damage increments. I don't remember what becomes of the dual type ones.

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Weapon stats:

Below is a laser type weapon, all shooting weapons (except for missiles) display pretty much the same information. I will explain what each line means:



- [Hexagonal Crystal] Inertial Laser Gun-MKI : This is the name of the weapon, it can be displayed in different colors, depending on how "good" the weapon is. As far as I remember, Gray - White - Green - Blue - Purple - Orange, cant remember whether white was better than green or not though.

-Race Human: this line specifies which race is the weapon designed for. This does not mean however that only that race can use it. If you can match the attribute and knowledge points required, any race can handle any weapon. If it says "Currency" next to race, it means its an universal type weapon

- Possessing status Hold Dividually: this specifies how your mecha will equip the weapon. There are 3 ways: Hold Together, Hold Single Hand, and Hold Dividually.
- Hold Together type weapons have slowest speed and highest damage among the 3 types, and are used in most cases.
- Hold Single Hand weapons have medium speed and medium damage, are only used when you have a Shield on your other hand.
- Hold Dividually weapons are actually sets of 2 weapons, one held in each hand. Imagine using 2 knifes, or 2 guns, one on each hand. These have the fastest attack speed and lowest damage, although they can usually match or even surpass the dps of the Hold Together type weapons.

- (Heat Attack): This line defines what damage type does the weapon do. There are 4 types, Heat/Thermic, Electro Magnetic (this can be confusing, but all weapons can do emag damage, not only emag weapons as the name would suggest), Explosive (again, can be done by all weapons, not only by missiles/canisters), and Kinetic. Different enemies have different type of weaknesses, and so does your armor (although the difference becomes almost null if you use all 5 reconfigurable armor parts at the same rank).

- Att Intensity 412.0: this line shows the basic damage done by the weapon. I was not equipping the gun at the moment of taking the screenshot, but its normal to see something like "412.0 + [any number here]". The 2nd set of numbers indicate that the player is using parts that enhance his/hers basic damage. I believe mine would have shown something like "412.0 + 1538.8" if it was equipped at the moment of taking the screenshot.

- Attack Interval 1500: this is the amount of time, in milliseconds, that you need to wait before firing another regular attack (the weapon's cooldown). In this case, the weapon has to cool down for 1.5 seconds before doing another regular attack. The lowest base cooldown is of 1200 ms (any Hold Dividually Talon type weapon), the highest is of 8000 (Orion class missile launchers, which are the slowest and weakest weapon in game). This number can be passively modified by using parts, which can lower it to a real value of 500 (despite of what your screen may show, the real interval cap is set at 500 ms). The number is also actively modified by skill chips, which tend to have their own interval modifiers. As an example, the Fire 4 skill has a charging time of ~20% of your weapon interval, and its cooldown is of ~95%. The modification done by skills is only effective when you use the skills.

- Scanning Error 98: this is the accuracy of the gun. The lower the number, the better the accuracy. Missiles have the highest accuracy in game, with around 1-5 Scanning Error, followed by some talons with around 5x Scanning Error. At pvp, accuracy doesn't matter unless you are fighting against people with Radar Reflection build, which is basically an Evasion build.

- Attack Distance 1.0 - 44.0: this defines both the minimum and maximum base shooting range of your weapon. In this case, if you are closer than 1.0 from your target, or farther than 44.0, you will not be able to shoot. This is another value that can be modified passively by using parts, and also by skill chips. For example, the Thunderbolt skill chips have a ~2.1 range multiplier. If this gun was a canister, a Thunderbolt shot would fire at a max distance of around 92.4 m.

- Capacitance Consumption per Firing 26: this number shows how much energy from your core is used in order to perform a regular attack. Skill chips have their own values anyways, which override the weapon's ones. For example, Fire 4 uses around 30 capacitance, while Thunderbolt 4 is around 50. If you were to use Fire 4 to shoot with this laser, you would use 30 points instead of 26 (since the chip overrides the weapon's value whenever you activate it).

- Amount of Loading Ammo 80: this is the max amount of ammo the weapon can hold, before needing to be reloaded. This number can only be modified by parts, but those parts cannot be reconfigured.

- Loading Time 3000: this is the amount of time, in ms, that the weapon needs in order to recharge itself back to full, independently of how much ammo it actually has to load. For example, it takes the same amount of time to load a full charge (80 ammo), a half charge (40 ammo), or even 1 single ammunition. No matter how much ammo you are loading, the number is always the same.

- Bullet Type Ammo of Laser Weapon: this define what type of ammo the weapon needs. Any rank of the specified ammo type will work (laser ammo 1, 2, 3, etc).

- Trade Price 40500: this shows how much money would a npc shop pay if you were to npc your weapon. Npcs usually pay very low though, so unless your weapon isn't good at all, you may want to sell it to other players.

- Needed CI 613: the amount of CI free you need in order to equip the weapon, CI is provided by the control cabin.

-Needed Power 6384: the amount of power/drive free needed to equip the weapon, this is provided by your engine.

- Advanced Laser Weapon Operation required rank 4 & Medium Laser Weapon Operation required rank 2: these are the knowledge fields you need in order to hold this gun. You also need +35 on your weapon attribs, since its a requirement in order to put points into Advanced type knowledge for weapons.

- Bound Status Unbound: Determines whether the weapon can be traded or not. Bound = untradeable, Unbound = tradeable. Some quest items may display as Unbound, but they are actually bound (namely, the fuel required to enter the Exotic Planet instance - more on this later on the guide).

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Choosing weapons at low lvls:

Weapons are classified by the knowledge they require: primary, medium and advanced.
Since you get a free +90 damage arm from a low lvl quest (+70 damage for enh I believe), you should try to stick to pri 1 weapons, in order to not waste knowledge points into weak weapons you wont use for more than a couple of lvls. If you have a drillmaster, he/she can help you get a 240 damage arm from Sanbuick Lair Vultures/South Saints of Darlon, and also med 2 pri 1 weapons. These weapons can be obtained from the same bosses, the bosses in General Coronal, Sanbuick Battlefield, Siden and South bosses drop them too; and also by trading kryogen crystals to the npc Joaly in Larmeya, Ice Planet. I suggest to stay with the med 2 pri 1 weapons and 240 damage arm until you are able to use adv 1 weapons. By doing this, you save quite a few knowledge points, while still having a good firepower. After you get your first adv weapons, you will notice the huge difference in damage, and should never need a pri/med weapon again. If you are unable to get the med weapons, and still want to do high damage, you can use swords temporarily, which have no requirements.