How much do weapon upgrades affect my guns?

Question

This is mostly relating to multiplayer. Single player it's easy enough to upgrade the gun I want to be using...

I'm wondering how much of an effect the weapon upgrades (i.e. I, II, IV, VII, X, etc) have on the guns. Mostly in the damage department. For example, say we are comparing the M-8 Avenger to the Phaestron. My Avenger is level IX. My Phaestron is level IV. So... which should I be using? The Phaestron has a clear advantage in fire rate and mag size, but that's somewhat irrelevant if the Avenger deals more DPS.

Another comparison would be the Widow vs the Mantis. They function nearly identically (albeit with different reload times and weight values), but if my Widow is level I and my Mantis is level X, is the Mantis going to be the better choice?

Asked by Izzy

Answer

An hour of internet searching (NoName's lead on the coalesced.bin helped immensely -- thanks!) came up with the following spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aor1WdVV3kD6dGw1SlNDUzFjODlheGl5a3JLdXZZVXc#gid=0

It contains detailed stats for every weapon, including level 1 and level 10 numbers for weight, damage, and maximum spare ammunition, as well as a large number of static (and a few derived) stats, such as recoil values and damage-per-second (DPS calculations appear to be based on Level X stats). I'm not very clear what some of it means but it's an excellent resource for anyone who wants cold, hard numbers to work with, instead of vague bars.

As relating to my original question, it appears damage and spare ammo seem to get a uniform 25% increase by Level X with all weapons. Weight reduction, however, is dependent on the weapon's initial weight - with assault rifles, the lightweight Avenger and Vindicator receive a full 50% reduction in weight by Level X, while the heavier guns - Argus, Revenant, Saber and the like -- only lose 30%. Weapons in the middle get somewhere in between; for example, the Phaeston drops 40% of it's weight by Level X. The highest reduction in weight I can find belongs to the Predator and Shuriken, both of which start at a weight value of .5 and end at .2 -- a 60% reduction.

Answered by Izzy

Check more discussion of this question.

loading..