Weapons Tiers
First half of the game we usually use weapons for which we have ammo, whatever that might be. But for the Engineering and onwards I made up my mind for which weapons to carry around, and leave space for something else.
Top-3
- Laser Rapier – with berserk and reflex patch you gonna melt any boss. With just berserk it;s a lifesaver when you out of ammo in certain stages of the game.
- Magnum – easy to score headshots, especially with laser tag. Plenty of ammo. No range limitations like shotgun.
- Skorpion (with upgrades) – really shines on the engineering and bridge, takes out any non-boss enemy in close combat in seconds. Plenty of ammo. Upgrade for 50 rounds is a must. Assault rifle has marginally better damage per round and only 30 rounds.
Honorary mention:
- Pulse-rifle. Can be obtained since level 1. Helps against beefy robots early in the game. Especially Storage. Helps when tight on ammo through certain parts of game.
Some disappointment mentions:
- Railgun – reload time totally not worth it.
- Plasma Rifle – better skorpion/rifle on paper, but overheating kills it for me.
- Ion Rifle – way too slow.
- If you wanna carry around energy weapon – just stick to upgraded sparkbeam.
TL:DR
Laser rapier, Magnum and Skorpion are the only 3 absolutely best weapons to deal with any enemy for the second half of the game (Engineering+). Until that point use anything you have ammo for.
I think the thing is, the Railgun is a very situational/tactical weapon, but it’s excellent in its particular niche. It can’t really be used on its own (although fast charging helps a little bit, it still has relatively scarce ammunition).
It might not seem like a very good deal due to its various drawbacks, but consider the ammunition savings of one rail shot to take down (or severely wound) a larger enemy that would otherwise eat up multiple Skorp or Mk3 clips (possibly in addition to a valuable EMP grenade) and the argument looks a bit better.
In a certain sense, its niche is that of the laser rapier (and sparky early game) – efficient, high impact damage.