What is a carbine?
The carbines are one of
the most misunderstood range of firearms in SWG. Rifles are the
kings of long-range, high-damage shots. Pistols are all about rapid
fire and close quarters. Carbines fit somewhere in the middle. They
lack the style and finesse of the pistols, or the really flashy
one-shot kill abilities of the rifles, but they are one of the most
solid and reliable damage-givers out there. They are a soldiers
weapon. Carbines just sit there quietly racking up reasonably
high-damage shots at a reasonable pace time after time after time.
If you compared the 3 weapons lines and their damage output over the
course of a minute, the carbines would very likely outshine its more
flashy cousins.
While pistols tend to
focus on the health pool, and rifles the mind pool, carbines score
heavily on the action pool. At lower levels there are 3 main attack
styles.....
Leg shot:
Minimal health damage, but punishes the action pool very badly and
stuns the target. The attack of choice for the solo carbineer.
Full Auto Single:
A barrage of shots on a single target, good health damage and
temporary blinding effect. Mainly used in support within groups.
Action Shot:
A low damage shot, with a high bleed effect on
the action pool. A good opening shot.
There are 8 carbine models to choose from. So let's take a look at
the options.
CDEF Carbine
Skills required: None
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: Average
Average Damage: Very Low
Short Range: average
Medium Range: good @ 40m
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: low
Armour Rating: 0
To be frank, you might as well hold this one by the barrel and start
hitting things with the handle. Would be about as effective.
Can be a reasonable choice for a non-combat class with no marksman
skills. Anyone else, upgrade ASAP.
DH17 Carbine
Skills required: Novice Marksman
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: average
Average Damage: low / average
Short Range: average
Medium Range: good
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: very high
Armour Rating: 0
If you are venturing down
any path that requires the carbine tree, get one of these as soon as
possible when you start. Their minimal skill requirements make them
a great starting weapon. Their damage, while not fantastic, is
reasonable and with a relatively low variance and a 3-4 sec rate of
fire will take care of most things at a low level. Their major
drawback is their huge HAM costs for weapon styles. You can find
yourself out of health AND action within 5 or 6 shots, and can leave
you very vulnerable to a quick incap. The other major drawback is it
looks like a CDEF, yuck!
DH17 Snubnose Carbine
Skills required: Intermediate Carbine
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: average
Average Damage: low / average
Short Range: good
Medium Range: average
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: high
Armour Rating: 0
This is a very similar weapon
to the regular DH17, but more geared for closer combat. Slightly
more powerful, slighty faster than it's cousin, it's less effective
at any sort of range, meaning you spend more time at close quarters
with your foe and taking more damage as a result. While the HAM
costs are slightly lower than the regular DH17, they are still high
and can lead to an easy kill for your opponent.
E11 Carbine
Skills required: Advanced Carbine
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: average
Average Damage: average
Short Range: poor
Medium Range: average @ 30m
Long Range: very poor
HAM costs: average
Armour Rating: 1
This is Mr. Average.
While a better overall rate of fire and damage than the DH17 family,
it suffers badly in terms of accuracy. Almost everything (apart from
accuracy) about this weapon is average. It even looks and sounds
like an average gun. If this weapon is worthwhile getting at
advanced carbine, when you can get a laser at expert carbine if
questionable as a DH17 would still suffice. At this level few mobs
have any real armor, so while the light armor piercing is nice it is
questionable how useful it is.
Laser Carbine
Skills required: Expert Carbine
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: High
Average Damage: Good
Short Range: poor
Medium Range: good @ 50m
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: average
Armour Rating: 2
The first of the really
effective carbines. In its behavior this is more akin to the rifle
family. It is more effective at range than most carbines, but
suffers close up. It has a good average damage and around a 4 second
delay between shots, but a very very wide variance. You can easily
hit for 700 damage one shot, then 45 the next leaving you up the
creek. This will rack up good damage in a given time frame, but is
erratic on each shot. Where the laser carbine really scores is its
armor piercing capability. Only the T21 rifle has a higher armor
piercing capability than the Laser Carbine.
This is a great choice to open up with at long range when you need
to and for tackling heavily armored foes. Also, it looks good too.
EE3 Carbine
Skills required: Carbine Specialist
Damage Type: Heat
Damage variance: Low
Average Damage: Good
Short Range: average
Medium Range: good @25m
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: average
Armour Rating: 0
What can I say about this
baby. It's a shotgun, pure and simple. With a high damage, low
variance, a high rate of fire (3.5 secs), and a 6ft blast area it is
one of the most solid and consistant damage dealers out there. It
has some problems with low accuracy at range in comparison to the
other carbines, but at medium range and up close, this thing just
cuts through the mobs like a knife through butter. One warning
however, as it is an area-effect weapon, be very careful when
pulling in tighly packed mobs, you may get more than you bargained
for.
The two major drawbacks of this is no real armor piercing ability,
which can reduce its effectiveness in PVP or on high level mobs, and
it's inaccuracy at long range. This is a real workhorse and a very
solid weapon.
DXR6 Carbine
Skills required: Carbine Specialist
Damage Type: Acid
Damage variance: Low
Average Damage: High
Short Range: average / good
Medium Range: good @22m
Long Range: very poor
HAM costs: average
Armour Rating: 1
This is the EE3's bigger and meaner brother. A short range, 2
handled shotgun. High damage, low variance and high speed make this
the close combat weapon of choice for the carbineer. With the
addition of light armor piercing and a relatively rare damage type,
this also makes it a great PvP weapon, as most people will be
looking for armor with high energy, heat and kinetic defenses.
The only major drawback with this weapon is its accuracy at long
distance, which is frankly piss poor. Nevertheless, this is an
essential part of any carbineer's gear.
And it looks and sounds great too.
Elite Carbine
Skills required: Novice Carbineer
Damage Type: Energy
Damage variance: Low
Average Damage: High
Short Range: poor
Medium Range: very good @40m
Long Range: poor
HAM costs: average
Armour Rating: 1
The grand-daddy of the carbines, only available to the dedicated
Carbineer. Yet for such a pedigree it's slightly disappointing.
Like the DXR6 it has a
good rate of fire, high damage, low variance and reasonable HAM
costs. Also it has light armor piercing. While it may score well
with it's accuracy at mid-range, close up its accuracy is pretty
terrible. Also it is of a damage type everyone seeks to have good
defenses against. It is still a good weapon, and a very solid damage
dealer, but I frankly expected more as the top carbine.
Overall recommendations:
PvE: EE3 and Laser Carbine.
Good solid weapons, with different damage types and armour piercing.
Enough to handle the variety of mobs out there. Also cheap enough to
replace as PvE weapons wear out quickly.
PVP: DXR6 and Elite Carbine
High damage, fast weapons, with enough armour piercing to punch
through player wearable armour. Still keep a laser carb handy in
case an AT-ST shows up. I would only use these for PvP as they are
expensive to replace, not your weekday weapons.
Eliseth
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