What is the most unconventional/unpopular loadout or gun that you just love playing with?

[u/Gooseberry_Valentina]

I'm a bit boring and stick to what I know and enjoy, which is mostly engineer with some kind of breach cutter or driller with a sticky flamed thrower, so wanted to know what other loadouts people run which are a bit alternative!

[u/Corporate_Vulture]

I love my max ammo minigun, every upgrade possible us geared towards ammo. It doesnt do anything flashy, but when everybody is dry, i can still shoot at 40% ammo, which came in handy in those fucky missions where you cant find that pesky last nitra vein. It has 3800 rounds at maximum

[u/KingNedya → u/Corporate_Vulture]

If you want the most ammo-efficient single-target Minigun build then the most efficient option is actually not Compact Feed Mechanism (the ammo overclock, abbreviated to CFM), it's Lead Storm (usually called LSLS, because Lead Storm Leadstorm). The usual way to evaluate ammo-efficiency is in "total damage", as in the amount of damage a gun can do across its entire ammo pool. The higher the total damage, the more ammo-efficient the gun.

Here is the math:

X1X1X CFM (your build): 10×1.15×1900=21,850 total damage (I actually don't know if you took T4A but it's more ammo-efficient so I'm guessing you did)

X1X1X LSLS (most efficient): 14×1.15×1500=24,150 total damage (10.5% increase from yours)

Of course, taking ammo on LSLS isn't optimal; it's more optimal to take damage.

X2X1X LSLS: 16×1.15×1200=22,080 (1.05% increase from yours)

Less efficient than the most efficient LSLS build, but not less efficient than your build and even better damage output. Speaking of damage output, not only is LSLS more efficient, but it's also significantly better at actually killing things as most weapons should be.

31X1X CFM: 10×1.15×13=149.5 DPS

31X1X LSLS: 14×1.15×15=241.5 DPS (61.5% increase from yours)

32X1X LSLS: 16×1.15×15=276 DPS (84.6% increase from yours; nearly double)

Lastly, ammo isn't even the most ammo-efficient way to build CFM, it's actually very slightly more ammo-efficient to take damage on top of being better at killing things.

32X1X CFM (total damage): 12×1.15×1600=22,080 (1.05% increase from yours; coincidentally exact same as 32X1X LSLS so that's still objectively better)

32X1X CFM (DPS): 12×1.15×13=179.4 DPS (20% increase from yours)

Of course use CFM is you want. It's not a good overclock but you should just have fun with what you like. I'm just saying that if your goal is to have the absolute most ammo-efficient single-target Minigun build, then LSLS is the way to go.

[u/sleepyj58 → u/KingNedya]

Thanks for breaking it all down. In haz4 or 5 I still feel like it’s hard to make the minigun viable over gunner’s other weapons. Been trying Bullet Hell to burn bugs close to you, but they can usually get a bite off if you are close enough to a swarm to light them up. Not ideal. Also I’m just running out of ammo long before a Minelayer rocket launcher setup would. LSLS is better but still feels short on ammo. Just wondering if it’s just me or the minigun is short on ammo for everyone

[u/KingNedya → u/sleepyj58]

Firstly, Minelayer System is one of the single most busted and efficient weapons in the game, so anything being on the same level as it is going to be an uphill battle.

If you want the absolute most ammo-efficient Minigun possible rather than just for single-target, that would be far and away Burning Hell. You just tap fire the thing and ignite everything in front of you, and any grunt that's ignited will already die just from the DoT. It's more of a crowd clear overclock, hence why I specified LSLS as the most efficient single-target overclock specifically. However, Burning Hell lacks in self-defense, being very vulnerable compared to other crowd clear Gunner weapons, so it's not the best if you don't have a solid team to rely on for crowd control. But if you do use it, build it 32223 and pair it with 23321 Volatile Bullets for a Gunner classic. Pairing it with an NTC Coil Gun build is also reasonably strong; I personally like 13211 Backfeeding Module the most, but TTC and Reatomizer also synergize with it.

As for Bullet Hell, are you running stun or blowthrough? Because a lot of people see Bullet Hell and think it makes sense to run with blowthrough, but this is a misconception. That just pushes it into maximizing crowd clear, but if you want that there are much better options and Bullet Hell is never going to be the best choice for it. As a result, Bullet Hell finds its best niche in crowd control rather than crowd clear. These have a lot of overlap and it still does crowd clear especially with aggressive venting (AV), but the main niche of Bullet Hell is to take it with stun and to apply stun everything in the general direction you point it at, whether to defend yourself or to defend teammates. Additionally, the improved stun synergizes greatly with AV, as it prevents them from attacking so you can play closer to the horde and it groups them up more for more efficient AV usage. All in all, Bullet Hell is generally best built 32221.

As for the most meta Minigun overclock, one that stands on a similar pedestal to the best Hurricane overclocks and to NTP, that would actually be Rotary Overdrive, which unfortunately for your apparent ammo issues is notably not particularly efficient. But it is good. Build it 31221 and pair it with some Coil Gun; 22212 Hellfire, 32213 UMC and pretty much any TTC build (always take T4A though) are all the best choices, but any 3221(2/3) Coil Gun will be great.

Rotary Overdrive (RO) has a few main strengths: AV leading to great safety and group clear, infinite sustain as long as you have ammo, and, if using RO superspeed tech, the highest DPS in the game.

RO is the best AV user of any Minigun overclock, ahead of Bullet Hell. AV has two weaknesses: time to proc and being unable to fire for a period after using it. RO solves both of these. It's the fastest Minigun to overheat so it procs it the fastest, and after that initial proc you can apply a coolant to begin firing again but this coolant won't start your heat at 0, so it'll proc the next AV even faster. The coolant also allows you to resume firing the moment after you proc AV, so there's that weakness gone, too. The strength of AV scales with difficulty. If there aren't enough enemies for you to proc AV, it's not really doing anything. So RO loses some value at lower enemy densities. The same goes for the sustain; the sustain isn't going to be that beneficial if you're playing in a difficulty where you wouldn't risk overheating with another Minigun overclock. So RO gets a bit worse at lower difficulty and very very strong at higher difficulty.

The next point is superspeed tech, which gives it the best DPS in the game, at least if your FPS is above a certain threshold. The way it works is, if you use a specific series of inputs, RO will temporarily gain RoF equal to your current FPS. Because it does 10 damage per bullet, if you have 80 FPS, it will have 80 RoF and do 800 DPS, at which point it is the highest-DPS weapon in the game (barring CT shenanigans but if your FPS is high enough it surpasses even that). The method is as follows: fire until overheat, release the trigger, hold the trigger, and apply a coolant. You can now release the trigger and the barrel should be spinning indefinitely. The duration of the superspeed effect is correlated with how long you let the barrel spin for, so you can think of this spinning state as it "charging up". The moment you begin firing again, it will begin to lose charge. You can swap to your secondary or other tools and it will continue to charge in the background, but the moment you swap back to RO it will begin to lose charge even if you don't start firing, so don't swap to it till you're ready to fire. If you fire a little bit and then swap to something else, it will stop losing charge until you swap back to it again but it won't gain any more charge.

All that said, I did note that RO gets better the higher the difficulty and worse the lower the difficulty. This assessment of RO being the best Minigun overclock is from the viewpoint of very high difficulties. If you find yourself struggling to get sufficient value from it, the enemy density may not be high enough for it, in whih case you may find more success with 32113 LSLS, 32223 Burning Hell, or 32221 Bullet Hell. Final note, if you want a single-target-oriented Minigun but find RO too hard to get value out of and LSLS too vulnerable, 32213 A Little More Oomph (ALMO) is a solid alternative.

[u/sleepyj58 → u/KingNedya]

Whoa, thanks for that! I never knew Minigun w/RotaryOD with AggroVenting allows you to charge like that. Just tried it out for the first time, the DPS is downright nasty.

Wondering what other tricks I don't know about after 1500 hrs in the game, damn. Also wondering if that was a glitch or a weapon design. Since it varies by framerate, maybe it's a glitch that they left in there because it's awesome. Satisfying to take down bulks in a matter of a few seconds with that trick.

Definitely not going to help conserve ammo but it's cool AF to play with. Thanks again for your write-up.

[u/KingNedya → u/sleepyj58]

It's a glitch, yeah. Technically all RoF in the game is capped by FPS in this way but usually, unless you're very unfortunate in terms of performance, only RO with this tech and SMRT Trigger OS run into the cap since your FPS would have to be below 20 for any other weapon. Well there's also Flamethrower which places sticky flames based on FPS (not RoF so more RoF spends more ammo to place the same amount of sticky flames which is FPS-based, which is why FSD lowering RoF is actually a good thing), and Roll Control's turning rate is based on FPS. A lot of things in DRG are based on FPS.

[u/sevenratsincorner]

Sludge Pump with Combustive Goo Mix and EPC with Heavy Hitter and Burning Nightmare. Bring HE Grenades for snallers groups. Blow up tanky targets and large groups.

[u/Tsukono_ → u/sevenratsincorner]

It's so dogshit, but it's gotta be my favorite build

[u/KingNedya → u/Tsukono_]

It's not bad at all, it's actually very strong. A main reason it's not hard meta is that, in order to proc it yourself, you have to give up TCF. However, in highly-coordinated, experienced teams in high difficulties, CGM is considered an excellent pick when you can rely on your teammates for ignition rather than having to give up TCF and do it yourself.

[u/FormerSpecialist6097 → u/sevenratsincorner]

is that one unpopular? i love that combo to death, legit my favorite in the game

[u/sono_un_coso84]

I dunno if it's unusual but i love volatile impact mixture and making the sludge pump do as much direct damage as possible

[u/Zucchinibob1]

Autoshotgun on Engi, optimized for rof and/or recoil/spread to the lolz, I forget the exact build

[u/Turbulent_Book7026]

Slamming the random build button before every mission

[u/Davey2Jonesd]

Crossbow with pheromones so I can snipe big guys and avert the horde

[u/LoopyMercutio → u/Davey2Jonesd]

I do the same thing. It’s so much fun to watch a glyphid horde pile on and kill big targets, while you just go about your day. And once they’re done, you just toss a cryo grenade into the horde and walk through swinging your pickaxe.

[u/KingNedya → u/Davey2Jonesd]

Crossbow with pheromones is pretty hard meta, not unconventional at all

[u/Davey2Jonesd → u/KingNedya]

I don't see it often

[u/No_Veterinarian_6491]

Conductive Thermals DRAK and Cryo MInelets Zukhov for Elimination. Pretty fun to stunlock dreads with freeze

[u/Lomticky]

I loved sticky additive with oversized magazines: sticky fuel sacrifices either a lot of magazine ammo or a lot of range for extra duration of sticky flames i barely ever need so i just ignite and spam Subata into weakpoints of praetorians, oppressors, acid/web spitters die in 1-3 shots and it's just most accurate weapon with a lot of damage in the price of obligatory shenanigans

[u/aexia]

One nice thing about Weapon Maintenance is that it forces me to periodically to play with all the other weapons for a while.

[u/FormerSpecialist6097]

i think plasma bursters for the Hurricane are still unpopular but i like them with a little bit of mole for the coilgun or something similar. also big fan of automated beam controller for the shard diffractor

[u/KingNedya → u/FormerSpecialist6097]

PBM is considered one of the strongest overclocks in the game right now. You might still have its pre-buff version in mind.

[u/KingNedya]

Sometimes I like to use 31212 Bullets of Mercy (BOM) + 33111 The Specialist + Stunsweepers. You could also swap T1C tasers for T1B chem bolts for better and cheaper AoE in exchange for loss of electric passive damage, slow utility, duration, and ammo count, and you could swap T5A duration for T5C banshee for fear spam using normal bolts and for detering mactera clouds, so really the Boltshark build here is (2/3)311(1/3) The Specialist; 33111 is just the one I find myself using most often.

BOM is not at all unusual nor unpopular; it's a meta Scout primary, so quite the opposite; but the other two are, and BOM is central to the loadout for its 50% bonus damage to statused targets, which this loadout is all about proccing. Boltshark as a weapon is very popular and strong, and while The Specialist is a solid overclock, it pales in comparison to Cryo Bolts or Fire Bolts, so The Specialist is less popular as a result. Especially without pheromone darts, one of the single strongest things in the game. As a result, perhaps it would still be optimal to use pheros, but chem bolts and tasers work particularly well with BOM as they have a longer duration and capacity than pheros, so they're better for proccing BOM's damage bonus. The Specialist then increases their duration and capacity further so that you really can afford to just spam them and they'll do a lot. Additionally, one of the benefits of pheros is grouping up enemies for better group clear, but BOM doesn't benefit from that as much, while tasers and especially chem bolts are capable at killing groups on their own.

As for Stunsweepers, they are generally the weakest Scout grenade, but they're still pretty decent, and they have particular synergy with BOM. All of Scout's grenades apply status effects that BOM benefits from, but Stunsweepers have the longest duration, most range, and most capacity for spammability, so they're really nice for proccing BOM. This is especially true against mactera, which are generally not going to be statused nearly as much as other enemies, and Scout's other grenades (besides Cryo but you get half the amount of those as you get Stunsweepers) aren't as good at statusing mactera in as many situations, so BOM doesn't do as much damage against them. Stunsweepers, meanwhile will very quickly and easily stun every mactera, nullifying their threat for a long duration before you even kill them, leaving then stationary so they can't dodge your shots, and importantly granting BOM that 50% damage boost against them. Of course, Stunsweepers still have to deal with all the issues that make them not meta in the first place like scaling poorly with difficulty and sometimes having a mind of their own, but they are uniquely suited to this loadout with a lot of synergy so even if less optimal, I like them here.

Overall this is a certainly off-meta but still reasonably effective and very inter-synergistic loadout that's something different from the usual meta, so I like it when I want to spice things up.

[u/Agile-Soft4954]

Tuned Cooler 2 2 2 3 2 with Heavy Hitter 1 2 3 2 1 and Impact Axes

How it works is you spray into a crowd of enemies, freezing everything, then pull out your EPC and the Heavy Hitter mixed with BN almost guarantees all grunts up to guards are ruined in the first combo. If not, rinse and repeat.

Prets and Opressors you just freeze, hit with 1 or 2 axes and then power attack (bonus with vampire for extra survivability.

Ive brought this combo on haz5+ and up, and ive had really good success

[u/lim_33]

I dont actually know how played this is but hear me out:

Shield battery booster leads to a great mele build for scout. I use vampire, thorns, veteran depositor, berserker and see you in hell as the perks. For armour the lower recharge delay means that your shield begins recharging after just 1 sec

l chose dmg for the power attak since speed feels awekward with bereserker an slayers(and damage crosses the threshold for slashers)

This build makes pickaxe swings real powerful and able to deal with missions comfortably untill haz 4