Talk: M73 Twin Pistols

Notably lacking in ammo effiency because you only get 1 clip/20% instead of 10%, I believe?

That's the same as the Assault Rifle, so I don't see the problem. What "Ammo Efficient" means is that you're not supposed to run out bullets in the first place. --Mstr. K 12:41, August 1, 2010 (UTC)

The problem being that the pistols have 24x11 rounds, the Assault rifle has 98x6

Each uses 20% of an ammo crate to restore one clip. From an ammo crate the pistol gets 1680 damage (24 rounds * 14 damage * 5 clips) - the assault rifle gets 2450 damage (98 rounds * 5 damage * 5 clips). Using three satchels, the pistol gets 5760 total damage extra while the assault rifle gets 7350.

At base, the assault rifle gets (98*5*6 = 2940 total damage) while the pistol gets (24*14*11 = 3696)

While the pistol may have greater ammo effiency at base, this presumes you'll not use ammo crates, and that your character doesn't have a damage bonus (as it favours the assault rifle over the pistols). If you use three ammo crates the total damage is

2940+2450*3 = 10290 damage for the assault rifle, 3696+1680*3 = 8736

Factor this in with the pistol doing higher damage and thus probably having a tendancy to overkill, the pistols major attribute is probably its high plausible dps rather than its ammo effiency. This might just be because I bring three ammo crates on every mission instead of a secondary weapon, mind you.

Here's a graph for it. X is the number of ammo crate usages (each usage takes 20% of an ammo crate) and Y is the total damage dealt. Has values for no combat bonus and crash combat bonus (+3 to ar, +6 to pistol).

Actually, upload isn't working for me; here is a graph for ammo effiency:

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/861/ammoeffiencyarvspistols.jpg

Personally I believe it's bugged and it should be 10% satchel/clip (100% restores you to max clips - 1, just like with assault rifle, instead of half - 1).

Is useful if you're playing faith want to let everyone else have ammo. Otherwise probably a bad choice.

Even with no combat bonus AR has equal damage total at one satchel, without considering overkill/frag grenades.

Ironic that the ammo effiecient weapon is less ammo efficient but has better dps.

Whoops, forgot to sign. Oh, and I accidentally put Wolfe instead of Vegas. Silly me.Jarkill 09:02, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

I think you're partly right that most of the efficiency is in the initial loadout; each M73 bullet is worth 2.8 AR bullets, so the M73's starting load of 264 rounds is worth nearly 740 rounds of AR ammunition (the AR actually gets only 588 rounds to start with).

However, I think there is another factor to consider: the rate of WASTE must differ between the two. With the assault rifle, it's not hard to get firepower lock, by which I mean an attitude of "spray and spray and spray, wheeeee!" The pistols, you have to click once for EACH bullet.

In practise, my experience has been that I fire 3-4 rounds with the pistol, then pause to observe (and see if I need another round to finish the target, due to unlucky aim). And even though I am personally quite good at the whole "short, controlled bursts" thing, and rarely ever hose down the deck with bullets ... I still would estimate I waste 10% to 20%of the AR's bullets, because I usually keep firing until I see the enemy is dead - which means a few more bullets than necessary are already in motion towards a now-dead target.

So ... not all of the efficiency comes directly from the weapons themselves; a lot of it comes from the effect they have on the player, in terms of how they are used. And I honestly believe that anyone would would click frantically, over and over, to mimic a machinegun ... is also likely to throw an entire AR clip at a single Drone, anyway. ^_^ --PaxArcana 13:29, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

As a side note, by the way, the above reasoning is not original to me. The United States Armed Forces came to the same conclusion, late during the Viet Nam war. That's why the M-16 "A-2" variant (with which I trained, in the late 80's, incidentally) is not fully automatic ... instead, it's firing modes include a 3-round bursts, rather than full-auto. The military found that soldiers would tend to "lock up" on the trigger, emptying an entire 20-round magazine, at the start of a firefight (especially if the enemy was not readily visible). As a result, that unit faced an unacceptibly-higher risk of running out of ammunition during that, or the next, combat encounter.--PaxArcana 13:34, August 2, 2010 (UTC)