Here we go again. -_- Not able to do missions on multiple accounts for the forseeable future, but I've opened 70 since the forced Epic change and still haven't gotten even Legendary. Meanwhile you keep getting something every week.

Same as Stock. 405-810.

No I genuinely don't know, Many directions you can take. Decrease the base damage such that Booster can't get above 3,000, but that also pushes Stock below 1,334. Increase the reload, but that's justifying Magnum's significantly heightened effectiveness with Booster. Decrease the range of maximum splash damage but I fear that would make Booster vs non-Booster too significant. There too much of a difference between Booster vs non-Booster Magnum.

Yup, just like with Railgun last year, this is basically what's happening. Stock Magnum is nice, but Booster skyrockets your performance against enemies because it pushes you over 3,000 damage again. You now get to deal 3,000 damage to anyone in a 10m radius, and half that for the remaining radius. That cuts down your shots to kill by at least 1, and makes your splash deadlier against those without protection. I don't know what feedback to give for this change. Additonally, it seems like Magnum didn't get buffed with Viking's Overdrive. It was supposed to be shooting 11/12 shots now but it's still shooting 9.

So it's not just me, ok. I was trying to play with Harpoon and a lot of my direct hits weren't dealing damage. And then I started lagging for the rest of the battle.

That's what it means to have that damage type. Of course, if they're insane and somehow let supplies and Adrenaline continue to enhance it in the update, then for sure it will be nerfed next week.

It will not be enhanced by supplies.

The new Magnum will be similar to Railgun back when they nerfed the damage but gave it a flat 50% crit rate. By itself, you get something useable, but only the players with Booster/Crisis get the real fun.

It appears that both Jamming Mix and Magnetic Mix have -50% freezing rate penalties. Magnetic Mix was muddy since it was behind much more of a paywall than Jamming Mix, but Jamming Mix definitely got altered somewhere along the line between December and now. Similar to Blunderbuss having a normal damage coefficient with Viking's Overdrive only for it to be significantly reduced coincidentally when it became available in a BP. A video of Jamming Mix shortly after it came into the game. Back then, the freezing rate for a maxed Stock Freeze was 0.6/sec instead of the 0.5/sec it is now. Here is one posted a few days ago.

As far as I remembered fighting against these Freezes, they always had the Stock freezing rate. Maybe they did silently change it at some point this year. Unfortunately I'm in no position to confirm this personally, so I'll have to go off of youtuber recordings.

Not exactly sure if Jamming augments are meta. Only two of them have no downsides, while the others have downsides to them. I have yet to see a Jammer Twins, but interestinglyenough, on the wikis, Jammer Twins was shown to be a Cryotron/Magnetron copy except the Jammer happened on every shot. But recently, I saw that it got changed to having both +50% increases to minimum damage range and projectile speed, and has a -20% reload speed penaly. It's not exactly a tank-weakining status effect like AP and EMP were in direct confrontations. For sure, Cryo with its negligible/non-existent downsides and burst damage are the meta for solo play. Burst damage has been making itself known for a while now and it'sas blatant as it can get now with Ricochet with Plasma Torch and Beserk being miles better than Stock/Adrenaline practically, and then the balance nonsense that is Helios.

Cryo augments were not nerfed, with the exception of Cryo Railgun with its reduced crit rate to make all status augments an extension of Stock. But it sill has the -100% freezing. Cryotron had its critical damage penalty removed even though it was already very powerful despite that, Cryo Smoky still has no penalty, Cryo Hammer no longer increases the critical hit rate but now has a slight clip reload buff while Dragon's Breath does not. Cryo Ricochet has few practical downsides. It's quite obvious they'd like Cryo augments to be near the top now.

You get the value Stock does, plus 10 seconds of freezing on the crits to slow down and reduce enemy damage output against you.

Ehh, this entire Ricochet change is stupid and only understandable if you had the money to shell out to get the augments. Like AP Ricochet being able to AP targets on a critical hit when Pulsar came into the game, which had the same duration. When AP Ricochet was nerfed to 1 second and Sizzling Field was nerfed to a 50% max temperature heating rate, Pulsar was also affected with its flurry of nerfs. Magnetron came into the game with 1 second of EMP right when Pulsar gets nerfed from 2 seconds to 1 second. Safe to assume that EMP and Stun Rico would have had 2 seconds of status application had these status effect augment nerfs not coming into effect. EMP Rico do not apply the status if the shot that bounces is a critical hit. The two other status Ricochets apply status through critical hits. Yet if you bounce a Pulsar shot and it's a critical hit, it only applies the AP and EMP, no other statuses. It's all a convoluted mess right now. Is there something so DARSTARDLY about a new augment not instantly breaking game balance? Is an augment garbage for not letting you steamroll an enemy uncontested?

Drones that consume additional supplies when activating said supply/drone: Booster (+2 BD) Defender (+2 BA) Trickster (+2 SB) Hyperion (+1 supply) Crisis (+2 supply) Drones that consume a supply only when activating the drone: Assault (+1 BD) Sprinter (+1 SB) Lifeguard (+2 RK)

It disrupts the flow of damage between normal and critical hits, unless you're really lucky. It is much more costly when you kill that 3% HP target with your long-awaited crit. Cryo Rounds keeps the TTK buff of Stock while also applying 10 seconds of speed and damage reduction on crits. Supercumulative Rounds was one of those augments most negatuvely affected by the price hike in 2020. It was worth its previous cost of 30,000 crystals, but it has never been worth as much as 245k.Maybe that will change when Smoky gets its balance change soon.

You're not going to get many of that, then. This is the template for most augments, you have to live with that. An increase in one place, a decrease in another. Each augment has a purpose for the turret's gameplay. Whether or not that nets you higher score on average than Stock will vary. Shock Freeze - Gimmick Freeze. You lose out on a lot of your damage potential, which is Freeze's main draw. Not ideal when on a budget and looking for something for general gameplay. Slugger - The thing about Slugger is that its range increase is not really worth it. Only +25% of the minimum damage range. Your damage fall off is still quick and you have a 4.4-second reload to contend with. Slugger'smain draw used to be forced accuracy on targets at range. Now that all Hammers can do that and then some, Slugger has fallen down to the lowest. Not ideal when on a budget. Assault Rounds - Not much harm in buying it in a sale. It is only 96,000 crystals outside of it. I would suggest you maybe try to get this one as soon as possible if you're really looking forward to using Smoky. In the near future, it will be turned into a 245k augment and will have its own new balance to adust with whatever change they make to Stock Smoky and its other augments. MLH - No longer worth the price after its recent (and long-needed) nerf. It no longer has any unique features and now serves as a springboard for AP and Stun Striker to directly powercreep in a way that is not over-detrimental to game balance. Not ideal when on a budget, go for RRE instead. ML Cyclone - Gimmick Striker. 4 missiles are usually enough. Not ideal when on a budget and looking for something for general gameplay. Mortar - Gimmick Magnum. Splash isn't greatly reduced, it is completely disabled. You either hit direct hits or you place a mine on the floor. Very bad, do not buy. Harpoon - This is the augment that has the reduced splash damage. Going into numbers, its splash damage distribution is 2, 5, 20 - 100, 25, 5. It will deal 100% of total damage at 2m from ground zero, drops linearly to 25% of total damage between 2m and 5m, and drops linearly to 5% of total damage between 5m and 20m. For comparison, Stock Magnum is 2, 5, 20 - 100, 50, 5. This augment is a horzontal Magnum that locks it to 3 degrees, limiting its range. However, the range being limited means your accuracy against close range targets will be at near 100%, which allows you to make 100% velocity shots comfortably, decreasing your overall reload. Decreased splash damage distribution and critical splash damage radius decreased to 2m means it is meant for high-accuracy shots and not to rely on the splash. Magnum itself is not ideal when on a budget or looking for something for general gameplay. Avoid this turret for now. Heavy Capacitors - If you're going to be seriously playing Shaft, pretend that this augment does not exist in your garage, that is all. Light Capacitors - Good enough in a vacuum. The problem is that the current template of Shaft does not favour Light Capacitors in the damage-dealing department. There is a very slim margin in quickscoping in which Light Capacitors is superior to Adrenaline/Short-Band Emitters. When you pass that margin, you start getting more damage with Stock and SBE relative to the reload coming afterwards. It's nice if you got it for free in the challenge or in a contaier, but for purchases on a budget for general gameplay, Adrenaline and SBE exist. Some of these augments are gimmicks. Unfortunately with the way the game is set up today, what's powerful comes first in your journey. Gimmicks/fun augments come after as a luxury when you have enough of the essentials. If you're fortunate enough, an augment may be both a gimmick and powerful, like Plasma Torch, Beserk or RRE. It's not worth doing that when Cryo Rounds and Adrenaline exist. It's another example of essentials vs gimmicks.

The game balance has been volatile for the past 8 months. With container rewards being reduced, you'd need to make an informed choice that would pay off. What I recommend today may not be the best choice next week/next month for newer inquirers. You'd have to look at the patterns of changes in the Patch Notes and make your choice. A rework for a turret may come into effec suddenly that makes one high-tier augment drop to the lowest, or a low tier one going up. If you're on a budget and want a safe pick for augmets of each turret with the current game balance: Firebird - Adrenaline Freeze - Adrenaline Isida - Adrenaline Tesla - Adrenaline, Acceleration Protocol (up to your preference in gameplay) Twins - Any (up to your preference in gameplay) Ricochet - Plasma Torch, Beserk (they do the same thing in different ways) Hammer - High-Capacity Ammo Clip, Adaptive Reload (they have similar outputs, up to your preference in gameplay) Smoky - Adrenaline, Cryo Rounds Striker - Remote Rocket Explosives Vulcan - Adrenaline, Shooting Speed Regulator, Reinforced Aiming Transmission (up to your preference in gameplay) Thunder - Any (up to your preference in gameplay) Railgun - Round Stabilisation, Round Destabilisation, Electromagnetic Accelerator "Scout", "Death Herald" Compulsator, Hyperspace Rounds (up to your preference in gameplay) Gauss - Adrenaline Magnum - Any except Reinforced Gun Carriage (up to your preference in gameplay) Shaft - Adrenaline, Short-Band Emitters (they do the same thing in different ways, up to your preference in gameplay)

That was a net buff to Dictator all things considered, though.

Stable Plasma with 1 second of AP attached to critical hits, minus the impact force buff. You can't apply the status in a group like the other augments, but it provide great survivability in 1 v 1s compared to Stock.

Horizontal Magnums by default have their elevations set at 12 degrees. The only Magnums that can manually change their elevations are vertical Magnums, those being the Reinforced Gun Carriage, Automated Gunpower Loading Mechanism and Mortar augments. If you were to set those 3 augments to 3 degrees and shoot a 100% velocity shot, the distance the proectile travels before hitting the ground will be slightly reduced as Harpoon has a slightly weaker proectile gravitation than Stock. Not...necessarily, since it is meant to be a close range, high-accuracy augment for Magnum. You'll still need to get accustomed to using it so you'll have the muscle memory needed to use it to its full potential. Harpoon is the Magnum augment best equipped for close range encounters, yes. This is thanks to its low elevation that does not penalise you for prioritising high velocity shots, and the decrease in overal splash damage which lets you take less self-damage when hitting enemies up close.

Because the angle is fixed at 3 degrees, your range is artificially shortened. In order to hit targets that are far away, you will need to rock your hull in a way that pushes your elevation upward. Hunter, Dictator, Hornet and Wasp do this well. Here is a video of Harpoon so you get a gist of what it feels like to play it compared to the other Magnum augments.

The description just gave you the gist of the augment, it's not to be taken literally. It has no auto-aim. What changes is that its angle of elevation is fixed at 3 degrees upwards with a slight decrease in projectile gravitation. This will make it shoot in a straight line in front of you for a relatively short range. Because the range is short and accuracy is high due to the elevation of the turret being low, you are encouraged to fire 100% velocity shots, like throwing a Harpoon at something with maximum strength, hence the name.