This chart contains some details on gun stats

- edit: Watermelon Gun costs 7500 not 6500

Guide to the chart:

• The numbers shown are the averages of multiple tests
• Guns with brown names use rifle ammo.
• Guns with blue names use energy cells.
• Numbers may be colored more green or more red depending how good they are (relative to all guns on the chart).
• Fire Rate is the amount of bullets per second the gun fires, not including reload time.
• Fire Rate w/ Tap is the rate while rapidly tapping the shoot button instead of holding it down.
  When tapping, some guns shoot much faster while others shoot at the same rate or slower.
• Max Base DPS is the most damage the gun can do per second when used by a citizen/defender (includes reload time).
• Spread means the amount the direction of a bullet can vary from the direction shot (which means either plus or minus the degrees listed).
  The amounts are estimates.
• Knockback (aka recoil) is measured in percentages of the width of the tile my gun is pointed at here:
  

Notes regarding the guns:

• The Plasma Shotgun's high spread is not related to the fact that it shoots 3 bullets.
  The gun itself is just very inaccurate... if you repeatedly shoot and watch just the middle
  bullet you'll notice it will often fire way higher or lower than the direction pressed.
  The high inaccuracy of this gun, on top of the 2.5 damage per bullet and very slow fire rate, means
  that although this gun is unique and fun to use it is not very good for PvP.
  ------------------------------------------------------
• Flower Gun, Green Rifle, and Red Rifle are virtually the same gun except that Flower
  tends to fire slower when tapping and has +.5 base damage. This means that an opponent will take 1
  less shot to kill using Flower than it would Red/Green. Poison Vine is only different from Red/Green
  in that it is more accurate (no noticeable spread).
  ------------------------------------------------------
• The guns disussed above (apart from Flower), as well as Chaingun, Watermelon Gun, ER Beemer, Pez and Metallic Rifle all shoot noticeably faster when tapping the shoot button. This can be irregular, however, because
  sometimes it will cause two bullets to fire closer back to back, while other times it may
  take slightly longer. Streamer almost always shoots slower if you tap.
  ------------------------------------------------------
• The majority of guns will empty a round of 18 bullets in ~5.2 seconds if you hold down shoot. This includes: Green Rifle, Red Rifle,
  Enraged Rifle, Pez Rifle, Metallic Rifle, LR Pulsar, and Flower Gun. Pez and Metallic rifle are listed faster above but since I measured them
  around the same time (and the others around a different time), there's a possibility I just started the stopwatch slightly faster. Seems likely
  there is a "standard fire rate" of around 3.4 bullets per second.
  ------------------------------------------------------
• Chaingun's rate of fire varies most dramatically. Sometimes it will shoot clumps of bullets
  at almost the same time. This happens more often when you rapidly tap the fire button and
  when your character is moving around.

My "tier list" of guns effectiveness for spar:

• [TOP TIER] Flower Gun, Streamer
• [EXCELLENT] Egg Launcher, Red Rifle, Green Rifle, Poison Vine, Chaingun
• [GREAT] Photon Cannon, Grass Gun
• [ABOVE AVG.] Pez Rifle, Love Rifle, Christmas Rifle, Lightning Pistol, Enraged Rifle, Heavy Lazer
• [BELOW AVG.] Watermelon Gun, Metallic Rifle, LR Pulsar, Apple Launcher
• [BAD] Plasma Shotgun, ER Beemer
• [BOTTOM TIER] Goonadier, Lava Gun, Flamethrower

Suggested Tweaks / Future Updates

• [NERF] Flower Gun: [Fire Rate] 3.4 -> 3.0
  [Reasoning] If a game as small as iZone can have a "meta-game", using Flower Gun
  as Commando is basically it. It has just .5 more damage than
  Red/Green/PoisonVine, but that means a commando can kill
  an enemy in 7 hits instead of 8 (12.5% faster). Slowing it slightly would make it
  unique and still allow it to be competitive with RR/GR/PV without out-classing
  them.
• [BUFF] Apple Launcher: [Damage] 6.5 -> 7.5
  [Reasoning] Apple Launcher is like Flower Guns neglected brother. They were released at the
  same time, with the same damage, for the same price, but Apple's fire-rate is just over half
  that of Flower. Increasing Apple Launcher's damage to 7.5 would make it a 6-hit-kill gun,
  as opposed to Flower's 7-hit-kill. Since Flower would still be much faster (and fire rate is by far
  the most important stat) the two guns would become approximately equal in
  power and still unique.
• [BUFF] Watermelon Gun: [Damage] 8 -> 9
  [Reasoning] Watermelon gun is one of my favorites, even though it is laughably
  slow. Its role as the definitive slow/powerful gun should be preserved, but
  currently its way more slow than it is powerful. 9 base damage
  would make it a 5-hit-kill gun (w/ Commando), as opposed to a 6-hit kill. This
  seems strong, but in reality managing to land 5 hits with Watermelon on a
  moving target is a remarkable feat.

Hope this helps! I may update it with more guns later. The guns on the chart
are most of the guns I currently own.
The damage values of other guns can be found here:
http://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21388  

you put alot of time into this. great work!  

Good job! :-)  

Wow, very impressive +rep  

Off a quick glance I can see a few of those stats are wrong, I'll check the weapon scripts later and get the correct statistics. In the grand scheme of things, I also disagree with 2/3 of those weapon improvements. Great guide/whatever never the less. Just remember before you suggest improvements that all guns are made to have a direct counter part. Even the slightest change that you might think necessary at the time, will disrupt the balance.  

Someone should sticky this! Amazing!  

Posted by 99%

Off a quick glance I can see a few of those stats are wrong, I'll check the weapon scripts later and get the correct statistics. In the grand scheme of things, I also disagree with 2/3 of those weapon improvements. Great guide/whatever never the less. Just remember before you suggest improvements that all guns are made to have a direct counter part. Even the slightest change that you might think necessary at the time, will disrupt the balance.

It would be great to see the actual stats behind everything. Every attack rate I posted is the average of 10+ stop-watch recordings of how long it took to empty a round of 18 bullets, with the watch started on the first shot and ended on the 18th.

The DPSs were calculated by using the fire rates and an average reload time I figured to be 0.7 seconds (best I could get by timing).

The spreads are probably way off because I just eyeballed those. The price of Watermelon launch is off, I have to update the image.

I think one reason my stats may appear wrong is that the fire rates are surprisingly variable. They are not constant; thats why tapping tapping rapidly makes most guns shoot faster and some shoot slower. I tested this over a few days totaling probably 4-5 hours of measuring the different stats multiple times and calculating averages and I'm certain that tapping makes a dramatic difference in fire rate. Also walking around will sometimes cause two bullets to fire more rapidly, especially with the Chaingun. Even if a gun is hard-coded to have a certain fire rate, some other aspect of the engine may be affecting their actual in-game value.

About the changes... I don't think the guns are balanced ideally. I realize there is consideration put into them before they are released but I don't think thats enough to even them out. You have to test them for a really long time and use them competitively, and on top of spar resets I've played 12k+ spar matches, seen every gun used many times and wouldn't suggest the changes I did if I didn't genuinely believe from experience they would help.

If all the guns were made to have a counterpart then why are only a few considered viable in PvP? Believe me if the underpowered guns were balanced then we would have found them and would be using them... And I remember when the nature weapons were released, they were extremely ill-balanced and it wasn't until lots of people including myself pointed it out that they got changed. If it can happen then, why couldn't it happen to the other guns?

About the three suggestions I posted, what is wrong with them? Flower Gun is currently the most popular PvP gun because it takes 7 hits to kill an enemy as opposed to the 8 it takes with the old popular guns. It costs only 6,500, so what reasoning is there behind how powerful it is?

And do you really believe the Apple Launcher is balanced? It has the same damage as flower gun, costs the same, but fires almost half as slow. I don't see how that is countering anything... it looks like an oversight.

And the Watermelons gun: if you believe giving a gun 8 damage compensates for having a 1.4 fire rate, then you ought to try sparring with it. 33% more damage than Green Rifle... but less than half as fast of a fire rate. In reality, the damage means nothing without the bullets needed to pin an opponent into a position where they will be hit. The Watermelon shoots slow and the watermelons travel slow: if you are sparring a competent person they will just move out of the way.


I don't mean to come off as aggressive or anything, its just that I feel after playing so long, and spending hours doing test, my suggestions shouldn't be kind of dismissed just cause I didn't make the guns.  

You said that underpowered guns aren't balanced with higher class guns, so you don't see the balance. Just take a minute and think about that. Underpowered guns are balanced with other underpowered guns. If we made all guns completely fair with each other, it'd be redundant. High class guns are made to even out other high class guns, and low class guns are made to combat other low class guns. Most of zone's guns are taken from PC Zone, stats and all. They maintained a perfect balance there, perfected over the years the server was up. That balance is replicated on iZone in the guns released and those to come.  

Posted by 99%

You said that underpowered guns aren't balanced with higher class guns, so you don't see the balance. Just take a minute and think about that. Underpowered guns are balanced with other underpowered guns. If we made all guns completely fair with each other, it'd be redundant. High class guns are made to even out other high class guns, and low class guns are made to combat other low class guns. Most of zone's guns are taken from PC Zone, stats and all. They maintained a perfect balance there, perfected over the years the server was up. That balance is replicated on iZone in the guns released and those to come.

I understand they have to be balanced to their class. Thats why I didn't ask for buffs to guns like Metallic, LR Pulsar, Enraged, Photon Cannon, etc. or for the Streamer to be nerfed.

The Flower gun, Apple gun, and Watermelon gun are all priced 6500-7500, my suggested changes are meant to balance them relative to other guns in that price range. I'm thinking of Green Rifle, Red Rifle, and Poison Vine which are all 6000.

Flower gun costs only 500 more than Green Rifle, yet it outclasses all existing guns in its price range because it kills in 1 less hit. Making it slightly slower wouldn't upset the balance -- it would make it equivalent to existing guns of its class and turn it from a blunt power upgrade to a power gain in exchange for speed. If anything this nerf would lead to less redundancy and open up more viable choices for players.

The Apple Gun change is simply to make it viable with guns of its price range. I'm not asking for anything outrageous. It is plain underpowered given its attack rate and price. I don't see why you'd be opposed to a 1 damage buff. If it was a .5 damage buff, then it would take the same amount of hits to kill an enemy as it would now. What kind of buff is that?

The Watermelon Gun costs 7,500 but performs worse than the LR Pulsar which costs 1,500. Yes, Watermelon has 8 damage and LR Pulsar has 4, but the LR Pulsar fires over twice as fast. And twice as much fire rate is way more effective than twice as much damage, because it takes multiple bullets to trap an opponent into a position where they are hit by just one. The Watermelon Gun fires so slow that anyone can just dodge the single Watermelon with ease.

You're talking about maintaining of guns within their class, yet my three suggestions are simply to bring two guns up to the level guns cheaper than them perform, and to prevent one gun (Flower) from rendering others in its class obsolete by filling the same roll with simply more damage.

Not sure why you're talking about maintaining the balance of original Zone guns... I didn't suggest changing them and believe they are mostly balanced right for their prices. Flower, Apple, and Watermelon were all added very recently.  

Posted by xAero

Someone should sticky this! Amazing!

Just what I thought! This list helped me so much  

Very impressive. Once we make the changes to the current weapons I will probably released the official stats of them. +rep  

Thanks you guys for the feedback! @Tashkin to see all the official stats would be amazing! I love the Plasma Shotgun change and although it hasn't been working for me in spar I think its definitely worth the 4k due to how unique it is and how fun it is to use. I have been using it a lot just to mix things up. I'm really excited for future gun updates and am so relieved to see old/obsolete guns like Plasma Shotgun getting reworked, especially in such cool ways.

As long as the official fire rates/spreads/etc. are secret I'll update this thread with approximate stats as I buy new guns and test them out.  

The flower gun is the most expensive and consequentially the best in the tier that you've classed it in. Yet stats don't dictate actual performance. You say that the stats create a rift between the flower gun and the other guns in it's tier. How then do I (and I'm sure you too) witness other guns classed in that tier beat the flower gun in a fair matched battle? The flower gun gives more for it's price. But it's far from over-powered.

On the other hand, note the watermelon and apple launchers are just that...launchers. They are meant to hit heavy punches with a slow firing rate. Speeding them up would defeat their purpose and theme. People often make the mistake of spamming their guns, rather than taking the right shots at the right time. These two launchers could easily crush other guns if used by players correctly.

At the end of the day, the guns are more or less appropriate. And it comes down to how players use them. If you're armed with one of the launchers and expect to spam you're way through a fight, then you're not using your weapon properly and to their full potential. It would be a no-brainer that you'd be destroyed. But if you know your game and your weapon, everyone is fair.  

In my opinion the plasma shotgun should be used at a closer range. Was never really meant to be a distance weapon. At close range the spread will be smaller and the damage will be greater. (Just my opinion on it though.)  

Posted by 99%

The flower gun is the most expensive and consequentially the best in the tier that you've classed it in. Yet stats don't dictate actual performance. You say that the stats create a rift between the flower gun and the other guns in it's tier. How then do I (and I'm sure you too) witness other guns classed in that tier beat the flower gun in a fair matched battle? The flower gun gives more for it's price. But it's far from over-powered.

On the other hand, note the watermelon and apple launchers are just that...launchers. They are meant to hit heavy punches with a slow firing rate. Speeding them up would defeat their purpose and theme. People often make the mistake of spamming their guns, rather than taking the right shots at the right time. These two launchers could easily crush other guns if used by players correctly.

At the end of the day, the guns are more or less appropriate. And it comes down to how players use them. If you're armed with one of the launchers and expect to spam you're way through a fight, then you're not using your weapon properly and to their full potential. It would be a no-brainer that you'd be destroyed. But if you know your game and your weapon, everyone is fair.

- Of course 1 less hit to kill won't make the Flower Gun beat Red Rifle/Green Rifle/Poison Vine every time, but it does cause it to have a huge advantage -- one that's worth way more than 500g. I ranked Flower Gun with Streamer based on how easy I have experienced they are to use and get a spar win with, as well as how difficult it is for me to beat players using them. A minor fire rate decrease wouldn't make the Flower Gun any less worth getting.

- If Apple Launcher is "meant to hit heavy punches", then why does it deal the exact same amount of damage as Flower Gun? It costs the same as Flower Gun, deals the same damage, but fires slower. Firing slower is not an advantage that Apple Gun has and Flower doesn't. A good player using Flower Gun will fire slow, selective shots when he/she needs to and then also take advantage of the faster fire rate when appropriate. Flower Gun is everything Apple Launcher is and more with no drawback at the same price.

- Believe me I love the idea of the Watermelon Gun and Apple Launcher. I want viable guns that can compete with the faster ones while rewarding careful aim and timing. The problem is that the stats that went behind Watermelon/Apple that may have looked good on paper are not appropriate in game. I have used the Watermelon Gun more than I've seen anyone else use it and I've tried hard to find a tactic to take advantage of it. While I've gotten pretty good at "cop-out" shots and tricking players after a lot of work into getting hit by watermelons, in the end it is just not worth the effort.

You say the launchers "could easily crush other guns if used by players correctly" -- by who exactly? Honestly after the amount I've tried with Watermelon I bet I have more evidence that it cannot than you have that it can. Take any two decent sparrers and give one the $7500 Watermelon Gun, and another the $1000 Metallic Rifle, and you'll find the Metallic user will almost always win. This is because of the reality behind fire rate in this game and the necessity of forcing opponents into situations where they slip up and take a hit after reacting to a group of shots. I am not trying to get two balanced guns buffed into an overpowered state, I am trying to get them to the point where people can REALISTICALLY use them and compete with existing viable guns within the same price range.

- Honestly I think it's kind of rude to imply that the reason nobody uses Watermelon/Apple is that we just expect to "spam" with them, or that we just can't figure out how to utilize timing and aiming tactically enough. Do you really think players who have sparred and won thousands of games don't know about those factors? Why are you convinced I would simply make up these issues with gun balance? Have you used them competitively for hundreds of hours and know some secret method us regular players are just too incompetent to figure out?

Instead of reading my three specific suggestions, you're blowing them off and dismissing my experience with the game and thats clear to me now after reading your responses. You've yet to explain why the plus one damage to Apple Launcher / Watermelon Gun would not make them more balanced guns... you're just describing and defending a theoretical gun concept that I agree with and want to be prevalent in this game. The concept of the guns is not the point, I'm talking about the actualization!

It's annoying to me because I care about this game and genuinely want to help improve it. Suggestions by regular players shouldn't be taken as attacks on the judgment of the developers (which is what you seem to be treating it as, since you're simply defending the design concepts and not addressing specifics). How do the developers expect to nurture and expand the PvP elements of iZone if they aren't willing to listen to feedback from the people who use it most?