I haven't been playing as long as many of you, but in the 4 years I have been playing, I've seen weapons go from nothing but a cosmetic flattening of choose your cosmetic gun, to being all over the place and practically a joke now. Yes, Deadbolts are strong, and yes deadbolts are used over basically everything else. But the reason is because everything else sucks. There is absolutely no reason to use any of the other ballistic cannons simply because they don't have the same punch as a Deadbolt, while sometimes having less ammo. Tarantula cannons (S1-3) have less ammo than Deadbolts of the same size, yet do roughly a third of the damage of a Deadbolt per shot. Or since S4s are the general favorite around here, lets use the the C-788. You know, the Size 4 cannon that visually looks like a giant anti ship cannon with nearly people sized shells? Yeah that does nearly half the damage of a Deadbolt, while having less ammo and a lower fire rate. It doesn't make any sense. Ballistic gatlings? All over the place. the GT series don't have the damage or the ammo to be viable in any situation. The faster firing, lower damage Revenant family of gatlings have less ammo, less damage, and higher fire rate than the slower firing heavier hitting ADxB Gatlings. And the bespoke Breaknecks of the Shiv are actually somehow good S4s, even with their lower damage but are restricted to owning a Shiv. Ballistic repeaters however feel extremely good to use right now. They have the damage and ammo to be in somewhat sustained fights, and are easy to pair with laser weapons if you are worried about ammo. Laser weapons? They range from usable to a complete joke. CF repeaters feel like they tickle fighters right now. Bespoke laser repeaters like the S3 Yeng'Tu of the San'Tok Yai and S3 Tormenters of the Shiv are flat out worse than standard CF repeaters and deal less damage for no other benefits. NDBs used to be a good middle ground between CF and Attrition repeaters, but thanks to some recent changes they seem to be just above Attritions. And then we get the Attritions/Ardors. The common powerhouse even after their recent nerf because surprise surprise, flattening all weapon velocities across every class makes everything that doesn't hit like a truck practically useless. And now laser cannons. Oh boy. These have been in hell for a long time and have no signs of being fixed ever since a capacitor/regen nerf they got a couple years ago that completely killed cannons like the Lightstrikes and FL series. All laser cannons had their max capacity and capacitor regen flattened to the same values, making it so the only reason to run something like an Omnisky over a MxA cannon, was the velocity. But not any more. They now all have the same velocity, in addition to the same capacity/regen. The only exception is the new, shiny, freshly redone and re-added to ingame shop NN series of neutron cannon. Which were amazing in 4.7. And then in 4.8 got absolutely destroyed and now hold the crown of slowest weapon velocity in the game. Yes, even slower than the Idris Railgun. A whopping 765-755m/s shot speed for 2-4 more damage per shot than an Omnisky. I don't know what is going on at the balance team but they really gotta get someone who knows how the game works and how game balance actually works. Because this ain't it. This is throwing random numbers at a wall and using what sticks. They can't balance guns because the guns have no identity or even base to be balanced from. Why would a high tech alien laser repeater be worse than a standard issue civilian laser repeater? Why would a giant anti ship cannon be worse than a light weight precision cannon? None of it makes sense. And to those who say is an alpha? This is basic level stuff. This has nothing to do with the big mighty project they've taken on and all the tech they have to make from scratch or whatever excuses you have. This is basic, ground level stuff for any game with weapons. PS. Fix Hornet Mk I.