Not every weapon is equally well-suited to the different challenges Rangers face. Each weapon skill covers a specific sub-set of weapons that range from the basic starting arms to the advanced weaponry looted from more dangerous enemies. Here is an outline of those skills, with an indication of what the pros and cons are.

Assault Rifles are a favorite of the experienced Ranger: flexible, reliable and useful in almost any situation. Assault rifles have good range, good armor penetration, good damage and multiple firing modes. However, they use up a significant amount of Action Points per shot, ammo is hard to find and expensive, and they lose accuracy in close quarters.

Bladed Weapons are excellent for getting in close and personal with low-armored enemies, such as the various mutated animals in the wastes. The Critical Hit rate is high, but Armor Penetration and damage of non-Critical Hits are not very good. Bladed weapons do not consume ammo.

Blunt Weapons offer a close range alternative that is a bit more dependable than bladed weapons, and better suited against armored enemies. The Armor Penetration is good and, if you do land a Critical Hit, the damage multiplier is high, but the Critical Hit Chance is significantly lower than for bladed weapons. Blunt weapons do not consume ammo.

Brawling is the final fallback if all your ammo is gone or your weapons have been lost. Brawling has a very low Action Point requirement, allowing for many attacks per turn for fast characters, and the hit rate is high, but overall damage is very low. Fists do not consume ammo.

Energy Weapons have a unique inverse relation to the enemys armor: the bigger and thicker the armor, the more it amplifies the heating and melting effects of the energy weapons blasts, doing more and more damage -picture that metal-plated enemy getting boiled alive in his armor. Energy weapon damage scales very quickly with enemy armor. The downside is that energy weapons do very little damage against unarmored enemies, and as energy ammo is pretty uncommon, you may find it advisable not to waste it on unarmored foes.

Handguns are useful as a primary weapon and also a prime choice as a secondary weapon, because handguns and handgun ammo are quite common. Handguns have a high Critical Hit rate, cheap ammo and cost relatively little Action Point to use, but they suffer from low Armor Penetration and range.

Heavy Weapons are extremely powerful armaments, dangerous to both your enemies and if theyre not positioned well your allies. Heavy weapons all have Area of Effect (AoE) attacks, covering a radius or cone of area and potentially affecting everyone in that area. Heavy weapons do very high damage and have good Armor Penetration, but a single shot takes a lot of Action Points, so using them can slow down the Ranger and offer bonus Melee Critical Hit Chance to opponents due to the Rangers limited mobility. Heavy weapons are also expensive and sometimes hard to find ammo for. That said, a single opportune use of a heavy weapon may swing a seemingly hopeless fight in your favor.

Shotguns are ideal crowd-clearing weapons. All shotguns have an AoE cone inside which any characters friendly or enemy will be damaged. This makes shotguns tricky to use, but theres little that beats the joy of clearing a group of foolishly clustered enemies with a single shot. Shotguns use medium Action Points, meaning a well-balanced Ranger could take multiple shots per turn, but they do not have great range or Armor Penetration and shots lose effectiveness the farther away an enemy is.

Sniper Rifles have an extremely high damage output per shot. A good sniper can start off combat by taking out an enemy with a single shot, and remain deadly throughout the fight. But despite their damage, and long range, their high Action Point cost per shot means you generally can take only one shot per turn and do little else. Also, sniper bullets are very expensive and hard to find, and the weapon loses all effectiveness if enemies come within close range.

Submachine Guns are cheap and easy-to-find weapons for the Ranger that prefers the spray-and-pray approach to combat. SMGs fire multiple rounds per shot, have very cheap ammo, and bonus accuracy at close range. However, they have low Critical Hit Chances, low Armor Penetration and are only effective up to medium range.