Rifle

The Rifle is a very versatile weapon.

As the default human weapon, the Rifle recieves much use during all parts of a normal game of Tremulous. Whether because they are newly-joined, newly-bankrupt, or newly deprived of a functional armoury, players are likely to carry rifles at every stage and in every situation.

As with any weapon, accuracy is moderately important. The Rifle is sufficiently accurate to hit a Dretch consistently at medium range. Even so, the rifle does have a mild spread so it can be inefficient against small targets from a distance.

The Rifle's damage rate is actually quite high by comparison to many other weapons, but it suffers from a small clip size, and a weapon that empties in about 2.7 seconds and then spends about 2.2 seconds reloading is one liable to put the trigger-happy in deep water. If you just spray at random your enemies will just avoid you until the reload and then 2 seconds is probably all they will need to cause you severe inconvenience. Especially against small targets, try using brief bursts of fire when you think you have a clear shot -- remember it takes only five bullets to kill a dretch. Also remember, however, that it takes an entire clip to kill a marauder and more than that to kill a dragoon, so you are going to have to reload at least once during your battle. This makes taking on anything bigger than a basilisk with a solitary Rifle somewhat difficult to recommend.

As a base-killer, the Rifle manages a decent rate of damage and the reload time isn't such a problem, but the spread makes it less effective than, say, a lasgun at setting up the tricky or narrow shots that allow you to do damage while maximising your distance from defensive structures. It takes most of a clip to kill an Acid Tube and more than that to destroy an Egg, so it's easy to run out of ammunition if you don't or can't prioritise your targets well.

Rifles are most useful at Stage 1 against Dretches. When using a rifle against Dretches, remember a couple of things: Always keep moving. Focus on one target at a time when there are several. Try as hard as possible to keep dretches away from you, since once they get to your feet, it's very hard to shoot them accurately (see range and angular velocity).

On their own they may not seem much of a threat, but like any weapon, a large group of rifles working together can do significant damage. If a tyrant enters a room of five basic rifle-carrying humans and every single one starts shooting it, it has less than two seconds to start levelling the playing field before it is in serious trouble.