When trading fire in squad ground combat, how do NPCs (and PCs, too, I guess) decide which weapon to fire? If only one weapon is in range, the NPC will use that one, but otherwise, it's less clear.

When attacking or counterattacking at a distance within the ranges of both weapons, which one will be fired? Is it as simple as just using the weapon in the primary slot? Is one of the weapons randomly selected? Does it run a check to see which of the weapons does more damage?

How does the new penalty to heavy weapons used against infantry/creatures come into play? NPCs aren't the brightest, so will they disregard the penalty and still choose to fire their heavy weapon if it's in the primary slot (if that's how they decide)? If they decide based on damage output, will they take the penalty into consideration when they calculate damage, or stick with the strongest weapon and hope it hits? Are there plans to change the way weapons are selected in the future?

I would try to test this out on my own, but I don't have any overlapping weapons to get trial data, and don't really want to wade into a bandit squad's sweet spot to see how they react.

On a related note, when dual wielding weapons, you can only do it with two of the same weapon, correct? Is there a penalty (whether to hit chance like with heavy weapons now, or to something else) to doing so, or does it just act as an extra set of attacks for the round with the only penalty being the loss of flexibility by having less range covered? If there is a stat penalty incurred, does it apply only to sentients, or does it carry over to creatures (who technically have two of the same weapon) and droids that have two of the same weapon, as well? Are there plans to change how any of this functions?

I know dual wielding has been covered a little bit before, but I wanted to try to get a comprehensive and up-to-date idea of how exactly it functions.

From what I understand if you have overlapping weapons and are in range then the primary fires..if you are too close for the primary the secondary (if range allows) will fire E.g. I used to use A-280 and E-11. If I was too close for the A-280 then E-11 fired. If neither are in range then I have had an error message to say I have no weapons in range.

Heavy weapons will still hit from their range if you are fired upon but I think you will just incur less damage.

Always to bear in mind that no matter how good your projectile /non-projectile is the bandits will more than likely hit you at some point if they have the same weapons range. I am currently using a Nightstinger but I still get hit by an A-280 or some heavy weapons.... just make sure you have meds ;)

Not sure about dual wielding though.

But I am in no way an expert.

"Heavy weapons will still hit from their range if you are fired upon but I think you will just incur less damage."

I do not think that is true. If I got it right, you have 75% miss chance before you fire with heavy weapons. Damage will be as it is on rules page.

As for dual wield, only same weapon in each slot, yes. There is penalty for dual wield, but it only applies for weapon in secondary slot. You will do half damage with that weapon and, if i remember it correctly and nothing changed, with 50% less accuracy.

Yes, heavy weapons did not have a damage decrease like everyone thinks, but a geatly decreased accuracy loss.

A long time ago i thought the idea was to make Heavy Weapons become extremely inaccurate against soft targets (characters/creatures) but that HW damage would be ten times the indicated amount. 1 hull = 10 hp and such.

Seems you were mistaken.

There is no direct hull to HP correlation, deliberately. Damage type may at some point play a role but it will still be contingent on the specific nature of the target entity rather than any direct translation between target types.

Okay, so when dual wielding, the shots from the secondary weapon take a 50% penalty to both accuracy and damage?

And in attacking a bandit squad today, two of the bandits had identical loadouts (Bryar Pistol in the primary and LJ-90 BlasTech in the secondary). I was beyond the range of both weapons, so in the first round, they used the LJ-90s, and the next round they used the Bryar Pistols, both times with no effect. On the third round, however, one desperately squeezed off several shots from his Bryar Pistol, while the other chose her LJ-90 again. Looking at what some of their bandit colleagues were selecting, it appears that when no weapons are in range, they randomly select a weapon to use without considering which slot it's in. While knowing which weapon is fired when neither are in range is probably a moot point, is it any clue into selections when both are in range?

Edit: I found an old combat report I overlooked where three bandits had overlapping weapons both in range. They chose to fire:

- A secondary Bowcaster over a B22
- A secondary EE-3 over a DH-17
- A primary MG-15 Carbine over a DL-56

Each of the weapons fired have higher Average Damage and Maximum Damage values on the rules page than the other weapon, but this is an extremely small sample size, so it might be a lucky instance of random selection instead of selection of the more powerful weapon. It does appear that it isn't strictly primary selected over secondary, however.

Thanks for the clarification on HW Dej and Jevon.

I'm fairly certain it takes the weapon that does the most damage.

Forgive me if this question has already been asked and addressed but what is this HW penalty that you speak of?

From the Sim news:

"- Heavy Weapons now have a base 75% miss chance in non-facility ground combat (hunting, bandits, etc) as they are intended for use against hull entities such as facilities and vehicles"

“From the Sim news:

"- Heavy Weapons now have a base 75% miss chance in non-facility ground combat (hunting, bandits, etc) as they are intended for use against hull entities such as facilities and vehicles" ”

Well, crap. Thanks.

Sorry to dig this back up again, but I've run across some more bandits and the combat hasn't been sticking to the most powerful weapons. In fighting this Abyssin squad, the first three rounds were at a range of 6 squares, and had two sets of overlapping weapons.

The first pair was a NZ 9118 [primary] and a BT 500 [secondary]. Each time, this bandit fired the NZ 9118, which has the higher average and maximum damage stats, but only connected with one of the 21 total shots. It certainly seems that NPCs don't recognize the heavy weapon accuracy penalty when selecting a weapon.

The second pair was a bandit's A295 [primary] and E-11 [secondary] (stats included for reference).

• A295, 3 - 7 damage, 6 max hits, 15 avg. dam., 42 max. dam.
  
• E-11, 2 - 10 damage, 5 max hits, 15 avg. dam., 50 max. dam.

The bandit fired her A295 each time, so it doesn't appear that it selects the weapon with the highest maximum damage to fire, but I thought it could be defaulting to the primary weapon if the average damage values are equal.

The fourth round was at range of 1, and the only pair of overlapping weapons was a Jawa Ionisation Blaster [primary] and a TB-1a Ionisation Blaster [secondary].

• Jawa, 3 - 12 damage, 2 max hits, 7.5 avg. dam., 24 max. dam.
  
• TB-1a, 5 - 10 damage, 3 max hits, 11.25 avg. dam., 30 max. dam.

This bandit chose to fire the Jawa Ion Blaster, despite it being less powerful across the board.

And for the fifth and final round, we moved out to a range of 4 to finish off the leader, where my whole squad had overlapping weapons. The NPCs were equipped with T-21 Light Repeating Blasters [primary] and Relby K-23s [secondary]. I myself had an ELG-3A in the primary slot and a T-21 in the secondary.

• T-21, 3 - 5 damage, 9 max hits, 18 avg. dam., 45 max. dam.
  
• Relby, 9 - 12 damage, 4 max hits, 21 avg. dam., 48 max. dam.
  
• ELG-3A, 10 - 15 damage, 4 max hits, 25 avg. dam., 60 max. dam.

Every NPC fired the weaker T-21, but I fired the ELG-3A. I was pretty sure the more powerful weapon was selected each time before I started paying close attention, and the earlier results seemed to indicate that, as well, but it certainly looks like it's just selecting the primary weapon at this point in time.

I apologize for going into so much detail, but I wanted to provide plenty of information in case someone notices something I haven't.

It does select the primary weapon (although it's worth noting that hit penalty likely wouldn't be factored into determination of weapon power even if that weren't the case). A recent thread covered this the other day