Rifleman Archive
Thread: Rifles and their uses
As far as I am aware, all rifles do energy-based damages except for the SG-82 which does cold damage. So I have a T-21 for the mind bleeds, a laser rifle for the headshots, a spraystick for close-in combat (although I normally swap to the 2-handed weapons for melee for much better defence), and a SG-82 for those mobs with high energy resist.
Jawa Ion rifle is energy based but has a stun component. I don't use it because it does less damage compared to other rifles, maybe others can advise if this is really useful.
Jawa Ion Cannon does pure stun damage, and does not have an energy component. This makes it invaluable for mobs with vulnerabilities to stun (eg, enraged kimogila), and also against players with composite armour, as it will cut right through the armour with no reduction at all.
T21 is high-ham, very high damage - if you can buff sufficiently, you'll be doing almost twice the damage listed in your combat spam again unarmoured mobs and npcs (not counting energy resists). It'll chew through stormtroopers in no time. 
The rest... well, largely down to personal preference, but laser, T21, and Jawa seem to be the rifles used most often. DLT20a is also useful for a low-ham special or 2, and the damage is more stable than a laser, too - though it has no armour piercing.
Do an examine on your target and find its vulnerability. Some targets will take more damage from a lower level weapon if it does the right type of damage.
Tusken - Kinectic
Laser/CDEF/DLT20(a)/T21 - Energy
SG82 - Cold
Jawa Ion Rifle - Stun (note not the effect as an energy type)
When its fixed the Spraystick will be acid. And (hopefully fingers crossed) the T21 will be blast damage. I live by my underrated Jawa Ion rifle. A lot of creatures are vulnerable to stun. But it doesnt do the biggest damage so i check first. But in PvP its the rifle i use. Love it against million dollar composite armors.
Thanks for replies, I now realize Jawa Ion rifles are better than I thought.
Rushing out to get one. Can someone advise what might be good stats, so I don't rip myselfoff?
Tusken Raider rifle doing kinetic damage suprised me, because I'd looked up all the rifles to see what kind of damages they did only a couple of days ago.
So I checked again, and sure enough, the Tusken rifle is advertised as being energy damage. Is this really a bad description in-game, and it really does kinetic damage?
The Tusken and Scatter rifle still need to be fixed.
Tusken should do kenetic and Scatter should do acid, both still do energy.