I've clearly been gone a while, because in the last couple of months or so small guns have undergone some changes. Good changes? Well, I suppose in this case I mean "changes" as in a girl who wore too-tight-fitting bras during puberty and her tits didn't develop right.
A while back I posted a thread in this very forum suggesting some completely and utterly sensible changes to some underused small guns. To paraphrase, I basically proposed that the Grease Gun should have an AP cost on par with a typical SMG and that the Tommy Gun should require 5 ST instead of 6. Among the replies I received were something to the effect of "we need to fix the weapon system as a whole before tweaking individual weapons." I'm not sure if a dev responded or not; frankly I doubt I could find the thread behind the thousands of "my gang got their shit slapped, nerf the other gangs" threads.
This brings us to the assault rifle, which roughly got a 35% base damage boost. 8-16 to 12-21.
We need to fix the weapon system as a whole before tweaking individual weapons.
Meanwhile the FN FAL, which realistically employs a sniper-caliber round almost twice as heavy as that of the assault rifle, got a 10% damage boost. 9-18 to 10-20 if you're generous with rounding.
We need to fix the weapon system as a whole before tweaking individual weapons.
None of the other small guns - especially the ones I mentioned that are underpowered in meaningless ways - have received any attention and are for the most part not worth seriously using.
We need to fix the weapon system as a whole before tweaking individual weapons.
My suggestion... Well, besides fixing the weapon system as a whole before tweaking individual weapons, is to make the FN FAL's damage more up to speed with the M60, since the two weapons appear to have very similar ballistics. I'd say somewhere around 14-26 is a fair tweak to the FAL's damage, but with the tradeoff that the burst be reduced to 5 rounds rather than 10. This is because no one in their right mind would try to fire 10 rounds on full auto with a FAL, but I assume you knew that. It still won't have the accuracy boost that the AR and SR confer, but with the penetrate perk it'd be suitable for some devasating single shots against pretty much any target.
Being that 7.62 ammo is only craftable in a rather limited environment, and the weapons that use it are endowed with steep material requirements, this is more than reasonable. Though to be fair this is all coming from that nagging little voice in my head that continually assures me that people still give a shit about this game. I hope he's right!