APB Reloaded (Part Five) ~ All You Need to Know About Games

Weapons

I believe by now, you know that there's quite a number of weapons that you can buy and use in APB Reloaded.

From Assault Rifles, Explosive Weapons, High-velocity (Sniper) Rifles, Less Than Lethal (Stuns) to Light Machine Guns, Rifles, Secondary Weapons (your fallback weapon, e.g. pistols), Shotguns and Sub-machine Guns.

And even though there seems to be plenty, I've found that somehow...within the same weapon category...there's really only just a couple of models each. The rest are just variants of the same with some minor modifications to them.

For instance, let us take a look at the "Light Machine Guns" (refer to previous screenshot). In it, you can more or less see two recurring weapon names, the "Alig 762" and the "Shaw 556".

These two are the "models" that I'm talking about. The rest of them (with the same primary names) are its variants.

And as you can see in the above pictures, the variants doesn't seem that much different from their "mother", the main model (stat-wise).

I believe those aren't a reflection of the variants' real stats. They appear to be pre-modified ones that does not take into account the weapon mods' effects yet...which is why they look exactly like their "mother's".

Even amongst the variants, you can easily see that there's actually only two general versions of them, those with free mod slots and those with weapon mods already attached to them (fixed mod slots).

The difference?

Weapons with free mod slots are essentially "free". Players can slot in and remove weapon mods from them as and when they like...provided that certain rules are followed (to be explained later).

Weapons with fixed mod slots, on the other hand, cannot. Players who've bought these can only use them as is. The weapon mods are affixed to the weapon itself and cannot be removed nor changed.

As far as I know, unlocking of the NPC contacts and gradually climbing up the "Standings Ladder" will only get you the main weapon models and their fixed mod slot counterparts.

The free mod slot versions can only be obtained by raising the rank of a role (that's associated with the weapon) up to a certain level.

And to do that, you will need to rack up kill points using the existing ones that you've unlocked.

Other Weapon Need To Knows

One must note that a player can only carry two weapons (1 primary, 1 secondary weapon) and a couple of grenades at any point in time. As such, you must be selective in what you choose to bring and use. Match them to your game-style or the situation that your in accordingly.
There are two kinds of targets in APB Reloaded, soft targets (players/NPCs) and hard targets (vehicles).
- When dealing with soft ones, use a high "health damage" weapon when you wish to kill them and a high "stamina damage" weapon when you just wish to stun and arrest them.
- When dealing with hard ones, use a high "hard damage" weapon.
Though there are in-game weapon stats available, I've found that more often than not...one will still need to give the weapon a trial run first before deciding to scratch it off as useless (or something like that).

This is because of "hidden factors" that can't be noticed until you've tried them on...like cross hair size and range when damage starts to drop off.
Take for instance, the Alig 762. Although it looks as if it should be a good all-round primary weapon (able to take out soft and hard targets alike, has mid-high effective range, spits out bullets at a decent pace and has a large magazine size), it isn't quite so.

Upon using it, you will find that the weapon's cross hair is pretty large on its own and aim-down-sights doesn't do anything to decrease it (so you might have to do crouch-fire on far targets), enlarges itself at the slightest movement (you should preferably be stationary when firing, but that would also mean that your a sitting duck though) and blooms terribly fast on full-auto (so starting from as early as mid-ranged target onwards, you will already have to do controlled bursts in order to hit).

As for damage drop-offs, you might want to consider giving APB:DB a try. I've found it to be pretty useful for that (with its damage vs range chart).

Cars

APB Reloaded - Vehicle Pioneer N54A Dominion

Just like weapons, cars also have their own specs chart to look at, those with no mod slots, with free mod slots and fixed mod slots.

And since they pretty much function in just the same way (except that you don't have to kill to unlock them), I guess I can skip the explanation on them.

But anyway, regardless of its specs, the one main important thing to keep in mind when choosing which to get is its ability to "push away" others when being blocked.

This is because the mission district is often filled with NPCs' as well as other players' cars. And they don't very well park them nicely at the side of the road for ya (when your in a car chase).

To this aspect, I've found that the vehicles within APB Reloaded can generally be summarized into the following "four" kinds.

Vehicles that have very fast acceleration, but are light and can easily be pushed (veered off course) or flipped over.
Vehicles that have fast acceleration, but no pushing power at all (easily deflected or stopped despite having attained some decent speed).
Vehicles that have average acceleration and decent pushing power.
Vehicles that have very slow acceleration but becomes a total powerhouse (when it comes to ramming others) once it gains sufficient speed.

As for which kind to get? I'll leave it up for the player to decide.

If you want to "save money", you can always hijack the vehicle model first (in the mission districts) and give them a try.

Modifications

There are a total of three kinds of modifications found in APB Reloaded. Apart from "Weapon" and "Car" mods (that have already been introduced earlier), the last kind (which you've yet to know of) is actually "Character" mods.

Together, these three group of mods represents the tweaks that you can do to your weapons, your character and your cars to make them fundamentally different (not visually, but in terms of performance) from other players'.

Tell me something I don't know.

And while all that sounds fine and swell, there are two vital points to note of.

First of all, mods (in APB Reloaded) aren't all good and no bad. They have their bonus aspects as well as penalties.

And by choosing to insert the mod (and using it), means that you implicitly accept BOTH the bonus and penalty (that it provides).

Secondly, mods are color-coded and at no point in time can you simultaneously slot in two mods of the same color-code...into the same item (your weapon, your character, your car).

Hence, at the end of the day, the player himself/herself must choose what mods to put on wisely. For if you put on the wrong ones on the wrong stuff, it might harm your gameplay instead of help ya.

I've heard that some weapon mods just aren't fit for certain weapons. Forcibly putting them on would not help the weapon one bit, but you will still get hit with its penalty nonetheless though.

For instance, putting hunting sights on a shotgun or smg is totally useless cause your never supposed to aim-down-sights while engaging in close quarters combat (in APB Reloaded anyway).

Ignoring the penalty, you'll already be moving too slowly in marksmanship mode...not to mention having no effective range (on the weapon) to actually make use of that added accuracy while aiming.