A Shotgun is a type of weapon seen in all Armored Core games.
Information[]
Much like their human-scale counterparts, shotguns are short range weapons that fire tens of pellets or slugs that spread out from the barrel of the gun. While powerful (the damage is calculated for each pellet that hits), they are only useful within close ranges. Back mounted variants are called Slug Guns. In Armored Core: For Answer, it is noted that they are effective Anti-PA weapons.
Some models of other weapons, such as Laser Rifles, Rockets, Bazookas, and Pulse Rifles have spread effects, similar to shotguns.
Shotguns[]
Like most weapons in Armored Core, the Shotgun works much like they do in real life. A Shotgun fires a group of pellets referred to as "shot". It is a Rifle-sized weapon that focuses on increased hit probability. Much like the Machine Gun, the combined damage that a Shotgun deals per shot is misleading and actually quite random. Each individual pellet deals its own damage so at close quarters, this can cause massive effect, rivaling more powerful weapons. However, this works both ways as with a mobile target, you may not be able to finish off a target at range. Additionally, the disadvantage of pellets as opposed to a rifle shot is that they need to go through the target's defence individually. That means that in general, landing only a few hits out of a shotgun blast is not going to have much impact on the target. This results in Shotguns being only effective at close range.
Shotguns can be useful for tight combat but in general situations, they aren't too useful, chiefly because of their limited effective range. Despite that, Shotguns work well against lighter and more mobile targets, against which it is more important to attain high accuracy, something this type of weapon excels at. They are best used against medium-sized opponents - smaller enemies like light unmanned weapons might be actually harder to hit with a shotgun due to the irregular spread of the projectiles, making them prone to miss. In particular, Shotguns can be quite formidable against lightweight ACs, which are large enough targets to score hits on reliably, and also lack sufficient defence to shrug off the Shotgun attacks. As they cannot dodge this weapon as easily as the single projectile pinpoint attacks, they are vulnerable to serious chip damage. Lastly, repeated shotgun blasts are capable of delivering moderate amounts of heat and stun.
Slug Guns[]
The Slug Gun is the original shotgun weapon (as the first true, hand-wielded Shotguns were added in Armored Core 2) in the series. It is a shoulder-mounted version of the weapon, and despite the name it is simply a big spreadshot cannon, throwing a cluster of high impact hot flak at the targets.
In the games with the Heat mechanic, the Slug Gun can be a real killer, causing massive damage up close and also high heat stress. As Heat drains Energy in Nexus and beyond, this can be a deadly combination against ACs. Still, the gun suffers the same issues that regular Shotguns suffer from, but made worse, due to the increased weight and reload time concerns.
List of Notable Shotgun/Slug Gun users[]
- Suburban King (arm-mounted energy shotgun)
- Nocturne (arm-mounted shotgun)
- Shade (dual arm-mounted shotguns)
- Losvaize (back-mounted slug-gun)
- Sahdana (arm-mounted shotgun)
- Snap (two shotguns and a slug-gun)
- Old King (arm-mounted shotgun)
- Royal Mist (arm-mounted shotgun)
- Jouster (back-mounted slug-gun)
- Shamir RaviRavi (back-mounted slug-gun, arm-mounted shotgun)
List of Shotguns[]
AC2 Era[]
AC3 Era[]
- Shotguns
- Energy Shotguns
ACNX Era[]
- Shotguns
- Energy Shotguns