So, I just did some tests in custom games, comparing the Boltshot with the Scattershot, Shotgun (range and damage) and Assault Rifle (spped to empty magazine). Here are the results for the max range at which damage occured, and how much damage that was.
Boltshot: (overcharged shot)
Max distance: 5 Forge Blocks (1x1 Size)
Damage: 2/3 of shields
A 6 blocks, no damage occurred.
Scattershot:
Max distance: 8 Forge Blocks (1x1 Size)
Damage: Varies. As low as 1/5 of shields, up to 2/3 of shields
At 9 blocks, no damage occurred. At 5 blocks, damage also varied, in the same proportions as at 8 blocks, though occasionally greater damage was done.
Shotgun:
Max Distance: 7 Forge Blocks (1x1 Size)
Damage: Minimal. 1/10 of shields.
At 8 blocks, no damage was done. At 6, damage varied, from ~2/3 of shields, down to 1/4 of shields.
The next test wast to test whether a Boltshot could empty it’s magazine faster than an assualt rifle, which I saw claimed yesterday. Using 2 controllers, I fired both at the same time, firing the boltshot as fast as possible. The Assault Rifle emptied it’s magazine faster by about 1-2 seconds, then started reloading. The Boltshot started reloading after the Assualt Rifle, but managed to finish reloading about .5 seconds after the assualt rifle did, reflecting it’s faster reload time. The boltshot obviously fires slower in this case, and hence, fires slower than the Magnum as well. If the boltshot reload glitch was employed, the speed at which it fires would obviously increase, but I couldn’t get the glitch to work consistently, and more often than not, was slowed down by it.
In conclusion, the Boltshot is not as powerful as people like to say it is. By any means. People can now stop saying that the Boltshot has greater range than the Scattershot, it doesn’t. Also, the shotgun sucks compared to the Scattershot.
UPDATE:
I went and did some more tests as suggested. I tested both the Boltshot at max range (5 forge blocks) and half of max range (2.5 forge blocks), and then the Scattershot at max range (8 forge blocks) and half max range (4 forge blocks). 30 trials of each weapon, damage was averaged to find a mean damage score.
The Boltshot at max range averaged at 61% of shields damaged (ie it took off 61% of the other players shields). At half of max range, it always resulted in a kill.
The Scattershot at max range averaged at 17.6% of shields damaged. At half of max range, the average damage was 60%. Though it’s important to note that at this range, I did get one kill, so the scattershot is still quite strong.
In conclusion, based on this further tessting, I still don’t see the Boltshot as OP. It kills at it’s intended range, and damages at the extremities of it’s range. The Scattershot, which can fire faster it should be noted, does less damage than the Boltshot at it’s max range, but, when both are placed at a similar range, does similar damage. In close range, as I saw from earlier tests, the Scattershot almost always kills.
I’m done with testing, and I’m not sure what else to actually test. If someone else wants to try though, I’ll gladly include their results in the OP.
Some other interesting things: Inconsistently, I could get the Scattershot to do very minimal damage at 9 Blocks. This was very inconsistent though, but, it seemed that it was more likely to damage at this distance immediately after reloading a round. As well, the Boltshot, if fired normally (not charge) is unable to get a kill with a single magazine. The 10 shots are only enough to just break the shields.