Random Racks is more of an issue for BTB where your base racks always spawn random crap. If you’re lucky, you spawn with BR, Hydra, Shock Rifle, which are all amazing and reliable weapons for most encounters.
If you are unlucky you get Commando and Ravager replacing BR and Hydra respectively which is really sucky if you are in a BTB mode like Stockpile and Slayer where you need strong reliable kill weapons.
Also I already mentioned what I meant by ammo econ. Commando spawns with 20 round mag and 40 round spare, but has a 7 shot headshot and 13 shot bodyshot. This alone makes it a really terrible gun to pick up because you will run dry much sooner and that’s never a good thing. An extra spit to the face is that the max reserve is 120. Big yikes versus the BR’s 216.
Ah, I see. Yeah, the btb in this game really sucks, no 2 ways about it.
And I think the commando would be a bit too broken if they didn’t limit the ammo, especially if they got rid of the bloom. Even as is, the thing has a pretty quick reload so it’s never really an issue for me unless I’m trying to full auto fight the bloom for the headshot.
Indeed, idk if others have said this already but tap firing it is key but even then it’s not good at mid range, not good at long range, and you might as well throw it at an enemy close range since firing it is useless.
Bring the DMR back, it was the pinnacle of mid range rifles
Oh is that what they nerfed? I didn’t play at launch, so I just thought they added in the bloom or something and that killed the gun.
Honestly, I think it can only ever be better for the game to have a greater gap in ttk defined by aim, so I like that they punish bodyshots more. Agree to disagree I guess, though I wouldn’t be at all bothered if they upped the ammo to 26 or something to compensate.
Right before the game launched 343 said they annihilated the recoil, added tons of bloom, and destroyed the accuracy for some reason. It was an okay gun before but now its awful
Yeah, bloom is just a bad mechanic. Recoil is fine because that’s predictable, at least to a degree, and there’s skill in controlling for it. Bloom just punishes you for having good aim.
Commando isn’t terrible, I’d say it’s between the BR and AR. Pretty good weapon in BTB compared to the sidekick because of the scope. Also good for console players who can’t spam the Sidekick in quick play.
It’s just different uses, IMO, between 30 cal/7.62mm and 264 cal/6.5mm, and I think it fits the use the Commando has in-game. It’s got a one hit kill for headshots, and good range and good non-bloom accuracy (i.e. better than AR), which all fits with something along the lines of a 6.5 Creedmoor or 6.5 Grendel (though, IMO, since the Halo universe loves full power cartridges, 6.5 Creedmoor is the more likely analogy - it’s just a 308 case necked down to accept a 264 cal/6.5mm bullet). If you look at real life competitions like PRS (Precision Rifle Series), which is one of the bigger long-range competitions, in the US anyway - it’s almost all 6.5mm and 6mm rifles. The heavier end of 6.5mm bullets is usually about140 grain (9ish grams, for the metric folks), but because it’s a smaller diameter, this results in a longer, sleeker bullet. So even though the M118LR cartridge (30 cal, 175 grain/11ish gram) is heavier, it’s a shorter, fatter bullet and thus less ballistically efficient. The heavier 30 cal cartridge actually has a harder time being accurate than the lighter 264 cal cartridge due to this.
So, how this relates to the Commando is - it’ll be more accurate, and in game, the first couple shots before recoil/bloom kick in reflect that. It also has a faster traveling projectile than the AR in my opinion, based on gameplay feel. Where I think the game screws up the difference between a full-size 6.5 and 30 cal is in recoil - the Halo universe’s AR would absolutely be much worse in terms of controllability than the Commando would be. Keeping with the relative differences between the real-world M118LR and assumed 6.5 Creedmoor, M118LR is a thumper - 175 grain projectile at 2700 fps is 2833 ft lb of muzzle energy, which you feel in terms of recoil. A 140 grain 6.5 bullet moving at 2700 fps (which is about right for a match-grade 6.5 Creedmoor load) is only 2267 ft lb of muzzle energy. For perspective, that roughly 570 ft lb difference is the equivalent of .357 magnum out of a revolver. That’s how much recoil you lose moving from M118LR to a heavy 6.5 Creedmoor. Not insignificant - so the Commando’s in-game representation is a little wonky in terms of recoil.
However, they did get it right on the mag - that would be about the right size for a double-stack 20 round 308 case cartridge - those mags are a lot bigger than you’d think, my AR10 mags are 20 and 25 rounders and the Commando ones feel/look about right for that - maybe just a touch long, but they’ve got an interesting angle to them that could explain it. The mags used by the AR, BR, and DMR in all past Halo games were and are comically small for the capacity of M118LR (or 9.5mm in the BR’s case) they purport to house. The DMR is like a 5 round mag IRL, the AR is a 10 round mag IRL (maybe could get 15?), and the BR is like 7 or 8 (.375 cal/9.5mm cartridges are pretty large).
So I guess, end of the day, assuming they intended to copy 6.5 Creedmoor, and knowing what I know about it (do not have first-hand experience, sadly, as I only run 308 and 223, and have been too lazy to build a 6.5 - but this discussion has got me thinking about asking the wife to allow funds for a new upper build lol) - I’d say the Commando is honestly one of the more “realistic” iterations of a firearm in the Halo universe. However, I do have problems with it in relation to other weapons. Namely, the recoil is about right for full auto with a full power cartridge in real life, but relative to the rifles that shoot bigger/heavier bullets in-game, it’s too high in comparison. And as far as use - I use it for longer shots, and it’s one of my mains in BTB. Paired with a plasma pistol or pulse carbine, you strip the shield and quickswap to the Commando and it’s OHK for a headshot. Works somewhat consistently - otherwise I’ll just do short bursts to avoid bloom/recoil with it, works OK, but chews through ammo quick.
I’ll say this much. As much as I really like the commando it functionally doesn’t make very much sense in the game. It uses a 6.5mm Creedmoor, and yet it kicks like a mule, and doesn’t seem to perform as well as the DMR in previous games range wise. Just doesn’t make sense to me personally. Also it isn’t an insurgent weapon. It’s just another case of the devs wanting to add a new toy lore be -Yoink!-. Which is fine. In my opinion the bigger the sandbox the better, and this game definitely lacks that as is.
Actually, H5 ends around October 2558 and the raid on the infinity takes place December 2559 so that’s 14 months between the events. That’s plenty of time for the Infinity to pick up a few shipments of commando rifles.
The weapon is only 65 years old not 100. As for the insurrection being “long dead”, they were fighting against the UNSC during the covenant war and the created conflict. They never died out just weren’t the UNSC’s biggest issue during the war. The UNSC wasn’t humbled by the weapon, they just had limited options with Cortana as an enemy. Furthermore, the weapon isn’t necessarily made by insurrectionists, just an older human weapons manufacturer. They produced weapons for the Colonial Military Administration, which was folded into the UNSC at the beginning of the human covenant war. Here’s the wiki page if you need a refresher. https://www.halopedia.org/VK78_Commando
The stocks of DMRs, M6 magnums, MA5D rifles, M45D shotguns, and BR85 rifles didn’t just up and vanish. A lot of weaponry was used in Operation Wolfe on Reach a few months prior to infinite and a good portion of it got left behind. Just because we don’t have a clear explanation for the weapon’s not being present in game doesn’t mean that they vanished canonically.