Overview
Welcome to my guide on Running With Rifles, and how to be a better player, both in teamplay, and solo play. This guide will highlight the basics or surviving the game, give insight on weapons, equipment, and more.
Getting Your Bearings
So, you want to play Running With Rifles? Well, this game may seem simple, but you are soon going to notice that everything is not what it seems. A top down shooter with modern military plot may seem like an arcade run and gun, but what it really is a surprisingly tactical and cooperative game. Some of the most basic functions of the game can be a boon to you and your team. We’ll go in depth in this later. For now, let’s brush up on the weapons, and their purposes!
Update: Thank you so much for everything! about 6 years have past since I wrote this guide, and today it is the third highest ranked guide for this game of all time, and has almost 20k unique views.
Work To Be Done
So far, I’ve decided that making this guide would benefit the players, and myself. However, I will be taking my time on this guide. Over the course of a few days, maybe a few weeks, I will be updating this guide with more information, and ultimately, finishing it. Upon finishing it, I will delete this section to state that all work has been done, and more importantly, that the guide is relevant. Cheers, and keep running with your rifles!
Assault Rifles
Assault Rifles are the most basic weapons you are equipped with by default. Some assault rifles that each faction are equipped with are the M16A4 for the GreenBelts, the AK-47 for the BrownPants, and the G36 for the GrayCollars. Each of these ARs in my opinion are versatile, great weapons. By equipping an AR, you realize that you must employ cover, take down enemies, and occasionally provide suppressing fire (Although suppressing fire should be employed more if you employ a LMG, or a Light Machine Gun.).
Below are the default Assault Rifles:
Below are the collectible Assault Rifles:
Below are the Unlockable Assault Rifles:
Here are some Dos and Donts of the ARs:
Do:
1. Employ cover and use it to your advantage. It makes a huge difference when facing the more specialized weapons, especially the LMGs and Sniper Rifles.
2. Reload as often as you can, especially after a kill when you know that was the last enemy. In Running With Rifles, you do not reload automatically, this is to imitate real life, were you never know when you’re out of ammo. But in game, you can see this in the lower left hand corner of screen. Just be sure to reload whenever possible, and of course, use common sense. Don’t go reloading in the middle of a firefight when you clearly have enough ammo to take out another guy.
3. Use suppressing fire. Suppressing fire is when you fire at someone to pin them down, or just keep them from firing back. This is really useful against the AI, and with real players, can be used effectively sometimes as well. Against the AI, the AI won’t fire back, move, or try to pull back if they’re suppressed or pinned down. They will however use grenades, radio calls like mortar fire or artillery. Be aware of grenade call outs, and enemy banter on radios!
4. Take them out! As an operative with an Assault Rifle, you are the most jack of all trades type of weapon user in the game. Use that to your advantage! If you see an enemy, engage them, or at least pin them down! You are fully capable of killing an enemy in 1 shot, or even 2 shots. Make it count, and start killing!
5. Crouch or go prone. Crouching lets you be more accurate, and negates a bit of your weapons recoil. Going prone does the same thing, but negates more recoil and makes you more accurate. The only downside of these two is that you have decreased movement speed when crouching or going prone, so try to crouch or go prone only when firing your weapon.
6. Burst or tap fire! Burst firing is when you fire around 3-7 rounds or more before you stop firing. Tap firing is when you fire around 1-3 rounds before you stop firing. Use this to negate accuracy and recoil disadvantages when engaging at longer ranges. Before you know it, you’ll be burst and tap firing a lot more, even without thinking about it!
Don’t:
1. Hang back. You have an Assault rifle. Use it where it best works. ARs work well in every situation and range, especially in close to medium ranges, but it starts to dwindle in effectiveness at long ranges. Notice how a small amount of your bullets hit the targets when firing from long range. So, get closer to your target, and you’ll probabky hit more often and kill or wound more enemies! Makes sense, right?
2. Run and gun. Running and gunning might work in Call of Duty, but in RWR, you die very easily, in as little as one bullet to kill you without a vest. Use cover, and be effective! A dead soldier is a useless soldier!
3. Be reckless. ARs might work well in a lot of situations, but watch out for places where you won’t be very effective. These occurrences include long ranges and extreme short ranges.
Light Machine Guns
Light Machine Guns, or LMGs, are the big weapons designed for suppressing enemies, laying down cover, and killing lots of enemies in a short amount of time. LMGs are kinda like ARs, where they both work well in a variety of situations. However, the places where LMGs are effective is smaller than the places an AR is effective. To make up for that, LMGs make great squad support weapons and killing machines for when they can be used effectively. LMGs come with large magazines, often with 100 rounds or more, and they hit hard. Some downsides of the LMGs are that when you reload, it takes a fair bit of time, you are slowed down when you are reloading, your accuracy goes down the toilet fast if you fire to long, and overall, they are heavy and cumbersome weapons. By the way, if you aren’t in cover, you automatically drop prone to be able to fire you LMG. That means that you will have a bit of a wind up before you can fire, and so you have to be a bit cautious about your engagements. To counter this, always go prone if you think you’re going to start shooting. Some LMGs are the M240 for the GreenBelts, the IMI Negev for the GrayCollars, and the PKM for the BrownPants. Below are some Dos and Donts of the LMGs.
Below are the default Light Machine Guns:
Below is the Rare Light Machine Gun:
Do:
1. Lay down suppressing or covering fire for teammates. As a LMGS user, you have a large mag, which means you can fire for a good amount of time. Use that to suppress enemies, cover teammates, and overall be a nuisance for the enemy team.
2. Try to reload in cover. Reloading for the LMGs can be a nuisance, especially when your caught out in the open. To counter this, try to be resourceful with you magazine ammo count, and don’t waste bullets. The more you reload in the open, the more likely you’re going to get shot. So try to get in cover before you reload. If you notice that you keep getting cut down by enemies when you’re reloading, maybe equip one of the silenced pistols as a secondary? This will help you keep up fire and protect yourself a bit to help you get into cover. I’ll be going into the pistols later.
3. Go prone. Going prone with the LMGs is a given; you have to go prone to fire it, so why not do the inevitable early on? If you know you’re going to be engaging enemies, go prone so you don’t have to waste a half a second getting prepared to fire when you could be killing enemies.
4. Burst or tap fire. Discussed in the Dos and Donts of the ARs. Look it up for more detail. One thing to notice is that LMGs have high recoil and lose accuracy quickly after firing a few rounds, so tap firing and bursting is more commonly needed with LMGs than the ARs.
5. KILL! You have a LMG! Go prone and start raking up kills! You can easily mass up 3 or more kills on unsuspecting AI enemies, and more if you flank them, if you just try to kill them.
Don’t:
1. Waste bullets. Reloading the LMG is tedious and annoying, and can get you killed. So don’t waste bullets and you should be fine!
2. Think you’re invincible. You may have a heavy weapon, but you’re still human. You can easily be one shotted and killed, and that’s no fun. Be smart, and use common sense.
3. Forget to use cover. Using cover with an LMG is a good idea; you can lay down fire, reload safely behind cover, pop back up, and continue wreaking havoc. You also don’t have to go prone to fire, so you don’t have to ‘wind up’ to start firing. Use cover, and be smart.
Sniper Rifles
Sniper Rifles, or SR’s for short, are the long range killers in the Running with Rifles universe. They are have a large kill probability, with the lowest kill probability of any sniper rifle in the game being 0.9. If you don’t know, that’s really good. That means that you have a 0.9 out of 1 chance or 90% chance to kill someone in one shot. To give you an idea of what’s this like compared to other weapons, look at the differences in kill probability between the M16A4 and the M24-A2. The M16A4 has a kill probability of 0.5 out of 1 or 50% chance to kill in one shot, while the M24-A2 has a 1 out of 1 or 100% chance to one shot kill an enemy. That’s literally double the chance of killing someone in one shot when compared to the M16A4! That’s really good. To compensate for this, most sniper rifles only get to fire one shot before they need to be re-chambered. This means you need to make your shots count, as you might have only one chance to kill someone, accuracy is the key! The default sniper rifles in each faction are the M24-A2 for the GreenBelts, the PSG-90 for the GrayCollars, and the Dragunov SVD for the BrownPants. Of the three, two of them are bolt actions, which are the M24-A2 and the PSG-90. This means that they have a high kill probability, but they need to be re-chambered after every shot. On the other hand, there’s semi auto sniper rifles. These rifles have a smaller kill probability than the bolt actions, but they don’t need to be re-chambered manually after every shot, they just shoot every time you pull the trigger. Below are the Dos and Donts of Sniper Rifles:
Do:
1. Make every shot count. You don’t know if you’ll have another chance to fire upon that enemy again, so you might as well try to hit them. Every shot counts, and a hit shot means a kill, and a kill means good, so every kill counts.
2. Practice. I have to admit, I’m not that skilled with the SR’s in the game; I don’t have high patience, I’m not very accurate, and I honestly can’t use the darned things. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use them. I’ve seen plenty of good snipers in games of Invasion, and if you are able to put in the effort and practice, you can easily surpass me. Just remember that practice makes perfect, and every mistake can be learned from.
3. Find a good place to snipe. Sniping isn’t easy. You need to be able to see targets, and eliminate them quickly. So to assist in this, you might as well find good vantage points to snipe from. Buildings that give you good lines of sight on enemies and their preferred routes are good ideas, but remember not to stay in one place. Take some shots, and if you get a few kills, then great. Then relocate. If you don’t get a few kills, then you might need to practice more, or the vantage point you chose might not be that good. And remember, sniping in a tall building may not be as good of an idea as sniping from ground level.
4. Try to engage enemies from longer range. That means pick your engagements; see an enemy a good range away? Does he see you? That might be a good shot. Do you see an enemy close to your position, but he doesn’t see you? Does he see you now? Either way, it might not be smart to take a shot at him. Leave him be if he doesn’t notice you, but if he does, you might want to relocate or take him out. Always remember, if the enemy doesn’t see you, you’re probably alright, but always assume he’s able to see you. That means choose you engagements, don’t attract attention, and be smart. A good sniper is a not dead one.
5. Be sneaky. This one goes more in depth on my talk about choosing encounters and avoiding confrontation. Almost all sniper rifles are loud, and that means enemies can hear you if you fire a shot. Also, sprinting can easily give you away, so try to skulk about a bit, avoiding enemies and getting to you preferred vantage point as soon as you can manage. If you can, silently melee an enemy that is giving you trouble, this works better in games against AI, like in Invasion mode. If you can’t mange that, I recommend equipping one of the silent pistols, which I’ll be going in to detail on later in the guide. These pistols are silent, and can kill enemies quickly if you hit your shots.
6. Try to crouch or go prone before firing. Crouching increases your accuracy and decreases recoil, that helps when you want to hit your shots. Going prone does the same thing, but does it better, it increase you accuracy more and decreases your recoil even more as well. In summary, try to crouch of go prone before taking shots, it’s a bit tricky to remember, but once you start doing it, it will start to be hard wired in your memory, and you’ll start doing it without even noticing.
7. Stay back a bit. That means don’t be going on the front lines, in front of even the Assault Rifle users, to get kills. You don’t have the leisure of being able to fight effectively in close quarters, and you aren’t benefitting anyone. Stay back a bit, and take out enemies are far away. You’ll be helpful, and you won’t feel useless.
8. For Gods sake, play the objective! You aren’t helping anyone by being miles away from the objective. Either support your teammates in doing the objective, by taking out enemies that give them trouble, or don’t equip a sniper rifle. It’s that easy.
Don’t:
1. Don’t Try ‘quick scoping.’ You can’t even zoom in your shots, and running and gunning with a SR is as stupid as not equipping any weapons. You’ll get killed time and time again, and you’re not helping your team or yourself by doing it. Just don’t.
2. Don’t fight in close quarters. You may get a lucky kill in close quarters sometimes, but unless you use sniper rifles a lot, and I mean a lot, you aren’t going to be winning a lot of fights in close quarters. Just avoid it if you can, and if you can’t, try to take out the enemy out any way you can, even if it means pulling out a pistol, using grenades, a rocket launcher, or knifing them.
3. Don’t Be in the front lines. This is a given. Just stay behind you teammates a fair bit, and you won’t be targeted that often. Common sense.
4. Don’t feel cheap, or noobish for using a Sniper Rifle. Just because you’re using a weapon given to you in the game, doesn’t mean you get to take crap from people about taking the easier route. Sniping is hard, and some people can’t do it. Just be glad about your skill, and ignore what people may say.
Shotguns
Shotguns are the close quarters specialized weapons in Running with Rifles. Although these guns don’t have the range that an Assault rifle or Submachine gun have, they can get the job done. What these guns excel at is close encounter decimation, where they can effectively cut down enemies that come within there range. However, like the Sniper Rifles, the user must choose his engagements carefully, as the shotgun is only effective in its preferred range and little else. Being able to use a shotgun can make you a deadly adversary, as enemies will have to get keep their distance when facing you. If they don’t, they’ll get cut down quickly and painfully, and you’ll get a kill. This is where the shotguns start to face problems. Shotguns only have a certain effective range, and when an enemy is out of that range, you can’t do much about it. Sure you can chuck a grenade at them, but they can easily run away if it’s not an impact grenade or a good throw. So when using a shotgun, you have to play aggressively, seeking out the enemy, yet also be a bit sneaky too. You don’t want to finally get into range of the enemy to only be shot down because they saw you a mile away. That’s were flanking and distractions come in. Shotguns can easily take advantage of distracted enemies, as the enemy won’t know what’s coming when theyre distracted. Shotguns also take advantage of flanking. Coming in from the side or behind an enemy works very well with all weapons, seeing how most people pay attention to only what’s in front of them, and little else. When you come at them from the side or behind, they more in likely won’t be able to react fast enough to stop you, especially when coming at them from behind. Why from behind and not from the side? From the side a decent player with good awareness can probably see you came at them from the side, and stop you. From behind however, players can’t see much of what’s behind them if they’re in a firefight, since they’re probably looking for enemies. They don’t have enough space to see behind them, and boom, they able to be flanked. Also, they have little time to react to you when you come from behind them. It’s a good tactic, and works wonders with shotguns. Now onto the shotguns of each faction. For the GreenBelts, there’s the Mossberg 500. For the GrayCollars, there’s the Spas 12. Lastly, for the BrownPants, there’s the QBS-09. These shotguns have at least .59 out of 1 kill probability, or to the maximum of .62 out of 1 kill probability. The Mossberg 500 and the Spas 12 are pump action, meaning they need to be pumped after every shot. This means you have a bit of a disadvantage, but no much. To make up for that, these guns have a bit higher kill probability. I guess I can also say they conserve ammo a bit, seeing how you don’t fire them that fast. The QBS-09 however is semiauto, and that is a good advantage for you, considering how in close quarters, you can use any advantage you can muster. Also, semi auto shotgun like this usually has lower kill probabilities than pump actions, to balance their high rates of fire. As before, I guess I can also say you don’t conserve ammo that well, and you might find that you won’t have ammo in your gun sometimes because of its ability to fire fast? As always, the Dos and Donts of this weapon.
Do:
1. Get up close. Your shotgun is at its best when you get in the enemies face. Keep in mind that enemies, AI or actual people, can see you if run up to them and try to tear them a new one, so be cautious.
2. Try to be sneaky. Although you have a loud gun, be a little bit sneaky when you try to get close to your target. It helps if they don’t know you’re there, so you can easily shoot them up and get kills.
3. Wear vests. Vests basically allow you to take bullets, and you’ll need that if you want to get up close and she’ll out some damage and still manage to get out alive. Of course, if you don’t have a vest or you can’t equip one because of your rank, no big deal, but vests are extremely useful for your line of work, that’s it. Just try to rank up a bit to get access to them, that’s all.
4. Know your role. You’re a close quarters beast, and that’s really it. Although you can kill enemies outside of your range, try not to capitalize off that alone. If you do, you may start noticing that you’re sucking a bit.
5. Learn how to use a knife. Yes, you have a knife. Only use it when an enemy gets real up in your face, or you’re just out of ammo. That’s it. It’s a one shot kill, but you can and will miss your knife and look like an idiot when youre looking at the respawn screen wondering what you could’ve done differently. Of course, knifing an enemy gives you bonus experience, but you lose experience of you die, so think; Do I have a good chance to successfully knife this enemy and still live?
6. Flank those campers. As discussed earlier, flanking is deadly. Enemies, especially human players, won’t see you from behind and you can easily knife or shoot them in the back. Learn to flank, and you’ll be like a shark, coming up behind those smaller fishes and eating them up.
Don’t:
1. Don’t stay back: Ever heard of the shotgun sniper? In this fun game called BF3, you could equip slug rounds and an 8x scope on your shotgun, and be a shotgun sniper. Sound fun? It is, but you’re going to be a bad teammate and be an even worse player. Don’t be a shotgun sniper. Get up close, and stay there. That’s where your shotgun works, and that’s it.
2. Don’t be afraid. Yes, you’re going to be bad at first, that’s to be expected. Until you unlock a vest, you’re not going to be able to tank damage and give enemies hell. So, be cautious a bit around enemies, especially those AI ones, because they can easily whip out a knife or spin around and one shot you. So, you got to play smart. Be smart.
3. Don’t Run in guns a’ blazing. You look dumb. You’re easily spotted. You’re easily cut down. Do I have to say anything more?
In summary, play cautiously, but don’t be afraid to take out enemies that will harm you, your team, or your objective. As soon as you unlock a vest, equip it, it will make your job easier. Be sneaky, and profit. Flank effectively, and profit. Play effectively in comparison to your kit, and profit.
SubMachine Guns
SubMachine Guns, or SMGs, are the fast firing, low kill probability weapons in RWR. Out of the 4 SMGs, 3 of them are silenced, which are the MP5SD for the GreenBelts, the Scorpion Evo III for the GrayCollars, and the QCW-05 for the BrownPants. Being silenced generally means that these guns won’t make as much noise as their unsilenced equivalents, like the P90, which I’ll talk about later. In game, this means that AI enemies won’t detect you that quickly due to lack of sound from gunshots, and just general low awareness. Also, you’re shots don’t make noise, so Human players, like real people, won’t hear your shots that well either, so silenced guns work well if you just want to not be seen or heard. Almost all SMGs have a higher fire rate than Assault Rifles, with the MP5SD for the GreenBelts fire rate being 652 rounds per minute or RPM for short, the QCW-05 for the BrownPants fire rate being 705 RPM, and the Scorpion Evo III for the GrayCollars fire rate being 800 RPM. Lastly, the P90, the rarest SMG to find in the game at the moment, has a fire rate of 857 RPM, being exactly 57 RPM more than the highest fire rate SMG of the common SMGs. SMGs also have a low kill probability, with the MP5SD for the GreenBelts kill probability being 0.4 out of 1 or 40% kill probability, the QCW-05 for the BrownPants kill probability being 0.35 out of 1 or 35% kill probability, and the Scorpion Evo III for the GrayCollars kill probability being 0.36 out of 1 or 36% kill probability. Generally, the higher the rate of fire, the lower the kill probability, seeing how the Scorpion Evo III having a high rate of fire is balanced with it having a lower kill probability than the MP5SD, which has a lower rate of fire than the Scorpion Evo III. On the other hand, the P90 has a kill probability of 0.57 out of 1 or 57% kill probability. This is higher than all the other SMGs because of either it not being silenced or because it’s a rare weapon. Basically, all silenced SMGs work well in a variety of close-medium range engagements, and can be used for stealth missions because of it being suppressed or silenced. The P90 works even better in these circumstances, but cannot be used for stealth missions because of it not being suppressed or silenced. Now for some Dos and Donts for the SMGs.
Do:
1. Stay in your appropriate range. You SMG may have a good effective range if used properly, but don’t go expecting to get kills from across the screen. Push up and get kills in close range fights, and if you can, get kills in medium ranges too.
2. Be sneaky. You have a silenced weapon, (Unless you’re using the P90, which then you can use less of this rule.) so be sneaky whenever you can. That means don’t try to engage multiple enemies if you want to be silent, taking out stray enemies that hover away from their friends, and generally taking out any enemies you can without causing a loud gunfight. As long as you have the element of surprise and sneakiness, you have an advantage over a majority of enemies.
3. Bring a good secondary. Bring a secondary that complements what you’re doing. Are you going sneaky a lot? Then maybe bring a silenced pistol as your sidearm, which I’ll be going into later on in the guide. If you aren’t going sneaky a lot, then choose any secondary that you like to use.
4. Stealth support. You’re silent, so get behind enemies that are pinning down your allies and take them out. Chances are that the enemies comrades won’t notice you, and you can either continue to back flank the enemy, or get out of there.
5. Know your surroundings. A lot of things can impact line of sight, and with your main advantages coming from stealth, lines of sight can be changed quickly. For example, enemy AI will have a smaller detection range during night time than during the day. They will also not be able to see you at greater extents during nighttime. But that can also impact you as well. What you can see during the day may not be seen during the night. Know this, and adjust accordingly.
Don’t:
1. Don’t Stay back. Your SMG is decent in medium range, but beyond that, you’re pretty much useless. If you see enemies far away, either leave them for your allies, or get close to them and take them out. Nobody likes a teammate that can’t assist them. So get close up and start killing.
2. Don’t try to go loud when you can afford not to. A lot of the time, it’s more useful to remain silent than going into an all out gun fight; you have the advantage of stealth and surprise, you’re less likely to get shot and killed, and enemies won’t be a bother than often. But do keep in mind that sometimes you may need to go loud, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So just use common sense, should I go loud or should I go silent?
Grenade Launchers
Grenade Launchers, or GLs for short, are large primary weapon slot weapons that can quickly kill infantry, especially when they’re grouped. They can also damage and potentially destroy vehicles, destroy enemy equipment, like enemy mortar caches, and enemy utilities, like enemy radio towers. In short, they can wreck havoc upon enemies and are useful in a variety of situations. Need something to kill enemies and be useful in many situations? Then choose the M79 Grenade Launcher, which holds one 40mm grenade that explodes on contact upon any surface. It as does explosive damage, which means it can damage a bunch of destructible things. Need something to take out enemies that are using cover to the fullest? Then choose the XM-25 air burst launcher, which has 4 grenades in a mag and is semi auto. It is also an airbrush grenade launcher, which means you can detonate the grenades any time when they are mid air to make them explode, making the air burst explode and damage multiple enemies, even behind cover. The only draw back about this is that you need to remember to detonate them. Lastly, if you need to support your teammates in taking down enemies, choose the MGL Flasher, which shoots flash bang grenades that’s blind and disorient enemies. They can effectively make AI enemies easy pickings, and are great at supporting teammates in assaults and defense. The MGL Flasher is also semi auto, and houses 6 rounds in its revolving cylinder system. Now, as always, are the Dos and Donts of the Grenade Launchers.
Do:
1. Be Careful. The grenades fired out of the grenade launchers can kill enemies, but can also kill teammates. Watch your fire, and don’t hit teammates often.
2. Watch your ammo count. Although you have unlimited ammo for your Primary, watch out for the amount of ammo you have in your Launcher. Running out of ammo in a firefight is annoying, and can get you killed a lot more often than you think. Also, some of these Grenade Launchers have lengthy reloads, so watch out for that as well.
3. Equip a secondary to complement your primary. You have a grenade launcher, which can kill infantry easily. But what do you do when you’re caught in a reload? Maybe equip one of the secondary pistols. Whip it out when you’re in a bind, and it just might save your life.
4. Take the enemies out! You have probably the largest amount of fire power on your team if you have a grenade launcher. Put it to good use, and kill enemies and support the objectives. Take out groups of infantry, damage vehicles, and destroy enemy utilities and equipment!
Don’t:
1. Don’t be wasteful. Ammo in the Grenade Launchers is small compared to Rifles and Shotguns. This is to balance the large amount of damage you can deal in a short amount of time. Don’t shoot for the heck of it, and you’ll be fine.
2. Don’t be reckless. Usually, the AI will target the players that are causing the most damage to their army. With that grenade launcher, you’ll probably be getting a lot of attention from enemies. So to counter that, try taking precautions to avoid be taken out. Like wearing a vest, using cover, and playing smart. The more reckless you are, the more attention you get, the more attention you get, the more likely you are to get shot and killed. It’s just simple logic.
Rocket Launchers
Rocket Launchers, or the abbreviation many players call them, RPGS, are the one shot launchers of RWR. If you want an appropriate abbreviation, you can call them RLs, but nobody calls them that. The name RPG comes from the words Rocket Propelled Grenade, which put together make RPG. The most popular RPG in the world is the RPG-7 used by militia, terrorists, military, and PMCs alike. In game, saying RPG can be somewhat confusing, since there are multiple Rocket Launchers. Each one does its job, but has characteristics that define them. That’s why I personally would recommend telling your teammates what the enemy is using in terms of Rocket Launchers. Remember, the GreenBelts use the M72 LAW, which I personally love because of the LAW in its name. The GrayCollars use the M2 Carl Gustav, and the BrownPants use the RPG-7. These Rocket Launchers all do the same thing: blowing stuff up. But what defines each Rocket Launcher to make it its own? Each Rocket Launcher has stats that are higher than its competitors, like increase blast range, being scoped a bit, or higher damage. For the GreenBelts M72 LAW, it’s stats are 110 damage per rocket and it has a blast radius of 4 meters. It also costs 4 RP. The M72 LAW is what you’d expect: an all-rounder launcher that should be taken from dead GreenBelts during Invasion and Campaign modes if you are not that faction. Why would I do that you may ask? Well for starters, you can quickly pile up Rocket Launchers into your backpack, for use as extra ammo. Another point of taking enemy weapons is to sell them at the Armory, but you can learn about that in the Section: Gathering Enemy Equipment. Anyway, the M72 LAW for the GreenBelts is a very good RPG that I would personally agree on using a lot of you like to deal good damage to vehicles but still have a nice blast radius for taking out infantry in the radius of the explosion. Next is the M2 Carl Gustav, which earned its name through its use by British, Canadian, American, and Australian real life armed forces. Funny thing actually, the name different in almost each the armed forces that I mentioned above. The British affectionately called it a Charlie G. while Canadians called it the Carl G. The Americans on the other hand have another official name for it, M3 Multi-role Anti-armor Anti-tank Weapon System (MAAWS) or Ranger Antitank Weapon System (RAWS), but they also call it many names; the Gustav or the Goose or simply the Carl Johnson. In Australia, it is known as the Carl Gusto or the Carl Gutsache, the latter being slang for stomach pain. How ironic. Anyway, enough with fun facts, onto the weapon. The M2 Carl Gustav does the highest damage out of all three RPGs, with its damage being at a high 120. It also costs 4 RP. It’s blast radius is a weak 3 meters, but I guess that to balance its large damage. The M2 Carl Gustav also is slightly scoped, which means the area in which you can pan around the screen with being halted by your vision range is reduced, so you can see a bit more stuff ahead of you. I also like this launcher, as if you are accurate with your rocket, you can cause high damage to enemy rides. Also, you can use it to take out pesky dug in infantry, but because it has a smaller blast radius than other launchers, it’s not that effective when trying to maximize kills. Lastly, but certainly not least, is the infamous RPG-7 for the BrownPants. Although in this game this launcher doesn’t have increased damage compared to other launchers, like in other games that have this weapon. To balance this reduced damage, the RPG-7 has a higher blast radius than the other rocket launchers. So, the RPG-7 for the BrownPants has a damage of 100 for each rocket, a blast radius of 5 meters, and a cost of 3 RP, 1 RP less than the M72 LAW and M2 Carl Gustav’s 4 RP cost. Now onto the do’s and don’ts of the Rocket Launchers.
Do:
1. Be sure to equip one if you know there is enemy armor in the area. I see this happen a lot in Campaign and Invasion modes; an AI or Player controlled enemy tank rolls in and decimates a whole squad of allied soldiers. Now, since most of the time in Campaign mode, you are the only Human playing, you’ll probably be needing to take charge of the situation and take out the enemy tank for your team. So either equip a Rocket Launcher on you a lot, configure your squad to the Destroyer configuration, which makes it so your squad will have more AI soldiers with Rocket Launchers and stuff instead of soldiers who don’t. In invasion mode, you’ll probably feel less inclined to carry a Rocket Launcher because you’ll probably have Human teammates who will be carrying Rocket Launchers on them all the time. Still, remember if the situation demands it, adapt and conquer.
Phew long one right there.
2. Watch for friendlies. Rocket Launchers are really effective, but if you miss you didn’t just waste a rocket, you also risk killing teammates. Remember to think about what’s behind that tank before you shoot your Rocket, there might be a squad of 10 soldiers behind it that’s blood will be on your hands. Besides obvious comments from teammates about your friendly fire, you’ll also lose a significant amount of RP and XP for killing a teammate; you can easily lose 200 XP if you kill an entire squad of friendlies. So watch your fire!
3. Be sneaky. Sometimes, a good rocket shot on a tank and a quick sprint out of its view is the best strategy against armor. Being sneaky helps, because when a tank driver doesn’t know where the heck you are, they can’t fight back, and they are effectively useless. So be sneaky before you fire your rocket, and be sneaky about it if the rocket failed to destroy the tank, because if a tank is still up and it knows there’s a soldier with rockets near him, he will be more cautious and expect more trouble. Just keep that in mind.
4. Think like the enemy. When I say this, I mean think like the enemy would if they encountered a rocket. If you were in a tank, and you saw a soldier getting ready to send a rocket at you, you would probably back up and get out of there. The enemy in the tank probably would too. Now, since in the Campaign and Invasion modes most vehicles are occupied by AI, you might not need to think about this. But in the PVP modes, you’ll use this a lot more.
5. Carry multiple rockets. As soon as you can hold multiple rockets in one space without having to use your backpack, you should purchase more ammo for the launcher in case of emergencies. Sure, you can easily replicate by putting extra Rockets in your backpack, but the more you put in there, the more weight you add to it, and once it goes over 100% weight you’ll be slowed down and you’ll get an accuracy penalty. Also, it’s easier to automatically take out your extra rocket since you have 2 ‘equipped’ instead of having to manually take out a rocket from your backpack, put it in your secondary slot, close your backpack, and get back in the fight. Yes, fighting waits for no man!
Don’t:
1. Don’t be obvious. Please, for the love of all that’s good, don’t go running around with the Rocket Launcher out. First, people identify you as a special enemy, because you have a Rocket out and can easily kill them quickly, this goes for PVP and modes with enemy AI. The AI in this game are smart, and they’ll know to target you first since have a weapon of destruction. Second, if you fire it thinking you had your primary out, you waste a rocket. Lastly, you have your secondary out, which although this one does high damage to almost everything it hits, it only has limited ammo before you screwed, and after that, you screwed again. Just take out your primary and you’ll be fine, and only pull out the rocket launcher when necessary; enemy vehicles, hard to kill and grouped up infantry, and enemy equipment and utilities.
Rocket Launchers (Cont.)
2. Don’t be a teamkiller. These are the most used teamkiller weapons; they can easily kill teammates, are relatively cheap to purchase, and you unlock them quickly. Now, if you do teamkill a teammate, and it was a human player, but it was an accident, be sure to type in chat something apologetic like “Sorry mate, my bad” or “Sorry, I’m and idiot.” Using apologies like or close to these will usually be enough, considering that most people in game are pretty lenient about it, and will say it was no big deal or something like that. Don’t feel that bad, we all do it sometimes. But don’t be a douchebag about this; killing teammates on purpose is not cool. It’s what causes the most strife and problems in these kind of games and makes you a jerk. Remember, people will remember you and probably won’t forgive you. But if you a generally sorry, you’ll be fine. Now killing AI teammates is totally different. You still lose XP and RP, but you don’t get a person typing WTF into the chat bar. Not unless that AI was part of a players squad, then you should be apologizing.
3. Don’t waste ammo. Straight forward. I’ve talked about this time and time again. However, Rocket Launchers in RWR use ammo, so to get more you either need to purchase another Launcher or pickup some from the battlefields corpses. Now, in my opinion, this is a game, and since the AI’s ghost doesn’t come back to try to haunt you when you pick up its dead body’s old weapons, you should try to pick up stray rocket launchers on the ground instead of purchasing them in the armory. It’ll save you RP, and I guess it’s like you’re avenging the AI when you use their Rocket to kill enemies. Whatever floats your boat, mate.
Pistols
The good old sidearms, pistols may look small, but they pack a nice punch that can definitely kill if you get your aim right. Each faction gets a silenced pistol in the armory, and it will always be their factions pistol in the armory first. Now, each pistol fills the same role, as being backup weapons that can be used when you’re caught out of ammo with your primary like in the middle of a reload, and with the 3 silenced pistols you can use them as silenced weapons, basically weapons that won’t give off noise or muzzle flash and make it so enemy AI won’t notice you that easily due to the fact that they can’t hear your gun shots. So for each faction, they get a silenced pistol that they can purchase from their armories, with the GreenBelts having the Beretta M9 silenced, the GrayCollars having the Glock 17 silenced, and the BrownPants having the PB silenced. Each of these pistols are suppressed, and are good for stealth. Now, there are also 2 other pistols, that are rare and very rare. These pistols, or should I say hand cannons, are the Desert Eagle, and the Desert Eagle Gold. The Desert Eagle is a hand cannon that is equipped in your secondary slot, with it doing high damage and is a force to be reckoned with. It isn’t silenced, so don’t expect good stealth results if you’re using this. The other hand cannon is the super rare Desert Eagle Gold, which can only be found in the commanders private collection. The maps were you find the commanders private collection are Moorland Trenches and Rattlesnake Crescent. Now, to unlock the Desert Eagle, the normal one, you can usually find them briefcases. Just grab the briefcase, put it your backpack, and bring it to your armory. Now I forget if you have to sell the briefcase to the armory, or just get close to it to unlock one of the unlock able weapons. Now, keep in mind that there’s a different chance to unlock certain weapons in each briefcase. You might take a briefcase to your armory expecting to unlock a Desert Eagle, but instead you unlock the M79 grenade launcher. So keep that in mind. Now for the stats of the pistols. All the pistols seem to have a strange thing about them, because since they are secondary’s, and almost all secondary’s use the damage function instead of the kill probability function, it’s hard to determine the exact damage stat without rummaging through the games files. Now, I don’t want to do that, so I’ll ask some people who know the damage stat for each of the pistols what they know, and I’ll update it onto this guide later when I figure it out. Now, on the official Running with Rifles game wiki, it says that all the pistols do 1 damage. Now, I know that isn’t quite right, but for now, I’ll just put either high or low damage for each of the pistols damage stats. For the GreenBelts Beretta M9, it does low damage to enemies, and holds 15 rounds, and is silenced, making it a good stealth weapon. It also costs only 3 RP. The GrayCollars Glock 17 does low damage to enemies, and holds 17 rounds, and is silenced, making it a good stealth weapon. It also costs only 3 RP. The BrownPants PB does low damage, holds 8 rounds (I think, I’ll check and update later), and is silenced. It also only costs 3 RP. One interesting thing about this weapon is that in real life, this weapon uses an integral silencer, meaning the silencer can be quickly taken on and off. This doesn’t do anything in game, it’s just an interesting fact about the weapon in real life. The Desert Eagle, which is an unlockable weapon, does high damage, and either holds 7,8,9 rounds, I don’t know, I’m finding this round capacity off of the real life guns wiki, and since this gun uses so many types of calibers in real life, the mag capacity is different from game to game. By the way, if you’re reading this, and you have access to your game, which I don’t right now, send me the in game round capacity for the Desert Eagle, not the Desert Eagle Gold, and the PB. Thanks to GreenFreak, I have the correct ammo capacity for the Beretta M9, the Glock 17, and the Desert Eagle Gold. Anyway, the Desert Eagle also costs 10 RP in the armory, and is only available after you unlock it. Next, is the Desert Eagle Gold, which does high damage, holds 8 rounds, and is only available by finding it in the commanders private collection on the 2 maps I stated above. Now, the Desert Eagle Gold is super rare, and because of that, it will be very valuable in terms of RP. If you decide to sell it in the armory instead of using it as your high caliber hand cannon secondary, you will receive 300 RP. Now, here are the Do’s and Don’t’s of the pistols.
Do:
1. Use these as they are supposed to be used. That means using them only when you have to. Obviously, your primary weapons should almost always be more powerful in terms of raw effectiveness than these pistols. The only pistol that I think could be more effective than a select few primary weapons is the Desert Eagle and the Desert Eagle Gold. Still, I wouldn’t recommend using them incorrectly. Anyway, use these pistols only as a last resort, because most AI enemies will easily overpower you when you try to face them with only a pistol. For the silenced pistols, you can also use them as a good stealth option too, as well as a last resort weapon. Be aware though, it’s still only a pistol, so don’t expect quick silent kills, you need to get close up to be effective.
2. Get close up. You’ll easily miss if try to kill enemies from a long distance away. So get closer up to enemies if you actually want to hit them, especially if you are using those silenced pistols, since they drop in accuracy quickly.
3. Equip these if you need an extra pickup in a tight corner. What I mean by this is that you should equip these if you find yourself running out ammo or reloading in tight situations, like when you’re getting shot up when your reloading your primary. Just whip out your secondary pistol and aim, you might just come out alive if your aim is true.
4. Equip a silenced pistol if you need a good stealth sidearm. What I mean is that whether you have a loud primary or a silenced primary, equip a silent pistol if you need a good silent backup weapon. For instance, maybe you have a loud primary weapon, like a M16A3, and you find yourself out numbered, and you need to get out of there silently. Pull out your silent pistol and take out men quietly so you can get out alive. Or if you got a silenced primary, like a MP5SD, and you’re behind enemy lines, on a stealth mission, taking out enemies, when you fire your gun on an enemy and you run out of ammo for primary, and the enemy is running toward away, and you think he’ll alert others, pull out your silenced pistol and take out that runner. You’ll still be stealthing, and you took out a straggling enemy.
Don’t:
1. Don’t expect to be doing that well using just a pistol. Ok, maybe you’ll do decent with the Desert Eagle or Desert Eagle Gold. But with something like the Beretta M9 won’t get you that good of results. Maybe if you try using advantages, but if you expect to win a direct gunfight against a fully healthy enemy, you just won’t win.
2. Don’t fight from afar. Once again, don’t expect good results of you fight from afar using your pistol. It’s not effective in a long range fight, but somewhat useful in a close range engagement. You’ll understand when you’re getting killed over and over expecting good results by using a pistol in a long range fight.
Cover Deploy (Secondary)
The cover deploy is a deployable secondary that when used deploys a piece of small cover that can be used for just that, as cover. It’s usefulness is almost infinite. Imagine, you’re in the desert, and your squad gets ambushed. You and and teammate are the only ones left. You deploy your cover and you and your teammate get behind it, and return fire. You literally have no idea how useful the cover deploy secondary is until you use it. Some things to remember about using these are that you can only have 1 equipped at a time, so you can’t do the rocket Launcher thing with these by having two in your secondary slot at once. You can however put multiple of these in your backpack for later use, which many players agree is a worthwhile investment. Even if you die before using the cover deploy in your backpack, someone else can grab it from your bag and set it up. Also, it takes a bit of time to set it up, about 3-4 seconds, so have a plan before popping this out. The cover deploy also automatically straightens into a certain angle depending on your angle when you start to deploy it. You’ll know which angle it will deploy by simply looking at the deploy when your building it; if you cover deploy isn’t head on towards what you want it to be, angle your character a bit more towards the thing you need it toward and deploy the cover again, it should angle better. Now, each cover deploy costs 10 RP, and it has a health of 165 health points, or HP. By the way, cover deploys are highly susceptible to grenade and rocket damage, but I guess it should make sense; you put these up to be protected from bullets, not explosions. But cover deploys can take a fair bit of explosive damage, with about 2 grenades usually destroying them. Now, some do’s and Don’t’s of cover deploys.
Do:
1. Keep one on your person whenever. These things are literally a dime a dozen; you even see AI deploy these things in battle. I recommend keeping one of these in your backpack for whatever the case is, because you never know when you’ll need it. By the way, if you can’t be carrying around cover deploys, you can always use the sandbag drop radio call, which will drop 2 cover deploys on the position you marked after 3 seconds for 40 RP. As you can see, it costs twice as much than just buying two cover deploys for 20 RP in total, but you can call these in literally whenever after you hit 1000 XP.
2. Build these on rooftops. You won’t believe the effectiveness of sandbags on roofs; you have cover to use when receiving fire, you have the height advantages, and you most AI enemies are too ignorant of you to climb to your spot and take you out. The only problem with building sandbags with cover deploys on rooftops is that you have a 3-4 second delay before the sandbag is built, and during that you can easily be killed if an enemy catches you.
3. Notice the delay before the sandbag is set up. With something this powerful, you’d expect something drastic to balance it out right? Well, the balance is the delay before the sandbag is put up. When you click, you’ll notice that your character will kneel down and start setting down the cover deploy on the ground, and after 3-4 seconds, the cover pops up and it can be used. During this 3-4 seconds, you can be shot at, stabbed, or blow up by any capable enemy. So remember, using the cover deploy isn’t like become instantly invincible, you need to be safe when you’re deploying it or you’ll die and just waste a perfectly good cover deploy.
4. Ask human teammates to cover you when you’re setting up the cover deploys. Like stated before, the delay before the cover deploy is set up and working is pretty big; in 3-4 seconds, you could be shot, blown up, stabbed, or worse. So if you are in an invasion mode with human players, and you see friendly players near you, ask them to cover you with suppressing fire while you set up the cover. That way, you’ll be safe while you set up cover for your teammates, and your teammates can use the cover you just deployed. It’s a win-win! However, if you are in a game with just AI teammates, you can try the same thing with getting them to cover you by just making sure they are pinning down enemies before you try to put down cover.
5. Set down cover in places that can be used defensively and offensively. Check your map, is a large enemy force of AI moving towards the base you just captured? If so, start putting down cover in defensive positions, like in places where your teammates can see and engage the enemy. Are you attacking a base that has little cover for your advancing teammates? Put down cover in the frontline, and get behind it. Put more down, and you can have a large allied force behind cover, attacking the enemy. Cover is very useful, if used right.
Don’t:
1. Put cover in random spots. Think logically about this; would the cover be more effectively used if put in parts where your teammates are being shot at, or in a place where no one is even at? Obviously, if you know anything about what you’re doing in the game, you should set up the cover in places that would make sense.
2. Start placing down cover when you’re being shot at. This should just be common sense; if you are being shot at, you wouldn’t want to put down your guns and just sit still in front of enemy fire for 5 seconds. You would want to stay down and avoid their bullets, and engage when you have the chance. If you don’t think you can set down cover before getting shot, don’t do it. Either that, or ask some human teammates to cover you with suppressing fire while you set up cover.
Medikit & Tips for Getting Healed.
The medikit is basically a health kit that will stabilize a wounded soldier when used on him. After stabilizing the wounded soldier, the soldier will get up, and the character will automatically say something like “Thanks Mate!” or “Thanks!”. After words, the medikit you had equipped will disappear, because you used it, and you should gain a significant amount of RP and XP for saving the soldier. The way the medikit works is that while equipped, press LMB or Left Mouse Button while near a wounded soldier and he will be healed after 3 seconds. This is pretty useful, considering that the medikit only costs 1 RP! Yes, it literally only costs 1 RP, so there is no excuse at all not to have one in your backpack to heal a wounded teammate. Besides, you get RP, XP, and you have the undying gratitude of the person you saved. By the way, someone can only be wounded if they had a vest equipped and their vest was destroyed. But really, after a player reaches the rank of corporal, they’ll almost always have vests on. Heck, even AI wear vests after an initial rank is achieved. You won’t see it, but only corporals or higher in the AI ranks have a chance to spawn with a vest on. Basically, you should be carrying a medikit on you always. Stick one in your backpack, and get going. Now some Do’s and Don’t’s of medikits.
Do:
1. Carry one on you whenever you can. You don’t get how annoying it is for a teammate to be denied a heal because you don’t have a medikit on you. You need to understand that the worst thing about being wounded is that you can’t just give your medikit that’s in your backpack to a teammate in front of you; the teammate must have a medikit on them already to heal you. So, be prepared, and keep one on your person at all times.
2. Pay attention to your teammates. It’s also super frustrating when a teammate that you know always has a medikit on them completely misses you when you’re calling out for help. It’s like, “Hey, I can totally help you, but I’m not paying enough attention to care.” If you have a medikit on you, you need to pay attention to teammates, especially the ones you know are player controlled.
3. Ask a wounded teammate if they can crawl over to a safe spot first. Now, I know it’s not nice to keep your patient waiting, especially when they are bleeding out from a bullet in the chest, but ask them if they can crawl over to cover or a safe spot before you move over to heal them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ran over to a teammate and right when I was going to get him up and going, I get shot and the teammate is still wounded and on the ground. Remember, soldiers in a wounded state have 30 seconds before they die of blood loss. So they have time to crawl over and get in a safe spot before you heal them.
4. Ask teammates to cover you while you heal someone. Just ask player controlled soldiers to give you covering fire while you heal a wounded teammate. It will suppress the enemies, thus increasing the chances of both you and your patient getting out alive.
5. Prioritize players before AI teammates. If you see a player and an AI on the ground, wounded, at the same time, choose the player first. The AI is replaceable, but the player is not. It will take more time for the player to die, respawn, buy their kit, and get back to the battle, than it will for the AI to die and another one just takes it place. So when you see player and an AI both wounded at the same time, choose the player to heal first; you won’t regret it.
Don’t:
1. Run into suicidal situations to save teammates. If you are under heavy fire, and your teammate on the other side of the battle gets wounded, don’t go rushing out of cover like the AI just to heal them. Chances are, you’ll get over there to heal them to just get shot and killed. Don’t do that, chances are that if you tell the wounded teammate that you can’t reach them without dying, they’ll understand.
2. Don’t heal AI before the players. Heal the players first, and if you have the time and extra medikit, heal the AI. It’s not worth letting your teammate bleed out because you had to heal the AI first.
Now, I am also going to go over some things wounded teammates should try to do if they want teammates to have a better chance of successfully healing them.
1. Keep clicking your mouse. Every time you click the mouse, your character automatically yells out something along the lines of “Help! Medic!” or “MEDIC!”. Now, this is useful for getting the AI to heal you, because their coding makes it so that if the AI has a medikit, it will prioritize saving the player teammate that is wounded. But of course, you’ve seen how this goes; the AI rushes out into fire to heal you, and the AI gets shot and killed, or worse, an enemy throws a grenade at you and the AI healing you, and you both blow up. If you want to get an actual human to heal you, try typing into player chat, that way, your teammates near you can know that you’re wounded and can try and heal you.
2. Crawl into a safe spot. It’s so annoying for your teammates when they have to rush over to you in heavy fire to heal you. Try getting into a safe spot before getting your teammate to heal you. Remember, you can crawl while in a wounded state, so crawl yourself behind cover and then get your friend to heal you.
3. Ask nicely. Just be polite, don’t go swearing up a storm in the chat asking for a heal. Ask nicely, and you’ll probably get a heal quicker. People like it when you’re polite, and it makes and keeps the community nicer and more friendly. Remember, you wouldn’t want to heal a teammate that threatens you if you don’t heal them, so why would someone do the same for you if you act like a jerk?
4. Hold knife to die. Remember, if you think your chances of getting a heal are slim, you can always hold the knife button, or V by default, for 3 seconds to speed up your bleed out and die. This makes it so you don’t have to wait 30 seconds to bleed out before dying, and that way you don’t waste time waiting for a heal that may not come. But remember, don’t always be holding the knife button as soon as you get wounded, cause a teammate could be paying attention and heal you.
5. Use your radio calls. You can still use your radio calls while in a wounded state, so you can call in paratroopers on your position in hopes that one of them has a medikit and heals you. But remember, using the paratrooper radio call can become very expensive, especially if you keep using it every time you get downed. So try not to spam it, because if you do, you may find that your out of RP a lot sooner than you think.
Stationary Weapons
Stationary Weapons (Secondary)
Stationary guns are the guns you find in bases and outposts, that are stuck in fixed positions until destroyed. But something that you don’t see in other games that Running with Rifles employs well is the ability to purchase stationary guns and put them down in positions you choose. The ability to do this makes a battle even more unpredictable, but makes battles more fun if you ask me. You can equip 4 types of stationary guns so far, they are the Stationary MG, the Stationary Minigun, the Stationary TOW, and the Stationary Mortar. Each of these stationary guns has only 80 health points or HP, meaning that a well placed grenade or rocket can easily destroy your stationary gun, and if you’re using it while this happens, can kill you too. They also work like the cover deploy when used, meaning that it takes 3-4 seconds to set up, meaning that you’re vulnerable while setting it up, so you can be shot and killed when doing so. Also, if you get killed while you have any stationary gun in your inventory, you will drop it and won’t respawn with a new one, meaning that you either need to purchase another one in the armory, or hope that the one you dropped hasn’t been taken or disappeared. If you do die with one in your inventory, the stationary gun should drop where you died, meaning you can go back and grab it. With all these drawbacks I’ve mentioned, you’d think stationary guns are terrible. But don’t fret, as stationary guns are monsters of utilities if used correctly, either for defense, offense, or in pure tactical use. The Stationary MG is a Machine Gun turret that can be placed in any position that the player chooses. It costs 70 RP, doesn’t require you to reload it, and has a rotation angle of 90 degrees, meaning that you can’t rotate it all the way around and back, no, you can only rotate it 90 degrees of its original direction. Now, the Stationary MG is a great stationary gun, that isn’t that expensive in RP terms, and manages to kill anything in a small amount of time. Do realize that the MG has a large amount of recoil, so anything at the edge of your screen that you’re shooting at might not be hit that often. Basically, the Stationary MG is a nice powerhouse that’s relatively inexpensive but drops in usefulness past its effective range and when it’s accuracy diminishes from extended fire. Next is the Stationary Minigun, which is basically a ramped up Stationary MG. The Stationary Minigun doesn’t require any reloads, and has a rotation angle of 90 degrees. It also costs 250 RP which can cause a dent in a poorer Soldiers wallet. The Stationary Minigun is like the big brother of the MG, only that the Minigun does more damage, fires faster, and should lose accuracy faster from extended fire than the MG. Really, if the MG doesn’t cut it, purchase the Minigun. By the way, the Stationary Minigun is an unlockable, meaning you need to bring back a cargo truck and unlock it first before you can purchase it in the armory. Next is the Stationary TOW, which stands for Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wired-guided missile. The TOW is basically a stationary rocket launcher, except that the rocket follows the direction that the optic is aimed at, meaning you could shoot the rocket left, move your aim to the right, and the rocket will follow. Now in game, I don’t think the TOW operates like it does in real life, but the TOW does its job, and that’s all we expect. The Stationary TOW costs 300 RP in the armory, fires rockets at a high velocity, has a reload time of 4 seconds after firing to place a new rocket in the launcher, and it has a rotation angle of 120 degrees, being 30 degrees larger than the MG and Miniguns rotation angle. The Stationary TOW is really useful for defense, as it can be used to destroy attacking vehicles, and destroy clusters of infantry with relative ease. It also can be used for attacking, just place it in an attack position, and fire at those defending enemies. In short, the Stationary TOW is a stationary rocket launcher with unlimited rockets that relies on its users ability to quickly destroy large threats, but the user has to be careful not to draw too much attention to the TOW as it can be destroyed with relative ease. Lastly, but certainly not least, is the Stationary Mortar. Man, is this this a beast. It fire fires mortar rounds that can kill infantry quickly and effectively at anything the user targets that is within range. It costs 300 RP in the armory, doesn’t require reloading, and has a rotation angle of 300 degrees, which will allow you to engage enemies at a variety of angles and directions. Now, the Mortar is very effective for defensive purposes. Say there are groups of enemy AI pinned behind cover, and your teammates can’t hit them? Get on the mortar, target those enemies, and blow them to bits! The Mortar also works well in offensive ways too. Place it down outside of an enemy base, far enough that you won’t get targeted immediately, but close enough that you can aim and hit enemies inside the base. Start laying down mortar fire to those dudes inside the base, and your teammates outside of the base can push and fight their way in thanks to your mortar support. You can also just use the mortar for tactical usage. Just lay it down outside of the immediate area of a firefight, and when teammates need assistance, they can ask for mortar fire on certain positions. It’s like the mortar rounds radio call, except that you can do it without using up a lot of RP and tedious radio checks. In short, the Stationary Mortar is a versatile weapon that can be used well in defensive, offensive, and tactical roles, but the user must be wary of enemies in the close vicinity, as the mortar is not effective in close quarters. Now, some do’s and Don’t’s of Stationary Weapons.
Do:
1. Make sure you put them down in a good spot. Depending on your equipped Stationary Weapon, you will need to put them down in spots that give you and the weapon advantages over enemies. This includes putting the weapons on elevated positions, like rooftops or hills, points that manage to acquire significant enemy attention, and points that can overlook a large area of space. This also depends on what you’re doing; are you attacking or defending? What do you think this weapon will add to the supporting of your teammates and the objective? Once you know this, picking a good spot should become easier since certain spots will always gather more attention of enemies than others.
2. Be aware of the placement time. Placing down a Stationary Weapon takes time, where it usually takes 3-4 seconds to place down the weapon and get it set up before it can be used. If you place down a Stationary Weapon in heavy fire, you become vulnerable to enemy retaliation, where you can ultimately be killed.
3. Know the role of the weapon you’re placing down. Certain Stationary Weapons excel in different roles than others. The mortar can kill large groups of enemies from medium to long range, but it will be destroyed easily when an enemy gets into close range of it. The Stationary MG and Minigun work nicely in close to medium range, but start to drop off in effectiveness in long range, where accuracy drops.
4. Use controlled fire with the MG and Minigun. The MG and Minigun start to lose effectiveness in longer ranges, due to accuracy loss in extended fire and overall poor range abilities. You can somewhat counter this by not firing extended bursts of rounds, but by burst and tap firing more. But remember, tap and burst fire mostly only for longer ranges, as automatic fire is the most effective in close and medium range engagements.
5. Watch your fire with the TOW and Mortar. You can kill enemies with ease with the TOW and Mortar, but did you also know that you can kill your teammates with these weapons too? Watch out, because if you kill a teammate, you’ll lose XP and RP quickly, and lose the trust of your fellow players.
Stationary Weapons (Cont.)
6. Make sure the stationary weapon is placed the right direction. Your not going to hit anything if the gun is placed backwards. It’s just common sense.
Don’t:
1. Don’t place these in the most random places. Almost all the maps have points where you should place down a Stationary Weapon; it’s usually spots that attract large enemy attention and that don’t have much defense to begin with. Placing the Stationary Weapons in random places on the maps doesn’t help anyone, and it’s just a waste of RP for doing so. Think about the spot you’re putting this thing down; does it make sense? Or is it just a dumb spot to begin with?
2. Don’t forget about the set up time. It takes 3-4 seconds to set up any of the Stationary weapons. After words, you can mount them in almost no time at all just by pressing the right button. But remember, if you don’t take into account the time it takes to set up the weapon, you might find yourself dead. Be careful!
3. Don’t buy too many of these. If you purchase a stationary weapon every time you die, you’ll run out of RP in a matter of a couple life’s if you’re not careful. Remember, you don’t need 5 Stationary MGs to secure a point; you just need 1 good gunner or a well placed gun.
Riot Shield
The Riot Shield is a nice support item that can make you effectively invincible if used correctly. The idea of the riot shield is to stay alive and thrive off of distracting enemies. You see, by distracting enemies for your teammates, you can earn XP equal to the amount of XP your teammate earns for killing said enemy. To do this, you must be close to a teammate that kills an enemy, either by being in front of them, or on their right or left. AI enemies will auto target you instead of your teammate for some reason, and you’ll get points if your teammate kills those distracted enemies! Also, the riot shield can take two blasts from an explosive. On the first explosive, let’s say a grenade, the shield will take the hit and be reduced to 50% health. On the second explosive, you’ll be knocked down, stunned, and your riot shield will be destroyed. Also, you’ll more in likely be able to survive grenades, but rockets and vehicular missiles will almost always kill you. Keep in mind that if a grenade bounces past you when you have the riot shield out, you MUST point the shield toward the explosive to survive it, otherwise, the explosive will kill you. While having the riot shield out, clicking and holding will point the riot shield in the direction of the mouse. Crouching will make the riot shield go down and protect you in the direction you’re crouching. Crouching and clicking while holding will make you be still and point the shield in the direction you’re clicking. You can’t pickup any items while clicking with the shield out, and you can’t go prone while the shields out either. You can however, pick up items while crouching but not clicking. You’ll be protected from bullets in the direction you’re crouching, and you may pick up any items and bring up the inventory screen while doing this too, because you’re not clicking. Be sure that if you do crouch but down click, that your shield is facing the right way. Using the riot shield while looting is extremely effective, as you can be protected from fire while picking up items. Also, the riot shield costs 3 RP, but more in likely you can pick one up off of dead allies or enemies. Now, some dos and Don’t’s of riot shields
Do:
1. Protect your teammates. They’ll appreciate that you’re drawing fire away from them, and you get points if a teammate next to you kills an enemy that is firing at your shield.
2. Protect yourself too. Like in the days of Knights and Kings, the first rule of combat is defense. In this case, you’re using a shield just like the Knights of old did, only that your shield stops bullets! Protecting yourself is a big plus, as being alive is a big plus. Be sure when using the shield that your point it towards the danger, not away, so you can block all those bullets. And lastly, the stance you choose with the shield out will affect how well you block stuff.
3. Pay attention to your walk speed! Notice how when you’ve got the shield up, your walk speed is reduced to almost a crawl. Be sure that when protecting a teammate, either ask them to slow down so you can keep up, or get moving a lot more!
4. Watch out for melee attackers! The AI is super good at knifing you, heck, they’re so good, they can kill you behind your shield! So pay attention to enemies that sprint towards you like a mad man; they more in likely are trying to knife you. Remember that a single knife swing can kill you, even with a vest and a shield!
5. Replace the shield when it’s destroyed. After taking two grenades, or sometimes a full rockets force, the shield will be destroyed. Be sure if you want to continue using shields that you grab another one.
6. Face shield in direction of the explosive. If a grenade flies behind you, turn around and face the shield toward the grenade, not away from it. Your shield will take the force of the grenade, and you won’t get killed. If you don’t, the explosive will more in likely kill you.
Don’t:
1. Don’t think your invincible. OK, you may be pretty tank-like because you have a shield that can block hundreds of bullets, but one stray grenade or rocket can send you back the grave. Know your limits, and think logically about your choices.
2. Don’t equip a shield if you aren’t going to use it. You could have a medikit, a rocket launcher, a pistol, or a bunch of other stuff in the place of your shield if you aren’t going to use the shield. If you never use the shield, replace it with something you will use.
Throwables/Grenades
The throwables/grenades in RWR are very strong throwable items that either explode, provide spawning, or stun enemies. Most of the throwables have a decent blast radius, and can kill enemies easily if they don’t have a vest on or have a riot shield pointed towards it in front of them. Throwables are effective in many situations, like against infantry, light armor, heavy armor if spammed, and the destruction of radio towers, special crates, mortar caches, and everything that can be destroyed with explosives. Now are the different types of Throwables/grenades.
The first throwable is the basic Hand Grenade, which costs 2 RP for each grenade, does 30 damage, and has an effective radius of 6.0m. These grenades explode after 3 seconds, and are highly effective against infantry that aren’t prepared for grenades. They also work well when spammed at clusters of infantry and armor. Take many of these grenades, as they aren’t as strong as the Impact Grenade, but are more lenient when it comes to getting close. They also rely on being spammed for effectivity. Remember, in horse shoes and hand grenades, the Hand Grenade is more effective when it comes to cutting it close.
Next is the Impact Grenade, or as some people from Call of Duty might call it, the contact grenade. If you played Battlefield 4 or the new CoD: AW, you’ll know that impact grenades explode on impact with any surface. They do the same thing in RWR, but the grenades don’t rely on accurate throws as much as the Battlefield 4 grenades do. Anyways, these grenades cost 2 RP for each grenade, it deals 80 damage, and has an effective radius of 4.0m. They also detonate on contact with a surface, as suggested by the name. These grenades work well if you are accurate with your throws. If you aren’t, they still work well, but watch out when throwing these, as a bad throw can cause these to detonate out of your favor. Also, be cautious when throwing these behind cover when crouched, as the grenade can and will hit the cover and explode, killing or wounding you. An effective tactic for these grenades is to chuck a bunch towards clusters of enemies, and if you’re accurate, throw a few on vehicles, as the increased damage can destroy them quicker than the normal Hand Grenades can.
Next is the Stun Grenade. If you’ve played any type of shooter game that allows you to have a variety of grenades at your disposal, you’ve probably encountered stun grenades. In RWR, stun grenades cause anyone caught in the blast radius of it to be stunned for about 2-3 seconds or more. These grenades are useful when you need to take out multiple targets without retaliation or the enemies. Stun Grenades cost 2 RP for each grenade, do no damage to to vehicles or infantry, have an effective radius of 10.0m, and detonate after 3 seconds, stunning infantry caught in its radius, including the thrower and allies if they aren’t careful. I never use these grenades, mostly because you can’t find them lying around on the battlefield easily, so you can’t really practice using them often. But, if you like to stun people and then kill them easily, you’ve got your grenade. Keep in mind that while you have this grenade, you don’t have as much anti infantry and armor capabilities as a soldier who equips Hand or Impact Grenades. By the way, I wouldn’t recommend spamming these unless you’re trying to hit as many enemies as possible with these.
Next is C4, which is a plastic explosive that sticks to surfaces and explodes upon being triggered by the person who threw it. C4 is highly effective against enemy radio towers and anything else that requires a lot of damage to take down. C4 costs 20 RP each, does a whopping 800 damage, has an effective radius of 10.0m, and is detonated by either shooting it or using the mod key + grenade key. Also, you can click on it to detonate it too. Be very careful using these, because after throwing it down, you can’t pick it back up. Also, anyone, and I mean ANYONE caught in its blast radius will be killed, because of its high damage. Only detonate when you’re out of its blast radius and you’re positive that any allies are out of it as well. By the way, try to only use these when the situation demands it, as 20 RP each is costly; so try to only use them on radio towers of vehicles that have over 800 health, like the Attack Boat.
Next is the Claymore, which is an anti-personnel trip mine meant to kill infantry that step near it. Honestly, this thing is super underused. It’s so underused that I don’t even know if it’s works correctly. Anyway, it costs 5 RP each, does 20 damage, and has an effective radius of 4.0m. It uses the same detonation function as C4, where you can click on it to detonate it, or by using the mod key + grenade key. I guess this is useful if you’re in a nice spot where people can only kill you outright by flanking you, but I don’t know if this works.
Lastly, there is the Flare which is a red flare that will allow players, not AI, to spawn on it. When spawning on one of these, you will spawn by parachute near the flare as long as the flare is active. Each flare costs 400 RP, and will take up your Throwable slot when purchased. Use it by throwing it down like a normal grenade. Once active, it will light up darkish red and puff out red smoke to signify that it’s active as a spawn point. Keep in mind that enemies can disable your flares by getting too close to it, just like when enemies get to close to the Spawn Truck. Overall, this is very useful when used correctly, as it allows a spawn point to be placed anywhere on the map if the player has the RP to buy the flare. Be sure to put the flare down where you’re sure enemies won’t be able to deactivate it. Also be aware of where you throw it, as you might not always like the spot where it lands. When used correctly, you can make a spawn that allows for huge flanking actions and stealthy insertions. Just be sure you have the RP to purchase one, and a high enough Rank to be able to!
Armor/Vests
The armor, or vests as some people call them, in RWR are basically in short terms, battle armor. Put these on, and you’ll be taking a few more shots before you die. Since in RWR any bullet that hits you can kill you, having armor on increase your chance of survival by a lot. If this doesn’t sound good, then I don’t know what to tell you. So far, there are 2 types of vests, both of them allowing you to take a few more bullets before dying. Here they are.
The first armor vest is the Vest MK II, which is available in the Armory and costs 40 RP each. The armor vest takes 3 shots to destroy it, and the way this vest works is that the first shot that hits you only deals damage to the vest, the second shot knocks you down, and the third shot destroys the vest and leaves you wounded on the ground. It should make your character more noticeable (We Think) and the vest also shows up in 3rd person.
The second armor vest is the Vest MK III, which is available only by knifing enemy officers or by finding them in secret crates. If you happen to sell an unused Vest MK III in the Armory, it’s value will be 150 RP. It also take 5 shots to destroy it, 2 more than MK II. The way it works is that the first two shots only deal damage to the vest, the second two shots knock you down (Once again, we think), and the last shot destroys the vest leaving you wounded on the ground. It does not show up in 3rd person and is less noticeable than the Vest MK II.
Some tips I have with Armor Vests are to keep a second armor vest in your backpack at all times. A lot of the times, you won’t feel like trudging back to the armory to buy a new armor vest every time you get to your last bit of health on the vest, or in worst cases, not having one at all. That way, if you vest is at critical levels, then you can replace it with the one in your backpack. Or, if the vest you’re wearing gets destroyed and you get a heal, you can take the vest out of that backpack and put it on, and be right back in action. Also, if you keep on you your critical vests in your backpack, you can sell them in the armory for a really low bit of RP, which is better than none. Also, some people in the game may ask in chat if anyone has a spare vest, and will probably offer a more than enough for one of your vests. You can make RPG off of that since sometimes the closest Armory around is a good bit away. Another tip is to avoid getting in knife range of enemies when using a vest. You see, if you get knifed, the knife goes straight through your armor, and you’ll die. So guess what? If you don’t get back your vest off of your dead body, you basically just wasted 40 RP on something you never got to use. Also, when using a vest, you should still be careful, acting like you don’t have a vest on, because if you never get killed when your vest less, then with a vest on you should be even better!
Overall, vests are very useful. I mean, you ever wonder why all your AI buddies die so much? It’s because they almost always never spawn with a vest, and if they do, they’re usually officers, or higher ranked AI. If you never equip a vest, you’ll be just the the AI; cannon fodder.
Works Cited
So, I don’t get sued.
All information and stats used in this guide was found using The Official Running with Rifles Game Guide found here[runningwithrifles.gamepedia.com].
Moyal, Jack. “Running with Rifles Wiki.” Official Running With Rifles Wiki. 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.