Eridian Weapons

 are alien guns developed by the Eridian race.

Overview
Eridian weapons are weapons left on Pandora by the Eridian race. They have a curved, organic appearance. Wielders of these weapons will note that they have a reduced running speed, although Eridian weapons exclusive to The Secret Armory of General Knoxx avoid this shortcoming. Being energy weapons, rather than projectile weapons, they also have extremely low recoil.

There are Eridian equivalents to all conventional types of in-game guns except pistols and SMGs. They don't use conventional ammo and have their own distinct proficiency. Many variants deal shock damage. Eridian guns have been released with The Secret Armory of General Knoxx that deal incendiary or corrosive damage.

Eridian weapons usually have a rarity color of green, but are much harder to come by than other green guns.

Eridian weapons can be found from Red Chests and are occasionally used by Crimson Lance soldiers. In The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, Eridian weapons can also be looted from Crimson Lance Chests, Drifters and Crawmerax the Invincible.

The Eridian Rifle, Eridian Glob Gun, Eridian Flaregun and the Eridian Mega Cannon are exclusive to The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. Some of these weapons have an orange rarity variant.

Archetypes
There are Eridian versions of most conventional weapon types, but they have their own weapon proficiency. Many of them deal shock damage, though the manner in which they do so is unique to each archetype. For example, the Thunder Storm shoots a spread of lightning balls and sounds like thunder when fired.

Weapons of the same archetype will always have the same function, description, and general organic appearance, but many other things can be different, even among guns with the exact same name.

Components


Eridian weapons are composed of seven different parts, each of which affects the gun's unlisted stats, like the effective magazine size and the recharge rate. Except for the barrel, the same base sets of parts are used across all archetypes. However, certain archetypes don't have stocks, and haven't yet been encountered with all possible types of each part.
 * Barrel: Each archetype uses its own unique barrel.
 * Stock: Affects the speed of weapon draw. Together with the magazine, determines the model number. Doesn't appear for the Thunder Storm, which has a stock type of none.
 * Body: Affects damage. Guns with body type 1 (easily distinguished by its light brown/tan color) deal about 92.5% the damage of guns with the other body types.
 * Magazine: Affects the number of shots a gun can fire, how quickly it recharges its capacity, and the delay before an completely empty magazine starts to recharge. Together with the stock, determines the model number.
 * Sight: Determines whether the gun can zoom and how well. Sight 1 is an iron sight, Sights 2, 4, 5 and 6 provide a scope with a low zoom and Sight 3 is an iron sight that is positioned to the right when used.
 * Grip: Nothing obvious.
 * Accessory: Nothing obvious. Can also have an ID of none, observed on Eridian Lightnings.

Getting the actual values for the stats currently requires using the debugging console until more data is gathered. Available data is on the Talk:Eridian weapons page.

Limitations
Not all components are available to every weapon; there are restrictions. Examples: Only Lightnings can have Sights 2, 5 and 6, Thunder Storms can only have Sight 1, Blasters can only have Sight 4.

Name generation
Each gun's name is composed of two parts: the binary model number, then the archetype. One example is the 1110 Eridian Lightning in the upper-right. However, the true model number is actually 6 bits long; anything shorter than this can be padded with 0s at the beginning (so the 1110 Eridian Lightning has a true model number of 001110). The first three numbers correspond to the binary representation of the stock number, while the last three numbers correspond to the binary representation of the magazine number. This can be verified by looking at the raw data on the Talk page. Note that the Thunder Storm model numbers will always be less than four characters long since none of them carry stocks, which is represented by the string "000".

The number of available model numbers is only 42 (7 stock possibilities x 6 magazine possibilities). From the data gathered, none of the archetypes share model numbers, but how they are allocated is unknown.

Manufacturer tier and level requirements
There are five manufacturer tiers, each corresponding to one or two sale values and base level requirements. Any other variations on the level requirements are due to the user's Eridian weapon proficiency. The manufacturer tier can be seen when the gun is picked up from the ground, in the debug console, or when sorting by the Brand in a character's inventory.

Eridian Magazines
Eridian weapons don't use regular ammunition, instead relying on a self-recharging energy source. Although the magazine size is marked as infinite, each shot of the gun uses a certain amount of energy from a finite capacity. The amount of energy used per shot varies between the different types of Eridian weapons. The energy source will not recharge immediately after firing, and will delay even further if it is completely depleted (as if the gun needs time to recover from overheating). However the recharge of these power cells occurs whether the gun is equipped or not.

Eridian weapon instances vary in the number of shots that can be fired before the energy meter is empty and how fast the meter recharges. More specifically, the magazine type directly affects the effective clip size, overheat delay, and recharge rate. The effects seem to be constant across all archetypes. On the other hand, the firing regeneration delay (delay before recharging after firing a shot but not depleting the magazine) appears to be constant at 1.3 across all magazines.

In general, magazines 4, 5, and 6 seem to be the more useful magazines, as they either have larger clips or have much faster regeneration times than magazines 1, 2, and 3.

The recharge rate is also affected by the user's Proficiency in Eridian weapons. Effects from Skills or Class Mods used by the player can also increase the capacity of Eridian weapons. For example, a Soldier using a Heavy Gunner Mod with 5 Skill Points invested in Overload can increase the capacity of his Eridian weapons to 288% of normal. However, while not equipped Eridian weapons will only recharge to their normal capacity; they must be equipped in order to recharge to their overloaded capacity.

Overall the Eridian magazines make Eridian weapons useful for short bursts, but their slow recharge rates don't lend them to run-and-gun type gameplay.