Eridian Weapons

Eridian weapons are the alien guns found throughout Pandora, and were developed by the Eridian.

Eridian weapons have many "quirks" to them. A character using an Eridian gun will experience a reduced running speed if the gun was acquired outside DLC3. In addition the guns themselves look "curved" when held which may throw off user aim, it should be noted that the gun will still fire straight relative to the player's view. Not the barrel of the gun. All Eridian guns have zero/low recoil.

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

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

They are sometimes dropped by Crimson Lance soldiers and occasionally Drifters. New Eridian weapons can be found in the third DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, e.g. Eridian Rifle, Eridian Glob/Splat/Spatter Gun, Eridian Flaregun/Fireball/Firebomb.

Archetypes
There are Eridian versions of most conventional weapon types, but they have their own weapon proficiency. Many of them deal damage, though the manner in which they do so is unique to each archetype. For example, the Thunder Storm shoots a spread of bouncing 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 7 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: Determines half of the model number. Doesn't appear for the Thunder Storm, which has a stock type of none. Also affects the reload speed stat, whatever that means for Eridian guns. This is different from the cooldown rate, which is determined by the magazine.
 * Body: Determines damage. Guns with body type 1 deal about 92.5% the damage of guns with the other body types.
 * Magazine: Determines the number of shots a gun can fire and how fast it recharges. Also used to determine the model number.
 * Sight: Determines whether the gun can zoom and how well. Sight 1 and 3 provides no zoom; sights 2,4, and 5 seem to have the same zoom capability; and sight 3 provides an iron sight which is slightly off.
 * 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 4 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 5 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, which lowers them when guns are equipped. 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 your inventory. While the maximum level of all other items in the game is level 48, the max is 49 for Eridian weapons, with the only confirmed level 48 Eridian weapon being the Cannon dropped by Master McCloud during playthrough 2.5.

Likewise with all weapons, it is possible to obtain level 61 versions if the Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC is installed. Lances within the area of the DLC has a chance to drop eridians, although elemental lances can only drop their corresponding element's eridian weapon. they can also be dropped by Crawmerax the Invincible

Eridian magazines
Eridian weapons don't use regular ammunition, and instead use an energy source that recharges (even when the gun isn't being held). Although the magazine size is marked as infinite, each shot of the gun uses a certain amount of energy. 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 (the gun overheats).

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.

Ammo regeneration is affected by the player's proficiency level.

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. However, when compared to conventional weapons, the relatively slow recharge rate doesn't lend itself to run-and-gun type gameplay.

All Eridian guns are affected by Roland's "Increase Clip Size" skill.

Weapon Proficiency
Raising proficiency levels increases damage and accuracy, and also decreases the cooldown time. See the weapon proficiencies page for more info.