Ranged weapons | Craftsman's Guide Starbound Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

An alternative for the blades are the ranged weapons. As the name suggests, they allow you to attack at a distance and they do not require you to approach the enemy. However, unlike the regular melee weapons, ranged weapons consume some of the energy with each shot. For that reason, the energy also plays the role of ammo for firearms.

Unlike melee weapons, ranged weapons cannot be crafted. The exception here are the regular bows, which you can obtain at the very beginning of the game. Still, they are slow and quite weak, due to which they are more useful for hunting monsters for food than for regular fight. All of the remaining ranged weapons can be bought from merchants, received as a reward for killing special monsters or from high-level chests.

In the game, you can find the following types of ranged weapons

• Assault Rifles - a type of a long firearm. Their characteristic feature is the high rate of fire and relatively low damage from bullets.
• Bows - the first type of a ranged weapon that the player encounters in the game. These are the regular bows, effective at short range and deals quite decent damage. They work well in battle at the initial levels. Later, however, they give the way to firearms. Bows are idea for hunting, because they increase the amount of Raw Alien Meat that you obtain from a killed monster. It also should be mentioned that for killing an enemy, using the bow, you do not receive any Pixels.
• Flamethrowers - a specific type of weapon which fires flames of short range. The opponents receive the negative effect of Burning, after being subjected to the flamethrower.
• Grenade Launchers - this weapon fires explosive projectiles, which deal high damage over a small area. The power of the shot is low, due to which you need to aim high enough, for the projectile to reach its more distant targets.
• Machine Pistols - a type of a short firearm. It has a bit higher rate of fire then the assault rifles, but it deals less damage. You can use two at the same time, or combine one with another type of short weapon.
• Pistols - another short firearm. Unlike the machine pistol, it fires single shots, which deal higher damage. You can use two at the same time, just like in the case of any short firearm.
• Rocket Launcher - a long weapon that fires small rockets. Unlike in the case of the grenade launcher, the projectiles fired from this weapon have a flat trajectory. After it hits a surface, or the enemy, the projectile explodes, which deals AoE damage.
• Shotguns - weapons that deal a lot of damage at short range but, their power is smaller over distance. Usually, they consume a lot of energy with each shot fired, which spews a lot of projectiles of low accuracy.
• Sniper Rifles - a very slow weapon that deals a lot of damage with each shot. There also are versions of higher fire rate, but they deal less damage.
• Special Weapons - just like in the case of melee weapons, also firearms have their special varieties. These weapons can be found on some of the NPCs. An example of such weapon is the Crossbow, dropped by the Glitch Knight or Pulse Rifle, which you can find on USCM Guard.
• Throwing Weapons - the only type of ranged weapon that does not consume energy. Instead, the throwing weapons are limited in number. Each attack uses up one piece of the given weapon. An example of such weapon may be the Throwing Dagger or the Bomb.