KanaxStratz · Aug 28, 2026 
Energetic EN EN 4,200 
Quick Thinking QT EN 3,100 
Hawk Eye HE EN 8,000 · WO 1,500 · CO 1,800 
Veteran VT EN 180,000 · WO 120,000 · CO 130,000 | Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Soldier Skills | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
 Suppressive Fire | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
 Marksmanship | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
 Belt Linking | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
 Incendiary Rounds | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
The Automatic Rifleman's game, top to bottom. The class is a 100-round machine gun. The community's page reads every point it spends as more fire or less downtime for that gun. The rest of the class is keeping it fed.
first
Learn to shoot, then hold the trigger
The community's Suppressive build, the skill order on this page, opens with Marksmanship 1 for the crit and has Suppressive Fire 2 by level 3. Suppressive Fire is the damage: 8 seconds at 1.5x to 3x the fire rate, and by the community's page it runs at that flat rate, with no burst cycle.
then
Link belts before the long fights
Each Belt Linking level adds 100 rounds to the belt and 1 magazine to the price of a reload: the script raises both counters the moment the point is spent. The Suppressive build takes level 1 at level 9, the min-max build at level 2.
always
Carry magazines
You start with 10 
magazines where most classes get 9. With Belt Linking 3 one reload eats 4 of them. An Ammo Case holds 10 more, and a teammate can type -dropmags with their hero selected: once they have 5 to spare, the script drops what they carry above their encumbrance line, 3 magazines an item, then pauses the dropper for 10 s.
The gun
Burst, and Improved Burst
- The gun fires in bursts. Two of the machine guns' tooltips speak of a burst, the SAW improves its rate and the Minigun lengthens it, and Soldier Skills 2, the tooltip's "MOS-specific ability", is Improved Burst on the wiki's Soldier Skills page.
- The community's page measures the cycle as 1 second at full rate then 1 second at a quarter of it, and with Improved Burst 2 seconds at full rate for 1 slowed. The site's data does not carry the cycle, so that is their account.
- Every level-by-level build on the wiki has Soldier Skills 2 in by level 10 for it.
Suppressive Fire
- Suppressive Fire · 8 s · 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x, 3x fire rate by level. It drains 3 energy a second while it runs and caps your speed at 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4 by level, against 2.91 on foot, and it puts you on hold position when it starts. That is why the community's page pairs it with Energetic and Hawk Eye: you will not be repositioning much.
- It costs 40, 35, 32 or 30 energy to start by level and has an 8.5 s cooldown. It ends early when your energy is gone. It is a toggle with an off button, so it can be switched off before the 8 s are up, as the community's page also says.
- The Specimen answers it. When a unit under Suppressive Fire (yours, or a
Cyborg's, or the Rapid Fire and Focus Fire of other classes) attacks the Specimen, the script orders it to cast Energetic Armor: 15 s in which its shield ceiling goes to 10,000, with 30 shield armor and 10 shield a second regenerated. Plain fire does not set it off. Specimen
Incendiary Rounds
- Incendiary Rounds costs 0.5 energy a round by its tooltip: a 100-round belt is 50 of your 205 energy, a belt-linked 400 is 200. Hence Energetic on the wiki's Incendiary Gunner build and in its SI table's incendiary row, and
energy cells in reserve. - The steps are +7, +9, +7 damage (10, 17, 26, 33): the community's page calls level 3 the cost-effective stop, and two of its builds leave it there.
- The script's AR Skills trigger sets a player upgrade for levels 1, 2 and 3 when the point is spent. At level 4 it sets none and prints "An unexpected level of Incendiary Rounds was learnt."
Reloading
Reload time
The reload function multiplies the 6 s base by 0.85 minus 0.15 per Soldier Skills level, which at level 1 is already 30 % off, more than the tooltip's 15 % a point reads. Then by 0.7 for Quick Thinking. An 
Instructor aura is another 0.85, a 
Platoon Leader's Leadership aura 0.95 to 0.8 by its level.
| Soldier Skills | Reload | With Quick Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6.0 s | 4.2 s |
| 1 | 4.2 s | 2.9 s |
| 2 | 3.3 s | 2.3 s |
| 3 | 2.4 s | 1.7 s |
| 4 | 1.5 s | 1.05 s |
Belts
- Unlike a Reload, Belt Linking's own cast keeps what is loaded and links a fresh 100 to it, 3.5 s at level 1, 2.5 at 2, 1.5 at 3: it is the partial reload. It costs 38, 29 or 20 energy by level and has an 8, 6.5 or 5 s cooldown.
- You cannot link while a reload runs: the script answers the cast with a stop order.
- The wiki argues both ways. Its Damage/Shot build says that with Quick Thinking and Soldier Skills a reload is quick enough that Belt Linking 1 is all you need; its min-max build says Belt Linking 3 is the best mileage out of a maxed Suppressive Fire, about two runs a belt.
Guns and gear
| Item | The data | The community's word |
|---|---|---|
 M41 SAW | +10 % attack speed by its tooltip (no mod in the item data), +0.08 move speed, a better burst rate. Item Spawn 1, 2 and Competitive. | Light but weak. The Damage/Shot build likes it, and the Minigun, for the burst. |
 M241 MMG | +25 % damage, +2 range, 4 % slower, and attack speed ×1.1 in the item data that its tooltip does not mention. Item Spawn 2 and Competitive. | Better but slows you. The Incendiary build's gun. |
 M135 Minigun | +15 % damage, +30 % attack speed by its tooltip (×1.1 in the item data), a longer burst, 8 % slower. Item Spawn 2 and Competitive. | For experienced players. The min-max build's endgame gun, or the MMG. |
 Aim Assist | +20 % damage, attack speed ×1.15. | Must have. |
 AP Rounds | +18 % damage. Item Spawn 1. | One of AP or DU. |
 DU Rounds | +10 % damage, +40 % against armored. Item Spawn 2. | Late game, for bosses. |
 Muscle Relaxant | +50 % damage, +15 % attack speed, +5 range for 90 s. | For the final battle. |
 Kinetic Integrator | 1.25 energy a second. | One of the min-max build's final items. |
| Energy Cell | 190 energy over 20 s. | Back-to-back Suppressive Fire. |
 Recoil Suppressor | +1 range, and each hit slows the target 10 % for 1 s; armored and massive are immune. | Group utility. |
Only you and the Cyborg can carry the three guns and the suppressor. The suppressor's slow is a script trigger, Recoil Suppressor Slow, that fires on every machine-gun hit above 1 damage while one is equipped; an 
Assault Engineer's Craft turns it into the Improved Recoil Suppressor, 15 %. Item Spawn 2 switches on when Chapter 2, Miserere, opens, and again at the Defend Thalim, Evacuation and Convoy starts, then repeats every 370 s; Survival gets it at 30 minutes, Infested at 15, and Competitive runs its own list with the three guns on it. Item Spawn 1 runs from 30 s in, every 380 s. The rest of the gear is on the Gear tab.
What the community recommends
Skill identifiers
- Suppressive builds: Energetic first, "non-negotiable"; then Hawk Eye to stay in range while slowed, or
Twinkle Toes to get into position before you start. - Incendiary builds: Quick Thinking first, then Energetic for the energy, or Hawk Eye in quieter games.
- Veteran builds: Veteran with Energetic, always on Suppressive Fire. Veteran cuts the AR's 428 life to about 193; the wiki's own words are "pitiful hp pool", and it wants Soldier Skills or an armor to go with it.
- The DPS Gunner build calls Instructor optional, since the AR links belts more than it reloads, and names
Light Armor or 
Barbaric as its second pick. - Energetic and Quick Thinking cost nothing on the warrant and commissioned tracks, 4,200 and 3,100 XP enlisted. Veteran is 120,000 to 180,000.
Role
- "Straight up damage-dealer": cover for teammates on missions or kiting bosses, post up on defense, and be at the big fights, since a large share of the team's damage walks with you.
- The Incendiary variant is less mobile:
Prone often for the damage and range, near teammates or on high ground, and watch the minimap while you are down. - Suppressive builds eat ammunition; the wiki's words are "a constant stream of supplies". The wiki says to hoard magazines or ask the team for them.
- For the final battle the min-max build carries
flares to open fire at full range, energy cells for repeated Suppressive Fire and a Muscle Relaxant.
The wiki's builds
| Build | Order | SIs | Gear |
|---|---|---|---|
| DPS Gunner | Marksmanship 1, Belt Linking 1, Suppressive Fire 2, Belt Linking 3, Soldier Skills 2, Marksmanship 4 | Energetic, then Light Armor or Barbaric | any machine gun, Aim Assist, Ammo Case |
| Min-max | Suppressive Fire 1, Belt Linking 1, Suppressive Fire 2, Marksmanship 1, Suppressive Fire 3, then any, with Soldier Skills 2 by level 10 | Energetic, Veteran | Minigun or MMG, AP or DU Rounds, Kinetic Integrator |
| Incendiary Gunner | Incendiary Rounds 1, Marksmanship 1, Belt Linking 1, Incendiary Rounds 3, Soldier Skills 3, Suppressive Fire 1, Marksmanship 4 | Energetic, then Light Armor (the wiki also names an "Intelligence" SI that the data does not have) | MMG, Aim Assist, Ammo Case |
| Veteran | Marksmanship 1, Incendiary Rounds 1, Belt Linking 1, Soldier Skills 2, Marksmanship 4, Suppressive Fire 1, Belt Linking 2, Soldier Skills 3, Suppressive Fire 3 | Veteran, Energetic | SAW, Aim Assist, Minigun |
| Damage per shot | Marksmanship 1, Soldier Skills 2, Incendiary Rounds 3, Belt Linking 1, Marksmanship 4, Soldier Skills 3, Suppressive Fire 3 | Quick Thinking, Hawk Eye | SAW, Aim Assist, AP Rounds, Minigun |
The skill order on this page is the Suppressive column of the wiki's level-by-level table: Marksmanship 1, Suppressive Fire to 2, Marksmanship to 4, Soldier Skills to 2, Belt Linking to 3, Soldier Skills to 4, Incendiary Rounds to 4, Suppressive Fire to 4. Its Outbreak column is the min-max build.
Numbers are read from the map file: its unit, skill, ability, item and behaviour data, and the reload, belt-linking, recoil-suppressor, item-spawn and Specimen triggers of its script. The advice is the community's page on uar.fandom.com, kept where it agrees with the data.