Crossfire CR-54 Viper

The Crossfire CR-54 Viper is a community-made poison weapon created by phsc, added in version 1.32. While it's power and fire rate may appear lackluster, it fires bullets that when hit, deal damage over time to it's target. The weapon is manufactured by Crossfire, a community-made faction.

Overview
The Viper is unique within its class in that each shot deals a damage over time effect, allowing the weapon to kill weak enemies fairly quickly in only a couple shots. The health bar of a player affected by poison will turn bright green, and their health will rapidly decrease for around four seconds, interrupting health regeneration for it's entire duration, allowing the user additional opportunities to pressure the victim in their weakened state or nullify their threat even if it does not kill them. Landing another shot will stack the effect, dealing more poison damage as long as the preceding procs are still active. Conversely, the weapon suffers from not having much in the ways of burst or sustained damage due to it's low power and fire rate, which can make some direct damage weapons generally superior.

Versus low health targets, this weapon is incredibly lethal; one shot coupled with its damage over time effect can lower HP to an incredibly low point and make enemies not only more vulnerable and prone to death, but also render them less useful in a fight or direct engagement due to the poison. When hit by the Viper, it is better to disengage and break line of sight with the attacker so the gun doesn't get another chance to hit so that health may be regenerated.

Against higher health targets, compounding the poison effect's damage by landing consecutive shots is effective against more resilient enemies that possess a larger health pool, due to requiring only the player landing just one shot at a time and letting the poison effect do most of the work in comparison to other weapons, which don't offer the luxury of damaging enemies over time while not directly engaging the target.

Appearance
The weapon is a bulky two-tone weapon that can appear either as a tan variant or a slate gray variant. A low profile scope is attached to the top part of the weapon's frame. The handguard of the weapon is directly in front of the trigger grouping and trigger guard, with the upper receiver extending further to the barrel, which pokes out slightly from the weapon. Atop the barrel is a barrel shroud. The CR-54 features green accentuation; the green accent under the weapon dims when the weapon is fired and lights back up as it reloads and chambers the next shot. At the rear end of the gun by the stock is a magazine-like device that could possibly function as a feeding method for the weapon itself.

Weapon comparison
Due to its poison effect and decent rate of fire, the CR-54 is an incredibly forgiving weapon compared to other weapons in its class. Non-precision hits, as in shots that land anywhere but the head, are still lethal because of the damage over time effect being added into the initial shot's damage, and a missed shot can easily be compensated by quickly firing another shot, whereas a weapon like the Heavy Railgun punishes the user for missing by having a slow reload speed. In addition to competing with other slot 4 weapons by being a precision weapon, it also directly competes with precision weapons in slot 2, such as the Alien Rifle. The versatility and utility of the CR-54 allows the weapon to perform well in nearly every range, especially mid-long range. It suffers slightly at closer ranges due to entering ranges of more lethal and effective weapons such as slot 3s and slot 1s, but it can still hold its own due to its damage over time effect.

Location
The Crossfire CR-54 Viper does not appear in the campaign, and is therefore exclusive to custom maps created with the Advanced Level Editor.

Trivia

 * The Crossfire CR-54 Viper has the lowest power value of all Slot 4 weapons.
 * It was previously known as "PH-01" and "Crossfire PH-40 Leviathan" before being renamed.