Everything smart weapons and some more

Smart weapons are the most fun I had in Cyberpunk 2077 so I decided to devle deeper into them. Didn't expect I would be just as confused, angry and disappointed as when investigating hidden mechanics of tech weapons. They too are the swiss cheese of game mechanics. Doesn't matter if you're starting your journey with Cyberpunk 2077 or you're a seasoned veteran - you will find something of value in my Cyberpunk farewell gift. And get a different kind of post-Cyberpunk depression. So lets get to it. Welcome to THE smart weapon guide.

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WHAT ARE SMART WEAPONS?
Smart weapons are just like your regular weapons except they have smart targeting system allowing you to "lock-on" onto your targets, making your bullets home at them, even curving their trajectory. Instead of regular crosshair, a rectangle of various sizes. That's the lock-on field. When directed at enemy, a small red square will start turning, accompanied by a ticking sound until it "locks-on". When it does, any bullet fired will home at that spot. Lock-on time differs from weapon to weapon. It remains locked-on until the square becomes fully unturned. For most smart weapons hip-firing locks onto up to 3 targets, prioritizing torso. Limbs can also be locked-on if you position the rectangle just right. While aiming smart weapons lock onto 1 enemy, prioritizing head and Vulnerabilities (sometimes lock-on switches to them automatically, sometimes you have to move the target out of smart targeting area and then back in). If head is locked-on, switching to hipfire preserves that lock-on. If fired before lock-on is complete, bullets will fly wherever you're currently aiming. Smart targetting has a bug that makes them lock-on onto destroyed cameras and turrets but more on that later. Smart weapons and their "accuracy" are unaffected by stamina, bullet recoil and spread. However despite having let's say easy, improved aiming those weapons have their downsides. They cannot be equipped with scopes, muzzles and silencers. Their bullet velocity is very low - when fired without lock-on they can be dodged just by walking sideways. Additionally your target can die while there are still bullets flying towards it, contributing to overkills and wasting ammunition. Smart weapons also have the lowest headshot damage multipliers, in their respective weapon category, which makes sense since they can lock onto head without worrying about careful aiming. Their armor penetration is also lower. They might not be affected by bullet spread and recoil while shooting but instead they have something called "projectile homing probability". If you ever used them you probably noticed some bullets will completely miss their target and go in a different direction despite having a lock-on onto an enemy. To make matters even worse, there are some Tyger Claws in early game areas. When you quickscan them you'll notice most have "Masking Ink" which disrupts smart targeting, making those weapons miss quite often, even using fully optimized builds. Masking Ink cannot be disabled by Cyberware Malfunction quickhack. Worth to note that D5 Sidewinder and Palica have increased damage at the cost of lower projectile homing probability. Another thing worth noting is that Reckon Grenades would be great tool to help smart weapons early but they are bugged. They never increase lock-on speed. Considering all of the above I would discourage you from using smart weapons early. It's a bad experience.

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SMART WEAPON PERKS
Smart weapon perk tree is under Intelligence attribute. The "trunk" perks, milddle perks in that tree, all work as intended and are mainly quality of life perks. They make so the lock-on doesn't break when reloading, switching from hip-fire to aim and switching between smart weapons. They simply reduce the time you need to spend locking onto enemies. There are 5 side perks, all of which are important.

PRECISION SUBROUTINES - arguably the most important smart weapon perk. To get any benefit from it you MUST have a cyberdeck. Cyberdeck's RAM scales with its tier (early tiers have lower RAM - another reason why smart weapons are bad early) which in turn increases what they call "accuracy". While that word doesn't really mean anything in terms of game mechanics, it does two things. It reduces smart weapon bullet spread - they are packed tighter. That has almost no real effect, unless you're firing without enabling smart targeting. Secondly it increases "projectile homing probability". I don't know if RAM from Intelligence attribute and RAM from other cyberware counts (would +12 RAM from Rippler cyberdeck or +6 RAM from Ex-Disk count or not?). That doesn't really matter as the increase to homing probability is very noticeable. With tier V cyberdeck bullets very rarely un-home. ((Alcohol decreases weapon "accuracy" by 50%. It affects regular weapons but has no effect on smart weapons and their projectile homing probability))

NO ESCAPE - firing at the target will reset lock-on duration. Lock onto enemy, turn 180 degrees and just keep shooting. Instead of always keeping targeting area on enemies you can get a lock-on, hide behind a wall and curve bullets while hiding.

RECIRCULATION - here's a LINK to zKarma's video which explains it in-depth. To sum it up. Quickhack RAM restoration works only with quickhack queue and doesn't count the last one.

TARGETING PRISM - increases maximum number of active lock-ons by 1 when hip-firing and by 1 when aiming. Affects all smart weapons except Ashura which can lock-on onto only one target at all times.

TERMINAL VELOCITY - kills increase lock-on range and projectile speed. Stacks up to 3 times. ((Any increase to range from other sources, like Tunnel Vision perk from SMG tree, also increases lock-on range. Tier I-V Parallax pistol mod is an exception))

SMART SYNERGY - instant lock-on during Overclock. +25% damage buff can be applied twice. Once if target is affected by any control quickhack and once if it's affected by any covert quickhack. No damage increase when target is affected by combat or ultimate quickhacks. For more details go to the linked video.

OVERCLOCK - if you have cyberdeck installed it allows you to activate Overclock, during which you can use your health as if it was RAM when you don't have enough RAM to upload quickhacks. Here it's mostly to get instant lock-ons with Smart Synergy perk. It's not raelly a smaty weapon perk but I wanted to talk a little about Overclock as it has some weird interactions. Overclock's duration can't be increased by Extended Warranty perk (15 Tech). Its cooldown can't be reduced by Cyborg perk (15 Tech), and by Quantum Tuner's "-15% cooldown time for all other cyberware". However its cooldown is affected by Quantum Tuner's cooldown restoration ability and by Axolotl / Newton Module. On the other hand Berserk and Sandevistan work properly with all of the above. Confused? Me too! I don't know why it's the way it is but there is a clue in Ticking Time Bomb perk's tooltip (20 Tech). Overclock is not included as Operatin System cyberware, alongside Berserk and Sandevistan in parentheses, but appears outside of them, after "or". That probably means it's considered an ability granted by a perk, rather than innate cyberware ability or cyberware effect. But then again, if enemy netrunner affects you with Cyberware Malfunction, you can't activate Overclock so it kinda is? Logic doesn't apply to Overclock and its interactions with mentioned perks and cyberware. This is League of Legends level spaghetti. Bon appetit!
There is one more irrelevant thing. During Overclock some smart weapons can apply electric damage over time effect (Shock). These are Shingen Mark V, Hercules 3AX and Divided We Stand. Hard to say for certain if Yinglong and Genjiroh apply it too because they naturally have chance to inflict Shock. Other weapons don't seem to ever apply this effect during Overclock.

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CYBERDECKS
Because of Precision Subroutines perk a cyberdeck should be priority. Smart weapons can be paired with other OS but their "accuracy" will suffer.

Tetratronic Rippler is the best early game cyberdeck for this playstyle because of bonus "+15% weapon damage against enemies affected by non-Combat quickhacks". All you need to do is upload a cheap quickhack and enjoy some free damage. Later on it's heavily outclassed by other cyberdecks. At tier V it has an effect which applies Weapon Glitch and Reboot Optics to all enemies in small area when Overclock is activated. If high tier versions of those quickhacks would be applied this way, it would make Rippler a serious contender for the number 1 spot. Even if quickhack tiers could scale with your own quickhacks or level. Reboot Optics would spread on kills, restore RAM and provide bonus headshot damage. Weapon Glitch would severely damage enemy weapons and almost instanly provide as much as 60% critical chance. Unfortunately, regardless of all factors, both Reboot Optics and Weapon Glitch are uploaded at tier II.

Biotech Σ would be quite decent mid-game cyberdeck if it worked. It's seriously bugged. It's hard to tell if bonus to damage over time (DoT) works. It's main strength would lie in increasing duration of combat quickhacks by up to 60%. However this bonus doesn't work at all. The only place that shows any difference is during hacking when you switch to quickhack details. I've never found a single useful information that would be correct here. Anyway, for Contagion it will show 8,6s duration instead of 8s and that's where it ends. Pfff... maths. Quickhacks never last longer and consequentially don't deal addtitional damage. Monowire damage is buffed for all types of DoTs but there are two exceptions when it isn't: tier 4+ Short Circuit quickhack "EMP" DoT and EMP grenades DoT. ((EMP grenades deal physical damage explosion and DoT, not electrical, and this damage is highly unreliable - sometimes isn't applied (never vs turrets), very often isn't increased against listed targets)). Resetting quickhack duration when activating Overclock works but without that +60% combat quickhack duration it's pretty worthless. Stay away from this cyberdeck.

Honorable mention. Raven Microcyber. Thanks to this cyberdeck's ability, Contagion quickhack spreads immediatley to up to 5 enemies. Please remember - quickhacks can't add themselves to existing queues, meaning they can't spread to enemies who have uploads in progress (video by Tuftdog LINK). Apply Contagion one by one, not multiple at once in a queue. However against single, high health targets you can apply Overheat or Burn DoT first and then queue multiple Contagions which will cause consecutive explosions. That's beacuse tier IV+ Contagion combined with Overheat quickhack or Burn DoT, will remove poison effect on that target (but not Burn DoT) and cause an explosion. ((For some reason Burn inflicted by Bolt shots (15 Tech) doesn't count as Burn)). Keep in mind Contagion affects all targets nearly simultaneously but Contagion effect that increases its damage with each subsequent spread is lost (bug? not bug?). This explosion deals considerable damage and can even crit. Here's where Shingen Mark V smart SMG enters the equation. This iconic weapon can lock-on onto up to two additional enemies when aiming, fires explosive rounds and has high chance to apply Burn. If enemies somehow survive first wave on bullets and explosions, you can follow it up with another Contagion which will cause another explosion if enemies are still burning. Since poison DoT is entirely wasted you may opt for Black Mamba cyberware. Damage increase it offers doesn't affect quickhacks, doesn't seem to increaese explosion damage but properly increases bullet and grenade damage. Bait + Request Backup quickhack combo can help you group enemies before engaging. I would say this cyberdeck does just one thing, but does it very well - decimates crowds.

Militech Paraline is the best late-game cyberdeck to pair with smart weapons. Without any setup increases your damage by whopping 60% during Overclock. You could use this cyberdeck with 0 quickhacks equipped and it would still be worth it. Game says this bonus damage is electrical but it's not. This bonus damage is physical (white numbers, gets reduced by armor) for both monowire and smart weapons. Another feature of this cyberdeck is massive increase to quickhack upload speed while shooting enemies with smart weapons (but not while hitting with monowire). With it you don't need any bonuses to upload speed like Ex-Disc cyberware, Queue Prioritization perk or face clothing that reduced it. Even with all those, it often takes quite long to upload quickhacks to some boss-type enemies. With just this perk entire 4-hack queues can be uploaded in an instant if you're using high firerate smart weapon.

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NOTE-WORTHY CYBERWARE
Lets start with the basics. There are 2 cyberware pieces which enable smart targeting and you can only pick one, even with Ambidextrous perk (15 Tech). Tattoo: Tyger Claws Dermal Imprint and Smart Link. Surprisingly the tatto can be upgraded to higher tiers but I would highly advice against using it. It does enable smart targeting but it has no effect on the size of smart targeting area and lock-on speed. I don't know if attunement bonus is even applied. Bonuses provided by Smart Link work as intended. Use that instead. Bonus +15% crit damage with smart weapons is actually good. Increased lock-on duration works too, and is just that - it takes longer to lose it.

Since some cyberdecks support Monowire playstyle here's some informations on that topic. It works best with Militech Paraline cyberdeck as it deals up to 30% more damage after spenting 15 RAM, which in optimized builds is about half your total RAM. Moreover that cyberdeck provides additional 60% damage during Overclock (neither affect damage over time effects from Monowire). Biotech Σ cyberdeck is also decent for monowire. Each monowire says it deals different kind of damage. For example Toxic Monowire says it deals chemical damage. That's not true. Every monowire always deals physical damage (white damage numbers, reduced by armor). The only difference is the kind of damage over time it can apply. Chemical DoT deals about 10 ticks of 20 poison damage (green). Shock DoT deals about 10 ticks of 20 electrical damage (light blue). Burn DoT deals about 15 ticks of 20 thermal damage (dim orange). Bleeding deals about 20 ticks of 20 physical damage (white). Rather than focusing purely on DoT damage you should look at the Attunement bonus from attributes (up to 10% bonus monowire damage depending on attribute) or synergies like thermal monowire with tier IV+ Contagion or susceptibility to electrical damage on certain enemies. ((While every DoT seems to be consistent across the board, Bleeding is weird. Bleed applied by katana lasts 12 ticks, Slaughterhouse perk bleed (20 Reflex) also lasts 12 ticks but can't kill. They are not exclusive and can both be applied at the same time with 1 attack. The target can actually die from non-perk blade-applied bleeding. Monowire bleed lasts 20 ticks. Chef's Knife bleed lasts about 24 ticks. Make it make sense...))
Phantom Liberty unlocks ability to slot a control quickhack into monowire which can then be applied by stong attacks. ((Seems to be bugged. Sometimes it stops applying the chosen quickhack. I don't know what's the trigger here but reloading the game solves it)). As far as the choices go Cripple Movement is the best (especially against bosses). Regular monowire finisher restores 15% health and 5 RAM. Finishers are easier to perform on enemies affected by Cripple Movement (meaning they can be performed when enemies have higher health). They also take 15% more melee damage and finishers on them restore additional 10% health and 4 RAM (if the quickhack is iconic) for a total of up to 25% health and 9 RAM restoration. If finisher plays that X slash animation it can kill multiple enemies if they're close enough. It's worth slotting Suicide quickhack into your cyberdeck because each melee finisher will give you one stack (up to two), which reduces next Suicide RAM cost by 10. It can cost as little as 4 RAM, then the stacks are lost upon upload. Iconic Suicide will also restore 20% health (as soon as you upload it, not as it says when target dies). With Siphon perk (9 Intel) and Proximate Propagation perk (4 Inteel) you have so much RAM that even uploading Suicide for 14 RAM is worth it. Monowire provides lots of AoE damage, lots of healing, lots of free RAM and massively discounts Suicide to deal with enemies far away. Decent way of supplementing your build but not mandatory. ((Monowire is bugged. It's unaffected by all attack speed modifiers, except for low stamina. Values in the "Stats" menu increase but real attack speed doesn't. Things that increase melee damage work properly. Mantis Blades suffer from the same problem except their attack speed is unaffected even by low stamina))

To maximize your damage output I would highly suggest Visual Cortex Support or Deep-field Visual Interface. It's very easy to reach 100% critical chance in smart weapon builds. Since they effortlessly home onto heads you'll get a lot from those multipliers (to count critical headshot damage you multiply the damage by headshot damage multiplier and then multiply again by crit damage). If you have high Cool attribute you can add Deep-field Visual Interface to your build even if you already have 100% crit chance. It's Cool attuned and provides up to +20% crit damage.

Smart weapons gameplay boils down to uploading some quickhacks and then entering the fight, rarely letting go off the trigger and hacking some more. That's the optimal playstyle for Cogito Lattice. When below 10 RAM, by itself it's the highest armor cyberware in the game (up to 257). Base value is 62. This cyberware is Intelligence attuned and gives as much as 40 additional armor. Bonus armor while low on RAM works only when you have cyberdeck installed and that +250% only counts base cyberware armor, adding additional 2,5*62=155 armor for a total of 217. Attunement bonus is separate and is not taken into that equation. Keep in mind the value on the armor bar will show 10 less armor than it should (bug) but stats tab shows correct value. Remeber Reboot Optics quickhack and Recirculation perk (9 Intel) restore significant amounts of RAM when killing enemies afflicted by quickhacks. Pay attention to your RAM and whether bonus armor from Cogito Lattice is applied. Use quickhacks during combat to lower your RAM. If you don't have APM for that you can use tier IV Reboot Optics and disable that perk.

Smart weapons have some weaknesses which quickhacks can easily cover. Those are enemies with armor and those who cannot be dealt headshot damage. So most mechanical enemies like mechs and big drones. They can be pretty intimidating early game so be sure to invest in Mechatronic Core. Even though It only affects quickhack damage it's worth (yes, I tested that, non-quickhack damage is unaffecteed). Early on even small boost to Short Circuit makes a difference. Later that damage increase is significant.

As for cyberware stat modifiers you should focus on (in that order) headshot damage multiplier, quickhack damage, crit damage. Maybe some melee damage if you're using Monowire a lot. Rant time. I have a bone to pick with CDPR. In a game done by Polish game studio there are errors in Polish translation. Personally I prefer it over English version. It sounds better and I just can't stand the slang. Although there's a problem. In Polish there is cyberware stat modifier labeled as what translates to "target lock-on speed", target tracking speed" or "target acquisition speed". These are the exact same words as those used in smart weapon perks translation. I was stacking them for the whole game. Then I wanted to see some dialogue in English. Imagine my surprise when I picked up on the fact that in English this cyberware stat modifier is called "Aim speed" which only increases speed at which you go from hipfire to aiming. Fucking hell... I was wondering why my lock-ons weren't getting faster and blamed it on the sorry state of game mechanics. Turns out even translation can be bad. There are couple more like Request Backup stating it increases weapon range instead of how far enemies can be called from and Divided We Stand saying it can lock-on onto 5 enemies only when aiming. How do you fuck up Polish translation?

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QUIKCHACKS
Although smart weapons don't really need quickhacks to be effective, there are some which provide great utility for this kind of playstyle and cover its weaknesses like poor armor penetration and difficulty at dealing with enemies which have no head (or those which can't have head lock-on, like last boss). Here I'll be refering to iconic versions of all quickhacks.

Reboot Optics is your bread and butter. Provides bonus headshot damage, increases survivalibity, restores RAM and spreads for free on kills. Crowds already die very quickly, especially when wielding iconics with AoE damage but what's not to like here?

I would say Cyberware Malfunction is the most impactful quickhack but not for the reasons you might think. It's not here to disable cybereware. Enemy with Kerenzikov, dodging nearly all bullets, can cause some trouble but not for smart weapons since they will hit through it anyway. This quickhack amplifies all damage its target receives by 15%, stacking up to 8 times for jaw-dropping 120% damage increase. Ever wanted to deal double damage? Also upon reaching 3 stacks enemy suffers electrical DoT (not light blue damage numbers but yellow, meaning special or externally amplified damage) and at 8 stacks it causes absurd burst of damage. But that's not where it ends...

Each stack of Cyberware Malfunction will increase Short Circuit damage by additional 25%. Since most mechanical enemies are armored and don't have heads, they are quite decent at tanking smart weapons. Short Circuit covers that weakness. ((Small drones don't have armor. Big drones do. Minotaur mechs have armor too and can be killed by destorying both of their arm-weapons. They are the priority lock-on when aiming and are the only unarmored part. Turrets have armor too but are bugged and you should either deplete their health completly or use Assist Mode / Friendly Mode quickhacks. Otherwise smart weapons will keeping locking onto them like crazy. That means no Initiate Overload because it "destroys" the turret, turns it off but preserves its health and makes it immune to damage. Try to destory it now to get rid of that lock-on)).
I would like to pause here for a moment and clarify some misconceptions regarding Short Circuit. It might come as a surprise but Short Circuit dosen't deal electrical damage. Yes you heard that right. In reality it deals physical damage BUT it's unaffected by armor. It shows white damage numbers. Moreover some enemies are vulnerable to electical damage like Minotaur mechs or last boss. They do not take additional damage from this quickhack (in case of Minotaurs they only take bonus damage because Short Circuit says so - vulnerability to electrical damage doesn't increase it further). Damage which shows light blue numbers, like Shock DoT, is correctly increased by electrical vulnerability. Same for for that weird "EMP" DoT from tier IV+ Short Circuit.

Dealing with heavily armored enemies might prove challenging because smart weapons have barely any armor penetration. To cover this weakness reserve a slot in your cyberdeck for Overheat. It melts armor, making armored enemies more susceptible to your weapon damage and even adds additional physical (not thermal) damage to your attacks. High health enemies like bosses and armored Elites ("skull" enemies who show Subdermal Armor when quickscanned) should be primary targets for Overheat. If that wasn't enough each hit will increase Overheat's duration by half a second (not 0,5s refresh, +0,5s duration). Iconic version of this quickhack doesn't mention this effect but has it and works. Any smart weapon with decent fire rate will easily take its damage to 4 or even 5 digit numbers. The more health enemy has the more value you'll get out of it. Just worry about the duration of quickhack damage amplifiers like Embedded Exploit perk (9 Intel, best wiht long lasting quickhacks like Ping) or Cyberware Malfunction quickhack (lasts 10s, after uploading Short Circuit the duration of all control quickhacks is extended by 3s).

Ping is bugged and doesn't increase lock-on speed at all. However you should be running one covert quickhack for the purpose of Smart Synergy perk (20 Intel). That perk can give its bonus twice - once if target is affected by a covert quickhack, and once if affected by a control quickhack. No damage increase if they're affected by combat or ultimate quickhacks. This little trick matters mainly when fighting bosses. Ping has longer duration but you can use Bait instead, to give yourself an option to force enemies out of cover.

Those would be the 5 core quickhacks for smart weapons. Rest is build dependent. Contagion for Shingen Mark V builds. Synapse Burnout for Ashura builds (more on that later). There is one more which might be useful for builds other than ARs/SMGs. Weapon Glitch can further lower enemy combat potential and even do some damage but that's not where its main strength lies. Each upload will increase your critical chance while using smart weapons by up to 12%. Normally this effect can stack up to five times for a total of 60% crit chance and lasts 10 seconds, refreshing on further uploads. Fantastic way of getting those last points to achieve 100% crit chance. However if you have Spillover perk (20 Intel) you can go beyond that. If you upload Weapon Glitch and it spreads this way you will get only +1 stack to your current Weapon Glitch buff and then +1 stack to another, separate Weapon Glitch buff. This allows you to have 2 active Weapon Glitch buffs, each with it's separate stacks, which can increase your crit chance way beyond 60%.

Cripple Movement (slotted into monowire thanks to Jailbreak relic perk) and Suicide are quickhacks supporting monowire rather than smart weapons but since monowire benefits from the same cyberdeck as smart weapons I'll briefly mention them here anyway. For more informations look into the Monowire section.

To sum that up:

Crowds = Reboot Optics

Armored Elites = Overeheat or Cyberware Malfunction + Short Circuit

Bosses = Ping or Bait (covert), 8x Cyberware malfunction (control), Overheat, Reboot Optics (if enemy can suffer headshot damage), Cripple Movement / Weapon Glitch (both are optional)

Last Boss = Ping, 8x Cyberware Malfunction, Overheat, then spam Short Circuit to deal tons of damage and extend duration of control quickhacks

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WEAPON MODS
There are two power levels of weapon mods for smart weapons. There is Headhopper and then there's everything else. Nothing comes close to Headhopper. Faster lock-on means less reliance on Overclock + Smart Synergy perk. It increases maximum lock-ons by 2 but only during aiming. Worth to mention they stack additively meaning with 2 of those you will be able to lock onto 4 more targets when aiming. On top of that it is one of very few mods that increases damage. Unfortunately it's a rare weapon mod that only appears at tier IV and V but more eon that at the very end. Note that two Headhoppers have a minor bug with some weapons' lock-on speed. It's only visual and doesn't affect the numbers but I'll mention it anyway. The sound part of lock-on will be sped up and played correctly. However visual part, the turning square, will only increase its speed slighly. The lock-on will be much faster (it will be active before the square fully locks) but there will be mismatch between lock-on visuals and audio.

As for other smart weapon mods, Panorama might be okay in early stages once you get instant lock-on from Smart Synergy perk (20 Intel) to eliminate the downside of taking longer to lock-on. Larger smart targeting area and longer lasting lock-on can be useful if you're shooting while hiding behind walls. Armor penetration granted by Gambiteer is mostly wasted. Only some Elite enemies, turrets and mechs have armor and for those you could use either Equalizer (bonus damage to all Elites, not just those with Subdermal Armor), Initiate Overload (bug - this doesn't actually kill turrets, they still have health, and your weapons will keep locking onto them) or Short Circuit quickhack. Increased bullet velocity would be good but not at the cost of projectile homing probability. For that you have Terminal Velocity perk (15 Intel). I mean two of those mods don't seem to affect Ashura's "accuracy", G-58 Dian will occasionally miss and D5 Sidewinder will have a noticeable drop in "accuracy". Hackatomy isn't great either and if you want to know how it works go to one of zKarma's videos where he explains it.

Smart weapons can also be equipped with weapon mods from categories they belong to. ARs and SMGs have Ready Steady and Focus Fire but smart weapons aren't really affected by recoil and spread. The only one you should consider is Big Mag. You'll reload more bullets using Air Dash if you unlocked that level 50 Shinobi skill. You could get two of those on each of three D5 Sidewinders for bosses too. Nearly 200 bullets without reloading while doubling damage with Salt in the Wound perk (20 Reflex). Not that great on SMGs because they have Submachine Fun perk (20 Reflex) so mag capacity doesn't matter when you don't have to reload them.

As for smart pistols - both Pinpoint and Parallax reduce things smart weapons aren't affected by. Parallax doesn't increase lock-on range. You can use Zenith early on for some bonus critical chance.

Shotgun mods are the worst in this case. Condenser simply reduces your damage and that's it. You need to shoot legs in order to utilize Kneel! but smart weapons unwillingly lock-on onto those. When it comes to Vivisector I have no idea how increased chance to dismember is calculated. It's hard to make good use of that short-lasting +50% torso damage with smart shotguns. They take a while to reload, have low mag capacity and slow bullets. I stumbled upon a fun build using double Palica, each with two Shuffler mods LINK.

When it comes to smart sniper rifles, there's only Ashura. Fleetshot is another stamina mod which are useless on smart weapons. To this day I still don't know what weapon handling is but it probably has to do with stamina, recoil, spread - things irrelevant to smart weapons. Likewise Stabilizer has no real effect too. Headtoll is probably the only weapon mod which can surpass Headhopper. Not overall but in certain conditions. I will explain in detail later on.

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SKILLS
In "Character" tab, where your attributes are, look for "Skill progression" tab in bottom right corner. Hover over skill names to see how to gain experience in each skill. Sleeping in your apartment gives you an hour long buff which increases skill experience gained by 10%. Once you reach milestone levels you get some permanent bonuses. Since smart weapons aren't great early I would advice to use a little bit of everything early and get some experience in multiple skills. All skills grant you one free perk at level 15 and then another at 35. That's 10 free perks. Other than that there are some more bonuses worth getting.

HEADHUNTER - at level 10 and 30 you get bonus headshot damage
NETRUNNER - at level 10 and 30 you get +1 RAM, at level 20 lock-on range is increased, at level 40 duration of Overclock nearly doubles, (bug - level 60 effect doesn't work at all)
SHINOBI - not much here, at level 45 fast attacks deal more damage (I haven't tested that and IDK if it affects monowire), at level 50 air dashing and sliding reloads some ammo (good with Big Mag weapon mod)
SOLO - at level 5 and 25 you get some carrying capacity, at levels 40, 45 and 50 there are some bonuses for monowire (again, I haven't tested that)
ENGINEER - not much here, at level 5 and 25 you get some armor, at 10 and 30 some cyberware capacity, at level 50 cyberware stat modifiers get slightly bigger

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CONSUMABLES (FODD)
I'm guilty of not using any consumables other than Capacity Booster. Just didn't feel the pressure to do so because I haven't been struggling to survive. However they can not only boost health and prevent unnecessary deaths. Some foods from Phantom Liberty can improve your damage. Unfortunately consumables aren't easy to figure out. There are several categories of food from which only one consumable can be in effect at a time. Consuming different food from the same category overwrites old food effects. Those categories are:

1. Capacity (long lasting): Capacity Booster and Ol' Donkey (why would anyone ever use Ol' Donkey?)
2. Stamina (long lasting): Stamina Booster and Jellytricity
3. Health (long lasting): Health Booster and AssKick
4. RAM (long lasting): RAM Jolt and RAM Nugs
5. Drinks: all non-alcoholic drinks which give +5% stamina regeneration and all alcohol
6. Black Lace MK.2 (purple), fun fact: if you've chosen Streetkid life path you can get Black Lace MK.1 (blue) from Maelstrom during mission to retrieve Flathead. Both versions can be active at the same time
7. Everything else: every food from Phantom Liberty except for those 4 above and every food which increases maximum health by 5% and health regeneration by 0,5% outside of combat

For smart weapon builds Creatine-Loaded Protein Log is the best choice because they easily reach 100% crit chance. But don't be fooled by its description which says "+30% crit damage, -15% crit chance". You're not adding those values. Those are multipliers. Your total crit damage will be multiplied by 1,3 and your total crit chance will be multiplied by 0,85.

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BUILD SPECIFIC PERKS AND WEAPONS
Smart weapons benefit from all perk trees they belong to. For example smart assault rifle like D5 Sidewinder gets bonuses from both smart weapons perk tree and AR / SMG perk tree. Some perks aren't intuitive so I wanted to briefly talk about them in the contex of late game builds.

I'll start with SMGs which I believe to be the best smart weapon class. First "trunk" perk in this tree is READY, RESTED, RELOADED. It doesn't grant anything useful and is just a mandatory path to reach higher perks. The only "branch" perk worth getting here is TUNNEL VISION to increase lock-on range. Next up there's another trunk perk SHARPSHOOTER. Although smart weapons don't care about stamina levels branch perks do. With SHOOT TO CHILL perk each Sharpshooter stack also increases armor penetration by 4% up to 28% at full stacks. Other than Chesapeake and Barghest version of HA-7 Warden, smart SMGs have no armor penetraion so any bonus is welcome. Close to it lies strongest SMG perk PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT which adds more power to each Sharpshooter stack, giving you up to 49% critical chance AND 49% critical damage. With Visual Cortex Support / Deep-field Visual Interface and Kiroshi "Cockatrice" Optics you can easily cap on 100% crit chance without Weapon Glitch quickhack. Pinnacle perk, SUBMACHINE FUN, makes so you don't have to reload your SMGs anymore and significantly increases their firerate upon drawing and swapping between them. Tons of damage, no downtime. Nice.

When it comes to SMGs, Yinglong is the most versatile and also easy to get. In addition to bullet damage it has chance to apply Shock status effect (about 10 ticks of 20 electrical damage) and chance to cause EMP explosion (about 200-250 AoE physical damage (reduced against elites but not reduced by armor) + about 8 ticks of 10 physical damage damage (DoT can't be applied to heavy mechs). Both AoE and DoT are unaffected by electrical vulnerability. Shingen Mark V combined with Contagion is outstanding at dealing with crowds. More on that in Cyberdecks section (Raven Microcyber). If you want to go for this build I would recommend to get its location from the Internet because it's obtainable pretty late in main storyline in area you can freely access early. Do not scan anything yellow here and be stealthy just in case it could mess up that mission later. HA-7 Warden (Barghest version) with two Headhopper mods has highest single-target DPS among SMGs (against enemies who can be dealt headshot damage). There is only one silenced smart weapon in the game - Pizdets. Not the first choice for stealth but it's viable.

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Perks for Assault Rifles are excatly the same as for SMGs except for pinnacle perk SALT IN THE WOUND. Now... Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in... and out. Calm down. This wasn't so bad during testing. Not at all. You don't have to do it again. You don't have to put some AR in your mouth and pull the trigger 7 times to see if it works. It's okay. So. SALT IN THE WOUND bugs out when there is damage over time, explosive damage damage or quickhack damage involved. But lets start at the beginning. Seven consecutive shots on the same target result in huge burst of damage. Shots to other targets reset that number. That alone means you can never trigger this effect while hip-firing unless shooting at a single enemy. If you want to trigger it while aiming you must have a weapon which locks-on onto one target during aiming (no Headhopper mods and no Targeting Prism perk (15 Intel)). What's weird is shots that "un-home", those missing because of the projectile homing probability, don't reset the stacks. But those which hit obstacles while homed do reset stacks. Missed shots with non-smart weapons always reset stacks. Damage modifiers to your bullet damage count towards Salt in the Wound damage (Militech Paraline cyberdeck during Overclock, critical hits, headshots, etc.). However... SITW damage acts weirdly when target is affected by most types of DoT. Sometimes it works properly. Sometimes it seems to include DoT damage instead of bullet damage (sometimes I think, it only counts Contagion DoT entirely omitting bullet damage). It very often includes Short Circuit / Synapse Burnout damage when calculating SITW damage if one is applied during stacking of those 7 hits. It doesn't proc on Security Turrets and Minotaur mech's weapons. If shooting at heavily armored enemies while having no armor penetration it inconsistently triggers, often requiring more than 7 bullets. Also SITW damage is reduced twice against armored enemies (bullets deal reduced dmg, sum them to get SITW dmg which then gets reduced by armor again - probably intentional but still "feels bad" interaction). Sometimes it incorrectly calculates explosive bullet damage (Hercules 3AX and ARs with Firecracker mod) and sometimes even shows ridiculously small damage values (about 1 bullet worth of dmg). All that means for smart weapon is that SITW can be the strongest AR perk (if intentionally bugged the right way) or nearly useless.

PART 2 IN COMMENT BELOW!