Spent the morning killing plague spitter bugs using my 9mm. Here's how

[ElCabong]

One benefit using a weapon instead of a club is you can frequently shoot the bugs as soon as he coughs them up and then shoot the spitter.Takes timing and luck, you have to see the Z at the same time he's spitting. I've always used my club in the past because I didn't want to waste ammo but now I think this might be a better way of doing it.

I did this at normal difficulty.

Aim for the middle of the swarm, I used a QL 1 9mm with regular ammo and one shot is all it takes. It had the scope and clip extender mods. The scope wasn't much good with the bugs, I was almost always shooting from the hip. When you knock the z on the ground you can zoom in and use headshots.

This should work that for any other rifle or gun except for a shotgun. A shotgun uses pellets and the spread may not hit the center or miss a little or entirely. At least I think it does, that's the way a regular shotgun works but I have no idea how the physics is done with the game shotgun. A full choke mod should fix this. It narrows the spread to a compact circle and if you aim for the middle of the swarm regular shotgun ammo should do the trick. Slugs should work.

Make sure you have plenty of honey in case get diseased. I always get jumped with one of the one or two of those things every time I leave Bob's place.

 

[plzkthxbye]

Related note: I discovered that, even if they've hit you once and you're slowed, if you sprint forward and away from the swarm, they won't be able to hit you again. This was done with 100% mobility (no slow downs from heavier armor), so I'm not sure if it'll work with any other movement speed penalties.

 

[theFlu]

A shotgun uses pellets and the spread may not hit the center or miss a little or entirely.

I think the problem with regular buckshot is rounding errors. The bugs have massive armor against ranged, and the buckshot does 10 separate small hits. Those small hits are so small that they end up rounded to 0 damage each; while if it counted from the total damage, it might do a few points.

Slugs are a single hit, with armor penetration (iirc), so they should be just fine.

 

[Roland]

I like smacking them with a club. Feels like batting practice and my timing has gotten really good. Hit a solid homerun and then run and kill the pitcher.