Grinder

Grinder
Faction	Red Faction
Type	Abnormal, grenade launcher
Location	Parker
Power	High
Range	Medium-long
Rate of Fire	Medium
Special	Iron Sight
Clip/Ammo	7/28
Fire	Semiautomatic
Melee	Upward bash

The Grinder fires razor sharp discs at high velocity. Another weapon created by the Red Faction from salvaged parts, the motor needs to charge briefly before it’ll shoot, so take that into account.

Description

The disks are deadly against EDF soldiers or individual combatants in multiplayer, but won’t cause much damage to structures, vehicles, or objects. Once upgraded to be explosive it is very effective against EDF troops in vehicle turrets. At extreme distances the ballistic discs will begin to slowly lose velocity and descend to the ground.

Discs are one hit kills on most standard troopers up to and including Hard difficulty. At the Insane difficulty setting, it takes two or more hits. Combined with its relatively low rate of fire, the loss of one-hit kill ability means the un-upgraded Grinder loses much of its efficiency on the highest difficulties, and is not a viable weapon there. 

Usage

In its upgraded form with explosive discs, the grinder is best used as a grenade launcher. Crowds of enemy and light structures such as smoke stacks, propaganda billboards, and supply crates are vulnerable to it. Larger structures can be taken out with great patience, lots of ammo and careful positioning and tactics. Not recommended for use on convoys after the rocket launcher is unlocked, and especially not without proximity mines or demo charges.

Trivia

• Also of note, when shooting the tire of a vehicle, the standard disc will explode and act much like that of a disc with the explosive upgrade, even if that upgrade has not been purchased yet.
• If crouched too close behind a rock or other such solid cover, the disc will bounce off it in a high arc, decreasing range. This can be done intentionally in a close assault role, but the utility of this tactic is limited and generally suboptimal as the disc can go wildly off course and range will be harder to judge, as mentioned.
• At extended ranges, the discs arc much like real life 40mm high explosive grenade rounds. This can be used to land them near or behind the enemies cover in some instances.
• Accuracy suffers at medium to long range when firing rapidly as the discs collide slightly in flight