Active Matter Weapons Hub

This hub is the index for Active Matter gun ranks, kit theory, and plate choices. It is not a museum of every firearm that has ever spawned on Dalniy Island. Use it when you are packing a raid, unlocking a replicator recipe, or deciding whether a Harmonization-gated rifle is worth the wait. The weapon tier list is the live S/A/B/C snapshot. Loadouts turns those ranks into Isolated, Open, and Downtown kits. Armor and Body Sleeves covers plates, helmets, headsets, and the pocket layouts that actually decide how much you extract.

Active Matter is a PvPvE extraction shooter from Matter Team and Gaijin Network Ltd. You drop in squads of up to three, hunt active matter, and leave through a portal before the zone collapses. Guns are realistic, but the meta is not eternal. Patches move ADS speed, recoil, and unlock paths. Harmonization Cycle content such as the SCAR-H, MAC-11, RSh-12, M39 EMR, and DP-12 sits behind a global timeline, so a gun that is S-tier on paper can be unusable on your Shelter for weeks. Treat every table on this wiki as a current meta snapshot, not a law of physics.

How S, A, B, and C are scored

Ranks on this wiki answer one question: if you extract this gun and keep using it, does it win raids more often than the alternatives in its class? We do not score cosmetics, replica prestige, or how a weapon looks in a Shelter rack.

• S-tier wins its job in most raid types with ammo you can actually resupply. An S-tier assault rifle should stay controllable in Open PvP, still dump enough volume to stop Turned Soldiers, and accept a useful optic after patch 0.4.0.62, which stopped red dots from slowing ADS.
• A-tier is a specialist or a close second. The AN-94 hyper-burst, a suppressed SCAR-L, or a mag-fed Origin-12 all belong here when the map matches the tool.
• B-tier is honest gear. You will clear Isolated Park or a key farm with it. You will lose a fair Downtown fight if the other squad brought an S-tier kit and titan plates.
• C-tier still has a role: rental fillers, melee backups, and guns you strip for chronotraces instead of insuring. A C rank is not “delete this from the game.” It is “do not spend a chad kit on it.”

We weight four practical axes more than raw damage numbers:

1. Recoil and first-shot discipline. Extraction fights are short. If you cannot put a burst on a helmet at 40 meters while moving, the extra caliber is wasted.
2. Ammo economy. 5.45×39 and 5.56 NATO are easier to restock from Turned Soldiers and Western loot than exotic shotgun shells or VSSK subsonics. A hungry MAC-11 at 1,200 RPM can lose a raid even if it wins the first hallway.
3. Raid role. Isolated PvE wants volume and cheap plates. Open PvPvE wants a suppressor path and a helmet that survives one peek. Downtown wants CQB rifles, SMGs, and a plan for police and SWAT patrols. Gigastructure wants mobility and a gravity trick more than a 10× optic.
4. Unlock friction. A Harmonization-gated SCAR-H is not “free S-tier.” Until Cycle 2 pays out, the SCAR-L and M4A1 are the guns you actually bring. Rank the live inventory, then note the gated ceiling.

What belongs on each child page

The weapon tier list splits the arsenal by class: assault rifles, SMGs, DMRs and bolt guns, shotguns, LMGs, pistols, and special tools (hunting crossbow, RPG-7, Gravity gun, flamethrower). Melee is scored as a backup, not a primary. Attachments matter as much as receivers. PSO 4×, EXPS3, TA31, 1P69 1–10×, thermal S350F, variable-magnification optics, AN-PEQ-15-class lasers, suppressors, foregrips, and dovetail-to-Picatinny adapters change a B gun into an A gun without touching the base rank of the platform.

Loadouts is the “what do I actually pack” page. Budget kits, mid kits, and chad kits are written for Isolated PvE, Open PvPvE, and Downtown. It also covers key farming (Port Crane, Armory, Hangar, military crates), drones (Harpy scout, kamikaze, thermal), rental gear that is independent of the selected raid, and the pocket rule: pouches add pockets, they do not inflate backpack volume. Overfilling pockets is how operatives die with a full safe container and an empty mag.

Armor and Body Sleeves is the other half of the kit. Steel, ceramic, and titan plates in S, L, and XL Assault sizes, PASGT through TFMK-I helmets, Active Headsets, Beast and Pulse sleeve bonuses, and unique pocket layouts. The Hunter sleeve is no longer the default after the plate-slot rework. If you only read gun ranks and ignore plates, you will lose to a worse rifle behind a titan XL.

How to use this hub before a raid

Start with the map, not the gun. Dalniy Island still leans Soviet loot with rarer Western drops. Downtown is North American avenues, ruined skyscrapers, and distorted police. Raid modifiers such as Distortion, Overgrowth, and Unstable Zone change whether you want a flamethrower or a suppressed carbine. Read raid types so Isolated, Open, Collapse overtime, and Nexus queues match the kit you are about to lose.

Then pick one primary from the weapon tier list, one sidearm that shares ammo or fills a gap, and a melee you will actually swing (combat knife, war hammer, crowbar, pry bar, baseball bat, police flashlight, Bouncer knuckles, or Woodcutter’s Argument). Fill plates from the armor guide. Leave two pockets empty for keys and a stack of medications. If the kit is expensive, run Isolated first or take Agency rental gear so a single Open wipe does not delete a week of replication.

New operatives should still start on the beginner guide and how to extract before chasing S-tier. Anomalies have their own counter-kit on how to beat anomalies. Patch context lives on the updates hub, including 250 Shades of Liberty. Editions and Isolated access sit on editions.

Ranks will move when recoil, ADS, or Harmonization payouts change. Recheck this hub after a major patch instead of memorizing a screenshot from last season.