Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal/Weapons

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal has 20 weapons, each with 8 upgrades (except the RY3NO). This part of the guide will go over all of them; including how powerful they are, how much they cost, and their pros and cons.

Upgrading Weapons
To upgrade weapons, you need to use them - for every enemy you kill (the Holoshield Glove is an exception) your weapon gains experience in the form of "nanomites". The experience bar for a weapon is displayed under the weapon pane in the top-left corner of the screen, and this will fill up as you collect experience. When it fills completely (and you can see how close you are to upgrading in the Weapons Pause Menu) the weapon advances to the next version. In the guide, this is represented as V2, V3, V4 and V5 respectively. The name of the weapon changes when it reaches V5.

Mega weapons are only available in Challenge Mode (which is unlocked by completing the game). A weapon won't upgrade to Mega (and Giga and Omega respectively) automatically - you need to buy the upgrade from a weapon vendor, and this serves as an advancement to V6. Once you have, you can then upgrade a Mega weapon as you would normally, to Giga (V7) and finally to Omega (V8). Note that the RY3NO only advances to version 5 (or V5).

Additional Effects
Weapons will gain additional effects with upgrades. These come in the form of Lock-On, Shock and Acid. Lock-on is used by holding L2+R2 on your controller. This brings up a health bar of your target enemy, and locks your view and crosshairs on the target. This greatly increases accuracy (obviously), makes dodging and attacking so much easier, and tells you how much more punishment your foe will take before it falls.

Acid works by adding a lasting effect to your weapons - your foes will take damage even after your weapons have hit. Although it's not much, it can preserve a few shots, which may be crucial.

Shock will damage other enemies around the target with each shot - this is much better against crowds. The shock effect's power will differ between weapons.

Shock Blaster
The Shock Blaster is one of the two weapons you get for free at the start of the game. It fires a blast of reddish energy which functions like a shotgun - this weapon does more damage at close range.

It eventually upgrades into the Shock Cannon. The blasts become blue (the same colour as a charged up Shock Blaster shot). The Beam of Death becomes the charge attack, and it's pretty powerful - it can kill most enemies in one hit and although it doesn't last for very long you can quickly spin on the spot and hit a load of enemies. The ammo consumption of this however means you can't use it very often.

While the Shock Blaster will serve you well in the beginning parts of the game, its power starts to lag drastically as you progress. Even at its max level, it only has a pitiful 100 power, and quickly becomes obsolete once more powerful weapons are bought. The charge beam of the Shock Cannon is pretty powerful, but consumes so much ammo, its useful is incredibly limited. All in all, decent weapon to start off with with, but for later levels with tougher enemies, you're better off using something else.

Nitro Launcher
The Nitro Launcher is the second weapon you receive for free on Veldin. It fires a mildly strong grenade that has a reasonably sized blast radius. It is a reasonable weapon, just don't count on it in a thick firefight.

N60 Storm
The N60 Storm is a rapid fire weapon that can be used for a lot of different situations. It fires orange laser beams one by one. It's available in Florana.

Spitting Hydra
The Spitting Hydra can target multiple enemies. Hold down psx: C to lock onto your targets and release to fire electric shocks at the targeted enemies.

Flux Rifle
The Flux Rifle is the best weapon for sniping in the game. Apart from having zoom in/zoom out ability, it is also very powerful.

Against other long range enemies, it is best to either sneak up on them or (if they see you) use the Holoshield Glove and shoot from behind it. Once upgraded to Splitter Rifle, power increases immensely and can blast through multiple enemies and kill just about any thing in one hit.

Holoshield Glove
The Holoshield Glove releases a light-blue oval shield, protecting you from enemy fire for a limited amount of time, or until it can't withstand any more fire. Once upgraded, the V2 Holoshield Glove has a vampiric effect, sucking health from enemies within range and transferring it to Ratchet.

Qwack-O-Ray
The Qwack-O-Ray is one of the best weapons in the game. This weapon is good for the Annihilation Nation challenges after it's fully upgraded.

Plasma Coil
The Plasma Coil, like all the Megacorp weapons, is an absolute must have in your arsenal. It fires a small blue ball of electricity which zaps everything near the target for high damage.

When fully upgraded to the Plasma Storm, it easily becomes one of the best weapons in the game. The small blue ball now becomes a very big yellowy-white one that looks like one of those novelty plasma balls (only not purple). Accuracy isn't an issue - this will hit anything, anywhere with many long-reaching tendrils of white lightning that do ridiculous damage. No enemies stand a chance.

The Plasma Coil, or rather the Plasma Storm, is an all-purpose weapon. It does immense damage against one target and many targets alike, and in a spectacular flash of white tendrils they all die. This also has an impressive range, and is quite accurate. The only downside is refire rate and ammo capacity - this weapon can be slow and run out of ammo quickly, but that's if anything survives more than a single hit.