Are level 2 weapons (including melee weapons) twice as strong compared to level 1 weapons? And are level 3 weapons twice as strong as level 2 weapons and so on and so forth? So, if I were to upgrade my level 1 damage for each weapon 20 times each (melee included), would it be as strong as a tier 2?
And how does the sprint and fist damage perk mulitplier work exactly? I'm just curious!
In the Workbench, there are some statistics for weapons that show a weapon's damage, rate of fire and magazine size.
The higher the weapon's rank, the better these stats are.
On some weapons, the damage is doubled (like bows), but this isn't a general rule. Look at each weapon to see what you like and which weapons to craft.
Note that the displayed damage is against unarmored enemies. The damage will be a bit lower when shooting armored enemies.
In addition to better stats, higher rank weapons can also use special ammo (armor piercing, incendiary). Again, look at each weapon's stats to see what kind of ammo it can use.
Upgrading a weapon (by using ethanol and materials) after getting the workbench to level 3, increases the weapon's damage by 10% of the BASE damage.
So, if you upgrade the Rusty Bow (100 base damage) once, it will then have 110 damage.
If you upgrade it again, it will have 120 damage and so on.
Considering how many materials each upgrade requires, I would advise against upgrading low rank weapons.
The same applies to the perks. The ability is increased by about 10%, so upgrading once doesn't make a big difference.