FR-27 Sanction Flechette Rifle (DXMD)

The FR-27 S.F.W., Flechette Ordnance, also referred to by the term "Combat Rifle," is a weapon in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Overview
The FR-27 S.F.W. returns from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, featuring similar performance and versatility, but can be further customized with the weapon attachments system featured in Mankind Divided.

The FR-27 S.F.W. is a highly versatile, jack-of-all-trades combat firearm, in large part due to its wide range of upgrade options. The weapon is uniquely able to accept all four weapon attachments, and is also able to fire armor-piercing rounds.

The FR-27 S.F.W. is one of the most common weapons encountered in the game. Ammo is not a particularly big concern given the ubiquity of the weapon, and ammunition packs for it are both common and very cheap to buy in shops.

Elite Edition Combat Rifle
The Elite Edition Combat Rifle is included as part of the Enforcer Pack DLC, available as a free download. This weapon, despite what the stats may imply, does about 50% more damage than the standard variant.
 * Limited-edition burst-firing variant with slightly worse handling until upgraded.
 * For some reason, upgrading the rate of fire will also further lower recoil.
 * The Elite Edition Combat Rifle has a maximum range of only 50 meters, lower than the range of 60 meters on the standard edition.

Côte d'Azur S.O.W.
The Côte d'Azur S.O.W. is a special variant that fires only EMP rounds.
 * The weapon features an integral suppressor, a unique blue holosight, and a large magazine capacity. Maximum range is 40 meters.


 * The weapon is found inside a weapon case in the Tarvos Security Services corporate vault in the Palisade Property Bank. The keycard for this vault can be obtained from the basement of Sobchak Security. Only one instance of the weapon can be obtained per playthrough.
 * When first found, the weapon is only loaded to half capacity (30 rounds). 100 additional rounds are located nearby.


 * The Côte d'Azur may be traded for one of Nada Birak's special stocks.

Standard FR-27 S.F.W. Combat Rifle
The Combat Rifle is highly useful to players who favor tactical versatility. Once a scope is attached, the Combat Rifle functions as a shorter-ranged sniper rifle. Once a silencer is attached, the Combat Rifle is fully suitable for stealth-based tactics (note the extra ammuniton expenditure if not using AP ammo). The combat rifle initially only has full auto capabilities, but can be upgraded to unlock a semi-automatic firing mode. Furthermore, the Combat Rifle is able to accept armor-piercing (AP) rounds, making it suitable for use against robots, destructibles, and turrets. The Combat Rifle is the only weapon, other than the slow-firing Lancer, that can accept both a scope and a silencer, and can use AP rounds while silenced. As a result, the Combat Rifle is arguably the most multi-functional weapon in the game, provided that you invest into upgrading the weapon. For Deus ex veterans, the sanction rifle largely replaces the 10mm pistols from previous games as your 'flexible, do anything' weapon.

However, in being a jack-of-all-trades weapon, the Combat Rifle does not excel in any specific area. For example, as a scoped sniper rifle, the damage per hit is far lower than that of any of the three other lethal sniping options (i.e., the Battle Rifle, the Lancer, and the Longsword II 203 Sniper Rifle). Additionally, the Combat Rifle has a maximum range of only 60 meters. Therefore, even with the scope attached, the Combat Rifle is ineffective at the farthest distances in Mankind Divided, such as the longest ranges when firing from the elevated areas of G.A.R.M., and from the top of the atrium of the Desert Jewel Resort Hotel in Dubai in a new game plus.

As previously mentioned, the combat rifle does have a semi-auto firing mode that can be unlocked. While this upgrade increases the versatility of the weapon, it should be noted that damage-per-hit is relatively low compared to other weapons, even the 10mm Pistol. For example, while the Elite Edition 10mm Pistol is able to destroy cameras in a single shot with the silencer on, the silenced Combat Rifle requires multiple rounds to destroy a camera (despite what the in-game damage stats would suggest).

When loaded with the slightly-rarer Armor Piercing rounds, the FR-27 receives a big damage boost, making it more lethal during a shootout. AP damage is far lower than what the Battle Rifle and Revolver provides, but is easily sufficient to make quick work of just about any target.

In summary, the Combat Rifle is useful for its tactical versatility. While the weapon has a relatively modest damage output on a damage-per-hit basis, players who have good aim and prefer a tactical approach to combat will not likely be deterred by this drawback.

Elite Edition Combat Rifle
The Elite Edition is notable for its three-round-burst firing mode, which provides high damage output while maintaining good handling and efficient ammo consumption. Each individual burst fires more quickly than the sustained, automatic fire of the standard rifle. By "pulsing" the trigger, the player can release multiple, rapid bursts in less time than fully automatic fire. Additionally, the Elite Edition does notably more damage than the standard edition, enough to drop most enemies in one or two shots from quite far away, even with the silencer equipped. As a result of these benefits, many players will find the Elite Edition to be superior to the standard edition in terms of combat performance.

A drawback of the Elite Edition stems from the fact that different variants of the same type of weapon are considered different weapons for purposes of inventory management. Thus, when the Elite Edition is in the inventory, picking up a standard Combat Rifle will place it in the inventory instead of discarding the weapon and keeping the ammo. This makes it more cumbersome to take advantage of the ubiquity of Combat Rifles for purposes of ammunition collection. On the other hand, if you have the Micro-Assembler aug, this is quite the boon, as the 50 crafting parts obtained from breaking down a combat rifle tend to be far more useful than a handful of bullets.

Additionally, the Elite Edition has a range of only 50 meters. When in doubt as to whether a target is within range, check the rangefinder of the 4x Scope or do a laser tag to confirm that the target is within range. Shots taken at close to max range, even with AP ammo loaded, occasionally fail to break helmets, let alone kill the target outright.

Côte d'Azur S.O.W.
The Côte d'Azur is a very niche weapon because it fires only EMP rounds. EMP rounds are capable of temporarily disabling robots and electronic devices, but are not suitable for destroying them permanently. Therefore, in being able to fire only EMP rounds, the Côte d'Azur is unable to destroy even simple devices such as cameras.

Even as an EMP weapon, the usefulness of the Côte d'Azur is questionable, given that there are other weapons capable of firing EMP rounds. Compared to a fully upgraded and silenced 10mm Pistol, the Côte d'Azur only inflicts half the stun time on Sentry Bots. While the Côte d'Azur has a high rate of fire to quickly increase the stun time through successive hits, rate of fire is generally not important in the context of disabling robots, since stunned robots do not return fire, and all devices have a capped maximum stun time. Moreover, the Côte d'Azur has a larger inventory size as compared to the 10mm Pistol. Finally, it should be noted that EMP ammo is not necessary to disable robots and electronic devices, since the Remote Hacking augmentation provides an alternative.

The Côte d'Azur inflicts non-lethal damage, as with any other weapon loaded with EMP ammo. For this reason, the Côte d'Azur can potentially be used as a non-lethal weapon, with the added bonus that EMP rounds disable augmentation usage for a short period of time. The missions in Golem City and G.A.R.M. provide opportunities for deployment of the weapon against augmented enemies.

However, the amount of non-lethal damage is low. For example, about 5 headshots from this rifle are required to down ARC militia and typical Shadow Operatives. The low damage, combined with the scarcity of the ammunition, limits the practicality of the Côte d'Azur as an anti-personnel weapon.

Given its impracticalities, the Côte d'Azur is likely to be beneficial as a quick deterrent, especially when ambushed by multiple, fast-moving robots such as drones.

Notable locations

 * The player begins with this weapon in the first mission of the game (M1: Black Market Buy) if the lethal, long range method of engagement is selected in the opening dialogue with Jim Miller.
 * During the fight in the atrium, all TF29 personnel that carry combat rifles have laser sights already attached to their weapon. Once the Shadow Operatives on the right-side platform are neutralized, TF29 personnel will drop down from above, making it possible to loot their laser-sight-equipped weapons if they die or become incapacitated. It is also possible to access the ledge where the TF29 personnel are initially positioned, through the right-side elevator shaft at the top of the atrium.
 * After arriving in Prague, multiple combat rifles are found in the storage room of Tars' apartment. Use the keycode 9002 to open the storage room.
 * During martial law, several police officers may be found carrying combat rifles already equipped with weapon attachments.

Trivia

 * The combat rifle, and all its variants, are the only weapons in Mankind Divided that don't have dry reloads.
 * The FR-27 in Human Revolution was chambered in its proprietary .303 caliber discarding sabot flechettes, but has been standardized to use 5.56x45mm NATO rounds by the time of Mankind Divided as described in the inventory. It was reclassified in-universe as a Sanctioned Flechette Weapon instead of Rifle, due to its smoothbore barrel not having any rifling, though for gameplay purposes it is still considered as such.
 * The FR27s carried by enemies and various other NPCs do not have ironsights.
 * The FR-27's concept art featured in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Mini-artbook depicts a few changes to the rifle visually, namely an altered foregrip and carry handle. While the weapon in the final build remained mostly unchanged from the previous game, the new design did in fact live on in the form of the Côte d'Azur unique variant.
 * The new carry handle design was also incorporated into the arm-mounted machinegun of enemy EXO-suits.
 * The Côte d'Azur ("Blue Coast"; literally: Coast of Azure in English) variant was named after the, the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France.
 * Despite the Côte d'Azur's carry handle featuring an integral smart targeting system, it behaves much like any other variant of the FR-27 during gameplay.
 * The Côte d'Azur is described as a burst-firing weapon on the official website and in the inventory, despite operating in full-auto during gameplay.
 * It's also the place of a very famous battle in the Halo universe, which might just be a developer nod.
 * During the opening cinematic of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, two of the members of TF29 can be seen loading Elite Edition FR-27s.
 * Both the elite and normal version of the sanction rifle can be 'reload canceled' as Adam inserts the magazine. Simply trigger a sprint animation, a jump, etc, and you'll save several seconds of time normally devoted to reloading, if you time it just right.
 * The developers seem to have kept this in consideration. As a result, all version of the FR-27 weapon have fairly long reloads.
 * Without a silencer equipped, the weapon fires about 15% slower. This only applies to the elite edition.
 * With the elite edition, it takes 3 shots to the back of a metro cop to score a kill, with or without upgrades. About 6 shots are necessary to down the more heavily armored policemen.