Space Marine 2, the hugely anticipated sequel to the 2011 hit has finally launched; and the game brings to the table a variety of build possibilities – there are 6 starting classes to choose from and a variety of primary, secondary and melee weapons to equip. Of course, the main fun in the game is leveling up your character and especially the weapons to deal massive damage to the enemy hordes. If you are looking for how to upgrade weapons quickly in Space Marine 2, we have put up all the details in this guide.
How Does The Weapon Upgrade System In Space Marine 2 Work?
You upgrade weapons in Space Marine 2 through three currencies: XP, Armory Data and Mastery Points. Let us have a look at each of these and how they work together.
XP: XP is used to unlock new weapons which are stronger versions of the current one that you are wielding.
The progress on XP is represented by the bar that goes from Standard, Master-Crafted and Artificer to Relic at the lower half of the weapon screen. Gaining XP is simple – you just need to keep playing with the weapon equipped, and the bar will keep getting filled with white. Once it reaches the end of one level (e.g. Standard), the bar will stop moving ahead. This is because, for it to continue filling into the next tier (e.g. Master-Crafted), you first need to unlock that tier(e.g Master-Crafted) with Armory Data.
Armory Data: The Armory Data unlocks the next level of weapons for that weapon type. However, within the Armory Data, you have
- Master-Colored Armory Data to unlock Master-Crafted weapons (Green color).
- Artificer Armory Data to unlock Artificer tier weapons (Purple color).
- Relic Armory Data to unlock Relic tier weapons (Gold color).
At any point of time, the top right of your screen will have the number of Armory Data for each tier.
After you unlock that tier, you can see the new weapons that you have unlocked. Each of these new weapons will have a higher value on one of the attributes with some downside on another attribute, and you can pick one depending on which looks to be the best suited for your playstyle.
In the above image, upgrading the Bolt Pistol using the Master-Crafted Armory Data gives you two new weapons; one of which is the Master-Crafted -Alpha: this has increased Accuracy but at the cost of lower ammo capacity and ammo reserve. If you equip this weapon and use it in missions, the XP bar will now start filling the Master-Crafted part of the bar as well.
Thus, to summarize, you get XP by using a weapon, XP increases till it fully fills the white bar for that tier, you unlock the next tier by using Armory Data of the right color, equip the new weapon, the XP bar starts filling again till you then unlock the next tier with the Armory Data of that color and so on.
The obvious question is, how do I get the Armory Data – we will come to that in a bit, but lets close explaining the upgrade system once before moving on to getting Armory Data. We have one more piece of the upgrade system to cover – Mastery Points.
Mastery Points: The Mastery Point for each weapon that you equip also fills as you keep using it, like XP. To see the progress on the Mastery Point for that weapon, you can hover over it at the bottom of the screen on the weapon. Unlocking a Mastery Point allows you to put that into the Perk Tree of that weapon, which grant benefits to make the weapon even more destructive.
With all the currencies and their uses out of the way, lets look at how to get these.
How To Get Armory Data In Space Marine 2
You get Armory Data and XP by completing missions in Operations mode in Space Marine 2 and doing Trials. The difficulty level of the mission decides the rarity of the Armory Data and the XP that you will get on completing the mission.
There are 4 difficulty levels for each Operation mission, as indicated by their Threat level:
| Threat Level | Recommended Player Level | XP | Discoverable Armory Data |
| Minimal | 1 | 630 | Master-Crafted |
| Average | 5 | 945 | Master-Crafted |
| Substantial | 10 | 1260 | Artificer |
| Ruthless | 15 | 1890 | Relic |
Keep in mind, you don’t get Armory Data automatically on completing the mission, there are fixed spots at which the Armory Data will spawn during the mission. These remain the same irrespective of difficulty level or the number of times you play that mission. You must go and collect it from these locations. The XP earned will come to you at the end of the mission.
Tips To Upgrade Weapons Quickly In Space Marine 2
Once you have unlocked a new tier for a weapon, and that tier has two or three new weapons that you can now equip; you should run missions with each of these to unlock the Mastery Point and an extra Perk for the overall weapon type. You can switch back to your favorite and enjoy the Perk for it as well.
A new weapon unlock can be used by all classes, so for weapons like Bolt Pistol or Chainsword which can be used by most classes, the upgrade options will also be shared between these classes.
Farm the same mission – different missions do not give higher XP or Armory Data; only different Threat level setting does that. So, once you have become comfortable with the mission design, enemy spawns, etc. in a mission, keep doing that over and over to make it easy
When farming a mission for XP and Armory Data, there is no reason to kill all enemies on your path. If you can avoid them and complete the mission faster, you should absolutely do that. The XP on mission completion remains the same.
And with that you can get down to farming Operation missions for XP and Armory Data to upgrade your weapons quickly in Space Marine 2! If you are looking for a list of all weapons in Space Marine 2 or the full list of campaign & Operation missions in Space Marine 2 to pick one to focus on, we have you covered there as well.