Bolt weapons still do not feel good to use even with competitive stats, after spending more time on darktide I've come to the conclusion it's the penetration that is the problem. It makes them feel weak and unsatisfying. 


The bolt weapons in darktide are immensely fun because they give you that solid feel of blowing things apart with a grenade shooting rifle or pistol. Space marine 2 completely missed that mark by giving them penetration which doesn't make sense from a lore standpoint and makes them less satisfying. 


My solution to this is to replace penetration entirely with an aoe that has the size and strength based on the number of enemies it would have penetrated, something like 0.05m of aoe per enemy penetrated. So for example a bolt sniper with a ~0.3m aoe would feel much more satisfying than a bolt sniper that punches through 6 enemies. 


This wouldn't affect balance all that much as overall damage and ammo economy would remain very similar, all while making fighting more satisfying without drastically changing ttk.