Useless weapon upgrades(weapons Tier rebalancing?)

I was making a youtube video for my solo world last night and one thing I pointed out to my audience is that some of the weapons unlocks in the weapons tab seem really useless compared to other weapons. Example: why would I want a pulse riffle if the tier one Sniper riffle does more damage at longer range? The minigun does half the damage of the pulse riffle per hit and has a lower multi head. Online you have to be very strict on conserving resources, so my question is, what makes the pulse...

Useless weapon upgrades(weapons Tier rebalancing?)