This card seems overcosted to me versus the Blaster Pistol. They both have the same number of damage sides, but this one costs 3.

This rifle can do unblockable damage.

It allowed me to kill Qui-Gon Jinn that was generating a lot of shields. Well worth the extra resource.

I mean the blast pistol has 3 damage sides but one costs resources, and they come in at 1, 2 and +2 damage. This means you'll be able to trigger things as one big action with other ranged damage.

This card, the rifle, has 2 damage faces and a special that causes damage, the damage faces ad 2 and +3 while the special face deals 2 unblockable damage. So the damage potential on the three damage faces is an average of 2.333 over 1.667 from the pistol. On top of that the special face can trigger with other valuable specials, like Poe and Lightsaber.

It's also important to look beyond the damage. The pistol provides a shield and 2 blank sides (this may be ideal in a trooper No where to Run deck but 2 blank sides will plague most decks. The rifle comes with a resource discard a resource generator and only one blank.

Also keep in mind you can discard early game upgrades to put this sucker into play.

I think it's a strong improvement over the pistol, the problem is you only have room for so many 3 cost upgrades in your deck. If you are splashing yellow do you cut detonators for this? Probably not, etc. I think the cost is fine, especially given the benefits of the die for the rifle.

Compare it to the standard Lightsaber. Its pretty much a ranged version Lightsaber with little tweaks.