I've been goofing around with just using Secondary weapons in hard mode.
Now, the pistols kinda stink, but that's okay, they should. However, has anyone else noticed that an SMG on full auto can rock an alien that you could Inferno with the flamethrower and he laughs at you?
The aim's not bad... certainly no worse then the sniper at short range... and my snipers at 90% crouched can't hit something a screen or two over usually anyway. It's light, the ammo packs easily, and you can run around with a few grenades for those 'round the corner' shots. RF on it seems pretty regular, as well, and it's a burst fire.
So, my team:
- My guy with the riot shotgun can pepper a target with sabot rounds and hopefully knock down something at range in 2 salvos.
- My assault rifle fires all over the place and can usually take something out, but has decent range but not much better then the SMG.
- The grenade launcher occassionally does stupid levels of damage, especially around corners or if the enemy's grouped. I'm just as likely to bounce the grenades off the map or smack them off an invisible beam and blow my own team up occassionally.
- The flamethrower requires me to leave a guy's butt hanging out in the wind due to range unless he cremates everything around. They're great for hitting multiple aliens all lined up in a row... which happens... never?
- My snipers are burning off TU's for halfhearted shots at long range because they can't do crap in close. Once the alien's turn starts, they're burgermeat. Only highly useful, at best, on 1/4 maps. Especially when the Alien's Particle Rifle has better aim then my trained soldier with a scope.
- The SMG chews up aliens like they were jokes at short-medium range, and fires so many rounds you could hand it to a blind baby in a stroller and hit something.
I haven't gotten them into the Medium armor aliens yet, but so far, they seem like the primier weapon of choice for enemy obliteration, especially in early game.
Thoughts?