What's your favorite weapon?

[Sarin]

I've been messing with plasma blaster, and found MG superior to it. Out of plasma weapons, pistol is best because it is sidearm, greatly complementing laser weaponry or sniper type weapons. Rifle is okay general purpose weapon, kinda deciding if I should use that or bolter. I know some people like laser rifle, but I found its lack of damage against heavily armored enemies quite problematic.

[Tamanfodder]

This is the third time i´ve posted on this thread?

Anyway, I think my final favourites will be:

1.Bolter! Against all odds i found it a good weapon, because its ridicilous damage output. It´s accuracy and clip size are pathetic, but i compensate the first one by using only soldiers sufficently trained with the impossible-to-miss laser rifles.

2. Laser rifles. I use theese as the standard weapon for my troops. Pretty much guaranteed hit! Somewhat poor damage output compensated by low TU-cost and acceptable ammo consuption (and accuracy!!!). Mainly giwen to rookiees those of them who survive to be skilled enough will be granted the title of Bolterier. 

3. Sniper. I dislike it's lacking accuracy and damage... first one can be explained by short barrel, but the second one? It uses 20mm rounds! It could be classed as a cannon! Still in the hands of a ACCURATE soldier it can prowide some long-range softening, in the hands of your avarage rookiee though, it only provides civilian casulties... Still a nice weapon in need of a buff.

[Sarin]

Speaking of weapons, I got a question. I got already a good team (ranks from Major to Colonel), and looking for a general purpose assault rifle. Been trying out Bolter, Plasma Rifle and Laser rifle....what do you think is best?

[gargy2002]

Hi all,
I have got 5 teams and use them equally so they are all pretty experienced and high ranked (SWO and higher). I always have 2 snipers, one uses a coin gun, the other one a sniper rifle, 2 heavy laser shooters, 2 explosive experts, one with a grenade launcher and the other one with a rocket launcher. Both also have a particle beam pistol for close combats for the Big City like missions. The last two guys have laser rifles. I can play any mission with these teams and hardly ever loose a soldier. I like the grenade launcher with the plasma grenades, its a very effective weapon and a grenade launcher soldier is always the highest ranked officer with more kills than missions..
I play a 2.3.1 release on linux. Could anyone tell me please if there are the particle beam rifles and cannons in the game? I couldn't get them so far but the particle beam pistol was researched a long time ago..

[Sarin]

While experimenting with weapons recently, I think I found one, quite weird effect. Some weapons have burst mode where, instead of firing in sequence, all shots are fired simultaneously. This appears to significantly reduce the accuracy, it looks like there can't be even partial overlap of the projectiles, so you get a very wide spread. I wonder if it is just me, or is there really such effect...because it makes some weapons hardly usable, like bolter, plasma blaster or needler.

[parjlarsson]

While experimenting with weapons recently, I think I found one, quite weird effect. Some weapons have burst mode where, instead of firing in sequence, all shots are fired simultaneously. This appears to significantly reduce the accuracy, it looks like there can't be even partial overlap of the projectiles, so you get a very wide spread. I wonder if it is just me, or is there really such effect...because it makes some weapons hardly usable, like bolter, plasma blaster or needler.

It's just a graphical bug thing.

Put a Plasma Rifle person on full auto/burst react at long distance and you'll see them apparently fire all their shots at once. Now make the same long-distance shot manually and you'll see the same spread and inaccuracy, but it's shot after shot.

All it means really is that the coding for react burst fire might need some looking into (low priority) and that plenty of weapons are very inaccurate at long distances - which is as it should be, see the wiki for details on spread and how different weapons suffer from deviance at longer distance relative to the point of aim.

[Sarin]

I'm not sure about it.

I've used automatic modes on long range before with many weapons, and only few show this effect, and it happens on any range. On range of about 5 cells, my soldier can put all three rounds from plasma rifle burst into target, but always score jsut one or two hits from burst using bolter or needler. That makes those two weapons a lot worse since their performance on short to medium ranges is terrible.

[Kemlo]

Some related discussion.

[parjlarsson]

I'm not sure about it.

I've used automatic modes on long range before with many weapons, and only few show this effect, and it happens on any range. On range of about 5 cells, my soldier can put all three rounds from plasma rifle burst into target, but always score jsut one or two hits from burst using bolter or needler. That makes those two weapons a lot worse since their performance on short to medium ranges is terrible.

Ok, sounds like you know more than I. I have mainly only experience using the plasma rifle much.

[Sarin]

Just try out using bolter, needler or plasma blaster, you'll see what I mean.

Interestingly enough, it appears to affect some more weapons only in reaction fire, for example machine gun in 5-shot burst firing as RF.

[dodon]

On range of about 5 cells, my soldier can put all three rounds from plasma rifle burst into target, but always score jsut one or two hits from burst using bolter or needler.

According to the weapon definition the plasma rifle has less spread than the bolter and needler, so I'd expect something like that.

That makes those two weapons a lot worse since their performance on short to medium ranges is terrible.

Well, repeat your test and put a wall between your soldier and the alien. ...
Does the result make the plasma rifle useless?
You see different weapons give different advantages. Other wise we wouldn't need this thread.

[ViolentAJ]

My favorite weapon is the coilgun. I love its accuracy and the fact that it can kill an armoured Ortnok in one hit. Its only drawbacks are the size of its magazine, and the fact that said magazines only contain 2 shots. It's nice that they can be bought though, and they're cheap.

Laser rifles are nice when it comes to accuracy and volume of fire, but their lack of punch is frustrating. I have one of my bases outfitted with laser rifles.

Grenade launchers with plasma nades.

Particle rifles. The only downside is that ammunition is very hard to come by, and cannot be produced or bought.

As far as my squads go, I have 8 bases, 4 of which have active squads that go on missions (the other bases are just for manufacturing, research, and dedicated interception; their small security teams are armed with surplus plasma rifles and whatever they get from killing attacking aliens). I always have at least one sniper in my team, one dedicated medic, armed with a pistol and a medikit, one soldier armed with a machine gun, flamer, plasma blaster, or beam cannon (depending on supply and mission objectives), one grenadier (two of my bases use the G. launcher with P-nades, the other two bases use plasma riflemen armed with stun grenades and plasma hand grenades), and the rest armed with an assault weapon (depending on base doctrine, skill of soldiers, supply, and other factors).

[andrew.prg]

At least in the early- to mid-game, the setting of choice is, in a six-man team:
- three "Rambos" with a MG
- two Riflemen (as soon as I research the laser rifle), each with a Flamethrower in a backpack,
- one Grenade Launcher guy, with a Tokarev or Laser Pistol in the holster
Each soldier has a Medikit, of course.

The purpose is to eliminate most of the Scout or Fighter teams (3 to 5 aliens) in the first round. In the small maps, the GL soldier usually gets two aliens, each with a 15-TU three round burst. Then, the MG and Laser Rifle guys get the more distant ones. Generally, I found that a crouching MG-man is able to kill with a Full-auto shot even quite strong aliens at short to medium range (up to some 20 squares), because cca six hits with MG ammo kill any Taman and even a weakly-armored Ortnok. On longer ranges, a kneeling MG soldier usually gets at least two hits from the 20 Full-auto shots, even if the hit percentage shown is quite low (5-10%); this is just enough to kill a weak Taman, stronger Tamans or Ortnoks survive; but their Plasma guns are not sufficiently precise, therefore with some Medikit aid, a crouching MG soldier is usually able to win the shoot-out anyway, even without hiding. Laser rifles are nicely precise, so the two Pulse fires and one Wave is usually enough to get a kill or at least a "Mad Rage" situation.

In Harvester missions, the MG guys usually take a crouching positions with reaction fire at a safe distance (at least 15 squares) from the craft entrance; moving a soldier close and then running back behind the wing of the craft makes the aliens usually to go outside, where the MGs get them. Then, the assault guys drop their Laser Rifles, take their Flamethrower and go fry the last one or two aliens, who usually wait in the small central room of the craft, with stairs.

Especially funny are the Big City maps, where I just get the soldiers of the dropship, make them crouch in a straight line, and wait with Reaction fire on. As soon the aliens start to pop up on the top of that parking lot building, or what it is, they receive a welcome from the three MGs and the two lasers, firstly by Reaction fire and then by Full Auto and Pulse fires. Shooting upside is highly imprecise, but they die anyway; possible wounds on my side are promptly cured by the Grenadier in the role of a Medic, because the GL cannot shoot up to the top level of the building.

I do not use the Sniper rifle, because paradoxically, it´s Aimed shot is less precise than the Full Auto MG shot (of course most of the twenty bullets miss, but at least a few always hit, and that counts). All Plasma weapons and Assault/Bolter rifles are not useful due to low precision - they just cannot guarantee the result within one turn, where Laser rifles and MGs can (and Flamers/GLs too, of course). Even in close-combat role, the 14-TU, 5-bullet shot from the MG is usually quite OK, so my MG guys do not use pistols. Shotguns have neither sufficient range nor performance - at close range, GL or Flamethrower easily outperforms them in terms of damage.

Perhaps the MG/Laser combination will lose its power later, against stronger alien armours, and will need to be replaced, but the whole Plasma arsenal I invented so far seems inferior to these simpler weapons.

I play on Insane difficulty.

[Sarin]

I wonder why you use 6 man teams instead of full 8...8 soldiers mean more space for specializations, and more flexibility....

[andrew.prg]

I agree that having eight soldiers makes sense (more specialization, or dedicated medics, etc.), but still, I have reasons for using only six. So far, I found that I am able to beat just any alien team I encountered without much problems - even with four soldiers (give them four MGs, Medikits, have them crouch and fire a "Full-auto" on everything that moves - they will typically win).

Six is a number which can usually kill most aliens on small maps in one turn (or, allows to take on board also a Sniper or Close combat specialist, who are currently inferior in effectiveness to my heavy weapon guys, but I train them for "future purposes", when I might need these specializations for some reason).

So why not eight? Firstly, the less soldiers, the more action, shots and kills per person - therefore faster improvement of statistics. If, in future, I encounter tougher opposition, I will be able to merge these well-trained guys from both teams into one. Secondly, the less soldiers, the less burden for the player - I have quite a lot of missions, so why move on map many soldiers when I can do all the work with a few.

This is, I think, a consequence of imbalanced gameplay (I play 2.4-dev on Insane difficulty, but still). There are too many UFOs, too many missions - around forty per month - but they are too easy. I love the game, it is nicely done, but the AI is somewhat stupid (the aliens usually do not crouch, so they cannot hit effectively, they do not take cover behind walls, they do not cooperate as a group, etc.). If this cannot be improved, then it would be better at least to raise the number of aliens in missions, and lower the frequency of UFO sightings. I would prefer much less missions (it gets repetitive after some time), but much more challenging (so that I would really have to be afraid and use my soldiers to the maximum).