What's your favorite weapon?

[GPS51]

Any thought given to "guided" rpg missiles with say 30 or 50% less dmg that are available once a soldier reaches a certain level in high explosives?

[Kiki]

I never hit them with just one weapon. My four man squads rain fire on them. When one fails, or misses the other three don't.  What we need is plasma rockets that are guided. Hit them around corners. That put the fear of god in-um. Also, if they land in Texas, can't we let native shoot them up bit.

[FelixDrake]

In 2.4

Starting:
Machine pistol
Assault rifle
Machine gun
Not for how effective they are, but for the sheer number of low damage hits they can inflict.  Start with these, then move onto laser weaponry, and your whole squad will be crack shots in no time with the weapon type of choice.  It should be noted that you WILL need something higher impact against medium armored foes, which brings me to my early game gratuitous armor penetration faves.

Grenade launcher ... Because boom, you're dead x3 hard to miss
And...
Electromagnetic Rifle
I saw the sniper skill and figured it was long range.  I was disappointed ... Then I realized it was a medium range capable wall ripping armor shredding shotgun that helps you gain skill in the two skills eventually used for particle accelerators, all from research that is much faster than plasma rifles, and you can make the ammo.
Great to finish the job once your other guys are done distracting the armored ortok with laser pointers.

The later game guns are fun and all, but the weapon selection listed above is what carries me to that later game with great skills off minimal gun research.

[theDoom]

The 2.5 Dev regular pistol is my new favorite gun. I'll explain the situation that made me fall in love with this thing. Okay, so I'm on excavation, second mission of the campaign, but already familiar with this map from good ol' v2.2. My medic gets behind the pillar (the one piece of cover on the left exit from spawn). Next turn, Taman comes pretty close (one unit away from the opposite side of the pillar) with plenty of TU's for RF. So I take out flashbang, use it, then walk around the pillar. Take a shot with pistol. Hit. Take another one. Another hit. It takes 4 shots to kill the regular Taman, by which time I'm dying of laughter. The way that the soldier takes the longest time to aim that one point blank shot (considering the animation is longer than a sniper rifle shot, I have no idea why it costs only 4 TU per shot), puts down his gun, take the next snap shot, etc, without any hint of emotion or rushing just cracks me up. My thought process during this time reminds me of the Spectre monologue in SC2 ("This one has your name on it. *Bang* Okay.... this one has your name on it. *Bang*. Okay, I'm pretty sure that THIS one.... *Bang*. What the hell is your name anyway?")

[ShipIt]

... "This one has your name on it. *Bang* Okay.... this one has your name on it. *Bang*. Okay, I'm pretty sure that THIS one.... *Bang*. What the hell is your name anyway?"

Hehe. Epic. 

[FelixDrake]

Played with coilgun some more, and EM Rifle still is hands down better IMHO.
Killing things through walls tends to be a yes/no proposition, and yes, you kneel just inside the harvester while 1-2 guys lens out the bands, yes you can clear out the UFO with no risk, less ammo cost, and more sniper skill practice.
As for long range shots, coilgun is not accurate enough for eight shots (2 plus 3x2 for reloads) to last a long mission and far from needed in a short one.  Now if not for the EM rifle, it would be that or plasma weaponry (with which I am unimpressed) for no alien materials used assault weaponry.  Then I would consider it.  I would also consider it if I started running into stuff that it took like 10 Bolter hits to kill.
The flavor text implies that the coilgun does not provoke reaction fire. Can anyone confirm or refute this?

Laser tag (you didn't expect that light gun to actually kill a heavily armored target, did you?) and NERF rapid fire skill practice weapons (again, machine pistols are for target practice), the more I use the EM rifle, the more I love it.  That said, it is straight up FUN to emptying a machine pistol or double tapping someone with a handgun.  Point blank MG full auto and air burst GL burst retain their 15% gratuity for enjoyable, well, gratuitousness.