Alien bullets/Armor piercing rounds

[bluereaper75]

So... falling skies has given me this idea... how about have a research project where you basically melt down alien metals from alien body armor and cast them into assault rifle bullets? it would be a totally optional research item of course. All you would need to have researched is the alien body armor and alien aircraft plating.

[Kildor]

We already have alien needlers and coilgun.

[bluereaper75]

not like the coilgun or the alien needlers. i mean they would literally be assault rifle bullets but made of alien metal.

[TrashMan]

On my To-Do list is different ammo types for various weapons.

I mena, just look at how many bullet types exist today!
http://www.scribd.com/%28Administrator%29/d/20889587-A-Guide-To-Bullet-Types-and-Abbreviations

Bloody hell, there's like 100 of them on that list!


For assault rifles (maybe pistols and SMG's too) - FMJ (standard), AP and Incideary...HEAP?

For the bazooka a plasma missile or a sabot missile...HEAP?

HEAP rounds for Shiva cannon.

Maybe more.

[Nutter]

For assault rifles (maybe pistols and SMG's too) - FMJ (standard), AP and Incideary...HEAP?

I generally assume the standard bulles are already AP. It's not like the aliens spend much time armourless and that stuff is rather annoying to get through.
 Maybe advances in nanotech and alien materials could allow you to produce better armour piercing bullets?
Because I don't think we really know exactly how heavy those things are other than "heavier than the stuff we use on our own aircaft" so it might be just using the stuff on the jacket would be a better idea.

For the bazooka a plasma missile or a sabot missile...HEAP?

Plasma should work and it's already in the grenade launcher and while I'm not really sure how effective sabot rounds are with rockets and recoliess rifles*, I always assumed the launcher had HEAT anyway. Thermobaric, maybe?
*The launcher is based on the Carl Gustav, right?

HEAP rounds for Shiva cannon.

If the Shiva and the sniper rifle still share their calibre, they could be given some sort of small plasma based explosive as a research as well as the previously mentioned alien AP.



Come to think of it, it'd be nice if earlier weapons could be updated with later advances.
The research message from the needler already mentions the benefits of reproducing its holographic aiming system for other weapons.

[hitch-22]

..considering the blades already exist, monomolecular-tipped bullets that cut through armor and flesh alike, but don't do as much damage on unarmored targets because they go so cleanly through?

..super-expensive anti-matter-tipped bullets "for when you absolutely, positively gotta kill every mofo in the room"?

Just thinking aloud, I'd in general like it if human applications could be kept viable via their own research path, and it would be a choice between lethal but rare and hard-to-research alien tech or more familiar solutions adapted with what you learn from the aliens.

[tb87670]

The best idea is just a general new tech tree: Tech 1.5 aka advanced human weapons. The simplest form of this idea would of course be technology gleaned from studying the aliens but useable in human tech, like say nano-bullets or plasma incendiary rockets/grenades. Stuff that will work in Tech 1 human weapons but brings them up a notch, the go-between before you are actually making alien-level technology.

[Noordung]

different bullets are great but to make it more useful reloading should need less turn points. once i had to use two full turns to reload machine gun, first to move ammo from backpack to left hand and than to reload. and you have elite soliders?
as soliders get more skilled maybe actions should take less turn points. highly skilled soliders in heavy weapons should reload and shoot faster than rookie.

maybe ad options to choose what you want to reload in your weapon similar like you can choose what kind of attack to preform.

[H-Hour]

maybe ad options to choose what you want to reload in your weapon similar like you can choose what kind of attack to preform.

You can load any compatible ammo into your weapon in the battlescape by opening the equipment window and dragging the ammo into an empty weapon.

[Quizer]

Can you also eject (possibly partially used) clips in the battlescape? I feel that especially the grenade launcher, with its flechette ammo which has completely different applications than the arc-firing grenades, would be far more useful if you could eject partially used ammo, then put it back in later. (Dunno if that's already in the game, but if so, I don't know how to do it.)

On the whole, I would welcome being able to choose different ammunition for many of the standard human weapons, and being able to research better bullets made from alien materials makes sense to me. However, to make full tactical use of that would require being able to unload clips in the battlescape. (Though monomolecular bullets probably won't be forthcoming, since those materials have to be curved... hm... spiral-drill-shaped bullets? xD)

[H-Hour]

Can you also eject (possibly partially used) clips in the battlescape?

In the base equipment menu you can eject an ammo by right-clicking. This is likely the same in the battlescape, but I haven't tried it.

[Quizer]

Nope, you can't eject ammo in the battlescape (that I know of). You can only reload, which destroys the old ammo clip even if it wasn't used up fully. This would have to change.

EDIT: I've thrown up a suggestion to that effect on the feature request tracker.

[DarkRain]

Note that the ammo swapped out isn't destroyed, it is stored as 'loose rounds', which are added together back at the base, completing full clips when enough are available.

[Quizer]

I see... Interesting... I didn't know that. Do they get stored over the course of multiple missions, even if you only eject one partial clip each time? And I'm guessing rounds left over at the end of combat count towards this, too?

[DarkRain]

Yes and yes, or at least that's how it worked last time I checked.