hmm, when i use needlers, i got a lot of hits. Will this raise the points my soldiers get instead of taking them out with 1 shot of any other weapon?
I tested and burst fire is equivalent with a single hit in the term of skill improvement. Using snap shots more times in the same TU is better, up to 4 hits within the same skill in a mission. So worth to change weapon between different skill classes to improve health, speed and accuracy faster, rather than delivering more than 4 hits within the same skill.
I always use sidearms to enhance my skills when my team is in numeric superiority, which is happen more times in every missions. For example captured plasma pistols do very little damage to well armored enemies, so I can fire even 20 pistol shots (4-4 with 5 soliders) in the same turn against an armored Taman, who will survive these, then finish the job with the last few soliders using Laser Rifle single shots, where I like the low TU and good accuracy.
Sniper Rifle is also cool, I use infra goggles to take out enemy through walls, rather than rising a close surprise in buildings. Snapshot need much TU but as a compensation one hit is conuted as 1.5 into the improvement of accuracy skill. There is a ceil at about 11 hits in a mission, so ideally a solider should make:
4 close, 4 assault and 2 sniper skilled hits. In this case will receive the most hp, speed, accuracy and weapon skill points after each mission.
Unfortunately there are not enough enemies in the map for all soliders, this is why I always use sidearms to practice aiming. I upgraded
Lazy HUD v2 with hit counters to help tracking which solider reached enough hits, then I save the remaining enemies to others. This way result the fastest skill improvements through the whole team.