Messages

1

Tactics / Re: *SPOILERS* Weapon Analysis

« on: October 18, 2011, 04:03:09 am »

Machine Pistol
----------------------

40 range, 20+-5 damage, 5/8/14TU, 1/3/8 shots.

One of the most useful weapons in the game. Not for it's killing power, it's accuracy, it's range or even its burst abilities. It's for one reason: it fits on your belt. This makes it a very versatile weapon in a tactical fall-back sense.

It opens up a whole world of equipment options. You can drop your current weapon and whip out your MP for 3TU's (handy for GL/RL ditching). You can spray a few bullets at an almost dead enemy to take them out. You can carry a medikit in your holster for crying out loud. Everyone can be a medic.

It's may be an absolutely hopeless weapon against armour. It might be inaccurate at range. Other secondaries may be a little (heaps) more powerful. But it's cheap, it's quick, it has a good snap/3-shot/auto TU scheme and allows lots of other equipment options. You can use it for all the early/mid game without a problem.

The Machine Pistol is cheap, versatile, handy and full of ammo. Exactly what a secondary weapon should be.

2

Tactics / Re: experience?

« on: October 18, 2011, 03:37:43 am »

Double post (and soon to be a triple).

Testing procedure:

Simple mod of the machine pistol.

Changing Snap-shot to a range 120, damage 150, high accuracy shot, 5TU.

3-shot remains normal.

Changing Full-Auto to a range 120, damage 2, 120 shot burst, 5TU.

Magazine upped to 240 shots.

Two soldiers(1+2) in squad will use Full-Auto for kills. The rest will use Snap-shot. One soldier( will also try and kill-scum on Full-Auto (the percentage to-hit still comes up).

I'll report how they do on "Close" skill gain compared to missions/kills.

Initial thoughts (4 missions in) is that hits count for exp. At least, they seem to. Soldier 2 has more kills on full auto, but also has far higher skill gain. I'll report testing after I've got about 20 kills on each type of soldier, with soldier 8 only kill scumming. I might also just Full-Auto at walls with Soldier 7 to see if there's skill gain without hitting anything.

3

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: October 17, 2011, 02:57:18 pm »

I'll admit that I'm still in the fairly early game (about 3-4 months in on hard) so I haven't reasearched a lot. But the heavy weapons seem to have it for me. I haven't actually been worried in the game so far and am starting to wonder if the whole research thing isn't a waste of time for everything but armour, craft weapons and better craft. I tend to out-sniper the enemy every battle, with just enough stuff in reserve for close-quarters if I need it.

#1 Rocket launcher. Good: Long range, good accuracy, splash damage (possible indirect kills), cheap TU cost, highish damage.
Bad: One shot, expensive ammo, civilian casualties.
I carry 5-6 of these as a main weapon in my squad with a reload in the holster. Fire, forget, drop and pull out your "actual" main weapon from your backpack. Makes you feel all evil and commie but by god does it work. 10-12 rockets flying everywhere in 2 rounds finishes almost all opposition (and sometimes a poorly informed civilian).

2: Sniper rifle. Good: Accuracy(ducked), shoot through walls, 5 round clip, alright power, can still medi-kit someone without dropping it.
Bad: high TU cost for accuracy, needs ducking, sometimes woefully inaccurate.
Sort of like my backup rocket launchers. 2 as main weapons, 1-3 in backpacks with a spare clip. Sniper team at a moments notice.

3: Machine Pistol. Good: Fits on your belt, good ammo, low TU/shots output, makes all soldiers multi-purpose/close/medic experts. Bad: crappy damage, low ranged accuracy, hopeless vs heavy armour.
It fits on your belt. What else is there to say? It also fires 8 shots for not many TU with suprising crouched accuracy. Just something to pull out and spray at whatever you want/can't hit any other way. Ultimate secondary weapon.

My other favourites are the MG and the grenade launcher. I'm actually leaning toward's the MG instead of as many snipers, the "1" shot kill of full auto is amazing, although they make my squads a little too static for my liking. I like grenade launchers (and grenades) for the very cool things you can do with them. Can't quite reach an alien? Target 2-3 Z-levels up (by holding shift and pulling back a square or two), timed burst and pretend your mini-artillery. Works more often than not....

My standard soldier (pretty much everyone) has armour+night vision, a RL or sniper equpped, medikit+rocket/magazine in holster, machine pistol+grenade on belt, and then either a sniper/MG/GL+clips+grenades in their Backpack. or just a random weapon I want to try. Nothing has ever suprised me, and my poor troops carry this enormous load without a hitch. Even the bugged "big-city" wasn't a problem with a loadout like this. Eveyone can do everything, with enough ammo to keep on going regardless. Plasma smasma

4

Tactics / Re: experience?

« on: October 17, 2011, 01:43:32 pm »

I'll have to test this on the exp per hit thing. There's a few questions I'll try to answer:

1: Is it advantagous to go for lighter weapons? It will give you more hits for each kill, so therefore more exp? The machine-pistol is looking like a good close skiller compared to the others if this is true(as well as a testing device).

2: Does a kill shot give more exp than a normal hit? Or just any shot you fire for that matter? Do you have to hit anything at all? Is ammo spraying a viable exp harvesting technique? (it used to be in xcom AFAIK, making the almighty ammo-less laser rifle all the better).

3: Can you kill scum. Depending on which points above prove true (kill/hit/shot exp gains) do shooting dead bodies count as hitting "something"? And are the last shots of say a machine-gun volley counted as hits even against a dead target (as they're all resolved that "action").

Will report my findings, but it might take a bit of time. Some might not be easily testable, but I should be able to check a few trends from the above list at the very least. Or I'll learn a bit and check the code.....