Dual Wielding Pistols?

[DanielOR]

Dual-wielding RL's - now that is badass!

[sirg]

It would be a fun gameplay concept, but because later in the game you need a tank to scratch an alien, this becomes pretty useless.

Tbh I don't like the fact that the aliens are so hard to kill having so much armor and resilience. OK, it's ok to have one or two types of very strong and resilient aliens, like the lobsterman in TFTD , but otherwise it's frustrating to waste a full magazine of ammo to kill any alien.

That's why sidearms and pistols become so useless even after the 1st missions.

[Surrealistik]

Dual wielded laser pistols works. Totally feasible due to the lack of recoil. Your aim obviously wouldn't be as good as if you were using a single pistol, but the degredation wouldn't be such that you couldn't plausibly hit anything.

[Sophisanmus]

And, on the same track, double wielding laser rifles or heavy lasers would still suffer more diminished accuracy due to the weight of swinging two large weapons around.  On that idea, perhaps there needs to be some accuracy modifier for all weapons, single- or dual-wielded, based on weight versus the user's strength, with a modifier for each weapon based on recoil?  Offhand, I'm also thinking something along the lines of 150% increase to that value for dual-wielding a 2-hand secondary, and a 200% increase for 2-hand primaries.

Would have to be careful about what can be dual-wielded with what; I would assume an assault rifle and machine gun would be sufficiently compatible that a soldier could fire full auto on both simultaneously, but I don't think you could fire a ball shot from a Heavy Plasma with any other fire mode from any other plasma weapons, even if the other HP's modes worked.  Also, a 3-round burst from an Assault Rifle probably wouldn't work with a 3-round burst from a Plasma Rifle due to the projectile speed differences and such...

[DanielOR]

I am starting to get a feeling that we are getting WAY to sophisticated for a feature that will be used very infrequently.  Aside from Terminator, very few humans should have a need to fire assault rifles one-handed.  As an oddity, I might *once* load a freakishly strong soldier with a MG in each hand, just to watch him stroll down the field.  Maybe rename him "Arnie". 

Oh, and reloading while holding two assault weapons - that ought to be a hoot.  Same goes for selecting fire modes.  Seriously, is all this worh it?

[Sophisanmus]

Yes.

[Winter]

Oh, and reloading while holding two assault weapons - that ought to be a hoot.  Same goes for selecting fire modes.  Seriously, is all this worh it?

Well, no, since it's not possible. Only one-handed weapons can be dual-wielded. If you place a two-handed item into a troop's hands and then add a one-handed item, only the one-handed item will be useable, and you can't ever hold two two-handed items. Which is exactly how we want it.

Regards,
Winter

[Sophisanmus]

Baseless affirmations aside, I think this is an important issue to address, or at least consider and/or debate if there are any plans farther along to implement powered armor suits which provide sufficient strength and targeting assistance as to allow the use of two primary weapons.  This may also be pertinent to later-game alien 2x2 units, and possibly human 2x2s. 

Also, paired Laser Pistols have already been mentioned as a feasible use, and if there are any weapons that can be paired, there will be some demand for a system flexible enough to allow paired use for all weapons, even if it is disadvantageous to the point of unusability in most of those cases.

2-handed weapons are not necessarily a requirement in most cases, but more of a suggestion for if you want to hit anything.  If 2-handed weapons can never be used together, then there may be need of a new, "1.5" hand class, for SMGs and other weapons that can be held, aimed, and fired with one hand, but have enough recoil to need a second hand for accuracy.

[Aiki-Knight]

Two-handed side-arm firing is not accurate at all. No police or military force on earth does it. It's pure movie-fiction. Yes, one could handle the double recoil. Yes, it's possible to hit something. Just very unlikely. So far, this game does a good job of remaining true to the way weapons and tactics really work. Anyone who's fired a handgun knows that it's sufficiently difficult to hit another person at 7 meters with two hands and eye-level aiming.

I will defer happily to the developers. To the rest, I say, "Please no cowboy-movie rootin' tootin' shootin' dual pistols from the hip." It doesn't work.

[Surrealistik]

The appalling lack of accuracy is true for weapons that feature recoil, not so much for those that do not, so it should be possible to dual wield certain firearms.

[Aiki-Knight]

The appalling lack of accuracy is true for weapons that feature recoil, not so much for those that do not, so it should be possible to dual wield certain firearms.

Except that dual-wielded weapons would lack line-of-sight aiming. If you're lining up each weapon to fire, you're losing time by switching. If you're not lining up to eye-aim, you're not aiming.

[Surrealistik]

As I mentioned earlier, dual wielded weapons obviously would not have comparable accuracy to one of these weapons being used singularly, precisely because you're firing both weapons without properly aligning them. However, the accuracy on recoiless weapons should be good enough so that the increased firepower serves to compensate for the reduction of precision, thus making the practice viable if situational.

[Winter]

As I mentioned earlier, dual wielded weapons obviously would not have comparable accuracy to one of these weapons being used singularly, precisely because you're firing both weapons without properly aligning them. However, the accuracy on recoiless weapons should be good enough so that the increased firepower serves to compensate for the reduction of precision, thus making the practice viable if situational.

Talking specifically about the laser pistol, you still wouldn't be able to see where you were aiming the infrared laser beam without looking through the pistol scope or other vision enhancer. Aiki-Knight is entirely correct -- the lack of recoil doesn't compensate for the fact that you'll have accuracy considerably lower than an ordinary handgun of any variety due to lack of line-of-sight aiming and lack of a two-handed grip, accuracy which is already pretty poor due to you firing a handgun and not a rifle. And now you're now using two hands to fire two handguns suboptimally when you could be using them to fire a laser rifle optimally, thereby eliminating the only battlefield advantage pistols have over rifles, which is that they can be fired one-handed.

Regards,
Winter

[sirg]

You could attach red laser pointers on pistols for good accuracy, so then you know what and where you'll shoot.

[Sophisanmus]

Though, in this game most of the fighting is very close-quarters, generally less than a city block in area.  An example from an X-COM game, Apocalypse: With the exception of the end-game, where indiscriminately trashing enemy structures from the inside out was about as much of a mission objective as shooting the aliens, I found a use for auto-fire dual pistols in eliminating brainsuckers and hyperworms when they got too close, generally the 1-4 space range.  To be honest, opening up with a pair of SMGs at that range would be preferable to a single one, or just about any other single- or two-handed weapon.  Laser pistols would probably be useful somewhat farther out due to recoil, probably 5-8 or so spaces, though not quite as devastating.  Of course, accuracy would suffer greatly outside these ranges, perhaps a single formula could handle this.  I'm not pushing for a 2-hand blastfest all-action all-the-time, but a more sensible way to keep this as an option while keeping it plausibly balanced.