By the way, since we're here already, why not ask something else, right? I searched the forums and read about weapon loadouts and such. My questions is: in UFO:EU, Plasma was definately the best weapon in game, but apparently in here, Plasma is not all that great and Lasers are actually pretty good. Is this correct? Also, I'm rather fond of my snipers; should I start training them to use heavy laser rifles instead of sniper guns proper? I wish there was a laser sniper rifle, tho. Seems to me a shame I'm to drop my snipers because their weapon of choice will become obsolete.
It's situational -- depends on how likely you are to hit (the shorter the distance and the less cover the target has, the less important the weapon's spread is...), how quickly you need 'em dead, and what armor they're wearing.
Some random notes:
- A few weapons can shoot through walls (at reduced damage). These are the sniper rifle, coil gun, bolter rifle, and minigun (MP only). This means that you can *kill* enemies whom your shooter can't even see. These weapons also make it easier to kill civvies for the same reason.
Sniper rifle ammo is available cheaply from the beginning and isn't particularly hard to stockpile, so it's not very expensive to engage in a long-range sniper duel with 'em. DF carts are less available but still purchasable. Coil gun ammo is bulky and significantly much more difficult to stockpile, meaning that you can less afford to take an iffy shot with them than you can with the sniper rifle.
- Lower-power ballistic weapons (e.g. the SMG) do almost nil damage to enemies wearing medium armor. The /maximum/ possible damage you can do with a 15-round burst through medium armor is... 15.
- Lasers tend to be highly accurate but fairly low damage. Against well-armored opponents, heavy lasers are substantially more efficient in terms of damage/TU than laser rifles; however, they're slower to fire, making it harder to use them for reaction fire.
- Plasma pistols are nastier than your average human sidearm; each hit will do ~10-20 to a medium-armored alien (or 30-60 for a 3-rd burst). For comparison, a stab with a combat knife should do 0-40, a stab with a monomolecular knife should do 40-76, and a thrown monomolecular knife should do ~33-63.
- Plasma weapons generally are higher damage/much lower precision, making them nasty at close range and worthless at long range.
- Particle beam weapons are nastier at damage than plasma, and somewhat more accurate. A particle beam pistol shot will do 19-39 through medium armor or 57-117 if a 3-rd burst entirely hits.
The particle beam rifle is inferior to the sniper rifle for sniping --
An aimed shot with a particle beam rifle will be less accurate than an aimed shot with a sniper rifle (crouched v. crouched, the spread values are 0.7 each X/Y vs. 0.45 each X/Y; compare with plasma rifle standing up = 1.0/1.0 or 1.9/1.9 for plasma rifle burst fire standing up). The sniper shot would do 83 pts to an alien wearing medium armor; the particle beam rifle shot would do 53-73, with much harder to get ammo. (...and the coil gun is as precise as the sniper rifle, would do 122-194 per hit).
The needler, fired crouched, is not quite as precise as the sniper rifle (0.6/0.6), and would do less damage (73-83).
...and the data file for the heavy needler looks badly bugged; it looks like an aimed shot with it would do far /less/ damage than the regular needler.
