Equipment/Obsoletable equipment
This page is intended to monitor and prevent the "ültimate überweapon" syndrome. Eventually, all equpiment that can be obsoleted should be listed here and every other equipment piece should have its advantages to the very end-game. By obsolete equipment piece I mean one that in mid to late-game, with no research, resource and financial constraints, can be replaced with good effect for every player, regardless of his play-style, strategic situation, difficulty setting, etc.
Let's not take price or market availability into account (though they will be useful balancing factors to make even obsolete weapons viable in the early to mid-game). OTOH even skills and inventory sizes should be somewhat considered (e.g. it is impossible for a primary weapon to obsolete a secondary weapon, but a single-handed sidearm obsoletes any roughly equivalent primary weapon).
Damage type should be considered only if there is a considerable susceptibility in a strong alien, or resistance in most strong aliens or alien armour types. Generally, damage type should not be a weapon's only advantage, as it gets boring (though a really gameplay-friendly exception, e.g. fetching the lovely old flamethrower from the cellar against a really tough late-game alien, could be nice). Big resistances or susceptibilities tend to force players to have huge inventories, while there should be many equally viable weapon sets that players choose according to their personal play-style or even current mood.
Primary Weapons
- Assault Rifle mostly obsoleted by any of the other rifles (sometimes skills differ).
- Sniper Rifle mostly obsoleted by Particle Beam Rifle (and comparable to the primary fire mode of the Laser Rifle).
- Frag Grenade Shells obsoleted by Plasma Grenade Shells.
- Bolter Rifle mostly obsoleted by Laser Rifle. Bolter Rifle has longer range, but too low accuracy to make use of it.
- Machine Gun mostly obsoleted by Plasma Blaster. Machine Gun has longer range, but does not do enough damage to stay competitive.
Secondary Weapons
- Combat Knife obsoleted by Kerrblade (not quite, because Combat Knife is much smaller) and Plasma Blade and Monomolecular Blade (completely).
- 9mm Pistol obsoleted by any of the other pistols.
- Submachine Gun mostly obsoleted by Plasma Pistol, even if Plasma Pistol has a bit lower range and different secondary fire mode skill.
- Riot Shotgun obsoleted by Plasma Pistol, though Plasma Pistol is somewhat slower to use and has a different primary fire mode skill.
Misc
- Frag Grenade obsoleted by Plasma Grenade.
- High-Explosive Mine obsoleted by Plasma Mine.
- Laser Proximity Mine mostly obsoleted by Tachyon Proximity Mine.
Armor
- Combat Armour obsoleted by Nanocomposite Armor.
- Nanocomposite Armor mostly obsoleted by Heavy Nano Armor (which is, however, almost three times heavier).
- Nanocomposite Armor mostly obsoleted by Hover Armor (which is, however, more than twice as heavy).
- Nanocomposite Armor mostly obsoleted by Psi-Amp Armor (which is, however, almost two times heavier).
Counter-examples (unobvious)
- Kerrblade is not obsoleted by Plasma Blade, because it does much higher melee damage per 1 TU.
- Flamethrower is not obsoleted by anything, since it can be used to precisely and cheaply set ablaze any nearby spot on the map. (Perhaps it could also induce panic.)
- Grenade Launcher with Plasma Grenade Shells is not obsoleted by Plasma Blaster, because the latter does not allow to reach around a corner, since plasma balls explode on impact instead of bouncing.
Top tier set of basic weapons
This set is good enough under most circumstances and it should be obvious to newbies (if a totally clueless newbie chooses only the three Particle Beam weapons he should still have chances on easy; please correct, improve and discuss):
- Particle Beam Rifle (assault and sniper)
- Particle Beam Cannon (straight line explosive) {discussion: Some players don't find this weapon useful. Though it deals massive amounts of damage, the high TU cost and short range mean it doesn't get fired often.}
- Plasma Blaster (explosive over obstacles, high volume reaction fire)
- Particle Beam Pistol (medium range, one-handed sidearm)
- Plasma Pistol (close range sidearm)
- Plasma Grenade and some utility grenades
Top tier common alternatives
- instead of Plasma Pistol either Plasma Blade or Kerrblade; weaker but enable devastating melee
- instead of Plasma Blaster the pair of Grenade Launcher (explosive over obstacles) and Heavy Laser or Bolter Rifle (heavy); weaker explosive and two weapons needed, but explosive bounces around corners and longer range heavy
- instead of Particle Beam Rifle the pair of Rocket Launcher (straight line explosive) and either Plasma Rifle (assault and heavy) or Laser Rifle (assault and sniper); weaker assault and two weapons needed, but this enables an array of yet different possible exchanges...
Analogous bottom tier set of basic weapons
This set should be quite obvious, as well, allow some variations and be very cheap to research:
- Assault Rifle (assault)
- Rocket Launcher (straight line explosive)
- Sniper Rifle (sniper)
- Grenade Launcher (explosive over obstacles)
- Bolter Rifle (heavy, needs research)
- 9mm Pistol (one-handed sidearm)
- SMG (close range sidearm)
- Frag Grenade and some utility grenades