Heavy gauss vs gas cannon weights questions

[Tsathoggua]

Few questions regarding the weights of heavy gauss cannon vs gas cannon.

 

Between an unloaded gas cannon and unloaded heavy gauss, which of the two weighs the most?

And do the different shell types for the GC weigh differently? (E.g are HE grenades and WP rounds heavier than AP bolts.) And is the weight deducted, once a magazine is loaded per shell or is it a binary thing, out/in-in-out no matter how you shake it all about (). Going from the way the different torpedo sizes for the torpedo launcher, albeit single shot only, must count as heavier and lighter clips but carrying the same numbers of rounds (1, obviously), so is weight deducted every time you fire a gas cannon bolt, or hydrojet micro-torpedo and do partially full clips, ejected from the breech, weigh differently?

 

And which is the heavier, a loaded gas cannon, any of either HE or IC loadout, or heavy gauss?

 

And lastly, when using xcomutil's ammunition conversion thingymabugger that makes the gauss weapons as they were originally intended to be, with an internal power supply, since it does not seem to count as 'loaded' even though researching and manufacturing ammunition is still possible it is not possible to load the magazines or to unload the guns, what is the difference between the weight of an xcomutil-modified 'clipless' gauss weapon and the equivalent loaded and unloaded weapon in unmodified TFTD?

[magic9mushroom]

Few questions regarding the weights of heavy gauss cannon vs gas cannon.

 

Between an unloaded gas cannon and unloaded heavy gauss, which of the two weighs the most?

And do the different shell types for the GC weigh differently? (E.g are HE grenades and WP rounds heavier than AP bolts.) And is the weight deducted, once a magazine is loaded per shell or is it a binary thing, out/in-in-out no matter how you shake it all about (). Going from the way the different torpedo sizes for the torpedo launcher, albeit single shot only, must count as heavier and lighter clips but carrying the same numbers of rounds (1, obviously), so is weight deducted every time you fire a gas cannon bolt, or hydrojet micro-torpedo and do partially full clips, ejected from the breech, weigh differently?

 

And which is the heavier, a loaded gas cannon, any of either HE or IC loadout, or heavy gauss?

 

And lastly, when using xcomutil's ammunition conversion thingymabugger that makes the gauss weapons as they were originally intended to be, with an internal power supply, since it does not seem to count as 'loaded' even though researching and manufacturing ammunition is still possible it is not possible to load the magazines or to unload the guns, what is the difference between the weight of an xcomutil-modified 'clipless' gauss weapon and the equivalent loaded and unloaded weapon in unmodified TFTD?

 

https://ufopaedia.org/index.php/Item_Weight_(TFTD)

 

Heavy Gauss is heavier unloaded, but clips are lighter and thus it's lighter when loaded with a spare. HE and P (NOT WP!) weigh 1 unit more than AP. Weight of a clip is unaffected by shots remaining.

 

Dunno what XcomUtil does since I don't use it.

[Tsathoggua]

That ufopaedia page does not, I am afraid, tell me a thing. I can now access ufopaedia, but that specific page is totally blank, just a placeholder.

[NKF]

For some reason the forum software's mangled the URL in magic9mushroom's post and is treating the closing parenthesis as text, so the wiki was thinking you were trying to create a new page. It seems to be excluding the closing parenthesis when directly cutting and pasting the URL. The handy dandy URL button in the editing toolbar however should get it to work. Try the following:

 

https://www.ufopaedia...m_Weight_(TFTD)

 

 

Dunno what XcomUtil does since I don't use it.

 

Nothing fancy. XComutil only assigns a weapon damage strength and damage type to the Heavy Gauss and gives it auto-fire stats to make it behave like a UFO laser weapon.

 

On a related note on the topic of ammo weight, don't forget the ammo loading bug where default ammo loaded in the gun at the time the mission is generated will not count towards weight until the weapon is unloaded and reloaded. Not necessarily a big deal with most weapons, but quite noticeable with something with heavy ammo like the torpedo launcher.

 

- NKF

[magic9mushroom]

Yeah, there is that. And it's definitely a bigger deal than in UFO, now that I think about it, because weight's substantially more likely to come into play (melee weapons, smaller clip sizes, Gauss weapons actually having clips). Standard loadout for me in UFO might be Heavy Plasma + 2 clips + Medi-Kit (weighs 19, 16 with the bug; min Strength is 20, so it doesn't matter), while in TFTD the loadout might look more like Gauss Rifle + 3 clips + Medi-Kit + Vibroblade/Thermic Lance (weighs 32, 29 with the bug; that can definitely make a difference). Sonic Pistols are lighter, and can get away with 2 clips, but you're still looking at 24/21 sort of range with a drill.

[Zombie]

Unless you are up against Lobstermen, there really isn't a reason to be toting around a drill all the time. (Not to mention all the research necessary to get them). Meh, I'd much rather be carrying 3-4 Sonic Pulsers instead of the drill. Besides, with rather low research time and zero prerequisites you can get these by the time you have Gauss no problem.

 

Not only do you have to worry about an aquanaut's Strength stat to carry the drill, but TU's are just as important as you need to have a decent amount to get to the alien.

 

- Zombie

[Tsathoggua]

Didn't know about that item weight bug.

 

I'm playing a game on genius, and after a tough as nails start (some minor mods, UFO-esque gauss, fixed those damn dye grenades, captures more important to make it somewhat harder.)

 

Now just had the first mission packing serious firepower, after forcing research through and use of gauss weaponry before getting any sonic weapons. Although did go for the sonic pulser early on.

 

Strength cutoff is 40 but will make exceptions for otherwise talented ones that will have a chance of making it through basic training. Which is pretty rough. Throw em in the frying pan and see if they can set someone ELSE on fire first, is pretty much what it consists of. Exceptions are primarily talented natural snipers, those with fast reactions and psykers. Recently got an MC lab built, building a second.

 

 

Oh and another gauss related question-does the ship gauss cannon still need ammo if that mod is used via xcomutil?

 

With the drills, one can get by with a dead calcinite, can one not? because I managed to snag quite a few, dead, and stunned one but damn it to hell the living one, when it got back to base, wasn't.

 

 

And its bloody well lobstermen all the time, friggin things are everywhere. Lobstermen and those sneaky little aquatoid swines with their psyker mischief and severe need for a GC round up the backside.

[NKF]

https://www.ufopaedia...ex.php/XcomUtil

 

Looking through the descriptions for the config in the above, there only seems to be mention of the handheld weapons.

 

Tough luck on the lobsterman intensive missions. Luck of the draw really. Gauss is a nice intermediate tech - being one of the few weapons with dakka in the game. However Lobsterman really make a good case for skipping Guass and going straight to Sonic immediately. The research help option though likely means you don't have that luxury.

 

As for the drills, it's the Calcinite corpse that unlocks them.

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

And its bloody well lobstermen all the time, friggin things are everywhere. Lobstermen and those sneaky little aquatoid swines with their psyker mischief and severe need for a GC round up the backside.

 

 

Drills are definitely a relief, feels good to use little TUs for a large hole. If you can get there.

[magic9mushroom]

Unless you are up against Lobstermen, there really isn't a reason to be toting around a drill all the time. (Not to mention all the research necessary to get them). Meh, I'd much rather be carrying 3-4 Sonic Pulsers instead of the drill. Besides, with rather low research time and zero prerequisites you can get these by the time you have Gauss no problem.

 

Not only do you have to worry about an aquanaut's Strength stat to carry the drill, but TU's are just as important as you need to have a decent amount to get to the alien.

 

- Zombie

 

Most missions have some kind of close quarters (alien sub, island tunnels, SHIP MISSIONS, artefact pyramids/interior, colony interior) where the melee weapons really have a chance to shine. They're also a safeguard against running out of ammo (a pretty serious issue in the two-part missions, unless you want to loot as you go).

 

Also, you don't always know when there'll be Lobster Men, so it rarely hurts to bring them and just not give them to anyone who'd be overburdened.

[Tsathoggua]

Thats been one saving grace about packing the tazers, they don't run dry.

 

That said, rather than bring a lot of ammo, I tend to pack a handful of heavy gauss and issue them to the weaker men, those who have trouble with the likes of sonic cannnon-HJ or packing a heavy sonic plus loaded torpedo launcher and a reload each of willy pete torpedo and large torpedo with a few more being distributed among the other men, ammo only, or sonics plus gas cannon and white phos shells.

 

Actually been finding the WP rounds for the GC and hydrojet a boon, not only for flushing out lobstermen but for roasting them alive in their shells, the vicious little sods, the way that further rounds burn ALL ignited targets is helpful especially when there are 10 lobstermen all fixing for to tear your troops heads off (even BETTER if they are clustered up close to each other), and slamming WP shell after shell after shell plus pounding them with WP rockets)

 

Whilst not as quick a kill as with heavy sonic and or sonic pulsers, its a good way to get in some training for the men. Likewise those awful long range fights sniping away at the buggers with heavy gauss fire. If nothing else it's great accuracy training,

[magic9mushroom]

Fun fact: Incendiary rounds don't give Firing Accuracy experience. Doesn't matter whether you hit an alien or not.

[Tsathoggua]

I know.

 

But on the other hand I don't issue troopers hydrojet cannons for sniper practice. Not with the shit accuracy to begin with of the things in other than experienced hands, and the staggeringly high TU cost to send an aimed shot. No, they aren't likely to win any prizes, but close to medium-range, I prefer loading most of the squad HJCs with incendiaries, and use the gas cannon like a grenade launcher, for when one wants an accurately plonked HE shell. Although I do tend to carry quite a few spare incendiary clips. And to use them. At range, theres nothing like the versatility of the gas cannon I find, especially if one ever has a massed bunch of aquatoids to have to deal with.

[Bomb Bloke]

Gauss is a nice intermediate tech - being one of the few weapons with dakka in the game. However Lobsterman really make a good case for skipping Guass and going straight to Sonic immediately.

 

I always assumed that the idea was to encourage you to use both even in the late-game - those aliens gauss is effective against never get any tougher, after all.

 

The main problem is that you can only pack so much gear into your dropship, and re-equipping the thing gets a bit tedious.

[Tsathoggua]

Tell you something...when all you have is gauss plus sonic pistols IF you can capture them on the scene because the ammo is still being researched, and pulse grenades, plus gas cannon/HJC and HE/phosphorus shells and a few breaching charges, a tank-cannon on genius and theres around 7 lobstermen armed with sonic rifle and cannon plugging away with everything they have, and you have to engage with heavy gauss fire at extreme range, it is NOT pretty. Even concentrating fire on one of the enemy it takes turn after turn after turn after turn of repeated multiple-hit autofire to put one down, wearing away, chipping tiny flakes of armor away before you get to off one. Even with aimed shots sometimes firing two bolts and autofire firing as many as seven, it was still a pain in the ass,

[magic9mushroom]

I always assumed that the idea was to encourage you to use both even in the late-game - those aliens gauss is effective against never get any tougher, after all.

 

The main problem is that you can only pack so much gear into your dropship, and re-equipping the thing gets a bit tedious.

 

Well, the thing is that the aliens Gauss does work well against (Aquatoids, Gill Men, Deep Ones) are really common early on (unless you make a superhuman effort to shoot down the Battleship, they're the only aliens you'll encounter in January), but later on you're drowning in Tasoths, Lobster Men, and the tougher terror units, so Sonics are what you want to bring if you don't know what race something is.

 

I mean, if you happen to have both Transmission Resolvers and Gauss, and you detect an Aquatoid ship, by all means the Gauss is the way to go, but as you don't entirely need to research Gauss in order to win (whereas you kinda do need to research Sonic; the Sonic Oscillator is leagues ahead of any other craft weapon, the Displacer/Sonic is a huge boon, and the Sonics themselves are the only ranged, multi-shot weapons that really work on Superhuman Tasoths/Lobster Men/Hallucinoids) skipping them and putting the research into something more instrumental is a valid idea.

[Tsathoggua]

I like to FORCE a progression to the sonics through the gauss weapon family, to provide more of a challenge. Then go for sonic pulser, then pistol. The pulsers can be reliably captured in the field at least, more so than pistol, although of course, single use only. This time I did go for the sonic cannon ahead of the rifle, but thats because I NEEDED some beefy weapon even if just a squad support or/and sniper weapon.

 

I quite like the coelacanth/gauss for what its worth actually. I use the tanks primarily to scout, but the AP tank is crap in terms of weapon strength, the gauss tank provides a nice tradeoff, and doesn't it fire CRAFT weapon shells?

 

BTW how do you obtain those alternative shells for the tank, I'd really like to know, to give a bit of variety, compared with typical gauss ammunition.

[magic9mushroom]

The Coelacanth/Gauss does fire Craft Gauss Cannon rounds.

 

Unfortunately, it was badly coded and will therefore eat 50 of said rounds per mission, regardless of how many it fired.

 

The alternative shells don't really exist. They're an unused item that happens to be named "Craft Gauss Ammo". They cannot be researched, produced or used.

[Tsathoggua]

Thought it was possible to mod the game to do so?

[Bomb Bloke]

... putting the research into something more instrumental is a valid idea.

 

Oh certainly - gauss weapons are really only a crutch for those times when sonic clips are too hard to come by (which mostly hinges on your clip recovery system). I simply got the impression that an attempt had been made to keep them relevant in the late game, even if it was mostly unsuccessful.

 

The Coelacanth/Gauss does fire Craft Gas Cannon rounds.

 

Heh, that'd make it a fair bit cheaper, if those two characters really were missing.

 

Thought it was possible to mod the game to do so?

 

Not practically speaking - you can produce and sell them easily enough, but I don't believe anybody's rigged things so that a player can use them.

[magic9mushroom]

Oh certainly - gauss weapons are really only a crutch for those times when sonic clips are too hard to come by (which mostly hinges on your clip recovery system). I simply got the impression that an attempt had been made to keep them relevant in the late game, even if it was mostly unsuccessful.

 

I'll agree, the Gauss Rifle is definitively the best weapon against Aquatoids and possibly the best against Gillmen and Deep Ones (though Xarquid laugh).

 

Heh, that'd make it a fair bit cheaper, if those two characters really were missing.

 

Fixed.

[Tsathoggua]

As stated, I was toting the heavy gauss SOLELY to piss things like that off. The idea was NOT to hurt it, because after spending the best part of a week going for a live capture, a corpse was only acceptable if it was one of the troops!

 

 

No, its not very nice, call me a callous bastard if you wish, but, I'm a scientist at heart, and it obviously seems to carry over in my gameplay style. Hell if *I* ever saw a UFO on the ground, you damn well bet I'd be hurrying up, grabbing my sword and a few carboys of fuming nitric acid (I don't, since an unfortunate event involving paramilitary-esque thugs, now keep explosives on hand...but I doubt your average alien invader would take kindly to being doused in acid strong enough to carbonize flesh [i've got the scar to know that ain't much fun..perchloric acid in that case, melted right through to the muscle of my hand, not particularly fun)

 

I'd far sooner get to take apart a few UFO power supplies, drive systems etc and haul the bits back to the lab and try put the things back together again. Like I did as a kid with general tech only on a far more interesting scale. Although I'd far rather INTERVIEW a few greys than have to draw the blade. Talking shop with a few techs would be SO much fun:D