What is your standard issue weapon?

[Zager]

Clips aren't a problem with heavy plasmas, just every enemy carries them after a while. Kill somebody and you refill your ammo.

[Orac]

Yeah, eventually heavy plasma clips don't even become an issue. But the advantage of lasers is that you can sell off all that plasma related stuff for even more money that can fund R&D and allow you to manufacture and research much faster (on top of money you gain by other means. i.e. selling manufactured stuff, and funding). Also, lasers are wonderful for their logistics - meaning more space on the transport for other goodies and being able to support a larger squad as a result. I mean, aren't you going to want to equip each man with at least 1 heavy plasma clip so they can go in loaded? That means extra space per plasma weapon that could've been used for other gear and/or allow for more weapons to bring more soldiers. A tank is only so useful. Eventually, your men get strong enough that they make a tank look obsolete. There of course is the more advanced tanks, but even they don't develop like your men do, hence why most players use tanks mostly for scouting and beating the brush. But a large squad can beat the brush rather easily with their collective firepower. Heavy cannons, work great for that, especially if you have a few of them working together at it. A few HC-HE toting troops can fire many more times than a tank can per turn. Or, if you want even better brush beating power, bring along a few RL guys. With lasers, you have plenty of room for all sorts of configurations that beat any tank in usefulness.

 

The tradeoff for a tank is 4 men. 4 Men can accomplish anything much more proficiently in my opinion. They can also be more versatile. Like how your men eventually have tons of TU but can also be in different places at the same time. While at the same time they're improving each mission unlike a tank. The counter to that might be that losing a tank isn't as big of deal as men. That's very true, but those same 4 same guys a tank replaces, is that many mission of where they couldn't have gotten some more experience. You're getting to train 4 more guys per tank per mission by taking them instead.

 

I generally take tanks as a last resort. I consider them to be totally expendible. Which I'm sure most do as well. They're great for that, but that's about it. So I'll take tanks when I have a strong feeling the odds are really going to be stacked when I land. Then I can use the tank as a lure or as the expendible asset to give the rest of the squad better odds. That seems to be rare for me though, because usually not being short on those extra soldiers, keeps the odds from being stacked against me since there's often plenty of firepower to go around.

 

It really all comes down to playstyle in the end though. Because there are tons of ways to skin a cat in UFO. The developers really knew what they were doing in how they balanced everything and you just don't see that meticulous attention put into balancing everything in games anymore.

 

I used to swear by heavy plasma, but after my more recent game, I swear by laser weaponry (more accurately would be that my opinion is that it's practically impossible to say which is better). Is it any wonder the poll results are tied between laser rifles and heavy plasma? They're both the king of weapons in the game because of all their pros and cons in comparison to each other. While heavy plasma looks better if you just compare TUs, accuracy, and damage, there's so much more involved in xcom than just those factors. On the scope of the whole campaign laser rifles have those logistical advantages that offset those other factors where heavy plasma beats it somewhat. Unlimited ammo, is only one aspect of their logistical advantage. The other is how they do so well with the item limit.

 

I'll just leave it at this. If you go with laser rifles over heavy plasma, there's going to be more need to play in such a way that your men cover each other better. To me that's not a bad thing at all, because that's how I play the game anyway. So if one is a player that prefers use their soldiers more independently, then heavy plasma may be the way to go over lasers. It's great that we have real good options for both types of playing style. Moreso, for any kind of playing style.

[Ki-tat Chung]

i have to say, that is pretty true. i have standard equipment for all my units exept for one. they all have: one (alien)granade, one prox granade, flare, oone heavy plasma, one spare clip, one med kit and sometimes a smoke granade. my psi people also have an amp in their other hand. then there is my heavy wep person who has one blaster launcher, 6 blaster bombs (one in the other hand, two in the belt and three in the pack), the (alien) granade, prox granade and the flare. sometimes i fill up the rest with some form of explosive. of course, that is only for later in the game. earlier on, i just use a rifle replacing the heavy plas, stun rod and no heavy weps expert (and maybe small launcher w/ 2 extra ammo). later on in the game, i get so many heavy plas stuff that i can get millions in days.

[Psy Guy]

Standard Loadout (Late game) 14 people (10 power suit, 4 flying) - 14 laser rifles, 14 amps, 14 medikits, 14 alien nades, 3 Blaster Launchers, 9 bombs, 6 proxies, Rocket Launcher, 3 large rockets, 2 motion scanners,

Standard Loadout (Mid Game) 10 people (10 Power Suit), Rocket Tank- 10 laser rifles, 10 medikits, 20 nades, 5 proxies, 5 high explosives, 10 amps, 2 Rocket Launchers, 10 Large Rockets, 2 motion scanners, 2 small launchers, 4 stun bombs.

Standard Loadout (Beginning) 10 people (Unarmored of course) , 1 rocket tank- 6 rifles, 6 clips, 4 heavy cannons, 8 HE rounds, Rocket Launcher, 5 Rockets, 20 nades, 5 proxies, 5 Hi-Explosives, 10 stun rods, 4 pistols, 4 clips, 2 free space.

As you can see i like my nades, proxies, and Hi Explosives. Im a nade nut and im proud of it. Also i like a rocket launcher to be onboard for demo work. Motion scanners are great for scanning ships for aliens. Expecially when a lot of doors are opening. I like to equip everyone the same and when i need a specialist i send for a dude who will grab what is needed and move into possition. All with amps of course. Best way to get good is to practice in the field. Sometimes ill equip people with Plasma Rifles when i start to run into mutons if i haven't gotten psi yet. Once psi becomes common place lasers are the standard. After blasters i drop tanks due to the fact that i can easly get long range support anywhere so i don't need a big ass tank taking 4 troop slots. All are bases on skyranger loadouts.

 

-PSY GUY-

(I might try to play a game without psi (i know i can but its just not as fun to me))

[The Demi-Godly One]

I don't use stun launchers myself. I just use a stun rod.

[NKF]

Once you accept the fact that the stun launcher excels in almost every way that a heavy plasma does not (i.e. it's not really a serious-prod-buttock gun like the heavy plasma), well, knowing your limits is a good start.

 

But once you start accepting the idea that it is by far the most powerful weapon against Sectopods and cyberdiscs in your arsenal (even more effective than blaster bombs), only then can you really start to appreciate them.

 

Of course, only under rare circumstances will the terror unit get back up again. But if they do, a handful of regular grenades should do the trick.

 

---

 

Psyguy: I find the best way to kick the psi-amp addiction is to slowly progress downwards. To start off, you can try to stop using mind control, and focus on panic attacks. Then progress down even further by bringing less psi-amps until you phase them out completely.

 

Psi-amps are okay, but in UFO and TFTD, they tend to dominate the game just a little too much once you've got some soldiers with very good psi-skills.

 

Still, I wish the psi-amp was a more versatile weapon. Say for example, introducing telekinesis (i.e. like being able to teleport or move small objects over a short distance), psi-blasts, psi-blades, regeneration (very slowly), psionic shields (used like opportunity fire, but for deflecting bullets). etc.

 

On second thought, that might make it too useful.

 

- NKF

[mirage]

I've been using heavy plasme for the most part, but late in the game I'll give my high TU Stormtroopers a laser pistol.. I leave the left hand empty to start so I can just put whatever I want into it without wasting time moving things around.. when dealing with sectoids at close range, to me it adds style to whip out the ol pistola to the back of the head..

:devil:

[Cadmus]

Heavy Plasma. Guaranteed to kill 98%... of everything. It punches armour, and nothing is particularly resistant to it.

[Solfius]

laser rifles all the way they can kill anything in at the most 4 shots, which is fine cause I like auto fire (gottat love them marsec M400s on Apoc suto-fire 1 TU! in one go I could use more ammo than I'm carrying! ne way back on topic) plus you don't need to carry ammo

[Cadmus]

Ah yes, the joys of the M400, stick it in their face and fire! Although my favourite thing an Apoc is demolishing buildings with the devastator.

[Solfius]

still I like my lasers, i even drop heavy weapons to get more rifles

[NKF]

I like a lot of the weapons in the game, but I'd like to bring everyone's attention back to the small launcher (Yes, again. I have nothing better to do with my time... It's really just for the benefit of those who've come into the thread late and don't want to read through the whole thread ).

 

Its function is to stun aliens for interrogation, and is pretty much useless once you've already captured all the aliens you want. Right? Close, but not quite.

 

It stuns normal sized aliens, but it can knock out large robots like the sectopods and the cyberdiscs (i kid you not) with comparible ease, even if they are clipped by the edge of the explosion. And once a large terror unit is knocked down (in UFO), it rarely ever gets back up again. Oh, and cyberdiscs explode if they get knocked out.

 

Sound good? Well, if you ever get a chance, try firing one stun bomb in the middle of a very tight pack of large terror units. It'll be far more effective than several soldiers autofiring their heavy plasmas. Oh, and it's cheaper than a blaster bomb too and won't cause as much collateral damage.

 

 

Now, there are several drawbacks:

 

a) stun bombs are expensive in terms of elerium.

B) The small launcher itself is slow and has horrible snapshot accuracy. All that ammo can get heavy too.

c) The terror units can sometimes shrug off the effects of the stun bomb.

 

So I wouldn't arm everyone with one. Just one or two plus a small sidearm.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

Hmmm... I think I might try stun bombs.

[Jman4117]

Laser rifles and auto cannons for me.

 

.....and proximity grenades