XCOM pistol & rifle improvements?

[Tyro]

Hi guys. Does anyone agree with me that the Earth-based weapons are incorrectly modelled?

 

For example, take the Pistol & Rifle. I think they should be low damage (as they are), more inaccurate, have clip sizes of about 30 and with very rapid fire. In theory, an XCOM soldier should be able to empty his clip in the time it takes him to spend his TU running across the terrain. We don't have a full auto feature, but it can be simulated using say 10% of the TU for a 3-round auto shot.

 

This makes the pistol & rifle useful in the beginning (against weak sectoids) and even throughout the game against specific enemies (anything except mutons, sectopods, chrysallids & cyberdiscs).

[FullAuto]

They've obviously had artificial limitations imposed, yep. Starting off with too-powerful weapons wouldn't be much of an incentive to research, I suppose.

[NKF]

Well, the pistol is a fine weapon as it is in the game, even without an auto mode and improved accuracy (60% snaps are quite good when compared against the Plasma rifle with its massive 86%). At 18% per snapshot, it's already the fastest snapshot/reaction shot weapon in the game. Of course, that's about all its good at.

 

What it could do with improvement would be its damage. 40, for example, is a nice relatively low but considerable damage level that doesn't surpass the heavy cannon AP rounds and makes it more on the level of the more powerful laser pistol. Unfortunately, it would make battling the cyberdiscs a heck of a lot easier.

 

But there's many otherways you can proceed with changing the pistol and rifle. Here's a simple one: Have both the rifle and the pistol share their ammunition, but make the two different ammo types provide different functions. For example, the pistol clip might provide AP rounds while the other provides HE rounds (as it's more expensive), or you could make it so that the pistol clip will be the standard ammunition clip (32 AP, 15 rounds) while the more expensive rifle clip will provide lower quality but much more numerous bullets (25 AP, 100 bullets), excellent for wasting low armour enemies, but rather useless against any units with more than 50 strength armour plates.

 

A quick edit to the language file to rename the pistol and rifle clips, and you're all set.

 

- NKF

[Tyro]

I agree that the rifle & pistol's damage is kind of low. That's why I thought increasing their rate of fire would help (quantity vs. quality).

 

Maybe it is just me, but I always had the impression that bullet-based weapons worked by lead-spamming (i.e. high ROF, low damage, OK accuracy), while energy-based weapons worked by precision (i.e. slow ROF, high damage, high accuracy).

 

Having a 10% TU cost with a 30-round clip for the pistol & rifle would mean that it would be valuable throughout the game vs. the weaker enemies. Of course, later on it would be superseded by laser or plasma weapons because their damage isn't high enough to affect sectopods/cyberdiscs/mutons.

[Jman4117]

hrm....

 

Pistol: drop accuracy, drop power slightly, lower TU cost, keep the clip size believable (8-17ish depeneding on power)

Rifle: raise snap accuracy, keep roughly the same power and speed, either 20 or 30 round mags

Autocannon: keep accuarcy, lower to rifle power, lower TU cost for auto dramatically and increase clip to 40-50

Heavycannon: raise accuracy, raise power, drop speed to 2 snaps at best

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, I think that Jman4117's estimations are correct (though I'm no great weapon expert). I wholeheartedly support this initiative.

[Shortstop4313]

I hate to pimp my own work, but I already worked something similar.

 

Was kinda based around the ideas from a pen and paper RPG, where while the powder weapons are relatively weak, it's hard to beat their rate of fire.

Removed

[/font]

 

 

Changed the Pistol to a .45 caliber machine pistol with 15 rounds (probably should be at 12 rounds)... Increased damage a bit... The hit % for the autofire is around 15% or so, so like a real machine pistol, you are best off using it in close quarters. Can be very handy in UFO corridors.

 

Was thinking of changing the theoretical round to the 5.7mm or the 4.6mm PDW round and reducing damage to 30 instead of 35 and increasing the mag size to 20, maybe even 24.

 

The assault rifle is at 50 damage (5.56mm)... (probably gonna change it to 45). Good rate of fire and good accuracy.

 

The autocannon is a Squad Automatic Weapon now... Same damage as the rifle, since it's same 5.56 round, but has an insane rate of fire.

 

The Heavy Cannon is a Sniper Rifle now...

 

I'm gonna retweak things again, I think... But I'm more interested in tweaking the radar right now... Haha.

[Shortstop4313]

Ahem, *Embarrassment* for my version linked below:

 

Weapon				   | Auto  | Snap  | Aimed  | Mag | Type  Damage
-------------------------+-------+-------+--------+-----|--------------
Machine Pistol (PISTOL)  | 17/15 | 50/13 | 80/40  | 24  | AP	  25
Assault Rifle  (Rifle)   | 40/22 | 60/25 | 110/50 | 30  | AP	  45
Sniper Rifle (HVY CANNON)|  ---  | 50/33 | 150/80 | 10  | AP	  65
-Launched HE 'Grenade'   |	   |	   |		|	 | HE	  80
-Launched I 'Grenade'	|	   |	   |		|	 | I	   75
SAW (Autocannon)		 | 30/13 | 50/33 | 85/65  | 50  | AP	  45
-Launched HE 'Grenade'   |	   |	   |		|	 | HE	  80
-Launched I 'Grenade'	|	   |	   |		|	 | I	   75
Rocket Launcher		  |  ---  | 40/35 | 125/75 |  1  |
-Sabot Shell			 |	   |	   |		|	 | AP	 150
-High Explosive Rocket   |	   |	   |		|	 | HE	 150
-Incendiary Rocket	   |	   |	   |		|	 | I	  120
Frag. Grenade (Grenade)  |  ---  |  ---  |  ---   | N/A | HE	  75
High Explosive		   |  ---  |  ---  |  ---   | N/A | HE	 150
-------------------------+-------+-------+--------+--------------
Laser Pistol			 | 40/28 | 50/16 | 70/45  | N/A | LA	  45
Laser Rifle			  | 45/30 | 50/25 | 100/55 | N/A | LA	  60
Sniper Laser (HVY LASER) |  ---  | 50/33 | 130/85 | N/A | LA	  90
-------------------------+-------+-------+--------+--------------
Plasma Pistol			| 35/33 | 55/20 | 75/45  | 20  | PL	  65
Plasma Rifle			 | 37/35 | 55/25 | 105/55 | 25  | PL	  80
Heavy Plasma			 | 40/40 | 50/30 | 90/65  | 20  | PL	 110

(SAW = Squad Automatic Weapon... Or what we call a light machinegun.  High Rate of fire, same round as the Assault Rifle)