The best fire?

[The Demi-Godly One]

Well as you can probably guess by the topic title I am interested in what everone thinks the best shot is. Personally I find auto-shot the best.

[TabulaRasa]

I like auto shots as well, they have the least accuracy, but with three, if something is close up like a muton, you can kill it very easily, and whith three, it does have a good chance of hitting.

[Jman4117]

Snap shot: It works during the aliens' turn. Something auto can't do.

[Draemock Draconis]

I like all three. but it depends on the mission and the aliens.

[NKF]

For me, it depends entirely on the situation and the type of gun that's currently in use.

 

For example, say I'm using a standard pistol. Aiming only gives a miniscule increase in accuracy over the snapshot and isn't worth the extra TUs. So for the pistol, I'd say I prefer snapshots.

 

Now, let's say I'm using a laser pistol. This weapon, while it offers much more superior firepower than the standard pistol, has diddlysquat accuracy. On the other hand, it has one of the fastest auto-shots in the game. I generally fire it with the autoshot, even at long ranges, despite this being an unwise move.

 

The rocket launcher: Both of its firing modes are useful. Snaps are good for short range attacks, where accuracy is of little concern but speed is. Because of its superior accuracy in aimed shots, its an incredibly effective 'sniper' weapon.

 

With the plasma rifle, I generally ignore the aimed shots and stick with the snaps. I mean, just look at the accuracy and cost of the snapshots. They're a bargain!

 

All in all though, between snap and aimed, I use snaps a lot more. Autoshots are in a league of their own.

 

- NKF

[Fox]

I agree with NKF, autoshots are in a league of their own. But since I find myself using autoshot more than any other type of fire, I voted for it.

[Rosstoid]

I normally use aimed shot with the laser rifle when fighting sectoids and snakemen, if not snapshot because it still leaves me time to get behind cover after firing. But autoshot will make sure your target goes down (unless you are doing something stupid like using an old rifle against a sectopod).

[Munkeylord]

i use auto shot the most, not because of its inaccuracy but because, its 3 shots vs 1. the only time i don't use it is when i either have units in the frontal area of the firer or when i need to shoot thru a window/building/multiple objects. depending on the ammount of/or difficulty of the shot either snap shot or aimed shot is used for that. now if the target is like across the damn map i'll use either snap or aimed.....no point in wasteing prescious rifle ammo . and yes i am a BIG fan of the normal xcom rifle, its a very effective weapon, all troops can use it and shoot it decently and its cheap to maintain. it may take upwards of around 15 shoots to down a muton but hey it gets them dead........eventually, and its even considerate of letting me find cover afterwards.

[Draemock Draconis]

Whats the best Fire mode to use in Terror missions, i use Aimed mostly so i dont hit the Civs and also so i kill the aliens or knock em out. whats your views??????

[ignore my tentacles]

It's hard to say really, as mentioned previously, the preference totally depends on the tactical situation- alien type, weapon, distance, tu's remaining, accuracy of soldier, etc. To make a strategic-level statement regarding 'shot-type' is very difficult. There are possibly more tactical situations favouring the use auto-fire generally (Reaction fire aside), but it a close run thing. So I voted for what aesthetically pleased me the most. I LIKE the idea of my soldiers (when experienced & accurate enough) swiftly moving quickly from position to position, firing in fast, reasonably accurate single shots for minimal-collateral-damage take-downs , (I suppose a "double-tap" or "triple-tap" would be more realistic, but it's my day dream alright?) so I voted for Snap-shot.

 

Draemock Draconis- Apart from the beginning of my post, I haven't much to say except that provided you are successful in eliminating all the aliens and don't lose too many of your own men, you can afford to lose a few civvies (only my opinion mind! ). So don't worry too much about them. The success of the mission can also be measured by the potential research and recoverable booty left around. I'm not positive, but even if loads of civvies die and you still succesfully destroy the alien threat, the parent country doesn't penalise you by lowering their funding during the next month- a more important concern than individual mission scores!

Like I said however, I'm not positive so:*invokes arcane and deeply mysterious summoning ritual (patent pending)* "Oh Great Sensei of these hallowed Forums, please bless us, we the miserable, pitiful pursuers of Sacred Truth, with your coveted and Forbidden knowledge" *sits back and awaits the arrival of NKF, The Demi-Godly One, Zeno...etc. In fact anyone with a lower membership no. than me definately, and everyone else probably. So the next one to post then *

 

Cheers

[Munkeylord]

well........the only time you can possibly get "delta force" xcom units is if they've survived long enough to fight out 80 missions and have 100 kills. i had 6 of those at one time and when they get together and are equiped with the best they are unstopable. hehe those 4 aliens watching the door type deal they all die in 4 shots same with the stupid aliens that think they are safe 50 squares away, one shot. bases get annihalted by 6 units terrorists are done in like 5 turns with no civ casualties. stuff like that.

[The Demi-Godly One]

Why are there no votes for aimed-shot? I find this quite strange, it can be used in terror missions if you don't want to risk hitting a civillian.

[Rattler]

Once I get to a certain point in the game I use auto only. Don't matter where the alien is auto fire, auto fire, auto fire, auto fire.

 

I never use auto fire when I'm first starting out. Ammo costs to much and you don't have much room for it either.

[Draemock Draconis]

my cousin uses this tactic.

 

He finds the alien ship and then demlishes the map around the ship with grenades and missles. if its not a terror misiion.

[Fox]

Wow, you're cousin is a regular Erwin Rommel, isn't he?

[Draemock Draconis]

He is very effective at the X-Com games, i woudnt like to be a sectoid on the recieving end of his squad team.

[Lonestar]

I prefer aimed and snap. I only use auto if the alien is at very close range, ( ever have a soldier miss at point range with auto-shot? I have.) or there are multiple aliens in a small space.

 

It seems to me that when you have a soldier use aimed shot they are more likely to get a "critical hit". So that's my shot of choice.

[The Demi-Godly One]

"Critical hit"? What's that? A shot that causes a critical wound?

[sluissi]

a critical hit would probably be a hit to the head, although it's not easily noticable, and I think this has been said before, but there is a body point hit system with the aliens, with the head being the most damaging, and an arm or leg being the least damaging. not sure about exact numbers though, maybe NKF or Vet or one of the other professional x-com players could enlighten us.

[PvT Emil Thorsell]

i voted for aimed shots because my friends older brother who often played x-com when he was younger, says that aimed shots increase the soldiers accuracy, its like a firing range, if u shoot with aimed more, the better a soldiers accuracy gets.

 

ex: lets say johnny has 67 in accuracy. he uses aimed once and hits and his accuracy goes up to 68.

 

 

 

i dont know if this is true but my friends brother says it is.

correct me if im wrong oh you godly x-com players!

[Fox]

maybe NKF or Vet or one of the other professional x-com players could enlighten us.

LoL! I love that! That sums up those two nicely. "Pro-X-COM Dudes"

 

Anyways, yeah I've often wondered that myself. I used to take my rooks out with me on missions, arm them with laser rifles and have them shoot randomly at trees as the veterans went and did the dirty work. I thought maybe it would increase accuracy. Eventually I forgot about it and stopped doing it though, so I never really found out.

[NKF]

As long as you keep hitting an enemy, your firing accuracy has a chance of going up. So yes, aimed shots have a better chance of raising your accuracy, since they have a better to-hit chance than all the other firing modes. But accuracy only goes up if you actually hit an enemy, the simple act of firing the gun at any old thing doesn't count.

 

Of course, the same is true about the snap and autoshots. They just have a lesser chance of hitting targets at greater ranges because of their reduced to-hit scores. But up close, they can raise your 'successful hit' score a lot faster than aimed.

 

Note that hurting enemies with grenades also increases firing accuracy, since every alien you hurt in the explosion is also added to the soldier's hidden 'successful hit' score. It's crazy, but true for UFO and TFTD.

 

---

 

Re: Criticals

 

I think the criticals are the shots that happen when the target's armour doesn't absorb most of the attack.

 

For example, look at a hypothetical alien with only 45 armour against the laser pistol with 46 laser damage. 46 vs 45 often means little or no damage will be done to the alien. But when the armour fails and the laser pistol gets off more damage than you'd expect it to, then that's a critical. Say the armour only absorbed half of the attack as opposed to the first 45 points.

 

Mind you, this is just a wild guess based off observation.

 

- NKF

[Crazy Photon]

I agree with NKF about this topic, I usually choose depending on the situation, but I love using snipers, so I use aimed shots a lot... I also used to use grenadiers a lot too as IIRC it increases reactions too.

[darkvenom]

Autoshot has been one of my often used shot, however, it depends which weapon and how many time units ud have left...

 

but overall yeah auto shot

[LTNS]

well... what is the situation?