Which do you research first: weapons or armor?

[Snowstorm]

Just wondering.
I chose weapons in my first (and failed) playthrough, as I let the doom counter tick due to bad strategy.
Never saw plated armor.

[DiamondPearl]

If you choose armour you can still use dragon rounds or something to increase your damage out put anyway. Armour gives two slots for items

[happy]

there is no real answer to your question.

i strongly believe in weapons first, and i stubbornly insisted on that idea in my serious runs and failed multiple times.

but when i got my achievement, it was on my first try ever with armor first.

so i'd say it depends on difficulty and the situations met, and the way you approach these situations.

armor saved my butt at key difficulty peaks where weapons looked like they would more effectively but somehow did not.

i think that when doing a hard run, or if you are struggling with the game whatever difficulty, armor first is best.
on a hard run you have to play cautious and time right, meaning you don't take that many shots, so the damage diff is not really great, your tactics are more important, and so is avoiding long injuries.
extra items also makes a hell of a difference.

and if you are just having a hard time, extra survibility surely helps making odd moves less punishing.

weapons first is best for experienced players capable of doing good aggro play on veteran, or for berserk charges on beginner where you get player bonuses that protect your guys, on hard runs i never made it work, but some have.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Messaggio originale di deuleth:

If you choose armour you can still use dragon rounds or something to increase your damage out put anyway. Armour gives two slots for items

That is a mid to late game option that doesn´t really work on harder difficulties. You need at least mag rifles if someone insisted on getting armor first. Special ammo won´t carry you once you begin to see tier 2 enemies as standard.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

Honestly there is no right or wrong answer with this, It just depends on the player and their strategy. Iv'e personnaly tried it both ways in my many ironman legend playthroughs and it's netted me similar progress results, iv'e even skipped over both options in favour of the next tier of items a couple of times as well (though never skipping both in the same playthrough).

That said, if i had to pick one, Mag weapons. purely because im confident enough in my own ability to at least debuff enemies before they can return fire if I can't just kill them.

[Temper]

plan is to shoot things before they shoot you.Planning to be shot at is a bad plan ...yet not always avoidable.

I trust in guns and crowd control early/mid and worry about armor mid/late.

[RedScorpion520]

I research weapons first and then armour. If your weapons can't do the damage you need to start with relying on armour kind of defeats the purpose I feel.

[Shining Hector]

Supplies aren't infinite, guys. Predator Armor is the biggest boost for the least resources early on, buy it once and everyone gets an extra item slot (a huge boost) and extra HP (helpful but not as huge). Weapons you have to buy 5 times to get everyone equipped, so you will be waiting to fully upgrade everyone anyway and probably sacrificing your construction or GTS upgrades to get weapons early. The jump from Predator to Warden is nice but nowhere near as big a deal as Kevlar to Predator, so you can put it off until you get plasma weapons if you want.

[Belhedler]

I alternate weapon and armor researches.

[Holokom]

i dont like armor cause i want to just like one shot all enemies when ever i hit a new squad, ofc its hard with randomness, thats why i go with 2 grenade throwers + extra granedes on all other members....cant doge that damn aliens...and if you light up all cover with grenades ,even those xcom agents of you will hit something....sometimes...

[Jhonny G]

Always go for the predator armor upgrade first. Survivability of your troops is key to a succesful campaign start and the tactical advantage of a extra inventory slot far surpasses that of better weaponry. Not to mention it's only a single purchase that benefits the entire roster, whereas it requires a total of 4 individual purchases just to improve all main weapons. 8 if you count the gremlin, pistol, blade and nade launcher as well.

It's also worth considering that you're likely to run into mutons doing the second month and MECs duing the third. They can quickly wipe out most of your team with their plasma nades and missile barrages if you don't have any armor to soak up the damage. And let's not forget all the annoying stun lancers that would otherwise swope in and instant kill your troops either..

[drake_hound]

Messaggio originale di Dogmatius:

Always go for the predator armor upgrade first. Survivability of your troops is key to a succesful campaign start and the tactical advantage of a extra inventory slot far surpasses that of better weaponry. Not to mention it's only a single purchase that benefits the entire roster, whereas it requires a total of 4 individual purchases just to improve all main weapons. 8 if you count the gremlin, pistol, blade and nade launcher as well.

It's also worth considering that you're likely to run into mutons doing the second month and MECs duing the third. They can quickly wipe out most of your team with their plasma nades and missile barrages if you don't have any armor to soak up the damage. And let's not forget all the annoying stun lancers that would otherwise swope in and instant kill your troops either..

This is not 100% true. depends on player playstyle if you are more defensive.
Cause you don´t like deaths. go for predator armour.

If you are more offensive. so aliens don´t take many shots at you at all. go for mag weapons first.
Sadly in the higher difficulty like legendary. it is easier to go for weapons first. cause you want as fast as possible kills. so it gives aliens no return fire.

That doesn´t mean armour is useless. far from it. but as old saying goes a good offense beats a good defense.
Everybody has there own playstyle in TBS games. most play more defensively thus armour is a beter choice.

[Jhonny G]

Messaggio originale di drake_hound:

This is not 100% true. depends on player playstyle if you are more defensive.
Cause you don´t like deaths. go for predator armour.

If you are more offensive. so aliens don´t take many shots at you at all. go for mag weapons first.
Sadly in the higher difficulty like legendary. it is easier to go for weapons first. cause you want as fast as possible kills. so it gives aliens no return fire.

That doesn´t mean armour is useless. far from it. but as old saying goes a good offense beats a good defense.
Everybody has there own playstyle in TBS games. most play more defensively thus armour is a beter choice.

In theory I'm inclined to agree with you, but there are numerous unknown variables to take into account, which ensures that it almost always fail in practice.. The result of "better damage equal faster kills" is a false positive. Whereas "better armor equal survivability" is not.

From a logical standpoint I would choose predator armor over mag weapons every time. Simply to prepare for and reduce the amount of unknown variables stacked against me. Because let's face it, XCOM is a game of chance.

[Captain Super Credit]

Messaggio originale di 0cra_tr0per:

Just wondering.
I chose weapons in my first (and failed) playthrough, as I let the doom counter tick due to bad strategy.
Never saw plated armor.

weapons. Magnetic rifles can be equipped on all soldiers except Snipers. They will 1 shot enemies early on. Its extremely useful for leveling 3-6 soldiers to CPL quickly... which you need.

[The.Spaz.]

Currently doing my first run on legendary. Seeing as how this difficulty is not meant to hold your hand (skipped the tutorial, going from what I know of EW and Longwar), I have had very little time to explore options or dedicate time and resources to longer projects as a result I didn't actually get any real upgrades till quite recently. It really helps if you take the time and mod your gun based on the soldier class also experimental ammo was a godsend during slightly upgraded enemies. Particularly the poison rounds, they don't do much damage but provide penalties to aim and other stats on a target that can help stop short advances.

Eventually I started putting more resources towards experimental ammo and had some great results. Then eventually certain type of ammos I only use with certain classes exclusivesly Eg. Hacker/medic get bluescreen ammo and grenade.

[Kongdej]

I research weapons first to give that extra turn vs the turntimer/clock (I don't mind the clock). - I figure if I have the damage to take out groups faster, then I can spend a little more time positioning.
But I don't upgrade all the weapons, I usually skip some weapons like shotgun, sniper, pistol and sword/melee. (Only upgrading base rifle and heavy weapon).
Getting armor first is 1 upgrade, vs the 5 upgrades that weapons "need", so either get 1 weapon upgraded, or consider the fact that armor applies to all troops, and weapons doesn't, so upgrading weapons first gets costly, quickly.

This is assuming you know the techtree by heart, beelining for one seems to me the most effective way, getting either helps a bunch, but in different aspects of combat.

This is for the first upgrade mind you, the second upgrade depends alot more on how my earlier upgrades went, what kind of aliens I'm facing, and what my foundry status is at. I'll happily get the big predator armor first and just give all my troops random stuff, also because magnetic weapons should deal enough damage to give me time.