Armor or weapons first?

[Toadman]

I have been playing this game for a small time and I always run into the dilemma of researching one or the other before the #%@$ hits the fan. With the Monster Mod the big baddy secong beserker one eats my lunch if I get weapon improvements(gauss, etc. ) first. Of course I think I could just not do the QUst that starts the whole chain until I have both upgraded weapons and also Armor. Does that make sense?

A lot of the science research projects are 2-5 days butt they put the weapons a d armor at 20 days or so. I guess this is to stop people from getting both too early. The weapons are just a purche to a one time upgrade for all the specific weapon types. SO it may take a few raids to get the resources. But the armor take not supplies but specific drop resources, and a lont time to make the suits.

Myprevious game I went armor and I could not get htem made fast enough before crap stating goinng downhill. ANd the current game I went weapons and when crap got bad =my guys only had 6-8 health with no armor.

Any suggestions? I usully wait quite a while making the science lab because of theneede power coil, and AWC, PG, etc. which I think is a must.

[Bird_Dog]

Regardless of the game, I almost allways prioritise firepower over armour, offense over defense.
A dead enemy can't hurt you.
It may be a question of personal philosophy, but consider this: Idealy, you never let the enemy take a shot at you. And it's your guns, not your armour, that let's you do this.

[talemore]

If you have a high stock of high-ranking soldiers go for armor, if you have lots of rookies go for magnetic rifles. Calculating the buff's vs the time it takes to build the research lab make it only useful at legend. Do hacking and buyouts to reduce research-time. Sometimes you can rush research so fast that you can have magnetic rifles before the game allows you to build them.

[Fringehunter7719]

Armor is probably easier overall, having tried both. You do need to take certain other actions to fully capitalise on it though.

- Weapons gives +2 damage, but requires two research projects (you have to also complete Gauss weapons) and a heavy resource investment to get all 5 possible improvements. It does unlock an extra mod slot on weapons too, if you have enough mods to actually make use of it.

- Armor gives +4 hp, and unlocks an extra utility slot. That HP will reduce your susceptibility to critical hits (which cover and flashbangs don't really protect you from) and reduce wound times by a substantial factor as well (in many situations by as much as having an AWC on average).

If it was just those then weapons would edge armor out, but armor also allows you to build heavy and light armor. Light armor turns your sharpshooters from slow, borderline liabilities into the class with the highest damage output by a large margin. Heavy armor though gives you a free rocket launcher, which is flat out amazing early, being like bringing an extra plasma tier grenade per suit, which means you can instantly destroy cars that have aliens behind them, or tough cover like trees or alien alloy elements like train cars.

Because of the wound reduction, this also means you can go for a proving ground instead of an AWC (with the HQ healing boost or soldier purchase to fall back on in an emergency), the proving ground is necessary to get those heavy and light armors built, but also means that you'll get specialised ammo (which you then have the inventory space to actually use while still bringing grenades and mimic beacons) way, way sooner than you otherwise would.

Specialised ammo is effectively +2 damage to organic units for venom or incendiary rounds since 1 extra damage is applied immediately and then 1 damage will tick when the alien gets its turn to act. This is as much of a damage upgrade as the extra weapon tier. When you get a mec corpse you can quickly also get bluescreen rounds, which are end game quality and worth more than upgrading your weapons twice against almost all end game units, as well as codexes, turrets and mecs which can otherwise be a problem.

Pistols effectively benefit double from ammo too, so again this acts as a huge force multiplier for certain sharpshooter specs.

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TLDR:

- If your heart is set on a standard build order like GTS-AWC-Power-Proving, then get weapons first.
- If you are willing to try something that might be better overall then swap to GTS-Proving-Power-AWC and get armor first. You get as much damage but also more survivability and utility.

PS: If you had money problems you need to sell more stuff at the black market as well as use intel to buy elerium to resell when it's double price.

[Fel]

Given that one of the unspoken rules in xcom 2 is "kill them fast, ideally activate them on your turn and kill them before they even get a chance at shooting and using skills", I would say weapons first, but don't lag too far behind in protection either, because even a normal hit can insta-kill your soldiers later on if they are not equipped to resist that.

[Roderick]

I take armor over weapons. Armor upgrade affecdts the whole squad, weapons only some and you have to research the rest.
Also I greatly like the second item slot from the armor. Medkist, rounds and armor for everyone! :D

[HeyRomo]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

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TLDR:

- If your heart is set on a standard build order like GTS-AWC-Power-Proving, then get weapons first.
- If you are willing to try something that might be better overall then swap to GTS-Proving-Power-AWC and get armor first. You get as much damage but also more survivability and utility.

PS: If you had money problems you need to sell more stuff at the black market as well as use intel to buy elerium to resell when it's double price.

This. I always rushed weapons in EW but eventually preferred the GTS-Proving Ground-Rush Armor-Get Exo suits etc approach in X2. I've rushed weapons too of course.

There is a fun factor is using whatever random ammo & grenades i get early game from the Proving ground. It's comforting to get the early skulljack - ideally you don't need it but if your expansion to facilities gets screwed up somehow you know you have an option for stopping the avatar counter - and maybe your weak/injured squad will be better off skulljacking an Officer rather than assaulting the Blacksite for example.

[Artek [General]]

I honestly prefer to believe that weapons should come before armor.
They can't hurt you if they're dead before their turn has even begun.
Even if you cant kill everyone the less enemies stays alive before their turn - the better.

[Cactuskiller]

Always research Weapons first, because if you research the armor first, all ADVENT units will force upgrade to Tier 2 as well, while the Tier 2 weapon research doesnt force upgrade them, givinig you aproximately 1-2 months where you can oneshot weak Tier-1 ADVENT Units with Tier 2 Weaponry, if you were fast enough in the first place.

So, if Advent still Tier 1 = Go for weapons first, but research the armor immediately after that
If Advent already Tier 2 =´Armor first, so your experienced soldiers can survive missions against Tier 2 Advent until you get the weapons up

[Fel]

Did I miss something?
I thought the advent's "force level" and their units were completely separate from the player's progress, but you are clearly saying that researchng armour does power them up if they didn't do so already...

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Cactuskiller:

Always research Weapons first, because if you research the armor first, all ADVENT units will force upgrade to Tier 2 as well, while the Tier 2 weapon research doesnt force upgrade them, givinig you aproximately 1-2 months where you can oneshot weak Tier-1 ADVENT Units with Tier 2 Weaponry, if you were fast enough in the first place.

So, if Advent still Tier 1 = Go for weapons first, but research the armor immediately after that
If Advent already Tier 2 =´Armor first, so your experienced soldiers can survive missions against Tier 2 Advent until you get the weapons up

This isn't true.

[aVeryLonePepe]

Originally posted by Toadman:

I have been playing this game for a small time and I always run into the dilemma of researching one or the other before the #%@$ hits the fan. With the Monster Mod the big baddy secong beserker one eats my lunch if I get weapon improvements(gauss, etc. ) first. Of course I think I could just not do the QUst that starts the whole chain until I have both upgraded weapons and also Armor. Does that make sense?

A lot of the science research projects are 2-5 days butt they put the weapons a d armor at 20 days or so. I guess this is to stop people from getting both too early. The weapons are just a purche to a one time upgrade for all the specific weapon types. SO it may take a few raids to get the resources. But the armor take not supplies but specific drop resources, and a lont time to make the suits.

Myprevious game I went armor and I could not get htem made fast enough before crap stating goinng downhill. ANd the current game I went weapons and when crap got bad =my guys only had 6-8 health with no armor.

Any suggestions? I usully wait quite a while making the science lab because of theneede power coil, and AWC, PG, etc. which I think is a must.

5 Mins ago I finished my first campaign, and I tell my experience :


When u get Pred armor, u will have to deal with Archons, which will be a big threat till beam weapons

When u get mag/gauss weapons, you will be able to kill thing faster, with nothing more appearing

TLDR Weapons,

No Archons, no pain, ability to wreak havoc in the first 3 missions after research

[Sugam]

Weapons first. If you know how to get the drop on them then its way better. But if you really have a hard time playing Xcom and just have zero faith in RNG then I guess armor is better suited for those kind of players.

[red255]

In the world statistics people generally research weapons before armor.

I like to do armor for the purpose of it upgrades all my troops instead of piece meal and the powered armor allows me to start on war suits which is both an armor and a weapon.

[Fringehunter7719]

Just in terms of useful facts enemies turn up based on time and nothing else. Researching weapons or armor does not affect whether you get regular troopers or advanced ones. It does not affect whether archons will be present.

Some kind person made a useful picture with the dates based on force levels and the force level increments (which can be found in DefaultGameData.ini and DefaultGameData_CharacterStats.ini) which you can see here:

https://imgur.com/RtaUE6P

[HeyRomo]

Let me put it this way: i beat L/I 5 straight times (and 4 straight without mimic beacons) before i got bored. I settled on armor first. I kicked ass with weapons first too. Do what you want.