What are you opinions about weapons?

[Loquitran]

I really enjoy some of the weapons and overall the balancing is way better than Xenonauts 1. If I had to make a tierlist, it would go as follows:

1. Assault Rifle
2. Machine Gun
3. Shotgun
4. Sniper Rifle
5. Pistols
6. Grenade Launcher

Assault Rifle:

Assault Rifles in Xenonauts 1 were pretty bad IMO. Bad damage, dubious accuracy and no other bonuses. It was just a versatile weapon and that's it. Now on X2, the weapon has great damage and decent accuracy on all distances and you can also quite reliably suppress enemies, which is the closest we have to psionic powers for our soldiers. Great weapon.

Machine gun:

Super strong weapon, if you land hits with 10 shots, you basically kill any enemy and if it doesn't, it will suppress(which is quite overpowered). The weapon also works on all ranges although it lacks a little bit on long range. You can also destroy covers and walls with it. Not as versatile and consistent as the Assault Rifle, but still extremely good.

Shotgun:

IMO, shotguns were the absolute best weapons on X1 hands down. I know a lot of people that ignored the fact that shotguns gave 150% reaction to the soldier and they also had incredible damage. Turned a really tough game into a "cakewalk". Now they removed the reaction bonus(and maluses) from weapons, and I feel like the shotgun don't have the same damage. Even though the shotgun have a bonus to hit on close distances, the damage is not that great and it may be my luck but it often misses 2 projectiles and hit 1. Still the best weapon for breaching though.

Sniper Rifles:

Sniper rifles sucked on X1. Bad damage and useless on close combat and high TU usage made the weapon IMO, the worst weapon(I still used though) in the game. Now, the sniper rifle packs quite a punch and it has great accuracy, although still lacking on close quarters encounters, the weapon is great. Props to the devs for the sweet spot they found with the sniper rifle.

Pistols:

As I mentioned, people slept on the shotgun reflex bonus and the pistol had the same exact bonus(oh and SR and MG had a 50% reflex malus). Pistol was a pretty decent weapon, but the damage was extremely bad, although you could shot like 3 or 4(?) times per turn. Now, the pistol have great damage. I feel so much joy when I hit an enemy for 40 damage with a pistol. The weapon is great and it also made the riot shield way better, since it lacked a lot on damage.

Grenade Launcher:

The rocket launcher died for this... This weapon sucks. That's it, thanks for reading!
Just kidding. The weapon is extremely inaccurate, and the damage is subpar. Feels extremely bad(to compensate the joy of rolling big damage with the pistol) when you hit a Psyon for single digit damage. And it feels bad when you shoot a Caesan(or whatever it's called the sectoid) and it takes the grenade like a champ. Even though you can shoot 4 projectiles before reloading, only being able to shoot it once per turn feels really bad. Whenever I hit something with this weapon, I feel like I made a poor decision on using a grenadier instead of any other class.

Overall this is my perspective about the game, not saying it is 100% correct, but this is my experience. What do you guys think?

[DaviddesJ]

My thought is maybe the grenadier gets better later in the game when your accuracy is higher. In the early game you're better off with a strong character who has a regular weapon and throws grenades as well.

[cswiger]

The best weapon depends on the circumstances.

At close range, you really can't beat a shotgun, but the assault rifle on auto works almost as well and a pistol can be OK.

At long range, nothing beats the sniper rifle. The MG can be pretty good, and the assault rifle is also decent. But shotguns and pistols are useless outside of their range.

FWIW, I'm still seeing my shotgun wielders performing reaction fire in overwatch before other weapon types. Simply having lower TU to shoot works well enough without the X1 weapon type bonus or malus to reaction time.

Agreed that weapon damage in general seems to have been bumped up some. But the aliens-- some of them, anyway-- have more armor and their weapons seem to be more damaging in return. I'm taking at least one DRT fatality in every battle, and at least some of those would have been glancing hits with survivable damage in X1 or other X-Com games.

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by cswiger:

The best weapon depends on the circumstances.

At close range, you really can't beat a shotgun, but the assault rifle on auto works almost as well and a pistol can be OK.

At long range, nothing beats the sniper rifle. The MG can be pretty good, and the assault rifle is also decent. But shotguns and pistols are useless outside of their range.

FWIW, I'm still seeing my shotgun wielders performing reaction fire in overwatch before other weapon types. Simply having lower TU to shoot works well enough without the X1 weapon type bonus or malus to reaction time.

Agreed that weapon damage in general seems to have been bumped up some. But the aliens-- some of them, anyway-- have more armor and their weapons seem to be more damaging in return. I'm taking at least one DRT fatality in every battle, and at least some of those would have been glancing hits with survivable damage in X1 or other X-Com games.

The thing is, the shotgun/pistol had a 50% bonus to reflexes on X1, making them extremely likely to interrupt the enemy AND not being interrupted, while a sniper/machine gun had a 50% malus, making them basically impossible to do reaction fire. Assault rifle had 100% reflex, so no bonus or malus.

The shotgun still can reaction fire on X2, but not as much.

About each weapon depending on the circumstances, that is correct. But my "tierlist" is based on overall utility and the likeliness of each weapon being useful. For instance, Assault Rifles were extremely bad on X1 based on their damage and accuracy(and the fact that shotguns had 50% reflex bonus lol). Since they can perform extremely well on all situations, I think they are overall the best weapon in the game..

[wei270]

shotgun still can miss on close range shots, and they do lowest damage perhit which means they are VERY unreliable on armored enemies.

machine guns is king, especially in the close coterd combat nature of this game. you stay out of sign close the distance. then come on and 10 pop. every other gun is pretty much unreliable because you come out you pop and you miss or you hit and don't do enough damage, but with mechine gun you will hit at least 1 out of 10 shots, and even if you don't kill the enemy you will suppress them.

[DaviddesJ]

Vym, you’re ignoring all of the important differences (damage type, armor penetration and damage).

[wei270]

Originally posted by VYM:

I hope you just trolling, OP, or trying to be funny.

All weapons don't make any sense and extremely stupid.

Human technology sniper rifle:
Range 30
Damage 40
Clip size 5
Weight 20

Improved accelerated rifle:
Range 30
Damage 46
Clip size 5
Weight 25

Precision laser:
Range 30
Damage 46
Clip size 3
Weight 20

So according to developers logic primitive human technology sniper rifle has same range, weight as a super advanced high technology alien weapon but only 12% less damage. Wow! And super advanced high technology alien sniper rifle has only 3 shots using super advanced high technology fusion cell or any other alien power cell. Hilarious!
IMHO alien sniper rifle in comparison with human's sniper rifle must have 50 range, at least 70 damage, at least 10 clip size and 10 weight.
Same goes to all other weapon.

i think the idea is that mag weapons are just human weapons with damage upgrade. and lazer weapon is different weapoon in terms of function

[cswiger]

Originally posted by Loquitran:

The thing is, the shotgun/pistol had a 50% bonus to reflexes on X1, making them extremely likely to interrupt the enemy AND not being interrupted, while a sniper/machine gun had a 50% malus, making them basically impossible to do reaction fire. Assault rifle had 100% reflex, so no bonus or malus.

Yes, I recall X1. X1 reaction fire chances boiled down to weapon type being critical and the actual TUs needed to fire being secondary.

X2 seems to be going with the reaction fire system used by the original X-Com, which was your chance of reaction fire improves with faster-shooting weapons and there was no type-specific modifier needed.

About each weapon depending on the circumstances, that is correct. But my "tierlist" is based on overall utility and the likeliness of each weapon being useful.

OK. That being said, however, are you going to run a squad of only assault riflemen...?

For instance, Assault Rifles were extremely bad on X1 based on their damage and accuracy(and the fact that shotguns had 50% reflex bonus lol). Since they can perform extremely well on all situations, I think they are overall the best weapon in the game..

Assault rifles are the most flexible weapon. They aren't the best at anything, but they are pretty decent in all circumstances. I thought they were fine in X1. I'd rather kill all visible hostiles if I can, rather than hope that they'll run forward and get hit by reaction fire.

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by VYM:

I hope you just trolling, OP, or trying to be funny.

All weapons don't make any sense and extremely stupid.

Human technology sniper rifle:
Range 30
Damage 40
Clip size 5
Weight 20

Improved accelerated rifle:
Range 30
Damage 46
Clip size 5
Weight 25

Precision laser:
Range 30
Damage 46
Clip size 3
Weight 20

So according to developers logic primitive human technology sniper rifle has same range, weight as a super advanced high technology alien weapon but only 12% less damage. Wow! And super advanced high technology alien sniper rifle has only 3 shots using super advanced high technology fusion cell or any other alien power cell. Hilarious!
IMHO alien sniper rifle in comparison with human's sniper rifle must have 50 range, at least 70 damage, at least 10 clip size and 10 weight.
Same goes to all other weapon.

First off, my thoughts are based on the differences from Xenonauts 1 to Xenonauts 2. Some weapons were really bad while a few others extremely strong. This is why I praised the sniper rifle, since this weapon was terrible on X1, although I still used on my squad.

Second thing, as people mentioned, you are not considering the different damage types on the ballistic/laser weapons. Ballistic weapons have armor piercing and low armor damage, while laser have 0 armor piercing and high-ish armor damage. The coilguns as mentioned before, are just accelerated ballistic weapons, even the research acknowledges that this weapon is too "primitive" for the aliens considering their avionics technology for instance.

I honestly think the weapons perform as they should, except the grenade launcher, which I think is too bad at the moment.

And as I mentioned before, I rated the weapons based on overall utility/usability. Of course a Sniper will be way better than an assault rifle at long range. But how many situations I can capitalize on that?

Just for instance, assuming the basic dropship with 9 soldiers, I use this squad:

1 shield
1 sniper
1 heavy
1 grenadier(this unit is on thin ice lol)
2 assaults
3 rifleman

While on X1 I would swap the numbers of riflemen with the assaults.

[Loquitran]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Originally posted by Loquitran:

The thing is, the shotgun/pistol had a 50% bonus to reflexes on X1, making them extremely likely to interrupt the enemy AND not being interrupted, while a sniper/machine gun had a 50% malus, making them basically impossible to do reaction fire. Assault rifle had 100% reflex, so no bonus or malus.

Yes, I recall X1. X1 reaction fire chances boiled down to weapon type being critical and the actual TUs needed to fire being secondary.

X2 seems to be going with the reaction fire system used by the original X-Com, which was your chance of reaction fire improves with faster-shooting weapons and there was no type-specific modifier needed.

About each weapon depending on the circumstances, that is correct. But my "tierlist" is based on overall utility and the likeliness of each weapon being useful.

OK. That being said, however, are you going to run a squad of only assault riflemen...?

For instance, Assault Rifles were extremely bad on X1 based on their damage and accuracy(and the fact that shotguns had 50% reflex bonus lol). Since they can perform extremely well on all situations, I think they are overall the best weapon in the game..

Assault rifles are the most flexible weapon. They aren't the best at anything, but they are pretty decent in all circumstances. I thought they were fine in X1. I'd rather kill all visible hostiles if I can, rather than hope that they'll run forward and get hit by reaction fire.

On X1, I struggled a lot during the first few missions. But after I noticed the reaction bonus on shotguns/pistols, I started capitalizing on that and made the whole game stupid easy, only the last mission being the exception. Of course, some units died here and there, but overall I was steamrolling the whole game.

You could just get a unit with mid to high reflexes, give it a shotgun and go to town. You could basically dance around the aliens and they couldn't reaction shot you and when the alien's toe tips were visible, you were already using reaction fire(if you had sufficient TUs).

That is how broken shotguns were. Of course I'm exaggerating for comedic purposes, but the idea is the same. You could walk freely without the fear of being killed by a reaction shot and you could sit pretty and just kill aliens on their turns.

Assault rifles, although decent-ish, didn't had anything other the versatility going for them. The damage was bad, the accuracy was ok-ish and the reactions were not as good. Even with late game weapons, the Assault Rifle was not very good. It was an OK weapon, but not as good as they are right now on X2.

[Goldhawk]

Interesting post, thanks for writing this up. It's interesting to read what people think of the weapon balance.

One of the nice things about shotguns in X2 that you've not mentioned is that they're not really reliant on Accuracy in the same way as the other weapons, so they allow you to use an otherwise quite useless soldier in an assault role (provided they have enough TU to get close to the enemy).

I do agree the grenade launcher probably needs some love. The problem with that weapon is it's difficult to balance because explosive weapons tend to be extremely reliable damage due to their blast radius, which can lead to them being overpowered. But hopefully we can find the sweet spot during Early Access.

[Greb]

So, the rocket launcher is gone then? That's a shame, if so. Don't see why they couldn't have put in a grenade launcher that has the advantage of rapid fire and is more useful at shorter ranges while also being lighter and easier to use, but also having a smaller explosive payload (but would be better for utility options I.E flashbangs, gas grenades, smoke grenades, incendiary grenades, EMP grenades etc etc) and then also offering the big tasty rocket launcher that handles much bigger warheads with greater range, but is also more cumbersome and can only fire one rocket before being reloaded, etc. Also the ammo would be extremely heavy as well.

With thrown grenades already existing, I'm not sure I understand replacing the rocket launcher with a grenade launcher, myself. I guess it can launch stuff further than soldiers can throw, though.

Having not played the game yet it's hard for me to comment on it though. I hope there's research for better explosive weapons this time though, in Xenonauts 1 you just upgraded the warheads instead of the launcher for most of the game until you got that big super gun that fired fusion warheads or whatever, lol. It could only be used with the Predator Suit, I think it was called. Cool stuff.

Like, hopefully the grenade launcher can be upgraded to something like an XM-25 where you can airburst the grenades, for extreme reliability and even more rapid fire, with an even faster reload time compared to slowly refilling a cylinder with grenades?

How does the grenade launcher compare to the old rocket launcher, or a trooper laden down with grenades?

[wei270]

Originally posted by Goldhawk:

Interesting post, thanks for writing this up. It's interesting to read what people think of the weapon balance.

One of the nice things about shotguns in X2 that you've not mentioned is that they're not really reliant on Accuracy in the same way as the other weapons, so they allow you to use an otherwise quite useless soldier in an assault role (provided they have enough TU to get close to the enemy).

I do agree the grenade launcher probably needs some love. The problem with that weapon is it's difficult to balance because explosive weapons tend to be extremely reliable damage due to their blast radius, which can lead to them being overpowered. But hopefully we can find the sweet spot during Early Access.

wait does that mean Shot gun is the only weapons that use the old cone bailistic system?

[robbie.price]

The grenade launcher is good for cleaner base missions. Any mission where there is a lot of terrain to 'hit' nearby the targets when the weapon 'misses'. ( and you can be indifferent to civilian risks.

in low cover situations it is much less useful. Perhaps leaning into that further?

Currently ballistic weapons are moderately capable of clearing cover. how a single bullet levels a whole crate ...

reducing the cover clearing ability of non-explosive weapons and increasing the explosive weapons ability (say one tile outside of the damaging people range where it still damages cover)

Also if you add mine and mine-clearing ...

[roogun]

I find the granade launcher quite useful, even in its current state. I primarily use it for removing environment. Had to get used to it not having a ballistic arc but now it works fine for me.

I think the granade launcher could be a very versatile weapon considering its potential ammo types: thermo, smoke, incendiary, shrapnel etc. Each with its own area of effect to balance the damage

[wei270]

but the ability to clear cover while op is what is fun about xcom, the fun part is if you bring enough ammo you can level the whole map. but i guess the difference here is that ammo is free in this game and not in xcom.