So... what weapon do you issue to most of your troops? Personally, I use predominantly Laser Rifles. They are probably the most TU-efficent weapon given damage, accuracy, and TU-consumption. I do give about 25% of my men Heavy Plasmas, though. Double the damage never hurts... well, it never hurts me. :angel:

Rifles!

I love this gun, mow down sectiods, floaters, and erthicals. Riddle snakemen with bullets, run away screaming from mutons (not really, but boy they take a pounding)

What? Where are the cannons? Some of us nuts actually arm everyone with heavy and auto cannons! :crazy:

Um... don't mind me. I've been thinking about 'appreciating' the heavy cannon again after my recent phase with the pistols and grenades.

I'd vote for every item on the list, except the plasma cannon and the blaster-launcher, but we're only allowed one vote.

- NKF

too bad x-com can't have h2h combat...

Well, stun rods are kind of hand-to-hand. At least its a melee weapon

well, is sucks how if u psi a h2h alien, u can't use its weapon.

The Laser Rifle!

Okay, there's a couple reasons why.

1) None of the aliens are strong against lasers which is a big advantage, since it is a jack-of-all-trades weapon. Sectopods are weak against lasers.

2) The damage is decent but the TU Cost in good with a nice accuracy percentage.

Cheers!

Psi Amps! I love making aliens kill each other (or doing the whole firing squad thing :devil: ) yes its cheap and there is little challange but its still fun. (hardest psi challage is taking over an alien base with one dude and his psi amp and only use panic but thats another subject). But if i must have a real weapon as standard i would pick grenades
-PSY GUY-

i've never got far enough to get psi amps and stuff, but i'm goning to this time round

BTW at the moment laser rifles are my weapon of choice

reason: if you can see a laser rifle you know hes got ammo

plus you can sell all the plasma weapons you don't use for money

oooooooook, ummmm..... laser rifles are nice, but with xcomutil, i ended up using laser pistols for awhile, damn elerium shortage.....

I use only laser rifles through the whole game.

Laser rifles are awsome. I love to use them because.
1. No Clips (more room for amps and such)
2. Fast
3. Accurate (not as accurate as plasma but still the balance of speed and accuracy is good)
4. Size (Heavy Plasma takes up too much room plus no clips taking space)
5. Look cool (Go well with psi amps)
6. Sounds better (if im getting a bite to eat and hear a plasma shot then i know its alien but if i hear a laser blast then i know my guys are hard at work)
7. Easy to get
8. Cheap to mass produce
9. Human Tech (terran pride)
10. Save my E-115

-PSY GUY-
(after a month i decided to vote for laser rifles. Still want to put gernades)

Clearly the laser rifle is the weapon of choice for just about everyone but me then! I'd say heavy plasma though. I guess there's not much logic to it as I only use them because they're strong but hey they are REALLY strong!
To combat the fact that lasers are good because they have infinite ammo, you don't need a lot of ammo in the original XCom as the missions don't last very long.

Actually it all depends on how you use them. Wall shooting can take a lot of ammo. Whats good about laser rifles is not the infin ammo but the lack of clip.

-PSY GUY-
(The one with the Psi Amp, Laser Rifle, and Power Armor with built in mind probe)

Well Veteran, you're taking a more practical approach towards it.

I admit the heavy plasma cannon is the be all and end all of the weapons in UFO, although I find them utterly boring. Hence I'd usually pick a weapon way across the spectrum, such as the standard or laser pistol, but even then I wouldn't arm the entire squad with just them.

Then, during combat, if I need the firepower, I'll just grab the extra heavy-plasmas off the aliens. Lasers are nice and reliable, but when you need to punch through walls[1], nothing beats a heavy plasma.

- NKF

[1] Inner alien ship walls

My favorite thing to do is to destroy the bottom floor(except the stairs) then climb the
stairs and blow them up after me. This works best with the laser stuff because of their
unlimited ammo.

I usually keep a couple of guys with Heavy cannons. I use them for the purpose of mobile artillery. The rest of the squad are armed with rifles for the most part, except for two COs who carry pistols with motion scanners. Though I usually keep 1 guy with AC-I for if I need fires to light up things at night or other reasons. I also usually have a guy with an RL that doesn't seem to be used much, but he's there, just in case we need some real heavy explosions. Like if I run into a situations where the aliens are real well dug in, that's when the RL with large rockets comes in handy.

Rifles and pistols as in laser or plasma oriented. I consider heavy plasma a form of rifle, more so as the best rifle. They start off with laser rifles as as possible, then move up as I can supply them. However the laser rifles is a real god send in many situations, even later on, since you can pack mores stuff on the transport. If being able to fit equipment on the transport is what is important I use lasers, if having heavy damage is important I pack plasma.

I tend to not use tanks very much, so I often am trying to squeeze enough equipment for all my soldiers on the transport. More soldiers means better coverage at the expense of less damage dealing per soldier. Good coverage can really help keep them alive. Having more men engaging targets simultaneously often offsets the laser's lower damage compared to plasma. Some mission though, less soldiers is more ideal - like if the they're going to be in a place where it's all narrow hallways. In those cases I generally go with plasma because it seems to become less important to cover each other as much as maximumizing firepower per soldier. Take alien bases for instance. There's not much open space and you're having more to worry about being able to kill an alien that pops right out in front of you at close range. Just need enough men to watch corridors that could be the flanks for your squad. In other words it's less about establishing a good perimeter as it is having good firepower (kill the alien in front of you or he'll kill you). Plasma pistol seems to really shine in that situation too since you get more TUs that allow your soldiers to attack a target a few times then have enough TUs to duck behind cover before the end of his turn.

*side note: sometimes I think it's better to have weaker weapons that you can attack more times than more deadly weapons where you can attack less times. The reason is because it gives more chances to hit (better probability much like how auto tends to be the most ideal form of attack). A weapon may do tons of damage, but if you miss it isn't going to matter much. That's what tends to make pistols have more use than what they initially appear to have. That however, isn't the whole story, afterall sometimes less damage/more attacks works against you since it allows the aliens to possibly react. Anyway, that age old rifle vs. pistol debate seems silly because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Some situations a pistol is more ideal, some situation a rifle or heavy weapon is more ideal. I do tend to believe that in majority of missions a rifle is most ideal though since there tends to be wide open space in many of the recovery missions. A pistol shines however when you need to clear cramped, indoor, areas.

No offense, but in situations where there are lots of narrow hallways and corridors, and places to search, you don't want to have weapons with clips, because these missions last MUCH longer than others. Lasers are ideal for this because they need no clips, so you can bring stuff u'll really need, like more medkits, grenades, etc. When you run out of ammo, weapons aren't worth that much if you don't have ammo, with plasma's, you CAN scavenge, but it puts you open to attacks from nearby aliens....

I dunno....weapons with clips are ok there, provided you stick religiously with the mutual support thing. If you can "pairs-fire and manoeuver", then each guy can cover the other as he changes mags, scavenges clips etc. As a practical matter, 2-man fireteams are a good idea anyway - this just happens to one area where the idea shines.

Maybe so, but as luck would have it, there's a laser pistol . Keep in mind ( I probably should've specified it more though) when I say pistol or rifle, I mean any type (standard issue AP, laser, or plasma) when in the context of the pistol vs. rifle debate.

In fact, the toughest decision to make for my troops is laser rifle vs. heavy plasma, and laser pistol vs. plasma pistol. The deciding factor often seems to be how many troops I want to take on a mission since more troops equate to trying to cram more gear on the transport (80 item limit). i.e. do I what want a larger squad (which means better overall coverage at the expense of less firepower per soldier - laser weapons), or is it a mission where heavier firepower per soldier becomes more critical (plasma weapons)?

It all really depends, but I rarely ever try to have a single soldier tackle anything alone.

Personally, I don't think the ago old debate should've ever been pistols vs. rifle, but should've been lasers vs. plasma (though I guess that's another age old debate), because as to which technology is superior is really hard to say and so subjective based upon circumstances. Like on one hand plasma does quite a bit more damage per shot, but requires ammo, which in turn requires more spaces on the transport (afterall, you really want at least one clip per plasma weapon, otherwise your soldiers are going at least semi-unarmed till they can find a clip off an alien). While laser weapons conserve on space and you never need to worry about running out of ammo, but the tradeoff is less damage per shot.

Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I find my soldiers survive better in [close quarters] with some form of pistol than rifle most of the time. Sure it's going to usually take more attacks to down an alien, but I get many more attacks per turn with a pistol (which equates to better probabilities to hit more often) as well as more tactical options such as more room to move to make it behind good cover before the turn ends.