I'm trying to make the starting weapons more balanced, and since I'm probably not the first guy to do this, I'm wondering what changes others have made.

I've started with the rifle, and my basic principle is, what stats should a top-of-the-line assault rifle in '99 have. Right now, I've increased the damage to 40, and the magazine size to 30.

It's more tricky to balance out the accuracy and TU values of weapons. I've experimented with making the Auto-Cannon full-auto and AP only, with sucky accuracy (12-20) but low TU cost (17-20) and high ammo (50) to simulate a portable mini-gun. Haven't kept this design, though.

Ultimately, what I want to do is to make every weapon useful for specific tasks.

The pistol gets slightly more damage (30), auto-fire and a larger clip (18) to be more in line with a modern military sidearm, but again, accuracy and TU are less clear to change. What's clear is, pistols should be less accurate than rifles, but more accurate than them if the 0.76 multiplier for holding something in the off hand is in effect.

Another problem is, should I keep the relative efficiencies of snap, auto and aimed shot, or change those too? Personally, I've never found aimed shot to make sense, since the chance to hit/TU cost is usually higher with auto or two snaps.

Yet another point is, how do I make heavy plasma less of an ultimate weapon without nerfing the aliens. Simply limit the ammo much more, or cut out auto-fire completely? I want to keep the high damage to blast throug interior walls.

So, lots of problems as you can see. What have your experiences with weapon modding been like?

check my page, thankyou.

Do the unjustice to Heavy plasma that was dome to the laser canon! TAKE AWAY AUTO SHOT!!! IF you change the Laser rifle in any way, I shall lose my temper.