Where's the Power Suits?

[Alan]

*nods* sounds reasonable. this would also be why the plasma pistol isn't as kick ass a weapon as it could have been, and why there are no heavy plasmas.

[NKF]

Maybe that new fangled synthetic elerium Solmine harvests just isn't all its cropped up to be. It's not as good as pure elerium. There's just no oomph.

 

That may also explain why some organisations are so lacklustre with their handling of their precious elerium. Goodness, why leave the pods, which are roughly $4000+ worth of elerium ammunition, out in the open on their reception desks? Fancy ornaments? Right... At least put them in a reenforced vault with autogun defence systems.

 

Then again, what if we did start with heavy plasmas and power suits? Why'd we even need to bother with the disrupters apart from the shields? Or worse, for balancing purposes, the programmers could have turned the power suits into something less than what they were, and that wouldn't have been a very nice compromise.

 

I suppose it's best the way it is. That way we can fantasise Avengers or Leviathans (which are both roughly slightly larger than a Biotrans) blasting the mushroom battleships into two pieces with just once perfect salvo. Or maybe not.

 

Ah, the joy of plot holes.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

So why not do a progressive weapony thing then? In the first two wars you had to start from scratch each time as none of the old weapons worked in the new environments.

In Apocalypse the game should have kept the UFO weapons, armour and craft. They should simply have made everything else stronger. The aliens should be stronger, as should their weapons and vehicles. Because you started off with power suits and heavy plasmas it'd would remain at the same difficulty as it had originally been...

Besides remember the synthetic Elerium from Interceptor? I took out a wraith with weapons powered by that... Don't try telling me it can't kill an anthropod!

[Scott]

Here's a question: Why do laser rifles consume ammo in Apoc when laser weapons had unlimited ammo in UFO?

[Mouse Nightshirt]

Talking about Disruptor armour;

 

IMHO, The blue parts are like the shield generator, creating a local shield around the user which works as an armour, which is why it is so light; it contains very little physical protective armour.

 

Not all laser things require power cells, such as the Lancer and Bolter laser guns for your vehicles. The Laser Pods are probably there to increase the power and accuracy of a sniper rifle to make it a formiddable weapon. Don't forget they would be formiddable against the unarmoured Gangs and Resistors that Megapol and Marsec would be up against.

[Scott]

UFO's heavy lasers would be rather effective too I'm sure, and again.. no ammo usage there.

[Crazy Photon]

Well, maybe the designers thought it'd be more realistic for laser guns to have ammo

[Alan]

i figure that in ufo the lasers were assumed to have a sufficient charge to last for a combat mission. (or praps when used with power armour they can draw charge from that or something)

 

the sniepr lasers in apoc needing ammo, i guess thats just for added realism.... cause they'd run out of power, unless they were self perpetuating....

 

No, scratch that! i've got it! its a marketing ploy by marsec. in ufo x-com made the lasers, so would want there to be no maintenance cost... in apoc marsec are making them (or is it megapol) and so would want people to have to keep buying more ammo! its the evil marketing people i tell you!

[Tammy]

I think he's got it!

 

I have to agree, though, that it doesn't make sense at all for Apoc soldiers to be armed with rifles and such. I'm not sure how they would've handled making sure that the X-COM agents were still outgunned, but I think they should've tried.

[NKF]

I suppose they(whomever's in charge of defence) hadn't anticipated any further wars with any alien species, so they decomissioned the military grade equipment (ala UFO and TFTD) and reissued all the remaining defence forces with civilian grade equipment instead. Nothing too high powered, but still strong enough to settle problems in the city. When X-Com was recomissioned, that's what they got (oh and those ugly insectoid suits of armour that the cops simply refuse to wear)

 

It would have been nice if the energy weapons had a setting where you could control how much energy is discharged from the battery per shot (with apropriate tradeoffs, of course!). Just imagine being able to expel the whole laser pod and short circuit a PDS shield in one high-powered-but-very-hard-to-aim shot plus a variety of safety risks that it might result in.

 

- NKF

[Snikers]

Why very hard to aim?

[ApOcaLyPSe_1985]

Ok here's my theory:

 

After the first alien war, the funding of x-com was cancelled cause there was no real treath anymore. They sold everything to keep the project funded, but they failed. So bye bye powersuit.

After some yrs, the second alien war started.

With no alien weapons and elerium, they only had the option to use earth based weaponry.

So then they war against the aliens and stuff and win again, ofcourse.

Zrbite turned to useless material after the destruction of those alien devices.

And again this happens, sell, sell, sell.

In X-COM Interceptor, aliens are using plasma based weaponry that is somehow selfgenerating. Humans research synthetic elerium and that explains use of elerium powered devices in X-COM Apoc, like the plasmapistol, Marsec Armor, grav lifts and elerium powered vehicles used for interplanetary travel.

[Tammy]

You may have something there....it always seems to come back to funding, doesn't it?

[NKF]

And poor foresight. But then again, if we started off too strong, there wouldn't have been much of a game to play.

 

Were we to get an even newer game after Apocalypse, and if the disrupter weapons didn't get phased out because the dimension gates were closed, they'd definitely be cranked down a few notches to make way for the new invaders' weapons.

 

Why very hard to aim?

 

I imagine it would be to offset the overcharged zap just to balance things a little. The gun could be quivering from sustaining a charge it wasn't built to handle. Well, there could be other tradeoffs besides accuracy, but that's just an example.

 

- NKF

[Alan]

personally... with laser weapons id think that it would still be accurate.

i'd probably say... have it take time to charge up. or have it lose power when shot over long distances. or maybe damage the laser fireing it slightly....

[Ki-tat Chung]

maybe they should have done it so you have all the ufo tech, but the level you started at was superhuman as novic or something. and the avengers would probebly have to use conventional engines or something 'cause you run out of e115 just from the weapons! and imagine if the producers let you use space travel? i mean, all the medium to large craft are space worthy (or so the UFOpedia says) so why not take a trip to space and raid some miners?