Soviet Equipment

[Nfire3]

Add the BFG9000

[Straker]

I'm very familiar with the M-16 (and a little with the AK47) but in an X-com environment (urban, building interior, UFO interior, etc) a carbine sized weapon may be better than a long rifle. In the Cold War era (a time, incidentally, that I was active in) perhaps an Israeli UZI would be better? However, I can appreciate the difficulty of modeling too many weapons into the game.

[Sathra]

They are in, the shotgun is replaced by carbines of various types at the higher tech tiers.

Arguably, the shotgun should actually be a carbine to keep the theme, but...SHOTGUN!

Long rifles are just good average weapons. Average range, power, speed. The Mario of the weapons. This is game-wise of course.

[Straker]

In UFO Aftermath I preferred using the sniper rifle. I'd try to equip my whole team with it if possible. In that game it was always a good idea to stay away from everything as far as possible.

On the other hand (with some exceptions), in X-Com (1, 2, and 3) I would try to run right up to something before shooting. The danger was out-weighed by rarely missing. I wonder which strategy would work best in Xenonauts?

[anotherdevil]

Hopefully a mixture of both!

[Sathra]

Depends on weapon (both sides), terrain and the unit/s in question.

Carbines and flamethrowers work best at short range. Sniper rifles and machineguns at long range. Cover makes long range fire more effective (due to being able to risk missing more). An alien with a short-range weapon is better taken out at long range, and vice versa. Certain terrains (urban or desert for example) support certain ranges better.

Its a mixture of protection, risk and most importantly, firing cost.

Sniper rifles are extremely expensive to fire, but highly accurate. They aren't much better than rifles damage-wise, but penetrate armour better. Long range.

Shotguns are inaccurate but pretty cheap to fire, but do alot of damage and also penetrate armour well. Short range.

Machineguns are accurate and very powerful. They are also really heavy and can only fire on burst (expensive AP-wise too). As such, heavy armour doesn't work too well with them. Also long range.

Assault rifles are somewhere in the middle. They aren't excellent at either range (not as accurate, not as cheap, not as powerful, etc), but they are good overall.

RPG's, flamethrowers and pistols are obvious.

Aftermath was all about sniper rifles later on, due to it favouring high-damage, high-accuracy, long-range weapons. Bad design decision there. Aftershock wasn't much better mind, but you did use a better mix of weapons (even if it was mostly assault rifles and SMGs).

[Yevgeniy]

Katyusha rocket launcher - and the game is passed!

[Sathra]

Not likely. Same reason as no artillery or grenade launchers.

[Riddley]

Apologies if this has been covered, but are there any plans to implement some proper heavy weapons (besides the RL)? For example, the coldwar Shipunov GShG-7.62 minigun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GShG-7.62_machine_gun

There was always a special place in my heart for heavy weapon troops back in XCOM. Although the game never had classes, I always built squads based on roles - heavy weapons, sniper, CQC (close quarter combat), medic, etc,.

The heavy and auto-cannon had nice ammo variety (which essentially functioned as weapon mod kits), but they quickly became obsolete by the time plasma or even laser weapons rolled around. This was largely due to the linearity of the tech tree with respect to alien weaponry power creep. After a certain point, all the soldiers essentially became generic heavy plasma / blaster bomb troops with no need for specialty weapons.

I really hope the Xenonauts weaponry and tech options are not so limited.

[Jean-Luc]

Apologies if this has been covered, but are there any plans to implement some proper heavy weapons (besides the RL)? For example, the coldwar Shipunov GShG-7.62 minigun.

That role will be covered by the "machine gun", you can see a list of starting earth-tech weapons here: http://www.xenonauts.com/category/equipment/

The "sci-fi" weapons will likely have their heavy variants but we know almost nothing about those yet.

[anotherdevil]

yeah I believe each and every starting weapon will have later tech eqivalents, so the diversity you see early on should continue

[Gauddlike]

Rather than the heavy plasma covering practically all roles each of the weapons will have their own strengths.

Each of the weapon types will also have an improved version in the later tiers.

With proper balancing these weapons should continue to be useful in varying roles all the way through the game.

[Sathra]

Except the rocket launcher of course. It gets fancy rockets.

[anotherdevil]

too true. So no improvements in the rocket launcher at all? not a lighter version or anything? I guess it doesn't really matter later in the game if you've been using the heavier one the whole time, unless armour gets quite heavy that is

[Sathra]

Absolutely no idea. Probably not though, from what tidbits Chris has given.

So of the heavier armours seem like they will increase strength, but that's probably mostly counteract their weight.

[Chris]

There is an improved version of the rocket launcher but it has slightly different utility.

[valente]

yes i vote for yes - if someone asks - please do add more 'items' that come from different regions of the earth, this will be enjoyed by more guys than you might think of.

[DamZe]

I really like the idea of having more varied weapons in the game. I feel if a weapon DLC is to be made available it should not only be a new weapon skin, but also add unique stats to the new weapons. For example if we take the Ak-47, this assault rifle is more powerful than the standard M16. This of course can be a benefit, but then again the AK-47 has more recoil which ultimately makes it less accurate. These things would really add depth to the weapons arsenal of Xenonauts, because you could go for more power but less accuracy and build up your own play style. Also if such a weapon DLC was to be made available it would also be nice to have the new weapons alongside the old ones just for variety sake, because I don't like the idea of Russian weapons just replacing the other ones. Give these weapons their own stats and make them available alongside the original one's and it will be great.

[Gauddlike]

It does seem like a lot of work making all of the new weapon skins and animations if you are only going to see one or the other of them.

[anotherdevil]

yeah, I'd like at least to be able to choose one or the other, so some in my squad have AKs and some M16s etc.

Or have it automatically chosen by where they are from (US = M16, USSR = AK, etc.)

[PureArctic]

Don't forget Steyr Aug's for the Aussies

wikipedia link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_AUG

[radister]

I like the idea of having lots of earth weapons.

But if its the choice between having more earth weapons or more alien/human-hybrid tech weapons, I rather have alien ones.

[anotherdevil]

yeah the thing with earth weapons is that you'd switch fairly quickly, so there is no real reason to do all this extra work for the ballistic era of weapons. That's why the soviet equipment would be a DLC of sorts