Opinions on the accelerated weapon and advanced laser changes?

[Kamehamehayes]

Since it has been confirmed that the change of accelerated weapons no longer being unlimited is not a bug, but instead an experiment, what do you guys make of it and should it be reverted back to the previous model? 

I do not have access to the beta, so most of this is secondhand knowledge and speculation, but from what I’ve seen, accelerated weapons have struggled to compete with their laser cousins. Laser weapons are generally considered better than accelerated weapons, so they really struggled to shine. The main benefit the accelerated weapons was that they were unlimited and directly upgraded ballistic weapons to accelerated weapons. In the short term, it upgrades all the weapons of a specific type to the upgraded version immediately. In the long term, a soldier will be able to have a decent weapon if the worst were to happen (side base gets attacked, weapons get blown up, don’t have enough money to build stronger weapons, etc). Since they are not unlimited anymore, all of this utility is void and going straight to laser weapons is more viable than ever. 

I’ve seen that advanced lasers also do not upgrade the existing lasers to advanced laser either, so we should address that too. You can get laser weapons in the first few weeks of the campaign, the ammo issue is not really an issue for the most part, and they are cheaper to produce than the advanced lasers you acquire later (I think), so there is no reason to use advanced lasers instead of regular lasers outside of fixing minor ammo issues. 

I have no idea of how plasma weapons/fusion weapons and their upgrades compare, so perhaps someone who experimented with using them can comment on those tiers. 

Overall, I think that accelerated weapons and advanced lasers should permanently upgrade their respective predecessors as they did in previous builds to make upgrade decisions more interesting and to balance weapons tiers better. 

[alienman]

From my current playthrough so far. The laser weapons are much better overall, damage and accuracy. But they come with one huuuuuge issue. At first when I started to use the lasers, I thought, why even get the accelerated weapons?! But the problem with laser weapons are - they have the same weight as any other weapon, and only carry 5 shots per magazines. So you got to carry a shit ton of spare mags for it, which are heavy. And this, I think makes the accelerated weapons still viable. Especially when carry weight works like currency in Xenonauts. And in my game, I just researched a better armor, but it's heavy! Which makes this even more interesting. I have not made it yet, so I don't know the penalty. But I doubt the ones that use the armor will be able to carry a ton of extra mags with them.

I like how it is now, that it is not upgrading all ballistics weapons. I like playing engineer/builder/quartermaster, and I like the aspect of when things hit the fan, you might have to go back to clunky old ballistics - guerilla style. Like how in the old X-com games when you got your base attacked, and every rookie had to defend, but the armory being reserved for the top units only. So you had to give them old junk to defend with. I always liked that rag tagged approach to the game.

[Kamehamehayes]

24 minutes ago, alienman said:

From my current playthrough so far. The laser weapons are much better overall, damage and accuracy. But they come with one huuuuuge issue. At first when I started to use the lasers, I thought, why even get the accelerated weapons?! But the problem with laser weapons are - they have the same weight as any other weapon, and only carry 5 shots per magazines. So you got to carry a shit ton of spare mags for it, which are heavy. And this, I think makes the accelerated weapons still viable. Especially when carry weight works like currency in Xenonauts. And in my game, I just researched a better armor, but it's heavy! Which makes this even more interesting. I have not made it yet, so I don't know the penalty. But I doubt the ones that use the armor will be able to carry a ton of extra mags with them.

I like how it is now, that it is not upgrading all ballistics weapons. I like playing engineer/builder/quartermaster, and I like the aspect of when things hit the fan, you might have to go back to clunky old ballistics - guerilla style. Like how in the old X-com games when you got your base attacked, and every rookie had to defend, but the armory being reserved for the top units only. So you had to give them old junk to defend with. I always liked that rag tagged approach to the game.

Yeah, I guess the main talking point here is how much does the 5 shot mag downside actually effect combat on the battlefield. If it is only an inconvenience that is easily dealt with, then I think the current system falls on its head and using accelerated weapons is objectively worse than using laser weapons.  

How many laser mags are we talking here? 4-5? 6-8? Do you use those extra mags that you bring in or are they just a precaution to guarantee that you do not run out of ammo? We also have to take into account that in the majority of missions, most of the extra mags brought in might not be used at all, so those extra mags could potentially be substituted for something else. I’ve also seen that there is an undersuit available at the start of the game that increases strength by a small margin, that might be enough to bring in an extra mag or 2 and vastly counteract the ammo and armor weight issues. You can potentially hire and train extra soldiers with higher strength as well. 

[alienman]

19 minutes ago, Kamehamehayes said:

Yeah, I guess the main talking point here is how much does the 5 shot mag downside actually effect combat on the battlefield. If it is only an inconvenience that is easily dealt with, then I think the current system falls on its head and using accelerated weapons is objectively worse than using laser weapons.  

I can only talk from the experience from one mission. But I ran pretty low. My guy with pistol ran out. I was running low on other units too, down to their last couple of shots. They could only carry one extra mag with them, since I run with a full set of grenades and such too. But it got me thinking I have to redo the inventory for the men with lasers. Then, if you use 3 shots to pin someone, that is more than half of ammo capacity in one go. I just like the added complexity.

And looking at my men with mag rifles, they are down to around to a couple of rounds left in their rifle, but didn't have to reload. So, seems to be a big difference there. There is also the thing about having to waste precious time-units to reload all the time.

I can't say for certain if it's a perfect balance or anything, but there is a clear difference between the weapons, at least. Now if mag rifles are worth it by its own, I don't know. It might be worth to skip, but then my comparison would be for standard ballistics and laser weapons.

[Twigg]

I find accelerated weapons definitively not worth the cost. They were barely worth it when you got an infinite amount of them for a single cost, now it actively feels like a trap. Now that we have to manufacture aircraft equipment individually not only do I have less money and resources to spend on luxuries like accelerated weapons but more importantly I don't have time in my manufacturing schedule for them. I found myself constantly reevaluating my manufacturing priorities based on what new research I built and what new fresh hell I found myself against in either the ground or air combat. I found I could make it to laser weaponry from basic ballistics without too much problem with heavy use of snipers, demo charges, and shotguns for UFO assaults.  

[alienman]

Yeah, seems you can go from ballistics to laser without too much trouble. I would still keep some men with me that use ballistics weapons, thanks to the ammo issue with laser refiles.