Arme blanche

[Sathra]

That's...not too bad an idea. Would cut down on animations a bit, since you'd only need them for the big weapons. This is assuming that melee attacks would do lethal damage and weren't poor alternatives to using a stun rod.

[RotGtIE]

I've never liked games which awkwardly tried to implement both melee and firearms. As it turns out, guns happen to work pretty well even in melee range, but when melee becomes a big part of a game with shooty and choppy in it, it becomes a slippery slope that leads to a lot of "balance" changes which favor one or the other in a very bizarre and unintuitive manner. You wind up getting guns so weak compared to melee you wonder why anyone in the game bothers to use them most of the time. Or you get melee troops who just get kited around a whole lot for no good reason. Choppy and shooty just don't mix well, I think.

Besides, I find it very satisfying to squeeze a burst into an enemy at point-blank range. After all the missed shots that happen in games like X-Com, why would you ever want to pass up a free burst of guaranteed hits? That's some sweet vengeance.

[Viscount]

Idea of having an automatic knife is great. Although I dunno what's the use for it. It shouldn't be more powerful than firearms I think, because that'd change the tactical balance quite a bit. Maybe it could be better than a pistol (perhaps more accurate), and definetly better suited in CQB than RPG, but I don't really see many situations where I'd trade AP's for changing weapons when I could have a near-guaranteed hit with the gun at hand.

Besides, at least in XCOM the pistol already had the role of the knife: the only use for it was as a melee backup for the RPG guy.

I can think of two good reasons for using the knife: being silent, if only there was a stealth system, and having a backup if weapons could jam in a critical situation, which could be cool at first but after a while it'd be a huge pain in the ass.

Of course if there are lobstermen then it's totally different.