Starting weapos

[cman1983]

What about rubber bullets for shotgun at start eg like gas grenades for the grenadier

[SHOGUN_YAMATO]

Pointless story wise. As you don't know if they would be effective you would not issue them to soldiers and rick casualties. Gas grenades seem a nice choice (this was the way to capture aliens in X1) but this would also require research.

[Conductiv]

Initially you wouldn't know if they are effective, but both the autopsies and the xenobiology research could pretty quickly unlock new toys to work with.

but a problem you would run into would be the effectiveness and threading into the abilities of other weapons, I personally thought teargas would be pretty good, a gas that would apply a vision impeding status without blocking sight like smoke. but...thinking a little deeper you end up with it A. being broken as all hell (preventing the enemy from hitting atoll), B. threading on the flashbang or C. being woefully unreliable (the enemy has a % reduction to hit akin to (heavy) cover)

beanbag shotgun would have a similar problem, if the idea is to apply stun you are effectively making something like advanced stun weapons 

[cman1983]

The flash bang doesn't seem to be as affective this time 

[Ruggerman]

There was a stun grenade in the past, but it was removed back in version 18 (I think) and it was very useful in capturing aliens, just throw one or two into a room with the aliens and wait, all to easy.

[Serious Sponge]

The flashbang inflicted a small amount of stun in X1 and, with enough of them you could knock an enemy out on the very first mission. In this game, the flashbang doesn't deal any stun damage but regular smoke grenades now are your game start/first mission stun option as now units take stun damage when passing through the smoke and they take more if they end their turn inside smoke.