[Japo]

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

Laser Cannons are the most profitable item to produce for sale.

You are right, thanks for the heads up. I have higher research priorities right now since I don't plan to use heavy laser nor laser cannon, but the laser cannon's return is really worth the little research effort: $61.9 per hour and engineer! Some more I've calculated today: alien alloys ¢27.8 (yes *cents*), personal armour makes you *lose* $2.9 per hour and engineer if you produce it for sale, and heavy laser earns you $6.7.

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire

That is not completely true. It really depends on which kind of cover you're hiding behind. I particularly remember fences of any kind gave fair shot protection while allowing you to shoot thru it if you were at point blank range. UFO is a very old game anyways, such principles as shooting from behind cover was never even thought of in those days.

I wasn't of course counting fences, at least for shooting. And I doubt that they count for cover when being shot. Sure they can be hit instead of the soldier but only if the alien misses, and I don't have reasons to think they make it more easy to fail.

Well, I myself never research the laser weapons until way later in the game simply because I consider them useless coma. However, the heavy version of any weapon owns in term of firepower. You certainly would not want to equip a full squad with it, but you sure need the firepower once in a while.

Using laser VS plasma weapons always been a great source of argument for Xcom fans. Laser weapons are easy to use, available sooner and usually all have auto shot which is a feature a lot of people swear from. Plasma weapon however pack a bigger punch and usually have a higher accuracy, especially with aimed shots. What I do myself at the end of the game is to give all my crackshots plasma weapons (they almost never miss), and give my new recruits laser weapon and hope the auto shot will do it's job.

Anyways, what I always personally do is aim to research medkit then personal armor first of all, then look to get better weapons. No use to have uber weapons if you have nobody to fire them.

Laser weapons are not useless, the only weapons better than laser rifles are heavy plasma, I acknowledge that, but not plasma rifles: being more accurate in snap and auto shot, are a little less powerful, and if you want accuracy you have the aimed shot which is equally accurate in both laser and plasma rifle, but takes less TUs for the plasma rifle. Add to this that sectopods are specially resistant to plasma and at the same time specially vulnerable to laser, and no alien is resistant to laser. And that unlimited ammo doesn't mean only that you don't need to worry about clips and about possibly manufacturing them using elerium up, but it also means that without the need to carry clips in the ship, there's more room for other items. Like grenades which are really powerful and always land close enough, whereas guns may fail every time.

I plan to do just like you and equip my best men with heavy plasma, but for the rest of the men and until then, laser rifles are very good. About heavy laser, it isn't really worth it however you look at it. True each shot is more powerful, but with the same TUs that you spend to do a snap shot with a heavy laser worth 85 damage, you can make an auto shot with the laser rifle which means three shot worth 60 damage each, and each of the three has nearly the same accuracy as the single snap shot with the heavy laser. So laser rifles aren't only better than heavy laser overall, they're far more powerful (3x60=180 versus 85) at the end of the day.

For me the first research prorities are motion scanner and laser weapons then laser pistol then laser rifle. If you really know your stuff as to moving in a way that you deny the aliens the initiative (see my post about lines of sight some pages back), laser rifles (pistols are worthless) are actually more urgent than motion scanners, but the former need three research stages (weapons > pistol > rifle) whereas the latter need only one, so in the end it's probably a better idea to research motion scanners first. Plus they're the best to produce for sale until you research laser cannon much later. Still facing a terror attack without laser or plasma weapons is not nice, I just had to, you'd better pack lots of grenades if you have to.

Medikits aren't really a priority until you have personal armour since the likeliest occurrence when an unarmoured soldier is hit by plasma is instant death. So next could go alien alloys then personal armour, but not really before laser weapons in my opinion, first and foremost because normal weapons are good as toys but nothing else and it's really urgent to get something better, and also because after all a human loss is not that terrible this early in the game, but later when the soldiers have experience. After armour research medikits, and then I'd go for heavy plasma and clip (this is where I'm now). Don't bother about plasma pistols, they're worthless, and I won't bother about plasma rifles either. After heavy plasma I guess I'll research laser cannon (after heavy laser but only because it's necessary for the cannon) even though I won't use it (only avalanche then plasma cannon) but only produce it for sale.

By the way before I have laser weapons I only use pistols. Rifles are just plain worse and their power is only marginally higher. The bigger punch of heavy and auto cannons is not really worth the unreasonable amounts of TUs they spend. Pistols can shot lots of times in a turn (two pistol shots are together as powerful as a heavy cannon one) and one or two shots usually dispatch sectoids and floaters and if you plan to shoot at something tougher before you get laser or plasma weapons (and you won't have to outside terror attacks), you'd better use grenades instead.