Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire
You are not looking at the whole picture though. I've never seen someone with a pistol down a Grey in a single shot (albeit I have to admit I hardly ever used the pistols) while I've seen it plenty of times with a riffle.
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Well maths don't lie, I already said that according to the UFOpedia the power of a single shot from a pistol (26) is nearly the same as from the rifle (30), while it's quite cheaper in terms of TUs. The only reliable way of deciding your equipment and tactics is paying attention to the UFOpedia's numbers, not to subjective impressions. These numbers tell me that rifles are never a good choice compared to pistols (however puny both these are compared to advanced weapons), that cannons' power don't make up either for their lousy accuracy and huge TU spending, that laser rifles are better than heavy laser, and that plasma rifles aren't superior to laser rifles, but heavy plasma are.
If an alien wasn't downed by a pistol shot with 26 damage (and one-hit kills are possible for the less tough ones as they are with rifles), chances are that it wouldn't be downed by a rifle with 30 damage either. If you shoot at an alien and don't kill it, it will retaliate, but the same with a pistol as with a rifle; if you fail it will retaliate the same, and you can always get unlucky with a damage roll and I've even seen sectoids survive one heavy plasma hit quite a number of times. That's why the only safe practice is shooting with a different soldier than the one who spotted the alien, so he's beyond the alien's sight. (I'm not saying this makes sense, but it's how the game's made.)
I'm not particularly fond of grenades, I only use them when they give me better odds than other weapons. At the start of the game they're particularly necessary, because pistols (and rifles alike) are puny against terror weapons such as cyberdiscs and reapers. Besides at that time your soldiers will be bad marksmen and a dozen of them may all fail when trying their luck shooting for a full turn at an alien far away. Once you get laser or plasma they're not that necessary, but they can still come in handy in particular situations. Moreover grenades are preferable to other area-of-effect weapons (except blaster launcher of course) because: they don't need a specific launher and every soldier can carry them; and even if they're thrown with bad skill they never land so far that the enemy isn't affected, whereas rockets and other explosive projectiles will simply fly by the enemy not damaging it in the least if you fail, unless you get lucky and hit another nearby obstacle, that is if you're not in the open. As for equipment, it's not burnt when you kill its bearer with grenades: it will be destroyed every time however if you cause a second explosion over the dead body and the dropped equipment.