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Gauss Or Sonic?


Do you prefer guass or Sonic? Decide like Lobstermen weren't in the game  

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1,000th xcom games topic! :P

Which weapons do you prefer? NOT counting lobstermen ex. As if they weren't in the game
I only get sonic because of the lobstermen so my choice would be gauss
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Sonic is much more powerful, plus you get the much better Sonic Displacer SWS later on.

The one thing that pisses me off is that each clip for the Sonic Cannon only has 10 shots, an incredibly measley amount compared to its predecessor, the Heavy Plasma's 35.
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Sonic, because producing all that gauss ammo takes up valuable engineering man-hours, while you can scavenge sonic ammo in huge quantities. Also, tasoths are vulnerable to sonic :happybanana:

edit: and 10 shots, while not always enough, goes a long way w/o the auto fire mode (that's life, balanced weapons are good for your mental health) Edited by centurion
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  • 2 weeks later...
Sonic and nothing else. I usually don't bother in runing through doors, I just make myself one :LOL: I don't know if you can do that with Gauss.
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  • 1 month later...
Sonic rules. More effective and at least it feels like it would be more accurate? :huh?:
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Everyone here probably knows I've got a pistol-sized weapon fetish. I adore the gauss pistol and the sonic pistol - together. The gauss pistol will kill almost anything, the sonic pistol will kill anything - eventually. They're a good pair.

What I like most about the gauss pistol is its cheap (and fast building) ammo. Not to mention the 20 shot magazines and auto mode make a great combination.

The sonic pistol is great. A compact heavy gauss with 20 bullets and a slightly less accurate aimed shot (but as I use snap shots mostly, this is not a problem).

It would tear my heart in half to have to choose. But assuming lobstermen did not exist, I'd go with the gauss pistol. Why? It's economic. The gauss pistols clips can be churned out and spent with little regret. The sonic pistol is better, but when you get to the point where the sonic cannon takes over as the standard issue weapon, ammo becomes VERY precious.

Right, pistols aside, the rifles and cannons. Hmm, between the gauss rifle and the sonic blasta-rifle, I'd go for the gauss rifle. The blasta-rifle's just a slightly improved sonic pistol. For the cannons, the heavy gauss gets to be the first at the bottom of the heap. As indicated, the sonic pistol's better than the heavy gauss. The sonic cannon trumps despite its small ammo clips. But not to discredit the heavy gauss entirely, its ammo is cheap!

So, my picks are: gauss pistol (my pick for my most 'favourite' specialist weapon), gauss rifle, sonic cannon (my pick for the most 'practical' weapon).

It disturbs me that I think of my weapons in categories. ;)

- NKF Edited by NKF
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I use xcomutil though(as mikey said) so i prefer gauss weapons except for lobsters(but i am obsessed with sonic pulsars, and am explosives happy, but you should know that if you have plyaed ufo2000 against me)
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  • 4 weeks later...
[quote name='NKF' date='Jun 23 2004, 02:36 AM']Everyone here probably knows I've got a pistol-sized weapon fetish. I adore the gauss pistol and the sonic pistol - together. The gauss pistol will kill almost anything, the sonic pistol will kill anything - eventually. They're a good pair.

What I like most about the gauss pistol is its cheap (and fast building) ammo. Not to mention the 20 shot magazines and auto mode make a great combination.

The sonic pistol is great. A compact heavy gauss with 20 bullets and a slightly less accurate aimed shot (but as I use snap shots mostly, this is not a problem).

It would tear my heart in half to have to choose. But assuming lobstermen did not exist, I'd go with the gauss pistol. Why? It's economic. The gauss pistols clips can be churned out and spent with little regret. The sonic pistol is better, but when you get to the point where the sonic cannon takes over as the standard issue weapon, ammo becomes VERY precious.

Right, pistols aside, the rifles and cannons. Hmm, between the gauss rifle and the sonic blasta-rifle, I'd go for the gauss rifle. The blasta-rifle's just a slightly improved sonic pistol. For the cannons, the heavy gauss gets to be the first at the bottom of the heap. As indicated, the sonic pistol's better than the heavy gauss. The sonic cannon trumps despite its small ammo clips. But not to discredit the heavy gauss entirely, its ammo is cheap!

So, my picks are: gauss pistol (my pick for my most 'favourite' specialist weapon), gauss rifle, sonic cannon (my pick for the most 'practical' weapon).

It disturbs me that I think of my weapons in categories. ;)

- NKF
[right][post="81422"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
:beer: I agree with that, but I also love the H2H blades a lot more, open terrain just becomes a luxury you don't have after a time...
:boohoo:

I stick with Gauss Rifles for teh Autoshots, the Sonic Cannon for tearing holes through ribcages, and the heaviest blade I can for Tassoth/Lobstermens... :happybanana:
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  • 4 weeks later...
[quote name='Mustang' date='Apr 30 2004, 08:34 PM']1,000th xcom games topic! :P

Which weapons do you prefer? NOT counting lobstermen ex. As if they weren't in the game
I only get sonic because of the lobstermen so my choice would be gauss
[right][post="76661"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


As a personal preference, I tend to use a mix of both but mostly sonics. Both weapons have their drawbacks and advantages. For most missions, its a combo of blastas, a few sonic cannons and gauss rifles, a DPL and a TSL. When attacking alien colonies however, I switch to sonic weapons due to their accuracy and power.

The gauss pistol works great in close combat with weaker aliens, but is very inaccurate. Later in the game, I replace them with gauss rifles or use them as a sidearm. The GR is obviously not as powerful as sonic weapons but they don't take up a lot of TU's to use compared to the blasta and they have auto fire, which makes them good for room-to-room fighting in terror sites/ship missions. Also, they are still very useful against aquatiods or gillman even late in the game. I use these for troops who are going to do close combat inside alien subs/terror sites... GR in one hand, HTL/TL/VB in the other. The cannon, I just don't bother with it since it lacks accuracy and power compared to the blasta. Also, the gauss canon in the version of my game lacks automatic fire.

I find sonic weapons to be more powerful & accurate, but lacks auto fire and you need special materials to make the ammo, unless you do a lot of crash site missions. Sonic pistols make a good sidearm or primary weapon... depending on how you look at it... since their power & one-handedness is defenitely a plus. I mostly use this as a sidearm for the troops armed with DPL's or shock launchers. I am very tempted to use this to replace the GR for my close combat troops, but find their single shot mode a serious drawback.

I usually equip around half or more of my squad with blastas since they use less TU-% to fire than the sonic cannon. Also, I found most parts of the missions take place in open terrain so accuracy is important here as well as the need to shoot and get behind cover... you can take 2 snap shots with the blasta and have some TU's left to find cover. With the sonic cannon, its either a choice of only 1 snap with TU's left to scramble behind a wall or 2 snaps but becoming a sitting duck. The cannon has the best accuracy of all, plus they're very powerful. They however, take a lot of TU's to fire so this is a drawback. I usually use them as a sniper weapon (w00t!) or an antitank gun.

Whew... that was long.
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Sonic cannons and Gauss rifles, with some sonic grenades as back-up. i only use the very rare sonic rifle on some occasions, but i use sonic pistols and gauss pistols for sidearms(DPLs)
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If lobsters weren't in the game, I'd go with the heavy gauss all the way. With Xcomutil, it has autofire and unlimited ammo (along with a healthy damage boost.)

If no Xcomutil? Then I'd go with the gauss rifle. Nothing but lobsters and terrorists can stand up to that thing.
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My main problem with Sonics is that they are NOT a parallel to Plasma. Also, in an unmodded game, Gauss aren't good plasma parallels either, but at least they have an autoshot.

As for having to manufacture the clips, big deal! Just build 3x as many clips as you have gauss weapons. For me, doing that sorta thing only took about 2 game-days.

My pragmatic side will probably switch to Sonic weapons after I collect more clips for the things. Then I am going Sonic Rifle, because Heavy Sonic is HEAVY. Not like Heavy Plasma which was a light thing, Heavy Sonic is a REAL Heavy weapon.

When I gain access to vibroblades (and similar ultrasonic melee weapons) I'll start handing out pistol-vibro combos to my troops. Whether the pistols are sonic or gauss depends on how much sonic ammo I pick up. Haha!


My choice of Gauss over Sonic does not include SWS, craft weapons, or defensive systems. For those, Sonic is definitely better.
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Yes, i do think that unmodded, xcom 2 is far to unbalanced in the way of the sonic pistol is more powerful than the heavy gauss. i think that xcomutil balances the game and makes it far more fun and intelligent(no more using sonic pistols as my main weapon instead of gauss rifles)

edit: Pinned! :P this is an important topic, isn't it? Edited by blehm
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[quote]With Xcomutil, it has autofire and unlimited ammo (along with a healthy damage boost.)[/quote]
I must say, this does not feel like a balancing thing, but rather like a "make life easier cheat" thing.
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So that you cannot keep relying on the gauss weapons indefinitely, like in UFO 1. It forces you to swap weaponry, do research, etc. And besides, aliens should be way more powerful than you are anyway.
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Recently I have started using mainly Sonic Cannons. The reason for this is:

#1: I am DROWNING (pun intended) in cannon ammunition.

#2: Almost all my guys have a strength score in the high 30s, low 40s. (even got one aquanaut with a 50)

Also, for some reason although I have vibroblades now, I'm keeping them in the backpacks... heh.
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Well, that's a very logical place to keep them. Holding the drill in your hand would reduce the accuracy of your sonic cannon's already amazing accuracy.

Besides, drills are meant to be used in close quarter combat, and that doesn't happen to often. You don't want to have that accuracy reduction for long range combat. But when you do get a chance to use it in close quarters, it's only the work of a short moment to pull it out and attack with it. It would often be more efficient than attempting a short range blast with the sonic cannon (unless it's a really weak alien, like a gillman or aquatoid).

- NKF
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Yeah, well, of course the alien weapons are far more devastating... They have millions of years of evolution ahead of us...

Then again, sonic shcok is basically a directed underwater explosion, which would be quite logical, devastatingly accurate (because it comes out in a cone, hence possibly striking 2 targets at once), but shorter ranged, or at least with a damage that's reduced by range...
Add the fact that it's really a LOT weaker out of the water, and it would make nice balancing changes...

Boosting damages/autofire with cheats is NOT balancing IMHO, it's cheating becasue it only make things easier without compromises...
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  • 3 weeks later...
I disagree, personally.

The reason I disagree: The UFOpedia specifically says that Gauss Weapons are based on the function of the plasma weapons in the original X-COM game.

Thus, they can be expected to have a damage rating not too terribly lower than the original Plasma Weapons.

What do they actually have? (in an unmodded game?)
All of them (except the rifle) are ever-so-slightly INFERIOR to the LASER counterparts! And, to add insult to injury, they require CLIPS!

All in all, I am more upset that the damage is so low, I have no problem with the necessity of clips. Thus, I modded my object data file so that the Gauss weapons are comparable (but not equal to) the Plasma weapons from the UFO Defense game. Further, they still require clips. The Plasma Weapons require clips, so these weapons will require clips.

I made no modification to the clip capacity or the accuracy. It's supposed to be comparable to the Plasma weapons, not identical to them.

The object data file can be found elsewhere in the forums attached to another of my posts.
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Without util, sonic, hands-down. Greater power, accuracy, abundant, what more is there? The auto-fire mode (or lack of). My friends, that's where HTH comes in. Keep a pistol in one hand, blade in other, destroy all. This works wonders with the rifle, which is already accurate enough to almost negate the loss. Personally, I like NKF's idea of both pistols, but that gives you a lot less power. Mainly for scouts, good idea. I usually keep 2-3 men with good reactions & accuracy as snipers (acc w/o reactions= see enemy, enemy finds cover, you are ready to fire, but can't see enemy anymore) with sonic cannons on roof-tops or "sand castles". Everyone else has a good mix of gauss and sonic rifles. Rifles, even gauss, rock against all but the more advanced terrorists. And lobstermen, though I once took on a lobby 1-on-1, gauss rifle vs. sonic cannon, and won (with the help on 1 prox).

With util, however, gauss really shines. Rifle is accurate and powerful enough for bio-drones, aquatoids, gilmen, deep ones, and calcinites. Ever stepped into a room full of gilmen, and have nothing but a sonic cannon? Try getting out of that alive, or without injury, while still killing them all. If you have done something like that, I'd like to hear about it. Carry a sonic rifle + a vibro-blade, tho, and you should come out all right. All-in-all, it's a matter of preferance.
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  • 4 months later...
There's actually a very good reason why Gauss Weapons weren't comparable to the old Plasma Weapons - Other than for game balance (which UFO was sorely lacking - spam Heavy Plasma autofire was just overpowered on either side).

Elerium.

Every single plasma weapon comes complete with an Elerium fuelled ammunition clip, without the regular supply of Elerium coming in from a million UFOs flying around every day, you're forced to use your finite reserves, until finally no more plasma clips. u
This is also why no Avenger type craft is readily available from day one, Plasma Cannons aren't standard issue ship weapons, and why nobody's shrugging off the aliens invading their country with a barrelful of Fusion Balls.

Part of the challenge faced by Gauss weaponry is to make it work at [i]all[/i] without Elerium, and when you take out the alien tech, once again humans are left with weedy little pea shooters, not even close to their originals.
Aliens on the other hand, once again bring their unknown power sources to keep their weapons meaning business all day long, so it's fairly obvious that sonic weapons would always be more powerful than Gauss in the same way that their tiny grenades hold more power than the Demolition Charge magna packs.

Annnd.... back on topic. Sonic all the way. Most of my troops are kitted out with vibroblades, pistols and rifles, with cannons only for heavy weapons. Gauss are discarded as soon as humanly possible as soon as the early game ends, only the rifles really appeal after Tasoth and Lobstermen start turning up, and with autofire you can easily run through full clips of Gauss ammo faster than you can kill the aliens you're firing at, and I'd sooner carry pulsars than five clips for a low end gun just to finish the mission, and usually the more dangerous enemies such as tentaculats will absorb gauss fire entirely before they go about killing you.
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  • 5 months later...

At the moment I´m only using gauss-rifles and back them up with pulsers. I like it when you can control the manufacturing of your wepons. Not to rely on aliens for ammunition or zorbite.

 

Still... I´m keeping 20 sonic cannons in storage with around 50-60 clips..so that when I go visit somebody´s home...I´ll come with a big bang :bash:

 

Plus I made a lot of gauss-ammo...so no need to change the weaponry yet. Plus it´s fun to fight lobsters when you need 10 shots :naughty:

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You obviously play on one of the two easy levels, even with xcomutil enhancements Lobsters take well over 20 shots from heavy guass and rifle combined
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  • 3 months later...

I use gauss because they're human weapons. I didn't like it in UFO when everyone had plasma weapons, space suits and psychic powers.

You make the clips for it cheaply and quickly and ofcorse it has the autofire! You apreciate this when an alien steps out of cover and misses with his one shot and you reply with a burst of autofire!

 

They're also good in close quarters since you can't miss at point blank range. Another reason I like gauss, since i like hth aswell.

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Ah, XComUtil Gauss weapons don't need ammo - The canonical Gauss weapons do. UFO's lasers don't use ammo.

 

TFTD still has the disappearing ammo bug - and perhaps makes it worse with its two parters where ammo on your soldiers disappear for no apparent reason once you enter the second level.

 

- NKF

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  • 1 month later...

Guass Rifles are my weapon of choice, love that auto-fire.

Unfortunatly they cant do jack on lobstermen or even tsoths on the high levels( dont know low ones never tried)

 

Once I have the Transmission Resolvers in my bases my general equiptment is rifles unless the upcoming scenario calls for heavier weaponry then its Sonic Cannons.

 

PS NFK if your still around I'll have to give pistols another chance havent really used them since wayyyyyyy back in my first attempt atthe original game years ago, and your insistance on them has got me thnking of yet another way to play them game, perhaps Pistols and Sonic Rifles...ughhhh

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Actually, I've killed Tasoth with the plain vanilla Gauss Pistol on superhuman - so it's only the lobstermen and a few high armour terrorists like the Xarquids and Hallucinoids that feel nothing. Mind you, it was during a desparate 'shot in the back' situation at an artefact site, but it's still possible. You just have to be really crafty and persistent with it. ;)

 

The best way to make use of the sonic pistol and gauss pistol is to either use them together or to use them in combination with something else, like a drill or the sonic pulsers. Having a few pulsers is necessary when brute force and perhaps a bit more accuracy (relatively speaking) is needed.

 

The sonic blasta rifle has rather fallen out of my favour as of late. After reviewing its stats, I've found that the only worthwhile sonic weapons are the pistol and the cannon. See, the blasta rifle only provides a miniscule overall upgrade in accuracy and damage over the pistol, while the pistol offers an additional shot, 5 extra bullets (for the same amount of zrbite construction) and the ability to hold something else in the other hand. It just provides a whole lot more, and is still powerful enough to take on lobstermen, albeit not as effectively as the cannon. The only downside is that the pistol rapidly becomes a very exotic weapon indeed due to its rarity.

 

Then again, the rifle is good for brand new recruits that have yet to beef up their accuracy, while surviving veterans can make the pistol do amazing things and still be on the move.

 

It's just a matter of giving it a go and see how it works for you.

 

- NKF

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  • 5 months later...
I personally like Gauss, even though I have to manfacture the ammo myself. I like Gauss because it's still pretty decent and and the ammos usually enough. The only reason I get Sonic is for Tentaculats and Lobsters if it weren't for them I would use Gauss even in T'leth which is kinda posssible if you don't mind using something like Xcomutil to improve the weapons.
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  • 1 year later...
There's actually a very good reason why Gauss Weapons weren't comparable to the old Plasma Weapons - Other than for game balance (which UFO was sorely lacking - spam Heavy Plasma autofire was just overpowered on either side).

 

Elerium.

 

Every single plasma weapon comes complete with an Elerium fuelled ammunition clip, without the regular supply of Elerium coming in from a million UFOs flying around every day, you're forced to use your finite reserves, until finally no more plasma clips. u

This is also why no Avenger type craft is readily available from day one, Plasma Cannons aren't standard issue ship weapons, and why nobody's shrugging off the aliens invading their country with a barrelful of Fusion Balls.

 

Part of the challenge faced by Gauss weaponry is to make it work at all without Elerium, and when you take out the alien tech, once again humans are left with weedy little pea shooters, not even close to their originals.

 

1. This isn't true as at the very beginning of the game the movie clearly states that humans have colonized mars which would entail that we have ready and plentiful access to elerium.

 

2. NFK, do you use imp. weapons for TFTD with xcomutil? I am considering stripping this out because the improved gauss weapons feel kind of artificial. Just wanted to ask you because I want to move up to superhuman soon and I don't want my practice in the middle difficulties to be cheap or inflated. I want to get the authentic TFTD experience, minus the bugs of course ROFL

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The enhanced weapons? Never touch em. ;)

 

Though I am a really big laser pistol nut in UFO, the loss of the unlimited ammo is not really much of a deterrent. It does mean you have to be a bit more careful, but that's part of the fun.

 

It's such a joy to be able to churn out tons of gauss pistols clips and their mighty 20 round clips. Only the sonic pistol can boast that large an ammo supply - and I often use both pistols together.

 

Though it's fine against a good number of things, just don't go using it (or the gauss rifle) against enemies with tough external armour (basically any large terror unit) or the Lobstermen. Lobstermen in particular won't even feel a thing.

 

- NKF

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  • 4 weeks later...

Guess I'm one of the few who prefer Gauss over Sonic. My main reason is that the Gauss line of weapons still has Auto Shot capability (sans the Heavy Gauss). If the Sonic line had one weapon with Auto Shot (like, say the Sonic Pistol), that would be my first choice. Still, the thing that sucks with Gauss is the tiny clip sizes. When firing Auto Shots, ammo disappears at an alarming rate. But you gotta love rapid-fire guns.

 

Let's compart Gauss to Laser for a second, shall we? The biggest drawback to Gauss is the damage modifiers. See, Lasers did basically 100% damage to all aliens in the original Enemy Unknown. That kept the damage potentials rather high. With Gauss, most TFTD aliens are resistant to this weapon type (Except Aquatoids and Gillmen) and thus do less damage overall than their Laser counterparts. Sonic deals roughly 100% to most everything in the game and therefore is a better choice in some circumstances.

 

In the early part of the game, nothing beats Gauss as the technology takes little time to research and you may be able to equip part of your squad with them before the bigger USOs show up. Also, producing Gauss ammo gives my engineers something to do. Later on when my engineers are working on producing more important things, I switch over to Sonic. The Sonic ammo (and guns) are free after any mission and that is a great reason to use them.

 

The "Great Equalizer" in EU was always the Heavy Plasma. In TFTD, the Sonic Pulser is. It's much more explosive than the Magna-Pack and can be thrown much farther and it also is more explosive than the Alien Grenade in EU. Whatever Gauss can't touch, Sonic Pulsers can. ;)

 

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie
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Gauss is quite a necessary technology at the start. Jet harpoons just don't cut it for very long. Mind you, there's the slower but just as brilliant Gas Cannon to fill the gap if you choose to do so, but the faster firing gauss weapon have their appeal. They just lose their edge once the tougher aliens show up.

 

I suppose if you think about it, TFTD's balance of weapons is a bit more interesting than the weapons in UFO. It introduces a deluge of powerful weapons, but they've all got their strengths and limitations - bar the pulser.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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  • 2 months later...

The weapon I tend to use the most is the sonic pistol.

 

IMHO, the gauss pistol sucks. It's accuracy is so low that the gauss rifle beats it even when you've got something in the other hand, which completely negates the advantage of it being a pistol. Its only redeeming factor is the high (3 auto-shots/turn) rate of fire, but that is also largely negated by X-Com's armor calculations. Against most enemies, I'd rather have 6*60 gauss damage than 9*45. The clip size advantage is also moot. Both weapons will need to be reloaded on the third turn of firing, if you take the different ROFs into account. And the cost difference is peanuts in all but the earliest early game.

 

The gauss rifle is good, if not great. It still has some trouble with heavily armored and gauss resistant foes, but with auto-fire, its damage potential is still high enough to compete with sonic weaponry in most cases. It's simply the best auto-capable weapon in the game, and auto-fire rules all. It's also a pretty fast weapon, whih means your troops can be more mobile compared to sonic rifles or cannons. Lastly, since ion armor is somewhat resistant to gauss, friendly fire incidents tend to be less severe, so gauss is safer to use before you have psi-screened your troops.

 

Nothing needs to be said about the heavy gauss. It's a worthless piece of junk.

 

Now, the sonic pistol is simply awesome. First of all, sonic damage is quite a bit more effective against almost all enemies due to resistances alone, without taking into account that it deals more damage per shot than the gauss rifle. It may not get quite so many one-shot kills as the other sonic weapons, but it's strong enough to reliably injure and kill eventually. It's got the best snap shot of all weapons, decently accurate and allowing up to 3 shots per turn. In addition, since it's a pistol you can carry all manner of gear in your other hand without penalty. Grenades or flares, tazers or drills, MC readers or disruptors, medikits or sensors, pulse launchers and even stun launchers or gas cannons, if you don't care about their reduced accuracy. This is the main weapon of my aquanauts, even if I eventually have to produce ammo for it.

 

The sonic rifle is a bit of an oddity. It's not a bad weapon on paper, but as the middle point between pistol and cannon, it doesn't have a tactical role to fulfill for me. The pistol is better in close quarters, and when it comes to versatility and mobility, and the cannon is better in the open at long ranges. Pretty much anything the rifle can do, the cannon can do better. The one use I have found for it is as a garrison weapon for secondary bases, where I'm too lazy to assign every soldier a specific role.

 

I don't use the sonic cannon as a main weapon, because most of the time you will only be able to fire it once a turn, and you won't be able to move far while doing so. I do use it in the role of a heavy sniper/anti-materiel rifle, however. It's great for acurate fire support from beyond line of sight, especially against tough enemies. It's been a while since I last played TFTD, but I'm pretty sure it's also the only gun that can destroy interior USO walls. Some hard data on that would be much appreciated.

 

Lastly, honorable mention goes out to the humble gas cannon. Another versatile weapon, and especially its ability to target the weak under armor and deal (nearly) quadruple damage to large terror units ensure its place in my loadout throughout the game.

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Being the big proponent of the gauss pistol (and sonic pisol) that I am, I am going to agree that it's rather useless against most enemies that you'll be facing - particularly those that have lots of heavy external armour. This means pretty much all large units. Lobstermen get away with their insane damage resistance. Biodrones and the front section of tentaculats are pretty hardy against them too.

 

The gauss pistol still work wonders against Aquatoids, Gill men, Deep Ones and Calcinites. They're also not too shabby but not that ideal against Tasoth. Until the Lobstermen and Tasoth take over almost exclusively, the gauss pistol will work fine as their external armour won't diminish each shot that much.

 

The problem as you've addressed is its accuracy and low damage (though it's much greater than most of the light firearms you start with). It fits the role of a SMG, so it works best when used at close range, or used mainly as a complimentary weapon.

 

- NKF

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I'm focusing more on weapons that stay worthwhile into the endgame. The gauss rifle suffers there too, it's probably the least effective of the four weapons I use, but the pistol just isn't viable. In the early game, however, it's a matter of choice. Especially against weak aliens like gillmen and aquatoids, where a single hit even by the pistol should be enough to take them out, it offers some clear advantages due to its high ROF. Still, I personally prefer the gauss rifle even at close ranges, or, after a bit more research, the ever-popular sonic pistol/thermic lance combination.

 

There aren't many people about who still play TD, but even so, some who do, especially X-Com 1 fans who give it a spin, seem to hold to the adage 'all sonic cannons, all the time', similar to how the heavy plasma worked in UFO, and then go on to say how much TF's weapons suck. In fact, I think that the different weapon balance is one of the greatest improvements of TD over the original. That's the reason I added my opinion to this thread.

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We all have our preferences for speed/damage trade offs to suit our play styles. My preference for the gauss pistol stems mainly from my laser pistol mania (which could kill everything bar the Sectopod). The gauss pistol just doesn't have the same lasting appeal as its older cousin. Still, it's a great way to conserve sonic pistol rounds when fighting easy enemies. Then again using a sonic cannon in the off-hand with -20% accuracy is just as good since cannon ammo grow on trees after all. ;)

 

For those that were introduced to X-Com through TFTD rather than UFO (like myself), going the all Sonic Cannon route tends to be forced on the player as a general result of how the game arms the aliens later on, followed up by the introduction of the lobstermen that need 2 - 3 cannon hits just to knock down. Of course, with experience and some experimentation we eventually develop alternatives to the all-cannon route. It's much more fun too.

 

But yes, the game has an interesting set of weapons if you get away from UFO's heavy plasma mentality. It's an odd mixture of extremes. I just wish some of the middling weapons like the blasta-rifle and thermic lance would stand out more compared to their faster/weaker or slower/stronger counterparts. UFO at least did a good job with its plasma rifle by making it excel at snapshot sniping.

 

The drill/sonic weapon combo is a great setup for indoor fighting or when there are lots of obstructions around you. It's not too good when you're out in the open though. Swapping the drill out for a pre-armed sonic pulser does a nice job in this instance.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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