Yeah, gas doesn't one tap sectoids. But it's still best/one of best options when you want to capture them across the map.
Also knockouts are a bit stronger at 10-30 stun damage, but only on direct hit.
I don't think I've ever seen a basic goon survive a direct hit, but it's not too hard to throw a second one to make sure.
Against most humans gas deals ~5-10 + 5-10(stun) => 10-20 * 400% choke => 40-80, (to everyone in the cloud). Knockouts do 10-30 * 4 = 40-120, but on direct hit. For most explosives, power drops off in distance from ground zero by 10 per tile - not for gas because it just deals 5-10 damage flat * many bonuses. So if knockout is off by tile, it's half as much damage or even none.
This is usually plenty to OHKO common units pre-invasion and sectoids (rd goons have ~55 hp).
Also gas ignores (under) armor value (armor eff is 0), but knockout doesn't. Which is usually up to ~10 early on.
Knockouts are one of the best ways to stun a coordinator early, and maybe to nab sectoids. But otherwise are hard to produce and somewhat situational.
Speaking of formulas, what does "Accuracy modifier 0.01*Acc^2"
It means "to the power of two", aka "squared". So
but using that formula they have 50 x 50 x .01 = 25
Is correct.
For armored cars, you'll roughly have these hits-to-KO:
I usually prefer proxy grenades (dmg + weight = range) early on, then switch to whatever. Gas is again surprisingly strong here - once I've blasted 3 APCs grouped up at RDHQ from one TGL x3 salvo, fun times. There are ghosts weapons to think about - I guess thato-manus would one-shot an APC.
Minitanks take 40% damage from EMP, meaning it would take at least 3 EMP grenades per minitank, and that doesnt help with armoured cars at all.
EMP calculations are tricky, too. 40% is actually "normal" or even "low-ish" resistance against EMP, because: 1) it ignores 75% armor 2) deals +4x stun damage, so 5x damage 3) damage per tile for 2x2 units.
Thus, for average EMP gren. hit of 65: 65 * 0.4 - 50*0.25 = 24 - 12.5 = x * 5 = 57.5 damage on main tile, and >100 from secondary tiles, one-shotting the minitank on average. If i'm not forgetting anything, that is.
EMP grens one shot light robotics (turrets, drones), minitanks, and, well, units in power suits... EMP mines one shot tanks (armor ~100) and sectopods.
Shrapnel rockets are your best friend otherwise. They work about just as well, but rockets can be a bit harder to use.
Like, peppering the terrain with fire or proximity mines...err...
"Being on fire" status DOES disable camouflage, IIRC. But proper use of dogs/rats/ai and their scanners is usually a better way. And you'll probably need them anyway, to see through the smoke / break reactions / take bullets for you.
Will there later be a better\faster way to increase the usefulness of AI drones
Once you get HWPs, minigun tanks with AIs are useful from the get-go, no matter how bad they are. "Invasion" often is a joke anyway.
Once you get X-Com Seeker Drones, they actually become very useful (20 night vision, 100 % thermal vision, huge amount of TUs and attacks).
Holy shit, no need to hunt for bats anymore
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