I have been working on a bit of rebalancing in an effort to integrate magnetic projectile weapons and in preperation for further weapon ideas. I like the theory followed by games like DOOM and HALO in that no weapon is ever rendered obsolete, you can use a pistol at any point in the game and it's still effective if you use it right sort of thing. With xcom the opening phase of being outclassed by alien weaponry is one of the best parts so I don't want to expand the mundane weapon set too much, but once you have a few research topics done I'd like the weapons to be balanced, not OP but each having a useful niche depending on your strategy.
I split the opening tech tree between magnetic guns and lasers so you get one branch(randomly decided after one research project) at the start and the other becomes available once you've researched a plasma weapon. The reasoning being: instead of "Laser Weapons" you have a piece of whatever solid evidence they had to convince the council to form Xcom, it gives you either energy beams or magnetic field tech, plasma weapons are energy beams controlled by magnetic fields...
So giving each a niche:
Plasma, best overall snap shot weapons it what the aliens use most so their weapons should reflect it.
Lasers: most accurate, you may be fast enough to dodge a bullet but can you doge light?
Gauss: Rapid fire
Railguns: Raw power
I figure here is one of the homefield advantages, humans can use bulky heavy ammunition because they don't have to worry about weight and space issues that it would present an inter galactic army
So here's what I have so far, I think I may have nerfed H.Plasma too much and the Rail pistol may be too accurate at range but I would like some feedback from people with different play styles. Also included is new sprites for Gauss/Rail weapons.
