As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.
Glad you've found it useful!
I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?
Oh for sure, in the case you get it at that point, it's a solid weapon. Assault Pistol does have one thing that's solid, and that's super-rapid fire with very low TU cost. And early on, that's invaluable.
Basically, the sheet is ordered in the order I found things, so if you find something wildly earlier than the position I have it in the order, you can automatically consider it better.
Also, everyone has 1-2 early scripted base attacks, so it might be that rather than you being unlucky. If you got any Dr. X notes as drops from that time, it's the scripted one. So hang in there. However, another reason I say interception as soon as possible is important is that a good interception setup can stop further base attacks if your can stop aliens and factions finding the base again.