Autogun

[Dioxine]

I guess I took it for obvious that I was referring to a Personal Armor (Human Carapace Armor it is called here, and yeah, it is worn by Marsec and Osiron security) not Provost's armor, since it is the former which has 30 armor. Maybe this is not as obvious as I thought.
Sorry for being unclear, I have a tendency to digress a lot. Perhaps I was a bit confused by your approach. If it was me in your place, I'd throw a couple of flasks at their back, then proceed with stun weapons, after hopefully reducing their armor to around 40-ish. Stunning with a RR is insanely risky, especially considering the prize - probably worth losing half of the squad over, even if the boons of such a capture won't be immediately available. But everyone has their own ways of doing things, and that was what I designed this mod for.
As for the Autogun, I think Arthanor summed it up the best. All your firearms suck against hi-tech enemies. You need hi-tech weapons - or specialized weapons - to deal with them. Low-tech weapons, like the ones you have now, will either be lacking in power, or really cumbersome to use (Recoilless Rifle, Panzerfaust), or possessing other tactical shortcomings (melee, flamethrowers).
Autogun is exactly the opposite - with 28/32 power, it guarantees far better hit and kill ratio against low-tech enemies (even Spartans, except for their Terror units you've seen in Hideout Defense) than all aforementioned weapons, due to up to 12 shots per turn, as opposed to 1 shot per turn (at best). Why autogun and not something else of the same class? That's up to everyone's preferences. Yeah lasgun is better, while being dangerous to armored enemies too, but do you have any?
Also most of the lo-tech guns are getting boosts gradually, with upgraded versions and specialty ammo.

[ivandogovich]

Just chiming in here.  I really appreciate the overall discussion as I treasure what I learn from other experienced players in these sorts of give and take.

[yrizoud]

My only gripe against autogun is that it seems to be an exception to the rule (of all UFO / TFTD weapons) that "heavy" weapons of each technology are intended to more easily overcome armored opponents.
When you don't know the stats of what you're facing, you generally ask yourself:
- does it look light ? (pistol-sized, or larger than the guy's torso?)
- what does it sound like ? (loud = bad, high-tech/alien = bad)
If a weapon betrays this first impression, it's a bit of a trap : It pushes the player to seek spoilers rather than closely watch the battlefield for clues.

Same with armors : very alien characters are clearly an unknown factor. But humans with bare head and arms seem to be clothed or wearing skinsuit, not armor - if they are actually better defended than fatter guys with helmets, it's a trap. (I don't know if there's the case - I only say the issue could happen too).

IMO, dodge is an issue, because the game doesn't show that the character wasn't actually hit : If a character seems really unharmed it will make you think he is resistant to the damage type, or very highly armored. If you do change your strategy accordingly (to something less efficient), the game successfuly lied to you 

[Boltgun]

The autogun being weaker than the assault rifle was always odd to me. When I wanted to save on ammo I simply went for rifles.

It's like a shotgun, when it's too weak, then a rifle will outperform it without its shortcomings.

Otherwise, on the issue of enemies being too solid, powder bombs already act as an 'I win' button against osiron/marsec. Otherwise, end month report display absurdly high scores so you can afford being more objective driven than killing everything every time. The failure I had showed that it is better in the long run to treat first contacts with factions by grabbing one corpse or captive, aborting, and researching the foe.

Getting stats of enemies is the most important thing to do, this changed me from getting stomped by the mercs to my gals spanking them.

[Arthanor]

Piratez is generally really good at giving you impressions on the weapons and armors you are facing. You can go quite far by feel, until you get to advanced funky enemies (ex.: star gods) where you might want to do a "stun and grab" op first (or even the first few times).

I also think it is fine for the game to surprise you once in a while, otherwise you don't need to do the research (ex.: UFO defence where the only real need would be mutons with AP, but you probably won't have ap stuff anymore by the time you face them).

On the topic of dodge: OXCE has a attack and a hit sound for melee weapons, so you do know if you miss with melee. You won't hear the hit sound. I find that, along with the "light, combatty looking = dodgy" assumption (to go with with the "heavy, combatty looking = tanky") plenty of feedback.

[Cristao]

I like the look of the autogun and I would like to use it in other mods. I would definitely add laser and plasma ammo to it.

[sambojin]

Just on a quick looksie at the rules files, I've underestimated the difference between bottom armour and front.

Whilst it varies, and on weakly armoured opponents it's often the same, against more heavily armoured opponents it tends to be closer to 10-45 difference, with a ball-park difference of 20 or so.

This makes explosives, especially arcing ones, all the better. And puts even more direct fire weapons into the black market scrap bin. Unless they've got pretty good damage on them.

You mostly won't be meeting these heavily armoured enemies every mission, but when you do, you'll need some stopping power. Or good explosives. But damage, high damage, all the same.

I'll have to do another run through on Davy Jones or Jack Sparrow to see how frequently you actually need the big guns and swords. I'm looking at boarding guns to be "useful", if somewhat slow, as minimums in some cases. Just as a "it doesn't matter what you research, you did have a chance" litmus test on the newest versions. I'm kind of sure fatal wounds for enemies is a saviour in some cases. Never mind capturing them.

So far, the ruleset and the playthroughs haven't matched up, but I haven't played for long enough to get that much scary stuff yet. I'll tell you when I do (I've been destroyed by flying armoured troops/tanks within the first 3-4 months a version or two ago though, which is why I modified my playstyle to either effective hunting or heavy damage. Apparently the early game is longer now, which gives time for those surprises).

[Dioxine]

The obvious power of explosives is nerfed by 2 factors (on top of loot-destroying associated with them in the OG):
1. Most of them are inaccurate. In part, that's why Throwing Accuracy is so low. This limits the well-known grenade spam a bit, (but also saves you from enemy grenades some of the time).
2. Overkill. Even moderately armored enemies can be vaporized by explosives, leaving no corpse (and, in some extreme cases, no loot).

Swords and all fast melee weapons are going to train Reactions (as well as Melee) in the next version, so their usefulness will increase. And the temptation to do old-style boring Reactions training will decrease.

[Bloax]

Swords and all fast melee weapons are going to train Reactions (as well as Melee) in the next version, so their usefulness will increase. And the temptation to do old-style boring Reactions training will decrease.

dang that's a nice idea to increase reactions (a very sadly underemployed stat :()

[Arthanor]

Love the idea of swords increasing reactions! That's such a hard and risky stat to train but so necessary on a good melee gal! Also.. sort of related, would it be possible to get a martial arts training facility from research on Fuso+Fuso Swords/Knives+Catgirls/etc? The current way of getting it (and amazon outfit) is rather unintuitive.

Back to explosives, I've noticed overkill recently, which I guess means you've got to be careful and not just spam the biggest bang you've got. If you can kill something with two medium explosives, it's better than overkilling it with one big one. (And the inaccuracy is indeed a life saver. I've had gals merely heavily wounded from satchel charges and dynamites when they surely should have died).

[ivandogovich]

Yeah, I've been seeing a ton more overkill too!   The exploding cannonballs on runt strikers started it, but when the enemy sent in waves of Gauss Toting tanky dudes covering an Enemy Base Setup mission, I kinda had to appropriate their Dakka to effectively deal with them.  Lets just say Sniper Gauss and Heavy Gauss kinda have an Overkill Tendency.

[Dioxine]

Also.. sort of related, would it be possible to get a martial arts training facility from research on Fuso+Fuso Swords/Knives+Catgirls/etc? The current way of getting it (and amazon outfit) is rather unintuitive.

It has been changed, you can get it earlier now (requires Medicine plus some basic stuff like Gym outfit).

[Arthanor]

Oh.. well.. shows that I don't dig in the ruleset for spoilers too often Time to research that gym outfit!