Heavy flamers are the best thing ever for defenses and base attacks. Can't aim? Don't have to. Once you've picked off a few weaker foes, the morale hit does as much as the damage could. Standard flamethrowers are good too, but the heavy's higher range, damage, shots and spread make all the difference. I think the morale debuff is a bit higher too (two h.flamer shots will usually panic anything you don't toast. Which isn't many things). Standard blackmarket buyable flamers will fill-in if you haven't researched heavies, but don't bother with long-ranged ones. Nothing needs 4 hits of fire, it's like you're just pissing about, bring a flare if you need the light. Everything needs 8-10 hits of all-consuming conflagration though. Standards are one of my "go-to" weapons early on, heavies are godly wrath to the deserving (ie: everyone that isn't you).
On the mêlée side, the cheap alternative is spiked maces. Lots of them. With a good chunk of strength to back it up. You might get a KO, you might get a kill, but regardless, some damage usually gets through. About 40-50 strength needed for at least some damage, but less armour is less armour (especially at 40-60 armour). Hit 'em from behind like always, hit and run if you can, but don't be afraid of toasting some gals if it doesn't work. They were dead anyway, and the AI doesn't handle flames well, so sometimes you can just wait for incendiary and fatal wound damage to rack up. It happens pretty quickly after quite a few thumps. And your armour is pretty amazing in comparison to most things against flamers, so they may even survive it (for use as TU wasters on the enemy. And maybe more thumps). There's better mêlée weapons, but there's no excuse to not have about 8 maces lying around by that point, so you're always covered.
Hammers are good too, because they're a directed attack. Something standing in an annoying position near a ladder? Bop them on the head or the toes from above or below with a hammer and run away. Flame the area for good measure afterwards. Anti-wall is nice, anti-lift/ladder on top of that is even better. One of the few times that nothing explodes, yet the weapon is still multi-functional.
Gauss "anything" is another great weapon. They do enough damage to be worthwhile bringing, and you've probably been saving weapons and clips for ages, until you really needed them. Now you do. Damn well use them.
Explosives are fun. Kneeling with assault cannons w/Expl. Cannonballs and grenade launchers gives you pretty good range (even with arcing), and absolutely clears corridors. A close enough hit will strike their bottom armour, giving a slight damage boost on top of 50-150% explosive damage calcs. And some light smoke cover. Plus arcing weapons give plenty of shot opportunities at overhanging gantries that other weapons simply couldn't do. They're slow to shoot and reload, but they're very effective (and I miss them alot on my nudie run playthrough).
Smoke is good. When is smoke not good? Bring a fair few, there's no reason not to. Your primary advantage is vision, squad sight, and how you use it. So abuse that advantage with smoke grenades whenever possible.
Parrots will be insanely useful. 120TUs is just amazing. They can carry pre-primed grenades/smoke too. This even includes "trap" style grenades that get set off as people move through an area. Fly in, scout, drop, run. Watch out though, a puff of smoke or a touch of fire and they're gone. Still very handy.
There is no reason, ever, to not have at least one strong, fast gal with a spiked mace (or better mêlée weapon) in one hand and a barrel of X-grog in the other. She's not your dedicated medic, she's just your awesome mêlée trooper that happens to be wherever injuries occur. To the enemy or to your gals, she's got it covered. Even if she dies, she just dropped a "reload point" for any survivors. With enough strength, she can probably bring a few other things too. (things you learn from a nudie playthrough. I've got 3 of them in that, but I need them due to no inventory space. But they're ultra-useful for any type of game). If you don't throw a barrel or two of X-grog on the Bonny and wonder why your gals aren't cracking skulls hard enough or fast enough between map sections, then this is why. Rum is good. Bring a barrel of it, with a lass that can defend it. Or two.
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Ignore things like "they might shoot me" as you run on in. They might. If you run on in from smoke cover, chances are the enemy has blown their TUs wandering around not seeing anything, and you can nonchalantly run straight out in front of them, then behind them, and let loose on the back of their head. Press <ALT> to see what ways their buddies are facing (with Meridian's awesome OXCE+ .exe). Ignore it. It's just so you can plan your next hit with your next gal, or decide whether to smoke the whole room before you conga-line smack/shoot them. The computer would complain about crappy reaction fire chances and how OP'd your gals' TU/Stamina/Reaction/vision stats are if it could. Plus, you use smoke grenades. Make it cry.
Once the panic spiral starts, get used to looking at the "over view" map for white dots. They're either bodies, unconscious people, or items. At least you've got a chance of finding panic-dropped items in amongst all the fire and smoke using this. It's damn near essential. A panicked gal usually comes around in 1-2 rounds. She needs a weapon to do anything though. Check the overview map, and run her wherever it looks like there is one. Stamina/getting shot isn't a concern until she's got a weapon anyway, so run her as riskily as you care to do. She's not doing anything useful until then, and nothing staves off a panic spiral like killing more enemies. Sometimes with their own weapons.
Running. Running is good. But running requires stamina. The only armours/outfits that boost your stamina don't give you armour. Who cares? A baby nuke doesn't. So you may as well bring out the bikinis for a few gals and have some fun on the Atoll. It makes you more accurate because you're not always stopping to drink beer. Which means more shots, from closer range, and less inventory hassles. You can <CTRL> run just a bit of the way and walk the rest if you're worried about it. Or vica-versa. But when inside, use smoke and run. Lots! Imagine how awesome the news reports will be.....
Just remember: Fire for effect. If a weapon you brought along doesn't do something drastic, deadly, effective, or useful..... DON'T BRING IT! Or don't complain that it didn't do that thing.
If you're not going for a capture, then there's no kill like overkill. Click a button. KaBOOM! Or SPLAT! It's exactly what the alien flunkies are doing, but you do it with style and sophistication. Better, in other words.
