Mid game:
- Here there is much more to talk about as the weapons could be both divided by categories or features. I will try to talk about each weapon category but in some occasions talk about whole weapons groups
- About pistols I can see two issues: the first one related to the balance between magnun weapons and the standard pistols and on the second point to the smart pistols. On the first point, magnun weapons fall short compare to standard pistols mainly due to their poor armor performance. Sure they do more damage, but the final difference is usually not that big. Considering their ammo clip size and their weight, they bring few advantages to the table. Even the smart magnun fall short as it quickly runs out of ammo. The change I would make is to take out the armor penetration malus from this weapons, so their shots are more effective against the foes you usually encounter. About the smart pistol, the problem is that it simply too good. Not only it completely overshadows the normal black ops pistol, is so good that it is even better than the later laser pistol. I propose here two changes:make it heavier, 10 units of weight while loaded, and make it a little bit less accurate, maybe 85% and 90%. It would still be good, but the heavier weight specially could balance it a bit.
Smg
-The black ops smg could get some armor piercing, maybe 85% as the proposed P90 change, to make it a bit more viable. It currently fall behind most other weapons for CQC
- The Uac Smg could be buffed as rigth now it is like a black ops rifle but worse. Better accuracy would be welcome, and a larger magazine could also prove helpful.
Pulse weapons
- I think pulse weapons are an interesting bunch. I do think that the LMG loaded with chem rounds is actually a competitive weapon in the hands of accurate soldiers due to the power accuracy bonus, but overall they do feel a bit lackluster due to their accuracy and their weigth. I would propose five changes: make them more accurate, at the level of their competitor black ops weapon, make the tritanium ammo do extra hp damage (it can be justify as using tritanium as shards) like the ceramic round, make them fire slower, a small base damge buff for the pistol and finally make the chem round a single buller but with very good damage (for example 60 with the rifle) while removing the accuracy power bonus. I think that better accuracy would help a lot these weapons, but should be balanced with a lower firerate. To compensate, higher stoping power could help a lot. As for the chem rounds, they only currently work on the LMG because they have good base damage. I feel a single shot would be better as it would allow this weapon to also work against enemies with a moderate amount of armor, and make for an actual chem line of wepons (as the chem guns and the canister are more special types). The chem shotgun ammo could actually be recycle for the Thrasher shotgun,to add more variety to the mix.
Rifles
- With that said about pulse weapons, I think rifle selection could be improved. Rigth now we have the 2 black ops rifles, the UAC one, the Smart rifle and the pulse rifle. Currently the smart rifle is the superior option ,as it overperform the normal black ops rifles, the pulse rifle have it's issues and the UAC rifle is a joke. Keeping the line established with the previous line of rifles, I would suggest changing the smart rifle ammo to do less damage but be armor piercing. I would suggest a 24 damage normal bullet and a 32 tritanium one, making the maximum damage of the auto equal to the one of an auto burst from an assault, and with a 90% AP damage. My idea here is that the smart rifle shouldn't overperform completely the previous rifles, and while superior, to have situations were a normal rifle might work better.
- In relation to the Uac rifle, a more accurate snap shot would help a lot. An auto setting could also be nice. Also applying to the pistol, a lower shotgun spread would make them far more competitive. These weapons aren't stated to be shotguns, so their bullets should probably land closer together than the current behavior
Shotguns:
- Some minor changes i would make would be: get the tritanium shotgun shell do 55 damage like the CAWS clip; make the UAC shotgun fire quicker to maybe 30% snap, 65% aimed; and increase the reload cost of the Thrasher to 15 or 20 TU, as it can shoot very quick for such a good weapon.
- I feel like the auto could get a much faster firerate. Considering rigth now the only advantage it has is an auto setting, and lacking slug rounds, even the standard black ops shotgun seem like a better deal. I would argue to get it armor piercing dart rounds, but I think a two round snap shot an a 4 shot auto could improve it a bit. I feel like the two round snap is could be enough buff.
- The smart shotgun is a bit underwhelming, considering it is supposed to be one of the most advanced shotguns. While accurate and fast firing, it has a bad shotgun ammo (worse than the saw off) and needs to be shooted with two hands, while being worse than a CAWS as a main shotgun choice. I would make three changes:make it lighter, remove the one hand penalty and finally reduce the pellets spread. I could see this weapon working as a secondary weapon, specially for undeecover missions, rather than being a main weapon candidate.
Sniper rifles:
- I think that giving sniper rifles all the same power bonus could help. The barret for example is a best weapon than the standard black ops sniper rifle with tritanium ammo thanks to his bigger power boost and better armor piercing. Other example is the PSG 1, that gets less damage boost than the .308 cal while being harder to aim, or the tactical sniper getting even less bonus, with the concusive round getting a very low 10%. Considering that you need to be using accurate soldiers with this rifles due to the acc^2 formula, I think their power bonus should be the same and then have their base damage balanced around it. I think it could help for things like the barret that keeps being effective most of the game.
-One weapon i would change is the auto sniper, as i fell is underwhelming compare to his bolt action brother. The issue i see here is that it shoots as quickly as the normal rifle while being more or less just as accurate. The auto setting i feel is not that great, usually missing rounds. I would change it to be more of a marksman rifle, with a 35% snap shot, more accurate auto setting and removing the minimum range, with a less powerful power bonus. A better rifle for gun an running, but less for stationary combat.
- One thing that caught my attention are the accuracy knnel bonuses and the accuracy drop on these weapons, as I feel they are a bit arbitrary. Maybe they could be revised, as they are factors that make an impact but they don't become apparent very quickly (for example the barret snap shot Is more accurate than the standard rifle one when kneeling).
LMG:
- Here i would make a big change and make the assault LMG different than other two LMG. In the cult arms tier there are lmg(the fn minini) and heavy mg (the Mg3) and i think this distinction should be maintained. The assault lmg should focus on more mobile tactics, being more accurate on the standing and shooting more bullets, while the LMG (which should be renamed ) and the smart gun should be better at kneel shooting and have more range. Ideally the blance should be miniguns for close range, assault lmg for being multipurpose and the MG/smartgun for static positions.
Heavy weapons:
- the light cannon could get a slight accuracy boost as rigth now is more in accurate than either the auto cannon or the assault cannon while being weaker. Overall it is a weapon I like quite a lot due to it's versatility, but it's lackluster accuracy makes it go obsolete rather fast
- The sonic heavy cannon should weigth less, as with the focused clip it weigths a staggering amount of 64 weigth units, making it impractical to use it in battle. A weight more in line with other heavy weapons would probably make more sense , maybe at 48 weigth when fully loaded.
- The cyber web normal weapons (the Ionizer, the Ion blaster and the lightning thrower) need to be more accurate and fire slightly faster. While their X dimension arsenal is fine, their earth weapons usually only fire once per turn and completely miss their target. Being also quite heavy, their use by Xcom is difficult to justify
Exlosives:
- The same i said to melee weapons apply here: there needs to be more consistency. Damage spread depends on damage type, so while concussive grenades do more consistent damage, plasma ones can either miss completely or do double damage. I do think all explosions should be ruled by the 50-150 formula, due to the nature of the attacks involved. Different damage types are already a big point of using different grenades/missile/shell types, but i don't think having 0-200 ones mixed with 50-150 ones are good for balance.
- About missile launchers, one I find in a bad position is the multi-launcher. This weapon is more of a competitor of the auto cannon than the normal missile launcher, with very few advantages and one big flaw in it's ammo weigth. Also the lack of power of its missiles means that is usually a best idea to bring a normal missile launcher for longer range support. I think a lower missile pack weigth could help, along with an accuracy in the lines of the other launchers.
- The advanced missile launcher should only be used for mind guided missiles. The current setup allows for troops to take reaction shoots with this missile type. The E-115 missile should in turn go to the normal mssile launcher, as a final upgrade to it
- The auto mortar should be what his name imply. The current accuracy model 70 %*0,75*300% makes it perfectly accurate at any range, which for a weapon that usually one shoots any targets it hits, is mind boggling. I would prefer if the weapon had the same accuracy of the normal mortar but having a two round magazine that could be auto fire with way points.
-Should shrapnel weapons leave fire after hitting? I do think that this type of weapon already overperform over normal concussive weapons, but the extra fire seems unnecessary. Considering also that cutting is a better weapon damage type than concussive when it comes to enemy resistances, i think that the extra blast radius of this weapons is not very balanced.
Chemical weapons:
- I think this weapons deserve the two roll system considering the nature of their attack. Acid could probably splash in the case of the canister gun or cover a wide area in case of the chemo gun, so even near misses could still do damage.
- Speaking of the chemo gun, a lower TU use would help it a lot. Being a weapon with such a close range, the rather high TU usage of 65% makes it impractical to use in more situations, specially compare to a minigun, as you will expose your agent to just use it one. I think this weapon has more in common with the flamethrower, and it should be better suited for close assult use.
Flame weapons
- the last big change i would proposem I think most of this weapons should stop using the vanilla damage effect and use a 50-150 formula. Most napalm ammo already work like this, so it would make sense that the night ligther incendiary rocket worked this way. As for the flamer, the current utility of the weapon is rather limited as enemies would usually survive a full auto shot from it. Hilariously it seems to work better against 4 tile units like sectopods, ignoring their armor and doing 4 times the damage. I think that having it do direct damage would make more sense, increasing drastically it's utility for it's intended role against soft targets.
I'm going to leave it here because I have write quite enough already
One last suggestion, make handcuffs be usable with one hand rather than requiring two, as they are quite limited as they are rigth now.
Ps I may have overdid by quite a big margin lol
