Quote:
Originally posted by PrejudiceSucks@Mar 27 2005, 01:42 PM
No, Laser Rifles are pretty much always better than plasmas. Heavy Plasma is OK, but the others are useless in comparison with Lasers, simply because they are reasonably powerful and have infinite ammo, so you don't waste any TUs on reloads.
Laser Pistols are good for those 'Crack Snipers' who have Heavy Plasmas (the only time I use them) when they need to get a shot off and run. Laser weapons are reliable and completely free to maintain, and sell for a lot more money proportionaly than plasma weapons, and there is not need to stockpile resources such as Alien Alloys to make them.
A Laser pistol sells for 2.5x the money you make it for, Laser Rifles sell for a similar kind of profit.
A Heavy Plasma sells for about 30k more than you make it for and needs Alien Alloys to make it, and if needed, Elerium for the clips. This makes the whole process very annoying, as you need to work out how much Elerium / Alloys to get to use etc.
Also, for a Heavy Plasma to be worthwhile your soldiers need to be quite adept at shooting. You can give a Laser weapon to anyone and they won't waste ammo and on the off-chance that they hit they will still do serious damage.
Also, Plasma weapons never get bonuses against any enemy, only penalties. Lasers are the opposite. A Sectopod (pretty much the most dangerous thing in the game) will get absolutely hammered by a Heavy Laser, whilst it can shrug off Heavy Plasma hits.
Base Defence missions are easy enough if you prepare a good team there. You only have 80 items at your disposal, so what I recommend is about 20 soldiers (you'll thank me if you get attacked by a battleship in your main base) with Laser Rifles (20 items, no need for clips), a med-kit each (another 20) a proximity grenade (20 again) and High Explosive (again 20). So each of those soldiers has very good killpower + enough health packs to remain safe.
On the other hand, try this with Heavy Plasma. 20 Heavy Plasma (20 items) a clip minimum each (another 20) and a med-kit (20). Now you have to have a toss-up between Proximity Grenades, additional clips or* High Explosive (I think that stun weapons are not a great idea in base defense). If you choose Proximity Grenades you probably won't have all the killpower you need on the larger creatures. If you choose High Explosive you can't have 'minefields' and if you have 2 clips per soldier you won't have any explosive power.
If you choose to ditch the med-kits, then as soon as anyone gets wounded, they are gonna be useless for a very long time. If you want to cancel this out with armour, then fair enough, but you are still going to be vulnerable to those Heavy Plasma shots.
By the way before you all attack me and go 'What about blaster launchers j00 n00b?!!11!!' or whatever think about this - Power Armour is Laser-Proof, so if a soldier goes berserk or gets MCed, you should be OK. Power Armour is not really Heavy Plasma proof on the sides/rear, which is where you will probably be getting shot from. Absolutely nothing is Blaster Launcher proof and due to their enormous blast radius, no-one is safe. Hence, Laser Rifles are the way to go.
P.S. Sorry about the enormous post.
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I think this is a matter of personal preference, but I had to give up the laser rifles in my last campaign after I started encountering Ethereals and Mutons, which have enough armor to survive a direct laser hit with alarming frequency.
IIRC, Heavy Plasma is more accurate (110% Aimed or something like that; I think laser rifles are only 100% aimed? But who are we kidding, we all use Auto anyway, and I think HP is more accurate there, too.), and one shot is usually enough to kill. It sucks when you go autofire with a laser rifle on an alien only to have it miss, miss, hit--then the alien turns around and reaction fires you to death. (And don't try to NOT autofire, because if you Aimed and hit, the alien might survive it just the same and kill you. At least with auto sometimes you get two or three hits in, preventing such a scenario.)
Also, who the heck reloads Heavy Plasma? I've never had to do that, EVER. It's such a strong weapon that it only needs one hit most of the time to get the job done. Sure you get more shots off with a laser rifle, but it's less accurate and you run a higher risk of the "miss, miss, hit, alien turns around and kills" you scenario.
There is NO NEED to manufacture ANYTHING in the game that requires special materials except: Plasma Beam, armor, Firestorm (many), Avenger (1 at the very end), and maybe Psi-Amp. Just pick up alien grenades, alien Heavy Plasma, etc. after winning missions. Eject Heavy Plasma clips right before a mission is over so that it'll count as a "full" clip and not disappear from inventory. Save your E115 to manufacture armor, plasma beams, and serve as fuel for Firestorms and Avengers.
Someone did an "arms sales" calculation once (look for the XCOM unofficial strategy guide). Laser cannons are more profitable to make than anything other than Fusion Ball launchers, but those require special materials and are barely more profitable, so don't bother. Medikits are a decent second choice. The reason why laser cannons are so profitable: short manufacture time. You don't earn that much per cannon, but you can make a LOT of them in a short amount of time.
Against for Sectopods, I tried everything. Heavy plasma, Heavy Laser (sucks against anything else--no autofire!), Laser Rifles, High Explosives, Alien Grenades, etc. At the Beginner level, you can get away with using any of those and kill a 'pod after a few direct hits, but at the Superhuman level, I've come to this conclusion: if you are fighting in an alien base, let Ethereals and Sectopods come to you by getting all of your soldiers in a small ring around the gravlift. That way you can hit them with as many shots as you need when they get close. If you are fighting them out in the open at a fallen UFO, don't bother with any of the weapons I just mentioned. *Blaster Launchers* are the way to go. It cuts through the insane amount of armor (like what, 70 frontside or something) like butter. Just make sure to give the Launchers to your most mind-control-resistant guys. =) If you are fighting them in your OWN base, see below.
A note about base defense: I posted something a few pages ago about base layout. You don't need prox grenades at all; they just destroy valuable equipment. Use a few "spotters" midway down a long hall and have a firing squad as far away from the access lift as possible. You get to shoot aliens, they can't even see you except your spotters, who only poke their heads around the corner before running back into hiding. A blaster launcher isn't necessary and only destroys equipment. Even Sectopods can't stand six soldiers' firing into the damned thing with either laser rifles or Heavy Plasma.
Lastly, just sack all your psi-weakling soldiers. That takes care of the backstabbing problem, and you can more safely use Heavy Plasma. Oh, and, you CAN cut through Flying Armor with a laser rifle; it takes much more effort, true, but once upon a time, I had a soldier shoot the soldier next to him six times (2 autofires), and the other soldier died.