Weapons

As a general rule of thumb each new generation of weapons deals significantly more damage than the previous, however the weapon tends to increase in weight and becomes slightly less accurate.

Weapon Overview

Pistol

Pistols are light weight, give a high bonus to reaction fire and deal as much damage as assault rifles, but have low range and accuracy. Pistols' unique advantage is that they only need one hand to use, allowing a soldier to wield a shield or use a grenade without a TU penalty. Their light weight also makes them viable to be carried as a side-arm for specialists such as rocket launcher or precision rifle users to give them an option to fight at close quarters.

Rifle

Rifles are the most versatile weapon for the Xenonauts. They have moderate range, accuracy, weight, and can use burst-fire. Although they do not excel at any one role, a Xenonaut equipped with a rifle is useful in every situation.

Shotgun

Shotguns are excellent close-range weapons. They give a bonus to reaction fire and can deal high damage, but have poor range and accuracy. Shotguns are lighter than assault rifles and require fewer TU to shoot. Each shot fires three smaller rounds that deal slightly less damage than an assault rifle shot. A soldier using a shotgun can only take snap and normal shots. This combination makes them perfect in close quarters but lack the ability to contribute meaningfully at range.

Precision Rifle

Precision rifles excel at long-range combat. High accuracy and long range allow soldiers using this weapon to reliably take out aliens from afar. They have heavy penalties to reaction fire, making the user very vulnerable to being charged in close quarters combat. Soldiers using this weapon cannot take burst shots.

Machine Gun

Machine guns are bulky, but effective killing machines. Shooting 10 bullets at a time, the main purpose of the Machine gun is suppression fire. However, that comes with a cost, with a high TU cost and heavy accuracy penalties if the soldier moves and shoots in the same turn, not counting the sheer weight possibly limiting armor usage. Someone using the machine gun can only take burst shots. As a heavy weapon the machine gun requires high strength as well as accuracy to take accurate shots. While it's best used with open fire arcs, the machine gun can be a surprisingly viable weapon at close quarters due to its withering hail of fire breaking through cover as an alternative to moving up to flank, but progress will be painfully slow due to the need to preserve many TUs to shoot with.

Rocket Launcher

Rocket Launchers are versatile weapons capable of delivering various warheads to the battlefield. These can be used to take out groups of enemies, and stun aliens from afar. Similarly to the Machine Gun, it suffers from accuracy penalties if the soldier moves and shoots in the same turn. The rocket launcher is an indiscriminate weapon which can cause heavy damage to salvage if used inside UFOs and is almost useless at close quarters for fear of damaging the user or other friendlies (though judicious application of rockets can simply level a building as an alternative to storming it...)

Weapons List

Standard Weapons

These starting weapons are what the Xenonauts have to start off with, however as new technology is researched many if not most of these weapons will become obsolete. 

Primitive, woefully ineffective, however it will have to be enough. Reliable enough for the first month of the invasion, but will rapidly fall short in hurting newer aliens.

• Pistol
• Rifle
• Shotgun
• Precision Rifle
• Machine Gun
• Rocket Launcher

Alternative Ballistic Weapons

Soviet weapons employed by Soviet soldiers and Arabic people. Identical to standard ballistic weapons in terms of performance.

Laser Weapons

The first new weapons researched, these improve over the stock weapons considerably. Being able to reliably hurt Androns and being a good step up in weapons tech.

• Laser Pistol
• Laser Carbine
• Laser Rifle
• Laser Precision
• Scatter Laser

Plasma Weapons (Human)

An imitation of alien plasma weapons, almost on par with the alien weaponry, highly effective.

• Plasma Pistol
• Plasma Carbine
• Plasma Rifle
• Plasma Precision
• Plasma Caster

MAG Weapons

Going above and beyond plasma weapons, MAG weapons return to the tried and true method of ballistics. More powerful than any weapons the aliens have to offer, limited only by the weapons high monetary and alien alloy cost.

• MAG Pistol
• MAG Carbine
• MAG Rifle
• MAG Precision
• MAG Storm
• Singularity Cannon

Plasma Weapons (Alien)

The Aliens weaponry is highly powerful, capable of killing soldiers very easily. However humans cannot easily wield Alien weapons, resulting in severe accuracy penalties.

• Alien Pistol
• Alien Rifle
• Alien Assault Plasma
• Alien Heavy Rifle
• Alien Sniper
• Alien Battle Rifle
• Alien Plasma Cannon

Cut Weapons

The following weapons were cut from the final game, for one reason or another.

• Flamethrower
• Plasma Torch
• Alien Plasma Thrower

Quick Comparison Table

Common Properties										Single Shot								Burst Fire					Damage
										Suppression		Snap		Normal		Aim
Name	Type	Class	Range	Hands	Weight	Heavy	Clip Size	Reload TU Cost	Reaction Modifier	Value	Radius	TU %	Acc	TU %	Acc	TU %	Acc	Supp. Value	Supp. Radius	TU %	Acc	Shot Count	Type	Dmg	Mitigation
Pistol	Ballistic	Pistol	10	1	2	No	15	15	1.5	20	1	28	45	40	80	No		No					kinetic	30	0
Ballistic Rifle	Ballistic	Rifle	20	2	5	No	20	25	1	20	1	28	45	40	80	55	130	60	1.5	60	45	3	kinetic	30	0
Ballistic Shotgun	Ballistic	Carbine	8	2	3	No	8	25	1.5	50	2	28	38	40	70	No		No					kinetic	25x3	0
Precision rifle	Ballistic	Sniper	30	2	7	No	10	30	0.5	25	1	38	60	49	105	65	165	No					kinetic	35	10
Machinegun	Ballistic	MG	25	2	8	Yes	30	35	0.5	No								120	2	80	35	10	kinetic	30	5
Laser Pistol	Laser	Pistol	10	1	2	No	9	15	1.5	23	1	28	45	40	80	No		No					energy	45	0
Laser Carbine	Laser	Carbine	8	2	3	No	6	25	1.5	58	2	28	38	40	70	No		No					energy	38x3	0
Laser Rifle	Laser	Rifle	20	2	5	No	12	25	1	23	1	28	45	40	80	55	130	69	1.5	60	45	3	energy	45	0
Precision Laser	Laser	Sniper	30	2	7	No	6	30	0.5	29	1	38	60	49	105	65	165	No					energy	55	15
Scatter laser	Laser	MG	25	2	8	Yes	30	35	0.5	No								135	2	80	35	10	energy	45	8
Plasma Pistol	Plasma	Pistol	10	1	2	No	9	15	1.5	26	1	28	45	40	80	No		No					energy	70	0
Plasma Carbine	Plasma	Carbine	8	2	3	No	6	25	1.5	64	2	28	38	40	70	No		No					energy	55x3	0
Plasma Rifle	Plasma	Rifle	20	2	6	No	12	25	1	26	1	28	45	40	80	55	130	78	1.5	60	45	3	energy	70	0
Precision Plasma	Plasma	Sniper	30	2	7	No	6	30	0.5	33	1	38	60	49	105	65	165	No					energy	80	25
Plasma Caster	Plasma	MG	25	2	8	Yes	30	35	0.5	No								150	2	80	35	10	energy	70	12
MAG Pistol	MAG	Pistol	10	1	2	No	9	15	1.5	32	1	28	45	40	80	No		No					kinetic	105	0
MAG Rifle	MAG	Rifle	20	2	5	No	12	25	1	32	1	28	45	40	80	55	140	96	1.5	60	45	3	kinetic	105	0
MAG Carbine	MAG	Carbine	8	2	3	No	6	25	1.5	72	2	28	38	40	70	No		No					kinetic	85x3	0
MAG Precision	MAG	Sniper	30	2	7	No	6	30	0.5	37	1	38	60	49	105	65	165	No					kinetic	120	35
MAG Storm	MAG	MG	25	2	8	Yes	30	35	0.5	No								165	2	80	35	10	kinetic	105	18