Pavonis Interactive Forums

Hello.

I have recently restarted my campaign (again) because of epic failures, and as you all know at the start of the campaign, almost all missions are timed/suitable for stealth missions rendering the usage of sharpshooters almost impossible. In the beginning, sharpshooters have bad aim, we have no weapon upgrades like scopes or stock to give them, the rifle slows down the sharpshooter's running range immensely, you cannot move and then fire(except if you give him a pistol) and you don't have a spider suit.

I had the idea of just equipping them with smg and then just send them out on stealth missions as a third wheel just to have them gain experience (since I only need specialist/shinobi on these and yet mission experience gets divided by 3 anyway since it is programmed as the minimum ratio) But unfortunatly, I noticed that I did not have the option of equiping smg wouldn't it make sense to allow them to carry smg? Or would that be somehow impossible because squadsight is triggered on primary weapon?

I would like the option of equipping sharpshooters with smgs/rifles, for spotter builds to have more utility. However I think because of the way Squadsight works, it might not be possible. I don't know how to mod the game, so I couldn't tell you if squadsight can be altered or hardcoded, but ultimately it seems better to have the sharpshooter stuck as is, than to have an SMG taking out targets across the map.

You can do that all by yourself:

add
+AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType="rifle")

in the xcomclassdata.ini where the sharpshooter is. Note that this will allow him to use SMGs and ARs together with squadsight and while the SMG range table drops aim at long distances heavily, the AR range table does not.
I did not test this. Make any changes at your own risk.

I know how to mod myself, I am a programmer. But I like to play the same kind of game the community plays, otherwise I feel like I am cheating Also, giving sharpshooters smg and disabling squadsight at the same time takes more modding skills than I have.

Another idea is to allow soldiers not to have weapons at all? And make that give +4 mobility(assuming smg give +3) it can actually be modded itself as a weapon that has 0 ammo and +4 mobility.

From what I understand every XCOM soldier needs to hold some primary weapon, as there are no idle animations without one. They could possibly try to reuse the ones from civilians, but they will look weird on soldiers.

The main issue is how Squadsight works though. It checks for the perk, not the weapon, so technically you should still be able to use a SMG with Squadsight.

You will have to test it and see how it works.

8wayz wrote:The main issue is how Squadsight works though. It checks for the perk, not the weapon, so technically you should still be able to use a SMG with Squadsight.

You will have to test it and see how it works.

I bet it works like this. On an SMG the penalties on large distnaces are huge, though. Wouldn't hit the broad of a barn on squad sight, i guess.

mr_j936 wrote: I had the idea of just equipping them with smg and then just send them out on stealth missions as a third wheel just to have them gain experience (since I only need specialist/shinobi on these and yet mission experience gets divided by 3 anyway since it is programmed as the minimum ratio) But unfortunatly, I noticed that I did not have the option of equiping smg

Don't want to kick the open door in but you know you can send them on infiltration with their sniper rifle don't you?
I do this a lot early. I give them no utility items, thus improving their movement and if they don't get in any fight (as should happen in a pure stealth mission), the sniper rifle isn't an issue. When going pure stealth you can often reach the evac with turns left even without an SMG and since the sharpshooter doesn't have to hack the door, he can often take a more direct path.

I'd like the option to equip no weapon (or just use a pistol for what it's worth) but as 8wayz pointed, you'll have animation issues because the animation data is (from what i've read) attached to the weapon model rather than the soldier model so this would require coding/re-purposing new animation for the "empty" weapon.

An SMG equipped holotargetter sharpshooter would walk on the shinobi's toes for scouting purposes.

LordYanaek wrote:
I'd like the option to equip no weapon (or just use a pistol for what it's worth) but as 8wayz pointed, you'll have animation issues because the animation data is (from what i've read) attached to the weapon model rather than the soldier model so this would require coding/re-purposing new animation for the "empty" weapon.

If equipping no weapons become an option....you know some youtuber somewhere is totally gonna click on the Remove All Weapons button sometime and then forget about it and subsequently send their Sharpshooter into a 0% Supply Raid with no weapons.

Alternatively, being able to equip a pistol as the primary weapon might be easier for animations and could give an alternative for very light weaponry, effectively bringing back the EW Covert Operatives, except here everyone can get some good pistol perks.

I thought about sharps being able to take SMGs but I think there are balance problems. Specifically you would stop using shinobis as scouts because a holo sharp would be just so much better.

As it is a phantom holo sharp has to be pretty careful without access to SMGs or ghostwalker, which is probably about right.

Zyrrashijn wrote:You can do that all by yourself:

add
+AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType="rifle")

in the xcomclassdata.ini where the sharpshooter is. Note that this will allow him to use SMGs and ARs together with squadsight and while the SMG range table drops aim at long distances heavily, the AR range table does not.
I did not test this. Make any changes at your own risk.

In addition in the xcomgamedata_weapondata.ini file find the lines "MEDIUM_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[n]=y". Those define the range bonus and penalty for conventional medium range weapons, there's a set for magnetic and beam weapons further afraid.
The n value is the distance in tiles and the y value the penalty. Medium range ends at 25, include ranges for past that at -100 penalty until range 41 to be in line with snipers.

LordYanaek wrote:

mr_j936 wrote: I had the idea of just equipping them with smg and then just send them out on stealth missions as a third wheel just to have them gain experience (since I only need specialist/shinobi on these and yet mission experience gets divided by 3 anyway since it is programmed as the minimum ratio) But unfortunatly, I noticed that I did not have the option of equiping smg

Don't want to kick the open door in but you know you can send them on infiltration with their sniper rifle don't you?
I do this a lot early. I give them no utility items, thus improving their movement and if they don't get in any fight (as should happen in a pure stealth mission), the sniper rifle isn't an issue. When going pure stealth you can often reach the evac with turns left even without an SMG and since the sharpshooter doesn't have to hack the door, he can often take a more direct path.
.

They always lag behind, and aside from the reduced mobility, enemies also have a greater line of sight to spot them(because of the bigger gun) so in places where an smg trooper barely makes it, a sniper simply gets stuck.

Perhaps a regular machine gun rifle is better than a sniper rifle in movement/detection and doesn't make the sniper a shinobi rival? Then again I guess the game does not want you to get free exp by sending soldiers that have no business being on the field...

LordYanaek wrote:Alternatively, being able to equip a pistol as the primary weapon might be easier for animations and could give an alternative for very light weaponry, effectively bringing back the EW Covert Operatives, except here everyone can get some good pistol perks.

It wouldn't. There are no "pistol as primary weapon" animations at all; the soldier just runs around looking like a civilian in fancy gear most of the time.