You'll Need This?

[marceror]

Under what circumstances does this Officer Perk work, or does it even work?

I've seen it show up numerous times on my officers, always with zero charges. In a few VIP escort missions I thought, oh, cool, my VIP can do some fighting. But again, always zero charges if it shows up at all.

[trihero]

You have to equip a pistol in one of your inventory slots for it to work.

[justdont]

Also, sadly it gives away only basic "infinite" pistol, even if you carry a better-tiered pistol.

[marceror]

That's interesting. So does your officer lose access to the pistol for the rest of the mission? Or forever?

I usually only put pistols on my sharpshooters, and so far haven't made any sharpshooter an officer, so I may never have to occasion to use this ability. I can't see putting a pistol on an officer just to give it to an incompetent civilian.

[Undershaft]

That's interesting. So does your officer lose access to the pistol for the rest of the mission? Or forever?

No, you give away an extra copy of the regular pistol, which you can only do, however, if you have an actual pistol of whichever tech level equipped.

[trihero]

I can't see putting a pistol on an officer just to give it to an incompetent civilian.

This shouldn't be the main motivation for putting a pistol on an officer. It's more for flavor. The officer itself offers a great variety of defensive and offensive abilities to begin with, and the pistol, well...

The main motivation for putting a pistol on an officer is if you have enough AWC pistol + skill synergy to make the pistol a significant damage contribution to your team that your other skills would not otherwise allow for. For instance, if you have a specialist officer who can learn shadowstrike (level 1 offensive awc perk), this goes really nicely with Faceoff which you are guaranteed to learn at some point if you train hard enough. Specialists aren't going to be doing anywhere near this kind of damage with their other skills, so this might be a valid reason to bring a pistol along.

[marceror]

Yeah, but that pistol would have to come at the expense of a flashbang, smoke, medkit and/or defensive armor. 2 firearms on the squad member who will be attacking least often makes little sense to me.

[trihero]

What's the point you're trying to make? No one is saying that you should always wear a pistol.

[Devon_v]

I guess if you're crazy enough to plan to use Commisar you'd be carying the pistol around.

[Undershaft]

I hereby challenge the youtubers to play a campaign based on using You'll Need This and Commissar as much as possible. Might be as entertaining as it is doomed. Very Warhammerfortykayish.

"You're possessed! I'll put you out of your misery, brother marine. Hey, you, Beaker McScientistface: While I uphold morale, your Emperor needs you to run over there with that pistol of yours and take care of the aliens. Chop chop!"

[Sir_Dr_D]

I really wish Commisar allowed us to knock out the troop instead of killing him/her. Other wise I will always attempt to save the solider even if it puts the other ones at risk. And saving the soldier is usually easy. It just takes a flash bang.

[Undershaft]

In all likelihood, it's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to science fiction and zombie movies. I wish they would give the officer a free pistol slot or drop the requirement of an equipped handgun so that you could actually use those skills in the million-to-one-chance case you'd stumble into a situation where doing so would be a sensible course of action. : )

[mattprice516]

Note: both of those officer pistol perks are free perks that don't require giving anything up to get them. They're mainly for fun.

Though I've definitely trained pistol officers before just to have the pistol on the officer. Technical officer with pistol is pretty effective.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I would rather those perks not clutter up the interface. Couldn't all those automatic first level officer perks just be combined into one? Just have one perk called 'Officer'.

[marceror]

What's the point you're trying to make? No one is saying that you should always wear a pistol.

The point I am making is that because my officers are specialists, and it does not make sense to waste a utility slot on a specialist for a sidearm to me, "You'll Need This" is not an ability I will likely ever have the opportunity to use.

That's my point.

[Jacke]

I really wish Commisar allowed us to knock out the troop instead of killing him/her. Other wise I will always attempt to save the solider even if it puts the other ones at risk. And saving the soldier is usually easy. It just takes a flash bang.

Then you want the mod "Knock Them Out". For beating on aliens, you want the mod "Beatdown Skill".

[trihero]

The point I am making is that because my officers are specialists, and it does not make sense to waste a utility slot on a specialist for a sidearm to me, "You'll Need This" is not an ability I will likely ever have the opportunity to use.

That's my point.

Ok. Um. Do you want to see a change to you'll need this or something?

It's perfectly ok not to use a pistol on a specialist, but it's one of the few classes that benefits the most offensively with pistol training in the AWC.

[marceror]

I'm not requesting a change to it. Though I'd prefer that the ability did not require a sidearm to be equipped, I'm also not losing any sleep I've it.

In other words, I have no "agenda" with this thread other than to understand how the perk works. Now that I do I realize that I'll likely never get to use it. If Pavonis sees that and decides to rethink the perk, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine with me too.

For me, the best use of sidearms is sharpshooters without snapshot, as they are otherwise the one class that cannot move and shoot.

[trihero]

Ok. I don't have any agenda either, but it just kind of leaves me wondering what's the point of discussing all this then. Whatever.

For me, both specialists and technicals have the most to gain from pistol training. They are usually wearing SMGs, and they have terrible weapon-based skills, so things like firing the pistol twice in a turn, or faceoff/fan fire, actually provide a huge source of damage that they cannot get otherwise. For other classes obviously less so for instance like the ranger, you'd rather just...fire your rifle twice than a pistol twice. But firing the pistol twice for an smg technical is better than firing the SMG once, for instance.

[marceror]

Ok. I don't have any agenda either, but it just kind of leaves me wondering what's the point of discussing all this then. Whatever.

I'm not sure either. I've gotten my question answered, but the thread is artificially remaining alive because you continue to ask what the point is, and I continue to try to answer you. The point of the thread, currently, is just you and me discussing the point of the thread.

We could totally just, stop.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I find pistols are useful on rangers too, as rangers are so likely to run out of ammo. If an alien has low health left, finishing them off with a pistol is usually as effective as a gun. It allows for the ranger to shoot more often.

[marceror]

I find pistols are useful on rangers too, as rangers are so likely to run out of ammo. If an alien has low health left, finishing them off with a pistol is usually as effective as a gun. It allows for the ranger to shoot more often.

Autoloaders will solve that problem too, at least for your initial reloads.

[Saph7]

I find pistols are useful on rangers too, as rangers are so likely to run out of ammo. If an alien has low health left, finishing them off with a pistol is usually as effective as a gun. It allows for the ranger to shoot more often.

Autoloaders will solve that problem too, at least for your initial reloads.

I usually find my rangers go through an entire clip of ammo in their first turn . . .

Holotarget Snipers make good officers and are decent pistol users as well, in my experience.

[Jacke]

I find pistols are useful on rangers too, as rangers are so likely to run out of ammo. If an alien has low health left, finishing them off with a pistol is usually as effective as a gun. It allows for the ranger to shoot more often.

Autoloaders will solve that problem too, at least for your initial reloads.

And the mod Free Reload Anytime will allow you to use action-point reloads and save that autoloader for when you really really need it.

[LordYanaek]

This mod isn't convenient, it's required if you want to use Autoloaders. Autoloaders are pieces of cr.. without this mod, merely worth some credits at the black market for me as i always loose the free reloads when i don't need them.