Firepower Tables

The tables below compare the raw on-target damage output of weapons. This is the average damage impacting on the target prior to the reducing effect of armour, or vulnerability/resistance modifiers. It measures the general utility of the weapon across a broad range of targets. For lightly armoured targets with no particular vulnerability or resistance, it's a very close measure of actual effectiveness versus that target type.

Explanation of terms

"Skirmish range" is any tactical situation where accuracy is important, where a miss matters. "Point blank" is any situation where accuracy is irrelevant, and misses become hits, such as point blank range, or using area effect rounds against a target backed up against a wall, or near vertical shots from above down to the ground. Many real situation will lie somewhere between these 2 extremes. The best general guide to weapon effectiveness is probably the Skirmish value rather than the Point blank value - typically, misses do matter. (In fact in many situations, misses not only don't help, but make things much worse, e.g. due to friendly fire.)

The Instantaneous rates capture a moment in time and answer the questions 'what do I do fire with right now?', or 'which weapon is best with a mix of other tactical actions?'. In contrast, the Sustained rates consider the 'rounding errors' of unused TUs that are wasted in a full turn of just firing, and thus these rates are lower than the Instantaneous rates. The Sustained rates are for the scenario when you are just pounding away turn after turn at the same target (or targets), barely moving or shifting your aim.

(However neither of the rates consider the time nneded to reload. Mainly this is because reloading uses fixed TUs rather than %TUs, and so is very hard to model - you would need to consider actual Max TUs or pick some (very) arbitrary "typical" level of Max TUs. So the Sustained rate should be thought of as "sustained fire until magazine is empty", not indefinite sustained fire. There is some more discussion of these sort of issues on the Talk page.)

Base Damage Rate, Skirmish range: Average damage on-target per 100% TUs (FA=50) Instantaneous rates (less than one full turn) Weapon Auto Snap Aimed Pistol - 43 34 Rifle 45 36 21 Heavy Cannon-AP - 51 32 Heavy Cannon-HE - 47 29 Auto Cannon-AP 50 36 22 Auto Cannon-HE 53 37 23 Rocket Launcher-Sm - 46 58 Rocket Launcher-Lg - 61 77 Laser Pistol 77 46 28 Laser Rifle 122 78 60 Heavy Laser - 64 48 Plasma Pistol 130 56 37 Plasma Rifle 183 115 67 Heavy Plasma 246 144 105 Small Launcher - 73 66 Blaster Launcher - 303 150

Base Damage Rate, Skirmish range: Average damage on-target per 100% TUs (FA=50) Sustained rates (over one or more turns) Weapon Auto Snap Aimed Pistol - 39 30 Rifle 32 36 17 Heavy Cannon-AP - 50 25 Heavy Cannon-HE - 47 23 Auto Cannon-AP 40 35 17 Auto Cannon-HE 42 37 18 Rocket Launcher-Sm - 21 43 Rocket Launcher-Lg - 28 58 Laser Pistol 77 46 16 Laser Rifle 83 78 60 Heavy Laser - 64 36 Plasma Pistol 117 51 22 Plasma Rifle 132 103 40 Heavy Plasma 173 129 63 Small Launcher - 29 50 Blaster Launcher - 200 200

Base Damage Rate, Point blank range: Average damage on-target per 100% TUs Instantaneous rates (less than one full turn) Weapon Auto Snap Aimed Pistol - 144 87 Rifle 257 120 38 Heavy Cannon-AP - 170 70 Heavy Cannon-HE - 158 65 Auto Cannon-AP 315 127 53 Auto Cannon-HE 330 133 55 Rocket Launcher-Sm - 167 100 Rocket Launcher-Lg - 222 133 Laser Pistol 552 230 84 Laser Rifle 529 240 120 Heavy Laser - 258 113 Plasma Pistol 520 173 87 Plasma Rifle 667 267 133 Heavy Plasma 986 383 192 Small Launcher - 225 120 Blaster Launcher - 303 250

Base Damage Rate, Point blank range: Average damage on-target per 100% TUs Sustained rates (over one or more turns) Weapon Auto Snap Aimed Pistol - 130 78 Rifle 180 120 30 Heavy Cannon-AP - 168 56 Heavy Cannon-HE - 156 52 Auto Cannon-AP 252 126 42 Auto Cannon-HE 264 132 44 Rocket Launcher-Sm - 75 75 Rocket Launcher-Lg - 100 100 Laser Pistol 552 230 46 Laser Rifle 360 240 120 Heavy Laser - 255 85 Plasma Pistol 468 156 52 Plasma Rifle 480 240 80 Heavy Plasma 690 345 115 Small Launcher - 90 90 Blaster Launcher - 200 200

See Also

• The data in these tables was derived from this spreadsheet File:Firepower.xls.
• On the Talk pages of the various Aliens, there are Weapon Ranking tables that are specific to that Alien's armour level, susceptibility/resistance, and Health. Those tables are ranked by armour-adjusted on-target damage, rather than raw on-target damage. This table above is a better measure of a weapon's general power, especially against lighter-armoured targets.