Aircraft Firepower Table

Armament	Cost $000s	$Shot	Base Damage	Range (km)	Accuracy	Reload Time(s)	Shots	Fire- power	$ / Fire- power	Payload	$ / Payload	Ammo $Rate	Ammo $/Dmg
Cannon	$30	$25	10	10	25%	2	200	75	$400	500	$60	$744	$10
Stingray	$16	$3,000	70	30	70%	15	6	196	$82	294	$54	$12,000	$61
Avalanche	$17	$9,000	100	60	80%	20	3	240	$71	240	$71	$27,000	$113
Laser Cannon	$211	$0	70	21	35%	4	99	368	$574	2426	$87	$0	$0
Laser Cannon (XCU)	$283	$0	35	35	35%	4	99	184	$1540	1213	$234	$0	$0
Plasma Beam	$319	$0	140	52	50%	6	100	700	$456	7000	$46	$0	$0
Plasma Beam (XCU)	$698	$0	140	52	50%	6	100	700	$997	7000	$100	$0	$0
Fusion Ball Launcher	$281	$69,000	230	65	100%	25	2	460	$611	460	$611	$138,000	$300

Note: All figures above reflect weapons doing MAXIMUM damage. Actual damage dealt is between 50% to 100% of the listed damage.

Key:

• Cost is for the weapon system alone, not including the aircraft, hangar and any Elerium to operate it
• Firepower = average damage rate dealt per 60s (or until ammo exhausted)
• $/Firepower = cost of the weapon system per unit of Firepower
• Payload = total average damage dealt if entire ammo load can be fired, if each shot were to do 100% damage... to get the actual average damage dealt, multiply this figure by 75%.
• $/Payload = cost of the weapon system per unit of Payload
• $/Ammo rate = cost of ammo expended per 60s (same time frame as Firepower measurement)
• $Ammo/Dmg = cost of ammo expended per unit of average damage dealt

Notes

• Costs are the higher of: sale price (i.e. opportunity cost) or complete manufacturing cost from "XCOM_Profits.xls"
• Damage, cost etc listed here is per single weapon; typically they will be mounted in pairs.
• Accuracy figures differ from in-game UFOPaedia but are from code inspection (UFOPaedia.org)
• Apparently the combat mode (Cautious etc) affects the firing rate. This is not modeled here.
• "Last shot misses" bug is not modeled here; assumes craft is Aggressive or switches to Aggressive for last shot

Observations & Conclusions

• With the conventional weapons, there is an elegant trade-off between range and firepower, vs payload.
• Stingray
  • There is not much point to this weapon, apart from the fact that you start the game with a free stock of them. The slightly higher total payload does not really compensate for the lower firepower and much lower first-volley lethality. As most Commanders attest, Avalanche is the way to go. The Stingray may have a niche role in shooting down Small Scouts early in the game. Apart from that, upgrade.
• Laser Cannon
  • Except for range and price, the Laser Cannon is superior to conventional weapons.
  • And as to price, the Laser Cannon is free to operate, unlike the conventional weapons and the Fusion Ball Launcher.
  • It has nearly double the firepower of the Stingray, 50% more than the Avalanche.
  • It has ten times the total payload of the Avalanche.
    • (Both Avalanche- and Stingray-armed aircraft will struggle to bring down large UFOs, due to their small total payload).
  • The range difference compared to the Stingray is insignificant. But not when compared to the Avalanche.
  • In conclusion, the Laser Cannon is a good choice for an Aggressive engagement, and arguably a better general purpose weapon than Avalanches, as long as you can tolerate a bit of damage to your aircraft fleet.
• Fusion Ball Launcher
  • The Fusion Ball Launcher has the greatest standoff range and power per hit
  • It is cost-inefficient to maintain and has a low payload. Payload may be more important than Firepower in situations where an important large UFO target is attacked with limited resources.
• Weapons impacted by the last shot bug where the ship pulls out of range when the last shot is fired:
  • The Fusion Ball Launcher is the worst-impacted losing 50% of it's payload.
  • The Avalanche loses 33%
  • The Stingray loses 17%.
• Of course the "cost" of downing a UFO will generally be small in proportion to the "value" of that downed UFO. Bean counters beware!
• It would be interesting (and easy) to calculate the cost of damage sustained by aircraft. It would then be possible to put an economic value on stand-off capability.
• It would also be interesting to measure the time taken to close to short range, in order to calculate the damage that would sustained. This could be done by:
  • Equipping a craft with one test weapon and one magic weapon.
  • The magic weapon is a modified Cannon (or Laser Cannon, if the test weapon is a Cannon)
  • The magic weapon is hacked to do zero damage and/or have zero accuracy
  • The magic weapon is hacked to have its range be greater than or equal to the maximum range of an aerial engagement (100km?), so it starts firing straight away (but not so it changes the starting engagement distance).
  • You then use the ammo count on the magic weapon as a timer, ticking off 2 game seconds per volley (or 4 seconds if using a magic Laser Cannon)
  • Note the ammo count when the second weapon, the test weapon, begins firing
  • Huzzah! You have now deduced the time required for the test weapon to enter firing range
  • You can now calculate minimum, average and maximum damage sustained whilst closing to firing range
  • Now repeat the test for Cautious, Standard and Aggressive modes & see if it makes any difference.

See Also

• Craft Armaments
• Craft