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

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
• $/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 modelled here.
• "Last shot misses" bug is not modelled 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.
• The Laser Cannon is costlier, but superior to, all the conventional weapons - except for range.
• Therefore the Laser Cannon is a good choice for an Aggressive, non-standoff engagement.
• The Fusion Ball Launcher is a cost-inefficient and relatively weak weapon, apart from its standoff range.
• Payload may be more important than Firepower in situations where an important large UFO target is attacked with limited resources.
• Fusion Ball Launcher and Avalanche are worst-impacted by the "last shot misses" bug.
• 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.