Best Starting Weapons (TFTD)

Starting a game in TFTD is outright frightening - especially if you've played the game a few times and know what to expect. Half the time your starting weapons will feel ineffectual and some of them most certainly are. As always, a good mixture of weapon types will always be recommended, but here we'll have a look at the early general weapons that you'll most probably want to arm your aquanauts with to make things easier.

The Weapons

Note: Only the purchasable weapons and the Gauss weapons will be covered in this discussion. The Torpedo Launcher, grenades and the Thermal Tazer will also be excluded.

Dart Gun

Probably the most ineffectual pistol in the entire series. It does offer the usual one-handed grip, speed and low cost. It's severely crippled by its low damage rating. It's somewhat effective against Aquatoids, Gillmen and Deep Ones, but will deal negligible damage to most terror units. It makes for a decent training weapon.

Jet Harpoon

This weapon is fairly average overall, and would have been more effective if it had a much larger harpoon magazine.

Thanks to its good accuracy and auto fire mode, it can work against unarmored enemies likes Aquatoid, Gillmen and Deep Ones, but you will need to be careful with your ammo. Tougher enemies will need heavier weapons to deal with.

Though this weapon appears to be intend as the bread-and-butter starting weapon to arm all your aquanauts with, the increased amour levels and AP resistances in TFTD quickly make this weapon obsolete.

Gas Cannon

Probably one of the most effective all-rounder starting weapons that you can buy. It can function as a high powered cannon, a grenade launcher or a fire starter.

It does suffer from being slow, heavy and only has a small 8 ammo magazine. The payoff for this is firepower that is twice as powerful as the Jet Harpoon coupled with generous firing accuracy. The Gas Cannon with HE shells can even rival the Sonic Pistol for taking down Lobstermen - unfortunately it is not as fast nor does it have enough ammo to truly match it. Most importantly, for a heavy weapon it does not suffer from the underwater-only restriction.

The AP and HE shells will be standard every-day ammo, while the Phosphor shells will prove to be the only phosphor shells that can be fired manually when on land. Until you get the Sonic Displacer, HE shells will be of particular value on land missions, as you will be able to use them to strike targets on levels above you in the event the only stairs up to the next level have been destroyed.

Hydro-Jet Cannon

This weapon would have been one of the more effective starting weapons if it did not have the under-water only requirement. As a large number of the more difficult missions are on land, this weapon will not be available all the time.

As such, the Gas Cannon is superior to it most of the time except during underwater sorties. You can fire it with reaction fire while on land, but as one of the slowest weapons in the game, it is not a practical way to operate it.

The phosphor shells that you can arm in this weapon are also wasted as they are only generally less effective on land.

If the under-water only requirement was not a concern, the weapon would be on par with the Gas Cannon in effectiveness in mid to long range combat. It would obviously be the dominant weapon for close quarter combat - especially if you are decked in Ion Armor or better.

Gauss Pistol

While only a pistol, it is vastly superior in every way to the harpoon weapons. It is small, one handed, is the fastest ranged weapon, has auto fire, a large 20 round ammo clip and has more firepower than the Jet Harpoon. Due to its speed, it is an excellent weapon for scouts or for reacting with. Up close, it can do massive damage with its auto fire mode.

The main downside to the Gauss Pistol however is that it is not as accurate as the Jet Harpoon, and the ammunition must be manufactured. The increased ammo count and speed make up for the accuracy loss. You can quickly outfit most of your crew with these weapons in a short amount of time.

The Gauss Pistol, while more powerful than the harpoons, is still limited to fighting enemies with low external armor protection. This means it is for the most part useless against large terror units - and Lobstermen are 70% resistant to the damage. Compliment it with grenades and other high damage weapons.

Gauss Rifle

Similar to the Gauss Pistol in overall usefulness, but is two-handed, larger, a little slower and only has 15 round clips. It makes for the best replacement for the Jet Harpoon and offers superior accuracy and firepower.

Unlike X-COM UFO where its counterpart the Laser Rifle could easily rival the alien's top weapon as the best weapon in the game, the Gauss Rifle is not as long lasting. It is best thought of as stepping stone weapon that you will use before transitioning over to the ridiculously powerful sonic weapons later in the game.

Despite this, it is still one of the most powerful auto fire weapons in the game, and is faster than the sonic weapons. This may very well keep it seeing service later on into the game.

Heavy Gauss

The Heavy Gauss is a poor third tier weapon for the Gauss family because it is severely outclassed by the Sonic Pistol in almost every aspect except a more accurate aimed mode and is cheaper to mass produce. Nevertheless it is a heavy hitting weapon, but may not necessarily make for a good weapon to arm the entire squad with - at least in comparison to the other starting weapons that are available.

Against standard and Gauss weaponry, the Heavy Gauss is one of the most powerful solid round projectile weapon available. If you regularly use the Gas Cannon with AP shells, the Heavy Gauss can make a reasonable replacement by way of a strength for speed trade off. The ammo packs away better than Gas Cannon shells and has a few more rounds.

Summary

While there is an assortment of weapons to work with, three of the better weapons that you can start with include the Gas Cannon, Gauss Pistol and Gauss Rifle.

For stronger Aquanauts, the Gas Cannon is the great all-rounder. While not the most powerful weapon, it is strong enough to kill absolutely every evil alien you may come across - except the Lobstermen (at the very least, you'd have to be very persistent and consistent to kill a Lobsterman with a Gas Cannon!). On land, it also fills the role as a lighter variant of the Torpedo Launcher. Much of its prominence unfortunately comes from the fact most of the other heavy weapons are limited by their underwater-only status - though it is respectably formidable as it is.

Even towards the end of the game, you may find it useful to keep one on the transport for HE (shooting up at ceiling while on land)or Phosphor usage.

For weak or nimble Aquanauts: The two gauss weapons listed are highly recommend as complete replacements for the Jet Harpoons, and can easily be used for arming the entire squad. They will not necessarily last all the way through the game, but they will prove to be vastly superior to the Jet Harpoons, which will make your missions during the early part of the game a lot easier to work through. They are also much lighter and faster to fire than the Gas Cannon.

The choice of pistol or rifle is entirely preferential, though it is recommended that a good mix be used.

See Also

Weapon Analysis