Laser Rifle

Arguably the best weapon in the game, the Laser Rifle is the next step up from the Laser Pistol, and leads on to the Heavy Laser. Good accuracy, long range, no ammo needed, burst fire... This gun has it all. It does a LOT less damage than the Heavy Plasma, but that's about it. The conventional rifle reaches its limits with floaters and snakemen, but the laser rifle, once developed, is useful for the rest of the game.

Note that its shots will quite consistently destroy trees, brick walls, and other obstacles, but not reinforced metal like bases or ships. See Destroying Terrain for more details.

The only thing that really withstands a point blank burst from this would be the Sectopod.

Stats

Power: 60 Laser Size: 3 high x 1 wide Weight: 8 TUs: Auto: 34% (Accuracy 46%) Snap: 25% (Accuracy 65%) Aimed: 50% (Accuracy 100%) Manufacturing: $20,000 for parts, 400 Engineer Hours Sell Price: $36,900

Note with the additional bonus from kneeling, an aimed shot provides 115% * soldier base accuracy - A sharpshooter's dream. Too bad you can't specify head shots...

Usage Notes

The following lists how many times a soldier can fire the gun by shot type continuously in any given round and the remaining percentage of any left over TUs that cannot be spent as a shot.

• Aimed: 2 Shots, 0% Remaining TUs
• Snap: 4 Shots, 0% Remaining TUs
• Auto: 3 bursts, 0% remaining TUs, OR 2 Bursts (6 Shots), 32% Remaining TUs (sufficient for 1 more Snap shot)

Note:The difference for auto shot occurs according to how many TUs the soldier has, and is probably due to the INT-eger function. For instance a soldier with 59 TU will use 20 TU for an auto shot, but a soldier with 60 TU will also use 20 TU and will thus be able to shoot 3 times. 64 TU will give 3 shots at 21 TU and 1 TU leftover. The laser rifle is notable because, for TU between 50 and 81, you will get:

2 shots - 11 occurences
3 shots+0 TU - 11 occurences
3 shots + 1 TU - 10 occurences

So, in fact, 3 shots is the RULE, not the exception.