Reaction Fire Weapon Preference
If a soldier is carrying a weapon in each hand, one of these will be treated as the active weapon and will be used by the soldier for all reaction shots. If the active weapon runs out of ammunition, the soldier will switch to the other weapon, provided it contains ammunition as well.
At mission start, the left-hand weapon is the active weapon by default. Otherwise, whichever weapon the soldier last fired with will be treated as the active weapon. To change which weapon is active, fire with the desired weapon, or open its fire mode menu but cancel the attack.
Your soldier's sprite will be displayed with whichever weapon is currently active.
| Tip!: By setting your active weapon, you will be able to tell your soldier what to fire with the next time the soldier gets an attack of opportunity. For example, if you were to have a Small Launcher in one hand an a Plasma Rifle in the other hand, and activating the small launcher will ensure that the soldier fires the small launcher first and then (since the launcher is now empty) switch over to the plasma rifle for all subsequent attacks of opportunity. |
OpenXcom
OpenXcom Extended (OXCE) allows to manually set or toggle the preferred hand by right-click on the hand item slot. The preferred hand is marked with yellow dot. This preference persists (e.g. if you remove a pistol to use a two-handed item, then equip it again), but matters only if some weapon that can be used for reaction (melee when in reach, gun that is not out of ammunition) is in this hand.