Sonic Pistol vs. Gauss Rifle
Overview
The Sonic Pistol and Gauss Rifle are the two generally-suggested general-issue weapons, since the Gauss Rifle is obviously better than any other non-alien weaponry, and the Sonic Pistol is better for an assault role than any other alien weapon due to its lower TU cost.
Obviously, there are weapons that surpass both of these in some roles, e.g. the Sonic Cannon for a sniper rifle, the Dart Gun for training reactions and the Disrupter Pulse Launcher and Sonic Pulser for splash damage and terrain destruction. However, none of these really work as a standard weapon assuming you have a choice.
The Stats
Aimed mode: 60% TUs for 100% base accuracy
Snap mode: 30% TUs for 65% base accuracy
Auto mode: 40% TUs for 50% base accuracy
60 Gauss damage
Aimed mode: 50% TUs for 85% base accuracy
Snap mode: 30% TUs for 65% base accuracy
80 Sonic damage
Basic Analysis
In general, using these weapons in an assault role involves the Auto mode for the Gauss Rifle and the Snap mode for the Sonic Pistol. There are two general situations of use: point-blank and non-point-blank. The difference is that accuracy hardly matters at point-blank range since it's nigh-impossible to miss.
Point-blank calculations:
Gauss Rifle: 6 shots/turn @ 60 damage = 360 damage per turn
Sonic Pistol: 3 shots/turn @ 80 damage = 240 damage per turn
Non-point-blank calculations:
Gauss Rifle: 6 shots/turn @ 60 damage each and 50% accuracy = 180 on-target damage per turn before soldier accuracy
Sonic Pistol: 3 shots/turn @ 80 damage each and 65% accuracy = 156 on-target damage per turn before soldier accuracy
Advanced Analysis
The prior analysis ignored resistance and armour effects.
Damage Modifiers
For Aquatoids (and Aquatoids alone) there is no difference between Gauss and Sonic damage, both doing 100% damage. For Gillmen the stats are 100% Gauss/110% Sonic, hence each point of Sonic is worth 1.1 points Gauss. For Lobstermen the stats are 30% Gauss/50% Sonic, hence each point of Sonic is worth 1.67 points Gauss. For Tasoths the stats are 70% Gauss/120% Sonic, hence each point of Sonic is worth 1.71 points Gauss. Assuming equal frequency of each alien type (which is approximated over a full game), the geometric mean of these is 1.33. This is ignoring terrorists, of course, but most of those have large resistances to Gauss anyway, and they aren't as common.
So we can take 1.33 as a reasonable multiplier for Sonic damage compared to Gauss.
Hence we can repeat those calculations:
Point-blank:
Gauss Rifle: 360 adjusted damage/turn
Sonic Pistol: 319.6 adjusted damage/turn
Non-point-blank:
Gauss Rifle: 180 on-target adjusted damage/turn
Sonic Pistol: 207.7 on-target adjusted damage/turn
Armour
Armour acts per shot, so in each of the Gauss Rifle numbers, 6 * Armour must be subtracted, while for the Sonic Pistol numbers, 3 * Armour must be subtracted. Most alien armour ratings are 20 or above, so it can be seen that even in the point-blank numbers the Gauss Rifle drops to below the Sonic Pistol in damage/turn.
Externalities
Weapons are more than just collections of accuracy/time/damage stats. There are a few factors that may affect your choice:
Ammo use concerns: Advantages Sonic Pistol due to Gauss Rifle's faster use of ammo (due to autofire) and smaller clip (15 vs. 20).
Size and Weight concerns: Advantages Sonic Pistol due to 1x2 instead of 1x3 size, and extremely low weight (especially since you need to carry more clips for the Gauss Rifle).
Ammo manufacture concerns: Goes both ways - the Gauss Rifle's ammo doesn't require Zrbite and is faster to manufacture, but you'll scavenge a good deal of Sonic Pistol ammo from dead aliens.
Handedness concerns: Advantages Sonic Pistol due to one-handed grip allowing a Sonic Pulser or other item to be carried in the other hand.
Molecular Control concerns: Advantages Gauss Rifle due to the nigh-immunity of Ion Armour to Gauss Rifle shots. The Sonic Pistol can penetrate the sides or back of even Magnetic Ion Armour on a lucky shot.
Collateral concerns: Advantages Sonic Pistol due to the spray-and-pray nature of the Gauss Rifle.
Burst fire issues: Advantages Gauss rifle due to the fact that aliens can only react after all three shots are fired in a burst.
Verdict
After armour and resistance issues are weighed in, the Sonic Pistol seems to be by far the better weapon unless huge amounts of MC are in play.
Magic9mushroom 06:42, 10 August 2009 (EDT)
- Great article! On looking at your data, which is solid, I would draw the slightly different conclusion, which is to arm with a Gauss Rifle early in the game, when Aquatoids and Gill Men are prevalent, and arm with Sonic Pistols later in the game. Later in the game you also tend to have Transmission Resolvers, and thus you know the race and mission type. In which case you could in theory still elect to use Gauss Rifles for an Aquatoid mission or maybe Gill Man mission, if it's worth the hassle of changing your transport loadout and (if remembered by XComutil or Seb76 Loader) your troop loadouts.
- One other aspect to consider is the economics of obtaining and operating the weapons. On a pure ammo basis, the cost of Sonic Pistol ammo is $4440 per clip if you are scavenging it (in foregone revenue). However, once you Research Sonic Pistol, the aliens apparently quickly stop using it. I'm not 100% convinced of this but they do eventually stop using it, regardless. At that point, or if you need more ammo than can be supplied by scavenging, the all-in manufacturing cost is about $9160 per clip, including $5000 for the Zrbite. And $5000 probably significantly undervalues the Zrbite, which you need to keep your ships flying and to build other essential things. Manufacturing a Gauss Rifle clip costs about $3620, including the Technician Time.
- Per clip, the SP ammo is about 22% more expensive if you can scavenge it, 2.5x as expensive if you need to manufacture it. However the SP clip is 2.66x longer lasting than the GR clip, so this nets out to 45% of the cost per turn of firing if you are scavenging ammo, about the same (95%) if you are manufacturing it.
- Of course there are also the Research costs to factor in, over the lifetime of the weapon. The total average research time is 660 research-days on Gauss weapons for the GR (450 specifically on the GR), versus 1600 for the SP. As a rule of thumb you can cost research-days at $1K each (best case, $50K per Lab-day, assuming a full Lab). So that's $1,600,000 for the Sonic Pistol technology vs $450,000-$610,000 for the Gauss Rifle technology. Of course you might consider the Sonic Pistol research to be a free windfall benefit of the indispensable need to research Sonic Oscillators. A similar argument (not as strong IMHO) could be made about Gauss weapons being a free windfall benefit of researching Gauss Cannon, in order to turn your bases into self-supporting Gauss Cannon Factories.
- Spike 13:51, 10 August 2009 (EDT)