Weapons

Weapon Information

Standard Weapons

You have to start somewhere. New X-COM commanders are given access to a small but diverse range of small to heavy firearms. While flawed, every weapon will have a few strengths that can be capitalized on.

Standard firearms are sold on the market and are limited only by how much a commander is willing to spend and how much storage space is remaining. While not the best of the bunch, conventional weapons are certainly not the worst either.

• Pistol
• Rifle
• Heavy Cannon
• Auto-Cannon
• Rocket Launcher

• Stun Rod

• Grenade
• Proximity Grenade
• High Explosive
• Smoke Grenade

Laser Technology

Laser weapons start off with a minor step down in accuracy, but are a step up in firepower from conventional small firearms. They are lighter, faster and considerably more powerful. Their biggest advantage is that they do not need ammunition.

Laser weapons can only be manufactured.

• Laser Pistol
• Laser Rifle
• Heavy Laser

Alien Weapons

Alien weapons are far more powerful than our own and wield terrible destructive capabilities, but we can harness this against the aliens and use their weapons against them.

The majority of all alien weaponry will be captured, but the weapons can also be reproduced in the workshops once they have been researched. However manufacturing ammunition for alien weapons can be costly on Elerium, as alien weapons are Elerium based.

• Plasma Pistol
• Plasma Rifle
• Heavy Plasma
• Alien Grenade
• Small Launcher (Stun Bomb launcher)
• Blaster Launcher

Ammunition Types

Armour-Piercing

Armour-Piercing (AP) ammunition is used in your standard projectile weapons. Also simply called "Bullets".

• Pistol
• Rifle
• Heavy Cannon
• Auto-Cannon

Incendiary

Incendiary (IN) ammunition creates an area-effect fire. All IN rounds do ~6.4 damage rather than their UFOpaedia listed amounts. The bonus of this form of ammunition is that it will continue to cause damage per turn until the fire dies out.

• Heavy Cannon
• Auto-Cannon
• Rocket Launcher

High Explosive

High Explosive (HE) is another area-effecting ammunition. Any unit or object within the blast radius will receive some amount of damage.

• Heavy Cannon
• Auto-Cannon
• Rocket Launcher
• Grenade
• Proximity Grenade
• High Explosive
• Alien Grenade
• Blaster Launcher

Laser

Laser ammunition uses an intense beam of light to burn its target. This form of ammunition is in-built into the weapon, so requires no clip, and therefore has no clip-size limitations.

• Laser Pistol
• Laser Rifle
• Heavy Laser

Plasma

Plasma ammunition was created by the Aliens, though through research, our human scientists have been able to replicate it for our own use.

• Plasma Pistol
• Plasma Rifle
• Heavy Plasma

Stun

Unlike the other forms of ammunition, Stun ammunition doesn't actually inflict damage to its target. Instead, it will cause them to fall unconscious until the stun effect has "worn off".

• Stun Rod
• Small Launcher
• Smoke Grenade

Other

There are two other damage types in the game, but they belong to the integrated terrorist weapons.

• Acid Spit, the corrosive poisonous globules the Celatid spits.
• Melee, the hand-to-hand attack which is utilized by the Reaper, Silacoid, Chryssalid and the Zombie.

See Also

• Damage
• Explosions
• Alien Artefacts
• Research
• Soldiers
  • Firing Accuracy
  • Reactions
  • Experience
  • Recruit Statistics
• Mission Types
• Field Manual: Weapons
• UFO Weapon Summaries
• Understanding Grenades