Rifle

General Information

UFOpaedia entry

Rifle Official Entry "This highly accurate sniper rifle has laser guided sights and takes 6.7mm ammunition in 20 round clips."

Source:

The standard X-COM Rifle is designed to be a sniping weapon that is also good at short range combat thanks to its three-round auto mode. It is X-COM's standard issue light firearm at the beginning of the campaign.

The Rifle is not a very powerful weapon, with only a slight increse in stopping power over the standard Pistol. Despite this it is a well balanced weapon that can be adapted to a variety of roles and works well at all ranges. Additionally, it benefits greatly from having a large 20-round ammunition clip.

Along with its low damage, the main disadvantage of the rifle is that it is very slow to aim. This mars its reputation as a sniper rifle somewhat against tough targets. Aliens with heavy external armour levels such as those found on terror units will often not receive much damage, if at all, from the Rifle.

Overall the Rifle is a fairly competent weapon that is useful against all of the lightly armoured enemies encountered in the early portion of the campaign. Like the Pistol, it can be used later in the campaign as a training weapon or for use against psionic enemies.

This weapon appears in UFO: Enemy Unknown. For the Terror from the Deep equivalent, refer to the Jet Harpoon.

Key Features
Auto Fire
Pros	Cons
Cheap High Ammo Moderate snap/auto accuracy High aimed accuracy	Weak

Recommendations

Until new weapon technologies are discovered, the Rifle is a good all-purpose weapon for fighting enemies with low armour such as Sectoids, Snakemen and Floaters. As it is fair in all of its firing modes, it can also be used in a variety of roles from sniping with aimed shots, scouting with snapshots or for close range assaults with auto-fire.

Later, when better rifles are available, they may retain some use when fighting against psionic aliens. Combined with the Power Suit, soldiers can safely harm psionic aliens but not each other if they succumb to mind control.

Alternatives to the Rifle if you find yourself concentrating primarily with Snap or opportunity fire attacks include the standard X-COM Pistol and the Heavy Cannon. Both weapons have share the same Snap accuracy as the Rifle. The Pistol provides faster Snaps at the cost of a minuscule reduction in damage. The Heavy Cannon on the other hand costs more to fire but has nearly double the damage.

Stats

Rifle:

• Size: 3 high x 1 wide
• Weight: 8
• TUs:
  • Auto: 35% (Accuracy 35%)
  • Snap: 25% (Accuracy 60%)
  • Aimed: 80% (Accuracy 110%)
• Cost: $3,000
• Sell Price: $2,250

Rifle Clip:

• Power: 30 AP
• Ammo: 20
• Size: 1 high x 1 wide
• Weight: 3
• Cost: $200
• Sell Price: $150

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: 1 Shot, 20% Remaining TUs (not sufficient for any further fire)
• Snap: 4 Shots, 0% Remaining TUs
• Auto: 2 Bursts, 30% Remaining TUs (enough for 1 further Snap shot)