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[Eagle of Fire]

Well, just to make things clear I know the rifle is better than the pistol. No issue here.

Also I don't bring down walls of UFOs either. But that's a completely new story. There is, however, always a way to make sure you can see or shoot the aliens before they can fire at you. One of my favorite tactic in UFO, since the AI is too clumsy to use grenades well, is to bunch a few squaddies reasonably far from the entrance and have only one of my high reaction tactical squaddie open the door. And quickly jump to the side if there is enemies inside.

The way reaction work, if my tactical squaddie is still full in TU there is a very, very slim chance he'll get fired upon at all. Then the other squaddies snipe the aliens.

I follow the same tactic for the rest of the UFO. It is only dangerous for your squaddies if you are low on TU and the alien don't move much and thus don't waste TU. Which mean that in this situation the scanner would be useless too anyways.