Foreword
This isn't a traditional XCOM story.While based upon the XCOM2: Terror from the Deep game, little emphasis is placed upon the alien strategies, technologies, countries/factions or storyline of the original. Rather, the story runs from the viewpoints of the grunts, the men and women on the front line of the XCOM war. It draws upon my own experiences as a soldier to bring to life what I think would be the world of the XCOM2 trooper as seen over his/her shoulder.
Next, one has to realise that XCOM: TOD has equipment quite different from what one might be used to in the game. "Molecular Control" have been totally thrown out, since I view it as unrealistic, as well as severely restrictive to this type of story. Several other guns and equipment have also been heavily modified to reflect the roles that real-world weapons play. For example, XCOM has no squad automatic weapon/machine gun equivalent, an essential tool for a modern squad to lay down heavy fire support. Similiarly, no dedicated sniping rifle has been provided, leaving out an essential part of what is essentially a anti-xenoc SWAT team.
Below is a brief summary of the weapons modified in XCOM: TOD. You'll get a better idea of each from listening to the soldiers in the story as well.
All Gauss weapons modded with autofire.
All Sonic weapons not allowed for XCOM use, given autofire and bigger magazines (incorrectly known as "clips", for the non-military-trained readers among us).
XC-60 Ballbreaker – a squad machine gun (originally a hydrojet cannon, modded with very rapid fire, average accuracy and capacity to use 60-round 75 damage solid bolt ammo or 30-round 130 damage sonic cannon ammo.)
XC-79 Breacher – a heavy USO wall-opener (originally a torpedo launcher, modded with 255 sonic damage, very bad accuracy and slow, auto-only fire).
XC-100 Judge – a sniper rifle/stunner gun (originally a gas cannon, modded with high accuracy, slow fire rate, capacity to use either 30-round 100 dmg solid bolt ammo, 30-round 130 dmg sonic cannon ammo, or 1-round thermo-shock ammo.)