At mission start your weapons are not automatically reloaded to full but the have the same number of ammo in the magazine they finished last mission and there is no way to reload weapons in the base.
That means that at mission start you, more often than not, have to reload your weapon; that if just a little annoyance for assaults, because they have the reload for free skill, but a mayor one for snipers and heavies that lose the free move before of after shooting because they have to reload.
Even for assaults it’s an annoyance, because starting the mission with a near empty magazine means one less magazine you have to use in the mission; the space in the backpack is not only weight limited but also item number limited.
If you start with a brand new weapon, just manifactured, the magazine is empty so you have one spot less in the backpack and one AP less at mission start.
Wouldnt it be better to be able to reload at the base/dropship and this half spent magazine will remain in storage; when you ahve two you can merge them and have an almost full one; game balance regarding ammo cost would be unaffected and the thing, i.e. startin the mission lock and loaded, would be more logical
If i can merge and reload and just missed how [facepalm] excuse me
No, you’ve missed nothing. Even if I manually reload before the battle starts I still end up starting with no ammo.
Occasionally reload fails to work in game; ammo clip is used up but the weapon is still empty. Both situations must be bugs - I’ve reported them both using F12.
I hope auto reload between missions is a thing by the time the finished game comes out!
I found the trick not to start with weapons not loaded.
Remove the weapon
Equip the weapon, the weapon now is empty
Click Ammo+ near the weapon, you are lock and loaded now at the expense of the half filled mag that is lost when you remove the weapon.
It’s our choice if throw away the ammo in the half filled mag or start with less than full mag, but think it’s a bug.
It happened to me too that reload didnt work in mission, but hitting tab for another soldier and reselecting the one that needs to reload usually works
I think the problem happens when you don’t have spare ammo in the store.
The game reminds you to manufacture new ammo to replace spare magasins in soldiers inventory, but not the loaded magasine.