Legadian

Yeah, that's this bug. Might have to restart your game and upgrade to V14 while you're at it cause I don't think there's a workaround.

Hello Aliencrush, It takes 72 hours for hired soldiers to reach their assigned base. Until then, they appear as the (+1) or (+2) next to your soldier count. Just give it some game time.

This is an older bug, but its back for V14. The pistol carrier is supposed to load a combat shield in his empty off hand when he loads into ground combat. I've done five ground combat missions and he has yet to load one. In V13.2 it loaded the combat shield every time.

Does manually targeting work?

Maybe they know something about that mission that you don't......

Thoughts: Sounds like a combination of this bug and this bug. Suggested Work Around: Since V14 is still doing it, I'd Suggest doing what most of us have done to handle the reaction fire crash bug, use up all your APs on your turn. This won't stop the MG soldier, since that bug still works (as of V13.2 anyway) but it'll reduce the chances. Just make sure all visible aliens are already dead and that your front guys are in cover when you end your turn and then hope for the best

I can confirm this. They have Xenonaut style laser rifles that can be picked up and used but then not awarded at the end of combat completion.

Maybe this is a known bug, but I couldn't find a thread on it.... My soldier who carries the Pistol and Combat Shield starts the mission with the same number of APs shown in the equip soldier screen at base (60-110 depending on how leveled up the soldier is). Each turn of ground combat he has that same number of APs, unless you happen to go into his inventory to access a grenade or something. At this point, the game "remembers" that the Combat Shield (which wasn't shown in the base, of course) has its own weight (20 Kg) now that the soldier has it equipped in the combat mission. This drops the soldier's APs from his max of 60 or 110 to down around 20 to 45 (unless he starts dropping equipment). Coupled with the fact that strength isn't improving from mission to mission, this makes for an inconvenient bug if you like the Combat Shield. Sooo, the bug is EITHER that he starts out with way too many APs because the game isn't calculating the weight of the Combat Shield properly at the start of the mission OR he loses way too many APs just for opening his inventory. I'll let Chris decide which is more appropriate for game balance, I would just like it to be consistent from turn to turn.

As Max_Caine said, it is intermittent. I personally think it has something to do with the soldier files being screwed up, but that's just my pet theory. Here is a thread where I've posted some V13.2 save games that have crash sites on the map. Any one of the "before ground mission" saves will have a chance to trigger the fatal exception when the Chinook arrives and the ground mission loads up. Just start clicking on soldiers to find out. In my experience, I encounter it about 50% of the time. I SAR to avoid that particular bug. You should just have to reload a couple of times to encounter it

There is a workaround (briefly mentioned by OP) that was mentioned in another thread, but since I couldn't find that one I'll post it here: Start a new game, place a base, and hire one soldier. Load your old saved game that didn't have any soldiers to hire and the list should now be populated. The downside to this workaround is that you can hire duplicates of the same soldier across multiple bases and your chinooks start showing weird things as far as how many and which soldiers are assigned to them. However, at least you'll have the soldiers to proceed with the game.

I don't mind my recruits "spraying all over the countryside." That is very X-COM. As long as it gets better as their accuracy rating improves, which has been my experience with this build, then I'm happy.

I replicated the bug again: Just before ground mission Just after ground mission (crash site still visible)

First time I encountered bug: Just before ground mission Just after ground mission (crash site still visible) Second time I encountered bug: Just before ground mission Just after ground mission (crash site still visible) Obviously I can't give a save game just before the air combat since we can't save with active UFO's on the map, but it was a lander and two heavy fighters engaged by my two Migs and an F-17. Each time, all three of my fighters retreated after the Lander was downed leaving the two Heavy Fighters alive.

I managed to do it again later in that same game. If I send escorts with the chinook, they all get there and then just turn around and go back to base. I have save files before and after each incident, btw. Just don't know how to add them to the post.....

I downed a lander without killing the two heavy fighter escorts and then had my three fighters retreat. It left a crash-site that I cleared. After finishing the ground combat mission, I noticed that the crash-site was still there. When I sent the chinook back to check it out, it was downed by "enemy fire" which I assumed came from the two remaining heavy fighters (it didn't show a combat, just the message you'd get if a fighter hits your chinook). When I sent my fighters back to the fake crash-site, they just turned around and left after reaching the site. Eventually it just went away like any other crash-site does if ignored. I don't know if it is working as intended or a bug, but I thought I'd post it. If it is working as intended, I wonder why the heavy fighters didn't just down my chinook the first time around and if it is a bug it isn't really game breaking since we can just ignore the second, fake crash-site. Just wondering if anyone else has run into this one.