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Most Desirable Sodier Stats


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From your experience with the game, what seem to be the most valuable stats when recruiting soldiers?

In my first (albeit short-lived) game I was looking for high TUs and accuracy, with enough strength to carry extra kit. However, I noticed that TUs, ACC, and STR go up nearly every mission, while the other stats (RFL and BRV) go up extremely infrequently.

In my current game I sort soldiers by bravery or reflexes and recruit them only when both stats are at least over 50 and one preferably over 60.

On a related note, what causes stats to go up in Xenonauts?

  • Will being overburdened raise strength faster?
  • Does doing laps of the map raise your TUs faster?
  • Does getting kills on missions give a bonus to stat increases (ie 100% increases to any stats already slated for increase)?
  • I've had a number of soldiers reaction fire during missions but it didn't raise their RFL at mission debrief, is RFL un-trainable?

In the original X-COM, reflexes were the most valuable stat because it leveled very slowly and was dependent on getting reaction fire to train in the first place (soldiers with low reflexes faced a very uphill battle because they didn't reaction fire frequently).

LOL, I fondly remember training my recruits reflexes by having them reaction fire with laser pistols on mutons who I've disarmed with mindcontrol. The weak fire from the laser pistols wouldn't hurt the mutons and the mutons would wander around but not pick up weapons to defend themselves.

  • I read in another thread that soldiers who panic get +1 to their bravery at mission end, is this confirmed?
Edited by BuzuBuzu
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Yes, running away like a coward and getting mindcontrolled let you level up in bravery :) And reflexes only increases when they reaction-fire.

I also overall agree that reflexes and bravery are the most importent stats if you want to level your soldiers to god tier, followed by accuraty because it is easier to level your soldiers up when they already have a decent one.

TU and strength are at easiest to level up. You only need to spend at least 250 TU per mission iirc and give your soldiers a little bit more to carry so that they will lose 2-6 TU.

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Bravery, IMHO. It's the hardest to increase, and arguably the most important late-game stat.

My soldiers that reaction fire do get RFL plus at mission debrief. I use legit1337's tactic of blowing the UFO doors with C4. Then my troops, spaced slightly apart and with LOS into the ship, trade fire with the aliens that run/teleport into view to raise their reflexes. Of course, a few die in the process, but survival of the fittest...

Yes, soldiers that panic get a bravery boost.

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Bravery followed by reflex. Everything else can be compensated for so long as it isn't in the 40s range in which case, I probably won't be hiring that soldier anyways.

I've also modded my own game to reduce the range of stats. A 40 any stat soldier is just kinda useless and would take too much effort to bring to par.

Even though +5/-5 of a stat doesn't really mean that much, I find that my OCD makes me want to bring everyone's stats to around the same value. I've thought about making everyone start at a flat 55 or 60 for all stats, just so I won't get peeved about the asymmetry.

Edited by Snarks
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Since suppression causes panic, could it be trained by having all the soldiers stand with shields (and nothing else) and getting shot around by a machine gunner? Little risk of death, high chance of panic.

I can confirm that this works, albeit its time consuming.

To reduce the risk of soldier death, put 6 soldiers behind a wall, preferably with shields, and have them drop their weapons. Then, fire an LMG at the wall or at the ground in front of the wall. If the soldiers are positioned correctly, they should all be suppressed. Eventually, they will begin panicking. Have your soldiers panic at least once, and their bravery will increase.

Do not do this until you can confirm that the aliens are all in the UFO, as a surprise alien happening upon a training exercise is almost certain death for a xenonaut or two.

(Since I generally don't use reaction fire, reflexes is not that important to me).

Edited by Lidhuin
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To reduce the risk of soldier death, put 6 soldiers behind a wall, preferably with shields, and have them drop their weapons. Then, fire an LMG at the wall or at the ground in front of the wall.

Or don't use shields and go for the additional "heavily wounded for mankind" medal (+1brv!)

I don't even understand why would anyone exploit stuff like this. If you hate the current bravery value just change it in gameconfig.xml..it takes 30 sec. Unless you are some kind of MMORPG grind-junkie :P

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Some people just like the idea of making the best of the current game mechanics instead of making chaning the mechanics or skipping it by things like console commands. It's often a very frustrating, repetative and time consuming process but can give you a certain amount of satisfaction :)

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Being overburdened definitely raises Str faster. I always keep my units with just enough weight they barely take a TU hit (go just as little over as you can, usually with a grenade or clip). They gain Str every mission just by playing as I normally would. Using all your TU's in a turn with every soldier helps raise TU's a bit faster as well.

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Being overburdened definitely raises Str faster. I always keep my units with just enough weight they barely take a TU hit (go just as little over as you can, usually with a grenade or clip). They gain Str every mission just by playing as I normally would. Using all your TU's in a turn with every soldier helps raise TU's a bit faster as well.

You just need to be at 80% of your unencumbered limit to gain Str. TUs are gained from basically doing anything.

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Being overburdened definitely raises Str faster. I always keep my units with just enough weight they barely take a TU hit (go just as little over as you can, usually with a grenade or clip). They gain Str every mission just by playing as I normally would. Using all your TU's in a turn with every soldier helps raise TU's a bit faster as well.

Dont you think that the idea is reflect that your unit move slower because has heavy equipement? This is intented intentional for the game, is dumb try to have perfect soldiers all the time...

The same happend with bravery, you dont need to worry about raising it, the game has designed to have nonperfect soldiers.

If your want ubber soldiers with ultra high stats increased every mission maybe your right game is fixaris Xcom.

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The problem is more along the lines of how soldiers get their stats increased. The game tends to encourage people to do gimmicky stuff for stat increases. In the OG, people would line troops up in front of a mindcontrolled enemy in order to train reflex. In Xenonauts, we do similar things such as making sure every soldier gets to shoot, making all the soldiers carry up to their limit, etc. It also isn't very feasible to train up bravery with the current values and mechanics. Overall, I feel that the stat increase mechanics aren't well designed, as it promotes behavior outside of what's intended as simply playing the game normally won't provide the same benefits.

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In my opinion stats increase regularly in the early game just be regular play (although REF/BRAV are a bit seldom). I make a point not to overburden my soldiers, but give them just as much as they can carry. This has saved my bacon quite a few times in the early games (or the bacon of my privates perhaps), by having those extra smoke grenades or flashbangs ready to drop for the Pistol/Shield scout. During the early game (on Insane) i spent a crapton of grenades, mostly smoke and flashes and it felt like I could never get enough. Once the game progresses it becomes less a necessity to spam them in most engagements, as your troops should be (on average) more reliable at killing things.

I don't go out of my way to train troops, but if I get a Small UFO when I'm in the middle of handling Large UFO's, I will take the opportunity for a relaxed mission with some reserves, as having decent reserves is great. On numerous occasions have I had quite a few of my experienced soldiers wounded, and if something important shows up, they are great to bolster your squad with.

I will also sort out troops below 55 Brav (unless they have remarkable REF or general stats, or I need troops badly), and privates with TU less than 50 can also be a hassle when your main squad is rolling with 70+ on average :P

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Eh, I dunno. For most stats if I just play the game normally, trying to get the most out of each soldier in each mission, I find their stats increase pretty regularly.

It's not that their stats, baring bravery, don't increase normally. It's the notion that it is easy to raise most stats if you did some silly things. The problem is akin to doing every single ground combat mission because the opportunity cost of is high. Airstrikes were introduced to discourage that behavior, although the current values doesn't seem to do a very good job of discouraging players from doing every ground combat mission. The opportunity cost of not loading your soldiers to the limit is a stat increase, and the drawbacks to loading them up is the loss of a couple of TUs. And last time I checked, you could also load them right at the limit, so they don't get a penalty but still receive a strength stat increase.

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It's not that their stats, baring bravery, don't increase normally. It's the notion that it is easy to raise most stats if you did some silly things. The problem is akin to doing every single ground combat mission because the opportunity cost of is high. Airstrikes were introduced to discourage that behavior, although the current values doesn't seem to do a very good job of discouraging players from doing every ground combat mission. The opportunity cost of not loading your soldiers to the limit is a stat increase, and the drawbacks to loading them up is the loss of a couple of TUs. And last time I checked, you could also load them right at the limit, so they don't get a penalty but still receive a strength stat increase.

Except you don't currently need to do anything silly to get stat increases. It only takes being at 80% of a soldiers capacity for them to get the Str gain.

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I guess it also strongly depends on the difficulty you are playing on. The Alien's stats increase significantly with each difficulty level.

<alienAttributeEasy value="0.7" />

<alienAttributeNormal value="0.8" />

<alienAttributeVeteran value="1.0" />

<alienAttributeSuperhuman value="1.25" />

This also adds up to the question whether or not you are playing Ironman or not (and how many soldiers die /what their average rank is). On Ironman Insane reflexes are hardly of any value at all in my opinion. Why? Because it really does not matter, whether your soldier has 40 or 60 reflex - he will not get an interruption anyways / this interruption is too luck based, so better avoid it completely. Your scout/shield guy might want to provoke enemy interruptions to free them of their TUs. I guess the only units where reflexes is really useful is the shotgun-guys who have to run close to an enemy to shoot them, which might give the enemy additional interruption opportunities.

Personally I don't mind too much about the stats unless they are extremely low when recruiting. I prefer units with decent TUs, so that I can effectively use them out of the box. Also it's important to have decent strength to wear wolf armor without penalty (if not using predator), but that's about it. If they have below 50 accuracy I give them a sniper rifle, which I'd call the rifle with training wheels until they get better. Of course it's also nice to have additional HP to rise the chance to actually survive.

So overall I go for a rather balanced approach and just avoid extremely low values in any of the attributes.

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My point of view playing in veteran iron mode:

-If you want a quick answer:

for me it is the Life stat as it will make it easier for you to level your soldiers as they wont necessarily die when they get shot. Of course if you use reloads then life is not that impotant. I find that even being very cautious all of my soldiers have at least been injured 2-3 times (the ones who survived :D)from te time i get landingsips (january). My veteran soldiers (100 Tus) often end up being the ones which had enough life to survive through those several injuries. Moreover once you get armors it increases the value of the life stat a lot.

If you want the long answer it depends on the role you want to use your soldiers.

For my snipers i usually prefer high acc and reflex even if they have somewhat low life as i do not often put them in danger

For shield guys i go for high strenght and life as they are basically scouts that should soak reaction fire.

For riffleman i usually take medium sats for almost all: life acc strenght reflex (as they are the versatile units in my point of view)

For heavyweapons high TUs are very important or you wont be able to move and shoot in the same turn then strenght acc and reflex. A good heavyweapon soldier is a beast on te field (usually convert my two best soldiers into them).

That covers the main roles. Also i try to never hire soldiers below 45-50 TUs as they wont be able to move a lot and then will slow all your squadron if you want your team to stay together (which is always a good idea :D).

Edited by Saskali
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Though I agree with Saskali on many points. (since i also play ironman). I think that reflexes is the most importnant stat.

While APs STR and ACC are needed, they level quickly. So new recruits need to have reflexes and health to be picked by me.

Like you said, low APs suck too. (lower than 50 anyway.)

To justify, reflexes help your soldiers not to get reaction fired, so a shield+pistol/baton scouts need it. Shotgunners need it to fight androns, because you dont suppress those. Long rangers and heavies dont go in first most of the time, but it still helps when contesting larger UFO interiors.

Also, what is your obsession with bravery? Am I missing something? I think it slightly helps not getting supressed by fire, but when hit by a psi assault, my 88 bravery commander breaks and runs away same as 40 bravery pvt. I generally avoid being fired at, seeing as armor below predator is unreliable... and aliens dont miss, therefore bravery is the only stat I dont pay any mind whatsoever.

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Doesn't sound like you've played the late game yet. Bravery is no big deal before caesan leaders and praetors. Then, it becomes quite important

I didn't encounter Praetors yet, and didn't see anything special about the ceasan I had yet, so what is changing once Praetors show up?

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