Most Desirable Sodier Stats

[ViniJones]

Just read back a bit, insane ironman reflexes are important, you dont get to reaction fire true, but neither do the enemies.

Depends on what you call lategame, i must confess I didnt make it past Feb on the latest patches. I suspect Praetors use psionics though? I addressed psionics being so random, that bravery doesnt protect you.

So like Kordanor said, what is changing when they show up?

Edit: Actually, now that I think of it, my troops reaction fire all the time, they sometimes even manage to down the reapers before they get to them, must be the 1.5 carbine modifiers.

Edited June 22, 2014 by ViniJones

[dpelectric]

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?

Mind Control. If you've never experienced its' particular joys, you're in for a real treat

And BTW, Kordanor, I love your tech tree and refer to it constantly. Very nice work

[Kordanor]

Thanks

All I had yet was the that my troops got a morale hit due to a psi attack which leads to panic/berserking/fleeing.

In addition I encounted one single incident where one of my guys was hallucinating, which was the first mission with Wraiths. But I have no idea which impact this had.

However I am not sure, whether a higher morale value would have changed anything.

[dpelectric]

Psionics is such a complicated subject that I don't want to re-open it here. Use the search function at the top of the page to find the umpteen threads already posted about it.

To make a long story short though, bravery/morale does not make any of your troops, even the most grizzled veterans, immune from high-level psionic attacks, but it sure can help.

[ViniJones]

Its just too bad, that anything thats not absolute will ruin your day if you cant reload.

[Kordanor]

Just encountered my first mind controls combined with hallizinations->Berserking. Not sure what I could have done here. Won the mission and captured the Praetor but - 8 of my guys died, all of PSI sideeffects. As every single hit with a mag weapon, even a pistol, is an instant friendly kill, group numbers dwindle fast.

Don't like it though. Feels completely luck-based. I have read the thread about bravery but I don't think it would have changed anything if my characters had like additional 5-10 bravery.

[dpelectric]

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, my strategy guide (now almost a strategy novel lol) might help?

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/666668-xenonauts/faqs/69446

look on the second page at section D: psionics and morale

[Irishguy117]

Part of the problem is the game forces you, or more precisely encourages you, to develop serious weakness to Psi by making soldiers high in one stat and low in the others, I.E. making it very likely that players will recruit people with low bravery but high aim, or strength, TUs, etc. Whatever looks more useful in the early game, because people don't recruit soldiers capable of withstanding Psi attacks because soldiers capable of withstanding Psi attacks have the athletic capability of a dandelion and severe nearsightedness. The real trick is that you have to hire soldiers with high bravery, period. Even if those soldiers could miss the broad side of a barn from inside the barn, if you want to be immune to Psi attacks completely, or even reliably.

[Kordanor]

Just read it, but nothing new (though great for new players).

I was aware that unequipping and equipping the weapon would help, but the problem is, that in most of the turns I actually needed the weapon and needed to be able to shoot. Of course with the amount of shit hitting the fan I it might have been a better choice anyways. That way I might not have been able to kill a couple of aliens instantly (and therefore get shot by them) but I guess I would have lost less men than I did with friendly fire.

But using this tactic Bravery gets even less important.

[dpelectric]

Well, ok, sorry my two cents didn't help, but all I can say is I just finished storming a battleship and stunning a praetor without a single scratch on any of my troops....

[Kordanor]

How many mind controls did you receive? Or did you put away your weapon every time?

[dpelectric]

During the combat outside I kept my men fully equipped as always. Got hit by dread incessantly, but that wasn't much more than an occasional inconvenience. Once I entered the battleship, keeping in mind that MC's "effective" (i.e. full-strength) range is 12, and I don't know if that's vertical through floors or not, I sheathed all my weapons and relied strictly on quick-slot grenades, door spamming, and creeping ahead very slowly and very methodically. Open a door, bomb with fusion grenades, shut. Repeat. Praetor only managed to MC two of my guys (though he tried others) both of whom ran around in circles, luckily not into the path of alien fire

[dpelectric]

Other commentary is that the final command room had friggin' eight andron elites and officers, plus the praetor. I made sure I kept guys standing on both teleporters to block them from coming down after me. One of the guys on the teleporters had Predator. At the start of my turn, I would re-equip his magstorm, send him up to lay down a burst of suppressing (and often killing) fire, then straight back down again, unequipping. Then my other Sentinel-and-mag officers popped up the other teleporter, throwing as many fusion grenades as possible, often 6-7-8 at a time with everybody pitching in. Mass destruction and worked like a charm

[Kordanor]

Aye, yep. Well having played one of these missions I do know now that I should have put away my weapons after each shot as well.

But the soldiers stat is really irrelevant. I mean it gives you a +-5% chance or so. For the initial one when you are on 100 morale it's irrelevant anyways, and after that depending on the difficulty. I guess that the numbers from the Guide are the standard ones from veteran, so for insane it would be 100/125/150 vs your morale. Which makes it a 50% chance for a maxed out (99+) morale soldier to resist a hallucination. And against preator leaders you have a 40% chance to resist if I am not mistaken.

Also wondering if that works for the final mission as this one is timed from what I have heared.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Kordanor

[dpelectric]

Sorry, yes, the guide is based on Veteran stats. I should've written that somewhere.

If your core point is that bravery/morale is almost irrelevant in the face of Insane psionic attacks, then yes I absolutely agree. It might help against the occasional long-distance MC attack when you're still fully equipped and scrapping outside the UFO, but not when you start closing in on the praetor. Well, I mean it will help, but even high-level guys can certainly still be controlled. The only real strategy that I know of is no weapons in your hands, door spamming, quick slot grenades, and blocking teleporters. But other people might have more effective methods.

I don't really want to comment on the final mission. Let's just say that it can be it's own unique challenge

Edit: P.S. If you didn't notice I asked Gauddlike, and he agreed, to sticky your A+ tech tree.

Edited June 25, 2014 by dpelectric

[Kordanor]

Sorry, yes, the guide is based on Veteran stats. I should've written that somewhere.

If your core point is that bravery/morale is almost irrelevant in the face of Insane psionic attacks, then yes I absolutely agree. It might help against the occasional long-distance MC attack when you're still fully equipped and scrapping outside the UFO, but not when you start closing in on the praetor. Well, I mean it will help, but even high-level guys can certainly still be controlled. The only real strategy that I know of is no weapons in your hands, door spamming, quick slot grenades, and blocking teleporters. But other people might have more effective methods.

I don't really want to comment on the final mission. Let's just say that it can be it's own unique challenge

Edit: P.S. If you didn't notice I asked Gauddlike, and he agreed, to sticky your A+ tech tree.

Thanks!

For the final mission: First I guess I need to raise a couple of new soldiers. Not exactly a good idea to move in with a squad of noobs. ^^ In addition with mind control in mind suddenly a hovertank seems to be a good idea again. At least if the layout of the level is the same as in metalcanyons let's play.

[RavenX]

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

Ahh well that's good to know.

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.

Hmm, what now? No, I definitely do Not want uber soldiers. I was just answering the question of how to raise Str. If I wanted my soldiers to be invincible and for the game not to be fun I'd just mod them in that way. I want my stats to increase because I "Earn" the increase, not because I want a squad of super-men.

[Fucille]

I'd actually go as far as to forward HP as one of the most vital stats to select for, simply because you can't train it up. You only get 1 point of HP for every 5 points of other stats you gain, meaning that your HP can only increase as much as the average of your other stats can, and that's only if you actually manage to train up reflexes and bravery to 100. A soldier's HP total is often extremely important in determining whether he dies instantly to an unlucky shot or can be recovered with some suppressive fire, repositioning and a medipack. The second one I would probably pick is bravery. Everything else just goes up by itself.

[ViniJones]

HP or REF would be my choice too.

Yes, but a stat going up by itself still doesnt mean its not useful. A 37 TU trooper is still very slow after 10 missions. An accuracy of 40 cant really do anything better than grenades and stun batons... and using those wont increase the stat.

Im all for selecting brave, but stupid soldiers and train them... if and when bravery actually starts to matter anywhere.

I guess it all boils down to wether you load the game if your hard trained soldiers get killed or not.

[mrsisk]

If you're playing ironman you're going to lose your higher ranking troops. That's a given.

Which means you have to keep bringing noobs in. And in late game if you're only accepting noobs with 50+ bravery, you're likely to end up with soldiers who can wear armor, carry one gun and one clip of ammo and STILL be overburdened because their STR sucks. And likely their TU will be low to begin with so they're going to be slow moving, bad shooting, poorly equipped but moderately brave meat shields...and still get MC'd.

So I'm still a bit unconvinced on the Bravery stat as being tops. It's sounding like ultimately you're going to have to "do silly things" anyway, like unequipping your weapons or (as I tend to do in the pre-MC berserk-prone months) just use up all your TUs so that your troops don't shoot each other during the alien's turn. So...hmm. Not really sure about that one.

Edited June 27, 2014 by mrsisk

[crusherven]

I think the solution is not to wait that long before hiring. I try to keep a pretty deep roster and cycle through them so that a couple bad injuries or dead doesn't mean I have to bring multiple rookies.

[Fucille]

Speaking of mind control, is there any way to mod that so it only works on Line of Sight?

[CheekyCT]

I like my squad of 12 to be 2 shield/pistoleers, 2-3 snipers, and the rest shotgunners.  The reason being that shotgunners tend to get reflex stats quickly if you bait enemies into coming to you around corners (which is VERY easy to do sadly) and high RFL + shotgun 1.5x boost = you can run up to most aliens, flick them in the forehead, dance your favorite brand of victory dance, then shotgun them in the face and not even get shot at.  Conversely your sniper will tend to take 1 step in LOS and get shot at...  I WOULD point out that I played with mods to make shotguns as powerful as every other weapon however,so that made it somewhat easier,since each shot did x9 pellets instead of the measly x3 vanilla gives you.  This makes shotgun damage (on average) similar to sniper rifle damage except that you have to be 3 or less squares away to GET that damage potential since shotgunners don't get accuracy as fast.

On the psi tangent,aliens can only psi attack you after the current turn if one of their buddies spots you AND LIVES TILL THE END OF THE TURN.  The exception is of course Praetors since their 'dread" has a chance to hit everyone on the battlefield even on turn 1.  Thus you can negate almost all mind controls by killing everything that sees you with reflex shots from around corners.  Additionally,whoever DOES get hit and has lowered moral can be healed by getting the next kill, usually back to full bravery.

I was able to take out the high praetor on the last mission without him ever getting to mind control  with this method. (door humping ftw)

Edited February 25, 2017 by CheekyCT