How to you manage losing high-ranking soldiers?

[cardboardMike]

I have crashed out quite a few Veteran Ironman runs now.  The farthest I have got was plasma weapons, shrike, wolf armour.  

However I lost 2 continents in January and about 3 high ranking soldiers in one mission.  With little cash coming in, the situation didn't seem reversible.

My question is how to you cope with losing your best soldiers later in the game?  As far as I am aware, there isn't a mechanism to recruit anything but pvts, which are very difficult to keep alive in later missions.  

Do you just have to try your best to keep everyone alive?  Or do you reach a point where technology makes everyone a killing machine?  

Should I be rotating men through missions more?  I generally play with around 14 soldiers but tend to use the same ones every mission.  

 

 

[Dagar]

Definitely rotate troops. I can only speak for X-Division, but it is also true for the base game. Soldiers in the rank of around Lieutenant should be good enough for anything, but Privates are mostly useless, so train them up whenever you can. Very light and light UFOs are the best for this.

Also, consider retreat if you are about to lose troops. Don't fight a losing battle.

[cardboardMike]

Thanks.  How many soldiers should I look to have in the rotation?

[Dagar]

As I said, I am not familiar enough with Vanilla Xenonauts to really pin this down. But as a rule of thumb, half a spare team of experienced troops should be good enough to carry you through, even if Alpha team got wiped. That said, the better you fare at the tactical gameplay, i.e. the fewer troops you lose and the better you understand when to abandon a mission, the fewer stand-by soldiers you will need. So, if this is your first attempt, get a good amount of them would be my advice.

Also embrace how the levelling system works. Not the ranks are really the important part, but the stat increases. The stats increase with related stuff you do on the battlefield, so, if you are inclined to do so, you can really get grinding out that system.

[Charon]

21 hours ago, cardboardMike said:

Thanks.  How many soldiers should I look to have in the rotation?

As a rule of thumb have as many spare soldiers as your dropship can take, but at least 16 soldiers. With this you have a full team ready when your main team gets wiped, and also have the maximum soldiers in case of a base attack.