Hiring random

[Anon_Spartan]

I think that it's really cool that you get a list of resumes before you hire soldiers now, so you can pick the ones you want the most or whose skills you need.

However, it makes it very hard to hire a "bad" soldier, which I miss from X-Com, where it wasn't even clear if your soldiers were professionals or hobos given guns. I remember getting someone with Bravery 10, or Strength 20, or some other poor skills, and thinking to myself, "Oh look, a door opener. Guess who isn't living to see their first paycheck?"

When hiring, could you implement a system to get a random soldier? They would arrive in just one day, but you wouldn't know their stats. It would really be for something like a Chinook was shot down and you need replacements...fast. Maybe the pool would be lower for stats, and very rarely be above 55. I think the potential for a quick replacement team with terrible stats would easily make up for any game balance issues from them arriving two whole days early.

[Gorlom]

The current system is in place to prevent "cherry pickings" where people simply hired a lot of guys and then fired the bad ones.

This system kind of forces you to pick less desirable soldiers if you need a lot of soldiers quickly.

[Anon_Spartan]

I'm afraid I don't follow. Now, all you CAN do is pick the best soldier you want. It's not like they are preventing something, they just made it easier. And sure, if you need to get a bunch of reinforcements quickly you have to take what you're offered...but nearly every hireable soldier has a few darkly shaded stats, making them valuable. There are very few bad choices.

Who knows. Maybe now that stat increases are working, the average stats of the soldiers will decrease.

[Gorlom]

The thing is the guys in the pool are the ones you get to pick from (it is supposed to bring new guys into the pool after you hire someone). If you fire them they go back into the pool.

With the old system you could hire 100 soldiers and then fire the 90 you didn't want, 10 soldiers at a time... Now you have to at least hire all 100 (meaning you need additional living space) before you can start firing them.

I get the feeling i am forgetting part of the argument for the new system.

[Gauddlike]

As Gorlom says the old system of random soldiers allowed to hire as many as you wanted until you had the stats you wanted then fire everyone else.

That means you pay extra but can always get the best troops, as long as your cash holds out.

With the Xenonauts system you can only hire from the troops in the pool.

Of course you can only pick the best out of that pool if you only want one or two good troops.

Picking the best available applicants for a post makes sense.

However if you were to hire 20 troops in this system then fire the 18 with the worst stats those 18 go back into the pool of applicants.

Hiring another 20 would just cycle the same pool.

The pool only refreshes after a set period of time.

You can't simply continue to hire troops and fire the worst until you have the best possible stats as with the old system.

[Anon_Spartan]

Alright, the part with sending the soldiers back does make sense. Still, if the short-order troops were made to be worse (if normal troops have stats between 50-60, they'd have 50-55, or maybe 45-55 to showcase how bad they are). I guess I'm just sad there aren't many cannon fodder soldiers, which was one of my favorite things in X-Com. I enjoyed the thought of giving random bums laser guns to fight aliens. If that wasn't a heartwarming story, then I don't know what is.

[Gauddlike]

There will still be soldiers in the pool who you wouldn't trust with a pellet gun.

You just won't have to hire him unless you are desperate for numbers and just need boots on the ground.

If your team has just been wiped out or you need a garrison for a new base then you may take John 'Opps Sorry' McRedshirt.

Otherwise you aren't forced to hire him when he will bring nothing to your team (except pain).

[XenoMask]

Its same system they used in Apocalypse so I'm happy with it.(though in Apocalypse sometimes you get only bad recruits if I remember, or recruits that are good in something but bad in other things or something. And recruit pool changed over time.)

[Chris]

The level up speed of soldiers hasn't been finalised yet, but essentially the idea is that if you lose a few soldiers you shouldn't need to pick up any duds to replace them (though they won't be anywhere near as good as an experienced soldier). Lose more and it becomes more of an issue.

[Belmakor]

In iron man mode, the pool should have less and less soldiers joining each month as the game progresses as the population realise the average life expectancy is about 10 days!

Conversely, after major victories (such as terror attacks) there could be an influx of volunteers

[kbronct2004]

In iron man mode, the pool should have less and less soldiers joining each month as the game progresses as the population realise the average life expectancy is about 10 days!

Conversely, after major victories (such as terror attacks) there could be an influx of volunteers

Sounds good but in any play mode, not just Iron man.