Terrible question

[Tangra]

How come all my new recruits always come as riflemen and remain riflemen, and what effect do soldier classes have? Or have these features not yet been implemented? Please lock/delete/flame or refer to another thread because I've done quite a bit of searching but frankly the amount of material on the forum is massive.

PS: The game is in alpha or beta or whatever and it's a GOTY candidate for me already. I love this shit!

PPS: You probably know this but the stun grenades are bugged on the latest steam release.

[EchoFourDelta]

Key to this is that it's not so much their class as simply an easy way to handle quickly changing a soldier's loadout - the gear they're carrying.

To change this, click the "R" by the soldier portrait. From here, you can change the equipment in that loadout, change it's name, or select a new one for modification. You can also create new loadouts by using the blank spaces. I forget the exact steps, but click around with the left and right mouse buttons, and you'll see; it's really simple. There's just no indication anywhere in the game where you're told about this.

Edited September 2, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[Demnevanni]

Rifleman is not really a class, it's a role. Which is basically a loadout template. If you right-click the big ol' R symbol, you'll get options to equip the assigned loadout, to change the loadout template to whatever the soldier is equipped with right now or to change the soldier to another role. It makes equipping a whole bunch of soldiers with whatever you want them to carry a lot quicker and more convenient. If, for example, you want all your assaults to carry shields and pistols in their hands and a shotgun in their backpack, you assign one soldier the role "assault", equip him/her with the stuff you want and click "change default loadout". If you then assign another soldier the assault role, they'll immediately equip the same stuff you gave the first soldier.

[Newfr]

How come all my new recruits always come as riflemen and remain riflemen

In this game role doesn't mean anything. Just an easy way to load pre-saved equipment. Also you can change this role by yourself: click on soldier role icon on equipment screen (red square with a black letter in it near soldier portrait) and select "Change role" from menu. Select new role in next menu.

[crusherven]

Maybe the game could be a little more obvious about this. The new UI might make this easier?

[Tangra]

thanks guys, i got it. I am loving this game btw. I'm trying to get my friends to play but they don't believe me. I like it better than enemy unknown, and I liked that game a LOT

[Commissar Pancakes]

EU 2012? Or EU 93?

[OndieJ]

A lot of that kind of stuff is more 'cosmetic' so it doesn't REAAALY matter if it is a little broken at this stage of development. Even with the bugs that you get popping up I'm pretty happy playing at this stage, even more so now that I've gotten to get into the game a bit more with later ships and aliens and tech