38 replies to this topic

[JWH]

Hi guys, just give your opinion on the stats that you think are most important and reasons why. If you want to rank the stats that would be even better

[j'ordos]

It's hard to decide which stat is the most important. VERY hard as you can use almost all of them, perhaps telling the one you don't find important at all?

[BurnThemALL]

I voted for Bravery because that's the first thing I look at when recruiting new soldiers. My ranking list of importance would be something like:

1. Bravery
2. Reaction (it sucks when a popper runs around the corner and soldiers are too lame to shoot the bastard) :psychosanta:
3. Strength (my AutoCannon with IN ammo is heavy!) :crazy:
4. Stamina
5. Accuracy
6. Speed
7. Health (Who cares about that anyway? I have a nice sickbay and a good chef) ::

8. 9. 10 PSI (absolutely useless for me...) I burn every PSI slimebug away... :flame:

Cool vote, by the way.

Edited by BurnThemALL, 13 July 2003 - 05:55 PM.

[miceless]

Cant vote yet as im not sure. Need to play it more first! In XCOM 1 and 2 i filtered based on reactions and then later based on psi defense.

[j'ordos]

Well, I don't really filter anyone, I hire every possible recruit here (for some reason they're needed ) If they survive, good! If they don't, bummer. Plenty more where that came from , allthough sometimes I'm rather strapped for fresh meat for the grinder...

[Extralucas]

It might be an accuracy for me. I choose it because when you got it high u can set shoting to auto and you almost alwyas hit. Reaction is second thing for me, and PSI I check only when recruiting hybrids to PSI Squad.

[Mark0]

IMO , your all right.. its just all tactics u use and they are all good.

Like BTA said, bravery s the most important.. i go with that. if i have a last survivor, i just want him to go rambo style or make him flee( depeding on his health).

reason i chose bravery is because i think its the most important at the begining of a new game.You do lose alot of soldiers. i just dont want them to panic right away.

So:
1:Bravery
2:Reactions
3:Accuracy
4:Speed
5:health

and at last Psi.

Welcome back JWH ( mmbr#2 )

Edited by Mark0, 22 July 2003 - 06:39 PM.

[JWH]

Thanks for the welcome Mark0. It's good to be back.

Your list makes interesting reading. I see that both you and BTA both place bravery at the top. I place bravery a bit lower but thats because none of my soldiers has panicked as yet.

I haven't been playing long enough to be an authority but my list right now is:-
1. Reactions
2. Accuracy
3. Speed
4. Bravery
5. Strength
6. Stamina
7. PSI defense
8.Health

This might change as i play the game more. I have a feeling that PSI defense might move up in the rankings once i start suffering from PSI attacks.


However, in the first two weeks of my present game ( which happens to be my first full game) Ihave been hiring soldiers willy nilly as I just want about 20 -30 agents as quickly as possible. After i get that amount i will start filtering.

Miceless, any idea now about how you would vote? now that youve been playing an additional few days?

[BurnThemALL]

I have a feeling that PSI defense might move up in the rankings once i start suffering from PSI attacks.

Believe me, burning aliens won't even think about PSI attacks! :psychosanta:

I think your list is very good.

I'm curious: What about my fellows... Do you rename your soldiers to give them own names to personalize them like I do? Thanks!

BurnThemALL :flame: :crazy:

[j'ordos]

There's a thread about that in one of the Xcom1 forums. If you want to know about xcom3 specifically, why don't you start a new poll here then?

[Raven Squad]

Accuracy. I doubt about it. When u have few men with great accuracy and toxic guns, nothing can defeat them. Exept few more accurate aliens .

[Mark0]

I have a feeling that PSI defense might move up in the rankings once i start suffering from PSI attacks.

Believe me, burning aliens won't even think about PSI attacks! :psychosanta:

I think your list is very good.

I'm curious: What about my fellows... Do you rename your soldiers to give them own names to personalize them like I do? Thanks!

BurnThemALL :flame: :crazy:

never !!
you know me, a ww2 lover :crazy:

i name my soldiers after ww2 PAnzer Aces

[BurnThemALL]

There's a thread about that in one of the Xcom1 forums. If you want to know about xcom3 specifically, why don't you start a new poll here then?

I'm only in the Xcom 3 folder, never was at Xcom 1. That answer could have been from a bureaucrat. Forget it.

Mark0: Nice idea! Storm the room Guderian! :crazy: Thanks for answering (without a poll)

[JWH]

Well BTA When I start seeing psimorphs and other
psi attack oriented aliens i'll try your advice and shoot them)or burn) them as quickly as possible.

BTW, i'm curious in xcom one many persons claimed that soldiers with high bravery colud withstand PSI panic attacks better than cowards. Now I never reallly proved this for myself and I have my doubts about this theory. I found that once his/her psi strength was low even the bravest soldier could be panicked by a PSI attack.

Does this theory apply to apocalpyse as well/ Do the breaver soldiers withstand psi induced panic attacks better than the more timid brothers? or does it all boil down to psi defense?


I have started some tentative renaming of soldiers according to their attributes.

[BurnThemALL]

Dear JWH! (This is the second time I type this because I got logged out during typing)

My experiences with PSI attacks in Apocalypse are:

You can hear when PSI aliens are present because PSI attacks generate a special sound, so you are warned. Now I keep all my soldiers together and go to the UFO door to storm the ship.

One soldier runs to the door, opens it and steps aside, now my Herbert Herbizid (the IN Auto Cannon guy, my best man) shoots into the UFO like there is no tomorrow and sets all up in flames. :flame: :psychosanta: Now you'll notice that the PSI attacks generally stop and the burning aliens start running in the ship.

This is the time to storm the ship! Inside it CAN happen in some RARE cases that they get one of my soldiers under their control with PSI. Now I right click the PSI alien to set it as primary target (yellow cross appears over him) and so my soldiers don't shoot at my PSI controlled one. After 1-2 seconds the alien PSI slimeball :fang: is set at fire and crumples to a pile of ash - my soldier is freed from PSI control and the fun can start by burning out the place of alien scum.

PSI never was a real problem in Apocalypse. I can't remember a game where I even had to reload a savedgame because of this.

In XCOM Enemy Unknown I still remember PSI to be a big problem, but in Apocalypse you can do more damage - so it is no problem.

Good luck and tell us how your first PSI combat went for you.

BURN EM! Make us proud. :flame: :psychosanta:

[Mark0]

nice stuff BTA!


i have got 1 ro 2 soldiers psied once thats the max, but i didnt shoot them and after a while they became under my command

everything you said is true, psi is nothing in apoc, its not worth of training soldiers for that.
best thing is to make them improve what you want


you know i never tried flamign a ufo.. dunnoo why
but when ill have some time, itl be doen with pleasure :psychosanta:

ill let you know bout that

[BurnThemALL]

you know i never tried flamign a ufo.. dunnoo why
but when ill have some time, itl be doen with pleasure :psychosanta:

ill let you know bout that 

My friend, if you never set a UFO on fire by shooting 10 - 20 bullets of IN AutoCannon inside, then you haven't played and enjoyed Apocalypse.

Best thing is when you hear them start running and burning! :crazy:

When you now storm the ship, the aliens are doomed! :psychosanta:

I look forward to read your war report on this Mark0! :happybanana:

[Extralucas]

Well BTA When I start seeing psimorphs and other
psi attack oriented aliens i'll try your advice and shoot them)or burn) them as quickly as possible.

BTW, i'm curious in xcom one many persons claimed that soldiers with high bravery colud withstand PSI panic attacks better than cowards.  Now I never reallly proved this for myself and I have my doubts about this theory.  I found that once his/her psi strength was low even the bravest soldier could be panicked by a PSI attack. 

Does this theory apply to apocalpyse as well/  Do the breaver soldiers withstand psi induced panic attacks better than the more timid brothers? or does it all boil down to psi defense?


I have started some tentative renaming of soldiers according to their attributes.

I gues it has changed. In UFO they were using panic first, and then MC. In apoc they just MC. You can see you soldiers PSI defense too.

[Tuoppi]

Aliens controlling your troops is really no problem as said... Only psimorphs and micronoids can MC and they run out of psi-energy after short control. The fun part of psi is using it to drop nades. Not even IN ammo beats the joy of making that blue teletubbie drop 3 Big Nukes in the middle of the alien crowd... Or MC a psimorph and use its nice psi-stats to clear the main UFO chamber. After this the poor creature has no energy and as it has no weapons it just floats around harmlessly... easy capture.

[Exo2000]

Those Psimorphs are a bugger to kill though... 12 "copies" of each organ... eeeeew. They have a LOT of HP

[alok]

I voted for speed because it's the only important (for me) attribute that can't be trained in missions. In order of importante... speed, strength, reaction, stamina. Bravery will be 100 after a few missions anyway, accuracy it's important, but I train my soldiers, so them all have 96 accuracy, and psy ... I don't use at all. It's not as important as in xcom1/2

[Tsereve]

I chose stamina, but speed and strength were also high on my list. In real-time mode (the only mode I play in), reactions are next to useless. As for accuracy, you can switch shot-types in a split second in Apoc (unlike the first two games), and aimed shots'll hit pretty much anything(eventually) regardless of the soldier. And in Apoc, you have a chance to fire again, unlike EU and TFTD. See, you can survive many hits before going down, so you have many chances to fire. Thus resulting in many chances to hit.

Psimorphs and Micronoids are a lot less common than Anthropods and Skeletoids, and I always used Mind Shields when I got them, so psi defense isn't too much of an issue. Psi strength and attack are useful (strength more than attack), but far from essential.

My soldiers never seem to panic or anything (due to my "a good tactician never accepts casualties" policy), so bravery isn't important to me.

In RT mode, speed is essential, but useless without stamina. Strength is also important, because too little of it can render all the speed and stamina in the world useless. That and the fact that I am a grenade freak in Apoc.

Did I miss any stats? I think I got them all.

edit: as long as you have >60 health points, health is virtually irrelevant. The armor you get in Apoc can stand up to much more than it could in the first two games. With Megapol/Disruptor (perhaps coupled w/ Marsec chest units) armor, your health should never drop more than 20%.

Edited by Tsereve, 12 November 2004 - 04:21 PM.

[NKF]

True enough, the physical attributes, strength, stamina and speed/TUs are high on my list as well, as I'm one of those madmen who like to run about a lot while lugging plenty of grenades and other equipment about as well (and use power swords from time to time).

Lots of health is always nice.

Accuracy isn't that important because most of the weapons I use are either spray-and-pray (when used in close proximity, who needs accuracy?), guided (any rockets - no accuracy needed), thrown (ditto - but strength is) or short range weapons (swords and stun grapples). But mind you, accuracy is useful in long range combat with limited ammo weapons. But accuracy builds up easily, and there are many ways to approach combat, so one needn't always rely on using long range pot-shots to kill off the aliens, which is standard practice in UFO/TFTD.

Reactions are also not that high a priority as they only affect how slow the AI tells your soldiers to start firing once they see an enemy. If you manually have your soldiers attack, they'll start pointing their guns ready for firing immediately. On the other hand, I'd rate it higher than firing accuracy nontheless. It's always nice to have your soldiers start acting on their own a lot quicker if you're not keeping an eye on them.

Psi - well, as psionic are a bit watered down in this game, they're not that important. They are important for specialised psi-troopers who specialise in disarming shields or detonating grenades on aliens. For androids, they're not even considered at all. For humans, why bother? The trick to avoiding stun or panic (which I find to be quite common, by the way) is to run out of sight of the attacker or to kill off the attacker post haste.

Bravery? Can't really say I care about it. Probably the least of my concerns in terms of stats.

So I guess, for me, in summary, it's

Physical stats (Because they all work together as a whole)
Health
Reactions
Accuracy
Bravery

The psi disciplines can go anywhere in the list depending on the role of the soldier.

I rate psi by:

Energy
Skill
Defense

Energy is obvious. Without energy, you cannot use your psi attacks. And they are so costly to use and then maintain and energy takes forever to recharge. Skill's useful but not too important, as the only units that are worth controlling are simple enough to control. Defense.... well, there are means and ways of dealing with psi aliens. Not to mention, psi aliens have limited psi energy as well, so they cannot go on controlling or stunning/panicking units unscrupulously like the aliens in UFO/TFTD.

- NKF

[dan2]

I voted speed, because after 100 battles in the first day, the accuracy is far better, but the speed and strength seems to stay put. Even after several days, speed doesn't improve very much, and I love when my guys are near the door before the cultists are on the other side, just in time to punch holes and hear lovely screams

[GreySouIe]

I almost always look for guys with high speed and then accuracy. Then I get around to strength. I hate it when you get a hybrid that starts off with 30 str and can't hardly carry megapol armor. On Psi stats, I don't use them enough to really rate them. I end up with 2-5 Psi solders, but they do end up making it a lot easier to bust big groups. It's a hoot to take some poor shemuck over then run him into a horde of aliens as a missile catcher.

Edited by GreySouIe, 23 September 2005 - 01:20 AM.

[gufu]

Accurasy - as Apocalypsis is pretty annoying with all of the buildings getting anihilated by even pistols(Walls falling everewhere!)

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Reaction time, Duhhh.. This way you dont get your squads eaten by poppers when sending them out, nor exploded by poppers.. OR just beaten down by large groups running through D:
I decided to investigate using Midnight Editor, and found out. The Higher your reaction time, the sooner the aliens come into view. thus the earlier you can shoot at them
Accuracy can be trained using stun grapples in ally bases, its MUCH more useful to have High Reaction speed. It can only be trained in Real combat <3

[NKF]

You sure about the training? You do get reaction boosts from the combat gym - assuming you can use the gym every midnight (i.e. at 100% health). You just earn reactions faster through actual combat.

The only stat that actual combat cannot raise is strength.

Reactions also seem to tell how quickly your unit will automatically react to enemies in the field of vision. This can easily be circumvented by ordering the attack yourself.

But having the enemies pop into view faster is an interesting finding. I must get that tested myself if I get a chance. Wonder what a 0 reaction stat will do? Ah well.

---

On the opposite end of accuracy is speed, high stamina and strength. These stats combined allow you to get up close and personal with your enemies. A burst of automatic fire from a few tiles away does heaps of good for your accuracy. So if you like to get up close and personal, the accuracy stat loses its importance. But if you like sniping from across the map, accuracy is very important. Can't have devestator beams miss their targets and destroy the upholstery!

- NKF

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

0 stat=get eaten by brain sucker :X
255=Long range view Ahahaha..

[Robo Dojo 58]

There is very likely a difference in reactions between turn based and real time games.

My experience is mostly with turn based battles. A highly trained soldier in turn based can definately get some shots at a popper the instant he comes out the door. A soldier with poor reactions tends to have poppers magcially appear and blow up in their face. Even if they have time units to shoot with, the camera doesn't even show the popper until it's halfway to its target. Dunno how this works out in real time though.

Edited by Robo Dojo 58, 15 January 2007 - 08:00 PM.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I play in Real time always, never been a fan of turnbased.
Also, as MOST of you SHOULD know, and Im hoping you do by now >.>
The Weapon you use also effects the accuracy of the shot, Marsec Mg's arent exactly snipers, even with aimed shots

[Pherdnut]

In turn-based, strength. The other most useful attribute, has its weight penalty reduced by strength. I spend most of the early to mid game killing things at point-blank range anyway and being able to carry more crap around is very useful.

[zaimoni]

But having the enemies pop into view faster is an interesting finding. I must get that tested myself if I get a chance. Wonder what a 0 reaction stat will do? Ah well.

It's not just "faster", sometimes it's "at all".

The Transporter (type III, the purple disk) has this pop-up tactical abuse in turn-based (the AI adapts quickly, but not that quickly) using the grav-lift at the center of the UFO. [Explosive ammunition for the AC goes fairly quickly at this stage, and it's hard not to catch at least one alien in insufficient cover.] Reactions definitely makes a difference in borderline cases on whether aliens are even seen through the fencing on top for shooting at, and how far one can see through not-so-heavy smoke.

This is not completely convenient, as sometimes high reactions lets you see an alien you don't really have LoF for.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Well, that should be the REAL use of Psi powers IMO >>

[Steelion]

Yeah- being able to place an "eye", which gives 360 degree visibility at a point just like a soldier, only can't be shot.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

For some reason I kinda wish they could use Psi Jedi powers too.. XD!
Just imagine them seeing a brain sucker on the ground, running for them
Use the psi to pick them up and fling them into a wall
That would be great fun.

[andrewl]

I play turn-based exclusively as it's what UFO and TFTD are. The most important stat at the beginning for humans are speed then strength. For hybrids, speed, then strength while making sure both psi-energy and psi-attack are 34 or over. This gives me a change to max both of those out eventually at 100.

At the beginning of the game in turn-based, I use cover. Then when I'm close enough, I toggle run, go point-blank range and fire away with machine guns. That's why accuracy isn't important for new troops. The only ones I don't do that are multi and hyperworms. I put some distance against those. In the first 3 weeks, my accuracy for my soldiers usually go up >30 points.

[mooses_an]

I always check they have enough psi defence, I want it to be over 20, otherwise they're immediately in alien control on those missions that have enemies with psionic abilities. Now they maybe just panic
Otherwise I don't really care, or just check the average level of their stats when selecting soldiers. Usually I've been satisfied with the soldiers I get at the start, then I just hire some couple mutants to give me an edge at the psionic stuff. When I give the soldiers equipment, then I check closer what attributes are high. I give heavy weapons for those with high strength, etc...

[NKF]

Unlike UFO/TFTD, I've found the psi defenses to be the lesser of your worries in Apocalypse. Oh, definitely not good when that guy with the Dimension Missile Launcher or the stack of Vortex Mines suddenly gets controlled! However, because Psi in this game is line-of-sight based and requires that the psi users maintain a lock on the target for the mind control to work, there are easy ways to counter it. i.e. stay out of their sight and getting rid of the psi user quickly. At least, this is the case in real-time. It's a lot harder in turn based.

Well trained hybrids, and particularly androids, are your best defense. If you hear psi being used, have them take the lead. They'll just point and laugh at the helpless psi aliens. When going on missions you know have psi units (like the alien bombers and first alien buildings), you can adjust your team accordingly.

Ah, but that's just my conclusion after years of play.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 20 August 2009 - 02:38 AM.