Soldier Screening

[Idgy]

OK, apologies for the noob-ness here but I've just gotten into XCom. I don't know how I missed it when it came out, but it's been on my "Awesome Games I Have to Play At Some Point" list for a while and I've finally gotten to it.

 

I've been trying to avoid spoiling too much of the game (half of the fun is figuring out the systems and learning lessons the hard way), so I haven't read strategy guides or anything. But I do know that some of the soldiers I hire are superheroes and more are worthless scabs.

 

With that in mind, I converted my soldier.dat to a CSV file, copied names and stats into an Excel sheet, and went to town deriving percentile ranks to see who was worthy of not getting a pink slip their first day on the job. The problem was, at the end of the effort, I find out that only 9 of my 46 men and women are worthy of squad roles.

 

I haven't lost too many people in the battles I've fought so far, so clearly I'm being too strict with my assignments. But I figured I'd run my criteria by you guys and get some feedback.

 

Basically, I'm making 5-man squads, with 1 Heavy Weapons dude (rocket launcher!! ), 1 Scout (motion tracker, best pistol, bunch of nades), and 3 Shooters (best auto-firing weapon available, bunch of nades).

 

So, for my requirements, I set out the following. (When I say "high <ability>," I mean top ⅓ of scores):

 

Heavy Weapons: lag a bit behind the team and deliver high explosives at opportune moments.

- High TU: these weaps take more points to fire, so I gotta have high TU to keep up with the rest of the squad and still have a chance to shoot.

- High Strength: gotta be able to carry the big loads.

- Median or better Bravery: if someone goes buckwild with a rocket-launcher that could be half my team down the tubes.

- Reaction is not a concern, because these guys lag behind the rest of the team. Also, I don't want someone taking a snap shot with a rocket launcher and end up killing a teammate or three.

- Accuracy is not a concern, because that whole splash damage thing makes up for poor aim.

 

Shooter: everyday average squad member. Responsible for shooting whatever the Scout finds and the Heavy Weapons don't blast into itty bitty pieces. Will do most of the killing.

- High Firing Accuracy: do one thing, but do it well!

- Median or better TU: after moving a few squares, this makes the difference between kneeling and firing twice vs kneeling and only firing once, or firing twice without kneeling.

- Median or better Bravery: if they're responsible for the bulk of the killing, they can't be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

 

Scout: run all over the battlefield and gather information so that the rest of the squad can make informed choices.

- High TU: I need these guys to outrange the rest of the squad. Also, if during that outranging I come across a few aliens as I round a corner, it would be nice to be able to get back around the corner and into cover.

- High Reaction: it would be nice to not get shot by the aforementioned aliens before I even have a chance to make use of my excessive TUs.

- High Stamina: I'm going to be covering a lot of squares per turn, and there's not much use in having TU if I'm constantly stopped by lack of energy.

- Accuracy is not a concern; the Scout's role is to find the enemy, and leave the killing to the Shooters and Heavy Weapons soldiers.

 

I'm not putting stats into names, only abbreviated specialties (My Commander, being strong and having lots of TU, is "Catherine Kemp HW"), so I'm also thinking of marking people who make good grenadiers (high Strength and Throwing Accuracy), and people who do well while invading ships (high reaction, firing accuracy, and TU). I figure that throwing grenades aren't a dedicated part of any particular job, but if a nade needs to be thrown, it's good to know who can do it well and who can't. Similarly, when it's time to bust in the front door, it's good to know who's got a great reaction time and who doesn't without having to look at the soldier stats screen.

 

Anway, this post is huge and probably too verbose but whatever. I put a bunch of effort into the spreadsheet, so maybe if I get some good feedback from you guys, I can fine-tune it, then post it for other people to use!

[Zombie]

I tried doing something similar with my soldiers in the past. Unfortunately, my standards were quite high (top 20%) meaning quite a few rookies were sacked. Since you do not have any strategy guides, I'm assuming you are unfamiliar with the range a soldier can fall in under the different abilities. I did a study on this about a year ago with 1000 soldiers:

                                                    ----AVERAGE----
STATISTIC      MIN   MAX   RANGE   MEDIAN   MODE   ANTIC.   ACTUAL   STD DEV
Time Units      50    60     11      55      56      55      54.75     3.16
Stamina         40    70     31      54      47      55      54.43     8.95
Health          25    40     16      32    28/30    32.5     32.35     4.52
Bravery         10    60      6      30      30      35      34.94    17.18
Reactions       30    60     31      44      32      45      44.82     9.21
Firing Acc.     40    70     31      55      48      55      54.69     8.62
Throw Acc.      50    80     31      64      50      65      64.73     9.08
Strength        20    40     21      30    28/35     30      30.11     5.84
Psi Str.         0   100    101      51      60      50      50.42    29.24
Psi Skill       16    24      9      20      19      20      20.12     2.54

 

Assuming your cutoff point for sacking a recruit is the lowest 2/3 of the max, your top 1/3 numbers should be roughly:

STATISTIC      TOP 1/3
Time Units        56
Stamina           61
Health            36
Bravery           40
Reactions         51
Firing Acc.       61
Throw Acc.        71
Strength          34
Psi Str.          66
Psi Skill         22

I did look through your requirements and they seem on target. So if our numbers match I'm not going to argue!

[Idgy]

I did look through your requirements and they seem on target. So if our numbers match I'm not going to argue!

 

Hoorj! My biggest concern was that I'd end up firing too many people. But I guess I need to be a ruthless HR manager and just axe them if they don't measure up.

 

What's 40k x 50 worthless punks anyway? (ulp - ).

 

BTW, you do pay 40k right away just to hire a soldier, right? That money's not held until the end of the month before it's withdrawn, and it can't be refunded if you fire them immediately, right?

 

Your stats and mine I are pretty close. I'm working from a much smaller sample, only 47 soldiers, which accounts for the variance. My numbers (deviation from yours in parentheses):

 

Time Units        56 (0)
Stamina           59 (-2)
Health            34 (-2)
Bravery           50 (+10, but just +1 the way it's stored in soldier.dat)
Reactions         52 (+1)
Firing Acc.       59 (-2)
Throw Acc.        69 (-2)
Strength          35 (+1)

 

I haven't gotten to the point where Psi skills are in use. Looking forward to it, though.

[Zombie]

Once you hire a soldier that money is gone. Would be nice if there were some sort of "trial" or "grace" period for soldiers though!

 

Your numbers are close enough. Just remember that my numbers were rounded to the nearest integer. That might account for some of the difference as well as the smaller sample size.

 

My psi ability values are found after your soldier goes through one month of psi training. You probably should start to think about how psi fits in to the overall picture. It may not be a large requirement initially, but a successful panic attack from an alien depends on bravery as well as psi strength. Just how that will factor into your soldier types remains to be seen. Keep up the good work!

Edited February 13, 2005 by Zombie

[teukros]

Only stat I'd worry about is bravery.

 

Thing is, these troopers are gonna die.

 

Every one of them.

 

Then, later in the game, you're probably gonna take 95% of your guys and show them the door after you finally develop the capability to screen everybody for psi.

 

(You'll inevitably have some guy who is like a colonel with 22 kills, bravery of 70, and reaction and accuracy in the 90s or higher - but his psi strength will be 2, give or take 2.)

 

So don't worry about the reaction etc. because if they survive and rack up a few kills, it'll improve. Then you can take the money you saved and buy rocket tanks so that when the aliens use nukes to bust through the ceilings of your hangars, you'll have a fighting chance of defending your base.

[teukros]

BTW I also only discovered X-COM a little while ago, November I think. Always wanted to check it out but somehow never got around to it...

[Zombie]

Well, depending on how many types of soldiers you have and how low you set your standards, you could probably assign a greater number of rookies to your squad. Even if the only role a rookie could play is "cannon fodder", you still might be better off than sacking the whole lot.

 

I wouldn't say all those recruits are gonna die. If you develop a good overall strategy and practice defense more often, a casualty is somewhat rare in my book. Also, if you screen your troops, you are only sending the best-of-the-best on missions. Better troops = better chance of living!

[teukros]

Well some guys are less "not expendable" than others - that's just reality - but I refuse to play with "suicide bombers".

 

I use 14 man squads that are mostly organized the same way:

 

Two fire teams of four guys each, two scouts, and two heavy weapons sections of two guys each. The scouts and heavy weapons guys are wearing flying suits, the fire teams use power armor.

 

Each fire team has 1. a heavy plasma, 2. a heavy laser, 3. another heavy plasma, and 4. a laser rifle. The number three guy in each team carries a blaster (or, depending on the circumstances, a stun launcher) in his backpack and he is buddied with the number four guy who carries spare blaster bombs or stun bombs. Overburdened? Well yeah. But they spend a lot of their time kneeling (with blasters and blaster bombs typically dumped on the ground, within arms reach if needed), and if they advance, they advance by 2-3 steps.

 

The scouts are armed with laser pistols and anything else you fancy

 

Each heavy weapons section has 1. a rocket launcher with laser pistol on belt, and 2. a heavy cannon.

 

The exception to this is: I sometimes organize a training squad at my least active base. This is where I send the weakest of the weak! They get power armor, laser pistols, and not much else Then I send them on training missions. Or missions against Sectoid supply ships. Whichever.

Edited February 13, 2005 by teukros

[[NKF]]

I would love to say every soldier is a unique snowflake. They aren't, but that's only because of their psi defensive capabilities. Apart from that, anyone can be trained into a super soldier. No one should ever be deemed expendable ... until you find out wheher or not they are psi-sponge material and after you've stripped them of that expensive power armour.

 

The importance of a strong or weak stat really depends on what you want the soldier to do and whether or not you are willing to work around the limitations of said stat.

 

Bravery for example is only useful when you are losing a lot of soldiers and you aren't making up the loss in morale with a sufficient number of kills, and when you are being psionically attacked. However, the effects bravery have on a psionic attack are so minimal at best that its importance is really watered down. You lose morale so fast and the aliens can use psi attacks so often, it cancels the effectiveness of high bravery. It's better to rely on psi strength when defending against psi. Having high ranking officers around also helps reduce the morale loss, assuming they don't get killed.

 

Time Units, while desirable in high numbers, are only useful for units that are going to do a lot of walking or other fixed cost actions (shooting, a very very common action is not a fixed cost action). Units that hang back and spend most of their time sniping with rocket launchers can do well with any amount of TUs. Scouts do better with high TUs.

 

High stamina is only useful for soldiers that intend to go flat out and exhaust themselves all the time. Note that as stamina recharges at a fixed rate (but at a variable rate for each soldier), this only really means being able to run non-stop for a few turns more than a soldier with low stamina. If you make sure your soldier does not move too much over a few turns, or by spending a few turns without walking (stamina is only spent while walking), you can recover a generous amount of stamina. But this mainly depends on whether you prefer to rush or take your time.

 

The importance of throwing accuracy is highly debateable. However, for a grenadier, the prime stat to look at is strength. Even a soldier with medium throwing accuracy can perform miracles given sufficient strength. It's no good having the ability to get the grenade spot on if you cannot get it there in the first place. Most new recruits have very adequate throwing accuracies in any case, so you'd rarely need to seive based on this stat.

 

Firing accuracy - well, the more accurate the better, true enough. But that doesn't mean you cannot use quantity -vs- quality to make up for low accuracy. Or throw grenades for a while to build this up, or attack point blank with a fast firing weapon.

 

Reactions - Perhaps one of the most valuable stat you can have if you're going to be serving on the front lines or performing any scouting in general. It's useful both offensively and defensively. I'm not going to get into all the details on how reactions and time units are interlinked, but suffice to say, high reactions and high time units are good for everyone. If you simply want to use it for reaction shots, high time units don't really matter. If you want to be able to run around in front of an enemy and not get shot at for a while, then time units are very important. Remember that even at a high level, if you've spent most or all of your TUs, that high reaction score is meaningless (current reactions are based off a percentage of your remaining TUs. This rule applies to the aliens as well).

 

Strength - Highly useful, but not essential for a successful a rifleman or a sniper (I classify rocket soldiers as snipers). A heavy weapons specialist needs lots of strength to keep everything together, but you can alway distribute the weight across several soldiers (for rockets in particular). For grenadiers, it determines how far you can throw your grenades. The trick to always remember is to NEVER over-encumber your soldier. That does not raise your strength in any way whatsoever (well, not in this game). It's better to have your full compliment of TUs and earn a bit of strength through successfully hitting your enemies. My own personal magic number for this is 40 and up, but 30 and up is okay - like all other stats, strength builds up very fast at low levels.

 

Health - Considering how fast you die from most alien weapons, even in power armour, it's better to just let this build up naturally than sieve anyone based on this.

 

If overall you have a pathetically weak group of soldiers, perhaps sacking them and hiring a new lot would be a good idea overall. Then again, weak stats train very fast (The further away you are from the max, the greater the possible range of points you can earn with the least amount of effort, the closer to the max, the smaller the range and the more effort you need to put in to earn the max in that range).

 

In the end though, the most important thing is to play the game you want to play the game rather than listen to some thoughts from a part-time loon on an internet message board.

 

- NKF

Edited February 14, 2005 by NKF

[[Blehm 98]]

yeah, i don't fire most of my guys anymore, because if your guys with low bravery panick, then guess who's fault it is :Wink:

all soldiers can do something, i've upgraded a fair number of my cannon fodders to Riflemen and marines before

[Sinscale17]

The only filtering I do is simply to rename soldiers based on their stats - particularly accuracy, which I find is the most conducive to survival.

Low stat soldiers join the "elite" Fodder family, who serve as scouts and decoys no matter their TUs, heavy weapon if they're strong enough, and have a life expectancy of around five minutes - game time.

 

Medium (50 or so accuracy et cetera) stat soldiers join the Ma group, whether promoted from the Fodder bunch or on hiring. They usually serve as heavy weapons detail (since heavy weapons are usually high accuracy anyway you can make up for the inferior accuracy score) and backup scouts when you run out of Fodders.

 

Finally the rare elite forces (60+) get a three letter name, so they immediately stand out, and are typically equipped with grenades galore (which most can throw obscenely far with their uberstrength), high accuracy weapons - Laser Rifles, upgrading to Heavy Plasmas (with belted laser pistol and backpack stun rod as ammo-free backups for emergencies) for UFO, Gauss Rifles up to Sonic Pistols and Vibroblades (and healthy numbers of magnapacks) for TFTD - and top armour available.

These serve as "problem solvers", and whenever the Fodder Force starts taking reaction fire or spots an enemy (and all too frequently fail to take it out themselves), they step in with either extreme range grenadiering, auto/aimed shots (depending on range and enemy), or just running up and drilling them.

Mortality among this lot is usually low, and so they get to their maximums swiftly but never make up more than about four out of an eight to twelve man squad, because then who would distract all the aliens from shooting the people I'd actually made an investment in?

 

Typically by the time the game's progressed far enough to get Psi strength revealed, at least a few of the elite squad and Ma group will have high enough ratings that those that don't can be slowly phased out, or at least sent to stand in the corner to distract enemy psi attacks without bothering me, and my own psykers can be equipped individually, I rarely bother with any more than fourteen of all troops in each base at a time, even when I have a much larger pool, so I can remember the names of specific Psi soldiers easily enough, and can afford to wait until Cydonia super-groups.

 

I never sack any soldier, even if they're awful. For 40k you've just bought your decent characters the most useful set of armour in the game.

 

Oddly, even when nearly all my characters have bravery 10, none of them ever panic unless mind controlled - I've usually got enough kills per turn compared to the aliens to keep morale at 100, so I never even check bravery whilst deciding whether to Fodderise or not.

[[stewart]]

Until you are screening for Psionics, fire no one, why fire a perfectly good door-opener or perfectly good first-off-the-transport or perfectly good scout . . . well you get the idea. No matter how bad a soldier is if you sack him you get nothing; if anything you can at least get him killed.

[Zombie]

I totally agree. It really blows when you sack a soldier based primarily off "standard" stats like reactions or TU, but later found out he/she had a Psi Str of 100. However, you do gain something by sacking: You don't have to pay the $40k monthly salary for those soldiers who aren't pulling their weight around.

 

So if I'm seeing things correctly the "new" stat levels for each of the soldier types is as follows:

 

Heavy Weapons

Time Units: Average

Strength: Top 1/3

 

Shooter

Time Units: Average

Firing Accuracy: Top 1/3

 

Scout

Time Units: Top 1/3

Reactions: Top 1/3

Stamina: Top 1/3

 

Well, that's according to some of the info that "loonie" NKF provided!

[Sergio]

Until you are screening for Psionics, fire no one, why fire a perfectly good door-opener or perfectly good first-off-the-transport or perfectly good scout . . . well you get the idea.  No matter how bad a soldier is if you sack him you get nothing; if anything you can at least get him killed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep I never fire any. If later in the game a soldier has low Psonics I send him to another base.

 

[remysweet]

I don't have nearly as complicated a procedure as you guys. well, except the ones who don't fire anyone.

 

when I get new recruits in the early game, I keep soldiers whose reaction+accuracy>100. anyone with over 60 accuracy is exempt from this screening.

[Tetsuhiro]

How do I manage my TU so that I don't over equip my units? It's impossible to tell on the equip screens before the battle if the units are over or underweight.

 

Secondly, are powersuits prefered to flying suits? Should I go all out on flying suits or have a mix of both?

[[Blehm 98]]

Well, there is no way, but i myself generally look at the strength and equip them according to it. I usually go over, but not too much over

[Snakeman]

I wish I had access to my copy of the OSG, but maybe Zombie can pass this along. It might be handy to have a printout of the page that had all the items and their weights next to them as you screen.

 

I've decided not to worry to much about it though. In my latest game, I've just given everyone a laser pistol, and only a few carry anything extra, such as a medkit or psi amp and a prox grenade. The only time I might glance at people for appropriate strength would be for example who'd carry the few high explosives I bring along.

[jman4117]

Add their stats into their names so you can keep track of who gets what in the equip screen. If you keep it as a string of letters you can get a good idea of abilities. BRSGHP is best, cw sucks, brsh is decent, etc.

[Tetsuhiro]

Thanks for the tip.

 

Sorry for the OT here, but another question from me. Heavy Plasma appears to be hands down favorite, should I bother with plasma pistols at all? They haven't been dropping and i have only 1 pistol + 1 ammo clip in stock. I think the ammo cost elerium to build.

 

On a related question, are the laser weapons, leaser pistol/rifle/heavy leaser worth building ?

 

Lastly, the PSI dimension to the game is a bit frustrating. A lot of my ranking units with very good stats are low psi users and It pains me to get rid of them. I'm considering forming a B-team and putting my lowbee psi units on a skyranger to attack the smaller ships but then again, if the aliens were psi users (ethereals), that would scew things up for me and there's no way of telling...

 

Whats the advice on that? sack the veterans who have low psi scores?

Edited July 6, 2005 by Tetsuhiro

[jman4117]

It wouldn't hurt to research it later when you have nothing pressing.

 

As for lasers, it should really be the first thing you research. The pistol and rifle are the next best things to the heavy plasma overall since they have infinite ammo. The heavy laser is decent as a Sectopod killer but other than that just use it as a stepping stone to get the laser cannon and the tank.

 

Don't sack your elite psi fodder. They can be used to fight nonpsi aliens and as psi bait if they are unarmed.

[[NKF]]

For weight against strength issues, here's a few quick and easy things you can keep in mind to help you along the way.

 

All grenades, flares and ammo clips (except the heavy/auto cannon and the rocket launcher) are worth 3 points of strength - each.

 

High explosives, Heavy cannon shells and the stun rod are worth 6 points of strength. Small rockets are also worth 6 points each.

 

Large rockets, incendiary rockets, the laser rifle, the psi-amp, the standard rifle and the heavy plasma are 8 points.

 

A belt of autocannon shells, the medikit, the plasma rifle and the standard pistol are 5 points of strength each.

 

Laser pistols are 7 points

 

The heavy cannon is 18, the autocannon 19. Rocket launcher and small launcher is 10. Blaster launcher is 16.

 

To find out how much you can carry before you get encumbered, add up the total item weight and compare it against your strength. If it's equal or under the strength, then you're within the weight limit.

 

---

 

40 Strength is a very good mid-point value, because it allows you to carry quite a substantial amount of equipment while still being a low value. But don't worry if it's not a high value. Just pick up a light weapon and hit a few enemies with it and it'll rocket up soon enough.

 

---

 

Powersuits -v- flying suits

 

They're essentially the same thing. Flying suits just cost a bit more, add +10 armour all around and give you the all important tactical advantage of flight. The choice is really up to you.

 

My recommendation, being elerium conscious, is to use more power suits but have at least one or two soldiers in the team with a flying suit - the ability to fly is quite valuable indeed. If you're really worrying about your elerium, I suggest getting into the habit of using personal armour. It's only half as effective as power suits, but the difference in price is astounding. If you find you're going through a lot of soldiers, use larger quantities of personal armour - it's better to lose a few pounds of alloys than to lose something that cost elerium to build. Use power suits and flying suits on soldiers who've built up plenty of experience and are getting really good.

 

---

 

The Plasma Pistol's main saving grace is its autoshot speed and its one-handedness - otherwise it's a lot more practical to get the heavy plasma if all you're interested in is accuracy and power. The plasma rifle on the other hand beats every weapon in the game for snapshot accuracy, so that's worth hanging on to - but I'd recommend only keeping one or two and hoarding all the ammo that you find and use it for dedicated snipers.

 

---

Laser weapons are medium strength weapons with a medium rate of fire with the added bonus of having infinite ammo. The laser rifle along with the heavy plasma end up being the bread and butter of all X-Com players.

 

The usefulness of the laser pistol and the heavy laser is debateable - it really depends on how you want to play and what strategies you wish to use.

 

The laser pistol is better thought of as the 'machine-gun' of the laser series. It's the fastest weapon in the game with a grand total of 4 possible autoshots if you decide to spend 100% of your TUs on it - and it's only 14 points less damaging than the laser rifle.

 

The heavy laser is not as accurate as the laser rifle, but it packs more punch. Its usefulness isn't that noticeable in easier difficulties, but on superhuman it's the second best weapon to use against sectopods (The laser tank is higher on the list - but it's a tank).

 

---

 

Yes, sack veterans who have low psi scores -- but not immediately. Do keep them around to chaperone rookies on missions with no psi threats, but use them only for emergencies and preferably let the rookies do all the fighting. This way all the experience they've gained so far will not be wasted in vain. Once everyone else has surpassed them, then you can choose to terminate their contracts as you see fit - AFTER removing their armour. Never forget that last bit.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

My OCR software is on the fritz again, so I'll just retype the item weight table here. (Remember, this info is from the Official Strategy Guide by David Ellis, table 8-4 pgs. 207-8).

 

Pistol: 5

Pistol Clip: 3

Rifle: 8

Rifle Clip: 3

Heavy Cannon: 18

HC AP, HE, I ammo: 6

Auto-Cannon: 19

AC AP, HE, I ammo: 5

Rocket Launcher: 10

Small Rocket: 6

Large/Incendiary Rocket: 8

Laser Pistol: 7

Laser Rifle: 8

Heavy Laser: 18

Grenades (normal, proxy, smoke, alien): 3

High Explosive: 6

Motion Scanner: 3

Medi-Kit: 5

Psi-Amp: 8

Stun Rod: 6

Electro-flare: 3

Heavy Plasma: 8

HP clip: 3

Plasma Rifle: 5

PR Clip: 3

Plasma Pistol: 3

PP Clip: 3

Blaster Launcher: 16

Blaster Bomb: 3

Small Launcher: 10

Stun Bomb: 3

Mond Probe: 5

Dead/Unconscious Sectoid: 30

Snakeman: 40

Ethereal: 25

Muton: 40

Floater: 20

Celatid: 35

Silacoid:: 40

Chryssalid: 40

Unarmored X-COM Soldier (Dead/unconscious): 22

Soldier in Personal Armor: 24

Soldier in Power/Flying suit: 26

Elerium crystals: 3

 

To shorten the table up a bit, all items which occupy a single square in your inventory (1x1) weigh 3 units. This includes clips, grenades, scanners, flares, and elerium. Everything else is different. Truth be told, I actually memorized all the item weights (excluding bodies and clips) just to make things easier when arming my troops. Therefore, I hardly have any problems these days with encumbered soldiers. But, for most people a table is just fine to use.

 

As for Tetsuhiro's question about armor: it is best to mix things up a bit in terms of armor. The Power suit is the preferred armor of choice for most people, but you shouldn't forget about the Flying suit. You need some soldiers with flying ability to scout/snipe ahead of the rest of your guys. It also provides better mobility and armor. The big drawback to the Flying suit is that it takes 16 units of elerium to manufacture, while the Power suit only requires 5. That's a big difference if you are watching your elerium supply closely. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[jman4117]

I take it that the antigrav unit makes floaters not so heavy?

[Zombie]

Well, according to the game, "The lower half of the body and most internal organs are surgically removed, and a life support system is installed. This implant contains an anti-grav unit which enables the creature to float, albeit unsteadily, through the air". So by removing the lower half of the body, and replacing it with something smaller/less dense than legs like the anti-grav unit, it would make sense that the Floater is about half as much as a normal alien.

[Tetsuhiro]

Wow thanks for all the great information

 

On a related note, what PSI level is considered ok (?)

 

It seems like there's a cutoff point where below a certain level most PSI attacks get through and on beginner difficulty, I'm finding 65-ish is where the soldiers would be fairly safe from them.

 

Should I sack everyone who is below this treshold?

[Snakeman]

65 seems ok, but having been here a while, I've since increased the Psi Strength threshold that I keep soldiers at given the average numbers most around here do. 70 appears to be the best average I find, but I also realize that Psi Skill also helps as it grows to contribute to their protection as well.

 

Zombie also had a post about the Psi ability of the aliens in the last missions, and there was some discussion about the feasibility of keeping some low Psi Strength soldiers but with high skill on the mission. (something to do with the more strength you've got, it may go against you in that mission, whereas low strength and high psi skill seems it can do more for you in terms of resistance to attacks?).

 

I don't quite have his way with numbers but, how'd I do Zombie? Was I close?

[Tetsuhiro]

oh, so psi skill helps improve resist to psi attacks?

 

I have some greally great soldiers in the 50-60 range and if i can train them to be more resistant, it'd be great. i hate to kick them.

[Snakeman]

Well, even if I'm wrong about my assumption on low defense value/high skill helping you better in some ways, its always valuable to keep a few of those vets with bad defense. They become the new scout fodder. I'd just spread them out so there aren't more of them on each transport than you've got really good soldiers.

 

Skill will always grow though, so there's still some worth in that regard at least.

[Zombie]

Here is the deal with Psi. The higher your Psi Strength is, the better. How high is enough? I have kept soldiers with a PStr rating of 58-60 before, and they did rather well shrugging off alien psionic attacks. Of course, that particular soldier did have a high skill rating too. Speaking of Psionic Skill, the higher this number is also, the better off you are.

 

What is the acceptable standard for psi strength level? Like Snakeman said, about 70 is a good place to start. As you start to screen soldiers, sack those that don't meet or exceed the 70 level. Pretty soon, you will have enough soldiers to form an "elite" squad of soldiers with Psionic Strengths of >90. Yep, only 10% of soldiers will ever meet this qualification, but the results are spectacular (especially in Cydonia).

 

Problem is, for a full Avenger of 26 troops, you need to hire at least 260 soldiers. At $40,000 per soldier, you need to have at least $10,400,000 on-hand. And if you sack those that don't reach the 90th percentile, that's like $9,360,000 down the tubes. If you have the cash, buy them all in large clumps and train them for one month to check their stats. When you determine you have enough elite psi soldiers, dismantle the excess psi labs and continue to train at least 30 super soldiers.

 

The funny thing about psionics is that the aliens will always attack the soldier with the lowest PStr first. The soldier with the second lowest PStr is attacked second in a round... etc. So if you have a mediocre group of psionic soldiers, bring some of these low-PStr weaklings along. The aliens will focus their efforts on these soldiers first, allowing the rest of your troops to remain unaffected. (Just make sure not to give these guys any strong weapons, as the aliens will use it against you). BTW, soldiers such as this are called Psi-Sponges by NKF because they soak up all those attacks and leave the rest alone.

 

I take this one step further. Those low-PStr soldiers are really easy to Panic/Mind Control. But, raise their Psionic Skill through training/use, and the aliens will have a tougher time being successful. Get them up into the 70's and the aliens are gonna have some trouble. This is what you want: shifting focus to one group, so the other can do their job without a hassle.

 

- Zombie

[Snakeman]

How many Psi Sponges is a good average to keep on a transport, and what are good suggested loadouts for them?

 

I'm at the stage now in my game where I've pretty much finished selecting and holding onto about 40 really good rated guys, and now the only ones I keep now are those with 50-60 bravery, and sack any of those with Psi Str below 70. I want to select a group to be Psi Spunges now, but unsure what level of Psi Skill to grow them to to help offset their low defense (will probably keep a few who've got 40-50 strength for this).

[[NKF]]

Raise them to the highest skill possible - but use psi-amps and panic attacks to train their stats with rather than put them through the labs. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the aliens don't know how to use the psi-amp - so it would be a fantastic tool to have psi-sponges hang on to as their primary 'safe weapon' of choice. Aliens also don't know how to use the stun-rod, so that should be your secondary 'safe' weapon should the soldier get controlled.

 

See, the more times the aliens have to waste their psionics on a soldier, that's another wasted 25 TUs every time it fails.

 

I wouldn't worry about bravery for those with really high psi strength and skill - you cannot afford to be picky with really good psi soldiers. However I certainly would worry about bravery for the sponges. Again, it's a similar argument. On soldiers with higher psionic defence, the aliens prefer to sap morale before using a mind control attack. So the more psi attacks they have to use, the less TUs they'll have.

 

And the less TUs they have, the harder it is for them to react.

 

I wouldn't bother with psi-sponges if most of your assault team is already built up of units with high psionic abilities. But if you have a lot of soldiers you're uncertain about, the psi sponges are great, uh, 'decoys'.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

How many Psi Sponges is a good average to keep on a transport, and what are good suggested loadouts for them?

To cover all the possible scenarios with Sectoids, I suggest about 1 Psi-Sponge for every Sectoid Leader or Commander present. Since this number changes with respect to difficulty level, you'll need 3 sponges on Beginner/Experienced, 4 on Veteran/Genius and 5 on Superhuman.

 

Since all Ethereals have psionic powers, you'll need to bring a whole bunch of sponges to offset this. The number of Ethereals present also depends on ship size. The bigger the ship, the more sponges you need to soak up those potential attacks. As a safe estimate, bring along between 9-13 on Beginner/Experienced, 12-16 on Veteran/Genius and 18-22 on Superhuman. Most of these sponge sizes are quite large, so an Avenger is the preferred transport in these situations. :wink1:

 

Good loadouts? Like NKF said, Stun Rods are an excellent choice. Smoke Grenades are also good. Heck, anything that doesn't inflict damage works: Medi-Kits, Mind-Probes, Motion Scanners, Ammunition and Electro-Flares. Even HC/AC/RL loaded with Incendiary ammo/rockets is fine as long as your troops are wearing some kind of armor. So are Proxy mines because that grenade will not explode until motion is detected.

 

Contrary to opinion, if a soldier is carrying a Psi-Amp and is successfully mind-controlled by the aliens, then that soldier CAN use the Psi-Amp against the rest of your troops. I have seen this happen in one of my tests, so this piece of equipment is best kept on the ground under the sponges feet during the aliens round.

 

Finally, from another one of my tests I determined that psi-aliens require 22 TU for each psionic attack. This is a concrete number and does not change with skill level. However, the aliens TU stat does change with skill level but it doesn't affect the number of attacks/turn. Sectoids can only manage a maximum of 2 psionic attacks/turn, while Ethereals can muster up 3.

 

- Zombie

[Snakeman]

Wow that's a lot of sponges

 

After reviewing many of my soldiers, and the fact I've kept many at a Psi Strength level in the high 60's, I've probably already got some candidates there. Also having glanced at your table of what should be where during what difficulty in the other thread, keeping any at 50 or lower means I'd need a heck of a lot of training (and I am uncertain the game can let me get Psi Skill high enough).

[Zombie]

Also having glanced at your table of what should be where during what difficulty in the other thread, keeping any at 50 or lower means I'd need a heck of a lot of training (and I am uncertain the game can let me get Psi Skill high enough).

It really doesn't matter what the psionic skill level of your sponges are. They are still effective with 0 for skill. The reason for increasing their skill level through training/use is to make them more proficient in shrugging off those potential attacks. Like NKF said before, the more often a psionic attack fails by the aliens, the fewer time units they will have left to do something else. In any event, try to aim for a skill level of about 60. :wink1:

 

How should you raise the Psi Skill level of your sponges? Through use during missions is the best. Since Panic Attacks are more likely to succeed than Mind Control, use this form of attack exclusively. If you have the space available in your Psi-Labs, then by all means stick those sponges in there to get a few extra points added per month.

 

- Zombie

[Snakeman]

I made my China base the big 'ol Psi University. It has 10 labs right now It sucked for a while though, as I had several defense missions there already, and on at least two occasions I was also manufacturing some laser tanks there when they arrived. Naturally they got dibs on spawnage while the soldiers took a Carribean cruise or something.

 

One in particular was an Ethereal retaliation where the others were floaters (not that it mattered, no soldiers spawned), and I had 1 plasma tank and 9 laser tanks there. All but one laser tank bit the dust. Funny how one can still get close calls like that on easy difficulty.

Edited July 11, 2005 by Snakeman

[Dover]

I NEVER fire ANYBODY. Why should I? I usually have plenty of living space to go around, and I get no cash refund from the firing.

 

Instead what I do is transfer them to my storage base or my psi-acadamy base, and wait for a Snakeman Base assault to roll around.

 

Where before I had a gainless sacking, now I have 20k per zombie corpse.

 

Any loss of score is offset by blowing up the base control (500 points!)

[Pherdnut]

Does anybody know the max/min caps of starting soldier attributes? I only pay attention to the last four scores, myself. My impression from codifying these stats in their names whenever I get a new soldier is that these are:

 

Reactions: 30-60

Accuracy: 40-70

Throwing: 50-80

Strength: 20-40

[Zombie]

See the post I made about this here.

Yup, there are a lot of extra numbers there, but the first two or three coloums are what you are after.

 

- Zombie

[Pherdnut]

'Doh! Right here in the same thread.

 

Love the psi sponge ideas. I was reading in the wiki that aliens always psi attack the lowest strength agents first. Do they only pay attention to one stat or all of them? It might be more predictable to have an unarmed guy who has horrible psi strength and skill in the back of the ship but blocked off by your own psionicists or BL heavy guys so they can't wander off and get shot than a more proficient one.

[Zombie]

Love the psi sponge ideas. I was reading in the wiki that aliens always psi attack the lowest strength agents first. Do they only pay attention to one stat or all of them?

The aliens know the stats of all your troops be it regular or psi abilities. They also know the exact location of every one of your men without having to spot one first. For this reason, the first Psi attack always goes to the trooper with the lowest psi skills. If the Psi-Strengths are equal, it probably compares Psi-Skill next and picks the lowest of the two. Who knows, the aliens might just multiply the two stats together and compare an overall number instead. It's anyone's best guess right now.

 

- Zombie

[Dover]

Maybe it depends on the difficulty level, but sometimes (On beginner), I've noticed some not-very-bright Ethereals going after my HIGHEST Psi Str soldier. Is it random at times? Using CE 1.?, /w XcomUtil if it makes a differance

[Zombie]

It shouldn't be random, though the underlying mechanics of psi are still unknown at this time so anything could be possible. One way to explain this is if all your lower psi-strength soldiers had high psi-skill, while your high psi-strength had low psi-skill. This could prove the theory that the aliens base an attack on a combination of psi-powers.

 

- Zombie

[Dover]

Probably. I only put Andrea Stewart through 1 month of training to see her psi strength (86). That was good, but not good enough to weild a psi-amp, so I left her skill low (18 or so). She's the one who gets Psi-Attacked most commonly. Needless to say with 86 strenght the aliens fair, miserably.

[Sharp]

Where before I had a gainless sacking, now I have 20k per zombie corpse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Aren't chyrsalids made up from your troops/civves not counted in the corpse list? Im sure I remember not getting lots of chyrs corpses when I finished Zombie's Chyrsalid Mission.

 

-----

 

I don't like firing the first trooper who gets Psi-Attacked, I might just disarm them but never fire/execute. You might miraculously get a fairly high stregnth psi-squad (yeah, work the probability of that one) before you even know the psi-stats, but when they attack the first person they attack the lowest PsiStr regardless of how high that is, its only once they start to panic or actually get MC'ed in which case they might get put into my Psi-Weaklings squad who only go after Snakemen, Floaters and Mutons.

[[NKF]]

Dover: Psi defence is a function of both skill and strength. If you have low skill and a fair amount of psi strength, it might be possible for aliens to use their powers on you. Pump up the skill a bit to increase your psi defence. Conversely, with a really high psi strength, you can sometimes get away with a low psi skill score.

 

Don't worry about having enough skill to get successful attacks. As long as you have 1 point to enable the psi amp, it doesn't matter. A failed attack is worth 1/3rd of a successful attack, so you'll need to perform 3 times more work to reap the same benefit as a successful attack. So even if you fail the attack, the effort will not have gone to waste. Just be persistent and you'll get the experience, and as long as you survive the mission, everything will be fine.

 

If you've got an alien base nearby, you can repeatedly visit it, perform lots of attacks (Do something like 11 - 20 failed attempts, or 3 - 6 for successful) on the first few aliens you see near the entrance, abort, and repeat ad nauseam. Your skill will shoot up faster than were you to just let your soldiers study in the labs.

 

Or just make it a habit of saving the last alien in the battle and terrorizing it to death with your psi students. Let each one have a go. Use panic, it has the best chance of succeeding.

 

Nothing like on-the-job hands-on training.

 

- NKF

Edited March 1, 2006 by NKF

[Dover]

I once did a base defense against snakemen where I purposely fed chyrssalids 39 of my rookies, and then had my veteran face them all.

 

At the very end I had 45 chyrssalid corpses! PROFIT!!

 

 

@NKF

Yea, but how do aliens compute which is better to go after? It's obviously not psi str only, even though the strenght has more weight on the matter than skill...