Soldier stats - what do they REALLY do?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Hi again guys.

 

I'm happily marching way through the game having started in Europe. I currently own all of Europe, half of Africa and Asia as far as Tibet. I'm thinking of doing the Area 51 mission next as I'm running out of research topics.

 

This time round I have found my soldiers are not dying, and they are getting pretty mean. But what I found myself wondering about is just what do those stat increases do. For example, of course a soldier that has a good level for 'Rifles' should be using a rifle, but what EXACTLY is the distinction? Speed and capacity's effects seem obvious enough, but the others are quite obscure. For example, does a high 'Rifle' stat mean that the soldier reloads rifles faster, fires faster, hits more often, hits from further away, does more damage...? What about Psi - does that actually reduce damage from Psi weapons, reduce the chance of mind control, reduce the instance of hit with Psi weapons...? You get the picture

 

So, does anyone know about all of this?

[Kret]

Know all about it? No, but most of it.

 

For each weapon skill you've basically got it right, except damage, that is exclusive to the alien skill. The more knollegable a unit is in alien anatomy (I think that's what that skill tries to reflect) they'll deal more damage.

 

Back to weapon skills. Rate of fire, range, accuracy and reload are boosted as they grow in that particular skill. As far as psi goes, I think it works just about the same as the weapon skills, but only for psi weapons. Effects (damage) are still controlled by the alien skill in this one too. The medic skill can also be considered of this type since the medikits are treated as special "weapons"

 

The dodge skill reduces the enemies final accuracy vs that particular unit as it grows. In other words, even if they are staying still, units with higher dodging will be hit less frequently. Don't expect it to work much in close quarters tho.

 

The rest I think they are quite clear

[Landon_Fox]

I did some experiments on this because I wanted to know. The experiment was performed on the tutorial mission, because the initial danglefly would not attack you. I used various weapons on it and restarted many times to get various statistics on my solders. I used a stopwatch to keep track of time and the damage done was listed in the event bar.

 

General results:

 

- A weapon skill affects three things. It affects how fast you shoot (and reload), how long your range is, and scoring critical hits. The weapon skill is the ONLY thing that affects these. Speed has NO effect on these.

 

- Aliens skill affects damage done per bullet. Aliens is the ONLY skill that effects damage done per bullet.

 

Specific results:

 

- The damage increase from increased firing speed and increased damage from aliens skill are roughly equal. Together they will create an uber soldier.

 

- Aliens damage works best on aimed shot. Burst fire significantly decreases the aliens bonus. If you have a high aliens bonus, you will do more damage on aimed shot than burst shot!

 

- If your aliens skill is awful or poor, you will do more damage per bullet with burst fire than with aimed shot. If aliens is average they do equal damage. In other words, if your aliens skill is below average, it is actually penalizing you!

 

- Explosives receive no benefit from Aliens at all. In this case your weapon skill also acts as an aliens skill. This is why grenaders get so powerful so quickly.

 

- Serious hits do double damage. Critical hits do triple damage. Low weapon skill, burst mode, and extreme long range reduce the chance of critical hits.

 

Observations:

 

- As tempting as it may be, do NOT keep rerolling your soldiers so that you get two awful traits so you can max a weapon skill and aliens as soon as possible. The lack of hitpoints and speed means that your soldier will be less effective than a more generic soldier.

 

- You get more benefit from increasing a weapons skill than aliens skill. I recommend you get aquanted with your weapon before you get aquanted with the bad guys.

 

- Skills have exponential returns. Going from heroic aliens to super-heroic is going to give you a LOT more damage than simply going from excellent to heroic. But even so, you will do more damage over time with a very good weapon skill and aliens skill than from having one super-heroic and the other poor. You also open up more training options this way too. The two skills work together and should be trained together.

[Aralez]

Excellent info, Kret! Even for the long-term UfoAM players under us.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Thanks Kret, Landon_Fox - exactly what I needed to know.