Soldiers stats

[sgt caedes]

Do you know how much certain actions increase different stats? How much do you increase stats if you shoot or kill an alien, and does it matter what type of alien it is? Do your stats increase if you get shot or mind controlled? Is there any difference between auto-shot, snap shot and aimed shot, and is there difference between difficulty levels?

[NKF]

Stats - Here's are all the actions that you can do in the battlescape that will raise certain groups of stats. But first: No, the type of alien doesn't matter - and your injuries and critical wounds do not play any role apart from the obvious temporary reduction in accuracy, which will influence your chances at getting more combat experience.

 

But anyway:

 

** Number of times unit used reaction fire **

 

Exactly that. React more, shoot more stuff.

Influences Strength, Health, TU, Stamina, Reactions

 

Note: If you hit something, you'll also get more experience in the next activity - so reactions do double-duty.

 

 

** Number of times successfully hitting an enemy (with bullet or explosive) **

 

Influences Strength, Health, TU, Stamina, Firing Accuracy

 

Yes, hurting enemies with grenades, rockets and knocking them out with stun bombs does indeed increase accuracy! So if you can't shoot, toss grenades for a few missions to compensate for it!

 

Note: Number of Kills = 'minimum' number of times you've hit an enemy throughout the entire campaign (not just current mission), assuming they're all one-shot kills. You gain more experience by hitting the enemy a lot of times with lots of bullets than to use a one-shot-kill with a heavy plasma or blaster launcher. So 'hits' are more important than 'kills'. Exactly the reason why pistols and standard rifles should stay around for the primary use of training up rookies in the later game. (i.e. Disarm a Muton and fire 20 rifle bullets into it. Or if you can drain a sectopod's plasma turret...)

 

 

** Melee Attacks done so far **

 

In UFO, only increased by stun-rod - in TFTD you also get the drills.

Influences Strength, Health, TU, Stamina

 

** Number of items thrown so far **

 

Can be anything, even the kitchen sink if you could throw it.

Influences Throwing Accuracy ONLY. This is about the only odd-one out.

 

** Number of successful psi attacks **

 

Can be any type of psi attack on an enemy target, as long as it's a successful attack.

Influences, yes, you guessed it, Strength, Health, TU, Stamina and Psi Skill (a heap more stats are raised than if you raised psi-skill in the labs! - but you only get half as the psi-skill that you can learn from the labs)

 

** Number of times you've panicked **

 

Don't look at me like that - yes you do get improvements when you panick.

The usual Strength, Health, TU, Stamina along with a possible +10 increase in bravery.

 

 

 

And there you have it - a very exhaustive list of all the stat-raising actions you can perform in the battlescape. No other actions in the battlescape will raise your stats. No, you cannot raise stats by running around a lot and you cannot raise stats by carrying more than your strength limit.

 

Of course, how many points you earn for any given stat group is another matter entirely. Stat bonuses are random rolls between something like 0 - 8 points, which are then multiplied by the remainder of how much skill you already have against your max-skill level and all that. Basically, if you don't get a stat increase, it's one of two reasons. 1: The random number generator strikes again. 2: Your stats are high - the game just makes it harder to increase your stats as they get closer to the max level

 

If you have low stats, you'll earn lots of bonus points with only a bit of experience, if you have high stast, you'll earn only a few and you need to do more just to get it.

 

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Difference between the firing modes: Yes, Accuracy and speed. The various modes just trade off speed for accuracy and vice versa.

 

Autoshot allows 3 consecutive inaccurate but fast shots to be fired off in succession and you do not attract reaction fire in between the three shots, whereas the single shots will attract reactions if your opportunity level drops below the alien's opportunity level. If you want to know more, read about it on:

 

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Reactions

 

A current work in progress, but boy is it going to make me redundant once it's filled up!

 

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Difficulty levels eh? Well, in the geoscape, aliens are generally more aggressive. In the battlescape, alien stats are all augmented. Trust me a beginner level sectopod simply doesn't compare to a superhuman sectopod, which eats almost everything for breakfast.

 

I don't know the equation, but I have the feeling that the equation for the alien stat augmentation looks something like:

 

stat = beginner level stat * 1.n

 

With n being the difficulty level number (0 for beginner, 5 for superhuman - I know I'm missing a number there somewhere). Well, it seems to make sense when I multiply 95 by 1.5, I get 142. 142, if I'm not mistaken, is sectopod front armour in superhuman difficulty and I recall beginner level sectopod front armour is within the 90 range.

 

But don't quote me on that. I'm sure I saw a more accurate equation in Kasey Chang's unofficial FAQ.

 

Agh, look, you made me relapse and do another three-pager! I've been trying to cut down on these! Oh well.

 

- NKF

[sgt caedes]

Thanks for your extensive answer!

 

** Number of successful psi attacks **

 

Can be any type of psi attack on an enemy target, as long as it's a successful attack.

Influences, yes, you guessed it, Strength, Health, TU, Stamina and Psi Skill (a heap more stats are raised than if you raised psi-skill in the labs! - but you only get half as the psi-skill that you can learn from the labs)

 

So you could create an army of super soldiers just by making aliens drop their weapons, move them into a closed room and keep panicking mind controlling them?

 

** Number of times you've panicked **

 

Don't look at me like that - yes you do get improvements when you panick.

The usual Strength, Health, TU, Stamina along with a possible +10 increase in bravery.

 

I think the increase in bravery is logical, but strenght? :mad:

 

Difficulty levels eh? Well, in the geoscape, aliens are generally more aggressive. In the battlescape, alien stats are all augmented. Trust me a beginner level sectopod simply doesn't compare to a superhuman sectopod, which eats almost everything for breakfast.

 

I meant the difference in the stats of your own soldiers. Is there any difference in the speed with which the stats increase?

 

Agh, look, you made me relapse and do another three-pager! I've been trying to cut down on these! Oh well.

 

Sorry about that , I guess i have to be more carefull which questions to ask.

[NKF]

Er, well, there's an upper limit of something like 20 successful attempts (at any task - psi included) and everything above that doesn't have any real effect on your upper range of possible bonus points by the end of that particular mission. So to get your super soldiers, you'll need to spread the experience over several missions.

 

And no, your experience isn't influenced by the difficulty level - well, not in the way I think you're thinking. More aliens = more experience, and tougher aliens = more shots to kill = more experience all around!: Yes. But if you mean will it intefere with your stat progression: No.

 

I don't think the difficulty level has too much of an influence on your starting stats: But, I could've sworn that on most difficulty levels, the lowest reactions can ever go is 30. But I am absolutely positive that for some beginner level games, I've seen this stat at 20 (i.e. the soldier is as responsive as a tank). But in general, no, there's no real big difference, and even if there was, you'll catch up quickly by the way the game is designed with its stat reward system.

 

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I guess the increase in strength for panicking may be attributed to the burst of adrenaline (no that wasn't it - it was some other chemical your body generates that gives you bursts of energy - natural steroids? some chemical the body produces anyway that heightens perception and increases strength) you get when you're scared or when you go berserk (too much of it).

 

But you know what's odd? Panicking counts towards promotions as well! Let's say two soldiers did identical actions throughout the mission, but one panicked. Though equal in combat experience, the soldier that panicked surpasses the other soldier by one point and will thus get picked for promotion if the game has to decide between the two! I can understand being rewarded for it if the soldier just survived a massacre and is one of the few remaining survivors - but being rewarded for panicking via any other means (like psi panic) and it just doesn't feel right.

 

- NKF