Skills

[Strong Bob]

I'm sure this has been made clear somewhere on this board, but I have been unable to locate something that makes it as straightforward as I'd like.

 

In UFO, I'm a little confused as to how some skills are raised. Particularly, health, time units, and energy. Although I'm still not quite briefed in the mechanics of how ANY skill increases, in fact I'm only aware that accuracy is increased by successful shots, those four are my main concern.

 

Anyone have a chart or something that details how skills are gained and the rate at which they are?

[FullAuto]

They're all raised by killing aliens, AFAIK. Firing accuracy is raised by successful shots and successful hits with grenades.

[NickAragua]

Ditto, with some exceptions:

 

Bravery is raised by panicking (and maybe going berserk) only.

Psi-strength is always at the same level.

Psi-skill is trained at the psi-lab.

[Strong Bob]

So everything is raised just by killing aliens? That sounds awful.

[FullAuto]

So does panspermia, but it worked for us.

[Hobbes]

So does panspermia, but it worked for us.

LOL

 

In the case of Reactions the soldiers need to get kills with reaction fire. I wouldn't recommend trying to increase soldiers with low stats though since nearly all of the aliens have Reaction stats of 50 or higher.

[Jman4117]

Door camp Snakemen with laser pistols.

 

Snakemen are slow, laser pistols are fast.

[Bomb Bloke]

Don't stand in front of the doors, either. Stand just to the side of them, so's the alien has to at least turn around before he can fire at you.

[The Sultan]

just dont have a man on either side of the door, cuz they will auto shot kill the alien and then kill each other. or at least my men do.

[NKF]

Watch the door at an angle rather than directly opposite.

 

I made a list somewhere before, but the one most readily available to me is the one I posted on xcomufo's forum. I'll cut and paste here:

 

Because of new information received, I implore everyone to ignore my previous experience gain list. Here's an updated list.

 

What increases what:

 

Melee attacks

• TU
   
   
   
   
  
• Stamina
   
   
   
   
  
• Health
   
   
   
   
  
• Strength
  

Successful Psi attacks

• TU
   
   
   
   
  
• Stamina
   
   
   
   
  
• Health
   
   
   
   
  
• Psi Skill
  

Number of Thrown items

• Throwing skill
  

Successful hits (bullets, explosives, etc)

• TU
   
   
   
   
  
• Stamina
   
   
   
   
  
• Health
   
   
   
   
  
• Strength
   
   
   
   
  
• Firing Accuracy
  

Number of times reaction fire was used

• TU
   
   
   
   
  
• Stamina
   
   
   
   
  
• Health
   
   
   
   
  
• Strength
   
   
   
   
  
• Reactions
  

It seems that with enough reaction fire attempts, even if you don't hit anything, you will raise your stats just as well as hitting an enemy target can.

 

The size of the possible stat bonuses as the end of the mission is influenced by two factors - the amount of combat experience you got from the battle and the size of your current stats (edit: as a percentage against the maximum stat level).

 

So, if you have 20 in one stats, you can get huge (but random) stat gain with little combat experience ( 0-6 points for 1 action).

 

The closer you reach the maximum level for a particular stat (such as 60 for health), the smaller the bonus.

 

In some cases, for the throwing, reactions and psi skill stats in particular, this also means that you have to perform 'more' in order to get the maximum bonus. For example, say you have quite a high reaction level. You should be able to earn 0 - 6 maximum points after the mission, but you've only reacted once, so you only get 0 - 1. React 10 to 20 times, and you'll be able to get the full random bonus of 0 - 6 points. So, stop complaining if your super soldier starts earning less and less experience as he or she kills every enemy with a single shot.

 

You can get more stats than the caps. For example, 61 health when health maxes at 60, or 125 accuracy, when accuracy caps at 120. The game just rolled a higher number, which is a good thing!.

 

- NKF

 

There you go. This took a lot of experimentation to figure out at first, once I later learnt how to manipulate experience information it got much easier to test.

 

- NKF

 

edit: Additional notes:

 

Mind the typos.

 

'Hit's does not necessarily equal the number of kills you've made. Although in a sense, it can be used as a count of the number of killing hits you've made so far. A hit means every time one of your bullets hit a target.

 

Area effect weapons like rockets, grenades and stun bombs will score a hit for every enemy unit caught in the blast radius.

 

You might have noticed that I listed that throwing objects only increases throwing skill. This is true even for throwing grenades. See, the trick is, grenades score hits for every enemy unit it catches in its blast radius. So, if your soldier is hopeless at shooting, don't sack him or her just yet because of that. Have this soldier score lots of attacks with grenades.

 

Also note: Strength cannot be raised by encumbering your soldier. In realty (and games like Jagged Alliance), it should. But in this game (including TFTD and X-Com Apocalypse), it doesn't.

 

I also realised I failed to mention that panicking raises bravery. It does, but you don't want to panic, ever. It either means you're too weak psionically to withstand panic attacks, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of comrades just to raise your bravery by an additional 10 points.

[Strong Bob]

I recall hearing that carrying heavy objects increase health, but this seems far more likely. Thanks again NKF.

[Blehm 98]

he is right in everything as far as i can tell. i have'nt found anyting wrong with it yet

[NKF]

I'm wrong lots of times, but people correct me a lot. Hence my information is refined (eventually)!

 

As for encumerance, well, I experimented a bit by seriously overloading one soldier and had him hit an enemy the same number of times as another soldier and then compared the size of the stat bonuses given to both of them. After multiple tries (you have to take into account the random nature of the stat bonuses), I found that they were no different.

 

This leads me to believe that encumbering your soldier provides you with gains whatsoever and only prevents you from maximising your unit's full abilities (i.e. TUs and Reactions). Encumbered rookies are practically reaction fire magnets.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

After multiple tries (you have to take into account the random nature of the stat bonuses), I found that they were no different.

Good boy, NKF! Stat bonuses are indeed random, so to compare two scenarios you have to judge over a range of values. Just one question: How may times is "multiple tries"? 10? 50? 100? In my experience with reloading, around 200 values will give pretty good statistical results - though usually just a ballpark sampling. Anything less than this and the data could be misleading.

 

Concerning increasing the bravery stat:

 

The OSG mentions bravery at the top of pg 187:

"Bravery: May increase if the soldier's morale falls below 50 but she does not panic."

Obviously, if a couple of comrades are killed during a mission, the soldier's morale might fall below 50, and thus the bravery stat could increase. Like you said: killing soldiers for the sake of increasing bravery for the surviving soldiers is bad news. The OSG's description is quite broad in nature. It should be possible to increase bravery simply by letting a psi-capable alien panic a soldier below 50.

 

My question is this: Is there an easy way to guarantee an increase a soldier's bravery without resorting to a game editor? Killing soldiers is not worth it. Panic attacks that get morale below 50 and the soldier does not panic, does increase bravery at 10 point increments at the end of a mission. Only problem: the assesment is random so you may have to reload quite a few times to actually see the extra 10 points. Is there any way around the random factor?

 

Bravery is one of the most overlooked stats that a soldier has. Most players probably say: "Who cares about bravery increases, when other soldiers on a mission can fill in for the panicking one" or "What is the big deal about bravery anyway". Is a panic attack from an alien the best way to increase bravery? What is the legal cap for bravery? 110? If bravery is increased, will Time Units, Health, Strength or Stamina be affected? Any answers?

[NKF]

Under twenty I might say. The bonus stats in my tests were quite low: between 0 - 6. I saved a bit of time by making a bunch of clones of the same soldier in soldier.dat (10 of them, I think - the wonders of copy and paste!), then went into a mission. I then gave each of them the same amount of experience before aborting the mission. Then it was just a matter of running through the clones and comparing the increases against the base value. Actually I was just keeping track of the min and max. You can just imagine me going click click click click" 4" click click click "1" click click click, "5" click "0" click click click...

 

I did a similar test, but this time I also severely encumbered some of the clones. Got the same results with them.

 

As for the bravery stat:

 

No idea. If you raise it by psionic panic attacks, then your soldier is too low on psionic strength - which is no good. If you sacrifice too many allies and tanks, you'll suffer a lot. On the bright side, converting a chryssalid, getting it zombified and then converting it again, can be used to reduce morale without losing any of your own soldiers. You will lose points for every zombification (it's counted as death) and you will lose morale as if another friendly unit was killed.

 

As for what gets raised: Only bravery gets affected. Also, the game likes to to total up the experience earned in the mission so it can decide which soldiers in the current battle will get the better promotion (if any are available). The number of times you panic basically works as a negative number against the mission experience. I couldn't say for sure what the maximum is.

 

To each player, bravery's importance is inversely proportional to how well you are doing in the mission. Say, you tend to lose a lot of soldiers on every mission, and you have a hard time getting kills of your own. High bravery will save the day and at least keep your soldiers level headed long enough to kill a few aliens and get a much needed morale boost. If you play very well, or you can quickly catch up by killing enough aliens to offset any losses, bravery's importance diminishes.

 

Me, I like high bravery soldiers myself. But I'll not sack a formidable soldier just because he or she has 10 bravery. Some of the best soldiers can also be the most flawed.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

If you raise it by psionic panic attacks, then your soldier is too low on psionic strength - which is no good.

Remember our little discussion about psionic skill and psionic strength a while back? Here is a recap:

Say you have a soldier completely maxed out in the psi category with 100 for psionic strength and 255 for psionic skill. His defense against panic attack (or PAD) is [(Psi Str) + (Psi Skl/5)] * 10, or [100+51]*10 = 1510.

 

The most psi-weak alien is the Ethereal Soldier with a psionic strength of 50 and a psionic skill of 40 (on beginner difficulty). Psionic Combat Strength (or PCS) is equal to (Psi Str)*(Psi Skl), in this case 50*40 = 2000.

 

To find if a panic attack is successful, the game uses this formula:

(PCS)-(PAD) = % Chance of success.

2000-1510 = 490% Chance of success! Even the most psi-weak alien is fully capable of successfully panicking ANY soldier in the game!

 

So your soldier could have the highest psionic strength of your troops and still be panicked! Granted, distance does play a factor here, reducing the chance at farther and farther distances. I am assuming a constant distance for comparisons!

[Bomb Bloke]

Aliens don't seem to bother using panic attacks on high level soldiers... They like to attack the weakest in the field (once they find them).

 

So... what happens if you take a single soldier, with maxed psi abilities, and send him off to the etherals?

[Blehm 98]

they all overload and explode naa, since etherials are pretty bad soldiers, they should be relatively easy to kill

[Jman4117]

It' not really that they are bad soldiers, they just waste a lot of turns mindblasting that one guy.

[Bomb Bloke]

You miss my point. If the stats say that any etheral can mind control any soldier, what happens if you send one psi-maxed soldier into battle? Does he get mind controlled? Does he even panic?

[Zombie]

You miss my point. If the stats say that any etheral can mind control any soldier, what happens if you send one psi-maxed soldier into battle? Does he get mind controlled? Does he even panic?

Hold on here! When did mind control pop into this discussion? We were talking about panic attacks!

 

Let me explain this for you:

The stats say that any psi-capable alien can successfully panic any soldier in the game. (Assuming the alien is standing right next to the soldier so distance would not play a factor). It does not matter what race or rank the alien is, as long as an alien is capable of psi attacks it can always panic a soldier with success.

 

If you would send a psi-maxed soldier into battle with Psi Sectoids (Leaders and Commanders), or Ethereals, this is what could happen:

If the aliens launched panic attacks against your soldier, he will panic! For some reason, aliens tend to prefer mind control over panic attacks. They will usually try to mind-rape the soldier first, and if that fails, they fall back on panic attacks. When I sent some psi-maxed soldiers into battle (with 100 for bravery) none of them were affected by either mind control or panic attacks.

 

I believe that bravery plays a role in panic success (from what I gather from the OSG's poorly described information). The higher the Bravery, the less chance of panic success. The lower the Bravery, the greater the chance that panic attacks will be fruitful.

[Bomb Bloke]

Ok, so that means bravery should go into the equation.

 

I just thought a 490% chance seemed a bit high, in practise.

[Zombie]

A 490% chance of success is quite high, isn't it? You have to remember that this is the base chance for success, not the overall. Different modifiers are factored in to the base chance, reducing the 490% significantly. One modifier seems to be bravery and a second is distance. The further you are from the alien and the higher your bravery, the lower the overall chance of success is for the alien. That's good news for X-COM soldiers in the field. The bad news is that this information works in reverse, lowering your chances for successfully psi-panicking aliens!

[Bomb Bloke]

I didn't think distance effected anything.

 

I had one squad that was very powerful, just about every member had 75 TUs, as well as a large amount of psi strength. In the first turn, I could psi nearly every alien on the map - psi an alien, use it to find the next, etc.

 

I didn't notice distance affecting my chances... But I didn't really test it out...

[Zombie]

Again, you are switching the subject to Mind Control instead of Panic Attacks! Fine, if you insist on Mind Control attacks, then let us use them for a distance discussion.

 

On beginner difficulty level, the Mind Control Defense (or MCD) of each psi-alien is the following:

Sectoid Leader: 1800

Sectoid Commander: 1860

Ethereal Soldier: 1740

Ethereal Leader: 2070

Ethereal Commander: 2250

I'll toss in a few other non-psi aliens for comparison:

Floater Soldier: 1050

Sectoid Soldier: 1200

Snakeman Commander: 1500

Any Muton: 750

Cyberdisc/Sectopod: 3000

 

If you are trying to Mind Control a Muton, they are insanely easy. Get your psionic skill to the max of 255 and all you need is a psionic strength of 4! (4 * 255 = 1020, which is your Psionic Combat Strength or PCS. PCS-PAD=Base chance of success, 1020-750= 270%!!!)

 

Even the other non-psi aliens are fairly easy to MC. With a respectable psionic skill of 90, all your soldier needs is a psionic strength of 17 for a base chance of success. Conversely, if your soldier had a psi strength of 90, all he would need for a psi skill is 17 (which even a soldier with one month of psi training can get). With these numbers, he could MC any non-psi alien race in the game (not including terrorists)!

 

Do you see why it is so easy to MC non-psi aliens now? The Mind Control "Daisy Chain" effect you mention is pretty simple to impliment when the aliens have no psi powers. You would not notice how distance works when your base chance of success is hovering around 500%. If one tile equalled a 1% reduction, you would need to be 501 tiles away to notice any difference. Hell, even a 10% reduction would work out to 51 tiles away!

 

The psi-capable aliens are also fairly easy to MC. For the Ethereal Commander (the toughest in the game with a MCD of 2250), and assuming a psi strength of 90 for your soldier, you would only need a minimum psi skill of 26! A psi skill of 36 will take care of any alien in the game, including the Sectopod and Cyberdisc!

 

I guess that sometime I'll have to check the distance factor out more accurately. I'll get a soldier and MC an alien with a base chance of success at 100%, then increase the distance and see what happens. If every attack is successful, just use a soldier/alien combo with progressively smaller base chances of success. Don't worry, sometime in your life, you'll get the answer. If not by me, it will be from someone else!