Defending countries which have signed a pact?

[Youbar]

A while ago I lost my funding from the UK. But who cares?Then a terror mission pops up. Should I defend it e.g attack the aliens in the terror mission, or just leave it because the UK signed a "pact", where the aliens make so called "peace"?

[NKF]

Do it anyway. The UK won't notice, but all of the neighbours will. Similarly, ignoring it will also be noticed by the neighbours and will be naturally concerned about it.

 

- NKF

[Youbar]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply.

[Pete]

Ignoring a terror mission in any country is detrimental to your monthly score as far as I'm aware.

 

The only times I've ignored them are when it's early on in the game and the casualties would be too high or if it was out of range of the Skyranger or, the third option, if I landed and it was absolutely brutal in the first few turns and I would then consider aborting.

 

The latter scenario isn't technically ignoring the mission, but you can actually end up with a worse score than if you ignore it I think - I you happen to soldier bravely on when the map is full of Chrysalids and lose your squad and the Skyranger and fail the mission then you'll get a horrific score since all the civvies died too. It's only happened to me once or twice when playing without reloading on Superhuman but it's quite hard to bounce back from when your next mission is back to rookies

 

Welcome to the forums by the way

[Bomb Bloke]

It may be possible to lose a mission badly enough that you are worse off then if you didn't attend, but I'm uncertain - you'd have to do very badly. Simply attending then dusting off straight away will always be counted as a better result then not showing up at all, so regardless of whether you intend to fight or not you should always send some troops in.

[Pete]

I think the worst one I had was that Chrysalid one because all the civilians got turned to zombies and my squad was killed, so I then lost the Skyranger too. I'm not sure what you get in the way of points for turning up, but it would be nice if I got something for at least trying

[FullAuto]

Who is scoring these missions, your mum?

[Pete]

Hehe, I can imagine the funding nations saying "there there, at least you tried - better luck next time and we'll be fine with all of these Chrysalids running amok until you're ready to face them again - don't you worry about it"

[FullAuto]

"You haven't even washed behind your ears! -10pts. I mean, honestly!"

[Bomb Bloke]

You don't technically get any points for showing up, but failing to appear gets you a 1000 point penalty.

 

Up to 16 civilians can appear in a city. At -30 points each, leaving them all to die can lose you a maximum of 480 points, which is nasty blow but still less then half what you get for not attending the mission at all. Soldier deaths are a 20 point penalty each (or more if the units were ranked!), but I don't think your actual dropship counts towards your score (which is very generous, considering the SkyRanger is on lease...).

[Pete]

..but I don't think your actual dropship counts towards your score (which is very generous, considering the SkyRanger is on lease...).

 

I imagine the X-COM commander is playing the "You're mentioning the lease at the memorial service?!" card to the director of the company that manufactures them

[Youbar]

I hope I'm not too late to ask, but does putting a grenade in the left hand, with a rifle in the right hand slow the soldier down?

Also, thanks for welcoming me.

[NKF]

It won't, but it drops the rifle's overall accuracy by 20%. The only things that should slow you down is if you are carrying more than your strength limit or if you move too much each turn so that your energy recovery can't catch up.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

To expand on that, fatal wounds to a soldier's legs also inflict a TU penalty until they're healed, while wounds to the torso reduce energy. A one-handed weapon suffers no accuracy penalty when dual-wielding, so if you really want grenadiers with grenades always ready to sling, consider giving them laser pistols.

 

Keeping track of weight isn't otherwise easy, but UFOExtender can reveal how much a soldier is carrying vs their strength limit on the equipment screen. It's only the total weight that matters, not how it's distributed.