Firing Accuracy
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Overview
Firing Accuracy is a measure of the soldier's overall skill at operating any given firearm. In short, it controls how accurate the soldier can be with any given gun.
Starting Values
New recruits will always begin with a value between 40 and 70.
Improvement
Firing Accuracy increases depending on how many times you hit an enemy. Examples / clarification:
- If you aim at one alien but hit a different one, it counts.
- If you hit an alien but don't do any Damage because it was too weak for their armor, it counts.
- If each of the three shots from a single Auto fire burst hits an alien, it counts as three hits.
- Mind-controlled aliens are friendly aliens. Hits on MC'd aliens do not count. Conversely, hitting soldiers under alien mind control does count. If you see the red "enemy" flag, the hit will count.
- Area-effect weapons (i.e., grenades, rockets, Blaster Bombs, and even Stun Bombs) also count toward Firing Accuracy experience. You will score a "hit" for every alien within the blast's radius, regardless of whether they were hurt.
- Missed shots, hitting friendlies (including MC'd aliens or civilians), shooting scenery, distance to target, rank, etc. - none of these matter or count.
All that matters is that you hit an enemy. Kills, per se, nor damage matter at all towards Firing Accuracy improvement. Only hits. (Kills do increase your Kill counter, but that's all - kills don't otherwise do anything at all for you, as far as is known.)
Weak weapons like pistols and laser pistols mean the alien won't die as quick, which means more hits, which means more chance of Firing Accuracy improvement. Because their skin is so thick and they have lots of Health, Mutons (and their Silacoid buddies) are great for multiple hits with a weak weapon. For more information, see Experience Training.
You can be awarded up to an average of 4 skill points (range 2-6) per combat mission if you make at least 11 hits. The point award does not depend on your current skill level, only on the number of hits. For more particulars on skill-point increases, see Experience.
Maximum Caps
An X-COM soldier's Firing Accuracy is capped at 120. However, because you can get a +6 roll when at 119, a soldier can have up to 125 Firing Accuracy (if they're really lucky!). For more info, see Regarding Caps.
Base Chance To Hit
The value that you see when you select your current weapon's firing mode is your base chance to hit. Though this is normally done for you in the game, if you wish to calculate the accuracy levels yourself, use the following formula:
- Base Chance To Hit = Firing Accuracy × Weapon Firing Mode Accuracy
Examples
- Soldier A has 50% firing accuracy and is firing a pistol with an aimed shot. Aimed pistols have 78% accuracy.
Soldier A's Base To hit = 50% × 78% = 39%
- Soldier B has 75% firing accuracy and is firing a snapshot with the Heavy cannon. The Heavy Cannon has 60% accurate snapshots.
Soldier B's Base To hit = 75% × 60 = 45%
This is a very broad overview of how base-chance-to-hit is calculated. There are other percentages that influence the soldier's base firing accuracy.
Influencing Factors
Base Firing Accuracy is also affected by one bonus and three penalties:
Bonus
- Kneeling bonus: +15% (x 1.15) when kneeling.
Penalties
- Weapon Grip: -20% (x 0.8) when holding a two-handed weapon with one hand.
- Wounds: -10% per wound to head and firing arm (1-handed) or both arms (2-handed weapons)
- Health: 75% + (25% * current health / max health)
After the above Penalties are multiplied together, if the result is less than 10%, then they are fixed at 10%.
All bonuses and penalties are applied to the unit's Accuracy to get the final Base Firing Accuracy.
- E.G.: A kneeling soldier (ACC: 65%) with two wounds, down to 80% of max health, making a snap shot with a rifle (ACC: 60%) would have a grand total of: 0.65 * 1.15 * (1 - (2 * 0.1)) * (0.75 + (0.25 * 0.8)) * 0.6 = 0.34086 or 34% net chance of hitting the target.
For a full breakdown and example, see the Accuracy formula
See Also
