Fatal Wounds

For each Fatal Wound a unit has, they will lose one point of Health each turn. For instance, a soldier with 2 Fatal Wounds will lose 2 Health points per turn. Each time a soldier is shot but not killed by weapons fire, he or she may be dealt 1-3 fatal wounds. All of these fatal wounds will be dealt to the same part of the body.

Fatal Wounds can be healed using a Medi-Kit. 3 Health points will also be restored with each wound healed. Quickly healing a wounded soldier also means less wound recovery time (back at base), because recovery time is based on the number of health points lost in a mission.

Warning: Unconcious soldiers still take damage from Fatal Wounds each turn and CAN DIE if not treated. So if one of your soldiers is knocked unconscious by shots or explosions (as opposed to a stun bomb), it is important that you immediately run a diagnostics scan on him or her. See Medi-Kit and Unconscious for more information on how to do this. Keep in mind that you can pick up and move (or even throw) someone, if you have a man down in a hot zone.

Other effects of Fatal Wounds

• Each wound to the head or gun-holding arm applies a 10% penalty to your Firing Accuracy, down to but not below -90%. This means that someone with 100 base firing accuracy who has 9 or more wounds will be left with a base accuracy level of 10 points. This is before you consider any other accuracy modifiers such as your remaining health percentage (see Accuracy formula).
• Each wound to the legs reduces the soldier's Time Units by 10%.
• Each wound to the torso reduces the soldier's Energy by 10%.

I did a test on this and have lots of doubts on this info above, my unit got 3 fatal wounds on the torso only, and I got a penalty to both throwing and firing accuracy. But no penalty on energy. And with a unit with fatal wounds to the left arm, I got a penalty on the Energy Replenishment level. - Daiky

Aliens and Fatal Wounds

Aliens never get fatal wounds - they never crawl off and die - except if you were mind controlling them when they were wounded. In other words, only friendlies can get Fatal Wounds, and MC'd aliens count as friendlies. Be careful of mixing MC'd with non-MC'd aliens - you might reaction shoot the one, and hit the other. But wait, there's more - aliens with Fatal Wounds do not suffer any health decrease, for as long as you MC them. They only suffer health loss from their Fatal Wounds on turns that you do not MC them.

Once I had an MC'd alien taking point, when a different one blaster bombed the lot of us. All hell broke loose, and I lost track of the pet (I assumed he got killed in the blast). Many turns later I heard the entirely unexpected cry of an alien dying, far off in the distance. "Oops" - MikeTheRed

Probability of Fatal Wounds

As shown by Zombie's research, if you receive more than 10 health damage, you have an equal, random chance of receiving from 1 to 3 Fatals Wounds (a 33.3% chance of 1, 2, or 3 FWs). Higher damage does not change these chances, and you can never receive more than 3 FWs (in a given shot or blast!), even if you're hit so hard you only have 1 hitpoint of life left. Stated another way, if you take 11+ damage, you always get at least one Fatal Wound, an average of 2, and a maximum of 3. Thus, never leave your Medi-Kits behind.

If you receive from 1 to 10 damage, the likelihood of a Fatal Wound roll increases, in which case you roll again for 1, 2, or 3 FWs, evenly. In other words:

          Chance of Fatal Wounds
Damage     0     1, 2, or 3     1-3_
   1     90.9%      3.03%       9.1%  
   2     81.8%      6.06%      18.2%  
   3     72.7%      9.09%      27.3%  
   4     63.6%     12.12%      36.4%  
   5     54.5%     15.15%      45.5%  
   6     45.5%     18.18%      54.5%  
   7     36.4%     21.21%      63.6%  
   8     27.3%     24.24%      72.7%  
   9     18.2%     27.27%      81.8%  
  10      9.1%     30.30%      90.9%
  11+     0.0%     33.33%     100.0%  

Stated another way, the chance of receiving NO Fatal Wounds is: (11 - Damage) / 11, if you receive 1-10 damage. And as discussed, at 11+ hits, you receive the even 33.3% chance of 1 to 3 FWs. Of course, if you receive no damage (0 hitpoints lost), you never get a Fatal Wound.

See Also

• Medi-Kit
• Damage
• Unconscious
• Accuracy formula
• Recovery time