Morale

Your soldiers' Morale scores determine whether they will panic or go berserk in the midst of a bad situation. Morale for all units is set at 100 at the start of each mission, and can rise or fall depending on events which occur during combat.

A high Bravery score will reduce the amount of Morale lost due to bad events, and the presence of a high-ranking officer on a mission can reduce Morale penalties as well. The loss of a high-ranking officer can in turn produce large Morale penalties.

When a unit's Morale drops below 50, there is a chance it will panic or go berserk.

Value Ranges

All units, alien and friendly, start with a Morale of 100 at the beginning of combat. Morale can never go higher than 100 or lower than 0 -- but if it reaches 0, a unit will panic or go berserk, and it will rise by 15 again.

Events which Affect Morale

• Own unit killed - surviving units lose 0-35 points, dependent on unit bravery, squad leadership, and rank of lost soldier
• Own unit knocked unconscious - no effect on squad morale
• Own unit hurt - no effect on squad morale, unit hurt loses ?? points
• Friendly fire kill - squad loses normal amount, soldier loses 20 extra points adjusted only by leadership
• Friendly fire hit - no effect beyond injury morale loss in the soldier hit
• Alien hit/hurt - no effect on your morale
• Alien killed - squad gains 10 points, adjusted by squad leadership; soldier gains 20 extra points adjusted by squad leadership
• Panic/berserk - soldier gains 15 points flat
• Pain killer administered from a Medi-Kit - can restore Morale equal to the amount of Health a soldier has lost

Effect of Bravery

The base morale a unit loses when a comrade dies is dependent on the surviving unit's Bravery as follows:

Bravery  Morale loss
  10       -20
  20       -18
  30       -16
  40       -14
  50       -12
  60       -10
  70        -8
  80        -6
  90        -4
  100       -2
  110        0

Only tanks and certain aliens can have a Bravery of 110.

Officers

Having officer on a mission helps in two ways -- they reduce morale loss from negative events, and increase Morale gained from positive events. Your highest-ranking (surviving) officer's Morale modifier is always used -- so if a Colonel is killed, and the next-highest-ranking soldier in the squad is a Sergeant, morale loss from the Colonel's death will still be reduced by 10%.

However, losing an officer produces higher than usual Morale losses, as shown in the table below below. Losing rookies, squaddies and tanks cause normal amounts of lost Morale.

                          Leadership    Death morale
                            bonus          loss
Tank, Rookie, or Squaddie     0%           x1.0
Sergeant                     10%           x1.2
Captain                      15%           x1.3
Colonel                      20%           x1.5
Commander                    35%           x1.75

Morale loss on personnel death equals:

 Base morale loss x (100% - Leadership bonus) = adjusted morale loss (drop fractions)
 Adjusted morale loss x Rank modifier = final morale loss (drop fractions)

Since the loss of a Colonel produces Morale loss 1.5 times that of a normal unit, the effective Morale lost in the above scenario will be 1.5 (for the Colonel's death) * 0.9 (for the surviving Sergeant's modifier), for a modified Morale penalty of 1.35 times normal.

Officer Tactics

• Losing an officer (higher rank) has a greater effect on the whole squad's morale than losing a rookie. LZ's are notorious for ambushes and extreme risk. So logically, your highest-ranking soldiers should never be in the front line of deployment.

• By using XcomUtil, you can chooseu to place you your officers in the rear of the transport, and your rookies in the front.

• Some people extend this tactic and keep the commanding officer in the Skyranger for the entire battle. They're safest there, and with a Blaster Launcher or Mind Probe they can still contribute to the combat. See Rear Commander for more details.

• Aliens are subject to the same Morale rules as X-COM units. Targeting alien officers first (eg. with a Blaster Bomb to the UFO bridge) will help create widespread panic among the remaining aliens.

Panicking and Berserking

If a unit's Morale drops below 50, there is a chance that it will panic or go berserk on the next turn.

Formula: 

% Panic Chance = 100 - (2 x Morale)

Example:

If a soldier has a Morale rating of 40, they have a 20% chance of panicking on the next turn.

Units which panic may drop whatever is in their hands and run in a random direction (sometimes directly into the path of awaiting enemies), or stand frozen in place. Units may also go berserk -- firing wildly at any available target, or in random directions. Berserk units will commonly fire at the unit nearest to them, even if it is on the same team.

Note: Berserk soldiers temporarily get over 200 TUs; as a result, they can fire off entire magazines before recovering. [Ethereal Cereal: Is this true?]

Psionic Panicking Attacks

There are two kinds of psionic attacks aliens and Psi-trained soldiers can use: Control Unit and Panic Unit. Panic Unit attacks are more likely to succeed. A successful psionic panicking attack immediately subtracts:

    110 - Bravery

points from the target's Morale score. Thus if the target is a towering hero (100 Bravery) only 10 Morale is subtracted; if the target is a cowering worm (10 Bravery, the minimum possible), 100 Morale is subtracted. For alien Bravery stats, see Alien Stats (UFO_Defense).

Repeated attacks may be needed to bring a unit's Morale below 50, where it has a chance of panicking.

Morale Loss and Bravery Increases

When a unit's Morale is below 50 but it does not panic or go berserk, it gains "bravery training". Each successfully-resisted panic roll gives the unit an additional 10% chance of gaining +10 Bravery at the end of the mission, up to a 100% chance after 11 successful resists. See Bravery for more details.

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Research performed by Hobbes at XcomUfo Forums