Other Abilities (LWR)

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Accuracy Cap

Critical hit chance (otherwise known as 'Crit') is capped at the current hit chance. This means that a soldier with 100 crit and a 1% chance to hit will only have a 1% chance to crit due to a -99 accuracy cap.

Berserk

If multiple soldiers on XCOM's team have died, all other non-SHIV members gain the ability to go Berserk. Only 1 member of the squad can berserk each turn. A unit going berserk will prevent other beginning of turn affects from occurring such as enrage, fatigued, and exhausted.

Chance to Berserk = 5% x # of dead XCOM x # of enemies in vision

A berserked unit will enter an enraged state, reload if their ammo isn't full, may move towards the nearest enemy, may fire a shot (at +100 aim), and after done, will still be enraged with 2APs ready to go.

Bleed Out

XCOM soldiers and MECs uniquely will sometimes not die when their HP would be reduced below 1. Instead they will become critically wounded and begin to Bleed Out for 4-7 turns (turns can be increased with a respirator implant or the Secondary Heart gene mod).

The chance that a soldier will receive a critical wound and bleed out (instead of just dying) is as follows:

Bleed Out Chance = 10 x [Base_HP - Overkill_Damage]

Base_HP is the natural max HP the character has without any armor or items. The overkill damage is how much damage the soldier received beyond 0. The Bleed Out Chance is clamped between 0% and 90%.

A soldier with the Secondary Heart gene mod will always bleed out the first time his health reaches 0 each battle.

While Bleeding Out, a soldier can be stabilized (preventing death) by a unit with a medikit or revived (return to battle with 33% HP and 1 AP) by a medic with both a medikit and the Savior perk. If a soldier's Bleed Out Timer expires, the soldier will die (note: this can trigger your squad mates to panic).

The Bleed Out Timer is normally invisible but is visible if the unit bleeding out has a respirator implant.

Combat Readiness

When an XCOM unit ends the turn with an action point remaining it activates Combat Readiness. Combat readiness grants +10 aim, +5 def, and -10% rocket scatter and lasts until the end of the unit's next turn.

Units with Awareness gain double the benefit from Combat Readiness: +20 aim, +10 def, and -20% rocket scatter.

Units that lose their steadied weapon because they can't see any enemies at the beginning or end of their turn will gain the Combat Readiness bonus.

Combat Readiness has no perk associated with it, but you can tell which units have the buff if you check their details (F1) or check their base HP color (it turns a lighter shade).

Corrosion

Acid grenades, acid spit, and certain melee attacks can apply the Corrosion effect:

Disables passive healing, strips all flat DR, -20 aim, -20% mobility, and -50% range for AoE attacks, indefinitely

The only way to remove corrosion is through the use of a medikit. SHIVs cannot have corrosion removed from them until the mission is complete.

Dash

When a unit (alien or XCOM) spends both AP points to move at the same time (a 'yellow' move) this is called dashing and increases movement by 20% (40% with the sprinter perk). Thus, a unit that dashes will be able to cover 2.4x it's mobility in tiles.

Defuse

This ability is available to all soldiers. It allows them to defuse bombs. This ability will Hunker the soldier as he/she defuses the bomb. At the beginning of their next turn they will finish defusing the bomb at the cost of all of their AP.

Disoriented

Units hit by concussion grenades will become Disoriented:

Cancels overwatch and suppression, -20 defense, -50 will, -50 aim, -50% throw/ability range, -50% mobility, double scatter, lasts through 1 enemy turn

Enrage

If multiple soldiers on XCOM's team have died, all other non-SHIV members gain the ability to Enrage.

Chance to Enrage = 5% x # of dead XCOM x # of enemies in vision

An enraged soldier:

- Deals +100% weapon damage

- Gains +100% mobility

- Gains +100% throw range

- Has a 25% chance for all idle-ending actions to cost 0 AP

- Is immune to triggering non-suppression reaction fire

Enraged soldiers can be identified because their AP pips will have turned red.

Fatigued and Exhausted

Soldiers who enter a mission with fatigue may suffer a loss of APs (Action Points) at the beginning of each their turns:

Status	Effect	Chance (Modified by Campaign Length)	Notes
Fatigued	1 AP loss	2% per day of fatigue	Will not occur if Stimmed or Psi Inspired
Exhausted	2 AP loss	0.2% per day of fatigue	Will not occur if Stimmed or Psi Inspired

A NSLW game would decrease the chance per day of fatigue for fatigued/exhausted to trigger to 1%/0.1%.

A VLW game would increase the chance per day of fatigue for fatigued/exhausted to trigger to 4%/0.4%.

Flight

Soldiers with the Archangel or Seraph armors and Hover SHIVs have the Flight ability and a set amount of fuel to power the ability.

Flight consumes 1 fuel per turn while active. Toggling flight on or moving also consumes a fuel.

Units that are flying have their mobility set to 8.1, regardless of what their mobility was on the ground.

Warning: If the pilot is still hovering at 0 fuel they will be forced to land (and may land in a bad location).

Grapple

Units with certain light armors gain the grapple ability. Using the Grapple costs 1 AP and can propel the soldier up to 15 tiles. Each armor with the grapple ability grants unlimited uses during a battle.

Hack

This ability is available to all covert operatives. It allows them to Hack Exalt data relays. This ability will Hunker the covert operative as he/she hacks the relay. At the beginning of their next turn they will finish the hack at the cost of all of their AP. As well, the hacking equipment will slow the operative down and they will suffer from -50% mobility at all times.

Once the Hack begins, all Exalt on the map will have their gunlinks scrambled -- they will be unable to use their primary weapon until they install new gunlinks. After the Hack the covert operative will also recover sensitive Exalt information from the relay.

Holo Target

Units that have been fired at by a weapon with Holo Rounds will become Holo Targeted:

Prevents concealment/stealth and grants +20 aim and +1 penetration to all shots at this unit for the next 3 turns

Home Ground

Units that are fighting in their home country gain the Home Ground bonus:

+10 will and +0.6 mobility

Hunker Down

Any unit in cover can Hunker Down:

+50% DR from cover, x2 defense from cover, -50% chance to be hit by psionic attacks, lose all vision, ends the unit's turn

Hunkered units will have their base HP color turn grey.

Idle

Certain abilities vary based on whether or not a unit is idle. Being idle requires the soldier to be doing nothing that could be occupying their attention.

The following abilities cause a unit to NOT be idle:

Being suppressed, suppressing, stunned, maimed, steadying, overwatching, concealed/stealthed, panicking, strangling, being strangled, being in One For All, hunkering

Low Hit Chances

In order to properly reflect a reasonable hit chance, while still keeping hit chance calculations as simple as aim minus defense equals hit chance, hit chances below 20% are tapered by half, and those below 10% are tapered again but by 4/5s. The result is that a shot that would have a 0% chance to hit (based on aim minus defense) would instead have a 10% chance to hit and you would need a calculated hit chance of -100% to reach an actual hit chance of 1%. Chances that have been tapered by half will be colored orange beside the 'to hit' in the F1 info screen. Chances that have been tapered by 4/5s will be colored red beside the 'to hit' in the F1 info screen.

The actual formula is:

if(iToHit < 20)
  iToHit += 0.5 * (20 - float(iToHit));
if(iToHit < 10)
  iToHit += 0.8 * (10 - float(iToHit)) ;

Note: All final hit chances are still clamped between 1 and 100.

Maim

All sidearms have the Maim ability:

Fire 2 shots at -20 aim that deal 1 damage each where any hits against a biologic target with 1 HP will Maim the target instead of dealing damage

Any target that is Maimed will:

Skip the next turn and disable reactive abilities (e.g. Close Combat Specialist, Reactive Targeting Sensors, Overwatch)

Overwatch

Overwatch can only be triggered if the unit has an enemy in sight. Using overwatch will overwatch all units currently in Line of Sight. Overwatching units will fire a reaction shot against any unit that was overwatched and that acts or moves >1 tile.

Note: The act of going on overwatch triggers a single reaction shot from enemies.

Overwatch Indicators

The HUD icons for aliens will reveal who is overwatching you. A target icon appears at the top right of their alien head in the bottom right of the screen.

Aliens and XCOM will have a red eye icon above their soldier/pawn if they are on overwatch. The icon will blinking red/blue if your cursor is in a location the soldier/pawn can see and the soldier/pawn is on overwatch.

The AP pips (action point indicators) on a character will be orange [danger of enemy reaction fire] if an enemy has that character under their overwatch or can perform another form of reaction fire against that character.

Panic

All panicked units have an 50% chance to recover each turn. If they are going to recover, they will receive a popup saying they are Regaining Control; otherwise they will remain panicking. A single panic will last a maximum of 4 turns.

Specific abilities can directly cause panic (e.g. Intimidate, Psi Panic), but all Human units can also panic from taking damage or seeing their squad mates take damage. Exalt will panic less than XCOM and have only a 30% chance of triggering a panic roll when one of their panic events trigger.

Exalt Chances to Panic:

• 30% chance if they are hit for more than 30% of their remaining health (20 will test)
• 30% chance if a squad mate in vision dies (20 will test)
• 30% chance if a squad leader in vision dies (40 will test)

XCOM Chances to Panic:

• They are hit for more than 50% of their remaining health (30 will test)
• A squad mate in vision dies (30 will test)
• A high level squad mate (>2 ranks) in vision dies (60 will test)
• A squad mate in vision panics (0 will test)

Pin Point Accuracy

Whenever a shot has over 100% hit chance, half of the amount over 100 is added to the critical hit chance and is called Pinpoint Accuracy. It represents a soldier being so accurate that they are more likely to land a critical hit.

Reaction Fire

Reaction fire is any shot that occurs when it is not that unit's turn (Eg: Overwatch).

Basic reaction fire has 2 properties different than normal fire:

It bypasses half of cover defense

It cannot crit

This means that reaction fire will bypass 15 defense of the 30 defense for any target in partial cover and 25 of the 50 defense for any target in full cover.

Targets that trigger reaction fire when moving will be treated as covered or uncovered based on if the shot occurs at a direction where cover is protecting them from the shooter. The large majority of the time they will be uncovered due to the fact that it is uncommon to have cover protecting a unit as it moves.

Reaction fire can be upgraded with:

• Opportunist: Reaction shots can crit and bypass damage resistance from cover
• Predictive Tracking: Reaction shots bypass all cover defense, instead of just half

Reaction fire will occur before the triggering unit has completed its action or movement. Unit's that take damage from reaction fire will have less stats when they go to complete their action. For example, using a psionic attack will have a lower hit chance if the unit took damage from a reaction shot and lost will due to red fog. However, hit chance of shots, target locations, and scatter are all calculated before any reaction fire and thus will not be affected by any damage taken before the action (unless, of course, the damage is fatal).

Red Fog

Damage to units causes Red Fog which:

Lowers aim and will by 1-35
Lowers melee damage by 1-70%
Lowers throw range by 1-35%
Lowers flat DR by 1-50%
Lowers mobility by 1-6
Increases scatter by 1-100%

The amount of each of the maluses are directly proportional to %HP lost.

The second wave option Just a Flesh Wound turns red fog off.

Scamper

Both XCOM and Aliens have the ability to Scamper when they first see each other.

Alien Scamper

When an alien pod is revealed all the aliens in the pod will move to more ideal positions (e.g. moving to cover) and will sometimes activate overwatch and/or a deflection shield.

During the 1st and 2nd turn of each battle there is an 80% and 40% chance (respectively) that an alien pod which is revealed will be caught Off Guard and will not be able to Scamper.

XCOM Scamper

When an XCOM unit has completed his turn (0 AP remaining) and a new alien pod is revealed, that unit will receive the ability to Scamper: it can complete a 1AP move but cannot perform any actions. This can only occur once per unit each turn and only if the XCOM unit is not active (i.e. not overwatching, steadying a weapon, etc.).

A known bug is that upon reloading a save game in the middle of a tactical battle, the game forgets if any units have already scampered and upon revealing another pod they will be able to scamper again.

Shaken

Every soldier that dies will Shaken the remaining soldiers, lowering their will by 10 for each death witnessed. Psi Inspiration can clear this effect.

Smoke (In Smoke)

To see the effects of being In Smoke click here:

Cover and Smoke

Shred

Some weapons can Shred enemies. This means they will take extra damage from all regular sources.

Shred: This unit takes x% more damage where x is the previous shred damage taken (x3 for shots/strangle, x7 for mayhem suppression, and 10x explosives), lasts for the remainder of the battle

Note that shred damage calculates damage taken, not damage dealt, so damage resistance does reduce the amount of shred applied.

Steady Weapon

Steadying a weapon grants the following:

+50 aim, +2 penetration (at 2 AP), -50% scatter

Steady is lost if unit acts, moves, is hit, or changes weapons. Steady is converted into Combat Readiness (+10 aim, +5 def, -10% rocket scatter) if unit can't see any enemies at the beginning or end of a turn.

Steady is only available if unit can see an enemy.

Steadying a weapon does not trigger enemy reaction fire.

Stimmed

Units that use a Combat Stim on themselves will receive the Stimmed buff:

Gain +2 HP regeneration/turn, +1.2 mobility, +10 aim, +15 will, immunity to crits/fatigued/exhausted/overpower, +20% DR, lasts through 4 enemy turns