Starting Stats

Raw recruits have the following possible statistics. Range (Min to Max), Number of possible values (Max-Min+1), and Percent chance of getting any one of those values (1/Values). Also, caps are shown for your convenience (Regarding Caps):

Stat               Min   Max  Values %ofOne  MinCap MaxCap   Notes
TUs                 50    60    11    9.09%     80     81
Stamina             40    70    31    3.23%    100    101
Health              25    40    16    6.25%     60     61
Bravery             10    60     6   16.67%    110    110    Only uses increments of 10 
Reaction            30    60    31    3.23%    100    105
Firing Accuracy     40    70    31    3.23%    120    125
Throwing Accuracy   50    80    31    3.23%    120    125
Strength            20    40    21    4.76%     70     71
Psi Strength         0   100   101    0.99%      0    100    Fixed for life, never changes
Psi Skill            0     0     1  100.00%    100    105+   First Psi Lab yields 16-24 
Melee Accuracy      20    40    21    4.76%    120    125    Non-displayed skill; see text

Primary stats are Psi Skill, Firing Accuracy, Reactions, Melee Accuracy, and Throwing Accuracy. Secondary stats are TUs, Stamina (a.k.a. Energy in combat), Health, and Strength. Secondaries increase whenever a Primary action is taken (except for Throwing). Bravery is an oddball. For more info, see Experience.

All statistics are rolled randomly and independently. So if you only want recruits with 60 TUs, you will retain 1 out of 11 recruits (9%). If you only want ones with 60 TUs and 70 FA, you'll only keep 1 in 351 recruits (0.28%; 1/11 * 1/31). Et cetera.

As discussed elsewhere, initial TUs/3 (not total TUs after increases!) govern energy recovery on the battlefield. In other words, your raw recruit's TUs forever after determine how much energy they recover each combat turn. 50 recruit TUs means you recover 17 energy per combat turn; 60 TUs means you recover 20. This gives TUs more importance than you might expect, and makes 60 a pleasure to see.

There are five sets of first and last names (ostensibly British, French, German, Japanese, and Russian), each containing 20 first names and 20 last names. Soldiers' first and last names are randomly chosen from a single set; thus, there are 2,000 possible unique names (20x20x5). It is possible to have duplicates. No differences due to nationality, names, etc. have ever been observed - all stats appear to be entirely random. In each of the five name sets, four of the first names are feminine and the other 16 male; thus, one fifth of all recruits are female. Being fem has absolutely no effect on stats or anything else in the game, except for the obvious graphics differences and death sounds.

The Melee Accuracy stat is not shown in displays anywhere but it increases (and secondaries, too) if you use the stun rod. The programmers appear to have put it on the back burner for XCOM, but it does get used more in TFTD.

And now for some useless trivia:

• If you tried to get a soldier who was best in every single stat (including psi strength = 100, but not including psi skill because it's trained, nor the relatively worthless stats of throwing and melee) - given the number of possible values and resulting combinations these eight stats have (shown above),

• You only expect to see the highest across the board in 1 in 66,725,166,816 soldiers (approx. 1 in 67 billion soldiers). This is actually the likelihood of getting any one particular combination, no matter what it is (who says we're not all unique?).

• The current real world population is ~6.5 billion people.

• Given the theoretical maximum screening rate of 1,000 soldiers per month (only 100 fit in the transfer queue at a time, they take 3 days to show up, so only 10 batches of 100 per month),

• You would expect to come across such a soldier by 66,725,167 months (the above number divided by 1,000).

• That's once every 5½ million game years.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled wiki.

See Also

• Soldier Attributes
• Experience
• Hiring/firing