Starting Stats

Raw recruits have the following possible statistics. Range, with parens showing number of possible values (max-min+1) and the likelihood of getting any one of those values:

• TUs: 50-60 (11, 9.1%)
• Stamina: 40-70 (31, 3.2%)
• Health: 25-40 (16, 6.25%)
• Bravery: 10-60 (6, 16.7% - only works in units of 10)
• Reaction: 30-60 (31, 3.2%)
• Firing Accuracy (FA): 40-70 (31, 3.2%)
• Throwing Accuracy (TA): 50-80 (31, 3.2%)
• Strength: 20-40 (21, 4.8%)
• Psi Strength (SST): 0-100 (101!, 0.99%; this value never increases)
• Psi Skill (SSK): Always 0; first Psi Lab training yields 16-24
• Melee: 20-40 (21, 4.8%)

All the statistics are entirely random. So if you only want recruits with 60 TUs, you will retain 1 out of 11 recruits (9.1%). If you only want ones with 60 TUs and 70 FA, you'll only keep 1 in 351 recruits (1/11 * 1/31). Etc.

As discussed elsewhere, initial TUs/3 (not total TUs after increases!) govern energy recovery on the battlefield. This gives it a little more importance then you might expect. Breakpoints for energy recovery per combat turn are: 50=16 energy recovered, 51=17, 54=18, 57=19, 60=20. 54 TUs is also useful since it means rookie psi specialists can still move a tile after performing two mind controls (2x25=50).

Generally, one fifth of recruits are female. Being fem does not affect stats; they get the same random values. There are five sets of first and last names (ostensibly British, French, German, Japanese, and Russian) from which are randomly chosen 20 first names and 20 last names. It is possible to have two (or more?) people of the same name.

The melee stat is not shown anywhere (in X-Com:UFO Defense) but it is a variable in SOLDIER.DAT that increases if you use the stun rod. Current opinion is that it is unused.

And now for some absolutely 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 accuracy 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. Almost 1 in 67 billion soldiers. (It's actually the same as the likelihood of getting any one specific combination.)

• Given the maximum theoretical 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 would be 5 million, 560 thousand, and 431 game years.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled wiki.