Talk:Soldiers

TODO: Insert links for other attributes and conditions used only in combat, such as "current reaction level", amongst other things that a player will want to know.

Intro

Ideas for opening blurb:

Welcome to the XCOM Personell Department. Here we maintain the records of extensive aptitude testing and training regimes.

From the sharpshooter with their rifle to the weakling with their smoke grenade, everyone on the assault team has a part to play.

XCOM is an Equal Opportunities Exploiter. Both men and women from any XCOM-funding country are welcome to apply.

-JellyfishGreen

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We make no distinctions regarding gender or ethnicity (neither do plasma beams). Regardless of how you look you will be turned into blondes the moment the transport lands? -Hobbes 06:12, 17 February 2006 (PST)

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If your last name sounds English, French, German, Russian, or Japanese, please apply. If not, get lost. -MikeTheRed

Managing squads

I'd suggest that all useful soldiers are renamed so you can identify them easily. It can even add a bit of fun. I also add a rating for their key stats by appending letters at the end, an R for 50 reactions or S for 35 strength, say. This lets me arm and move soldiers appropriately without knowing everything about them.

When picking a squad for a mission you probably need some expandable scouts, a leader, and some people to carry heavy weapons. It's useful if the front people in the skyranger are expendable as any accidents tend to happen to them. Once you've picked your scouts, hopefully before you've even set off, you should make sure that none of the other soldiers get shot during the mission. I would use low bravery soldiers as expendable scouts. You won't miss people who can go beserk at the first sign of trouble and intentional bravery training is typically an exploit. Soldiers can generally perform all roles except Psi offense, even if some are better skilled than others. - Egor

Stats vs Attributes

I would call them stats, but a consensus would be nice. I'm pretty sure they mean the same thing. When it is decided, note it on the main talk page.

I'd go with stats too, but there's no point splitting hairs. In the context they are used, they are interchangeable. - NKF

Missing in Action

Soldiers that go MIA sometimes re-appear on alien UFO's or even alien bases. It's also mentioned in the briefing for UFO crash/landing sites. I haven't seen it anywhere mentioned on UFOPaedia yet though. Also mind crontrol seems to be a bit different then, as for the first few turns the soldier will automatically be on the aliens side and THEN start to regain control over their body. Does anyone know though if the same applies to TFTD? Zac x Me (talk) 00:55, 1 October 2015 (EDT)

I have no idea what you are talking about, unfortunately. Though that may have something to do with the fact that I never let soldiers go MIA in the first place. Could you upload a screenshot of a briefing mentioning it? Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:07, 2 October 2015 (EDT)

I can somewhat understand the second part as they would technically still be under the same state they were when the last mission ended. The first part however is a bit difficult to work out. I take it these missing soldiers will sometimes reappear on the mission immediately after the one where they went MIA? The only way I can possibly rationalize this is if the MIA soldier's slot did not get filled up at the time the next mission starts, so the game would have ghost data from the last mission. However this shouldn't happen, as the game would have compacted or filled in all the gaps by the time the new mission was generated. Do Do you recall any of the conditions that may lead up to this? Also was it in the Windows or Dos version of the game? I'd certainly like to try and replicate this. NKF (talk) 04:32, 2 October 2015 (EDT)

I think he may be referring to the phrase in the UFO recovery mission briefing: "There may be operatives in the UFO or around the crash site." I've always taken that to mean operatives are the alien units. In the windows version, MIA or KIA soldiers have their entries in SOLDIER.DAT disabled as part of the post-battle routine. UNITREF and UNITPOS dat files have all entries disabled before new entries are created when the GEOSCAPE prepares for the next battle. -Tycho (talk) 11:58, 2 October 2015 (EDT)