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-note: I should probably move this or cut it down... dunno. I didn't want to make my own article, just put my own version up as reference if anybody wanted to see how to build a more complex system.
-My own custom StatString format I created ages ago. Figured I'd post here as reference in case anybody found it useful because the default StatStrings are pretty basic. I used this system for a long time and it worked well enough while I was intimately familiar with it, but now that I'm coming back to X-Com again I'm thinking about developing something else. For me it's not as much about getting all their stats info into the name as it is being able to glance at the names and get a basic picture of what kind of soldier they are.
-At first glance it may appear this system uses up a lot of characters in the name, forcing names to be even further chopped down. In practice stats other than Firing Accuracy, TU, and Strength tend to fall in the middle ground and drop off. It might be a problem if you train all your guys up to superhuman levels.
-As I said, I'm rethinking the strings. For one the three stats I chose to represent numerically were simply what was important to me at the time, but I'm not so sure about them now. In particular Strength really only matters much to me if it's low. The higher it is the more I can ignore it. It's a handy stat if you want a soldier to packmule a bunch of grenades or something, but picking out soldiers for heavy loads can be handled in the classes.
-The classes at the end I'm a bit happier with. They get cut off if the soldier's name+statstring is too long, but the classes are secondary anyway. Having said that I intend to tweak them too. I should also note that so far my tactics tend to diverge from the norm and my statstrings and such reflect this. I'm a methodical player, but I also take sort of a swiss army knife approach. Before hitting the 80 item limit problem, back when I could only load a limited number of soldiers it was pretty common for me to load them out with Heavy Plasma and an extra clip, a laser pistol, a med kit, and some combination of 2 or 3 alien grenades, prox grenades, electro flares(at night), and motion scanners. Yeah, every single soldier but the rookies had a med kit and laser pistol along with at least some grenades. It was my experience that such a loadout only seemed to be much of a problem for them until their strength came up a bit. It probably sucks a lot of stamina even if str is high enough not to lose TU's, but I've never had much of a stamina problem because I tend to leapfrog my soldiers and rely heavily on reaction fire.
-Reaction fire is a godsend. A soldier with a heavy plasma, good accuracy, and good reactions can basically hold a position with near impunity if they have a little cover and no risk of being flanked. In fact I will often opt to hold positions in hopes of getting reaction shots rather than making a frontal assault. When it comes to coming around a corner or opening a door the ambusher always has an advantage, especially if the ambusher has several soldiers kneeling behind cover and not in direct line of sight to the alien as it reveals it-self.
-Oh I should also mention I've basically been playing variations on my original game, from when I originally started playing X-Com. What can I say, I get nostalgic for my old soldiers and such. And I've never quite played it all the way to the end. I'm fighting soooo many battleships and doing it sooo methotically that it is taking me ages and I don't wanna go to Cydonia until I'm ready. Why am I not ready? Well here's the biz... I didn't get Psi until late in the game and didn't know what I was doing wrong until I did some extra reading. By then, unfortunately, I was only rarely seeing sectoids, having mostly muton ufo's. So it took me forever to capture a sectoid commander. You won't believe the trouble I went through finally getting one. heh Anyway, having to deal with battleships without psi is an interesting, (if tedious), experience. I have lots of soldiers in training now, but still have barely scratched psi skills and have yet to actually use it in the field. Right now the only thing that scares me is etherials and blaster bombs... okay sectopods scare me a little, mainly because I've not really fought them much yet. Anyway... birdwalked a bit off topic there...
- NameStats
- StatStrings
- // New Custom StatString System!!!!
- //
- // This system minimizes space usage by using placement and capitolization to designate
- // strengths and weaknesses. The basic idea is to sort the stats from least to greatest moving from left
- // to right, and provide some important designators letting you know where in the string you pass a certain
- // numerical threshold. The letters themselves represent individual stats. Only ? which represents zero
- // psi/mc skill and C which designates a coward actually change.
- //
- // In the middle of the string I have placed three stats I consider particularly important, (TU's,
- // Firing Accuracy, and Strength) as numerical representations. These three digits are placed in the
- // middle to serve as a seperator.
- //
- // All of the possible designators, in order are as follows... ?CBRTKPEHbrtkp###brtkpBRTKP The letter
- // for any particular stat will only appear once in the string, however. I've also made an attempt to sort
- // stats within a given capitolization group, though the fidelity is pretty low. In other words if your
- // reactions are significantly better than your throwing accuracy but within the same capitolization group
- // you should get "tr" in the string instead of "rt". You kinda have to know what order they naturally fall
- // into, to make any real use of it, but generally two stats in a row tells you that the second can't be much
- // worse than the one before it. I'll add more fidelity, but I'm not going all the way down to individual digits! =O
- //
- // For now the fidelity on the sorting is every 5 units.
- //
- // Note: The inner letters are lower case to help differetiate them from the numerals, which can
- // be hard to tell from upper case letters in some cases. Also keep in mind that most stats for
- // most soldiers will NOT have a designator at all. The system purposefully omits middle of the road
- // stats to save space. The designators, therefore are only really meant to highlight particularly
- // strong or weak stats, other than the three I deemed important enough to ALWAYS designate, which
- // actually display their numerical value to the tens.
- //
- // Even greater coverage could definately be squeezed in, but the intention is to keep these StatStrings
- // very minimalist, while still conveying all the important information. This way you can keep longer names,
- // and/or use Class designators in addition to this system. (And, why the hell not!? heh)
- //
- // Weaknesses listed first!
- //
- ? k:0			// Test if they have been Psi trained.
- //
- R r:-5		// Reactions
- T t:-5		// Throwing Accuracy
- K k:1-5		// Psi Skill
- P p:-5		// Psi Strength
- E e:-5		// Stamina (Energy)
- H h:-5		// Health
- //
- C b:-10		// Extra warning for COWARDS!
- R r:6-10
- T t:6-10
- K k:6-10
- P p:6-10
- E e:6-10
- H h:6-10
- //
- B b:11-15
- R r:11-15
- T t:11-15
- K k:11-15
- P p:11-15
- E e:11-15
- H h:11-15
- //
- B b:16-20
- R r:16-20
- T t:16-20
- K k:16-20
- P p:16-20
- e e:16-20		// Stamina (Energy) only tested for 0 to 20 to find weaklings...
- h h:16-20		// Health only tested for 0 to 20 to find wimps...
- //
- b b:21-25
- r r:21-25
- t t:21-25
- k k:21-25
- p p:21-25
- //
- b b:26-30
- r r:26-30
- t t:26-30
- k k:26-30
- p p:26-30
- //
- b b:31-35
- r r:31-35
- t t:31-35
- k k:31-35
- p p:31-35
- //
- b b:36-40
- r r:36-40
- t t:36-40
- k k:36-40
- p p:36-40
- //
- // Display the first digit for TU's, Firing Accuracy, and Strength
- # dfs
- //
- // Strengths listed after weaknesses...
- b b:61-65
- r r:61-65
- t t:61-65
- k k:61-65
- p p:61-65
- //
- b b:66-70
- r r:66-70
- t t:66-70
- k k:66-70
- p p:66-70
- //
- b b:71-75
- r r:71-75
- t t:71-75
- k k:71-75
- p p:71-75
- //
- b b:76-80
- r r:76-80
- t t:76-80
- k k:76-80
- p p:76-80
- //
- B b:81-85
- R r:81-85
- T t:81-85
- K k:81-85
- P p:81-85
- //
- B b:86-90
- R r:86-90
- T t:86-90
- K k:86-90
- P p:86-90
- //
- B b:91-95
- R r:91-95
- T t:91-95
- K k:91-95
- P p:91-95
- //
- B b:96-
- R r:96-
- T t:96-
- K k:96-
- P p:96- /:-
- //
- // Soldier Class
- //
- // I have created several classes each with four ranks within the class. A soldier can
- // simultaneously qualify for multiple classes, but will only be tagged with the highest
- // one in this list that they qualify for. Most soldiers should be regular army, these are
- // merely meant as a way of quickly pointing out some specific combinations of stats that
- // could be useful to note.
- // Note: While there are only four ranks per class some ranks have multiple acceptable criteria.
- // This allows one stat to make up for another in some cases.
- //
- // Commando (This class is actually a combination of Marksman and Ranger... the all around badass.)
- *C f:90- d:80- r:65- b:20- s:30- e:40- h:20-
- *c f:80- d:70- r:65- b:20- s:20- e:30- h:20-
- ^C f:80- d:70- r:50- b:10- s:10- e:20- h:20-
- ^C f:70- d:70- r:60- b:10- s:10- e:20- h:20-
- ^C f:60- d:70- r:70- b:10- s:10- e:20- h:20-
- ^c f:70- d:60- r:40- b:10- s:10- e:10- h:20-
- ^c f:60- d:60- r:50- b:10- s:10- e:10- h:20-
- //
- // Marksman (You friendly neighborhood sniper.)
- *M f:90- r:65-
- *m f:80- r:65-
- ^M f:80- r:50-
- ^M f:70- r:60-
- ^M f:60- r:70-
- ^m f:70- r:40-
- ^m f:60- r:50-
- //
- // Ranger (Recon troops... the good at it, non-expendable kind.)
- *R d:80- r:65- b:30- s:30- e:40- h:20-
- *r d:70- r:65- b:20- s:20- e:30- h:20-
- ^R d:70- r:60- b:10- s:10- e:20- h:20-
- ^r d:60- r:50- b:10- s:10- e:10- h:20-
- //
- // Artilleryman (Special class, good for carrying heavy weapons and throwing stuff.
- // Plus brave enough not to kill the whole squad at the first sign of trouble..)
- *A f:50- d:60- b:30- s:70- e:80- h:50- t:30-
- *a f:50- d:60- b:20- s:60- e:70- h:40- t:30-
- ^A f:50- d:60- b:20- s:50- e:60- h:30- t:30-
- ^a f:50- d:60- b:20- s:40- e:50- h:30- t:20-
- ^a f:40- d:60- b:20- s:50- e:60- h:30- t:30-
- //
- // Scout (Recon troops... the expendable kind... though the top two ranks are more for a heads up on who's nearly ranger material.)
- *S d:80-
- *s d:70- f:51-
- *s d:70- r:51-
- ^S d:70- f:-50 r:-50
- ^s d:60- f:-50 r:-50
- //
- // Washout (Ditch these guys before they get you killed!)
- Wash b:-10 d:-50 f:-50 h:-30
- Wash d:-20
- Wash f:-20
- Wash d:-60 f:-60 h:-20
- //
- /StatStrings
- /NameStats
-Some notes on the classes. These are at the end of the statstrings so that I can make them mutually exclusive. It is technically possible for a soldier to meet the criteria for more than one of these classes. In such a case, however, the first one that qualifies will end the statstring and the second class will not be added to the soldier's name. So I made these to take advantage of that behavior, displaying the class that is most important to me. In fact the commando class is essentially a combination of ranger and marksman. I'll probably redo these too, but they have bee useful, especially because these classes only take two characters. I should note that what I hoped would be a military chevron "^" in game displays as an up arrow instead. *shrugs* It would certainly be possible to reduce these to a single character, though you'd be reduced to two ranks per class instead of four. However the other main use of the symbol characters is as a divider from the normal statstring. Anyway, like I said. I'll probably redo this.
-== SortStats ==
-Oh I also did my own custom sort order. I forgot about it and had actually pasted it in. I'll just chop it off on it's own, but leave it here anyway in case it proves useful.
- SortStats
- StatStrings
- //
- // This sort order is complex but should put important PsiSkill personnel in the rear for protection, along with cowards...
- // will put Rookies in the front to get the chance to become Squaddies and then gives me a nice sort of all remaining soldiers.
- //
- # +k-d-r+f		// Sort in ascending order by PsiSkill, descending order by TU's, and Reactions, then ascending order by Firing Accuracy
- R k:40-		// Move high PsiSkill to the rear
- # -a+R+b-d-r+f	// Sort by descending Armor, ascending Rank, Bravery, descending TU's, and Reations, and by ascending Firing Accuracy
- F R:-0		// Move all Rookies to the front... (So they can get kills and become Squaddies... as well as being expendable)
- # -a+b+d+f-r	// Sort by descending Armor, ascending Bravary, TU's, and Firing Accuracy, and descending Reactions
- F b:-20		// Move cowards to the front
- # -a+d+f-r		// Sort by descending Armor, ascending TU's, and Firing Accuracy, and descending Reactions
- //
- // # +R                    // Sort by Inc Rank
- // R R:4-                  // Move two highest Ranks to rear
- // # +f-r                  // Sort by Inc FireAcc, Dec Reactions
- // R k:40-                 // Move high PsiSkill to rear
- // R f:70-                 // Move marksmen to rear
- // F R:-0 p:-30            // Move weak-willed rookies to front
- /StatStrings
- /SortStats

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