Promotions

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this before but it'd be nice to have some control over promotions. As it is the game seems to select random troopers to promote.  That means that some squaddie with 1 mission and 1 kill winds up getting promoted to Commander of all Xcom forces over a squaddie who has 15 missions and 30 kills to his credit.  That's messed up.

When promotions are in order the player should be allowed to choose from among "qualified candidates".  I assume that would mean that the only promotion rookies are ever going to get is to squaddie.  Lot of times promotions occur due to... an unexpected opening in the ranks.  I don't mind that the game might put SOME restrictions on who earns a promotion but as it stands there seems almost no rhyme or reason to it.  Certain troops just seem to get "fast tracked" to be officers - OBLIVIOUS of their actual in-game performance.

Even if the game retains absolute control over promotions the BASIS of those promotions needs to make more sense.

[kharille]

Yeah, my psi strength 100 colonel gets all the kills, and yet some other colonel got promoted...  its annoying...

[Mr. Quiet]

I actually like when that happens. Proves Murphy's Laws are right and I can keep him safe inside the Skyranger mainly because he's High Command, but he's useless as well. Keeps all the well skilled, low ranked operatives on the field where they belong. If one of them passes away, it doesn't affect morale as much. I try to keep all my ops safe though

[Danny]

Speaking of Murphy's law:

"When you finally get a Psi lab all your officers will turn out to be Psi weaklings..." XD

[Man in the Funny Hat]

My recent research indicates that promotions are based on a formula that is not just based on "performance" but is heavily weighted by stats.  Once promoted to squaddie, even if he's not doing anything, the fact that a trooper just has better stats is what gets guys promoted.  # of missions and # of kills is a factor but promotions gets wierd because those seem to be heavily outwieghed by basic stats.  I'm sure it'd feel more sensible to me if the first promotions were over-weighted to number of missions and kills rather than high stats.  Better stats should be downgraded in importance to being closer to a tiebreaker between promotion candidates and a captain who sits in a base accumulating no mission credits and no kills should NEVER be promoted over someone with more missions and more kills.  Continued performance should be necessary for continued promotion.  if that formula can be changed that way then I will no longer feel that all promotion authority should be taken away from the game engine.