Soldiers to recruit.... elite....

[Recruit69]

I'm sure many people do this....

Buy Rookies.

Check their stats, if rubbish, use them as bait in battles or sack them..... hire more....

repeat till you have a bunch of clever naturally talented soldiers.

But what about this?

An option to recruit a soldier, of say, specialises in accuracy.... or  reactions.... or strength (Arnold Swagnegger!) or bravery.....only the one stat though to avoid excessive hiring of the special soldiers and of course retain the micromanagement feel...! Rest of the stats are still randomised at normal rookie values, as it still reflects the fact that they are inexperienced.

So a standard soldier costs $40,000. But a "specialist" soldier would cost, say £120,000

Thoughts?

[BlackLibrary]

Difficult to do.  There are no standard grouping of soliders.  It could be milked so that the expensive option chooses a different stat generation modifier or something.  But they would still get listed as "soldier".  Such could would get tricky because if one bought a mix of soldiers and elite, the engine would have to go through multiple loops to generate as expected.

They're monthly cost would also be 120K...A cadre of 5 of these eliter mercs would more than a skyranger each month.

[Aldorn]

I'm sure many people do this....

Right, I did

An option to recruit a soldier, of say, specialises in accuracy.... or  reactions.... or strength (Arnold Swagnegger!) or bravery.....only the one stat though to avoid excessive hiring of the special soldiers and of course retain the micromanagement feel...! Rest of the stats are still randomised at normal rookie values, as it still reflects the fact that they are inexperienced.

So a standard soldier costs $40,000. But a "specialist" soldier would cost, say £120,000

I personally decided to raise some attributes in my own mod to avoid such a temptation. All salaries have also been raised (x2).
But a way to have different profiles at different cost could be interesting, even if I think it could have some impacts on some screens.

They're monthly cost would also be 120K...A cadre of 5 of these eliter mercs would more than a skyranger each month.

Right, but it's just a question of balancing. And what is a Skyranger with no valuable crew...

[Solarius Scorch]

The best way to enable this would be to allow for multiple soldier types. This is already in the ruleset, kind of, but the code itself only supports one unit type: X-Com agents (HWPs and the like are a different matter; they don't use equipment, don't gain experience etc.).

If more types are enabled, then you could have several tiers/types of soldiers, perhaps even unlockable by tech. And it would be great for conversion mods, like fantasy X-Com (various fantasy races).

[Hobbes]

If more types are enabled, then you could have several tiers/types of soldiers, perhaps even unlockable by tech. And it would be great for conversion mods, like fantasy X-Com (various fantasy races).

You could have the Chuck Norris class: 200 TUs, 200 Firing Accuracy and 200 Melee Accuracy, obtainable through researching Muton bodies.

[Recruit69]

You could have the Chuck Norris class: 200 TUs, 200 Firing Accuracy and 200 Melee Accuracy, obtainable through researching Muton bodies.

Yes, but you could only have a maximum of ONE Chuck Norris, after all, there's no one else quite like Chuck Norris himself!

[Hobbes]

Yes, but you could only have a maximum of ONE Chuck Norris, after all, there's no one else quite like Chuck Norris himself!

Why would you need more than one Chuck Norris? The aliens would start running for their UFOs once they saw him

[Solarius Scorch]

Why would you need more than one Chuck Norris? The aliens would start running for their UFOs once they saw him

Speaking of the 80's heroes, can we also have the Pamela Anderson version? Automatically casts Mind Control on all units that see her from the front...

[Falko]

but if you have a floater in polar region above water pamela runs to save the poor guy
wasn't that more 90s than 80s?

[Solarius Scorch]

wasn't that more 90s than 80s?

Well, I wanted to use someone else first, but decided that they might be a bit too obscure.

[niculinux]

I'm sure many people do this....

Buy Rookies.

Check their stats, if rubbish, use them as bait in battles or sack them..... hire more....

repeat till you have a bunch of clever naturally talented soldiers

Wel actually all these i hired never sacked anyone then, they fought with me till death

[Recruit69]

Even those with high risk of panicking to blow your team apart from psi attack?

[niculinux]

Even those with high risk of panicking to blow your team apart from psi attack?

Yep, but then ragequitting strikes O_o mhhh that' probably why i never finised ever the vsniola ufo enemy unknown!!!

[Sturm]

Has anyone considered how to program multiple soldier types?

[new_civilian]

I added buyable merc units in my personal mod combo, HOWEVER they will not improve, can't kneel, can't use armor and use a fixed-weapon pistol. They are technically spoken HWPs. They are excellent rank-fillers at the beginning of the game, but become obsolote very fast.