What are PHALANX supposed to be? I.D.I.O.T.S.?

[Lew Yard]

Turns out that each potential recruit has a 1% chance to be an elite (vs. a generalist, or a specialist)... and they rock.  I found this out by leafing through the 2.4 source, but it's in stable -- I just found somebody whom I haven't hired yet, but with these stats:


Strength 32
Speed  28
Accuracy 37
Mind 43
Close Combat 28
Heavy Weapons 36
Assault Weapons 36
Sniper Rifles 29
High Explosives 30
Health 124



And another with Str 31, Spd 28, Acc 32, Mind 32, Close 29, Heavy 37, Assault 33, Sniper 39, High Exp 35, Health 114.

[Lew Yard]

And, incidentally, starting stats matter a lot -- the XP it takes to reach a given stat are based on how much higher it is than the original statistic, not the new value.  That is, it takes the same XP to go from e.g. Accuracy of 32 to Accuracy of 50, as it takes to go from an Accuracy of 17 to an Accuracy of 35, because both are 18 above the starting value.  And it's an exponential curve...

[Sarin]

I've noticed this a long time ago. So in my game, I've been saveloading at the end of each month to get at least one elite among new recruits, and made my primary team only from those. Now, one of them has made it to Lt.Col, and they finally shoot like real soldiers.

[XCOMTurcocalypse]

Perhaps like XCOM Apocalypse, a training room could be added? It was a real blast and a reason to mass construct bases and house lots of troops early on so that even though the fighting would go on, every passing week would give you a personal army for the final clash.

[fabittar]

I think whoever started this thread got it the wrong way round; you see, the PHALANX is not supposed to be an elite army but rather a strange concoction of old weaponry, whatever the countries/blocks could (willingly) spare and a very tight budget. It's the last stand, yes, but as with everything else in real life, it's bound by international laws and politics (and their own nasty schemes and avarice). Some politicians and/or military men are secretly hoping PHALANX will fail. Others just want to make a profit out of the whole deal. It's the way of life.

Just look at the US and their two-faced approach to environmental laws; everybody knows they're the lead contributors to an incoming disaster, corrupt/imoral men like senator Kerry will say to the press that something's being done while behind the scene they're all plotting to keep on polluting the planet for profit.

Why do you think it should be different if/when the aliens invade Earth?

*EDIT* Lol, this is looney talk. Just so you know, I'm aware there're no aliens about (at least not to my knowledge) and this is all an allegory.

[Hertzila]

PHALANX is supposed to be an elite unit but since the game would then lose some bit of its RPG-y aspect of skill developement, it doesn't seem like that in the field. Personally, I think your guys are all trained to be elites but have little-to-no field experience. They know every bit on how to maintain weapons and know its internal mechanics, they have received "training"/education in battle tactics and possibly field medicine, but have only used them in a few exercises.
Also, besides politics, what do you think happened to the actual elites you're supposed to have? They got sent to the initial battles to fend off the aliens. We all know how well those battles went...

On the other hand, in research though...

[CheeseshireCat]

We have an "elite" unit assembled by the earth governments to fight the aliens because the army couldn't do anything (wish i saw the army, can they even hold the rifle?).

I play on standard difficulty and didn't encounter anything what is described in this thread... But what I want to reply is kinda not on that topic, but a response to the quoted line -- YES, the regular army can't even HOLD the rifle. It was my pet peeve about the former "Convoy" map -- where aliens supposedly attack a military convoy, and none of those soldiers have even a pistol :)