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[Descan]

The class thing doesn't need work? Why would it? The default ones are just templates, to show you what it can do. I think you're *expected* to modify them. I know I always do.

[Aklyon]

@Rockets
Yes, they're heavy, so is the other heavy weapon, and both weapons' ammo are notable heavier than standard ammunitions. But you know what improves xenonaut strength? Holding a lot of gear. (holding too much on the otherhand, makes them uselessly slow) My starting rocketeer (used to be two, but since they use percentage-based TUs for shooting the machine gunners are more worthwhile to me) is nearly always the strongest survivor per mission. Stun rockets are a thing (a useful thing), alenium rockets are a free no-manufacturing-required upgrade, and sometimes the best solution to your problem is to eradicate the problem and save your soldiers.

For the starting team, I generally go into one rifleman, keep the medkit so I have redundant medics regardless of who dies, and stock him up on grenades and clips until he's slightly overweight, and the save that as the default and equip said default to everyone except the starting sniper and heavy gunner (later when armor comes, the amount of ammo is toned down, or a couple grenades might leave). The second-highest accuracy becomes the backup sniper, the highest strength rifleman becomes the rocketeer (these two are often the same person, which is annoying but generally gives me an accurate rocketeer unless the first sniper dies rather early), and whoever is left after that with the highest HP gets a shield, a pistol, and a large quantity of grenades to scout with. Stun batons and extra grenades go to anyone who isn't overly encumbered or a heavy weapons if needed.

[muwahahaha]

and both weapons' ammo are notable heavier than standard ammunitions.

Once you hit lasers, the laser machinegun uses the same lightweight AA battery that all the other laser guns have

On another note, I'm now confident there's something hinky with the air combat autoresolve, I usually do it manually but decided to test the single foxtrot vs scout thing a bit more. Without even touching the keyboard when I go into the tactical air battle I win 100% of the time with no damage (alenium torpedoes hit before the scout is in range), but autoresolving results in serious damage (usually the plane is down to below 20% health) which leads to extensive downtime.

So I'd strongly recommend not autoresolving that particular matchup for the time being.

[Neonivek]

It kind of reminds me a lot of the Total War series

Where I'd always autoresolve attacks on keeps, castles, and walled cities because they always underestimate how difficult it is to take those. As well because it ONLY measures the "statistical power" of a unit rather then its strategic usefulness so Mounted Archers (who are pretty good) are basically near useless in autoresolve.

In otherwords it is likely because the autoresolve for Xenonauts takes some sort of statistical value from your set up but not its real advantages and disadvantages and applies them inaccurately.

[Aklyon]

and both weapons' ammo are notable heavier than standard ammunitions.

Once you hit lasers, the laser machinegun uses the same lightweight AA battery that all the other laser guns have

Which is...not really that big a deal? The machinegun isn't going to shoot any faster. I suppose it gives you room to hand the heavy gunner a smoke grenade or something.

[muwahahaha]

Which is...not really that big a deal? The machinegun isn't going to shoot any faster. I suppose it gives you room to hand the heavy gunner a smoke grenade or something.

Well it means that he can carry enough ammo for the battle, enough grenades and possibly a pistol as well.

Regarding my auto resolve woes, it seems to have been limited to foxtrots with alenium torpedoes. Now that they're toting plasma torps its giving me the expected result.

Also how the fuck do I find an alien leader? I'm now late February and I can't find one to capture. I'm shooting down loads of ships and doing all the ground battles but the highest rank I can find is officers. Do they show up in landing ships and corvettes or do I need to wait for something bigger?

[Jacob/Lee]

I think I found one hanging around the command center of an alien base, but it's been a while since I played. Just be careful with the telepads.

[Descan]

Alien base is your best bet.

[GlyphGryph]

They appear pretty reliably in battleships as well, I believe.

[TempAcc]

Autoresolve isn't always the best option though. If you have multiple UFOs sighted and you have enough fuel to engage 2 or more of them, you should probably do a manual battle and take out the light scouts using only the main gun, saving the missiles to take out other/bigger craft in the same assignment.  Autoresolve always seems to waste every missile on the first encounter regardless of the size of the UFO, for me at least.

In other news, shield guys with laser pistols are great if they have lots of TUs and some accuracy. My hungarian shield guy is gaining ranks so fast that I'm tempted to use more of them in my team.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I always use Xenonauts with high TU+Accuracy, and if high strength they become a heavy weapon platform of some sort. Nothing below 40's at base recruitment is allowed. They'd die too fast to be worth hiring in those cases, I like to pick recruits that have 50's across the board.

[GlyphGryph]

If I limited myself to recruits with 50s across the board or even nothing below 40, I'd run out troops too quickly to ever run ground missions.

I tend to value accuracy most highly, followed by TUs followed by strength. Though if I'm recruiting for particular roles that might change.

Strength means more and better grenades, and the ability to wear heavy armor and carry a medkit and plenty of ammo. TUs really only help with movement, but being able to position more effectively is honestly pretty huge.

Accuracy, though. Accuracy is a big one. The best way to deal with aliens is to kill them before they kill you, and accuracy is the best way to pull that off. It's the stat you can effectively never have so much of that you don't desperately want more.

For assaults: I swap out accuracy and reflexes. Accuracy is still great, but point blank shots make it a good bit less important, and if they survive a handful of missions they'll be fine. Reflexes makes that more likely to happen, and also let's them reliably cover doorways to deal with ambushes that might come up while I'm positioning guys. They'll usually do stints training with pistols and shields to help improve this skill.

For snipers: TUs are a good deal less important here, since it's generally "find a good position with LOS behind and preferably above everyone else, and then just sit there". In this position only accuracy and to a lesser extent strength really matter (better armor and grenades so they can help with breaching if it comes to that). I had a Sniper in my last game who got up to 97 accuracy before kicking the bucket, and it was glorious to just be like "Okay, I can reliably kill one enemy per turn".

For my breachers (shield and grenades), it's high health and high TU and high Strength. Accuracy? Pfft. Reactions? These guys *should* be drawing fire. STR means armor and shield and enough grenades, and high TU means they can get in, throw them, and then get out of the way for the gunners to move in and mop up once the enemies are suppressed.

My "great stats across the board" dudes tend to become heavies or rifleman, and my rocketeers are pulled from the guys who aren't worth using for anything else but have enough strength to hold at least a spare rocket or two.

In other news
I finally lost a hold on things in my most recent game. I really thought I was gonna make it all the way. I managed to wipe both my A and B teams in two consecutive missions, though, and my air superiority, which had been doing amazing up until then, finally started faltering against the huge battleship waves. I need to start producing Marauders earlier and produce more than I did, which means more (dangerous) raids against carriers and the like to scoop Alenium and extra cash instead of bombing them for as long as I did. Should have recruited a whole bunch of crap rookies and let them have their trial by fire by going full rocket teams while training up the promising ones in smaller easier raids.

One of the failed missions was an Andron and Harridan terror mission. So I lost India, and everyone was pissed, and I was out of Alenium and I no longer have anyone capable of reliably making battleship raids. God damn.

Welp, 7th times the charm, right?

(Veteran difficulty, I can only imagine how much worse insane is)

How many bases do you guys tend to run, and when do you build them?

[Aklyon]

If your rocketeer can only hold two rockets, either they're not particularly strong (and thus not a great heavy weapons guy in the first place), or you've got heavy armor available (which is probably more helpful, but two rockets isn't very many...). I want at least 3 on mine, because one of them tends to be a stun rocket until those become less relevant.

[GlyphGryph]

Here's the thing though, like I said I give the rockets to my garbage recruits. They tend to get the cheaper armor and still be pretty weak, but everyone on the team brings rockets. They just drop them in the skyranger for the rockeeteer to pick up later. It doesn't matter if he can only carry two rockets at a time if there's a stockpile back on the ranger and I'm moving cautiously enough to give them time to reload.

Edit:
Also, I'm going to make a new thread for this game. This one annoys me *so much* since it's still talking about frickin' Kickstarter in the title.

[lastverb]

Bravery and reflex for all my guys, except disposable scouts. Everything else is easy to train. I find grenades to be most reliable weapons - stun gas ones, single one takes care of any problem / multiple problems if your problems are not robotic.
Shields are op - 80hp that doesn't need healing? Well, half of your squad will be using pistols. Most fearsome enemies? Reapers of course, those things move half the map and still eat your guy up. Once you get a hang of air combat you will not loose any aircraft to enemies, you will not even get a hit, however from time to time i still loose some to lack of fuel (they use shitload of fuel in battle).
As far as xcom games go on i'm waiting for apocalypse (re)make. It's original features were cut so much, and i still find it best game in the series.