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[Rolan7]

Argh this UK start location is giving me hard choices.  Why can't the choices be easy!! (I think I heard the start locations for each country are preset, which means they did this on purpose)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=497787585

I know that countries are going to ask for this crap from the supply ship, but if I sell enough of it now I could get two satellites up next month.  Which is dumb since I could do that with the monthly cash influx.  I shouldn't be satellite rushing.  I certainly shouldn't be rushing to meet a request from Nigeria when I'm in no state to actually intercept there.  2 engineers, woooo.
I mean, yeesh, I'm down two interceptors...  Maybe I should just commit to Europe for now, cover Germany and France next month and buy replacement interceptors.

please please let the terror mission be some other continent.  Even if I manage to defeat it this time, sooo many civs are going to die.

Personnel grenades seem useless for now.  2 damage on an absolutely direct hit after DR, and that falls off fast (plus no cover destruction or penetration).  HE grenades are similar, but at least destroy cover (though even that's nerfed from vanilla).  I just got an engineer though, looks like they have perks for improving all that.

motion sensor

Oh yeah I bought one of those and forgot to try it, sounds rad.  And stealthy scouts sound amazing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm almost considering selling some elerium, the vilest series-spanning heresy

[Urist Imiknorris]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm almost considering selling some elerium, the vilest series-spanning heresy

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

sell it sell it sell it sell it

Seriously, it'll probably bottleneck you in year two, but the money now will help you get there at all.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly, I'd say that the flat-out best starting location in LW is now Nigeria. +1 Mobility to all your troops, forever. Your Scouts and Medics will get another point on their own, but IIRC even with Hidden Potential nobody else does. You can pick up other stat bonuses via satellite coverage, but not that one. You get reliable scaling on all other stats, but not that one. It shows, too; from the very first mission I typically get a solid 40%+ of my kills from flanking, and that only goes up once Assaults and Scouts start turning into machines.

Granted, probably not worth the risk if you're not playing with Absolutely Critical and don't have the team comp to rush down entire pods.

That supply ship mission is technically supposed to be the first hint about sometimes needing to retreat, but if you do take it, it puts the aliens on the back foot for a looong time, usually enough to establish yourself.

--

If you're looking for a fun option that doesn't directly fiddle with numbers, the one that requires you to retake all countries before doing the Temple Ship is good for extending the game even further.

[Chiefwaffles]

I've never had Elerium or Alloy shortages throughout all my playthroughs (admittedly mostly normal and some classic. No LW though).
The only bottleneck is just money. I immediately spend 50%+ of the council funding as soon as I get it, then spend the rest of the month desperately scrounging for funds to buy that shiny new laser rifle.

After all, a couple rotting alien corpses are worth roughly the same amount as a laser rifle, right?

[Orb]

In Long War you'll hit an alien alloys shortage very quickly, and carry that for the rest of the game. You pray you shoot down that UFO, because then you can attempt to raid it for alloys.

Late game you might run out of elerium, but that depends on what you go for and how much you sold.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Honestly, I'd say that the flat-out best starting location in LW is now Nigeria. +1 Mobility to all your troops, forever. Your Scouts and Medics will get another point on their own, but IIRC even with Hidden Potential nobody else does. You can pick up other stat bonuses via satellite coverage, but not that one.

That mobility bonus is amazing, to be sure. I don't know how the statbuy works, but Australia's +5 to it might generate some good troops.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly, I'd say that the flat-out best starting location in LW is now Nigeria. +1 Mobility to all your troops, forever. Your Scouts and Medics will get another point on their own, but IIRC even with Hidden Potential nobody else does. You can pick up other stat bonuses via satellite coverage, but not that one.

That mobility bonus is amazing, to be sure. I don't know how the statbuy works, but Australia's +5 to it might generate some good troops.

The Australia one isn't bad, but it's not as good as people think, since a lot of folks apparently assumed that that 1 point = 1 point in any stat.

Directly from the creator's keyboard:

Unfortunatly the Rookie initial stats stuff I ended up having to hard-code in a rather hacked-up manner due to some problems with not having access to local variables in the RandomizeStats and RollForStat code.
>> HP = 3; Offense = 50; Defense = -5; Mobility = 9; Will = 16
The above represents the floor for stats. All stat randomization adds to the above. In vanilla it started with the average and used +/- from there, but I coded it starting from the lowest and adding stats.

There is a "points" system present. By default each rookie gets 48 points for stats. If World Diversity is enabled (without Strict Screening) then each rookie gets 38 + rand(11) + rand(11) starting points instead.

Stats are worth the following points:
HP : 6 points
Mobility : 4 points
Aim : 1 point
Defense : 1 point
Will : 1 point

How it's actually rolled works like so:
1) Roll Mobility -- 4 50% rolls, so +0-4 mobility
2) Roll HP -- 2 50% rolls, so +0-2 HP
3) Roll Aim -- 3 rolls of 2 * rand(6), so +0-10 for each roll and +0-30 aim total
4) Roll Defense -- 2 rolls of rand(6), so +0-5 for each roll and +0-10 defense total
5) Remaining points into Will

At each step the either the 50% coin toss or the rand(6) roll is tweaked based on the remaining points vs expected points left which helps keep the final points spent to the total allowed for the soldier.

For example, a soldier with 48 points to spend after having rolled Mobility and HP on average will have 34 points remaining (6 points spent on +1 HP and 8 points spent on +2 Mobility for 14 out of 48 points spent). Each aim roll is adjusted with the formula :
>> AimIncrease = 2 * Min(5, int(FRand() * float(6) * float(RemainingPoints) / float(19+5*(3-NumberAimRollsMade)) ))

So the first roll has :
AimIncrease = 2 * Min(5, int(FRand() * float(6) * float(RemainingPoints) / float(34)
Second roll has :
AimIncrease = 2 * Min(5, int(FRand() * float(6) * float(RemainingPoints) / float(29)
Third roll has :
AimIncrease = 2 * Min(5, int(FRand() * float(6) * float(RemainingPoints) / float(24)

What this does is biases the randomization up or down based on previous rolls. If lots of points have already been spent then it's less likely to get high rolls, and conversely if few points have been spent its more likely to get higher rolls.

Currently to change how the stats are randomized requires changing the hex code in both RandomizeStats and RollForStat. I do have a plan to eventually tie key parameters to the DGC.ini variables but haven't got to it yet.

So Australia would at best get you some combination of +1 mobility and +1 to one of the weak stats, or +5 distributed among the weak stats. It's definitely not worth taking if you take Strict Screening (because the bonus is averaged out), and taking it without Commander's Choice is chancy because you could end up with the wrong stats increased for half your troops.

And, again, +1 Mob. is more reliable because it keeps troops alive and opens up opportunities. Aim plateaus eventually, you can create Will monsters with proper perk selection, and if you play long enough you'll have Master Sergeants getting their random +1s (which, notably, can go to any stat EXCEPT Mobility).

[Graknorke]

In Long War you'll hit an alien alloys shortage very quickly, and carry that for the rest of the game. You pray you shoot down that UFO, because then you can attempt to raid it for alloys.

Don't you get more alloys if you let it land? I always thought that's the way it was.

[crazysheep]

There is a chance of blowing up the UFO during the intercept attempt, which gives you no salvage at all.

[i2amroy]

Don't you get more alloys if you let it land? I always thought that's the way it was.

Yeah, but there's no actual guarantee that it will land. It's totally possible it decides to not make an emergency landing regardless of how damaged it is, or that when it lands it will trigger an abduction mission rather than a landing one, both of which will screw you out of alloys completely.

[BigFatStupidHead]

...

Interesting, thanks for the breakdown! It might not have the most current numbers, as I have a bunch of rooks with a move of 15, which doesn't look to be possible as written. Judging from the way the generator works, the +5 shouldn't give you any more move than normal troops due to the +4 move cap during generation. It will make more well rounded troops though.

[BFEL]

Yeah, also note that Australia doesn't seem to put any points into Defense either, unfortunately. So while before I was singing its praises, I think you should go Nigeria or South America for "maximum supersoldier"

While I'm here, still trying to solve the problem where my scouts don't want to have three perk choices

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

; 21 = Sniper subclass Scout
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=21,      Squaddie=0,    Corporal1=ePerk_Lightning_Reflexes,           Sergeant1=ePerk_Foundry_MedikitII,            Lieutenant1=ePerk_BattleScanner,             Captain1=ePerk_ReinforcedArmor,               Major=ePerk_Sprinter,            Colonel1=ePerk_SmokeandMirrors       )
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=21,      Squaddie=0,    Corporal1=ePerk_DamnGoodGround,            Sergeant1=ePerk_Gunslinger,                Lieutenant1=ePerk_Aggression,                Captain1=ePerk_InTheZone,                    Major=ePerk_Medal_CouncilB,             Colonel1=ePerk_XenobiologyOverlays    )
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=21,      Squaddie=0,    Corporal1=ePerk_TracerBeams,             Sergeant1=ePerk_LowProfile,                   Lieutenant1=ePerk_Flush,                     Captain1=ePerk_BringEmOn,           Major=ePerk_TacticalSense,         Colonel1=ePerk_ExtraConditioning    )
; 25 = Scout stat bonuses
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=25,      Squaddie=100,    Corporal1=000,                         Sergeant1=10,                            Lieutenant1=000,                         Captain1=000,                            Major=000,                     Colonel1=000 )
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=25,      Squaddie=100,    Corporal1=000,                         Sergeant1=10,                            Lieutenant1=000,                         Captain1=000,                            Major=000,                     Colonel1=000 )
SoldierPerkTrees=(SoldierType=25,      Squaddie=100,    Corporal1=000,                         Sergeant1=000,                            Lieutenant1=000,                         Captain1=000,                            Major=000,                     Colonel1=144 )

Is there some obvious mistake I'm missing in here or am I gonna have to assume that scouts just CAN'T have concealment as their "base perk"?

[umiman]

I prefer the one that gives everyone more aim.

Mostly because while everyone having more movement is nice, when it comes down to it, I think being able to hit things is still more important.

It's also why I give everyone scopes and aim increasers.

[Flying Dice]

The thing about Mobility is that it makes it easier to flank or shove a shotgun in something's face, which is much more effective in terms of ensuring you hit/kill. +3 Aim is, like, a low roll on a class that doesn't get much aim when leveling up. Not bad, but there are a lot of better things out there.

[BFEL]

yeah but +3 to aim is basically nothing while +1 to mobility or HP is significant.