Was curious if anyone else out there has very strict minimum requires for their soldiers like I do.

If I buy 10 soliders, I'll likely only keep 2 or 3 of them. Basically, any solider who does have at LEAST 50 reactions, 60 firing accuracy, and 30 bravery, gets canned out of my squad before their first mission.

Basically, I got tired of guys not having decent reaction fire (and this is a PAIN to increase even after tons of kills), and having poor firing accuracy from the getgo is a huge hinderence. Peronally, I don't care about stamina, health, strength, time units, etc. Those stats are really easy to raise.

So when I go out on my missions with 8 or 10 guys, they all have great firing and reactions. I generally use 2 or 3 more guys with crappy ole' stats as "red shirts" or "fodder" to scout the area. If they get killed, I'm not complaining.

Unfortunately, the cost of using this method is kinda high becuase you end up purchasing alot of soldiers to meet the minimum specs, but in the end it's been worth it for me.

Curious to know what other people do.

I want them with at least

>= 40 bravery (no cowards)
>= 30 strength (no weaklings)

Those who don't meet that requirements are either sacked or used as cannon fodder (usually the last one, at least the can do something useful)

Those who are discovered to be MC weak in combat are likely to be sacked/used as fodder as well.

I don't care about the other stats because I raise them quite quickly (except reactions maybe), and the ones who are not good in accuracy and with a bit of strength (> 35) are to be used as grenadiers... and now that I have vibroblades I give them it so they can fry lobsters (very useful if you approach them the right way).

I frankly don't seive my soldiers in any manner at all anymore, except by their resistance to psionic attacks.

You never know when Joe Cripple has the fabled 100 point resistence stat. John Omnipotent may turn out so weak willed that even a sea cucumber will be able to influence him subtly.

Poor stats can be fixed, and even then, can be worked around with sonic pulsers. Lots of sonic pulsers[1]! Resistence to psi cannot. That's the way I go about viewing soldiers in UFO and TFTD these days. And its been working just fine.

- NKF

[1] For those who did not know, chucking a grenade and killing an alien with it WILL improve your firing accuracy plus all the stats that killing an alien will improve, like TU's and strength. Sounds too far fetched? Arm a fresh new soldier with nothing but grenades and have him kill all his enemies with them for a mission or two, then check his stats again.

Serious? I did NOT know that killing aliens with grenades would increase firing accuracy. Wow, I rarely used grenades because of that reason. Now I'll have to start using them more regularly.

Yes, it does In my current game one of my heroes improved her reactions by 10 or so and 20 points of accuracy (I'm in May of 1st year)

My, aren't you being a little harsh on those poor recruits? It takes about one mission to raise the strength stat from 20 to 30. Just encumber the soldier heavily and let him run around someplace. His strength will shoot up after the mission. This is the last stat I'd ever consider reason for sacking.

Cazbol

That's why I usually use weaklings as cannon fodder... if they cease to be weaklings they shall stay as normal soldiers.... note that if the guy is a weakling but the other stats are good (accuracy for example) I won't use them as fodder either....

Above all, I hate it when I get a soldier with a boatload of kills and sweet stats and then find out he's susceptible to mind controlling, argh. I don't bother sending my guys through MC labs to find out who has a weak mind, I prefer taking them out on a Tasoth or Aquatoid mission and finding out first hand. That way I can kill the person immediately. It's bad for my score, sure, but, the gratification I get from whacking my own dude in the back of the head with a shot from a Sonic Cannon can't be beat.