Rookies: How do you treat them?

[The Demi-Godly One]

How humaine.

[NKF]

Heh, I usually do the same, but I call them grenadiers, and arm them with a pistol or laser pistol. While the veterans can shoot a pinhead from across the map accurately, my rookies can turn a farm building inside out.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

You can just feel the love. :inlove:

[Bomb Bloke]

I treat rookies as one of the crowd. I've played to many games to not know what an NPC is, but I don't sacrifce a troop, as they might be useful later on. Even a weak psi troop is dead useful on an Etheral mission.

[ignore my tentacles]

I'm a strong advocate of the trial by combat approach myself. In the absence of pain sticks, the troops have got to prove their worth through actual battle-craft. I use 'em as Snipers, Medics, Grenadiers and assault troops. All have Personal Armour to begin with, otherwise that would be just plain mean. Promotion to squaddie nets you a Power suit. Sergeant and above wins you the 'Magic Floating Armoured Tank-top'.

 

Depending on the total no. of troops I'm commiting to an operation, I send 4-6 Rookies, all wearing a white bandanna and sipping from small porcelain cups of sake. As they leave the landing craft they turn to the C.O. and say "We, who are about to die in a cynical and callous attempt to draw that final sectoid from his lair, salute you." If 75% of the rookies die horribly, but the rest level up- it's worth it in my book.

[bevan]

kamikaze troops work, give em a stun rod and a few grenades and send em hunting

[The Demi-Godly One]

Is it really worth it to do that? I mean that's a pretty expensive way to get rid of enemies.

[bevan]

my snipers pick off the rest of the aliens to save the kamikaze. An alien corpse and the artefacts can buy a soldier and the equipment he needs and still save some money

[The Demi-Godly One]

What if the soldier gets shot before he reaches the enemy? Then he won't be able to do a kamikaze. I I don't think the kamikaze would work well against mutons, they are just too tough.

[bevan]

yeah, but the fireworks are a lot better than if you just fire them

[Alkaline]

My Favourite Tactic is to use 4 or 5 teams of two, with each team having a rookie/squaddie and officer or N-C-O. Glancing at the stats of each team, and the mission requirements, I decide the equipment - if I need an AntiArmour Team, I give an officer the rocket launcher, with a pistol and rocket in his backpack. His assigned rookie gets a rifle, and backpack full of rockets, and support items like med kits and smoke grenades. A Scout team would have a rifle rookie, and a pistol wielding, motion scanning officer(even though switching their weapons would make more sense..). Occasionally, I might just kit out a team of 4 rookies, with rifles to lead the main offensive - not using them as cannon fodder, but as non specialized troops...

[Lord FlatHead]

Cannon Fodder. After they've survived a few missions I evaluate them, see what their skills are, give them a unique name and start being more protective of them.

[Ice2056]

My rookies are treated as one of the guys; they don't have the same "load privileges" though. A killed commander gets an instant exit-and-load, rookies don't most of the time. Unless it's a small UFO, I can't stand losing units to a small UFO. Oh and in hard times they're the last to get armour of course .

[Jman4117]

Out on a limb:

Sargents (usually at front anyway) go out first and neal at skyranger's wheels, then the rookies go out and storm the UFO. More casualties this way but the rookies that survive end up with better training (three guys live but get 2+ kills each).

[The Demi-Godly One]

I actaully use my rookies as the snipers until there accuracy gets as high as everone else's.(But of course then everyone is used as a sniper)

[Kevillian]

Well, after I have evolved my core of elite soldiers, then I like to hire alot of rookies and send out teams of rookies to investigate crashsites, under the command of an officer and a sergeant both in the best armour available. I find that if the rookies are just treated the same as everyone else then they usually die before they can improve very much as all the others bag the kills. When they are in rookie squads they can improve at the same rate as the squad. The officers are just there to ensure things don't get out of control.

 

Of course, I wouldn't take rookies along to dangerous missions as that would be too much for them.

 

And eventually some of the rookies become pretty good soldiers, which really does make you glow when they go on to supervise other rookies on other bases :*)

[Rosstoid]

I just realised. Bomberman is a great way to enter UFOs. A replacable bomberman rookie with no mission experience can load itself with primed high-explosives and grenades and a gun. When he enters a UFO (with those small sized ones the danger is that 3 aliens may be waiting with reaction points, so smaller UFOs may be more dangerous for veterans than terrorships and supplyships) and he gets a good shot at the aliens before they can shoot at him, let him shoot. But if he gets hit the moment he enters the UFO, the primed explosives and grenades fall to the ground, killing or wounding the aliens around the door and creating a smoke shield so the next soldiers can enter more easily.

[Fox]

You can flush the aliens out of the UFO, turning the tables a bit. Just throw a grenade on the other side of the UFO, opposite the door, and the aliens come out, scared. Set up reaction teams and it'll be a kill fest.

[Jman4117]

That also works if you throw it on the outside of the UFO on the far side.The explosion kinda gets through the wall I think. Really effective with Sectiods and Floaters. Can also use a prox. nade to soften'em up as they exit.

[Kernel]

I usualy team up a rookie with a more experienced soldier. The rookie always takes the first shot to gain experience but if he misses then the more experienced soldier takes the alien down.

 

All my soldiers are armed with the same equipment except for the highest ranking soldier I have in the battle who has a blaster launcher.

[Rosstoid]

Really? So if I toss a grenade on the wall of a UFO directly opposite the door, regardless of whether a hole is there or not, the explosion scares aliens out of the UFO? Cool! This is going to make recovery of large and medium scouts more easy. The biggest problem I had with taking medium scouts (I think they are the small one room ones with a power source in the center) was that there may be 3 aliens waiting to blow apart any X-Com troops that venture through. Looks like I won't have to try bomberman tactics no more.

[NKF]

You needn't waste any grenades at all. If you just wait, they'll all file out of the ship anyway. However certain ships have one alien that gets spawned inside the UFO that doesn't move at all.

 

In particular, the Large Scout, the Abducter and the Supply ships have one of these. You normally have to send someone in to take care of them. And since they do not move, they have a distinct advantage against you for reaction fire precedence.

 

Still, for the larger ships, the high explosive shells to the ceiling trick with the the cannons tend to deal with them just nicely. Or there's always the two blaster bombs to the command room trick everyone seems to favour.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

To prevent the alien that is waiting near the doorway (The one that's supposed to take a shot on reaction fire) from shooting at me. I just send in a mind controlled alien to do the job for me. (Or take the bullets). Although this doesn't work if you don't have psi yet...