MrWhereItsAt

Thanks Kret, Landon_Fox - exactly what I needed to know.

Hi again guys. I'm happily marching way through the game having started in Europe. I currently own all of Europe, half of Africa and Asia as far as Tibet. I'm thinking of doing the Area 51 mission next as I'm running out of research topics. This time round I have found my soldiers are not dying, and they are getting pretty mean. But what I found myself wondering about is just what do those stat increases do. For example, of course a soldier that has a good level for 'Rifles' should be using a rifle, but what EXACTLY is the distinction? Speed and capacity's effects seem obvious enough, but the others are quite obscure. For example, does a high 'Rifle' stat mean that the soldier reloads rifles faster, fires faster, hits more often, hits from further away, does more damage...? What about Psi - does that actually reduce damage from Psi weapons, reduce the chance of mind control, reduce the instance of hit with Psi weapons...? You get the picture So, does anyone know about all of this?

I see... Thank you all! I thought I had tried this, but apparently I hadn't! I will do so as soon as I reinstall Aftermath (uninstalled to allow for more HD space, but now I see another patch is out, curing my inaccessible UFO woes...).

Hi all. My first post - whoo! Long time lurker, and haven't quite managed to finish the game yet (keep getting distracted with stupid research IRL), but thoroughly enjoy it in between bouts of the first two XCOM games. I have a question - the whole point of going to all that bother of registering. I have seen in several threads people refer to starting out in Europe, meaning the Russian base mission is easier to get to. Fair enough, but how do you choose to start there? The manual doesn't say anything about it, and I do not see an option anywhere on the start screens for it. So how do you start anywhere except in the US? Cheers. :b