I keep getting recruits without any weapons, and since they have faction-specific proficiency, I can’t craft them any weapons they know how to use. So, now I’ve got a bunch of level one rookies running around with weapons they keep fumbling with.
Depends on difficulty level. Easy or Normal they come with base gear, Legendary they come with no gear. Not sure about Hero.
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I’m playing on Hero, so that might explain it, but come on. How are you expected to use recruits when you can’t craft weapons for them? At least have them start with basic gear. This means that you can’t recruit from any of the factions you don’t intent to ally with.
All factions have base classes. I think. Assaults at the least and snipers. Either focus on who you recruit or let them train at base until level 4 and cross class.
By the time you’re recruiting Elite classes you should try to be at 50% relations anyway.
Yeah, it was two Elites I grabbed as someone recommended doing on the forums. But I couldn’t equip them. It’d also be nice to see what type of class they are before you buy.
It’s only a problem for technicians.
Basic classes and berserkers use standard equipment.
Virus rifle for Priest is not that useful because Virus damage is only applied at end of enemy turn - you shouldn’t make a habit of letting them live that long in the 1st place.
Infiltrator is happy as long as he has armor - which you get, except on Legendary difficulty. Needs to be dual classed with Assault or Sniper to be good anyway.
If anything, not having to pay for sub-optimal gear makes Legendary easier, with exceptions for Infiltrator and Engineer.
It does show you their class on the recruit screen via the little icon to the left of the name.
Okay. But as a new player, how am I to know what those symbols mean?
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In Easy/Normal they come with full gear
In Hero they come with armour
In Legend they come with nothing
They also start with lower stats the harder the difficulty
Okay. But as a new player, how am I to know what those symbols mean?
Hover your mouse over the icon and a tooltip will appear.
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Sigh I tried but it seems I was too impatient, or it was a bug.
Gear can be scavenged, reverse-engineering, stolen, granted via diplomacy. Even if you get a novice with faction weapon you cant produce ammo for it without reverse-engineering it. Getting recruit with faction tech does sound a bit too good to me.
Hovering over the icon just gives you faction-specific flavor text. It doesn’t tell you about the class or what perks they come with.
I never suggested they should come with high-tech gear, just basic weapons. Even if it’s Phoenix Point gear. Having to fly around with an unarmed soldier is just asinine. Now I have to make a detour to the base just to get them equipment.
Scavenging gear isn’t all that common. First of all it’s random, in the sense that it could be faction specific, and thus not useful to your naked recruit. Secondly, weapons are easily damaged in combat and break. Thirdly, stealing tech means I have to stop what I’m doing and go on a raid mission, and lastly, reverse-engineering also slows down normal research on the Pandoran virus. Why do you have to go do a bunch of busy-work projects just to give a recruit a gun?
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You have access to your storage whenever you are - you can give him whatever you have in store as soon as you recruit him/her. Considering putting a fresh recruit in a training centre for a while Is a desirable thing to do, I don’t see a problem. If you want them in the field immediately you can produce items before buying them, or give them spares from your storage.
I am bit confused… isn’t researching new stuff for your soldiers the core gameplay loop of XCOMs like games? I found reverse-engineering gear to be the most satisfying part of research as it actually resulted in something useful.
Yes, what you recommend with the training centre works, but that defeats the whole purpose of recruiting. I’m trying to increase my squad size to increase their effectiveness in missions. Having people sit at base doesn’t help the agents in the field.
Again, to my point, creating extra workarounds for a silly design decision doesn’t address the flawed design.
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It’s not flawed design, it’s working as intended. That’s literally one of the things spelled out in the difficulty settings, higher difficulty will see your fresh recruits come without any equipment. High difficulty levels are for people wanting a harder challenge. It sounds like you want an easier challenge on your first playthrough, and picked too high of a difficulty.
Honestly, I’ve never had much of a problem with getting weapons destroyed in the releass build… across 4 campaigns now (not all finished) I’ve had a weapon destroyed maybe twice… normally I lose a limb before losing a 2 handed weapon. Weapons are far more durable in this build as opposed to BB5.
And to address your 3rd point, that’s kinda what this game is all about… tough decision’s. You won’t have time to do everything you want on the geoscape, therefore you need to prioritize. Do you side step the pandora virus and go on a tech raid? Do you focus on story missions? Diplo. Missions? Assaulting nests?? Defending haven’s?? All of these commit time + a squad.
As for recruitment, yea! As others have said it’s said in the difficulty selection screen… so if you choose a high difficulty. It’s something you just need to prepare for before recruiting especially if you plan on using them right away. Bad design choice?? Or bad difficulty decision?? You pick…
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Hovering over the icon just gives you faction-specific flavor text. It doesn’t tell you about the class or what perks they come with.
It tells you the class name in that flavor text which was the question asked.
It’s beyond simple. Either don’t recruit classes you can’t equip, recruit them anyway and do what you can as it’s intended, or play on Normal difficulty.
It actually says no such thing in the difficulty selection, which was the cause for my initial confusion.
“Hero: A more challenging experience, for players who want a serious challenge.”
“Legend: The ultimate test of your tactical abilities”
Nowhere does it say anything about recruits. Maybe in a previous build it did, but not this one. And, the snide comment about difficulty is uncalled for. I’ve made no mention of the difficulty. Simply things that aren’t explained to the player that lead to confusion. The crux of my complaint was new recruits not being battlefield ready from the get go, and them being restricted to specific weapons.
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