Starting Stats

Raw recruits have the following possible statistics. Range (Min to Max), Number of possible values (Max-Min+1), and Percent chance of getting any one of those values. Also, caps are shown for your convenience (Regarding Caps):

Stat               Min   Max  Values %ofOne  MinCap MaxCap  Notes
TUs                 50    60    11    9.09%     80     81
Stamina             40    70    31    3.23%    100    101
Health              25    40    16    6.25%     60     61
Bravery             10    60     6   16.67%    110    110    Only uses increments of 10 
Reaction            30    60    31    3.23%    100    105
Firing Accuracy     40    70    31    3.23%    120    125
Throwing Accuracy   50    80    31    3.23%    120    125
Strength            20    40    21    4.76%     70     71
Psi Strength         0   100   101!   0.99%      0    100    Fixed for life, never changes
Psi Skill            0     0     1             100    105+   First Psi Lab yields 16-24 
Melee               20    40    21    4.76%    120    125

All statistics are rolled randomly and independently. So if you only want recruits with 60 TUs, you will retain 1 out of 11 recruits (9%). If you only want ones with 60 TUs and 70 FA, you'll only keep 1 in 351 recruits (0.28%; 1/11 * 1/31). Etc.

As discussed elsewhere, initial TUs/3 (not total TUs after increases!) govern energy recovery on the battlefield. This gives it a little more importance than you might expect.

One fifth of recruits are female. Being fem does not affect stats; they get the same random values.

There are five sets of first and last names (ostensibly British, French, German, Japanese, and Russian) from which are randomly chosen 20 first names and 20 last names. (Four are fem, the other 16 male, thus the one-fifth female.) It is possible to have two (or more?) people of the same name.

The melee stat is not shown in displays anywhere but it increases if you use the stun rod.

And now for some useless trivia:

• If you tried to get a soldier who was best in every single stat (including psi strength = 100, but not including psi skill because it's trained, nor the relatively worthless stats of throwing accuracy and 'melee') - given the number of possible values and resulting combinations these eight stats have (shown above),

• You only expect to see the highest across the board in 1 in 66,725,166,816 soldiers. Almost 1 in 67 billion soldiers. (This is actually the same as the likelihood of getting any one specific combination.)

• Given the theoretical maximum screening rate of 1,000 soldiers per month (only 100 fit in the transfer queue at a time, they take 3 days to show up, so only 10 batches of 100 per month),

• You would expect to come across such a soldier by 66,725,167 months (the above number divided by 1,000).

• That's once every 5 million, 560 thousand, and 431 game years.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled wiki.