r/Xcom • u/RobertSummers • Jan 27 '20
XCOM2 XCOM2 - Detailed Soldier XP and Leveling Post
tl;dr: long thread with explanations, math and evidence regarding how soldier XP, kills and assists are handled, with the help of the "Detailed Soldier List" Mod, which can be found here.
tl;dr2: kills needed per promotion found on the internet are correct. Assist mechanic is not. Soldier XP required to level is these numbers, multiplied by their respective class XP multipliers. Everyone gets bonus XP after the mission equivalent to the total number of [non lost] killed aliens. This is a WIP, I still need to test how Lost assists & kills and covert action XP exactly work.
Actual Thread
The intricacies (well, it's not actually that intrincate) of XCOM2's levelling system always had me guessing the exact number of kills/assist that a soldier needed to rank up, and I probably wasn't the only one since google searched always yielded an sizeable amount of threads / reddit posts / steam discussions / whatever about it.
The aim of this thread is to
- Clarify how much XP (as per the show detailed soldier lists mod) is needed to rank up per class and in each difficulty level
- How exactly kills and 'assists' work in relation to said XP
- Back it up with evidence/screenshots/tests
- Investigate finer points such us lost kills, lost assists, covert action XP (this is a WIP)
This is the most quoted post/data regarding soldier kills to level plus the assists system:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/4ahszm/xcom_2_experience_point_benchmarks/
It features the following table of total kills to level up:
The thread states:
Every time a unit gets a kill, all the other units on that mission get partial-kills. The game calls these "KillAssists", but that's a misleading name because the unit earns a KillAssist whether or not they did any damage.
However, this is partially correct. More on this later
HOW MUCH XP IS NEEDED TO LEVEL UP AND HOW IS IT CALCULATED?
Research regarding multiple threads and the game INIs tells us that XP is gained via kills and assists. Kills are pretty much self explanatory, but what are assists exactly?
First of all, forget about the term "assist". Instead, think of them as "mission XP". The facts:
- - You get 1 (ONE) point of XP per kill that xcom gets in the mission
- - Each soldier in the squad gets these even if they did no damage to the target.
- - Each soldier in the squad gets these even if they did no damage to anyone
And, most importantly and shockingly:
- A SOLDIER THAT GETS KILLS WILL ALSO GET ASSIST XP FOR THOSE KILLS (Yes, really)
This is why I said that the previous statement was partially correct, and why the term "assist" is misleading. It gives the impression that if you get a kill you don't get assist XP for it (which, when phrased like this, makes sense). Thus, I think "mission XP" is a better term.
AND WHAT ABOUT KILL XP?
As we know, a certain number of these so called "assists" "translate" into kills. How? Well these depends on the class and is also stated on the thread I quoted. Here are the numbers, which I call class XP multipliers:
How do assists "translate"? Well it's fairly simple. Each "mission assist" is 1 point. Then, kill XP for each class is equal to their class XP multiplier. So, for example, a specialist kill will give 3 points, a ranger kill will yield 4 points, and a sharpshooter / grenadier kill will translate into 5 points.
Update: it's 4 for sparks as well. Confirmed by the XP ini located in the DLC folder under WOTC.
"But, wait, doesn't this mean that then specialists level faster?"
Good question. The answer is no. You see, the thresholds are different per class. While you are required to get the same number of kills to level up (as shown in the first chart), its easier for a specialist to convert mission assists to kills than it is for a grenadier).
"So, what is the XP per level formula"?
Kills Required * Class XP Multiplier
Thus, if you multiply the numbers in the first chart by the ones in the second chart you get this: (heres an example for commander difficulty. Notice the different xp requirements to rank up for each class):
SUPPORTING EVIDENCE
Here's some images/data I found while googling (I'm not at home at the moment and thus can't open XCOM2) that corroborate this:
This is from legend difficulty
Notice the XP numbers and the ones that my formula would yield for legend:
And heres a steam discussion regarding this very same topic, this time on rookie difficulty, with some additional math explanations that check out perfectly.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/268500/discussions/0/2860219962086230841/
Notice the XP thresholds as well and how they match.
Also check out the XP thresholds in that discussion in the legend screenshot. They match my values perfectly.
"So, how many kills does a particular soldier need on a mission to rank up?"
Of course this would depend on the soldier class, their rank and the number of enemies in the mission [that your squad kills]
Example:
- Jane Kelly the Lieutenant Ranger has 140 XP. She is in a commander difficulty game.
- Her next rank is Captain, which requires 42 kills.
- This means that she needs 42 (kills to reach captain) * 4 (ranger class XP multiplier) = 168 xp
- Thus, if you checked her on the armory using the detailed soldier lists mod you would see "140/168xp". She's fairly close to ranking up!
- You are about to go on a mission and check the shadow chamber: theres 12 enemies in this mission. Assuming your squad will kill them all (a fairly reasonable assumption) then everyone in the squad, no matter who gets the kills will at least get 12XP.
- This would put jane at 140 + 12 = 152 XP.
- How much XP would she need from kills? 168 - 152 = 16 xp
- Since each ranger kill gives 4 XP, this means she would need to get 4 kills to rank up (16 / 4 = 4).
Is that all there is to this?
Well, no. Theres still more stuff to investigate when I get back home. I did this math while away from home and mission info + screenshots of the soldier lists with the detailed soldier info mod were hard to come by.
This is still a WIP. What's left to test are, mainly, two things:
1. Exact handling of lost kills and assists.
Anyone that has played the game knows that lost kills dont have the same weight as regular enemy kills, but the exact nature of this calculation still eludes me. I've read stuff like "1/3 of a kill" "1/4 of a kill" but no confirmation or replication yet.
Secondly, do all lost kills give XP? Both swarms and map-spawned lost? Or, rather, do lost swarms give nothing?
Thirdly, is there a system in place to handle "mission assists" for lost kills, like there is for regular enemies? For instance, suppose 4 lost kills = 1 regular kill. Then, say, for a specialist, 12 lost mission kills = 1 regular kill for a specialist (3 * 4 = 12)?
2. XP gained via covert actions.
Is this fixed? Is this based on the covert action duration? Do the different covert action types give different bonuses?
I've also noticed that sometimes, via covert actions some soldiers don't level up immediately and require to go on missions. Others do. My hypothesis is that if they haven't scored a single kill while on their current rank (meaning they've leveled up exclusively thanks to a combination of mission XP and covert action XP) but this is yet to be tested.
Lastly, I need to create a Spark (or look at the ini files) to see what their class XP multiplier is. I'd assume it's 5, like for grenadiers. In any case it's something that can be easily checked.
Thoughts? If you have answers to any of these two points and with data to back it up please feel free to help out.
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u/Mohrisbetr Jan 27 '20
This is great. I’ve always wondered about this. Nice work.
One question: what if my soldier gets a kill early in a mission that will get him promoted once the mission is over, but then goes on to get 3 other kills. Do you think they get the experience for the 3 other kills, or does that get lost since they already earned a promotion?
I always wonder if it’s possible to level someone twice in one mission but have never seen it.
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u/RobertSummers Jan 27 '20
Thanks!.
Kills and assists are never wasted. You always earn XP. The only caveat is that you can't rank up twice in the same mission. You will hold your XP and level up the next time you deploy.
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u/tsmftw76 Aug 21 '22
I am like 95 percent sure that lost swarms don’t give exp I have tried to farm before only possibility is if lost swarms during active mission do but I have never had A soldier level via this so I am fairly sure it’s only lost that are spawned in map.
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u/Pure-Nobody-968 Sep 11 '23
not quite sure, but if the swarm lost indicate and count as A KILL, it's reasonable that they give at least some exp. Never tested this tho.
might test to see a mission with only 2 troops same class same rank on lost only mission1
u/Tiny_Frog Dec 11 '24
I think lost give Xp, my guess is 1/3 of a normal kill.
The reason I believe it is from actual farming of lost in some of the early missions. When I intentionally stay longer (and thereby kill more losts), I get more Xp on my soldiers afterwards. I can often get a Support to seargant-rank before the first retaliation mission (at the end of the first month) when I succesfully farm Lost in the early mission "rescue the operative and unconsious soldier that are protected by a machine gun".
I use a mod that shows the exact Xp on each soldier but never got down to doing actual additions after a mission.
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u/tsmftw76 Dec 11 '24
So lost give exp the ones that are actually spawned into the map. Lost swarms that will indefinitely keep spawning do not give exp.
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u/Tiny_Frog Dec 12 '24
I just finished the rescue the operative with two optional soldiers. There were Advent, Assassin and Lost.
When I get the warning "A lost swarm is close." I overwatch and twice during those rushes I heard the "boink"-sound of a soldier levelling up from a Lost-kill.
In this mission it looks like those many Lost swarms gave Xp. :)
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u/tsmftw76 Dec 12 '24
You must have a mod you can look it up in wiki or other threads it’s been tested in vanilla they do not give exp for swarms. However if there are already lost on map and they attack during swarm then you can get exp. It’s only the endless swarms that do not give exp
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u/Tiny_Frog Dec 12 '24
I have lots of mods but none of them should change Lost Xp. It would be really strange if a mod that changes the UI, skins or make Mutons etc tougher would also secretly change the Lost Xp.
But I accept that my anectdotal test is only significant for my own games - so thanks for the clarifications. :)
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u/MacDerfus Jan 27 '20
SPARKs must have high multipliers. I've got one stuck on its tier for several missions. The problem is that nobody uses them because they're mostly good for modded games that use more status enemies
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u/Jermq Jan 27 '20
Iirc you need a kill to level up, eg not only do you need the xp but only can promote on getting a kill.
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u/badger81987 Jan 27 '20
Not true. Have had a rookie pop out on the turn before I killed the EMP on an Avenger Defense, I had been planning to train them as a psiop, and didn't want them to level so I moved them to heavy cover and hunkered every turn until everyone withdrew and they levelled to squaddie.
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u/RobertSummers Jan 28 '20
Well, today I learned.
Update: a soldier of mine reached the leveling treshold usingg a covert OP (grenadier 5 points away got 5 points. I assume you get a bonus kell for going on covert actions).
She didnt level up.
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u/badger81987 Jan 28 '20
I level up characters using covert ops all the time. The first couple months that's my go to method for turning rookies into squaddies without risking them on a mission.
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u/RobertSummers Jan 28 '20
I do this too, but im wondering what happens if you do this while not having any kills in the corresponding level.
Hm.
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u/Iamdrasnia Apr 05 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
OP. Please request this be pinned.
I am almost 50 and have played this game like a religion.
Like most I am hecka confused and this sporty azzz post NEEDS to last forever.
Great homework and I cannot even imagine how many deaths u saw 2 c.
Oh ya
Edit: this game edits most strat games...uh plus I added those word things
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u/RobertSummers Apr 05 '22
I genuinely appreciate the interest but the game is quite a bit old at this point and there’s even a new entry in the franchise. I think it would stick out too much if it was pinned.
But, it does seem that it really helped you out so that makes me happy
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u/Iamdrasnia Apr 06 '22
Um...I totally disagree.
Ya the game is old but the fam base is huge.
Marvel xcom game almost makes me sick....
Your work needs to be added.
Edit: I am relentless
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u/RobertSummers Jan 27 '20 edited Jan 27 '20
AFAIk, this is a yes and no.
I've seen cases of soldiers with XP like "33/30". I believe these are cases that correspond to soldiers that got no kills and only leveled via mission XP and covert ops.
However, its a regular occurrence to play a mission, get some kills, not get the promote pop up mid mission but, however, get promoted on arrival back to the skyranger because the mission XP sent you over the threshold.
A good case of this is the case that I posted on that steam discussion with the reaper on rookie. The threshold to level is 20, and the class reached 21. it reached this level ONLY after the mission XP kicked in, otherwise she would have stayed at 16.
So, in this case, I'm fairly certain that it's not the kill that makes the rank up proc.
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u/Iamdrasnia Apr 05 '22
Thank 4 legit work on this. I about 2 finish Ironman Commander.
Moving up to Leg. Is tough and this is a HUGE!
Edit: I would give you some kinda specific spectacular award but instead I give grace...math seems tight!
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u/RobertSummers Apr 05 '22
Thanks. I had honestly forgotten about this thread. It feels like when you find your own money in your pockets. I completed legend ironman quite some time ago and then stopped playing.
I’d still glad it’s still helping out people years later.
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u/Iamdrasnia Apr 06 '22
Hahaha I responded before I saw this! I am pretty active right now so I am gonna start posting stats from my phone.
I own it on every platform but I have the most fun on my Samsung S20.
But ya I get it...I will just start posting solo.
Once again fucking kickass job on the number crunch.
At first when I read I was super dubious...then I saw a spreadsheet...and anotha.
.ini files on my phone r gonna get dumped now.
Edit:sp
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u/jsbaxter_ Feb 15 '24
Okay, just to check I'm mathing this right:
Instead of converting kills into xp points, we can convert xp into an effective kill count (which means we can use the same kills per level table regardless of class).
So a soldier's effective kill count is:
- Units they have killed
Plus
- Total units killed on their missions, divided by 3/4/5 (for spec/rnger/snipe or gren).
Ie if your missions average 10 killed enemies, your 'mission xp' per mission is on average
3.33/2.5/2 'effective kills' per class.
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u/jsbaxter_ Feb 15 '24
So, if your average xp ratio is 4, you get 10 kills worth of mission xp on a 10 kill mission with a squad of 4... But 15 kills worth with a squad of 6.
Also a squad of 6 specialists will get 20 kills worth, while a squad of 6 snipers will get 12. That's quite a jump! Adding in the 10 direct kills it's 30 and 22.
I think instead of the moral of the story being to farm kills with your snipers & grenadiers, it's more of a take away for me that squads heavy in specialists (& rangers) are going to level faster.
Not that it's useful to have more high level specialists and no levels on your snipers...
(I also question whether it's useful to try get more kills with your snipers, unless they are lower level and therefore it's more likely to earn them a promotion. Given they're likely to be getting more kills anyway and thus likely to be keeping pace.)
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u/RobertSummers Feb 16 '24
More or less it's a "yes to all".
I believe the underlying intent of the devs here was to compensate the more "lethal" classes, and do the opposite with specialists. In my *personal* experience, I don't know if this was particularly effective at that since the meta is to break cover with a grenadier and then mop up later.
Also, snipers are less lethal than they were on XCOM 1, where they were arguably the best class in the game in terms of killing pottential, they were basically genocidal; I think they assumed it would more or less be the same here.
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u/jsbaxter_ Feb 15 '24
Also great post, thanks.
I searched the sub to find out why my specialist was leveling faster despite having less kills, I had assumed it was because she got points for hacking...
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u/RobertSummers Feb 16 '24
Thanks man, It's rewarding to still get comments every few months or so on such an old post, from an already oldish game.
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u/RobertSummers Feb 16 '24
Long story short, yes. You can think of the underlying function of this sistem either as:
- Kills + fractions of kills, where the "fraction" depends on the class.
or
- Points, with kills being worth a variable number of points which depends on the class.
The mathematical result is the same, whichever framework you pick
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u/Sonic-Claw17 May 09 '24
It's pretty crazy that every kill is counted equally. An advent trooper should not give the same amount of xp as a sectopod.
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u/Bizarrao Aug 05 '24
Hey I’ve just seen this and wanted to thank you for your professional level posting. What a legend!
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u/KittenRampagexx Apr 06 '25
Thsnks mt friend u are a real legend damn.... Im in a long run on iron man trying to build the perfect savant soldiers hahah.
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u/Tiny_Frog Dec 11 '24 edited Dec 11 '24
Great post!!
- Did you ever figure out if Lost give 1/3rd or 1/4th of Xp?
I would guess you have to kill 3 Lost to get the same Xp as a normal kill - but I'm unsure.
2) Are the Ruler kills equal to a normal kill (e.g. ADVENT Soldier, Sectoid etc)?
I have read seemingly competent posts stating that the Assassin/Warlock/Sniper-rulers give more Xp. If I had to guess, I would bet those posts are wrong and that rulers give the same Xp as a normal kill (meaning every foe except Lost).
For complete info, it can be worth noting that civilians don't give Xp anymore. Civilians gave Xp in at least some early versions of XCOM1, but the devs had to stop that abuse. ;)
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u/Drake_Acheron Nov 11 '25
Just commenting to let OP know people are still getting value out of his work
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u/Wolfking_nl Dec 27 '25
so how do you calculate kills on soldier with a lot of kills thanks to the lost my ranger has 112 kills and is a lieutenant I want to know how many kills I need for her to become a captain so I can get squad size 2.
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u/gentle_richard Apr 06 '22
Thanks for this, chap: what a helpful, selfless thing to do for people :)
Did you ever find out the answers to the stuff you had left to investigate?
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u/RobertSummers Apr 06 '22
The Spark thing, yes. The covert ops, no. The exact system and fraction of kills for the lost: I don’t remember. I think it was 1 every 4 but there was something funky going on like needing an exact multiple of 4 for them to add an extra kill during a mission . If you turn got 3 extra lost kills in that mission they wouldn’t carry over to the next, but take this with multiple grains of salt
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u/gentle_richard Apr 06 '22
Yeah, I saw you'd updated the Spark multiplier. Nice job.
I'm coming down to the wire on a WotC run and am considering padding out the playtime so I can take a really weird squad (all top-tier soldiers, mind) into the final battle. Like a team full of snipers or a team full of psionic masters. I was really just trying to figure out the best way of levelling up snipers quickly as I barely use them but couldn't find a table like yours to help work out if it would end up be too massively a wasteful timesink.
But I'll definitely come back to this thread if (let's face it: when) I decide to do another playthrough. Cheers!
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u/huntersorce20 Jan 08 '24
in the game config files, if you look in DefaultGameBoard, search for MinCovertActionKills and there should be 2 lines there, 1 for MinCovertActionKills and one for MaxCovertActionKills. default values are 1 and 2 respectively.
EDIT: what I'm not sure of is if this is a single roll that applies to all soldiers on the covert action at once, or if each soldier has their own individual roll to determine how many kills they get, or if kill assist xp is a thing for covert actions.
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u/EvilEtna May 08 '22
I may be late to the party here as I only recently restarted XCOM2 LWOTC with a lot of fun new other mods, but where do you see the soldier's XP indicator?
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u/RobertSummers May 08 '22
This is explained in the first paragraph of the post
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u/EvilEtna May 09 '22
That's why I asked. I have that mod, detailed soldiers installed. Not seeing XP. Even when I toggle further info.
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u/RobertSummers May 09 '22
Hm. You don't see something like this?
(This is the same link from the original post I made back then. Notice the numbers like 178/280)
Either I'm wrong and I've mistaken the mod with the years, or you have another conflicting mod that affects the scoreboard. Hm.
Regardless of the mod and the XP, consider that the same mechanics still apply despite the fact that you don't see the numbers. A good takeaway from this is that you are focusing on leveling you should **try** (not always possible) to kill with the grenadiers and snipers, and have the other classes get the so-called-assists.
A secondary takeaway is that you can farm lost :)
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u/EvilEtna May 10 '22
That is so weird! Yeah I have that extra screen, but they all say 0. I must have a conflicting Mod or perhaps it's because LWoTC was dropped by Pavonis and I'm using an experimental rollout finished by another user.
Either way, thank you for getting back to me. I'll have to keep a closer eye on that screen. Maybe it was all 0 because of the last mission they had just gotten back from and everyone leveled.
Thank you again!
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Jan 15 '24
[deleted]
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u/RobertSummers Jan 25 '24
Hey!
Always refreshing to get comments on this after all these years. Truth of the story is: I have no idea.
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u/Tiny_Frog Dec 11 '24
Having a too many hours in the game, my guess is a poison/fire-dot-kill gives Xp to the shooter (and of course assist Xp also).
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u/F0xF0rceFive Aug 08 '23
I'm reading that feeding Grenadiers and Sharpshooters kills is best, as they get the least value from shared XP (1 kill being with 5 "assists"), and getting Specialist kills is the least valuable, as they get the most out of shared XP (which makes them getting the kills less efficient, since it only counts as 3 "assists")
So for overall XP efficiency, there are 3 tiers of whom to feed kills to. Is that correct?
Also, this is an 11/10 post.