Murphy's Laws of Phoenix Point

Disclaimer
The laws on this page do not reflect the actual gameplay experience. They are a humorous take on situations the player may find themselves in by pure chance and bad luck. And of course, you are welcome to add your own laws to this list. Naturally, there may also be spoilers in this article. Enjoy with caution!

Strategic

• You started in Southern or Central America, and all exploration sites are of one faction exclusively
• You know that last exploration site you want to check before giving your battle-weary operatives some time to rest? It's an ambush mission.
• A well fortified Haven will always be under attack when your forces are concentrated in that area. Conversely a poorly fortified Haven will be attacked when your forces are on the other side of the globe or otherwise unable to react.
  • If it does look like your operatives will make it just in time, they still won't.
• Why the heck would the scouting party from that haven share an Ambush mission with me?
• By the way, you forgot to give your operatives spare ammunition before starting the mission.
• The next batch of recruits will never be of the class you so desperately need. No thanks I don't need more heavies!
  • I already have enough snipers, I don't need more of them!
    • I appreciate the gesture of handing me assaults, but all my aircraft are equipped only with assaults!
• No matter which dialogue option you choose, New Jericho hates it.
• The third-row skills will either be completely useless to your operative or have no synergy with any other class.
• The factions will give their fancy aircraft research at the exact time your new Manticore finishes construction.
  • Same with land vehicles.

Tactical

• Cover doesn't mean anything in this game
• Yes, that Mindfragger will be able to attach to your operative.
  • It will be the only operative with a single shot weapon.
    • Everyone else is out of reach for a melee without using movement abilities.
• If a small part of the aiming reticle is outside the enemy's hitbox, guess where your sniper will shoot.
  • However, if one of your operatives so much as dares to expose themselves even a tiny bit, at least one shot will hit them. You will learn to fear the Triton Hitman.
    • This law translates to return fire as well. Your assaults will never kill the target but the enemy will obliterate your assault if they just cough at them
• The chance for a Siren to mind control an operative is proportional to the threat that operative poses to the Siren.
• Your sniper will never be able to kill all worms from the Chiron in a single turn.
  • Your sniper will miss at least one shot on a worm in general.
    • Don't bother with grenades, the worms are too far apart anyway.
      • Just bash the worms...
• A bleeding enemy will have just enough HP left to still be alive by the start of their turn.
• The operative with the life-saving medikit will be out of reach of your bleeding/poisoned operative.
• The chance to hit an enemy decreases with the priority of the target and increases with the amount of hit points the enemy still has. In short: the more critical it is to kill the target, the more plot armor they will gain.
• Your heavy will activate a hatching sentinel on the other side of the wall.
• The Pandoran you want to capture will have just enough strength so as to not be captured by the end of the mission, or it will bleed out before that.
  • It wouldn't have mattered anyway, you forgot to construct the Pandoran Containment.
• If the chance that the Hel-II Cannon will hit a teammate is not 0%, it will hit that teammate. Even more so if the teammate will be killed instantly.
  • In general the spread of the Hel-II Cannon is inverse to the distance: the closer the target is the less likely it is that you will hit
• Your heavy will always be just out of reach to shoot the target with the most health