As stated in my review, XCOM: Enemy Within adds a lot of awesome new tools to your soldiers' arsenal. From passive genetic modifications to the walking tank-like MEC Troopers, the new inclusions are a ton of fun to tweak and mess around with. But with more firepower comes greater challenge: new aliens and a rogue faction of fanatic humans are more than eager to put an end to mankind, and you'll need all the help you can get if you're to save the world. So suit up with these tips, and get to it.
1. Go in with a game plan
The last thing you're probably looking for in a tips article is for someone to tell you to do some pre-game planning (HRNNNNNGG), but for real: do some pre-game planning. You're not going to be able to save every country unless you pull off some David Blaine street magic. Look at the satellite bonuses of each region and decide what's most important to you, and know ahead of time which countries you're willing to sacrifice. I recommend choosing Africa as your starting country, as the 30 percent increase to your monthly income will prove invaluable, especially early on. Europe and Asia provide some of the best passive bonuses for maximum satellite coverage, so you should probably protect those as best you can, too.
2. While you're at it, plan your squad setup
ANOTHER PRE-PLANNING SUGGESTION? Yes, indeed. If you're playing on the harder difficulties, you can't afford to research and build equipment at random. Once you know which countries you'll willingly abandon, figure out what type of squad setup you'll want to use and how you'll want to outfit your soldiers, so you know what to research and when. At most, you can eventually have up to six soldiers in a squad. My recommendation: go with one Assault, two Snipers, two Support, and one Heavy. MEC Troopers are super awesome, but their accuracy is pretty awful even when maxed out, and you'll have to sacrifice a ton of resources to make them a viable addition to your team.
3. Play cautiously
Xcom Wotc Not Created Equal
The golden rule of XCOM: use your first action to move into cover, and your second to enable Overwatch. Dashing is rarely a good idea and should only be used when you're absolutely certain it won't lead to an ambush. Stick to the edges of a map until you absolutely have to start moving inward. This way you can clear all the aliens from the perimeter without accidentally uncovering any that might be hanging out in the middle. Finally, be mindful of how much ammo your soldiers have left in their weapons. Nothing sucks quite as bad as moving into a perfect flanking position, only to have to reload.
Sons Of Thunder: Hebrew Israelites vs Southern Poverty Law Center. Don't like this video? Sign in to make your opinion count. YOU DON'T HATE US, YOU HATE THE BIBLE - Duration: 29:46. Sons Of Thunder Lyrics: 'You have heard that it was said, ’Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ / But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person / If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn. Galactic Cowboys appeared in the 1994 movie Airheads under the name 'The Sons of Thunder'. The song they performed for that movie, 'Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful', is not available anywhere, and the band claims they do not even own a copy of that song. The band has reformed three times. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. Sons of thunder dont hate me.
4. Go for Carapace Armor before new weapons
Laser and plasma guns aren't going to do much good if they're chilling in the hands of a dead squad member. Nabbing Carapace Armor early on will dramatically increase the survivability of your troops. From there, prioritize laser rifles and sniper rifles. I found that skipping over Heavy Lasers was totally viable--by the time I could spare the resources for new Heavy weapons, I went straight to plasma.
5. Leveling the Assault class
Start by thinking what kind of Assault unit will most benefit your gameplay style. You can pick up all the extra critical chance abilities--such as Aggression and Close and Personal--if you want a high damage dealer, but doing so is a super risky move (and a pretty dumb one on higher difficulties). I'd recommend taking Tactical Sense and Lightning Reflexes for survivability, and Rapid Fire for harry life-or-death confrontations with Berserkers or Chrysalids. Close Combat Specialist is a must-have, as its defensive benefits far outweigh the crit damage otherwise gained by Bring 'Em On, while Resilience will prevent your Assault soldier from falling victim to a crushing critical strike.
Recommended loadout: Plasma Rifle (until you unlock the Alloy Canon), Alien Grenade
6. Leveling your Snipers
When you're playing it safe--as you should be in Challenge Mode or higher--Snipers will be doing your heavy lifting. You'll want to give them as many aim and accuracy bonuses as possible (ahem, Damn Good Ground), and though Snap Shot might be a tempting ability, Squadsight is the better option for passive play. You might consider equipping one of your Snipers with Disabling Shot to disarm enemies, while the other takes Battle Scanner so you can get a bit of extra vision. Execution and Opportunist are both incredibly valuable abilities, though at least one of your snipers should take the former. Finally, Double Tap is your BFF. At the start of each mission, get your Snipers to as high ground as possible, which should give them the best chance to hit your targets. They'll mostly hang back as your Assault and Support troops move forward.
Recommended loadout: Plasma Sniper Rifle (ASAP!), S.C.O.P.E. (don't forget to upgrade S.C.O.P.E.s in the Foundry)
7. Leveling your Support soldiers
These units not only provide a ton of utility, but are also your secondary alien killers. Sprinter is practically mandatory, as it'll help you get to low-HP units in time to save them. If you're running with two Supports, I'd suggest making one of them your dedicated healer, picking up the Field Medic, Revive, and Savior abilities. The other should keep your units protected--grab Smoke and Mirrors, Rifle Suppression, Dense Smoke, and Sentinel.
Recommended loadout: Plasma Rrifles, Medkits (don't forget to upgrade Medkits via the Foundry)
8. Leveling your Heavies
Heavies have horrible accuracy, but their value is in their rocket launchers and damage/aim buffs. I'd recommend skipping Bullet Swarm in favor of Holo-Targeting, as the aim bonus will likely secure shots that might've otherwise missed. Shredder Rocket is also a great damage boon for your team, especially when you've got superpowered Snipers picking off enemies from a distance. Most of their other abilities are pretty equal in terms of squad advantages, so these can be selected based on personal preference, though I would suggest going with Danger Zone over Grenadier--I tend to put more stock in building up rocket damage and area of effect.
Recommended loadout: Heavy Plasma, Blaster Launcher, Alien Grenade
9. Using MEC Troopers
If you're playing on higher difficulties, these bad boys are harder to justify because of their high resource cost. They don't become super effective until they have upgraded gear--and even then, their accuracy is worse than that of Heavies. If you decide to go through with building one, however, there are a few things to consider. First, go with Flamethrower over Kinetic Strike Module, as it's capable if hitting multiple enemies at once with decent damage, while the latter is a single target ability that requires you to be standing right next to an enemy. I also found the Grenade Launcher--which has insane range--to be more valuable an asset than Restorative Mist, and the Proximity Mine is equally useful.
Recommended loadout: Particle Cannon
10. Don't overdo it with the gene mods
The new gene mods are extremely useful--so long as you're equipping them on specific soldiers where they make sense. I really only found them to be super beneficial to my snipers. For those, I'd recommend taking Mimetic Skin (unlocked via Seeker Autopsy) for camouflaging your snipers when they have to move to higher ground. Depth Perception will increase their accuracy when they have a height advantage, while Muscle Fiber Density (unlocked by completing a Thin Man autopsy) will allow them to jump onto rooftops without needing a ladder. All of these will drastically increase the mobility and effectiveness of your long-ranged attackers. Keep in mind, any soldier that undergoes genetic modification is stuck in the medbay for three full days, so be careful about your timing.
11. Strapped for cash? Visit the Grey Market
It's easy to forget that the Grey Market exists, but it's a great way to get some extra cash when you're running low on resources. Some items, like damaged alien wreckage from crashed UFOs, can't be used for anything, so you might as well get rid of 'em. Other things--especially the mass quantities of alien bodies you'll have stockpiled in your XCOM warehouse--are less important over time, so don't be afraid to sell off some of your inventory, especially when Japan's about to bail on the council because you can't afford to put a satellite in its skies.
Good luck, Commander
Will you be picking up XCOM: Enemy Within? Have you already started playing around with Gene Mods and MEC Troopers? If so, what tips do you have to would-be defenders of planet Earth? Let us know in the comments below.
And if you're looking for more, check out how to beat XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Impossible Ironman mode and 8 awesome-looking games you'll overlook this holiday season.
Posted by2 years ago
Archived
Hey guys so I loved the options not created equally aswell as hidden potential from the last xcom game, a bit sad it wasn't implemented until we got the long war toolbox mod.
I always wanted to play a game with Not created Equally, but there are some things that are putting me off. The Hack stat, and the dodge stat. Every time I would start the first couple missions with Not created equally, my soldiers would usually end up being way worse than with vanilla stats. I feel like if the mod didn't tinker with hack and dodge chance stats the soldiers would be a lot better off. What reason do I have to keep a soldier around that has a 10 dodge stat but only 3 hitpoints? Or a 10 Hack stat without him being a specialist? Yes you might say I just got unlucky, but for me this modification was almost always a detriment to my troops. I can live with that a littlebit, but it would be nice if it was a bit more balanced towards important stats such as hitpoints, aim or movement instead of dodge or hack which almost never come in to play.
Tl;Dr: Not created equally seems to be more often a detriment than creating a healthy team of different skilled or unskilled troopers. Please consider doing something about it.
11 comments
XCOM 2 is a lot more mod-friendly than its predecessor, which is great news for people with the time and knowledge required to create their own modifications and content. It’s also highly tweakable, with a huge amount of the game’s values and mechanics open to alteration through its exposed config files. All you need is a simple text editor like Notepad (or preferably, Notepad++), some basic familiarity with the game, and the time and patience to find what you’re looking for. In this article I’ll show you how to implement some basic tweaks to get you started—then, once you’re familiar with how it works, you’ll be able to find and alter the game to your heart’s content.
Don’t forget to backup any files before you modify them! When your tinkering breaks your game, you’ll want to be able to set things back to normal without reinstalling.
XCOM 2 .ini files
All the files you’ll need are in the config folder within the game directory (default C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonXCOM 2XComGameConfig). Out of the files you’ll find within, here’s a quick rundown of the ones you’ll work with most:
DefaultGameData.ini Covers a very wide variety of mechanics, from how big a squad you can take to how fast the aliens grow in power.
DefaultGameCore.ini Another general variety file. Adjust things like how much aim a unit loses when disoriented or how much damage you take while burning.
DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini Adjust values for all the weapons in the game, both friendly and enemy. Add more ammo to your shotgun, lower the damage on the Viper’s Plasma Rifle, increase the radius of Frag Grenade explosions, and so on.
DefaultGameData_CharacterStats.ini Adjust every stat for every unit in the game. Give ADVENT Troopers more aim, reduce the mobility of Chrysallids, add extra health to Berserkers, whatever you like.
DefaultClassData.ini Covers the four classes and their growth as they gain ranks. You can adjust how much aim and health you gain per promotion, allow soldiers to carry weapons from other classes, adjust who gets what perks, and more.
DefaultGameData_SoldierSkills.ini Adjust variables relating to the game’s perks. You could increase Blademaster’s melee damage bonus, reduce how much a Shieldbearer guards his allies for, or make Lightning Strike grant you its bonus mobility forever, just to name a few ideas.
DefaultNameList.ini A very important file that lets you decide which random names the game creates its recruits with. You can also adjust the chance of new soldiers having hats, props and beards in here.
DefaultMissions.ini Adjust which aliens show up on missions and how many of them should appear. You could add extra enemies to every mission, remove Stun Lancers from the game or make every operation a Chrysallid hunt.
DefaultGameBoard.ini Governs much of the Geoscape/strategy layer of the game. Make the Skyranger fly ten times faster and ensure you never miss a mission.
DefaultAI.ini One of the more complex files to understand, it governs how the AI decides what to do each turn. There’s still a few simple changes you can make in here even if you’re not technically minded, such as setting the ideal engagement range each enemy type will try to fight from or increase how much the AI values High Cover over other alternatives.
Now that you’ve got a general idea of what file covers what, I’m going to show you a handful of example tweaks to demonstrate how simple it is to shape XCOM 2 to your liking, even if you’re not a modder yourself. Another thing to know: modding won’t prevent you from earning achievements, if you care about those.
Basic tweaks
Increase the size of your squad
Here’s something everyone should play with at some point—increasing your squad size can range from the reasonable (adding a couple more soldiers) to the insane (adding a couple dozen more soldiers).
Open DefaultGameData.ini with your text editor and search for MaxSoldiersOnMission. By default, it’s set to 4 (and then you increase it by 2 with upgrades in the campaign). You can emulate the Long War mod’s sizes by changing this value to 6, or go nuts and set it to whatever you like—while XCOM 2’s default UI only supports 8 soldiers at once on the pre-mission equipment screen, the game will still send extra soldiers from your roster onto the operation until it hits the limit you’ve set. Stomping ADVENT with a platoon of 60 XCOM soldiers is something you should try at least once in your life.
Lowering the health of ADVENT Officers
Having trouble taking down ADVENT’s finest? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Head to DefaultGameData_CharacterStats.ini and search for AdvCaptainM1. The first entry you find is the unit’s default stats—to reduce their health, you’d look for CharacterBaseStats[eStat_HP] and lower the entry’s value. Repeat this process with any of the other stat lines to tweak each unit to your liking.
Be aware that XCOM’s different difficulty settings override the default values we just changed, though. To adjust this, keep searching for AdvCaptainM1 and you’ll discover more entries in four difficulty sections throughout the file—Rookie, Veteran, Commander and Legend, also known as difficulties 0, 1, 2 and 3 respectively. So if you’re playing on Veteran, you’d find the AdvCaptainM1 entry under the Veteran Difficulty section and adjust the overrides there. Alternatively, simply look for the Difficulty stated above each set of entries—ADVENT Officer stats can be found under AdvCaptainM1_Diff_1. Players using Commander difficulty would look for AdvCaptainM1_Diff_2, and so on.
Adjusting the damage of a Magnetic Rifle
Open DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini and find AssaultRifle_Magnetic_BaseDamage string. By default, you’ll see Magnetic rifles have Damage=6 with Spread=1—that means the center of the damage range is 6 but it can roll plus or minus that number by 1, for a damage range of 5 to 7. If we change the string to read Damage=5 and Spread=4, the Mag Rifle will now have a damage range of 1 to 9! Have fun relying on that next time you need an ADVENT Officer to die. Perhaps you’d like the Mag Rifle to be your personal Sectopod slayer—that’s easy. Change the string’s Pierce value to 1000 to have your rifle ignore up to 1000 armor, or adjust the Shred value to 4 to remove that much armor with every hit.
Increasing a grenade’s explosive radius
You can increase a grenade’s damage in the same way, but to tweak its explosion size we need a different section of DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini. Search for FragGrenade_Radius and you’ll find another set of different entries relating to the item. Changing the value changes how big your explosion will be in tiles—setting it to 30 would make your nade wipe out an entire city block by itself, while reducing it to 1 would make it only effect a single tile at once. Remember that the Grenadier’s Grenade Launcher increases the range and radius of grenades as well, so factor that into your personal balancing act.
Make your new recruits wear more stuff and have more beards
If you want your new recruits to stand out a bit more, you can adjust how likely they are to come with props or facial hair when the game creates them. Open DefaultNameList.ini and find the section starting with NewSoldier_HatChance.
Adjust these values as you see fit—setting HatChance = 0.40 gives every recruit a 40% chance to come wearing a hat. NewSoldier_BeardChance = 0.66 would make 66% of your male rookies come with some manner of facial hair.
There’s another section below that deals with Civilian hat and prop chances as well—set NewCivlian_HatChance = 0.10 for a 10% chance that non-combatants like Engineers and Scientists will be born with some manner of hat on their noggin. Be warned that after playing with this setting, my Central Officer Bradford started walking around the Avenger wearing a kevlar helmet. Be warned that it was awesome.
Slow down units when they’re carrying bodies
Find it odd that your soldiers can move at full speed even while they’re hauling another adult human over their shoulder? While still in DefaultGameCore.ini, find CARRY_UNIT_MOBILITY_ADJUST and change the value to -6. This will apply a -6 mobility penalty to any unit currently carrying a wounded ally, unconscious VIP, and so on.
Advanced tweaks
Adding extra uses of Conceal and improving Shadowstrike
Open DefaultGameData_SoldierSkills.ini and find XComGame.X2Ability_RangerAbilitySet. If you’re familiar with XCOM 2 you can guess what most of these values represent; for example, we can increase the STEALTH_CHARGES value to allow the Conceal perk to be used more than once per mission.
What are we going to do with all that extra stealth? Set SHADOWSTRIKE_CRIT to equal 100. Now your Ranger is guaranteed to crit whenever he attacks from stealth, which local Sectoids will find highly unwelcome.
Give Shotguns to your Specialists, and increase their HP growth How to get mods for fallout 4.
Open DefaultClassData.ini and find Specialist X2SoldierClassTemplate. In this section, find AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType=”rifle”) and, underneath, insert the following: AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType=”shotgun”).
Easy as that, your Specialists can now equip Shotguns. But they need a bit more beef if they’re going to fight up close and personal—so look a few lines down and see the stat strings for the various Specialist promotions such like squaddie, corporal, sergeant, and so on. Within these entries, adjust the (StatType=eStat_HP, StatAmount=0) to be however much health you want them to gain for that particular rank. So if you went to the lieutenant section and set its StatType=eStat_HP,StatAmount=0 to instead be StatAmount=10, your Specialists will gain 10 health once they’re promoted to Lieutenant. That’ll probably be enough to keep them alive.
Giving the enemies aim bonuses at close range
By default, XCOM 2’s enemies don’t get more accurate at close range like you do—a big departure from Enemy Unknown which sees a lot of hilarious incompetence from charging ADVENT Troopers. It’s not too hard to return the aim bonuses to the enemy, though, it just takes a few minutes and some patience.
Find the FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[0] line within DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini to get started. These are the bonuses the AI gets when they’re a certain range in tiles from their target. By default they don’t get any bonuses but if you were to change FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[1] to equal 20, the AI would gain +20 aim when a tile away from their target. FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[2] governs the aim bonus they’d gain when 2 tiles away from their target, and so on.
If you’re not sure what you’d like their bonuses to be, the easiest way is to simply copy the range bonuses your own soldiers gain. Scroll up until you find MEDIUM_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE—this section is the aim bonus your soldiers gain with proximity while wielding a ballistic rifle. Reference these values to see what you should give the AI in order to level the playing field.
Back in the AI bonus section, I’d guess that FLAT_MAGNETIC_RANGE and FLAT_BEAM_RANGE relate to more advanced types of enemies. To be safe, put the same values in these sections as you did for FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE. The result should be a lot more accurate enemies at close range and a lot less hilarious misses at point blank from your local ADVENT peacekeepers.
Change how powerful your weapon attachments are
Would you use the Repeater if it was just a little bit more reliable? Open DefaultGameCore.ini and find XComGame.X2Item_DefaultUpgrades within. This entire section governs the stats associated with each attachment you can tape onto your guns in XCOM 2. Find FREE_KILL_BSC—that’s Free Kill Basic, aka the basic Repeater—and adjust its value to whatever you like. Setting it to 33 would confer a 33% chance to instantly kill any target you hit.
Perhaps you think it’s odd the Autoloader only has a limited number of uses? Set FREE_RELOADS_BSC to equal 0—this removes the basic Autoloader’s limitations entirely and allows you free reloads as many times as you want with that weapon. Try not to litter as you dump dozens of half-full magazines throughout the countryside.
Add extra enemies to your missions
This’ll be a little more complicated, but still not too hard. Open DefaultMissions.ini and find ;ADVENT ENCOUNTER DEFS FOR All Missions. This file may not immediately make sense to you, but don’t worry—just focus on each text block that starts with ConfigurableEncounters. Each of these is a configuration for a different group or ‘pod’ of enemies that will then be placed onto any mission that requests it. To add more bad guys, simply increase the block’s MaxSpawnCount value to equal the number of enemies you desire, and repeat for each ConfigurableEncounters block until you’re happy.
For example, increasing the MaxSpawnCount of the ConfigurableEncounters=(EncounterID=”ADVx2_Standard”, section will increase the number of enemies spawned everytime the ADVx2_Standard encounter is placed onto a mission. Once you’ve got your head around how this file works, you can adjust the numbers and types of enemies present on every mission in the game at your choosing.
Alter the AI’s engagement ranges, movement patterns, and how much it cares about cover
DefaultAI.ini is perhaps the most complicated file to mess with, but don’t worry, we’re only changing a few simple things to start with. Once you’ve opened the file, we’ll first find the FallbackChance line. Increasing this value to 0.75f should make enemies more likely to fall back to allies when they’re the only survivor of their patrol. Next, find CURR_TILE_LINGER_PENALTY and set it to 1.0. By default the AI is encouraged to move every turn to prevent camping—by changing this value we allow the AI free reign to hold their positions, meaning they won’t run around for the sake of running (and getting shot by your Overwatches). A few lines lower you’ll find CALC_FULL_COVER_FACTOR—make it equal 2.5f. This increases how much the AI values Full / High cover when making its moves.
Finally, open up DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini again and find AdvTrooperM1_idealRange. This entire section governs how close or far each enemy wants to be from your soldiers. For example, increasing the first value to AdvTrooperM1_idealRange=12 encourages all ADVENT Troopers to stay around 12 tiles away from your squad. Setting AdvMEC_M1_idealRange=1 encourages ADVENT MECs to charge your position, ending up 1 tile away from you in close combat.
With this simple set of AI tweaks, you can radically alter how the game plays. Setting ADVENT’s soldiers to fight you from a longer distance increases their survivability by keeping them away from your shotguns and grenades, while their MECs and tankier units can be configured to charge in and truly mess up your positioning. By more strongly prioritizing full cover and being allowed to hold position more often, the enemy will play more defensively and effectively, which is particularly challenging on timed missions as they stall you for turns. Increasing their likelihood to fall back when overwhelmed keeps enemies from suicide charging you in last ditch attacks, instead linking up with allies and living to fight another turn. It’s a lot tougher, but you might really appreciate the extra self-preservation instinct the AI will display—particularly when their new defensive tactics make those timed missions all the more intense to beat.
Xcom 2 War Of The Chosen Not Created Equal
Closing
There’s absolutely tons of things you can change in XCOM 2’s config files, and we’ve only scratched the surface here. Once you’ve spent some time experimenting with some tweaks, you’ll gain familiarity and be able to tweak and adjust the game quickly and confidently. I can only hope next time you can’t find a ‘Make Incendiary Grenades cover the entire map in cleansing fire’ mod on the Steam Workshop, I’ll have equipped you with all you need to make your dream a reality.