A Better Advent has an important notice and some assorted balances:
-- Chysallid Drones (Tier 2) are no longer poisonous.
-- Chysallid Kings lose some armor and health. They are still plenty tough.
With this version the custom AI trees are applied to the vanilla units for the first time. Please be aware that this may or may not lead to hiccups when using A Better ADVENT together with other AI mods. I don't really expect any trouble, but you never know.
With Better ADVENT now up to taking the AI into its own hand completely, another AI mod is no longer necessary and might even be counterproductive by undermining A Better ADVENT's changes.
AI:
Gatekeeper AI is left unchanged because it seems good enough.
-- Faceless, PsiZombie and AndromedanShell AI are left unchanged because they are dirt simple melee units that work well enough.
-- Vanilla Chryssalids are also left unchanged, their Burrow + Melee AI seems to do its thing well enough. The Better Advent Chryssalids got their own AI tree, though.
-- All other AI trees were at least updated with the updated Targeting and Overwatch logic. Many also had some priorities for actions switched around.
-- All AI trees were reviewed in regard to the movement profile they use. This has a significant impact on how defensive or offensive a unit operates.
-- Not counting the unit specific trees, A Better ADVENT changes the AI trees for 15 basic units: Trooper, Captain, Lancer, Shieldbearer, MEC, Avatar, Turret, Andromedon, Archon, Berserker, Codex, Muton, Sectoid, Viper, Sectopod
-- These changed behavior trees also apply to the vanilla enemies.
- Stunlancers are no longer pure melee units. As a priority, they try to flank and shoot enemies from cover. The Stun Baton only comes out when no flanking or sure shots are possible. They also have a random chance (20%) to use their gun when they would otherwise stunlance. Advent Wardens have a higher chance to use their gun.
- Stunlancer Taskmasters are obsolete and no longer spawn due to the improved AI.
Ann now has Deadeye, and Urist has Threat Assessment. Brion Drake is given a repeater, Kaos gets an Advanced Laser Sight, Snow gets a stock, Urist gets PCS: Superior Speed and Triage protocol. Everyone who has a gun has a upgrade now on it, except the mec. The mec had bugged out and vanished from the screen when I tried to give its gun a mod, so it does not have one.
7 hours later, the power relay is finished construction, which means the proving grounds is started construction (7 days). Also theres a rumor for more rookies. The rookies turn out to be a
wizard and
someone who caused fires often. We find out theres an advent facility in west africa.
Another month has passed. Faceless might be annoying, but so might reinforcements. We don't have enough spare intel to see what the hidden event is, I think.
For the sake of interest I'd have preferred something harder than Easy, but instead, I guess I'll bring along Squaddie Drake, give them some chance at another promotion.
Not on screen: Big Bird, Furtukan, Kaladin, Drake
Huh, this is not the same mission as I had on alternate-legend. We have concealment this time, for one thing.
Enemy MEC spotted, and its got some interesting backup. A soldier and an assault, plus another stun lancer.
Good shot, Athing. The resulting overwatch leaves us with only a 1hp soldier left, so lets see what the hack is.
Reinforcements could make this more interesting, plus you'll get more skill from the harder hack if it succeeds. Have at it, Cypher.
Well, they aren't behind us at least. They're off to the side. Kaos finishes off the soldier with a
completely overkill 8 damage lightning hands crit. Also Squad Cohesion updated today or late yesterday apparently, since Cypher's hack skill is now at 130(+15), not +5.
The reinforcements arrive, and Rince Storm got a shot in during overwatch, since he was one of the few people who didn't need to move to non-flanked cover, but it mostly bounced off the MEC's armor. Big Bird micro missiles a couple of the stun lancers, hurting both and de-covering one. Unfortunately, Drake missed the perfect chance to hit an enemy out of cover, so Athing gets the kill, and without a crit for once. Storm then takes out the other injured stun lancer and gets a promotion.
Crap, we're surrounded! Theres also a Sectoid Negator over there, which has a Solace aura, and an Advent Heavy, who has...heavy armor. They're slower as a result.
Cut them down, quickly! MEC, shoot a stun lancer! (it does, but doesn't kill it.)
Kaladin manages to get the other one though, so we're getting better. Jopax fires his flashbang as the enemeis behind us, but the sectoid is unaffected. Pies injures the sectoid for 3 damage. Furtukan takes out the last of the reinforcement stun lancers, but is still flanked, leaving it up to Cypher to make sure he's nto flanked on two sides. 68% chance to assume control of the MEC.
Nice job! On their turn, the two advent overwatch, making it annoying for us to move forward without getting shot at, and the sectoid tries to mindspin Caroline, but she ain't having it. The hacked MEC is ordered to waste its micro missiles o nthe sectoid, sicne it can't get into gun range. Caroline clears one of the overwatches with soulfire (and reveals loot in the process)
Drake finally gets another kill, and a green thing pops out of the sectoid. Maybe its loot, maybe its just green junk on top of the loot. Our MEC damages the hacked MEC since it can't really get into attack range to shoot the heavy, and avoids the overwatch. Storm crits the heavy through its armor to take it out afterwards, but I forgot to screenshot it. The rest of the turn is reloads and moving.
'nother Viper. Caroline heads in to unlock our friend's cell next turn. Furtukan cleans up the hacked MEC so that we don't have an extra problem and then picks up some loot (Alien data cache, advent datapad, 2x elerium core), while Big Bird takes a shot at the Viper and misses, Drake also misses, and Pies shoots and hits for 4.
And Kaos snipes another advent with a critical 9.
Cypher hands a threat assessment aid protocol to pies, since they still have ammo, and the resulting Storm Pies overwatch combo kills a stun lancer and gives us loot: lockbox, auto-loader, repeater, energy diffuser. MEC buddy takes a single point of damage after shrugging off the rest, and is autorepaired of it next turn thanks to damage control. He still misses the shot against the viper though, and its on overwatch.
Well then, I wasn't expecting a crit from someone who still uses a normal rifle! Good hit Pies. We got 2 lockboxes and an elerium core form its loot, followed by yet another lockbox, auto-loader, and repeater form furtukan picking up the last loot and soulfiring the advent soldier. This gets him a promotion!
Bonus! Caroline now has 41(+15) hack score. We get the VIP into as good cover as we can, for reinforcements are indeed a-comin'. i have Storm fire his gas grenade as close to the marker as possible, we aren't going that way anyways. Drake covers the VIP with aid protocol.
When they arrive, Urist, Kaos, and Jopax I think are the ones who got the overwatch kills, leaving two stun lancers in our way but no overwatches, so the VIP books it out of there. Kaladin gets one, and Jopax crits the other. Athing misses.
Energy diffuser reduces alien plasma damage to self by 20%.
Promotions: Cpt. Kaladin, Cpt. Athing, Cpt. Storm (AWC ability: Implacable...which sorta messed up your promotion since that was an option), Cpt. Furtukan, Cpl Drake (AWC ability: Deadeye)
Author
Topic: Lets have us an alien war: XCom2 modded (Read 89469 times)