Vanilla game bugs

Here are included bugs that have been deemed unsolvable by the Long War development team and have been present in the original game as well. As it stands, with the limited modding capabilities at hand, the Long War team can not resolve them.

Loading savegames in tactical missions can cause problems, including: recheck of panic when a soldier is critically wounded and awaiting stabilize; cancelling hunker down status; resetting certain flags intended to prevent you from doing things like using Run and Gun and Close Encounters on the same turn, cars exploding on the same turn. These can be exploits and you should feel really, really bad for using it.

Sometimes critically wounded soldiers have a bad z and can't be revived. Save and reload often fixes.

Certain map errors. These are probably hard to tell from other errors, but if the problem is related to something in the map itself, we are unlikely to be able to fix it. This includes: 1) Doors failing to block visibility as you would expect (this includes a hang that occurs when overwatch fire goes through a closed door); 2) Line of sight issues; 3) Bad pieces of terrain you can't climb on or have weird cover interactions with; 4) preactivated pods; 5) Rare alien teleports to get out of bad positioning; 6) ladders blocking flanks

Close Combat Specialist is flaky. We didn't change it; it's unlikely we can fix it.

Rapid double-clicking (such as with a dying mouse that automatically does this inadvertently) can screw up your interactions with the engineering UI and charge you tons of cash for a single transaction.

Periodically, the map script for the XCOM HQ assault mission will be interrupted. Reload an earlier save or (with ironman) use the dev console to restart the mission.

Sharpshooter perk shows in soldier's active abilities list when soldier is in full cover (instead of when target is in full cover). Still WAD on targeting detail.

Female weapon models not aligning with pawn correctly

Flying creatures will sometimes stack on the same tile during movement

If a soldier is next to both Low and High Cover, the perk Low Profile does not trigger and the soldier will have the low cover defense bonus from the appropriate direction.

Squadsight + flanked erratic behavior. Added note to perk text. FIXED IN B15

For some mod users the game does not load, or loads and crashes in the main menu. Also it has been observed the unability to save the game (both manually and by autosave). This has been resolved by running the game in Steam Offline mode. It has been suspected that this is an error on Steam's side.

Change Log

Long War EW 1.0 (December 28, 2015)

minor localization fixes in Spanish and Polish

Low Profile should work now when you are in high and low cover at the same time

Removed some cases where cover bonus was being removed but Low Profile wasn't

Corrected Fort Una text, was saying it worked for more tiles than it actually does

Polish translation by Szmind

Fixed bug in which targets of around-the-corner flanks were incorrectly getting cover-based DR

Fixed bug in which Mind Merge was granting too many hp

Attempted fix on bug in which units in both high and low cover at different angles received only low cover DR bonus (thanks Werewolpertinger)

QOL/Features:

Exposed non-airborne cover-taking units will show yellow heads instead of red (as flanked units currently do)

Most interceptor combat variables and UFO stats now exposed for modding in DGC.ini

Officer billets per rank exposed for modding in DGC.ini

Quick and Dirty now moddable in DGC.ini (including to *increase* alien counts on missions)

Added version of UCross' Green Fog mod as a ini-configurable SW option. It drains aim and will during a mission (restored afterward).

Fixes:

CTD when some units (scouts?) swap teams (like via mind control)

Attempt to fix reported CTD based on capitalization errors in DefaultMaps.ini Exalt trainyard mission (change TrainYard to Trainyard) in two places

Berserker monsters should show up properly now (Thanks Oakeman for noting fix)

Using explosives against enemies should properly prevent meld recovery. Slightly increased meld rewards from kills to maintain current balance. (Thanks Oakeman for noting fix)

Fixed incorrect soldier deployment positions (irl the positions noted in the squad-select UI) on bomb disposals, portent and the Temple Ship (Thanks Eclipse666 for fix)

Fixed rare late-game CTD when game tries to add Van Doorn mission again. (Thanks werewolpertinger for noting fix)

Fixed bug with enemy exactly 18 tiles away could not be targeted by squadsight. Fixed further bug in which said unit was not showing or being flanked properly. (Thanks Rakoon79 for assisting in debugging)

Fixed AI bug that may have had aliens trying team attacks in bad conditions

Fixed bug in which Fallen Comrades penalty was not being applied consistently to squad

Attempted fix: Mind-Controlled aliens count as dead squad members for assessing fallen comrades penalty (Oakeman)

Attempted fix: Mind-Controlled soldiers drop to zero will and suffer fallen comrades penalty once freed (Oakeman)

Numerous fixes aimed at standardizing and correcting various will / psi tests, including fix when psi panic shows 100% but still fails.(Oakeman). Some of these fixes made mind-controlling by Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals a lot harder, so they will get a bit more will during mid/late campaign upgrades to compenate.

Perfect Information should now show enemy Psi Panic and Mind Control chances

Commanding a unit with a movelimited weapon no longer allows additional shots if the unit has moved. (Triple Tap still works.)

Rocketeers should no longer be able to equip gear (like Reaper Pack) if they don't carry prerequisite weapons (bug in AreReaperRoundsValid)

4 new map patches (alien base, Furies, overseer_barrens)

Commanding a soldier that has used run and gun already in the turn will now allow that soldier to move (in addition to fire or overwatch). It will not grant an additional shot after that move.

Alloy Bipod and Targeting Module should no longer appear incorrectly as contributing to critical hit % chance in F1 screen detail for pistols

Beta 15f3 (August 18,2015 )

New content:

Euro 3/German male voice pack by Michael Berkholz

Bugfix:

CTD when Regen Biofield being used to Cure Poison

Beta 15f2 (August 12,2015)

New content:

Scottish male voice pack by Jordan Wistuba

Italian Translation by Ciome.

Bugfixes:

CTD when starting covert extraction at liquor store

CTD when too many items finish repairs at once. You will no longer be informed of the identities of items that have just finished repairs.

Lockup when regen biofield is used on panicked soldier. RB no longer affects panic, but automatically cures poison/acid effects.

Command bugs with granting Platform Stability, extra action with Smoke Grenade for officer, shots on movelimited weapons

Invisible bombs

Extra actions granted sometimes when returning to cover

More map fixes

Updated Training ini so certain values match regular DGC

Controller should work with perk selection now

Beta 15f (July 16, 2015)

Features/Balancing:

Dutch Male voicepack (Euro 2) by Benjamin Smit

Resp implant confers +1 hp

All suppression-based reaction fire will get the opportunist bonus (not just LMG/SAW-series) and ignore cover

Improved Fusion Core council request rewards

Rework Jaeger tree to make ITZ spec perk, Squadsight to TSGT, VPT to MSGT, Remove LEU and replace with LnL at MSGT.

Rework of Goliath tree. Welcome Covering Fire, Rapid Fire, and Extra Conditioning. Farewell Platform Stability, Bring 'Em On and Ready for Anything.

Rework of Shogun tree

Alloy Carbide Plating now grants flat +4 hit points

Attempted to set autopause before a mission expires one hour earlier

The seven special soldiers will have 0 defense rather than random value

Smoke will now help against reaction fire

Aliens will stack terror and infiltration missions on the same country less often in non-DW games

Mayhem delayed for Heavy Floaters, removed for EXALT Heavies (unlisted)

UFO Scanners Foundry Project made much cheaper (unlisted)

Fixes:

Flying units will have flying defense bonus against reaction fire

Units granted a free move by Psi Inspire, Command and Revive will no longer get infinite Close Encounters or Hit and Run shots. These abilities will now prevent activation of CE/HnR -- this change was necessary for the bugfix.

Hardened units will get bonuses again on Absolutely Critical.

Meld/Bombs will be invisible in the fog as intended. Added SW option to make them visible.

Controller should work with new SW table now

More map patches

Updated South African Male 2 pack

Alien negative defense will show up on aim readout now

Fix to reported psi chances

Fix when revived covert operative comes home dead

Fixes to reported overwatch shot %

More unclickable bomb node issues

CTD in post mission soldier-sort

Beta 15e (June 20, 2015)

Features:

Van Doorn voice pack. Thanks Firaxis!

Added "Euro Female 1" English accented voicepack by Eveline Frei. Created a new Euro / English voice category and put Faleg's voice there, too. (Note his VO may have to be reassigned after upgrading). Added "SE Asian Female 1" English accented voicepack by Ping Teo. Added "South African Male 2" voicepack by Jurgen Delaere.

Officers commanding a mission now have a new ability, "Command," which allows officer to end their turn to grant a yellow move to a soldier who has used up all his/her movement for the turn. Limitations: 1 charge per officer rank, (so 1 for lieutenants, etc.), 4 turn cooldown; soldiers must be in visual range and have otherwise completed their turn; can't use on panicking, strangled, overwatching, hunkering or steady-aim soldiers, or VIPs. Does not reset your ability to use "free" actions (like Paramedic or Hit and Run) if you've already used them. Notes: You can't use it on OW, HD or SA soldiers primarily because I haven't figured out how to turn off those abilities if the free move is granted. In addition, this borrows a MEC variable (flamethrower charges) to work, so those of you who like to mod things so MECs can be officers will have problems with flamethrowers going forward.

Added capability so bomb missions can take place on any abduction/terror type map. Added 3 new maps to roster.

Stood up Pyrokinesis perk, a level 4 psi perk. It allows you to ignite fires over multiple tiles anywhere within sight range. Does no harm to units in AOE. 4 turn cooldown. Unlocked by Muton Elite interrogation. Will be interested in feedback about utility of perk and may adjust settings. NOTE: This perk is taking over Ranger's slot, so using the devconsole and GivePerk -49 is necessary to remove Ranger from soldiers in ongoing campaigns. I think I've got it so having the old Ranger perk won't give you the ability unless you are a psi, at least.

New Item: Motion Tracker. Here's working design, subject to change before and after 15e final is released: When used, it activates the radar for that soldier for the rest of XCOM's turn. It shows aliens, civilians, meld cans, bomb nodes and the bomb. It works roughly 5 tiles beyond visual range. It confers -1 mobility penalty. It is available for cheap construction at campaign start. It has 3 charges, 4 with packmaster (base charges ini-moddable). This also has a moderate chance of being reduced if item is OP. You can only equip one per soldier. It can be used by any soldier or SHIV. It cannot be used by MECs (for technical reasons; we had to borrow a MEC variable to hold the charges). It takes over the battlescanner icon in the abilities bar. It uses the "EXALT art" item enum (so that colorful bit of flavor has been removed (sorry, but better than than a real soldier item). Upon winning the EXALT HQ raid, the player just gets a straight injection of cash of equivalent value. It also uses the old Smartgun kit image, which itself was an unused vanilla Motion Tracker image, Battlescanners are now restricted to Scouts and Engineers only (regardless of whether they have the perk). The 1-item-per-soldier limitation for Battlescanners has been removed. Battlescanners now use the "close cyberdisc" icon, because it's round (looks vaguely like a battlescanner) and not one the player has previously seen. Battlescanners may see their duration reduced. (Remember they are bugged in a couple of ways we can't fix.)

Long War now supports up to 36 second wave options. We'll add some but leave some options blank for future modders if they want to add some.

Modified console command SetMedalPowerA so it will turn on and off Second Wave options for all future checks of that option. You'll need to install the modified engine.upk (existing 15c+ one, available in downloads) to activate the console, plus you'll need the internal number of the option (rather than the string) to turn it on and off. The numbers will now be printed in the after the name of the perk in ingame text for reference. NOTE: This isn't what we'd call a supported gameplay feature, so you may get some strange interactions if you use it a lot. Turning off Red Fog is probably pretty straightforward, but turning on or off Dynamic War mid-campaign could lead to wonky outcomes.

New second wave options: Hide perk tree (ini toggle that does this no longer works; use console command to rehide the trees in ongoing B15 campaigns) Deactivate repair system (ini setting that does this no longer works; use console command to turn it off again in ongoing B15 campaigns) Deactivate Exalt missions Split Cinematic Mode into separate ground and air options +2 squad size at start and on covert extractions Repairs only cost time, not money Many missions have alien count reduced by 40% Show alien to hit chances with various abilities

SpazmoJones' show XP mod in soldier list view implemented

XMarksTheSpot's larger-soldier-modification-slots mod implemented. The ini setting PSI_NUM_TRAINING_SLOTS will now set the number of slots (simultaneous soldiers who can be trained/modified) in the Psi Lab, Gene Lab and MEC Augmentation chamber in the Repair Bay without any UI bugs, unless you add so many slots they exceed the size of the screen.

Zhang, Annette and the guards' voicepacks can now be assigned to any soldier. They are in a "Special" category in the Customize UI. Only bug is that there's no VO triggering when you select a particular voice, so it's hard to know which you've picked until a mission. (The characters are first; the guards are last)

All plasma primary weapons have a special bonus stat or ability attached to them

Updated advice to the loading screen tips

Added an alternate "training" DefaultGameCore.ini in the download with easier settings from normal through impossible. No text changes accompany this, so "impossible" in training mode isn't really all that. If I can figure it out and have time I'll jimmy the installer so it will load automatically on install. To use it, replace the file DefaultGameCore.ini with this file.

Balancing

Psi Panic now has Berserker interrogation as a prereq. Psychokinetic Strike now has Sectoid Commander interrogation as a prereq.

Van Doorn now receives Steadfast perk. His starting level will be higher if you get him later in the campaign. His aide will also join XCOM after the mission as a low-ranking soldier.

Furies made stronger. The Egyptian twins start out as level 2 psis. The other guy starts as a level 4 regular soldier and a level 1 psi. Each of them gets a different level 1 psi perk.

Made MEC-1 less expensive to construct and gave it Body Shield perk

Council mission reward soldiers can cap at sergeant instead of corporal. This only affects a couple of missions (and not item requests).

Boss monsters on council missions will trigger based on months passed instead of council missions completed, so participation in DLC missions shouldn't accelerate their appearance. Increased threshold for boss monsters to appear by a couple of months.

Deluge will not trigger until a minimum number of months has passed AND you build the PsiLabs. Previously it has triggered only on PsiLab presence.

Ammo Conservation grants +1 ammo to SAW-series instead of +2, now consistent with all other guns.

Captured drones will no longer have the repair ability, because unlimited repairs is too exploitey. Reduced cost of Capture drone foundry project.

One medic with Field Surgeon will provide 1 hp wound reduction in calculating timeout 100% of the time instead of 75%. Multiple FS Medics on the same mission will have no additional effect.

Ranger and Gunslinger perks combined. Retaining Gunslinger icon but calling Ranger. Replaced perks on trees that had both (Sniper, Scout, Assault gain Deadeye, DGG and Executioner, respectively).

Reaper Rounds renamed "Reaper Pack" and now only works with laser weapons. Unlocked by Supercapacitors. Removed some alloy and meld requirement from SC foundry project.

Gunner gets Opportunist instead of AFC, +2 aim at Covering Fire, +2 aim at Ready For Anything.

Reduced Gollop Chamber build time and alloy cost.

Plasma Mauler reduced to -1 mobility penalty, so it entirely obsoletes the sawed-off shotgun when built.

Significant drop in alloys required for weapon research (removed 400+ alloy costs across all weapon techs, and 150 elerium as well). Marginal increase in research time for advanced weapon techs. Increased alloy costs of construction most individual weapons by between 2 and 10 alloys depending on tech and weapon power. Elerium costs went up on items unlocked by techs that saw the elerium research cost went down (pulse and plasma). This is to define the role of alloys and elerium better (primarily serving gear, while fragments serve research), and to hopefully give you some more flexibility in loading out your troops -- you don't have to go all-in on a particular tier because you invested so much in just unlocking it. Also reduced some research item costs for armor and mec techs.

Added one more turn to initial timer on bomb missions

Slight increase in meld timer

Removed pier map from possible covert extractions

Augment cost reduced to 60 meld

Removed kill XP penalty for MECs

Added +1 base damage for flamethrowers

Regen Biofield will now prevent a critically wounded soldier from bleeding out if the soldier is in range of the psi trooper.

Floater Leaders won't get CCS until level 4, sted 2.

Harder Heavy Floater escort table delayed one month

Created an easier Muton Elite escort table for early months in which they are encountered. Basically "harder" tables mean RNG favors harder enemies as secondary and tertiaries in pods led by these aliens.

Your reaction shots will display to-hit chance in text scroll.

Wrote code that would remove reported pro-player cheating reducing chance of critical hits on normal and classic when XCOM soldier is flanked or exposed.

Wrote code that would remove native bonus defense against psi attacks on brutal and impossible (+10/+20). Gave full bonus will to non-psionic aliens on those difficulties to compensate, half bonus (+5/+10) will to psionic aliens (who can also use it for offense). Minor balance change.

Zhang gets Lone Wolf perk when joining XCOM.

Late in the game, countries with high defense ratings may offer sergeants for item requests.

Lowered permanent will penalty on critical wounds to 5. In addition, soldiers receive 24 hours (ini-moddable) extra fatigue after missions per critical wound suffered in the campaign. The latter is not prevented by Secondary Heart (or anything else, except PSI Armor).

Shadow Armor has 2 item slots.

Removed CCS from Sectoid Commanders.

Fixes:

CTD when AC units are destroyed on Roadhouse map. THIS IS THE MAP WITH A SMALL CRASHED UFO UNDER A BRIDGE AND A BAR/GAS STATION.

Obscure CTD on visibility updates during Mind Controls. This seems to happen when mind-controlling an alien activates a new pod.

Updated bomb nodes code, including a fix for when nodes (and the bomb itself) can't be clicked, particularly after a savegame. You can also now set the initial timer for bomb missions in DefaultRandomSpawns.ini. Also other fixes to bomb placement code. Install hotfix here: http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/499/

Firing at a flanked unit moving through

Fixed fuel cell inventory image

Pulse Carbine aim bonus corrected to +6 instead of +7

Rookies arriving after Tactical Rigging is developed will no longer have a 4th inventory slot until they change armor. Had to disable auto-equipping of grenade in 3rd inventory slot to fix this bug.

Genemodding and PsiTraining soldiers should no longer count as available soldiers in class counts in soldier list

Techs that require exactly one of an item (like captives) will always require exactly one of that item regardless of Dynamic War setting

More map patches

Item card weapon range descriptor should be more accurate now

iDefense line in BalanceMods_Classic entries for weapons should work now

Fixed at least one instance of Concealment being broken when it shouldn't be.

If you have more than 15 ability icons, Ability HUD will now show all icons

You will no longer be able to see meld canisters or bombs in the fog.

Clarified shredder ammo perk text that it only works on SAWs, LMGs and MEC primaries

SpazmoJones' attempted fix on kill and miss VOs happening at the same time

Battlescanners will no longer block Exalt hack on Covert Data Recovery missions

Bring 'Em On granting extra soldier actions

Too-high XP penalty for Augmenting a soldier corrected

Controllers should work better in Squad Select screen now

Flak ammo damage will be counted for calculating whether a kill shot occurs

Psi Panic success changes should report correctly now

Extra "x1s" after use of Command should be repaired now

Fixed bug in Mechtoid AI

Some stability improvements in targeting and damage calcs in tactical game

Dashing against reaction fire should provide correct defensive bonuses now

Body Shield will provide crit protection now

Some improvements to bomb mission stability

Combat Drugs bonuses will appear in crit bonus list now

Fixed bugs when sending soldier with negative will into psi training

Beta 15d2 hotfix (April 23, 2015)

Balancing:

Drop-down aliens will drop down in cover. Reduced number of drop-down aliens on some early council missions. Settings in DefaultRandomSpawns.ini can be used to turn this off.

Fixes:

Fixed CTD visibility of unactivated alien pod changes (Some experimental code slipped through into release version)

Fixed ammo numbers on shotgun-series weapons descriptions

Fixed Soldier initial position gone wonky (x2)

Fixed CTD on exiting smoke and possibly other volumes

2 new map patches

Fixed: Lockup when aliens drop down on special missions

Fixed: Hit-and-Run CTD

Fixed world rebuild issue when bomb positions randomized

NOTE: THE D2 FIX MAY HAVE ISSUES IN TACTICAL SAVES FROM 15d OR EARLIER. TO AVOID CTDs, WE RECOMMEND FINISHING TACTICAL MISSIONS IN C2 AND UPGRADING TO D2 FROM A GEOSCAPE SAVE. AN ALTERNATIVE IS TO RESTART THE TACTICAL MISSION FROM THE MENU, ALTHOUGH WE DON'T KNOW IF THAT WILL RESOLVE 100% OF CASES. PLEASE DO NOT REPORT TACTICAL CTDS FROM MISSIONS UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN TO THE GEOSCAPE.

Beta 15d (April 20, 2015)

Features:

New British/English Female accent from Jezdamayel Caster

Bomb Disposal missions will have randomized (but regulated) locations for power nodes.

Incorporated SpazmoJones/Eclipse666's display weapon fragments, display soldier formation and show class breakdown UI mods into release version

Balancing:

Shotgun-series ammo changed from 5/3/4/3/3 to 4/4/5/4/4. Reflex Cannon now requires Advanced Plasma Weaponry instead of Sectopod Autopsy.

Knocked down some alloy costs here and there (larger mec suits, pulse weapons, a few other places). Upped some elerium costs.

Altered harvest UFO AI's relationship to alien aggro slightly

Made it a little more likely for DW AI to reduce aggro

Fixes:

Attempted fixes: CTDs during targeting with psi perks, possibly others

Bad offset in UISightlineHUD_SightlineContainer.OnMouseEvent that may have been associated with CTDs

CTD when using explosives near gas pumps on Crashed Small Scout - Roadhouse map

CTD when police car blows up on terror Office Paper Terror map

New Map Patches: 2

Drum Mags should no longer appear in gray market (DGC line 2589, change iCash to -1)

Level 6 Seeker leader should get Damage Control as intended (instead of Intimidate) (DGC.ini line 726, change iMobility=134)

Fixed MEC-6 Vanguard cost (DGC.ini 2506, ItemBalance_Nor1mal should be ItemBalance_Normal)

Hit and Run will now process on squadsight distance flank in at least one case where it wasn't

Drum Mags will actually provide extra ammo now. I swear I tested it before release and I am now doubting the nature of reality

Adjusted volume levels on South African Female 1

Corrected map patch id on covert ops street overpass ewi map, which was causing some random cover to appear on that map (DefaultMaps.ini, line 204, change string "patch_streetoverpass" to "patch_streetoverpassewi" )

XCOM with Adaptive Bone Marrow will correctly provide +2 hp regeneration per turn

Failing a council mission will correctly remove it from Geoscape mission options

Dense Smoke will no longer provide an extra 20 defense for flanked targets above the intended +40. This was not reflected in UI reports.

Fix to untextured box in Quagmire map

Soldier names with spaces in them (Van Doorn) should now appear in full in the soldier list. Fixed up some Dutch surnames.

Attempted fix: Widened conditions for ability icon rebuild after taking an action in attempt to further address free action issues

Breaching ammo will now be properly restricted to shotgun-wielding assaults in equip UI

Beta 15c2 hotfix (April 12, 2015)

Fixes:

Fixed Quenchguns frags cost

Fixed Core Armoring text

Beta 15c (April 12, 2015)

BETA 15 to BETA 15b-e Issues

If you are well into a campaign and have researched advanced Medikits, all of your soldiers will suddenly have the Deadeye Perk. If you want to remove it, use the Dev Console and the command GivePerk -116 on that soldier in a tactical mission.

Meld costs have doubled (as have meld incomes), so you'll be behind. If you are well into a campaign, workaround is to download dev console and give yourself 2x your current meld using giveresource 7 xxx, where xxx is the amount of meld to give yourself.

BETA 15a to BETA 15b-e issues

Because of a 15a bug, some new campaigns will lose their starting country bonus. The workaround is to go into DGC.ini, lines 1420 to 1453, and increase the iCash value on each line by 1, and change the iCash value on line 1419 (Cadre) to 6.

Any Beta 15 campaign to 15d/15d2/15e issues

To add the new Drum Mag item to an existing campaign, try the developer console command GiveItem END_SHIP_WEAPONS 99 OR GiveItem Drum Mags 99 for a nearly infinite amount. Any counterfire pods from previous versions will also convert to drum mags.

Reworked trees will require re-selection of perks. You can remove excess perks with GivePerk -(PerkEnum) command in the tactical game, where (PerkEnum) is the number of the perk. See the ArmorKitCodes file for a list of perks.

BETA 15c

NOTE: IF YOU USE THE DEV CONSOLE, YOU WILL NEED TO DOWNLOAD A NEW VERSION OF THE DEV CONSOLE TO WORK WITH BETA 15c. OTHERWISE YOU MAY HAVE SEVERE BUGS WITH THE NEW MAPS.

Fixes:

CTD when fighting Uber ethereal

CTD in harvest location selection logic during periods of high threat and near-total satellite coverage

CTD in research archives, seems more likely in late game

Cleaned up some possibly bad code supporting what perks can appear in Training Roulette (XGStrategySoldier.IsRandomPerkValidToAdd)

Pistols should be equipped properly upon class assignment in Commander's Choice games

Attempted Fix: It appears that Aurora and Vortex Armors and Mind Shield were having their will bonus counted twice in some circumstances (including in the UI to-hit display). This may have impacted balance in favor of the player and we'll want feedback on how effective psi powers are after this. (This involves changing the parameters in a call to native code, so it's hard to be sure exactly what's happening).

Fixed bad jump in Absorbdamage that may have been causing acid debuff to cause extra damage (rather than just remove DR) when a soldier suffers additional damage

Truly amazing amount of map fixes

Alloy SHIV available to build alert should process correctly now on tech acquisition

Corrected Laser Lance and Rail Gun strategy game descriptions

Advanced Suppression Module now actually grants Danger Zone perk as intended

HEAT and Flak Ammo damage bonus to barrage should be working now. Reworked logic in HEAT ammo and warheads application a bit.

Fortiores Una should provide DR bonus now

Blank items should no longer show up in what-got-broke debrief UI

Minimum repair time for items corrected to intended 3 days instead of 3 hours.

Interrogations should no longer remove two captives (if you have more than one), only one.

Resolved remaining issues with conditional aim modifiers that we've modded in

Mindfraying soldiers and aliens should return to cover now

Incinerator module will no longer supply +1 ammo to primary weapon

Temple Ship Heavy Floaters will no longer get excessive aim bonus

Correct subclass icon will show in postmission debrief UI

Attempted Fix: Free actions sometimes granted when soldiers returning to cover after a shot

Blaster Launcher range should scale properly with aim and perks now. Possibly some other fixes to range of free-aim weapon.

UFO Scanners should work properly for raiders and some other UFO classes now

Council Corpse requests should scale better with DW games

Level 7 Outsiders will properly get Damage Control instead of Intimidate

Fixed Triggers to give a couple of aliens special names

Regular soldiers should be able to equip flak ammo now

Quenchguns will now benefit from weapons credit; coilguns will not

Aerospace tech credit will no longer give bonus to all foundry projects, just aerospace ones

Air base attack missions should no longer make alien resource count go haywire

Gave up on attempts to remove bombard perk from Muton Elite, Cyberdiscs and Heavy Floaters and to give it back in certain circumstances, changed triggers for special unit names for leaders in each class. (This doesn't represent any gameplay change; it's basically a failed nerf attempt on aliens being cleaned up.)

Navigators will a 99 value will have perk 100% of time instead of 99%

ITZ will now drop damage correctly with each successive kill

Flashbangs will no longer trigger any VO (It was erroneously triggering an unused hunker down VO)

Rookie icon (double circle) will show up in right places; Genemodded rookies should have proper icon now

Attempted Fix: You should no longer be able to select a specialist covert operative until they have picked a subclass. This is to prevent commander's choice players from picking a covert operative, CC-ing them to a heavy, and then sending them on a mission, which caused crashy behavior because the heavy didn't have a pistol equipped.

Heater reaction range fixed to 30.

Map patches now number 64 distinct files with various fixes to flanking bugs, sightlines, terrain not providing cover and other issues.

Removed one each research outpost, commercial alley and truckstop abduction map entries, now redundant with the multiple start spawn code (may have been causing these maps to appear too often)

Attempted Fix: Attempted to address reports that weapon fragment artifacts may have been retained across mission restarts

Balancing and other changes:

New VO Packs: Polish-accented English Male from Commander Faleg, Irish Male from Adam Miller, South African female from Louise Demée

Neural Feedback no longer requires Floater Interrogation to unlock; it is available at Xenopsionics with MindFray

Crashed destroyer missions will now take place on Overseer maps (with overseer mission-related stuff stripped). Destroyers now carry 4 UFO Power Sources that can be salvaged. They will have a few more aliens than in the past.

Added PierA map to terror roster

More AI work

Reduced req engineers for Adv Suppression Module and Ammo Conservation. Reduced cost of Ammo Cons slightly; increased cost of Tactical Rigging.

Deadeye now provides +15 aim and no crit bonus against fliers

Put a hard cap on alien aggro in DW campaigns so they still run some non-anti-XCOM missions. This is an attempt to address the 5x terror missions per month apparently happening in DW games.

Battle Rifle / Heavy Rifle series of weapons reworked. Compared to the assault rifle of the same tech, they offer +1 damage, -1 mobility and a -10 aim penalty after taking any non-turn-ending costly actions. Crit, base aim, and ammo are equivalent to assault rifle of the same class. They can be equipped by infantry, scouts, assaults, medics and engineers. (These values are subject to change). Some rifle costs lowered to be roughly on par with assault rifles of same tech level.

Terror mission offscreen deaths are now calibrated against activated aliens, not seen ones.

Added Drum Mags small item. They are infinite and available from campaign start. They grant +2 ammo to assault rifle, carbine, and battle rifle series weapons and may not be equipped by snipers, gunners or rocketeers. They cost 2 mobility and 4 aim to equip. They cannot be stacked with Hi Cap Mags item. To add them to an existing campaign, you should use the console command GiveItem END_SHIP_WEAPONS 99 for a nearly infinite amount. Counterfire Pods removed from game.

Modified version of Nuked City map set up as terror map. The UFO is removed and replaced with some debris. Thanks to Liquid911 for making this possible.

Floaters on Normal lose 1 mobility and 5 defense, floaters on classic lose 5 defense.

Heavy Floaters on normal lose 5 defense.

Drones on normal lose 5 defense

Exalt Elites lose 1 hp on Normal

Heavy Floaters on impossible gain 1 mobility

Increased alloy income from UFOs on Normal by 25%, Classic by 10%

Increased frags on classic slightly

Reduced elerium from power sources by 5 on brutal and impossible, increased by 5 on normal

Increased overall monthly cash from sats by 10% on normal

Reduced meld costs of MEC primary weapons by roughly 33% to 50%

Reduced meld costs of MEC secondaries by 15% to 25%. Increased elerium costs on several secondaries.

Reduced meld costs of advanced MEC techs

Changed meld costs for several genemods

Fishing village will no longer spawn chryssys from map objects during terror missions on that map

Made UFO crashes instead of complete destruction for scouts, fighters, raiders and destroyers marginally more likely

For the first 75 days, alien satellite hunts will be conducted by fighters and raiders only. After that, it will be fighters, destroyers and battleships per normal alien supply tests.

Increased "free" minimum alien supply from 7 * Months passed to 9 * Months passed

Hover SHIVs lose 4 defense, 2 flight fuel, 1 mobility, 2 hit points

MEC-6 Vanguard gains +1 mobility

Dormant alien pods will now activate if you fire at them and miss

Dormant alien pods will now activate if you use a flashbang on one of its members

Dormant alien pods will now activate if you use a chem grenade on one of its members

Dormant alien pods will now activate if you drop a prox mine in range of them

Reduced engineer requirements for Enhanced Lasers and Enhanced Beam Optics

Exalt cell panic enhancers will now cause the lesser of 10 or the base panic from the panic event, instead of 15 regardless.

Soldiers may equip only one battlescanner item each (although it still gains bonus charges from various perks, and BS perk is unchanged)

Scout tree reworked

XCOM base on normal gets +2 "free" power

Reduced power requirement for hangar by 1 (essentially +1 free power on all difficulties)

Meld cans will last a little longer before closing

On Dynamic War games < 1, timeouts from fatigue and wounds reduced to balance out mission rates from exalt and council missions (which aren't subject to DW rates).

On Dynamic War games < 1, slowed Exalt activity in accordance with DW setting. This does mean it takes longer for them to build cells as well as run operations, so it will probably take you longer in campaign time to wipe Exalt out, but they should make up a reduced proportion of your missions in any given month.

Removed mobility penalty for taking Shock-Absorbent Armor perk.

All UFOs shot down in first month with generate crash missions and not blow up. I'm selling out because there's zero narrative justification for this being possible.

Thin Men pods will be slightly more common

Floaters lose 1 base mobility, get it back on day 90

Heavy Floaters lose 1 hp during level ups (day 360), gain 2 mobility (360 and 500)

Shifted the extra damage curve on impossible. Earlier aliens don't get bonus damage, later aliens get more.

Titan Armor now costs 8 meld.

Quenchguns anti-DR bouns now 2x base gauss DR, not 3x (so .67 default instead of 1). Reduced price of QG foundry project.

Gave aliens a slight bonus in their saving throws against mimic beacons

Various minor price adjustments

Adjustments to Guardian (starts with Opportunist; Sentinel goes to old Opportunist slot), Archer, Goliath trees

SHIV Defenses foundry tech renamed "Mechanized Unit Defenses" and moved to Carapace. It now unlocks Core Armoring and Alloy-Carbide Plating. Core Armoring now available to MECs. Damage Control Pods unlocked by Heavy Floater Autopsy.

It will be harder to get Terror Ships on research missions.

Beta 15b (March 11, 2015)

BETA 15 to BETA 15b Issues

If you are well into a campaign and have researched advanced Medikits, all of your soldiers will suddenly have the Deadeye Perk. If you want to remove it, use the Dev Console and the command GivePerk -116 on that soldier in a tactical mission.

Meld costs have doubled (as have meld incomes), so you'll be behind. If you are well into a campaign, workaround is to download dev console and give yourself 2x your current meld using giveresource 7 xxx, where xxx is the amount of meld to give yourself.

BETA 15a to BETA 15b issues

Because of a 15a bug, some new campaigns will lose their starting country bonus. The workaround is to go into DGC.ini, lines 1420 to 1453, and increase the iCash value on each line by 1, and change the iCash value on line 1419 (Cadre) to 6.

Feature:

Added cheat code functionality with dev console to permanently remove a perk from a soldier in tactical missions (not sure if it works in barracks). Use Giveperk -X where x is the perk number. So giveperk 3 grants Squadsight. Giveperk -3 removes it. To remove Deadeye from a soldier, use Giveperk -116.

Fixes:

CTD on terror mission initialization when DW > 1

Fixed bug when covert extraction on military base map. Workaround, fine StreamingMaps[1]=( MapName="patch_militaryammo", Loc=( X=0, Y=0, Z=0 ), Rot=( Pitch=0, Yaw=0, Roll=0 ) ) from end of line 190 in DefaultMaps.ini, and change the[1] to [2]

Medikit II bonus may not be applying correctly in upgraded campaigns in which you already had it

Some more map patches

Council requests for meld will scale correctly with meld income now

Fixed bug in which upgraded saves were getting wrong country bonus. THIS WILL MESS UP SAVES FROM NEW CAMPAIGNS IN BETA 15a. Workaround is above.

Fixed bug in which DW < 1 dead alien loot drops were way too large and way too small in DW > 1

Balance:

Outsiders now have Muscle Fiber Density

A few more Weapon Fragments on normal

Swapped Lance and Corporal perk choices on Scout tree

Beta 15a (March 11, 2015)

DO NOT LOAD TACTICAL SAVES FROM BETA 15 IF YOU HAVE RESEARCHED ADVANCED MEDIKITS IN THE FOUNDRY. FINISH TACTICAL MISSIONS BEFORE UPGRADING TO 15A.

Features

You will receive a popup after missions displaying which items have been destroyed and damaged.

Perk trees will be revealed on soldier class selection in non-Training Roulette Games. In TR games, it will be hidden by default, but you can change that by setting BLUESHIRT_WILL_MOD to 1 in the file DefaultGameData.ini. (NOTE FILENAME) Unlocked psi powers on psi tree will be revealed as well.

Gave Canada a second starter bonus, "Cadre," which grants 4 corporals at campaign start. (They need to survive the first mission as rookies, more for technical reasons than anything). Old "Cadre" UK country sat bonus remained "Sandhurst."

Activated Deadeye perk, which grants +10 aim and +10 crit against airborne targets. Will be available to Infantry, Scout, Shogun and Pathfinder. Scout tree gets a little rework to accommodate perk.

Added 3rd Australian Male voicepack.

Fixes

CTD when 16+ items finish repair at once. CTD caused by trying to add too many text notices at once, so the geoscape text scroller will not list every item that is fixed if you repair 16+ items at once.

Illuminator Gunsight will no longer show "requires research" and be unequippable if you take ancient artifact

Cinematic Mode ini value restored. Self-fix: Add line ABDUCTION_REWARD_SCI=15 to DGC.ini after ENABLE_SECOND_WAVE=1 line (around 1753). Soldiers previously created in a campaign will not get the better bonus, but new soldiers and aircraft will.

English Male 3 VO pack now in installer. Sorry, Sean.

Numerous map patches fixing bad cover. Removed bugged UFO door on farm map, which should solve a CTD when overwatch fire goes through the door.

Fixed bad ini setting on one of the furies (landed abductor) maps, not sure what effect would have been

Fixed: Incorrect Squadsight perk text (crit hit penalty is -20%)

Improved Combat Exoskeletons will now appear in research UI when requirements are met. Workaround: Dev Console command GiveTech Placeholder_13 may give you the tech

Lots of other text fixes

Adjusted Gauss eng reqs and LMG series costs

Code change that will fix CTD with Training Roulette in Mac/Linux versions

Fixed: Incorrect ini setting with Resourceful start not giving Alloys foundry project. DGC.ini fix: line 1444, change iEng=19 to iEng=25. This will only help new campaigns.

Flak Ammo will display correct inventory image now

Annette and the Furies should receive psi perks appropriate to their levels

Fixed assault-psi icon

Removed Armor-Piercing Ammo unintended crit bonus against hardened targets

Fixed goof in which I intended to decrease big ship speed on the hologlobe (allowing more interceptions) but instead decreased combat speed

Adv Suppression Module will show up in correct build tab in Engineering now

Removed ability to see facility construction UI detail when you can't afford building it. We put this in to let you see time to build and rush costs but it apparently enabled the ability to build themo generators everywhere as well. XGBuildUI_OnChooseFacility

Enhanced Beam Optics and Alloy Jacketed Rounds should equip properly with Laser Lance / Rail Gun now

Fixed up Blaster Launcher range code

Found second place required to change Dense Smoke & Combat Drugs AOE and fixed so Dense is same as SG and CD is much wider.

Many bugfixes to repair and R&R chances that were damaging items far more than intended and creating problems with covert operatives. Individual item damage chances exposed to ini in iWill variable. We're also testing to see if this fixes bug reports that items are simply vanishing after missions.

Any item or facility that requires exactly one of an item to build will not have that item requirement scaled with DW

You can no longer augment specialists per design

Jungle Scouts will now give bonus small slot to Phalanx per design

Cans will supply a minimum of 1 meld (for extreme DW games)

Attempted fix: Attempting to trigger neural feedback will call the code that ends suppression first. Attempt to correct reported CTD. No savegame to test on, so unsure if it will work or not.

Reworked terror mission offscreen kill code that wasn't doing what it should

Fixed a bunch of display bugs related to Reaper Rounds

Removed sound when repairs finished

UFO Scanners should provide damage readout on researched UFOs now

Worked on Mechtoid and overwatch AI

Enhanced Plasma Foundry project provides +1 all purpose plasma damage now.

Old Path country bonus should correctly impact psi training time now

Rapid Fire no longer works with Sawed-off shotgun (it was granting a free shot despite SoS 1 ammo)

DW: Alien loot drops will now scale with DW setting

Heavy Laser Rifle now correctly unlocks at Advanced Beam Lasers

Balance changes

Alien strategic AI will try harder to avoid countries with satellites for harvest missions when they have high aggro

Adjusted down a few meld costs (don't get excited, it's 10-20% on a few items)

Adjusted down a few fragment costs for weapon techs (ditto)

Made Wingtip Sparrowhawks a bit cheaper

Gauss Long Rifle now halves enemy hardened bonus against critical hits (so a hardened target only gets 30% crit protection instead of 60%)

Damn Good Ground now only a mid-level leader perk for Heavy Floaters, DGG on reg floaters will also come only on more advanced leaders. A few other adjustments to alien perk trees.

Swapped back TSGT and GSGT on Gunner tree

Will to Survive consistently provides +3 will on perk trees

Removed most of elerium cost from UFO scanners

Reduced a cooldown variable concerning country requests for same item to b14 levels

Roughly doubled all meld income and meld costs, with a few adjustments here and there. This provides more granularity for repairs and for meld gains from dead aliens. Cans will grant 5 to 30. NOTE: THIS WILL UNBALANCE ONGOING 15 GAMES (unless you've spent all your meld). Fix is to download dev console and use giveresource meld command to double your stockpile.

Total Loss SW option now has an DGD.ini-adjustable chance to lose soldier gear on death. This same variable also governs soldier gear loss on death AND mission failure that is present in regular game.

Inserted code in case of DW > 1 that delays appearance of some hardcoded (difficult) terror mission rosters that were triggered based on how many terror missions you had been on

Slight bump in fragment income on Normal

Beta 15 (March 2, 2015)

A NEW CAMPAIGN IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. B14 CAMPAIGNS WILL WORK BUT WILL PROBABLY BE BUGGY IN NUMEROUS AREAS. WE WILL NOT SUPPORT B14 CAMPAIGNS UPGRADED TO B15 AND DO NOT WANT BUG REPORTS FROM THOSE UPGRADED CAMPAIGNS.

Features:

Functionality for new soldier voice packs is in game. Completed voicepacks that will be included in B15 release: British English Male (3), Irish Male (1), Australian Female (1), Australian Male (2), SE Asian Male (1). Voicepacks will be assigned to soldiers of the appropriate nationality and may manually be assigned to any soldier of the designated gender. More voicepacks are in production and this list will be updated when they are complete. Many props to Long War Sound Editor TrackTwo for his tireless efforts getting this working, and special thanks to Firaxis, who helped us with some processing settings to get the voicepacks sounding similar to the vanilla ones.

A new bonuses system is in place: 1) Players may choose from a number of starting bonuses tied to which of the 16 council countries you put your first satellite. You have multiple options for some countries. The bonuses aren't balanced against each other, so to some degree this is a way to play a somewhat customized campaign. 2) When launching a satellite, a player gains a specific country bonus. These are less powerful than the starter bonuses, and some of the countries that offer less monthly $$ have stronger bonuses to make them attractive. Some costs were rebalanced in light of bonuses now available. 3) Continent bonuses are now gained with ONLY full satellite coverage over all countries on the continent. Some have been rebalanced and the OTS discount is no longer tied to any continent. The strength of each bonus, and the country assignment, can be modified in DGC.ini.

XCOM will draw soldiers from roughly 90 new countries (with unique flags) in addition to the existing group, with dozens of new namelists by Uzifeline. Countries include all of Europe (save microstates) and South America, with almost all of Central America and Asia, and lots of African countries. And New Zealand. Players can still control frequency of all countries providing soldiers with ini edits. Van Doorn gets UN flag, because he really represents all of us. SHIVs get XCOM flag in strategy game lists.

Major overhaul to Not-So-Long-War, which has been renamed Dyanmic War. Instead of planning missions monthly, with this option the aliens will check supply and threat to launch most missions constantly. This allows mission frequency in NSLW to be tunable with the ini setting -- even setting it to 1.0 will provide a different feel than regular LW, as missions per month isn't set, but probabilistic (although the variables are set to *on average* generate the same mission count if set to 1.0). You can set it to .3 for a much shorter campaign, or above 1 for even greater mission density.

You can now build seven MEC suits. MEC-1 is tier one, MEC-2 and MEC-3 are tier 2, and MEC-4 through MEC-7 are tier 3. They split along survivability/mobility lines and some grant body shield or jet boot module perks. MEC suit bonus will has gone down somewhat, and some MEC perk trees significantly reworked.

Critical wound bleed out timer now randomized between 2 and 5 turns. The timer is concealed to the player.

Respirator implant item now does the following: (in addition to strangle and partial acid immunity) 1) Causes first death of mission to instead automatically be a critical wound; 2) Adds 2 turns to bleed out timer; 3) Transmits bleed-out timer data to central. It does not prevent will loss. Raised price for item.

Long War classes have distinct icons now

You can always enter build facility detail screen for readout on requirements, even if you have insufficient resources for build

Commander's Choice (pick each soldier class) now available as a Second Wave option. Removed "Alternate Sources" SW option. Thanks to Peasly Wellbott for letting us pick this up.

Missions that can expire now have a countdown timer on the Geoscape UI. Geoscape will also pause when a mission is about to expire.

Activated Tandem Warheads perk, which causes explosives to do full regular and environmental damage to the extent of their area of effect. This will be a high-level perk appearing on the Rocketeer, Engineer and Archer trees.

Added UFO Scanners foundry project. This is an upgrade for your interceptors that will show precise damage taken by UFOs in air combat (using XMarksTheSpot's new interception UI mod) If you have already completed the analysis of the UFO class you are facing.

Small items that grant non-perk bonuses (like Ceramic Plating or Armor Piercing Ammo) will now be described in your F1 HUD in tactical and have an icon with all your perks on the main tactical screen. You'll see a bit of doubling up of icons, 'cause we're out.

Individual aliens and Exalts with certain perks will show different names in F1 detail if you have autopsied the species, giving a clue to their capabilities (and providing some flavor). eg Mutons with "Covering Fire" will be called "Muton Sentry" unless they have a stronger perk that takes precedence.

Spruced up the MEC conversion UI.

Reinstituted MEC repair and added repair of regular soldier items. Many items can now be damaged during (technically, after) combat and will have an increasing chance of needing repair following combat based on how many 'true' (non-armor) hp a soldier has lost. (Items will always function for the duration of a battle.) Armor, weapons, and small items that aren't infinite or fundamentally consumable (like grenades and ammo) are in the mix, although the chances they'll need repair is capped even if a soldier is killed varying on how likely something is to get damaged (armor=higher chances; pistol=lower chances, etc). Cybernetics Lab is now called "Repair Bay," is much cheaper, and may be built from campaign start. Cost to repair an item is initially set of 20% cash, meld, alloy and elerium cost, and a formula for time to repair is also in place that starts with a baseline of 60% of build time but goes down as you develop Advanced Repair and add engineers to your staff (minimum is 72 hours). The following items are ini-adjustable: repair time% of baseline build time, resource cost as% of baseline resource cost, and you can turn off repair requirements entirely with one variable. Removed Second Wave option "More than Human" and replaced with Wear and Tear, which gives a chance that items will be damaged on missions and require repairs even when a soldier isn't hurt. The chance is initially set at 20% per item, and this value is ini-moddable. Many item costs are being adjusted downward to make up for reduced utility when they are in the shop.

Fixes:

Code that was rolling up leaders at somewhat too high of a level and occasionally letting Temple Ship aliens out on regular missions

Restored code allowing 50/50 chance for recovery of gear on soldier MIA/death + mission failure. Also MEC suits from dead soldiers can be recovered again.

Adjusted some spawn code to reduce incidence of aliens spawning in range of soldiers at mission start (without pressing them all against the back wall of the map as was happening previously)

Some overloud stacking sounds (overwatch all and research new-item alert) won't be so loud

You will no longer get meld from failed alien and Exalt base assaults (vanilla bug)

Mayhem will apply +4 damage bonus precision shot for snipers with sniper rifles (instead of +2)

Rounding error that was causing Ethereal Psi Drain to not gain any HP when Ethereal was down only 1 hp

Repair perk will provide correct bonus arc thrower charges now

Flush will not cause flying units to attempt to move

Mimic Beacon throw range correctly limited

Various fixes to Critical Hit chances and interactions. Targeting Module (which isn't broken, contrary to reports) fix to displayed crit chance in some circumstances.

Mayhem will now provide SAW/LMG damage bonus when using Rapid Fire and Flush

Reward soldiers should now adopt your class coloration and headgear settings when class is selected

Building/Tearing Down GeneLab/PsiLab should provide immediate impact on lab bonuses

Having the Snap Shot perk and 1) carrying any primary weapon without the movelimited property (ie strike rifles) or 2) using the second shot of double tap confers a corrective to the snap shot aim penalty, canceling it out in those cases, as long as the calculated to-hit before the corrective is greater than 1%. This mostly corrects a vanilla bug.

Smoke and Dense Smoke will now provide defense to flanked targets on the condition that the attacker's chance to hit is otherwise less than 100. If the chance to hit is 100, smoke/dense smoke provides a flat -10/-20 defense, because we are unable to access how much greater than 100 the pre-smoke to-hit is.

Interceptor aim module now turns two misses into hits, instead of just making sure the next two shots hit regardless of roll. This fixes a bug in which Sparrowhawks were counting as an aim module hit if it was going to hit anyway.

Fixed, at long last: Bug in which flanking bonuses for to-crit and ITZ purposes were not being applied to Squadsight shots.

Fixed bug in which Fortiores Una wasn't conferring enough Damage Reduction. Changed its mechanics so it doubles base cover bonus, (so low is about 1.3, and high is 2.0).

Fixed bug in which Mind Control wasn't supplying PsiXP.

Bring 'Em On now counts enemies at Squadsight ranges in crit bonus calculation

Alien Salvage actually provides salvage now

Council Reward probability shift when you have a bunch of engineers should work properly now

Adrenaline Surge perk actually provides crit bonus now

Chameleon Suit actually provides bonus defense when using Lightning Reflexes (ouch)

Aliens will now run harvest missions as intended at supply 1, threat 4 on mission matrix. Also a couple of other adjustments on the matrix.

A soldier with both Concealment (old Psi Shadow) and Low Profile will no longer conceal, move to low cover, and immediately reveal; instead they won't conceal at all. This should allow a soldier with Lightning Reflexes, Low Profile and Concealment to trigger OW shots and retain high cover bonus by moving to a low cover spot.

Attempted fix: Shouldn't face any fresh panic checks when reloading a game with a critically wounded soldier

Triggering the HQ Defense mission will no longer crash game while Skyranger is in flight

Fixed some map bugs on police station, small scout nuked city, furies

Balancing:

Alien roster for XCOM HQ Assault will scale up in difficulty a little more slowly

Not So Long War SW option now applies modifier to soldier timeout and interceptor repair time -- meaning they will both be out longer

UFO upgrades to accuracy, damage and hit points now stop at 32 months (alien research 960) so interception game doesn't become truly impossible for persistent-game players

Significant nerf to the power of large lab blocks to reduce research time

Packmaster provides +1 Proximity Mine charge instead of +2

Dramatic increase in Weapon Fragments required for various technologies

Increased Neuroregulator psi bonus; wearing it 3 times will reduce missions to level up by 1. Adjusted PsiXP to normalize missions per level at 5 for all levels and 3 on current (.6) NSLW setting. NR grants +10 will.

Armor Piercing Ammo item now nullifies 2 points of enemy DR. Armor Piercing Ammo item now available to MECs, SHIVs and Engineers, but won't help with shotguns or sidearms.

HEAT Ammo and HEAT Warheads damage reduced to +50% from 75%. HEAT Ammo perk made available to engineer class at Gunnery Sergeant rank (in place of RFA). HEAT Ammo will not work if carrying a shotgun. Both HEAT Ammo and HEAT Warheads will provide a minimum of 2 bonus damage. Both HEAT Ammo and HEAT Warheads bonus exposed in separate ini variables, using up our last two spare floats for ini settings.

Weapon-tech damage-bonus items (alloy jacketed rounds, enhanced beam optics, plasma stellerator) now usable by humans, SHIVs and MECs. Depleted Elerium Rounds, Laser Pumper, Zevatron Booster removed from game.

Laser Sight and Hi Cap Mags now usable by humans, SHIVs and MECs. Weapon Gyros and Autoloader removed from game.

Targeting Module now provides +8% crit and +1 base damage when critical hits occur (so 1.5 critical damage).

Abductions will be spaced out over an entire month regardless of how many the aliens plan. Previously they were stacked in the early month. Reduced allowed Abduction response time.

Reduced meld from dead aliens to make you go after cans more. Exposed a couple of alien meld variables to the ini.

Ghost Grenades renamed "Shadow Device" and no longer gain additional charges from Packmaster or Smoke and Mirrors.

Engineers may now use shredder ammo small item. Added engineer-specific item property for additional modding.

Recovering from being strangled reduces your grenade throw range.

Increased damage and reduced AOE of Proximity Mines. AOE and trigger range should now match.

Increased AOE of grenade launcher grenades.

Reaction Fire against Mecs, Mectoids, SHIVs and Sectopods (what we're calling large mechanized units) is more accurate unless the targeted unit has Lightning Reflexes, or attacker has Opportunist / Advanced Fire Control (which already provide this accuracy bonus). Specifically, added a variable to cancel the REACTION_PENALTY (which is 0.7) when firing at these units. Dashing bonus still in effect. This can be removed with an ini edit. Purpose is to reduce effectiveness of big tanky units as super-dodgy Reaction Fire busters (although their DR will still help), and enhance utility of Lightning Reflexes perk on scouts.

Equipping multiple Kinetic Strike Modules now confers +3 damage for each extra module equipped. Stacks with Thumper and MEC Close Combat advances.

Firing a rocket/shredder rocket now grants +1 mobility for the remainder of the mission (for each rocket fired)

Major Rework of rocketeer tree, some changes all other trees

Sightline HUD (red alien heads) will now display up to 20 aliens in view instead of 10

Phoenix Cannon is back (replacing Phoenix Coilgun). It is available at Alien Materials and is probably a middling upgrade to the missiles -- it has base laser cannon armor piercing (enough to do full damage to Raiders) and slightly higher damage per second than Avalanche, and all the shots should mean it should provide more consistent results than the missiles.

Added foundry project "Quenchguns" that triples the anti-DR capability of Gauss weapons (to 1) and is available after researching Advanced Gauss Weapons.

Added foundry project "Phoenix Coilguns" that improves all existing Phoenix Cannon to Phoenix Coilgun stats and is available after researching Gauss Weapons.

Foundry projects will be more moddable in the ini now.

Strategy Game alien resource numbers moddable in the ini now.

Improved impact of Snap Shot for rocketeers.

Mimic Beacon item provides 1 base charge, not 2

Increased "Reasonable Attack Range" for drones and flying units in hopes of reducing derpy behavior

Aliens with Lightning Reflexes will now care much less about overwatchers when deciding what to do

Offscreen kills on terror missions will be proportionally reduced with the number of aliens you can see. To compensate, aliens can rarely kill 3 civilians a turn if you have revealed few or no aliens.

Master Sergeants will roll for a +1 bonus to a random stat (offense, defense, will, hit points) every 4th mission. 10% chance of hit point, 30% chance of one of the other three.

Transports (UFOs) will tend to have more troops than previously.

You will see more alien 'monsters' (level 9 leaders) by the by on alien base assaults, larger UFOs and late-game council missions.

Resources reworked a bit. Reduced base alloys from each UFO class by about 30%. Increased average alloys and elerium recovered on UFO crash missions. Foundry alloy and elerium projects now provide 20% bonus to ALL alloys and elerium recovered from missions. UFO Analysis techs provide 20% bonus to alloys and elerium recovered from that specific class of UFO after mission win (crashed or landed). Slight increase in chances of UFO Power and Nav Computer surviving mission. Altered how EMP Cannon works (bonus to artifact survival instead of flat chance). Slight decrease in alloys recovered from certain alien species. The goal here is to steady out your resource income and force some investment to improve it, particularly in the early game (making bagging a big landed UFO a little less swingey in overall campaign progression), make an early alien materials tech path more enticing, and make crashes somewhat more rewarding.

Reduced base flamethrower damage by 2. Jellied Elerium foundry project now provides only bonus panic chance on its own, but it also unlocks a small item, the Incinerator Module, that provides +3 flamethrower damage.

Reduced Chryssalid will by 10 or 15 or so.

MEC Railgun will now use Minigun model and effects. Laser/Pulse Lance will use Railgun model and effects.

Arc Rifle now available to all squishy classes but gunner and rocketeer. You may now move and fire it without penalty. It still suffers close-range penalties like sniper rifles (This a technical limitation -- disabling shot can't be divorced from short-range penalty), but otherwise operates like a rifle. It no longer operates at beyond visual range. It confers +10 aim.

Alloy Belt item removed from game. Alloy Carbide Plating provides Extra Conditioning bonus (2-4 HP) but no DR.

All MEC units gain +4 hp upon conversion instead of +2. MEC Armors lowered by 2 hp.

Reworked DR calculation formula so additive modifiers are calculated before multiplicative ones, with the exception of cover DR. This reduces the effect of Absorption Fields and Shock Absorbent Armor.

MECs have slightly higher average timeout between missions

New Item: Flak Ammo. Unlocked by Floater Autospy and MEC Warfare Systems. Can be equipped by anybody. Works like HEAT Ammo, granting greater of +2 or +20% base weapon damage against airborne units with primary weapon and rockets, and allows MECs with Collateral Damage to target airborne units with its AOE weapon attack (and gain the damage bonus).

Reduced damage for MEC Minigun, Laser Lance, Railgun by 1, so it scales up by 1 at each tech level like every other weapon.

Combined Arms perk now nullifies 1 point of all DR, not just cover-based DR. (Note all MECs have this perk innately).

Attempted to make EXALT less suicidal in rushing transmitter volume with AI change to GetMaxDangerLevelForMovement

Vital Point Targeting no longer applies to Collateral Damage ability (was never intended to). Ranger, and Shredded effects still do.

HEAT now applies a flat +2 damage bonus when used with collateral damage against robotic enemies.

Increased harder aliens' damage by 2 on Impossible, and easier aliens by 1. Increased alien research rate on Brutal from 105% to 110%, and 120 to 130% on Impossible.

Mid-level Cyberdisc and Sectopod leaders will get HEAT ammo. A few alien leaders/navigators will get Combined Arms.

Increased meld cost to convert a soldier to a MEC. Decreased meld cost of all suits.

Converting to a MEC confers a loss of one level (rank) and a proportionate reduction in XP; that is, a Sergeant 50% of the way to TSGT converts and becomes a Corporal 50% of the way to Sergeant with XP. MSGTs reset to minimum XP to become GSGT.

Gave SHIVs a little armor HP that won't need time in the shop if lost. Regular SHIV now has 15 defense (vice 10); Alloy SHIV has 10 defense (vice 15).

Rework of equip UI so it alerts you when you are equipping an ammo type or other small item that isn't compatible with one of your primary weapons, and unequips the small item if you swap to an incompatible primary weapon. Damage enhancer ammos will no longer apply bonuses to sidearms. If I get another spare item, I"ll think about a pistol damage enhancer item as an option.

Three special ammo items -- Flak, Shredder and AP -- cannot stack.

Moderate rework of some aim and defense: Items will gain aim/crit/defense on a 4/6/8/12 scale rather than a 5/7/10/15. Perk gains unchanged. Soldier aim gains on level ups will range from 18 to 28, with 18 or 21 for most classes (Scout is 25, Sniper is 28 ). Soldier recruit aim range changed from 55 to 75 to 58 to 72. Wider range for MECs, with a peak at 28 again for the Jaeger. (Note MECs can use Scope now.) Adjusted rocketeer scatter so a point of aim is worth slightly more, as they have fewer perk-based options to increase aim. Aliens lose some defense on level-ups. This is intended to do several things: 1) increase value of aim and defense-related perks on the trees, most of which are conditionally activated, challenging you to employ them effectively. 2) Increase value of cover and flanking mid-to-late game by reducing impact of general purpose defense. 3) Make it harder to reach 100 to hit 4) Flatten aim differences between classes somewhat and help supports be somewhat useful riflemen.

Three aim gainers -- Scope, Neural Gunlink and Illuminator Gunsight -- can no longer stack. Neural Gunlink and Illuminator Gunsight now provide +12 aim/crit. Scope provides +8.

Platform Stability now available on Sniper, Gunner and Rocketeer trees. Platform Stability now helps reduce rocket scatter.

Alloy Bipod is now a flat aim/crit gainer equippable only by snipers, providing +6 aim at zero weight.

Slight bump in XP to reach high ranks. (Master Sergeant is 4200 instead of 4000).

Squadsight shots now suffer only a -20% crit penalty

LMG series no longer provides a 5% crit bonus

In the Zone hits do one less damage with each ITZ kill in a round. ITZ crit per kill penalty reduced to -10% per kill from -25%. (And note Squadsight ITZ-related bugfix above).

Titan armor is now .5 DR, 12 HP, and carries the Damage Control perk.

Rework to simplify and bugfix explosives and perk interactions. Sapper now provides +1 damage to HE, AP, Alien, and Grenade Launcher grenades and Prox Mines. Mayhem applies +2 damage to all those weapons and +2 to rockets. Completing the alien grenade foundry project applies +2 damage to Needle and Grenade Launcher grenades and a 60% AOE bonus to HE grenades. So a maxed out Needle Grenade can get 9 damage, alien grenade 8 damage, HE Grenade 6 damage + large AOE, Grenade Launcher grenade 9 damage (with Ranger) and Proximity Mine (again with Ranger) 13 damage. Rockets go from 7, 9 and 12 to top out at 11, 13 and 17 with Mayhem, Ranger, and damage enhancers.

Trying to train drones and Mechtoids not to double move when enemies are around.

Trained drones to use their overload ability in certain special conditions (Without giving up the triggers, I'm showing some restraint here.) Debating whether to up the damage a bit.

Trying to train aliens to set up overwatch walls when they are defending landed ships and their own bases.

Removed Smartgun Kit item (Advanced Fire Control is now on Gunner tree). Replaced with Advanced Suppression Module for SHIVs, which grants Danger Zone perk.

Memorial now displays soldier class of deceased soldiers

Savior now also provides 2 item-free medikit charges and +4 healing bonus.

The first soldier on your roster will always be from XCOM's home country.

Taking Battlescanner perk now lets you throw scanners a distance equivalent to having Grenadier and Bombardier perks. Those perks will also increase BS throw distance, but it won't stack with perk bonus.

Regen Biofield now has a 50/50 chance (in separate rolls) of curing poison and reducing panic duration of nearby soldiers, in addition to healing bonus. Adjusted psi perk tree so Regen Biofield is level 1, Psi Inspiration and Distortion Field are level 2, and Psi Panic and Mind Merge are level 3. (Changed requirements a bit too). Psi fatigue increased to 24 hours for first level, and then to 6 hours for 2nd and 3rd level to increase cost of spamming low-level psis just to get at the gear.

Combat Stims grants adrenaline surge perk (+10 aim, +10 crit if you get wounded) for duration of mission, in addition to current use.

Slowed down pace of country item requests slightly.

Chameleon Suit now provides immunity to Opportunist crits

Psi Shadow perk renamed "Concealment" and removed from Psi Tree. Now a MSGT perk on Scout tree. Hacking an Exalt array and capturing meld now reveals hidden soldiers.

Slight reduction in flight fuel for flying armors and hover shiv

Larger UFOs have more hit points and go slower on the strategic map, allowing for more interceptions while they are on missions.

Dense Smoke perk no longer provides AOE bonus for smoke grenades.

UFO initial base will not be on your starting continent.

Doubled alien alloys and elerium income from UFOs, missions and aliens. Doubled alloys and elerium costs for techs and items. Reduced $$ cost for alloys and elerium. Increased usual amount for council item requests of alloys and elerium. This makes the repair system a little more granular -- the amount of alloys/elerium needed to repair early game items (0/1/2, etc) was making too big a difference in the utility of the item. Otherwise the overall economy should be the same.

Beta 14i (Dec. 4, 2014)

Special toddler at my keyboard edition

Fixes:

Possible CTD when using Heal charge with Field Medic perk and carrying no medikits

Missing Chaingun icon (with ammo count) in tactical

Neural Feedback not doing correct damage

Beta 14h (Dec. 3, 2014)

Features:

You may now adjust arc thrower chances in DGC.ini

Fixes:

CTD when sectopod AI hunting for cluster bomb targets

All-Exalt HQ assault shouldn't occur anymore

Bad XCOM spawns for soldiers 7+ in Linux version and cleaner 7+ spawns overall

Some ghost grenade-related adjustments listed in g that weren't fully implemented

Rebates when buying multiple items should work correctly now

3rd Rapid reaction shot should process now -- missed additional clamp downstream in prior code

Linux/Mac version only: Mind Control + Neural Feedback CTD fixed (CTD not present in PC version)

Beta 14g (Nov. 29, 2014)

Features:

You may now select and equip your soldiers for the HQ defense, with some important limits: You will be required to equip 12 soldiers (this number is moddable in DefaultGameData.ini and LW default may change based on feedback), but only a random five will be available immediately, with three more as reinforcements (one automatic, the other two dependent on losses). The remainder were pinned down somewhere else and will not show up on the mission at all (and receive no fatigue or XP). Blueshirts will be largely unchanged from B14, although reinforcements will almost always arrive based on keep you at 6 XCOM soldiers and 2 blueshirts, so no more gamey sacrifices of those guys. Aliens will also sometimes bring leaders on the HQ Assault, which the leader level and frequency increasing with alien research. They will also work to protect their assault carrier better.

Hangar ship list will contain an icon indicating whether aircraft is a standard interceptor or Firestorm

Critical Wound will penalty now exposed as an ini variable for modding

Added scroller to soldier equip UI allowing more 6 items (armor+weapons+items) to be equipped. Note for modders: Small items in slot 4+ may not supply charges in tactical game; we may try to address this in the future.

Fixes:

CTDs and some other weird behavior at interception initiation (with short-range weapons and maybe Sparrowhawks)

CTD when an ethereal psi-reflects twice in a turn (we think vanilla bug)

Lockup when SHIV tries to reinforce a HQ assault and gets stuck in the door. Shivs will no longer go on these missions.

Lockup when you have covering fire, sentinel and Neural Dampening all on the same soldier, you overwatch, and a mind control is used against you. (Fix: Being dazed cancels any overwatch shots)

Bug in which randomized alien drop downs were not taking place

Added explicit check for panicking in whether Close Combat Specialist triggers

Incidents of zero damage will still do zero damage if targeted is shredded. This is to fix cases of shredded ethereals taking 1 damage when a psi reflect event occurs.

Reworked how item discounts/rush costs are calculated so rounding issues don't make it advantageous to build a single item rather than several.

Ready For Anything will now trigger when Adrenal Neurosympathy fires after a kill

Combat Stims provide immunity to crits when not flanked or exposed

Psi Abilities will no longer apply shredding debuff with Shredder Ammo

Cyrillic font should look nicer now

Officer bonus perks properly removed from MECs now

Removed hyperwave beacon from list of salable items (due to bug in gray market); increased sale price of alien entertainment to compensate

You shouldn't be able to co-equip Psi Grenades and Flashbangs now

XCOM reinforcements in HQ Defense should spawn in order of barracks sorting now

Sectopod AI won't try to clusterbomb airborne units

Medikit preview blinkies will correctly take Smart Macrophages into account in all cases

EMP Cannon should work properly in providing loot chances now; exposed its effectiveness to the ini

You can change hairstyles on special soldiers now (Zhang, etc)

Finishing a lab should correctly update time to completion of current research project in UI

Added IsLocationOccupied check to prevent aliens from dropping on tiles already occupied by soldiers.

Reverted Commander spawn points to default for Supply and Battleship UFOs, because of UFO volume not being determined properly for those ships.

You should be able to train Rift before activating Gollop Chamber again if other requirements are fulfilled

Some crit bonuses will no longer be displayed twice in shot detail when attempting precision shot

Field commander rank should show up correctly in barracks now

Drone self-destruct will actually entail them self-destructing and not just taking damage

Panicking units will automatically unstealth, and cannot be stealthed with ghost grenades. This was to fix some buggy behavior but we're fine with the nerf to stealth, too.

Some scrolling improvements

Fixed bug in which abductor research missions were providing no alien research bonus

Attempted Fix (again): Tried to remove Steady Weapon ability from EXALT AI possibilities in a second location in the AI code

Attempted Fix: Found and eliminated case in which you could generate XCOM HQ assaults two months in a row, contrary to design intent for that not to happen

Attempted Fix: Rare cases of units blocking tiles after death.

Attempted Fix: Tile blocking after a suppression-caused reaction fire shot

Balancing:

Lowered sectoid commander aim significantly so their AI decides to use psi powers more often.

Removed brutal and boring Van Doorn map from terror mission roster. Added new gas station map in its place.

Steadfast perk (and Alien Trophies and Mind Shield) now provides immunity to Muton Intimidate ability. Mutons will no longer intimidate XCOM soldiers that they can't see (so at squadsight ranges or hidden).

Mind Merge provides greater DR (1 per 45 will)

Adjusted spawn settings again to better spread out alien pods, but again raising the still-slight risk of a spawn appearing in visual range of XCOM LZ.

Mayhem provides +4 damage (sted +2) for sniper and strike rifles

Thin Men should show up more often in general encounters

Reduced meld provided by mectoids (3 to 2) floaters (.5 to .4), Heavy Floaters (1 to .8 ) and Exalt Elite (1 to .8 )

Slightly changed Commander Pod location randomization algorithm to produce more diverse results.

Rapid Reaction now allows a third overwatch shot if the prior two hit

Buffed will of Temple Ship Muton Elites

Some aliens will have access to Neural Damping perk

MEC-3 armor now has two small item slots instead of one. Removed tactical sense perk from MEC-3 armor. Increased engineer requirements for MEC-2 and MEC-3 armors slightly.

Mimic Beacons now work on a caster will versus alien will mechanism, so aliens have to fail a will-based saving throw to be affected by it. Raised cash price and will penalty of MBs slightly.

Scientist and Engineer Loss on defeat during HQ Assault will cap at 1/3 of current staffing

Increased meld cost of some items and foundry projects

Amped up alien base forces a bit. Aliens will have a higher chance of rolling navigator abilities, and "Itchy Trigger Tentacle" will be activated for the alien side during base assaults (representing them being on the defensive).

Removed some sectoid automatic will upgrades, made some more powerful navigator sectoids instead (so the critters will vary more)

New soldiers and blueshirts will equip assault rifle or assault carbine and tac armor or tac vest based on their aim and mobility rolls. You can set their ability score threshold for equipping them in DGC.ini.

Soldiers will cost $25 on all difficulties.

Increased damage caused by drone self-destruct for big drones.

Increased costs significantly for Ghost Grenades, somewhat for Chem Grenades. You'll need more bodies.

Increased elerium costs for flying and psi armors.

Tweaked up frequency of interceptor base attack.

Frontloaded some rocketeer aim gain to early levels, removing some from later levels.





Beta 14f (Nov. 4, 2014)

Fixes:

Fixed: Major bug since 14d that broke alien resource-gathering

Fixed: Typo in Supercapacitors ini entry that may have made it too cheap or possibly not available at all

Updated Spanish translation

Beta 14e (Nov. 4, 2014)

Fixes:

Fixed: Bug forcing you to reselect Fire In the Hole after each mission

Fixed: Red Fog will apply movement penalties now

Fixed: Shredded effect no longer enhances poison damage. This was causing suicidal AIs.

Fixed: Covering Fire and Steadfast on Infantry tree will provide correct skill bonuses again (+3 aim and +5 will). DGC.ini update

Fixed: Swedish last names not randomizing properly, also removed some special Swedish characters from defaultnamelist.ini that weren't showing up correctly on some machines and possibly bollixing array; updated some other namelists

Fixed: Medikit ability UI will show savior bonus correctly now

Fixed: Ship Weapon card will show correct to-hit for pilots with 11 or more kills

Fixed: Removed Repair Servos from Seeker leaders, as it was showing repair popup while they were cloaked. Gave them Rapid Reaction instead. Wondered briefly how'd they do with Absorption Field.

Fixed: Tactical Mission summary should report correct number of soldiers killed / lost on failed council missions. Suppressed the soldiers-killed report for covert extractions because it wasn't working correctly and we don't have a mechanism to fix it.

Updated French translation

Beta 14d (Nov 2, 2014)

Features:

Damaged UFOs (at 50% damage or greater) will show an explodey effect in the interception UI that will increase in intensity as damage increases. (XMarksTheSpot strikes again)

Distinct name lists for Swedes, Canadians (French and Anglo), Australians, Spanish, Ukrainians, Nigerians and South Africans (thanks to freshman LW contributor Part Time Commie). Note: If you use non-LW custom name lists, you will have to reformat them in accordance with new file standards, which are explained in the file DefaultNameList.ini

Removed some camera angles and replace ALT-F7, ALT-F8 and ALT-F9 keybinds with SLOMO commands (1.0, 1.15, 1.5 -- normal, slightly accelerated, significantly accelerated)

Man of Bronze second wave option. This option enables tactical mission restart option on Ironman campaigns. E-299 SW option will no longer be available.

Fixes:

Fixed: Bullrush CTD

Fixed: Another barracks sort CTD

Fixed: Linux CTD on Seeker behavior, was probably causing some goofy Seeker behavior in Windows

Fixed: Obscure Geoscape CTD when council mission target being selected

Fixed: Improved scrolling in Tactical F1 and on strategy game item cards

Fixed: MedikitHeal/Stabilize abilities will no longer show up on MECs

Fixed: Restorative Mist + Field Medic providing too many charges

Fixed: Remove Steady Weapon entirely from EXALT's options; they're too stupid to use it well

Fixed: Reworked officer promotion UI so it's purdy and doesn't have incorrect perk icons

Fixed: Shredded no longer applies bonus damage to mindfray

Fixed: UFO icon in Sit Room screen will now disappear after aborting landed UFO mission

Fixed: Visual bug in which seekers strangled in incorrect location when strangling a suppressor

Fixed: Bug in which soldiers 7 and 8 on HQ defense are apparently reverted to default loadout

Fixed: Mind Control perk should work again

Fixed: Bombard perk will show in icons stack in lower left corner in tactical missions

Attempted Fix: Tried again to make it impossible for seekers to do double-stealth fail when up against battlescanner

Attempted Fix: F2 camera angle not allowing certain camera movements with controls

Attempted Fix: Small Scout map where soldier can spawn out of map bounds

Adjusted a key spawning variable to spread out aliens on smaller maps a bit more and work around some failed pod placement issues. This slightly increases the still-small chance of seeing members of an unactivated pod upon landing, but the alternative is squishing the aliens into a highly restricted space on some maps.

Sapper, Stay Frosty, Band of Warriors, Legio Patria Nostra, Into the Breach and Fire in the Hole, some others get better perk icons

Some available resources information will appear in more places in the StrategyUI

Balancing:

Made it harder to spawn battleships on hunt missions; a little easier on bombing missions

Expanded conditions in which an interceptor base assault may be generated

Note: Our fixes to Mind Control involved some funny business with the Fire In the Hole perk. The upshot is that if you upgrade a 14/a/b/c campaign, your rocketeers with FITH will have to reselect that perk but also have Mind Control for free. This shouldn't happen with new campaigns or rocketeers who promote to take that perk as the campaign goes on. Obviously, using that perk is an exploit if you don't actually have that soldier up to level 5 psi.

Beta 14c (Oct. 26, 2014)

Fixes:

Fixed: CTD when 'Serkers look for bullrush targets on pod reveal

Fixed: CTDs due to barracks sort code, including CTD after FLIP

Fixed: CTDs when covert operatives hits extraction LZ

Fixed: Colors for hit points and armor points above pawn should be clearer now

Fixed: HP Display can handle up to 80 hp now

Fixed: Healing items will blink hp/ap when considered for use

Fixed: Adjusted Pulse and Beam laser environmental damage so Pulse is higher as intended (relic of switching their roles several Betas back)

Fixed: Civilians will no longer show armor HP

Fixed: Vortex Armor description will note fatigue relief

Fixed: Suppressors will return to cover now

Fixed: Council will only request laser rifles once beam lasers tech is researched

Fixed: Skyranger will automatically empty when a mission expires as long as it's not on a mission -- so soldiers aren't stuck in limbo until next mission pops

Fixed: Field Surgeon will no longer bring back the dead

Fixed: Dead Aliens killed without explosives will provide meld again. As a side effect, killing navigators will net more XP if the navigator has multiple bonuses.

Fixed: Novosibirsk city name will show up now

Fixed: VIPs can escape properly on yellow moves now

Fixed: Durand won't get Close Encounters but instead a psi perk as intended

Fixed: Laser pistol gets beam laser aim bonus

Fixed: New scrolling works in Hangar now

Fixed: Display bug suggesting hidden-but-equipped large weapon was providing mobility bonuses/maluses for covert operative (it wasn't, so no need to go into barracks and add SMG to CO thinking it will give you mob bonus)

Fixed: Apparent longstanding bug in which some bonus ammo + Dr penetration we were granting MECs (via assignment of free Combined Arms perk) was getting removed from MECs after their first mission. This caused Rapid Fire and Collateral Damage to be unavailable when it should have been. To correct MECs on existing campaign, select the MEC and use the dev console command GivePerk 138 during a mission, or give perk 138 to all MEC weapon items in DGC.ini.

Fixed: Gauss Machine Gun and Sentry Gun will have Reaper Ammo FX now

Fixed: Covert operative will be fatigued after mission

Fixed: Suppressors losing LOS to target when in high cover. We may have fixed a couple of other wonky LOS bugs at the same time by forcing a vision check in a certain place.

Attempted Fix: Tried to delay Slingshot start by a couple of weeks in a second place

Updated Spanish translation

Beta 14b (Oct. 20, 2014)

Fixes:

Fixed: Freeze when Progeny mission fires

Fixed: Bad offset when new council mission checked, potential freeze

Fixed: Europe continent bonus will actually apply to OTS projects now

Fixed: More bugs in whether covert ops mission awards intel

Fixed: Van Doorn now says something when he fires a rocket

Fixed: Removed two XCOM spawn points from Grand Cemetery maps that required grapples/flight to extract, which was a little unfair even for us

Fixed: Some spawning issues on fishing village map

Fixed: Corrected Fuel Cell and Cognitive Enhancer inventory images

Fixed: Removed Van Doorn head from heads available to general soldiery (to fix bug where they wouldn't retain hair). Van Doorn's head is unique to that unit. Any soldiers with Male Caucasian Head 14 may need to perform temporary race swap to avoid CTDs.

Fixed: Gauss Weapons should apply anti-DR correctly now

Fixed: Gauss Rifle and a few pulse weapons weren't classified correctly, meaning weapon-tech based bonus items weren't help like they should

Beta 14a (Oct. 19, 2014)

Fixes:

Fixed -- Finishing a covert extraction by escaping will award intel.

Beta 14 (Oct. 19, 2014)

Beta 14 notes: Beta 14 should not require a campaign restart; however, a new campaign is recommended for a balanced and less buggy experience.

Beta 13 to 14 known issues:

Fix to soldier heads can cause CTD in the tactical game. IF A SOLDIER HAS NO PAWN APPEAR IN THE DROPSHIP SCREEN, THE WORKAROUND IS TO CHANGE THE RACE/ETHNICITY OF THESE SOLDIERS (and change it back if desired), WHICH RESETS THEIR HEAD TO A DEFAULT. IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS, YOU WILL GET CRASHES IN THE TACTICAL GAME.

Changes to perk trees will not take effect for existing soldiers, as usual

XCOM Soldiers with Mind Control perk will lose the perk (and get Fire in the Hole Instead). Currently unsure they will be able to retrain it, but they can add it with console command GivePerk 100 or GivePerk PsiControl.

On normal and classic difficulties, new XCOM soldiers no longer get a defense bonus; instead all aliens get an equivalent aim penalty. This will mean existing soldiers will be very hard to hit (as they will maintain their defense, but the aliens will all lose aim). Player upgrading mid-campaign may want to adjust ini values to compensate.

Features:

Most maps will now have start zones and escape LZs in new places.

Aliens will now sometimes attack your interceptor bases, using a map previously available only to MP games. Failure to defend your bases will mean destruction of and damage to many of your aircraft.

Soldier hit points display in tactical UI will differentiate between armor/item HP bonuses and permanent HP

Added sort in engineering UI. Items will be categorized by size, then alphabetically.

Reworked soldier sort in barracks menus; will now sort down fatigued status soldiers below active and above wounded soldiers, and sort primarily by XP and secondarily by officer rank within each status.

Adjusted scrolling behavior in strategy game and savegame menus. Should be a lot easier to use now.

For non-Ironman games, added "Restart Mission" option to pause menu (thanks Drakous79 for unocovering this). This offers a way to get out of bug-induced mission problems (like script interruption on the base assault) and also a perhaps somewhat more honest savescumming method, in that you take the mulligan on an entire mission rather than a single shot.

More new inventory art. More unique HUD images from JCLewis. Art for the new techs and foundry projects.

Added two new options to Interface Options Screen: 1) Default Zoom Level Slider, lets you adjust default zoom level from between 50% and 200% of normal, and 2) A checkbox that lets you activate an alternate set of camera controls, where you can click the middle mouse button to directly control camera yaw and pitch

You may now recruit soldiers from two new countries: Honduras and Bosnia-Herzegovina! (Please don't ask why those two over other deserving countries like Turkey or Iran.) (Sigh. You asked, didn't you? Look, these are perfectly fine countries who want to fight aliens, so consider them representative of two important world regions: Central America and the Balkans.) (The real answer is technical. From what I understand, Firaxis coded in the Honduran and B-H flags in the texture that supplies flags to the back of soldier pawns, along with the 29 flags you are familiar with. These textures are prohibitively difficult to change, while changing all the other stuff to get these countries in the game was fairly simple.)

Brazilian soldiers will now get Brazilian names, rather than Spanish-based ones. Combined English and Australian namelist (please don't hate me) and two Spanish namelists to make this and the new countries happen. Added a bunch of names to multiple nationalities for more variety.

Alien Missions can now take place in a bunch of new cities in council countries

Premission squads are loaded blank. Your premission squad will now be saved if you leave the dropship room and return.

Completing the Exalt HQ assault will net three unique items, a really nice scope (an improved illuminator gunsight usable by any soldier; old IG no longer buildable) and items that respectively grant 20% bonus XP and PsiXP whenever carried on missions.

Added French translation, now available as separate download

Added Field Surgeon perk, which reduces wound recovery time after missions

Gauss Weapons will now use Reaper Ammo sound and visual effects to differentiate them better from ballistics. Reaper Ammo will no longer cause special FX.

Added Hit and Run perk, which allows a free shot against a flanked or exposed target (basically works like Close Encounters, except target status rather than proximity is the trigger). Will be available to scouts, assaults and probably MECs. No, it can't stack with CE (it uses the same resources, for one thing).

Added Fire in the Hole rocketeer Perk, which grants 10 aim for purposes of reducing rocket scatter if your soldier has not moved. Grants 10 aim worth of additional range for blaster launcher.

Added two cheap Base Security foundry projects, which will allow base security to automatically equip any spare laser rifles and phalanx armors during an XCOM HQ assault. Note these will only help if you have unequipped instances of these items in storage.

Geoscape will pause when new recruits arrive.

In rare cases you will get landed assault carriers. These will use battleship maps (which have fires and damage because we only have shot-down battleship maps available to us).

Added ini settings to control likelihood of new soldiers coming from a given country

Added ini settings to set costs (meld, money and days in the tank) for genemods. Also added ini settings to set extra fatigue timeout for individual genemods and psi powers, and fatigue timeout per officer rank.

Added ini setting to set initial alien bonus research

Added ini setting to increase/decrease meld from cans (multiplier)

Fixes:

Fixed: Hang when alien panics

Fixed: CTD/Hangup when MEC troopers forced into base defense mission without any available MEC armor to be equipped

Fixed: Potential CTD bug with seeker AI

Fixed: CTD when reloading mission with lots of aliens

Fixed: CTD when reloading Exalt HQ assault*Fixed: Geoscape rarely becomes semi-frozen after missions (clock doesn't roll for item construction, Skyranger does not return from mission site). Apparently a vanilla issue that failed to give Skyranger return-to-base mission in some cases; it may be more likely to occur in LW for some reason; added an error check that should prevent it.

Attempted Fix: Altered hardcoded defaultloadouts in attempt to catch versions of Sectoid Commander crash that isn't fixed by our prior fix for reasons we do not understand

Attempted fix: Found bad local in CalcHitRolls that may have been messing up HEAT/Shredding damage modifiers when applied to Rapid Fire and In the Zone. We think this will fix the Rapid-Fire-2nd-shot-always-missing-bug.

Fixed: Aliens sometimes start out in view of squad

Fixed: Lock N' Load perk will now work for MECs; turn ends on reload

Fixed: Lock N' Load perk will no longer allow a reload+turn for sidearms, as designed

Fixed: UFO command pod sometimes spawning on UFO roof, which is a problem if spawn point is inaccessible or invisible

Fixed: Can no longer sell Ethereal Device on Gray market. Increased price of Hyperwave Detector so it's worth selling after multiple base raids. Lowered alien entertainment price somewhat so base raids don't get that much better.

Adjustment/Fix: Gave sectoids, sectoid commanders and seekers "Gunslinger" perk and reduced their plasma pistol damage by 1, effectively leaving their weapon damage unchanged but removing range penalties. Their AI probably isn't smart enough to know how to compensate for the range penalties.

Fixed: Hi Cap Mags and Autoloader will no longer show "Lock N' Load" perk when equipped. These items and the +1 ammo from LnL will still stack.

Fixed: Scatter Laser, Alloy Cannon and AP Grenade showing inaccurate damage in equipping UI card sometimes; cards for Grenade Launcher, Kinetic Strike Module and Flamethrower damage will now reflect bonuses from foundry projects

Fixed: Precision Shot will not give crit bonuses to strike rifles (only sniper rifles) per design

Fixed: Marksman's Rifle icon looks more impressive now in the HUD

Fixed: Hyperwave and Gollop Chamber do not require Hyperwave/Ethereal Device to build on top of research requirement that consumes those items. Research requirement will consume items; after which you don't need them to build the facilities.

Updated Spanish translation.

Adjusted: MEC conversion will return to 9a mechanism: set to fixed stats (what you'd get with strict screening on the same difficulty level), except a measure of very high will will be retained.

Fixed: Removed soldier heads of Ken, Sid and Carter from being available to random soldiers in the mod. These were bugged when combined with various headgear options.

Attempted Fix: Exalts floating in during "fliers-only" part of HQ assault

Fixed: Lightning Reflexes will now apply to reaction fire shots that otherwise have a 100% chance to hit. Vanilla issue.

Attempted Fix: Last round of your clip with Ammo Conservation doesn't seem to allow to set overwatch. You can steady weapon, fire that round, can't overwatch with it. It's faded out and says "not enough ammo."

Attempted Fix: RFA still allowing multiple overwatch shots on a berserker.

Fixed: Dismissed officers do not see billet recycled back; vanilla bug manifesting (Recycling code in MoveToMorgue; not present in DismissSoldier)

Fixed: Targeting Reticle now shows expected scatter instead of % when aiming with rockets

Fixed, sort of: Getting some UFOs being spawned outside the range of designed ships, causing the "Independence Day virus" in which you get free kills on nameless UFOs. Can't figure out cause, but added some code to catch these errors and spawn mission-appropriate craft instead.

Fixed: Blueshirts will properly level up and be assessed fatigue if they survive the base defense mission

Fixed: Catching Breath (and probably freshly revived) soldier cannot draw sidearm.

Fixed: Plasma Pistol no longer confers -10 aim.

Fixed: Skeleton key now consumed by base assault

Fixed: Removed Automated Threat Assessment from Alien perk list

Renamed Rocketeer perk "Shock and Awe" to avoid confusion with class name

Fixed: Missing to-hit percentage on sidearm

Fixed: Text errors for Sniper Rifle series, Heavy Plasma Rifle, Plasma Mauler, Seraph Armor (which was also renamed), Titan Armor, Archangel Armor, Mind Shield, Alien Trophy, Shredder Ammo perk, Steadfast perk, Secondary Heart perk, MEC Close Combat foundry project, Smartgun Kit, Laser Pumper, Packmaster; Added armor mobility benes to text and clarified Sprinter perk

Fixed/workaround: Firestorms stuck at zero hours repairing if you reduce ini setting INTERCEPTOR_REPAIR_HOURS to below 75 (or possibly even 168). Solution: Don't do this (added warning in ini). Fix manually by setting IRH to 800 or so, then switching back.

Attempted Fix: Arc Thrower showing 0% or 1% chance when circumstances suggest it should be much higher (in the 40s or 50s); some reports that this is a display error only.

Fixed: Touchpad + Expanded perk tree perk selection bug

Fixed: Tactical Sense perk no longer confers immunity to being exposed/flanked (an unintended bonus)

Fixed: Being suppressed and/or poisoned should properly apply scatter penalties to rockets

Fixed: Aliens will no longer attempt reaction fire when hit by Disabling Shot

Fixed: Soldiers with squadsight will no longer get a couple of squadsight-range tiles for th