Long War Beta 14g

Hotfix 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)
* Added explicit check for panicking in whether Close Combat Specialist triggers
* Bug in which randomized alien drop downs were not taking place
* 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
* Successful abductor research missions now provide correct 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.

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. The workaround (short of starting a new campaign or dismissing those soldiers) is to not use that perk.