Long War Beta 14 Changelog

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)
Bugfixes
- 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 their non-long-range-weapons (like sidearms).
- Fixed: Alien Entertainment council request unlocks with Hyperwave sted Sectoid Commander Autopsy
- Added text to clarify Rift only works if you are wearing Aurora or Vortex armors
- Added text to clarify suppression doesn't cancel overwatch; it prevents reaction shots from taking place (so the eye is working correctly; overwatch is still there is suppression ends for some reason)
- Fixed: Psi Inspiration does not help allies on a different Z
- Fixed: Lone Wolf crit bonus always applied, instead of selectively
- Fixed: Steady weapon bonus maintained through grapple action when it should go away
- Fixed: DR popup not always appearing even when applied
- Fixed: A bunch of under-the-hood references that were generating log warnings but no known game effects; who knows, maybe we'll fix something
- Fixed: Lock N' Load doesn't reset UI and refill ammo in HUD gun icon
- Fixed: MEC small items give IMG placeholder in select-squad dropship UI. The are fine in barracks equipping view. The same small items appear fine on SHIVs.
- Fixed: Paramedic use still not refreshing ability icons
- Fixed: Alien AI wasn't getting angry enough when you assault one of their bases
- Fixed: Plasma Sniper bonus crit put in line with other sniper rifles
- Fixed: Rework of Sitroom objectives display with a lot of corrections and clarifications on how to move the plot forward
- Fixed: Interrogation techs still being available even if you sold/lost your captives
- Attempted fix: Psi Inspiration should remove multiple mindfrays.
- Fixed: Soldier suppressing from high cover and taking reaction shot now returns properly to cover after shot. At long freaking last.
- Attempted Fix: Mind Control beginning and ending should clear all suppression
- Fixed: Mind Control beginning and ending should clear all panic
- Fixed: Will penalty from being Mind Mergee.
- Attempted Fix: Cyberdisc spin attack is sometimes at the wrong altitude, doing no damage. Vanilla. Attempted to teach CD AI that it only works on same altitude.
- Fixed: Mind Control not showing correct to-hit in some cases.
- Fixed: Suppressing pawn ends suppression with messed up (twisty) pose.
- Attempted Fix: Critically wounded soldiers not showing up as dead on post-mission popup in tactical game. Update: Occurs only on squadwipe.
- Fixed: You may no longer suppress using shotguns or sniper/marksman rifles. (The latter wasn't possible anyway by class setup)
- Fixed: Some bugs in Exalt cell placement AI that might lead to them selecting Russia over and over.
- Fixed: Having a VO underway when a council request registers will no longer oddly freeze the geoscape but instead popup the request.
- Attempted Fix: Pods should no longer spawn outside playable area on L-Shaped Highway 1 map. (Thanks WGhost for fix)
- Fixed: Added a series of restrictions for overwatch all button to work on an individual soldier, such as if it is panicking.
- Fixed: Tech image for Thin Man Autopsy
- Attempted Fix: Removed goofy death animations
- Attempted Fix: Vahlen should stop nagging about psi testing so much
- Fixed: Double Tap won't trigger when no targets in view, or you are out of ammo.
- Fixed: During extractions, Covert operatives now actually leave the map when finishing a mission, rather than just go invisible. (vanilla bug)
- Fixed: New MEC available descriptions popping up when armor tech completed but other key research isn't
- Fixed: A soldier throwing a battlescanner can no longer have her tile occupied by another soldier if she does NOT step out of cover to make the throw.
- Fixed: Battlescanners no longer occupy a tile and make it impassible.
- Fixed: Platform Stability no longer applies to second shot of LEM, consistent with Double Tap.
- Fixed: To-hit score on red heads now consistent with ability being considered for use, rather than always standard shot.
- Fixed: Mindcontrolled XCOM personnel no longer acquire "dead allies" debuff when an alien is killed.
- Fixed: Scientists will not float in weird places on the ant farm after an interrogation.
- Fixed: Mindfray targeting now blinks 1 hp off an enemy's HP bars, instead of 5
- Fixed: Unequip all will strip gear from fatigued, injured, psi-testing, augmenting in addition to active soldiers. These guys should have been stripped in most cases anyway.
- Fixed: Expired meld containers no longer provide cover when destroyed
- Attempted Fix: Rapid Fire shouldn't pop up extra "missed" if miss then hit occurs
- Fixed: Progeny characters should now get purple psi overlay on character cards
- Fixed: Non-damaging Psychokinetic Strike no longer triggers you-will-hurt-allies warning when friendly troops are in range
- Fixed: Rocket Launcher shot following Shredder rocket shot should now do proper damage through cover
- Fixed: Reactive Targeting Sensors will no longer trigger on Rift or Psi Inpsiration
- Fixed: Can no longer enter psi labs from covert operative selection screen, removing ability to be simultaneously on covert op and psi training
- Fixed: Geoscape should pause properly when a UFO is overhead and a fighter refuels or repairs
- Fixed: Reaction shots against drop-in aliens will now check weapon range
- Fixed: SHIVs will no longer count +1 for total ranks for OTS purposes
- Fixed: Item stat bonuses now show correct for covert operative
- Partially Fixed: On escort missions, the escortee suffers an acid hit and can't extract, and is instead treated like a regular soldier, and you get queries to abort mission (which you shouldn't do). WORKAROUND: Save and reload. Then move escortee out of Skyranger's LZ and back, and escortee should extract properly.
- Fixed: Mission debrief Promotion UI now displays promoted officers ranks correctly
- Fixed: Combat Stims no longer gives out of ammo message when used
- Fixed: Steady Weapon button suppressed when you are out of ammo for all weapons that can benefit from the ability (including rockets)
- Fixed: Bradford sometimes says "densely populated urban area" for UFO missions to rural places
- Fixed: Female Voice 6 plays "I'm suppressed" when she means "I'm suppressing."
- Attempted Fix: Mechtoid AI double-moving when firing is a much better choice (vanilla; I wonder if Mechtoids had a melee weapon at some point)
- Attempted Fix: Capped alien rosters at 50 on supply barges and alien base in a vain attempt to prevent the loadgame CTD. The two reproducible examples I have received, along with other anecdotal reports, suggest the CTD occurs when alien rosters are greater than 50, but I have no idea if this will be partially/fully effective.
- Fixed: Fixed loadgame CTDs in alien base assault.
- Attempted Fix: Tried alternate method of canceling phone-home for users reporting slowdowns during play. Until B14, solution is to play in offline mode.
- Fixed: Made sure AbsorbDamage was tested in KSM kill animation
- Fixed: Collateral Damage range limited to MEC Weapon range
- Fixed: Exalt shouldn't use steady weapon ability if they have no ammo.
- Attempted Fix: Mayhem perk should now work as advertised with proximity mine and grenade launchers.
- Fixed: Rift abilty icon suppressed if you have incorrect armor
- Fixed: Clarified Hunker Down info to say it doesn't mitigate crit penalties if you are flanked
- Fixed: Acidified aliens will no longer attempt to suppress in team-attack mode
- Fixed: Civilians on terror missions can not be randomly killed if they are within sight distance with one of your soldiers, regardless of whether that soldier can be seen.
- Fixed: Promotion available VO won't happen as much
- Fixed: Mayhem+Suppression properly costs more ammo now
- Fixed: So Shall You Fight has icon now
- Fixed: Failing / skipping a terror mission in a country you've already lost should no longer penalize your monthly income again for the lost country, but instead only incur continental panic
- Fixed: if you have low profile and psi shadow, reload or go into overwatch for the smidgen between the end of the running/crouching animation and the deactivation, the ghosting effect stays on for the rest of the mission (unless the soldier is moved to half cover again to 'reactivate' it): the soldier can now just stand invisible and unharrassed out in the open. But: Will drops like a rock (I think 15 a round).
- Lame Fix: SHIVS for some reason don't extract on mission aborts if they fire in the round they extract. Added warning to SHIV item text that they need extra time to load on the Skyranger and should not take any actions in extraction zone
-Fixed: Multiple mindfrays not wearing off in temple ship mission
-Fixed: Ethereal AI should be able to target Rift effectively at flying soldiers
- Fixed: Dodge consumable only appearing to provide 1 dodge. This was a display error; we fixed it by having aircraft formerly with short-range weapons (laser, phoenix, EMP) close distance to the UFO. We believe that those weapons don't lose any shots during the closing of the gap; their actual range remains as long as the other weapons.
- Fixed: Aggression and Lone Wolf crit bonuses should show up correctly at squadsight range.
- Fixed: Suppressors no longer get free shots at drop-down alienses
- Fixed: Goofy double pawn in barracks after soldier finishes augmentation

BALANCING AND SMALLER ADJUSTMENTS:
- Reworked Mind Merge again. For humans, it no longer will grant hit points, doing away with unlimited healing exploit. It instead grants damage reduction to the recipient of the merge, scaling upward with caster will (sort of like a shield). For aliens it will behave more or less like it did originally, with bonus hp scaling up with caster will (it's somewhat off in B13). This change addresses the reported issue of variable feedback damage on caster kill.
- Significantly increased opportunities to get reward soldiers from council requests, particularly in the late game
- Alien research bonus from dead and left-behind XCOM on mission failure sharply reduced (4 to 1 per), giving squadwipes and lost missions with heavy casualties less impact on alien progression
- Alien Grenades require foundry project to be completed before you are able to equip them. You can no longer sell alien grenades as loot.
- Neural Gunlink provides +10 crit
- SMG series granted "steady weapon" ability
- Reduced resources required to build phalanx armor, slight increase in resources for Advanced Body Armor, minor increase in research time for Mobile Power Armor and Pulse Lasers
- Reworked UFO mission panic and bonus research mechanics slightly; now you can eliminate alien bonus research from UFO missions if you reduce the UFO's hit points to below 50% of max, and only have a 50/50 chance of a bonus research if the UFO takes any damage at all. This also eliminates the last possible gamey bonus from engaging a UFO and fleeing immediately (previously, doing so always reduced change of bonus research to 50/50, regardless of whether you fired on the UFO or not). Damaging a UFO also can now reduce the panic it generates if it escapes. (Previously this only happened with air raid missions).
- Primary Weapon aim bonuses/penalties (like the +7 with carbine or -15 with heavy rifles) no longer apply to rocket launchers. All other aim bonuses (small items, steady weapon) still apply.
- Made Gauss Weapons generally cheaper and gave some more ammo; made pulse weapons slightly more expensive. Pulse weapons now require Alien Power Systems instead of Elerium as a tech prereq.
- Made Laser Cannon and Supercapacitors foundry project more expensive.
- Gave Phx Coilgun a bit more damage.
- MEC subsystems (Flamethrower, etc.) now all have a mobility penalty, while the mobility bonus granted by the armors have been increased to compensate. This means you can leave off subsystems for greater mobility.
- Removing many mobility bonuses from perk trees; between all the ways to gain mobility from armor and weapons this is growing unnecessary
- Rocketeers can now use Heavy Rifles
- Infantry, Medics, Assaults, and Engineers can now use Arc Rifles (along with snipers and scouts), gave Arc Rifles unlimited range for squadsighted soldiers
- Removed randomness from number of Steam Vents in campaign start; it's now exactly what the ini setting says it is. Changed ini setting to 2.
- Increased area of effect of Combat Drugs.
- Gauss tech weapons reduce enemy DR by 0.33. Exposed this amount to a variable in the ini
- Armor Piercing Ammo item now reduces enemy DR by 1.33.
- Chem Grenades and alien acid now nullify up to a maximum of 3 DR.
- Transports gain a few more resources from successful harvest missions.
- Reduced resource loss slightly when aliens lose various UFOs.
- Adjusted alien AI so that they will consider paying some resources to find a country without an XCOM satellite to send harvest missions. The chances of this increase when they perceive a greater threat from XCOM.
- Enhanced Plasma foundry project now grants +1 damage to all plasma-tier weapons in addition to unlocking Plasma damage enhancer item. Increased reqs to get project.
- Made hit and dodge interceptor consumables a bit cheaper.
- Adjusted some MEC / SHIV weapon combat values.
- Adjusted some UFO hit point / gain values.
- Adjusted some alien perks and level ups.
- Reworked Flamethrower panic chances to make it less than perfect; Elerium fuel now increases panic chances.
- Aliens' will will be generally be higher and will slowly increase during campaign. We've left low will a weakness on some species.
- Pistol I crit bonus reduced to +10%
- Increased primary alien research modifier on all difficulties, with a small increase on normal and larger increase on greater difficulties. Our observation is we significantly overcompensated for the error in this setting in B9a and earlier, as the aliens can't keep up with the humans.
- Dead Exalt Elites provide 1 meld as loot if you don't kill them with explosives. Floaters and Heavy Floaters provide a bit more meld.
- Defeating the Exalt base provides a lot more bonus meld
- Aliens will tend toward more dangerous UFOs once they develop sufficient research
- Wearing Vortex Armor eliminates all post-mission fatigue
- Aurora and Vortex Armor no longer requires meld
- Alien Operations tech now requires Xenopsionics as an additional prerequisite (along with any interrogation)
- Destroyers will get a late-game armor upgrade to ensure they remain a threat.
- Increased variance of most Hidden Potential rolls.
- Increased starting roster to 40 soldiers and cost of recruiting a rookie to $25 ($30 on advanced difficulties). (Working numbers; may alter these before release). New recruits now take nine days to arrive at base.
- Increased engineers needed to build each Nexus
- Sentinel Drone foundry project made significantly more expensive. It no longer provides unlimited healing but instead the Repair Servos perk.
- All Exalts lose 2 hp on Normal; 1 hp on Classic
- Initial country panic will now show more variance between countries; added ini setting to allow you to mod degree of variance
- Battle Computer can now be equipped by SHIVs
- Council missions won't always be Thin Men in regualr pods. Dynamic alien drop-downs on council/DLC missions now drop to randomized locations (thanks WGhost!)
- Using Psi Inspire on a panicked soldier will grant that soldier a yellow move only, like revive.
- Removed MoveLimited and Snap Shot from Marksman's / Strike Rifle series
- Gave aliens a small buffer within high panic to roll to capture a country (95+). This means a single UFO shootdown or abduction victory late in the month will not save a country at max panic from defecting, but launching a satellite still will. This is necessary because countries can't go above 100 panic.
- Adjusted aiming angles SW option so cover provides 120 degrees of full protection instead of 90.
- Added explicit warning to equip top soldiers if a UFO on an XCOM HQ assault mission is detected.
- Aliens get 50 days of free research if you incorrectly accuse an EXALT country
- PFCs (Rookies) may no longer be covert operatives
- Panicking units caught out of cover will no longer get free move to cover, eliminating advantage of panicking in those situations. Panicking units in cover will still hunker down.
- Increased cash reward from exalt missions
- Increased Zhang mobility
- Gave Annette level 2 psi power
- Gave Furies level 1 psi power
- EMP Cannon does less damage with higher ROF, increasing chance of shootdowns vice total destruction
- Messed around with oppo forces on EXALT missions; covert extractions will now often have a kind of singular guard / big QRF setup.
- Marksman's Scope item reworked to give Squadsight to scouts (useful only when they equip Marksman's/Strike Rifles). Will be available with Alien Weaponry tech.
- Soldiers who are injured get max fatigue timeout (144 hrs) instead of rolling 96+d48 like uninjured soldiers
- Field Medic perk now gives 1 free medikit charge and +1 charges for carried medikits. Packmaster applies bonus to free charge and each medikit. Field Medic unchanged for restorative mist (+2 charges, no freebies)
- AI: Made pod-level AI less likely to decide to flee. Robot pods will never flee at the pod-level AI.
- Psi Lab now provides lab adjacency bonus
- Eight XCOM soldiers and six security personnel comprise the HQ defense, rather than 6+8.
- Walker Servos now available to all soldiers. Made slightly more expensive to reflect increased utility.
- Battleships should show up a little more often
- In lieu of too-complex-to-code learning, Thin men have a 50/50 chance to avoid using acid spit on completely immune (genemodded) soldiers every time they consider spit targets. Also turned down freq of spit usage.
- Alien AI will consider overwatch perks in deciding whether to overwatch.
- Reworked the shooting/hasvulnerabletarget/team attack/haspotentialkillshot AI a bit to take into account improved cover and low aim, meaning some low-aim aliens will more likely to consider sub-50% shots a better option than overwatching yet again. Exposed a couple of AI variables to the ini in this regard. To help the aliens think, XCOM soldiers no longer will get a defense bonus on lower difficulties; instead the aliens all receive equivalent aim penalties. This will create oddities in normal and classic upgrades from B13 to B14 -- existing soldiers will keep their defense, but aliens will have worse aim, so you may want to edit these values back for the duration of your save.
- Mayhem perk now applies to grenades, offering +1 damage for frag and needle and +2 for alien. Mayhem perk added to Engineer tree. Sapper perk should now apply bonus regular (non-env) damage to grenade launchers and proximity mines.
- Civilians on terror missions will move around a lot more on their turn
- Psi XP reworked; you no longer gain psi xp for successful use of contested powers; instead, every psi power at the same level grants the same psi xp per mission as long as the mission is an Xcom success.
- Psi Panic attacks will be a bit more difficult now, controllable by ini setting
- AIiens with target only in squadsight range should now seek cover if they are still kinda close to the battle
- Savior heals more
- Thumper hurts more
- Precision Shot + Sniper Rifle series cancels -30% long-range crit penalty, in addition to +30 bonus crit and extra damage. So basically +30 crit when using PS at squadsight ranges with sniper rifle
- Bullrush: Does less damage, smashes through more stuff. OH YEAH.
- Adjusted Firestorm and Plasma weapon build requirements
- Berserkers all receive muscle-fiber density genemod
- Meld positioning now randomized on maps
- Uber Ethereal gets some help
- Toggling Flight Mode on a flying armor now costs 1 fuel. Increased fuel slightly available to those armors.
- Adjusted council mission rewards, including those from Newfoundland mission
- Various adjustments to perk trees and item and project costs
- Europe now provides discount to OTS projects. Asia no longer provides OTS discount.
- Progeny missions no longer trigger on XCOM HQ Assault. Will leave you to figure out new trigger.
- Chameleon Suit now scout only, provides +5 defense and helps reduce chance of getting hit when LR fires
- Danger Zone + Suppression covers wider area (and exposed area var to ini)
- EXALT will no longer spawn in target volume on Capture and Hold Missions
- Slight reduction in strength of mobility debuffs. Alien AI was cracking up when unable to move.
- Due to psychic strain, soldiers may now only carry 1 ghost grenade item. It still gains charge bonuses from S&M and Packmaster.

Beta 13 issues


NEED MORE FROM BETA TESTERS
- Confirmed: Seekers not always decloaking to attack / never decloaking at all. We have been unable to ascertain the cause from the savegame we received. Restarting the mission cleared this problem. If anyone observes triggers for this bug or some kind of correlation with other conditions, let us know.
- Reported: Sawed-off shotty taking reaction shots in excess of reactionrange. VERIFY? ISOLATE CAUSE? ADDENDUM: Reaction shots at dropdowns only?
- Reported: SHIV with Core Armoring still had Sentinel Module disabled. NEED SAVEGAME.
- Reported: Some XCOM units being killed after getting to extraction area and ending missions. In LW 2 there was an issue with units that fired from extraction area weren't properly extracted, but unclear if that is the case here. Also unclear if we could do anything about this: Players encountering this are encouraged to replay extraction from savegame WITHOUT firing and/or without taking any turn-ending action and seeing if that changes out.

Vanilla issues we don't think we can resolve:
- 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. 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
- Squadsight + flanked erratic behavior. Added note to perk text.


HOTFIX 14a (10/19/2014)
Fixed -- Finishing a covert extraction by escaping will award intel.

HOTFIX 14b (10/20/2014)
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