LW Rebalance - Tactical Starting Bonuses
And even more options...
In this post I am considering all the Tactical Bonuses. In other posts, I discuss all the Economic Bonuses, and the Rest of the Starting Bonuses.
There are 17 starting bonuses that help you at the tactical level. That is too many to test out, and without hands on experience, our judgements are limited. So this post is mostly idle speculation combined with window shopping.
Money will be Tight
Before going through the bonuses, let’s talk about starting cash. Without any boost to your economy, you will need to stretch every dollar further, and may have serious issues in the air game at the start. Tactical bonuses are nice, but how are we actually going to make this work at the strategic level? How tight is the budget going to be?
EDIT: The financial analysis below was for a previous LWR build with meld at $4, and Xenoneurology attainable in March.
To get an estimate I looked at the history of my current campaign (Brutal difficulty), and I see that in March I spent about $1200 above my starting cash on purchases. I don’t know where all that cash came from. Did I sell 250 meld? Maybe so. If you are playing on Impossible difficulty, you will get less meld to sell, putting more stress on your finances.
But sticking with the $1200 figure, our budget for March will be equal to Starting Cash + $1200. And with that sum, we can estimate the projects that can be funded. Here are my expenditure priorities, ranked, with a running total:
5th Interceptor: $500 / $500
2 Phoenix Cannons: $200 / $700
Prep for Satellite Uplink (2 Excavations, Fission Gen): $140 / $840
3/4ths of the Workshop block (Foundry, Repair Bay, Workshop, Access Lift, 3 Excavations): $750 / $1600
2 Scopes: $50 / $1650
Alien Capture (Alien Containment, Excavation, and Stun Gun) $350 / $2000
Prep for the Lab Block (Access Lift) $100 / $2100
With most of the tactical starting bonuses you will have $300-$550. If I started in Germany, with $400, and I expected to raise $1200 in March from Abductions and the Gray Market, I should expect to have $1600 to spend in March, not enough to start the Alien Capture program. Choosing Brazil, with $1000, would make starting the capture program a very real possibility.
Soldier Stat Bonuses
Most tactical starting bonuses fall into this category; and provide a boost to the stats of your soldiers. For most of them, starting cash is between $300 and $550. Those that offer more cash have been noted.
HP Stat Bonuses
Bred Tough: Bio soldiers +1 DR, +2 HP. Survival Training: Bio soldiers +4 HP. Per Ardua Ad Astra: Bio soldiers +2 HP, +4 aim, +4 will. Jungle Scouts: Bio soldiers +0.6 mob, +2 HP, Improved Medikit, Advanced Surgery, Tactical Rigging. ($1000 cash)
If you want to increase survivability, there are 4 bonuses that grant extra HP: Bred Tough, Survival Training, Per Ardua Ad Astra, and Jungle Scouts. Each is notably different, and especially compelling if you intend to use bio tanks. Bred Tough grants HP and an extra pip of DR, which will make your tanks even tankier. Survival Training grants +4 HP, and the deepest pool of HP, very nice for soldiers that regenerate. Per Ardua Ad Astra gives a small bonus to aim and will, as well as +2 HP. The last one, Jungle Scouts, grants a little more mobility and +2 HP, but also 3 nice foundry projects, and $900 in starting cash.
Aim Stat Bonuses
Special Air Services: Bio soldiers +8 aim. Ancient Artifacts: 2 Illuminator Gunsights with +15 aim. Robotics: SHIVs and MECs +12 aim. Ghost in the Machine: SHIVs + 30 aim, 2 extra SHIVs.
Looking at the aim bonuses; Special Air Services grants +8 aim to your bio soldiers, Ancient Artifacts gives 2 Illuminator Gunsights with +15 aim, Ghost in the Machine +30 aim to your SHIVs, and Robotics +12 aim to SHIVs and MECs. All of which seem pretty strong, but I have doubts about boosting aim. I find that I am often using steady in order to penetrate cover DR, and +50 aim makes other aim bonuses trivial by comparison. Some classes can choose Bullseye, and acquire all the aim they need every turn. For those shooters that don’t have the Bullseye ability, there is always holo-targeting and concussion grenades. Bonus aim is not irrelevant; but neither is it a massive game changer.
Other Stat Bonuses
Pax Nigeriana: Bio soldiers +1.3 Mobility. Advanced Conversion: MEC soldiers +3 HP towards augmentation bonuses. Vigils: Bio soldiers +20 will. ($900 cash)
Pax Nigeriana grants 1.3 mobility. I am sure that a good player could exploit this increase in speed with squads of close proximity killers that turn flanks on the aliens every turn. I find that style of play terrifying. Mobility is not the stat that I would choose to buff.
Advanced Conversion is going to turn your MECs into monsters, and make far more soldiers eligible candidates for Shen’s chopping block. Still, this is just one soldier on your squad, and I think this bonus is pretty weak in comparison to other starting bonuses.
Vigils is very unique. With this starting bonus, your psi soldiers are going to be far more effective, and your other soldiers will be far more resilient to psi attacks and panic before Neural Damping becomes available.
Experience Bonuses
These bonuses give your soldiers a boost in experience.
Kiryu-Kai Commanders: 2 Free GSTG ranked soldiers. Cadre: 5 free CPL ranks. healthy soldiers get +3xp each day. Special Warfare School: XTPs provide 60% more xp.
Kiryu-Kai Commanders give you a couple chaperones to guide your rookies through the early stage of the game. More significantly, with these 2 elite soldiers it may be possible to take down a large landed UFO in March or April, supposing you are offered that opportunity.
Cadre was one of my favorite starts in Long War for a long time. With 5 extra CPLs it is much easier to make it through the early game without any casualties. But in LWR I find that SHIVs keep my soldiers safe through May, and so Cadre is not as helpful in this version of XCOM. However, if you want to try for an early large landed, this bonus, like Kiryu-Kai, can help you pull it off.
I think Special Warfare School will add more value than Cadre. The early game is not as hard in LWR, and you can survive without those 5 CPLs. The free cash of Special Warfare School means this bonus gives you a large economic boost, as well as a solid tactical advantage in the mid to late game.
Everything Else
Each of these bonuses is completely unique.
Deus Ex: Gene mod cost/time reduced 90%. Militarization: Recruit cost/time reduced 30%. More officer billets. Sandhurst: 20% reduction in fatigue. 20% reduction in req. missions for OTS projects. Legacy of Uxmal: 10 bonus will for psionic training.
Deus Ex looks like one of the best bonuses in the game. With the reduced cost of gene mods, it is no longer necessary to apply them sparingly; only on some soldiers, or when all the desired mods are available in order to save money. And with the reduced time, it is possible to gene mod your entire barracks quickly. Ordinarily, gene mods are just too expensive to hand out to everyone. But with Deus Ex, they are cheap and easy and most of your barracks will benefit from gene mods within a couple weeks of them becoming available.
Militarization looks just ok. The reduction in recruit costs is not very significant, but the the additional officers are nice. With Militarization you will have access to 6 officers (2 Lieutenants, 4 Captains), when you would otherwise only have 2 of each rank. I’ve found that once I obtain the Majors project, and with it a 5th officer, I am usually able to field officers on most every mission.
Sandhurst reduces fatigue and allows you to purchase OTS projects earlier. Fatigue wears down your entire barracks, and so reducing it by 20% is very significant, especially in the late game when fatigue starts to pile up due to longer missions, and increased mission counts on all your soldiers. But there are also fewer missions in the late game, and injury times are not reduced by this bonus. Sandhurst probably requires a full campaign to evaluate correctly. Without having tried it, I am not going to speculate about this bonus.
Legacy of Uxmal looks bad to me. You can train a few more soldiers in psionics, and do it quicker, but what good is that if their will is low? Countercharge has a low probability of landing even with high will, and only dents late game enemies. Soldiers with modest will scores may be better off with Neural Damping instead of psionics.