XCOM 2
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A Better ADVENT: Better Pods PLUS
   
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17 May, 2016 @ 7:27pm
18 Oct, 2016 @ 12:13pm
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A Better ADVENT: Better Pods PLUS

Description
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THIS MOD IS NO LONGER ACTIVELY SUPPORTED.
DO NOT USE THIS MOD WITH A BETTER ADVENT 2!
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-- ABA: Better Pods PLUS --
-- Plugin for A Better ADVENT --
-- Mod by DerBK --

-- Release 2.0 --


Important notice #1: This plugin requires the A Better ADVENT mod, version "Full Release 1.0" or up.
Important notice #2: This plugin is NOT compatible with Increased Enemy Squad Size (or IESS+) or More Pods. It also doesn't stack with other versions of Better Pods.
Important notice #3: This plugin heavily edits the Missions.ini. Other mods that do that may also conflict with Better Pods, see the Compatibility notes for more details.

This Plugin improves the composition of enemy pods.
There are two versions available, called "Better Pods" and "Better Pods PLUS". The only difference between the two is PLUS having an extra +1 to enemy squad size.

FEATURES:

1 - Increases enemy squad size scaling with forcelevel (=time elapsed during campaign). There are 4 squad size tiers:
-- First tier is vanilla squad size +1 with an occasional +2 here and there. Minimum Podsize is four. (Forcelevel 1-5)
-- Second tier is global +2 squad size (Forcelevel 6-11)
-- Third tier adds the occasional +3 squad size. (Forcelevel 12-17)
-- Final tier is a global +3 squad size (Forcelevel 18-20)

1.5 - In addition to the squad size scaling, there are these adjustments to enemy squad balancing:
-- Facility Sabotage: These missions now have an additional Advent pod.
-- Facility Sabotage: The boss pod on these missions gets an extra +1 size and +2 forcelevel.

2 - Introduces the enemies specific to A Better ADVENT to various notable encounters:
-- Gatecrasher: Trooper pod now has a Gunslinger. Captain pod now has a Warden.
-- Blacksite: The pod with a MEC and Troopers that guards the vial will now spawn with an AutoDoc and random Trooper variants.
-- PsiGate: The Codex and Gatekeeper guards can be replaced by random Codex and Gatekeeper variants.
-- PsiGate: This mission now always has a Chryssalid Queen and a Chryssalid King (in seperate pods).
-- Forge: You will now always run into the Advent Prime Sectopod.
-- Forge: The Sectopod Prime spawns with random MEC variants. On lower difficulties, the MECs are replaced by random Trooper variants. On easy, the Sectopod Prime spawns on its own.
-- Broadcast: All Archons, MECs and Gatekeepers can randomly be replaced by any of their variants.
-- Leviathan: No increases to pod sizes, but many enemies have been swapped for ABA versions. You will encounter a LOT of Primes in this mission. Be prepared.

3 - Chryssalid enemies outside of the PsiGate mission are replaced by ABA Chryssalid variants appropriate to current force level. This includes Terror missions and the Infestation Dark Event.

4 - Retaliation missions have one to three extra civilians (one in early game, three in late game, two during the bulk of the game) to make up for the added difficulty.

5 - Rulers can no longer spawn during Council missions or during Avenger Defense.

Compatibility notes:
I looked at the code of the following mods because i suspected they had overlap with Better Pods:
- [SEMI-COMPATIBLE] Evac All edits the mission.ini to circumvent a bug introduced by Shen's Last Gift. Sadly, that fix clashes with Better Pods and will lead to empty maps without enemies on Neutralize Target missions. You can either live with that or delete the mission.ini from Evac All and live with the bug that Evac All has. You can find more info about that in the mod description of Evac All.
- [COMPATIBLE] Additional Mission Types seems to only add stuff to the Missions.ini, no overlap with Better Pods.
- [COMPATIBLE] Extended Dark Events doesn't edit the Missions.ini at all.
- [SEMI-COMPATIBLE] Additional Dark Events does several things that are conflicting with Better Pods. The reason ADE does that is because it has Dark Events that create new pods (Sectopods and Avatars, i believe) and these new pods need to be rooted in the mission schedules. Those same lines i need to edit as well. There is a way to make ADE and Better Pods compatible, follow these instructions: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/686642883/357287935548924234/
- [NOT COMPATIBLE]The Friendly AI mod by Fireborn is not compatible. Check out the Friendly AI modpage on Nexusmods for more info and possible alternatives.

Compatibility in a nutshell:
If a mod edits the Missions.ini, it is probably not compatible with Better Pods, although exceptions do exist.
Popular Discussions View All (2)
14
27 Aug, 2016 @ 5:51pm
Feature wishes?
DerBK
11
5 Nov, 2016 @ 12:00pm
Better Pods and Additional Dark Events
DerBK
379 Comments
which i didn't like tons of enemies every/each mission.
reminds me of LWOTC
Swang 19 Sep, 2017 @ 12:20am 
Thanks your anser, I love ABA, that mark more funny to the game, If the Better Pods PLUS can support the ABA for WOTC version or ABA for LW2 vrsion, that will be funny more.
DerBK  [author] 18 Sep, 2017 @ 8:40pm 
This is not supporting much of anything anymore, to be honest. It's outdated and shouldn't be used anymore. Especially not with LW2.
Swang 18 Sep, 2017 @ 2:22pm 
Is it supporting the ABA for LW2 version?
N O r 30 Nov, 2016 @ 7:05pm 
Thank you for the very fast feedback! have a rate :D! , yes yes i wish i had ABA 2 but cant just install that mid game of the campaign on my next try on higher difficulty ill check it out :D
DerBK  [author] 30 Nov, 2016 @ 7:40am 
Unsub from the regular one and sub to this one, the changes will carry over mid-campaign without issues.

Or start a new campaign using A Better ADVENT 2 , which has all plugins already built in and many other improvements over ABA!
N O r 30 Nov, 2016 @ 7:21am 
If i want to switch from Better Pods to Better Pods Plus would just unsub from the previous one and subcribing to this one create many issues? or i can simply have both and plus changes will carry over?
DerBK  [author] 28 Oct, 2016 @ 4:15pm 
Thanks for the link Anomaly. That's actually one i didn't find on my own yet. Looking forward to zapping through it, Let's Plays and Twitch streams are fantastic sources of feedback for me and in the last months i have come to really enjoy watching other people play XCOM with my mod.
=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil 28 Oct, 2016 @ 3:07pm 
I think any more than 60 is overwhelming! Cool, I'll start to clean up my mod list :)