I just completed a WOTC campaign with 104 mods including this one. I turned off all the settings except the XP boost, but that worked perfectly.

Yeah, I can crank up the difficulty to get all the other hard stuff but have my X-COM guys keep up a little bit. Feels more like a 9.5/10 difficulty rather than a 10/10. Smoother flow indeed.

I like it.

@inanity:
It's much more complicated than that. I was attempting to reduce the punishment and tension of this game without affecting difficulty but Firaxis designed things so most/all things are closely tied to difficulty.

For you to fully understand where I'm coming from it would probably take an entire day/week's worth of writing and reading essays to communicate multiple things in full detail but I don't have the patience to do that now or any time soon. I don't expect anyone to have the patience to sit through this either.

So, this is basically a mod that reduces the difficulty level? Easy isn't easy enough?

Does this work with WotC ?

Okay, i played one of my squads without any dodge mods from gear or armour and when checking them in tactical, they had the boost from this mod.

So i can confirm that the boost are applied to the troops in the field of battle, where it matters. :)

You could be right, my guys do seem more accurate, yet in the Armory screen there are no apparent changes (as none of my soldiers show the +20 Dodge).

So it is possible it is working in tactical missions, but just doesnt show on an existing LW2 game.

As for the kit, the light vest could probably do with a bit more health for LW2, as the basic Nano-Vest now has a health of 3.

Now i have got the Proving Grounds in LW2, your new kit items do show. I think it needs a new game for soldier changes.

I've just updated this mod with improvements. The stat boosts are much easier to modify in the custom config file.

With my current understanding the stat boosts should no longer conflict with any other mod. If anyone is willing to test this mod with LW2 I'm interested to know if the stat boosts work at least.

Having had this loaded with LW2, it doesnt seem to have changed any soldier stats. Then again, i did sub to it after i had started, so it may work for a completely new game, but not a mid-progress game it seems.

Pretty helpful, yeah. Sounds like I was pretty close on the thinking for the force ammo, huh? :P

I'd be grabbing this and trying it if I wasn't worried about LW2 compatibility - honestly I'm tempted just for the soldier stat boosts, I like my recruits to actually have some baseline competence, heh. But given how much LW touches, I suspect this might need checking for compatibility.

Do you have any plans on testing that kind of stuff yourself, or? Because I might give testing it once I've got a stable modset for LW2 play that I'm confident won't break, but I admit I don't have much modding experience with this game so I'm not 100% sure what I'd need to look for.

It might be an idea to list the new bonuses those items give, maybe?

@ferret

I don't know if this is Long War 2 compatible but otherwise this mod works for me.

It probably needs a new game since I haven't done anything to the mod to make sure it works with saves.

IS this LW2 compatable, has anyone found it still works? Does it need a new game?

Oh, if they're uniques then that's a -major- game changer. I still think they're a touch powerful but honestly 'one-use', 'expensive', and 'intended to compensate for a small squad' pretty much brings it into - maybe not perfect balance, but it certainly feels a lot fairer.

Also sorry if it sounds like I've been overly critical - wasn't intended at all, honest. I'm a firm subscriber to the 'if you think you can do it better then do it yourself' school, heh. Mostly just spitballing thoughts and giving my opinions

@Tai Gambol

It's not like I wasn't worrying about balance at all. I primarily wanted a way to make smaller squads better without squad size upgrades. I'm too lazy to micromanage 5+ soldiers all the time.

If it helps, I don't consider these custom utility items overpowered at all. For each of the four types only one can be built for the entire game.

I've also discovered those defensive items don't really allow me to be overly reckless. It's just a way to lessen the damage of a couple or few hits. I also use them to help train rookies or help when my A-team is healing.

I did miss that, actually. Something to consider tinkering with, maybe. And yeah, there's no one way to play, just remarking on what I'd consider a bit more 'balanced'.

Not that 'balanced' has to be your objective. :P

@Tai Gambol

Just like MickeyTJR said it comes down to personal preference. One person's "items too amazing" can be another person's fun.

There's no one way to play! You seem to have missed the description part saying you can tweak the items!

I agree with MickeyTJR, I was interested in this mod right up until I read about the items, they seem... kind of ridiculous, honestly. Though they might be tweakable to be more reasonable, maybe - just off the top of my head, I'd scratch the Guard Vest's +4hp, cut the Force Ammo to +20 aim tops, and cut the energy shield's dodge and armour buffs. Maybe separate some of it into other items.

@MickeyTJR

Fair enough. If I stumble on out how to separate parts of mods as in-game toggle options then I'll probably update this mod or make a new one.

Nothing really, it's more of a personal choice to not have items like that in my games. A fudge here and there for a few HP or something like that is ok by me. But, I try hard to keep over powered items out of the game.

@MickeyTJR

I have no idea how to turn off parts of a mod atm.

I am curious though if there's something wrong with deciding to not build the new proving grounds projects at all. I'd like to think it is an in-game choice.

Interesting. Some people actually like small squads.

The ability to turn off the items would be nice, as I would like the stat stuff but not have the items in game at all.

i know

@TristeCoeur Which is why the .ini file is configurable. All you need to do is find the file in your Steam/Steals/Workshop/Content/268500/839720768/Config.

maybe a good mod but bonus of proving ground items are too many strong