Taken out of context, " Warspace Extension " sounds like the subject of a cheeky spam email to a military general. For XCOM: Enemy Unknown commanders, it's the name of a mod overhauling weapons, enemies, armor, squad performance, and practically everything else housed beneath Firaxis' turn-based Sectoid-slayer. Commence Operation: Righteous Replay.
Author BlackAlpha suggests enjoying Warspace on Classic difficulty, but before you reach for that laser wrist-cutter you just researched, he assures the mod's tweaks retains Normal mode's challenge for easier engagements. The sizable change notes display in full over at Warspace's Nexus entry , but we've snipped some of the more interesting adjustments for reading below:
Weapons
- The Arc Thrower now goes in the pistol slot.
- Pistols (except the Laser Pistol) need to be reloaded.
- The sniper rifle's close-range accuracy penalty has been removed, but it still requires two actions to fire.
- Environmental structures now withstand a few more hits before collapsing. This allows for better cover use and increased tactical play.
Enemies
- Enemies have been changed in such a way that combat becomes more logical, resulting in more fluid battles.
- When a Chryssalid kills a civilian offscreen, the civilian will now always turn into a zombie. (NOPENOPENOPE)
- The AI will now always use more than five NPCs in combat instead of hiding when reaching the NPC limit.
Strategic map
- Ignored missions no longer increases the overall panic level of a continent but only of specific countries at a larger penalty.
- Satellites are much more likely to decrease panic levels of their assigned countries at the end of the month.
- Increased research time of plasma weapons to make it harder to unlock them and make lasers more attractive.
- Workshops are enabled from the start, allowing the player to begin the strategic game with a different starting move.
Soldiers
- Armor plays a large role in how fast soldiers will panic: The higher the HP bonus, the smaller the panic chance becomes.
- Panicking soldiers no longer shoots their teammates.
- Injured soldiers require a significantly longer recovery time, especially for gravely injured squaddies.
Armors
- Armors are now divided into Heavy and Light variants: Carapace, Titan, and Archangel for the former and Skeleton, Ghost, and Psi for the latter.
- Heavy armors provide two item slots. Light armors provide only one slot.
- Carapace reduces mobility by one square. Titan and Archangel reduces mobility by two squares. All Light armors increases mobility by three squares.
- Light armors have special mobility abilities (except Psi armor) that allow them to move around the battlefield with more ease.
General
- Normal, Classic, and Impossible difficulty levels should be the same now apart from hard-coded differences.
- Second Wave is enabled. You'll need a completed Impossible campaign to unlock all the options.
- Second Wave Marathon mode is fixed. You can build the Hyperwave Relay with just one Hyperwave Beacon.