Second Wave: Delta Strike [Standalone]
Now with Theta Strike too!
For those of us who enjoy the idea of Beta Strike, if not the execution. Delta Strike is a toggleable Second Wave option that increases the durability of the aliens and XCOM alike, but through a mix of armor, shield hp, dodge, and perks instead of just HP like in Beta Strike – and this is all configurable! If you think it’s too rough, it’s just an .ini edit away to your liking. This will apply changes to any and all aliens, even those added by custom mods such as DerBK’s ABA. Theta Strike is Delta Strike except without inflating HP – it’ll take vanilla values and straight convert HP into armor/shields.
Because Beta Strike nerfs the vanilla classes disproportionately – Grenadiers feel bad other than as cover destruction since grenades don’t scale at all, and ditto with Specialist Protocols. Delta Strike aims to change that – grenades are still super useful, as even though their lethality is greatly decreased, they still have immense shredding potential. And their status effects have new importance – many of them can turn off the defensive abilities granted by this mod > ie. burning turns off things like a new 25% HP regeneration mechanic for Berserkers. Specialist Combat Protocol remains an armor-piercing way of dealing significant damage, as opposed to tickle damage to endgame mechanicals. Ayys aren’t just all giant bullet sponges – you can deal with different kinds in actually different ways, as opposed to the tried-and-true shotgun to the face.
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Start a new campaign, and be sure to check ‘Delta Strike’ in Advanced Options or load a midcampaign save into the strategy layer – a prompt should come up that will allow you to enable Delta Strike midcampaign! Then feel free to edit XComSecondWaveDeltaStrike.ini as you see fit – I’ve left plenty of notes on what each variable does!
No overrides. Compatible with every and all alien mods.
Will attempt to modify XCOM armor stats, if toggled.
You sure can! If you want to deal with 80 HP, 16 armor Sectopods. That sounds a little miserable to me, but I won’t discourage you from trying if that sounds like your jam!
These numbers have not been heavily playtested – all of these numbers are my initial theorycrafting. These numbers may not be to your liking at all – feel free to change them and offer feedback on what numbers you think might be better suited for a default setting!
This does not increase mission timers – highly recommend turning on Doubled Mission Timers for now.
Image above is Gatecrasher on Legendary.
UPDATE 10/18 – Added more configs, added Theta Strike
UPDATE 10/11 – Fixed armor issues, added more controls for the Chosen in particular
