[WOTC] Paladin Shield Bursters

In short, my first ever true enemy mod.
This mod adds 4 new variations of the ShieldBearer unit. Each variation has 2 power levels.
The ‘Advanced’ silver logo tier and the the ‘Elite’ gold logo tier.
These Shield Burster’s carry an energy based shield and their ground pound will do some form of elemental damage to enemies in the area, as well as raising shields for allies.

They should appear as Leaders only from Force Level 8-14 (Advanced, silver logo) and Force Level 15-20 (Elite, gold logo). This is a little past when ‘normal’ ShieldBearers should show up. They should never be followers.

I used ShieldBearers as a baseline. They have 75 Aim, 10 Defence and 14 Mobility.
They get their Shield HP from their EnergyShield and it doubles up when they use their burst, except for the red variant which gets +1/2.

Numbers are Rookie/Veteran/Commander/Legend

They all share a basic set of shield abilities, as well as Standard Shot and Grenade Throw;

• Shield Wall
• Shield Cover
• Shield Bash
• Shield Burst.

Their bashes and bursts differ slightly in damage output, respective to their attuned type.
The Psi units shield bash isn’t even considered melee!
They also carry different types of ammo and grenades, as noted above. Most of their abilities come from their shield.
Their Ai roughly follows a ShieldBearer, in that they will try to shield burst then grenade and finally shoot.

As ADVENT units they can benefit from the following active base game Dark Events;

• Sealed Armour
• Undying Loyalty
• Barrier
• Counterattack
• Bending Reed

They should also work with B-Stars More Dark Events and B-Stars More Dark Event Stat Boosts
benefiting from;

• Targeting Uplink
• Defensive Tactics
• Advanced Conditioning
• Advanced Combat Training

I DO have plans to make XCOM versions of the shields but, didn’t get to it yet. The model can be used with something like XSkin with turning off options for "not owned" …
They have a chance to drop their ammo or grenade on death, and drop standard ShieldBearer corpses.

Like any other enemy all stats are configurable in the XComGameData_CharacterStats.ini
Stuff specific to the shields is in XComShields.ini

As new enemies they shouldn’t break anything else. Except your soul.

I have included config entries for More Icons 2020 and Yet Another F1-Autopsy Required and Advent Not Created Equal

Works with Energy Shield Overhaul and will give friendly units the ESO untouchable effect.
They should work fine with Lago’s Shield Reworks or other Shield Mods, like Drakten’s Attachments.

Adding a new enemy is all new to me, but they seemed fine in testing.
Please let me know of any issues that arise, or general mod feedback.
They are not meant to be uber-hard units, just something with a twist of extra flavour.

To LOTS of people.
Namely Musashi for the Ballistic Shields mod this was inspired from.
Cavily, LordPoncho, NightNinja and Claus for the Cat6 Heavy Shield Base design
And also to TeamCX and MrShadowCX for letting me use the Bio Assault Shield Animations.
(but don’t worry, these guys can’t deflect!)

Asthye and tastiger841 for the Bureau Muton Outfits which I merged into the enemy design
HUGE Thanks to Kexx and ObelixDK for Blender & Animation assistance, getting the new units looking great!

Korean translation provided by Kei, thankyou!

Screenshots may showcase other mods, such as Iridars Advent Weaponry.

Mod is cooked using the X2ModBuildCommon [github.com] builder

As always many thanks to the MEME and XCOM2 modders discords for constant support in all my projects!

~ Enjoy !! and please buy me a Cuppa Tea [www.buymeacoffee.com]