Headscratchers / XCOM 2

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As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Tutorial

• How did the Advent guards get onto the external 2nd floor as seen in the WotC Reaper intro when the building literally has no stairs or ladders on the outside and none on the inside?
• Why didn't the two redshirts take a couple grenades? One grenade would have killed 3 of the 4 starting guards. Overwatch shot could possibly get the last one. I could buy Bradford and Jane Kelly not taking any since they need to get through security.
  • Because it's the tutorial, led by Bradford. The man has made mistakes in his tactics, such as the EU first contact resulting in the deaths of nearly the entire Delta squad.
• Why didn't they take one more guy? Even if you accept the limit of 6 people (WotC mission introducing Mox had you evacuating 6 people.), they could have taken a 3rd party members.
  • If you accept Tactical Legacy Pack as even pseudo-canon, then the people chosen were among the best that XCOM had at the time. Plus, the amount of people was probably restricted due to a need for it to be a massively important mission; several missions later on do have the amount of people that can be sent in restricted.

Human Enclosure

• What's the deal with the human enclosure? If it really held early abductees, then that means that the alien's underwater base must have been created early on in their campaign. Is the enclosure designed to allow an observation of "typical" human interaction as part of an effort to determine what makes humans unique psionically?
  • It's possible that it can be a "training ground" of sorts for Thin Men/The Speaker(s), by getting them immersed in a human environment before sending them out into the world. Either that or the enclosure is for some human scientists working on the Avatar Project, who either ran away or were executed by the time to play gets there.
  • I had a different read on the enclosure. My first impression was it was something along the lines of the "Killing Houses" used by special forces like the Special Air Service; a mockup of a human environment to practice tactics and combat. It certainly makes sense considering the amount of urban fighting there is in the game.

Final Base

• How did the aliens manage to construct such an extensive facility at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean without anyone getting wise? Even with the world government being controlled by Advent, a project of that scale would be impossible to cover up.
  • It is not too implausible considering that during the event of XCOM: Bureau Declassified, the American government managed to build an elerium power system hidden right under the Hoover Dam back in 1962. If an earth government could cover something that big, what can the Alien do?
  • Who says they had to build it? They have massive spaceships and cloaking technology. Maybe they landed it.
  • They also have teleporters.
  • Related to that, unless I missed it we have no idea exactly how long the aliens had been observing Earth before the invasion, only a few passing mentions of people going missing. For all we know they could have been watching the Earth for hundreds of years and simply placed that facility down there in a time before the advent of satellites, RADAR, and frequent ocean travel.
  • It's in the middle of the largest body of water on the planet in a period where the aliens control the skies and seas and all of the governments of the world have bowed to their control. It would be relatively easy for them to deny any civilian shipping through that particular part of the ocean, which would be the only way anyone would have a chance to notice what would be happening in that area.

Skyranger

• The Skyranger. It's completely different from the previous iteration, seeming to incorporate some alien technology, but it has a dramatically shortened range and bears no physical resemblance to the original (aside from being a capable troop transport.) So why still bother calling it a Skyranger?
  • Why the crew are still wearing their flag on their back or using Central codename even though his grade and occupation kind of changed? A lot is made so that X-com looked like it still alive while actually it's just a remnant of what it once was to keep morale.
  • My headcanon is that the wearing of national flags is a way of flipping the alien-controlled world government the bird and demonstrating loyalty to the way the world was, with humanity in control of its destiny. As for why Bradford kept the callsign "Central"... it's his callsign. Those things are like a name. You don't just change it. Besides, Bradford may have wanted to keep it as a reminder of happier times.
  • That, and Firebrand's Skyranger could be the prototype or a different model than the one we used in the first game, sacrificing range for speed and maneuverability (how else do you think she's capable of safely escaping ADVENT interceptors and anti-air when she's extracting you?).
  • Alternatively, XCOM relied on Council nations to provide Skyranger with aerial refuel for intercontinental missions.
  • This is the correct answer. The novelization reveals that the Skyranger we have in the game is a prototype version of next-gen Skyranger that was planned to replace the one we see in EU. However, because XCOM lost, it was abandoned and only later recovered by XCOM to serve as a new means of inserting troops.
  • If you look closely, the Skyranger appears to be a heavily modified version of the same transports ADVENT used to land reinforcements. Presumably at some point they stole one, retrofitted and repainted it, and named it after the old Skyranger because they couldn't exactly keep calling it 'ADVENT Dropship' without confusing everyone as to which was friend and which was foe.

Picking up guns

• In the final cutscene. How did the resistance fighters at the checkpoint pick up Advent guns? Didn't a research project explicitly state that doing so caused, in some cases lethal, damage? Isn't this the exact reason you can't do so in-game?
  • Presumably in the face of the popular uprising, some of the ADVENT scientist who built that feature defected and offered a way to bypass that.
  • The research project says the guns' failsafe triggers when the weapons are fired. You never see them being fired in that scene. Perhaps those particular resistance fighters are in for a nasty surprise.
  • Or they could be gathering them to take to a workshop where the failsafe can be disabled.
  • Maybe the biometrics were tied into the psionic network, so when you took down the Advent broadcast tower they all became safe to use. I'll admit that's a silly way to design them, but it wouldn't be the first time alien hubris trumped logic.

Cyberdiscs

• Where did all the cyberdiscs go? Not a single one appears in the game, with no explanation for their disappearance.
  • Cyberdisks have been replaced by the Gatekeepers. They have a lot of similarities - the armor shell that opens and closes, massive HP for a flying unit, a combination of targeted and area attacks, and even the general AI behavior.
  • They have been retired like the old model of Sectopod.
  • Perhaps the Cyberdisks ARE the Gatekeepers. It's never really revealed in Enemy Unknown if the Cyberdiscs are wholly mechanical or not. Maybe there is an organic component, and that was re-engineered by the aliens using human DNA to create the Gatekeepers. We know the Ethereals' endgame is to create psionically powerful Avatars to house their consciousnesses and defeat their species-wide deterioration. Perhaps the Gatekeepers were one of the experiments leading into the Avatar Project, seeing just how adaptable human genetics were, and just how far humans could be pushed psionically.
  • From a Doylist perspective, this is a reflection of the slight change in underlying description for the alien forces. XCOM had "organic things with implants" (most of the enemy types), "weird silicon-based lifeform with extensive implants" (the Cyberdisk and the Seeker), weird energy being (the Outsider) and "wholly mechanical" (Sectopods). XCOM 2 seems to want to simplify things (whilst introducing its own handwaving about what "psionics" actually is), so the Cyberdisks and Seekers are removed, to be replaced with a more obviously horrific "organic thing with implants".

Commander's identity

• The Player Character integration to the story is great but it makes me wonder, who is this guy In-universe? Since X-com failed in this universe his reputation as Hope Bringer and Worthy Opponent must come from before. Unless of course in that reality you got perfect rating in all mission before the aliens captured you.
  • Given how Nintendo Hard Enemy Unknown/Within was, presumably the Commander making any headway at all is seen as nothing short of miraculous. Certainly the aliens thought highly enough of him/her to integrate his/her mind into their psionic network to utilize his/her tactical skills and knowledge.
  • Presumably, the Commander was a distinguished soldier and officer before the invasion even began - they wouldn't hand XCOM's reins over to some unproven supply officer. What progress they made before the aliens won probably only cemented their reputation.
  • It's also shown that the Commander was kidnapped when the aliens attacked the XCOM Base. This means that XCOM didn't fall because the Commander was a General Failure, but because XCOM was turned into a Decapitated Army after the Commander was kidnapped (and it's likely the rest of its manpower got chewed up and spat out in the defense as well).
  • Also, in order to get to the Point Of Divergence, you had to get pretty far and do pretty well in Enemy Unknown.
  • Not quite, since in this continuity, XCOM didn't even develop laser weapons (i think) it's pretty clear the aliens attacked the base way earlier than in Enemy Within.
    • What evidence is there that they didn't? Remember, XCOM's armory had to literally build each laser weapon at great cost, one by one. It's not implausible that, even with there being some rifles, scatter guns, etc, they were caught off guard by the time Base Defense occurred. So by the time XCOM fell, the laser tech could have easily been lost, so that gauss tech would be developed by the time of 2.
  • XCOM was wiped out earlier than the base assault in Enemy Within, that's true; however, XCOM was only wiped out because the world leaders defected, and presumably, gave away the base's location because XCOM didn't accept their surrender. The Commander, by the way they are spoken of by Bradford and Shen Sr., put up one hell of a fight against the invasion. XCOM may have lost soldiers, and it may have failed missions -we don't know all the details. What we do know is that the Commander was highly respected for their tactical mind and leadership, by friend and foe alike. Enough that the Ethereals, haughty, arrogant, and prideful as they are, were willing to offer the Commander a spot in their circle for the Commander's feats. It may have been a last-ditch attempt to persuade the Commander, but whether through fear or respect, they did NOT want to be on the business end of the Commander's war machine any longer. Not to mention how XCOM goes from a hopeless rebellion to an alien ass-kicking machine mere months (if that) after the Commander is rescued and takes charge...
  • If you pay attention during the cutscene depicting the Commander's capture, the Commander was grabbed by an XCOM 2 Muton, not an XCOM: EU Muton. This indicates that, at the very least, the Commander was able to fight the Ethereal invasion long enough that the invaders had to create a new version of Mutons to defeat XCOM.
  • That, or the cutscene is subjective (it's a first-person memory, after all) and there's bleedthrough from the Commander's subconscious memories of the the psionic network.
    • There's no in-universe reason for it to be a XCOM 2 Muton, but out-of-universe they didn't want to go through the work of making a "remastered" version of the EU/EW Muton that would fit in with XCOM 2 graphics when they already had a Muton model ready to go. Just say "continuity error" and call it a day.
  • there are two other possibilities, Xcom lost support but continued the fight, until the base assault which the aliens succeded in doing because they had "upgraded" their soldiers, hence the Xcom 2 muton) or the surrender happened because the Aliens did they base assault and won, holding the Commander as proof of victory.

Extracting the chip

• How did Tygan extract the chip from Commander's head? In the cutscene we are shown that using some device Tygan pulled it from the front, but on the scene where Tygan explained his research on the chip, there's a picture on the screen showing that the chip is implanted from behind.
  • Well given there is a flashback of a thin man jamming the chip the same way as Tygan either the chip has some sort of nut behind the uvula to make it hard to extract from behind or there is different chip implantation method and the picture was from a second model.
  • Maybe through extracting his own chip from the back Tygan learned that they're easier to extract from the front.

Second Ethereal

• Final Mission Spoilers: During the Final Mission, while the Angelis Ethereal trying to talk you down (Somehow arguing that her juicing people is for their own benefit), another Ethereal chimes in, telling you (And it's specifically addressing you as Commander) That you beat "them" before, and can do it again? Who is this guy? Why does he want me to beat the other Ethereals? And what does he mean I beat them before? Didn't XCOM lose badly?
  • That might actually be an allusion to statements from Firaxis developers that XCOM 2 takes place in a different timeline where XCOM failed. Maybe that Ethereal is from the timeline where XCOM won and made peace, and managed to send a message into another world.
  • That same Ethereal also says later on "You were our greatest weapon against this world, and you will be again!". I interpreted his earlier line as a reference to the Commander providing tactical information to alien forces while in stasis. The "them" he is referring to in his first line isn't the Ethereals, it's humanity. As to who he is, he's probably just another Elder who realized the Angelis' "for your own good" speech wasn't working.
  • Another way it can be interpreted is that he's saying the Commander will be the greatest weapon against the world, the world in this case being ADVENT's 'world', the one in which they occupy and reign over.
  • WMG: that Etheral knows that The Commander is Asaru, who has beaten the Aliens once during the cold war.
  • WMG: The Commander of XCOM 2 was actually The Volunteer from XCOM: Enemy Unknown, dropped into the XCOM 2 timeline after being sucked through the black hole created by the Uber Ethereal's ship, and thus "defeated them once before" was meant to be when they led a squad to kill the Uber Ethereal.

Viper tube

• I found this◊ and can't quite tell what that tube with the Viper in it is. Interrogation chamber? Cryogenic suspension? How has Vahlen still been doing the "alien's worst nightmare" thing and not told anyone?
  • It's possible that she's resourceful not to be caught, but is currently forced underground due to ADVENT having a stranglehold on the world. As for why she doesn't join up with XCOM if she's still out and about, it's possible that being the "alien's worst nightmare" makes her believe boarding The Avenger will have it destroyed by ADVENT in a heartbeat just to kill her, so she is Walking the Earth, leaving only a handful of clues for the Commander to piece together.
  • This may come as a surprise, but there are more scientists out there than just Vahlen who would be interested in researching the aliens.
  • With the Alien Rulers DLC, we find out what Vahlen was up to...She's defrosted and modified 3 aliens with massively upgraded genetics. They were frozen for a damned good reason, being a massive threat to all of humanity.

ADVENT leadership

• Who's running the show at ADVENT after Operation Leviathan? Withthe Elders dead, their psionic network + seat of power destroyed, and 6+ months roughly of XCOM's war against ADVENT, who is still in charge and what is their game here? Who is keeping the propaganda produced and airing, and what for? Human collaborators who know they're going to be summarily executed by a mob if ADVENT falls? They're clearly not keeping ADVENT going for the sake of their alien masters at that point.
  • Probably people put in power by ADVENT that would rather prefer the current system doesn't change.
  • If Sacred Coil is any indication, at least part of the ADVENT high command may have been indoctrinated enough to keep up the fight.

Archon King

• How did Vahlen make the Archon King? She defrosted three alien embryos and tinkered with their genetics. Okay. But Archons are floaters inside new robotic shell. Did she go "Oh, my new science subject really could use an Archon suit. Only with even more destructive weapons".
  • Even more confusing is that in XCOM:EU the Floater is implied to be genetically related to the Muton. Which means there's no Archon embryo, but a Muton one. Then again, the Berserker is also related to the Muton, which implies a genetic similarity between Berserker and Archon. Maybe they do start as the same specimen, but Vahlen made them into the Berserker and Archon For Science!.
  • It's also implied that the natural state of a muton is closer to a berserker. Therefore if you reverted the wrong part of an archons DNA you could end up with an archon with the extra strength, endurance and aggression of a berserker.
  • Presumably, she tried to create super soldiers with the intent to control them. Or just to airdrop them somewhere near the aliens.
  • I assumed that she was trying to revert them to their natural state in the hopes they'd be less receptive to Advent control. Look at Advent Troopers: they're partially controlled by the psychic network but ordinary humans are not.
  • But that's the point being made above: it's made clear that Archons (like Floaters) don't have a "natural state" which looks anything like a thing with armour and jets attached to it. (And Berserkers are heavily implied to be as far from the natural state of the protoMuton as Mutons are, just in the opposite direction of "angrier" rather than "more soldierly"). What Vahlen did with both samples was to make them much less like their "natural state", and in the case of the Archon King, apparently by developing additional technology to implant into it!
  • The game actually hangs a lampshade on that last fact itself: Upon encountering the Archon King, Bradford says something along the lines of. "So she was tampering with their genetics, but why the hell would she develop more potent weaponry for them?!" It points towards Vahlen being too much of a Mad Scientist to know where to stop without the commander's oversight
• It is quite possible that Archons contain Genetic limiters in their organics, kind of like the theory that the human brain contains natural limiters that stop us tearing out muscles and bones apart with sheer strength (our "pain response"), so Archons have that to stop them using their weapons to the fullest extent, maybe because it would burn them out, the one im more concerned about is the Berserker Queen, which was explicitly an embryo, she for some reason grafted industrial meat tenderizers as knuckledusters for some reason.

MELD

• Why can't you find MELD anymore? Considering the fact that the aliens are running gene therapy clinics, you'd think there'd be a ton of it laying around Ignoring the fact that they probably didn't want to have to program the Enemy Within stuff and may add it in future DLC.
  • I assume they're now using more sophisticated gene modification techniques and no longer have to brute-force the process with meld.
  • As noted on Enemy Unknown's Fridge Brilliance page, the aliens were deliberately leaving MELD around in a form that could easily be recovered by humans. They've got no reason to leave packages of it in easily-accessible containers out in the open for XCOM to steal.

Losing

• I'm confused about how early in the timeline XCOM lost. It seems to suggest XCOM didn't even make it to laser weapons and Skeleton Suits, yet Tygan's autopsies say Bradford remembers a fair number of alien types that don't get deployed until later in Enemy Unknown, such that he can compare how they are now with what they used to be like in EU. Did the Ethereals canonically skip the whole Sorting Algorithm of Evil business or what?
  • That could readily explain how XCOM could fall so quickly, while still displaying the amazing abilities of the Commander. If the Commander could lead XCOM in holding their ground against Sectopods, Elite Mutons, and Chrysalids before even developing laser weaponry, even if only for a few months, it would be quite impressive.
  • It's likely that the aliens in XCOM 2's timeline just didn't bother playing the same game they did in Enemy Unknown, where they gradually leak out their technology to see if humans can create an immensely powerful psychic like the Volunteer. In the XCOM 2 timeline, they just attacked with overwhelming conventional force and crushed all opposition.
  • There's an indication that they took some time to win, going by how the Muton who took the Commander was an XCOM 2 Muton. They would have needed time to integrate human DNA into the Muton to make that.
  • Or the cutscene isn't an accurate memory, and the Muton 2.0 bled through from the network. It's actually a hint of what the Commander was really doing.
  • There's never any indication that this was a "false memory" or that this was anything "bleeding" through the network.
  • Who says they didn't make it to laser weapons and Skeleton Suits? This is a reconstituted XCOM, after their previous base and support structure was lost. The higher-end gear they had before probably cost a lot to make and keep in repair, and they likely lost the plans for it with the base. Sure they know it's possible - but it would require resources they don't have.
  • One of Bradford's lines states that a soldier by the name of Van Doorn tries to join up, but Bradford doesn't recognise the name nor believe he'd be a good fit, so it looks unlikely that the mission to rescue Peter Van Doorn ever occurred.

Avatar project danger

• Exactly how does the avatar project = the apocalypse? Everyone is so sure that if the project is completed, it will be "the end, for all of us" but why? HOW? Alright so millions of people were melted down into soylent green. But that's not the apocalypse....
  • The sheer psionic power of a completed Avatar would be enough to wipe out anything humanity can muster against it. Its psionic abilities are off the charts, as seen by how The Commander, a human^note with psionic augmentation, but still, human, is able to fight off the psionic assault of 5 ethereals and win in an incomplete avatar. "Alright", you may say. "But how is that the end of humanity?" Two cases can be made for that:
    1. The Ethereals would leave Earth, having found their cure and now seeking new races to subjugate in their fight against what has destroyed the world of all those alien races they have in their arsenal. This, of course, would leave humanity to fend for itself against an enemy we have no way of stopping in our weakened state. Our race in the form of the Avatar, would only live on as part of the Aliens' armies, in the same way the Mutons and Sectoids are: genetically perfected individuals with no deviation from each other.
    2. The Ethereals having found their cure, choose to make their final stand on Earth. If they're unable to convince X-com and any resistance to stand with them, X-Com and the rest of humanity would be wiped out easily by the Ethereal-controlled completed Avatars so they wouldn't have to fight a war on two fronts. In neither case, humanity survives as we know it.
  • Honestly, I don't really get what is supposed to be so powerful about the avatars. My death squad killed one, and in my own avatar I managed to kill 4 at the same time. I mean, as I understood it, the avatar was never really about making the ethereals MORE powerful. They are already psionic gods. The point of the avatar project was to genetically engineer a physical form sturdy enough to contain the immense psionic power of an ethereal mind/soul since their own bodies were slowly being destroyed by their immense power. It's a cure, not a weapon.
  • The ones you see/fight are repeatedly stated to be incomplete, even the commander's.
  • Yeah, your death squad managed to kill one lone Avatar. Congrats. Now go fight thirty of them at once and see how well you do.
  • The ending cinematic shows the resistance being crushed mostly by regular troops. There are a couple of factors related to this. First, they need humanity as long as the project is going on. Once it is completed, humanity has served its purpose. It can be crushed completely now-just "nuked from orbit" if they feel like it. Second, to win they only have to find the Commander. With the vast psionic power of a completed Avatar, they can track him wherever he goes and defeat him with an endless wave of troops, UFOs, and whatever else they decide to send. Finally, the Avatar project was taking up an absurd amount of Advent's resources. Once it is complete, it can focus entirely on crushing X-com, when added to the above factors making it a loss.
  • It's also mentioned that all "nonessential" humans are to be used for the process. This isn't a few million we're talking about, it's being implied the majority of the human population is going to be used to make these Avatars. The only ones that'd be left would be the upper echelons of the government, their families, and maybe certain support personnel.
  • And once those governmental overseers and such are no longer necessary to help control a populace that no longer exists, they too become "nonessential". . .

Shooting in high stance

• So the plasma weapons in the game are stated to be able to melt through at least a few inches of alien alloys, but why doesn't anyone ever consider shooting at a sectopod's legs when it's in the high stance mode? I feel like losing a leg would be extremely detrimental to a bipedal robot, especially of that size.
  • Your soldiers miss point blank shots to the center mass, do you really want to rely on them being capable of hitting the much thinner legs?
  • Who said they aren't? The game's combat is an abstraction. You think everyone's really just standing around letting each other take turns killing each other?
  • In the real world, soldiers are trained to shoot center mass at any target, even tanks and IFVs. Heck, even ATGMs will aim for the whole tank and not go for specific parts of the tank. Sure, it'd be easier to punch through a hatch, but a Javelin isn't that accurate, and it's a One-Hit Kill anywhere it hits anyway. The point is, it's better to score a guaranteed damaging hit, than waste ammo going for something more vital that you might not hit anyway.
  • should also be pointed out.... trying to hit the part of the target that moves the most and isn't carrying a team-slaughtering RAPID-FIRING MAG CANNON and an even larger BFG is probably not the smartest decision.

Enemy types

• Almost every type of alien can be explained with Enemy Unknown. The Sectoids are here, although changed, the Thin Men are the Vipers, the Outsiders were probably upgraded to or replaced by the Codex, the Floaters are now the Archon, Mutons are here, Berserkers are here, Chrysalids are here, Sectopods are here, the Cyberdiscs were probably upgraded to the Gatekeepers, and the Avatar is basically an Ethereal in a human body. The only exceptions are the Faceless and the Andromedon. What about them? How did they join the party?
  • They were likely either not viable for the Ethereals' plans in the first invasion since the Faceless probably needed more extensive conditioning and training and the Andromedons feel more like some kind of heavy support or engineering machine that happens to be able to kill humans well. Alternately, they were new forces either engineered or brought in after Earth fell. The Ethereals and ADVENT had twenty years to occupy Earth, that's more than enough time to develop new weapons and designs and bring in new troops from elsewhere.

Identified Flying Object

• Fairly minor nitpick, but... why is XCOM still calling the alien spacecraft UFOs? The aliens have ruled Earth for two decades, they're not unidentified anymore.
  • At this point the term has probably just become slang for alien spacecraft, with no real need or reason to change it. XCOM has more important things to worry about than using the correct name.

Shen's Last Gift

• Minor one, but one that's been bugging me since I noticed. Why did Advent leave a Sectopod in a garage (also an issue) on the roof of the facility? Yes gameplay reasons it works but in story you would think having a walking death ray in a location it can't escape from would be problematic and less than tactically sound than just having more pop-up turrets (also odd choice to have so many turrets in a seemingly unimportant area) and have your walking tank walking the perimeter. In short, the security was oddly designed, almost like it was purposely created to kill the people in the building rather than protect them...maybe there is an in-universe reason after all?
  • If its a factory, they may have shipped completed vehicles up to the top level. Also keep in mind that Firebrand says that she can't land while the Sectopod is active, so it may have been stationed it up there as AA.

MEC etymology

• So, what does "MEC" mean? In the first game it was "Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit" but since ADVENT fully automated them, they're neither exoskeletal nor a cybersuit. This is a silly question of course, since SPARK, SCOPE, EXALT, ADVENT etc. don't really mean anything, but since MEC originally did mean something...
• Possibly due to the lack of organics, it means "Mechanized Exoskeletal Combatant" or it means the same as it did because the aliens maybe intended for sectoids to pilot then and then went the way of Iron Man 2.
• ADVENT never refer to the MECs as such. XCOM calls them MECs as they have a resemblance to their namesakes, presumably in development by the time of the base attack.

Alien Rulers

• So, ADVENT genetically suppressed the Alien Ruler traits in the regular Berserkers, Archons, and Vipers because they were too powerful and intractable, and Vahlen dug deep and reactivated them again. That makes sense. Let's just ignore the weapons and equipment for now and ask why ADVENT lets the Rulers run around near the regular ADVENT forces, instead of throwing everything they have into killing those loose cannons immediately. Does the game's narrative want us to think the Rulers have a special hatred for XCOM, so they just psi-portal in whenever they somehow learn XCOM is on a mission? Do the Rulers just spend their free time in hidden lairs? If so, who maintains their equipment?
  • Seems more likely that the Elders somehow control them. They can probably handle 3 Super Aliens, but if they replaced their standing forces with them.. that's a strain they probably can't manage.
  • Remember that the Elders can alter the genetics of their servants to a rather extreme degree, and they do this in order to tailor their units to fit particular roles. The Rulers are pretty much a super-powerful version of the already-existing aliens but with none of the restrictions that make them suitable for their specialized deployment on military operations. Since the baseline creatures are all slavishly loyal to the Elders, it makes sense that they would go to the Elders and work for them in some capacity. Without any restrictions in place they would be difficult to control, but probably not impossible.
  • The Alien Rulers are vying with the Elders for control of their own individual species. The Vipers won't attack the Viper King as they desire him sexually so as to propagate the species, Mutons won't attack the Berserker Queen because she'll beat the shit out of them, and the Archon King scares everyone being a seething mass of anger at everything with the weaponry to deliver on that anger if provoked. The standard troopers don't know what to make of these three new players so they follow their alien comrades lead and don't get involved or use the violent hate for X-COM they share to their advantage. Meanwhile the Elders are content to leave the Rulers alone for the time being because as of now they are just three individuals who pose only a moderate threat where X-COM is a massive organization that poses a serious threat in the long run.

Necessity of the Andromedon pilot

• If the Andromedon mech is capable of operating by itself, then why bother putting a pilot in there in the first place?
  • The Andromedon suit doesn't seem capable of aiming - it is a very simplistic machine which has two goals: Run at the nearest enemy target. Apply punch to the face of said enemy.
    • If the MECs and Sectopods can be given decent aiming capabilities, then so can the andromedon suit.
    • Not necessarily. Just because you have a capability doesn't necessarily mean that it will be included in every piece of military kit. General rule of thumb is that a military won't waste development time, testing, procurement, and maintenance cycles on a system that's only supposed to kick in when the operator dies. Installing an AI able to use automated ranged weapons on an Andromedon suit just likely isn't cost-effective, and, depending on the nature of the suit, might not even have an operating system that can do that.
    • Furthermore, it's implied that the suit's ranged weapons are just expelling the same corrosive liquid that's in the Andromedon's tank, and when you breach the tank and kill it, that liquid leaks out. The suit likely either doesn't have enough liquid or it doesn't have the pressure to use the ranged weapons.
  • You're looking at it the wrong way around. The Andromedon isn't there to pilot the suit, the suit is there as a life-support system for the Andromedon. Basically if they didn't have the Andromedons they wouldn't be deploying the suits on their own, they'd just build more mechs instead. Presumably the protocol that keeps the suit fighting after the pilot is killed was put in more as a "just in case" contingency rather than the primary purpose of the suit.

Weapons Research

• Why does the Proving Grounds need to repeatedly research Experimental Ammo/Grenade/Armor to get multiples of the same thing? As it is now, if you wanted multiple AP Rounds or Incendiary Grenades, you need to keep sacrificing Cores to the Random Number Gods and hope for the best. If the engineers were able to invent a Blaster Bomb, why doesn't Lily Shen just tell them "Great, now do it again, the Commander wants six of these by the end of the month"?
  • Gameplay balance. Researching an item once and being able to equip six of them across an entire squad would be overpowered based on the resources spent to acquire the item.
  • That's a terrible explanation; it's like handwaving all of the plot holes in a story for "narrative convenience".

Neutralize the Enemy commander mission

• Why is it necessary to kill all the enemies and secure the area on the Neutralize the Enemy commander mission? If your only goal is killing the commander, shouldn't you be able to extract after you do it? Central says you have to kill everyone to prevent them from recovering his body for some reason, but he doesn't say why. Even if that is necessary, why can't you just pick up his corpse and extract with it, just like you extract a downed v.i.p or squadmates?
  • Most likely anti-air defense is too tight to extract via Skyranger at the moment. It's probably the same reason why on a lot of recovery missions you have to kill all the guards in the area to capture the item in question. You go in one-way via Skyranger and then extract on ground to a safe area afterward.