AVATAR Project (LW2)

In LW2 like in vanilla XCOM2, you have to prevent the Aliens from completing the AVATAR Project to avoid loosing the campaign. A number of changes were introduced to the strategic layer thought, changing the way the player interacts with the AVATAR Project, and understanding those changes is important to avoid a strategic loss.

Unknown AVATAR Project

At the beginning of the game, the Resistance has no clues about the Aliens true motivations. As a result the Commander and thus the player don't have any knowledge about the existence of the AVATAR Project or it's progress. Fortunately, this progress starts out slowly and the "Doom Meter" has been increased from 12 to 20 "pips" so the time required before ADVENT can win the game in the absence of XCOM intervention is longer.

To learn about the existence of the AVATAR Project and uncover the "Doom Meter", a player must complete a series of missions to liberate a region for the first time. This is the first major objective a player receives in a new campaign so usually the AVATAR Project won't stay hidden very long but it's a good idea to try and complete that objective relatively early (ideally before the end of June) in order to have a better view of the Aliens' progress.

AVATAR Research

The Alien Fortress will generate research at a regular rate. In addition, ADVENT will build facilities throughout the world that will generate additional "pips". The research generated by facilities comes faster (with some random variation) and every facility will generate it's own research. Research generated by facilities have a chance to be immediately transferred to the Fortress when generated, affecting the ability of XCOM to disrupt their progress. Difficulty will affect each aspect of AVATAR Research

Difficulty	Time until the first point of doom appears	Research time to add doom at the Alien HQ	Research at facilities
			Min time to add doom	Max time to add doom	Chance to transfer to Alien HQ
Rookie	25 days	50 days	35 days	45 days	10%
Veteran	23 days	46 days	32 days	40 days	20%
Commander	21 days	42 days	28 days	36 days	25%
Legend	20 days	40 days	26 days	34 days	30%

Research pace

Research starts slowly as only the Alien Fortress is generating research at the start of a campaign. The first "pip" appear after 20 days (on Legend) which is one day before the first supply drop. Additional pips take 40 days (almost 2 supply drops) to be generated. This might give the impression that it will take years to complete the project. However, as additional facilities are added, research will accelerate a lot from June to December in the absence of XCOM disruption and loosing to the AVATAR Project completion is a real possibility.

Facilities construction

This section is under construction

Dealing with the AVATAR Project

There is a number of ways in which XCOM can undermine the Alien's progress towards the AVATAR Project. Compared to vanilla XCOM2 the project start slower, it's harder to remove research but it can be slowed down.

Destroying accumulated research

Doom counter "pips" can be removed in LW2 exactly in the same way they can be removed in vanilla XCOM2 : by completing some main objectives and taking down facilities. However, both have been significantly altered in LW2 and it's generally much harder to reduce the Doom Counter, especially in an emergency situation.

Taking down Facilities

When a facility is destroyed, all the research accumulated at that facility will be lost. Of course, research that was transferred to the Alien HQ can't be destroyed by taking down the facility that originally generated it. Contrary to vanilla XCOM2 however, XCOM won't get a notification when a facility is built and won't know their locations until they actually find and decrypt classified ADVENT data. In the game, those data are materialized by "Facility Leads" that can be recovered during some missions listing an "Intel Package" as their reward. Those missions will appear like regular Guerrilla Operations and can't be identified with certainty. It's possible to predict which missions have a good chance to reward you with a facility lead as those missions obey some specific rules :

• They will only appear if there are more facilities currently on the map than XCOM have Facility Leads in storage (it's impossible to stockpile leads for future facilities).
• They are more likely to appear in regions with an existing facility.
• They will always be a mission to hack an ADVENT Workstation or free a Scientist.
• They reward you with raw Intel and an "Intel Package".

After a Facility Lead is recovered, it must be decrypted which requires research time and some Intel. When this research is complete the location of the facility will be revealed and it will be possible to attempt a sabotage mission. The region containing the facility must also be contacted in order to start that mission and the mission requires Infiltration so it's not really possible to take down a facility quickly. Destroying a facility is not a valid emergency measure like it is in vanilla XCOM2.

Tip : Even thought the location of facilities is unknown until a Facility Lead is researched, it's possible to learn which region holds them. When a new "pip" is created and added to a facility, the message shown on screen will tell the location of that facility. It's a good idea to write those down and try to contact a few of those regions as it makes it increases the chance to actually acquire a facility lead and saves time when the facility eventually appears on the map after researching a lead.

Completing objectives

Completion of some storyline objectives will reduces the Doom Counter. It's the only way to remove "pips" assigned to the Alien HQ. The amount of "pips" removed varies with difficulty, Rookie being more forgiving than higher levels. In total it's possible to destroy 16 "pips" on Rookie and 13 on every other difficulty.

Objective completed	Doom removed
	Rookie	Veteran +
Raid the Blacksite	4	3
Raid the Forge	4	3
Recover the Psi Gate	4	3
Kill a Codex	1	1
Kill an Avatar	3	3

Slowing down the progress

Section under construction