Research (Hardmode)
Research in Hardmode has seen a major revamp, with a noted increase in difficulty. With research taking longer to complete and have more complex requirements.
Major Change Quick Recap
A quick recap of the major changes to the research system.
- 1.5 times increase in the time to research the majority of topics.
- The Alien containment facility must be researched, the topics required to unlock this can only be found in an Alien Base.
- Many technologies will require a live alien to be interrogated.
- Typically Alien Engineers are needed for certain engineering technologies, Navigators for aircraft topics and Medics for psionic topics.
- Two unique items, the Alien Data Slate and Alien Data Core, gatekeep most advance technologies.
- Laser weapons cannot be researched until a live Alien has been interrogated and the Alien Data Slate has been researched.
- Some additional early game research topics have been added to bridge the gap between Terran weapons/armour and more advance Laser/Powered armour, these being alloy enhanced ballistic weapons and armour.
- Significant increase in the difficulty to unlock psionics
Detailed Information
A major change of note is that the Alien Containment Facility must now be researched, the technology required to research the Alien Containment can only be found in an Alien Base, necessitating an early assault on an Alien Base in order to progress the tech tree.
The majority of technically complicated research topics require the interrogation of an appropriately ranked live Alien, as an example the UFO Power Source topic, a pre-requisite to Power Suits and Firestorm construction, can only be researched if any Alien Engineer is interrogated beforehand.
Major technological breakthroughs are gated behind locating, recovering and researching an Alien Data Slate and a Alien Data Core, the Slate can only be found in an Alien Base, whereas the Core can only be found on an Alien Battleship. Of particular note are that Laser Weapons cannot be researched until the Data Slate is researched, and Alien Plasma weapons cannot be researched until the Data Core has been researched.
In order to compensate for the delay that X-COM will have in unlocking Laser weapons and more potent Personal Armour/Power Suits, X-COM can research new topics that can unlock Alloy Ammo for usage with Ballistic firearms, and Alloy Armour as an improvement over the starting armours.
Without being able to interrogate Aliens, X-COM will be unable to progress the tech tree in an appreciable matter and will be rapidly overwhelmed within several months. Every effort should be made to secure the ability to construct the Alien Containment facility, and begin interrogating live aliens, before the end of the second month of the war.
