Preferred Early Game Mods

[ChainsawAardvark]

So how do you like to change up the early game? We certainly seem to have plenty of options. There is Rylsken's Armory, Modest Re-balance 1.0, individually adding a few items (ballistic armor, sniper rifle, grenade launcher, attack dogs), Air-combat Re-balance, and XAE.

I like re-balance, along with a mod that reverses the order of laser research, dogs, and the human plasma weapons mod. My one request would be a mod that adds an alloy cost to lasers, to limit the profitability of laser cannons. (Enough things take elirum that requiring that for lasers just seems excessive.)

[Arthanor]

As the creator of the XAE, that's quite obviously what I use. I really want to give Equal Terms, Xeno Ops and the FMP a try though.

Before I used the XAE, I enjoyed gauss weapons and grav armors a lot, combat knife, sniper rifle and shotguns too. Those have now all been "integrated" (or is it assimilated?  ).

I'm not sure if you knew, but one of the modules of the XAE, Research and Manufacture, does add an alloy cost to laser weapons. I agree with you that Elerium cost is too much, but nothing is not enough. Like all of the XAE, you can use that module by itself, without the rest, if you don't want the other stuff. The module does change how research is done a bit too, from reversing the order of laser weapons to delaying plasma weapons. (And if you like attack dogs, I have an improved version of those too! and lots of other stuff ).

[TaxxiDriver]

I personally think even the vanilla game did pretty well about the early games: it was challenging. The only flaw was that you had to sacrifice some rookies in every single battle almost inevitably, and now there are many mods to solve that problem. I usually use some scout drones

[Edit] Well, come to think of it, I did feel that laser weapons were slightly overpowered. I usually put more weapon tiers between the standard and laser weapons, and many mods also seem to do that(adding more tiers). Lengthening the overall research time works great, too

[Phoenix7786]

Riiiiiiiise from your grave! [/necro]

I prefer to add in the shotgun and ballistic sniper rifle to my early game. I considered the extra armour (more powerful than the coveralls but less than the personal) but I felt that it would slant the early game too much into my favor. I might consider the HWP dog, Retaliator craft, and extra armours for a pure X-Com newbie to help them through that challenging early-game. Although...that early game IS a crucial part of the true X-com experience.

[hellrazor]

Delay Lasers by at least 2 months for vanilla game.

Alloy Ammo for Kinetic Weapons.
Shotguns.
Sniper Rifle.

[Roxis231]

I've been playing around with creating a mod that gives you alternate more ammo types for the Pistol, Rifle, Heavy Cannon and Autocannon.

The mod is also ment to delay laser weaponry untill you have reserched the altopsy's of 2 different types of alien.

Currently a WIP though.