XCOM: Enemy Unknown Warspace Extension mod rebalances darn near everything

Taken out of context, " Warspace Extension " sounds like the subject of a cheeky spam email to a military general. For XCOM: Enemy Unknown commanders, it's the name of a mod overhauling weapons, enemies, armor, squad performance, and practically everything else housed beneath Firaxis' turn-based Sectoid-slayer. Commence Operation: Righteous Replay.

Author BlackAlpha suggests enjoying Warspace on Classic difficulty, but before you reach for that laser wrist-cutter you just researched, he assures the mod's tweaks retains Normal mode's challenge for easier engagements. The sizable change notes display in full over at Warspace's Nexus entry , but we've snipped some of the more interesting adjustments for reading below:

Weapons

• The Arc Thrower now goes in the pistol slot.
• Pistols (except the Laser Pistol) need to be reloaded.
• The sniper rifle's close-range accuracy penalty has been removed, but it still requires two actions to fire.
• Environmental structures now withstand a few more hits before collapsing. This allows for better cover use and increased tactical play.

Enemies

• Enemies have been changed in such a way that combat becomes more logical, resulting in more fluid battles.
• When a Chryssalid kills a civilian offscreen, the civilian will now always turn into a zombie. (NOPENOPENOPE)
• The AI will now always use more than five NPCs in combat instead of hiding when reaching the NPC limit.

Strategic map

• Ignored missions no longer increases the overall panic level of a continent but only of specific countries at a larger penalty.
• Satellites are much more likely to decrease panic levels of their assigned countries at the end of the month.
• Increased research time of plasma weapons to make it harder to unlock them and make lasers more attractive.
• Workshops are enabled from the start, allowing the player to begin the strategic game with a different starting move.

Soldiers

• Armor plays a large role in how fast soldiers will panic: The higher the HP bonus, the smaller the panic chance becomes.
• Panicking soldiers no longer shoots their teammates.
• Injured soldiers require a significantly longer recovery time, especially for gravely injured squaddies.

Armors

• Armors are now divided into Heavy and Light variants: Carapace, Titan, and Archangel for the former and Skeleton, Ghost, and Psi for the latter.
• Heavy armors provide two item slots. Light armors provide only one slot.
• Carapace reduces mobility by one square. Titan and Archangel reduces mobility by two squares. All Light armors increases mobility by three squares.
• Light armors have special mobility abilities (except Psi armor) that allow them to move around the battlefield with more ease.

General

• Normal, Classic, and Impossible difficulty levels should be the same now apart from hard-coded differences.
• Second Wave is enabled. You'll need a completed Impossible campaign to unlock all the options.
• Second Wave Marathon mode is fixed. You can build the Hyperwave Relay with just one Hyperwave Beacon.