Second Wave options

[Rincewind]

So I just won my first playthrough and had an absolute blast. Im going to start my next run soon, and I just want to ask the veterans around here what are the best second wave options to enhance the experience without jacking up the difficulty too much.

[>//The_FALCON]

no damage roulette or new economy or training roulette

not created equally and hidden potential is a must-have

I also like to take aiming angles and absolute critical

[yuri simp]

Here's my usual setup: Damage Roulette, New Economy, Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, Red Fog, Absolutely Critical, The Greater Good, Results Driven, Diminishing Returns, War Weariness, E-115, Total Loss, Aiming Angles, Training Roulette, Itchy Trigger Tentacle.

Of these:

Not Created Equally, Training Roulette, and Hidden Potential generally make the game easier. (You can create super soldiers early in the game, which usually mean an easy cruise through the tactical side of the game.)
New Economy, Absolutely Critical, Results Driven, and Aiming Angles can swing both ways, depending on how a playthrough is going. (These are double-edged swords, in my opinion. They can benefit or harm you. Both aliens and your soldiers benefit from Absolutely Critical and Aiming Angles, for instance.)
Red Fog, Total Loss, E-115, Itchy Trigger Tentacle, War Weariness, Diminishing Returns, and The Greater Good generally make the game harder.
Damage Roulette is bs. (Unless you get a crit, you are going to do little damage on average.)

Of the other Second Wave options I haven't mentioned:
Marathon: This option...isn't really that fun. Just makes the game really long.
Alternate Sources: In a similar boat as Diminishing Returns, but much more critical in the long-run, since you need power for...well, everything. This makes power expensive.
More Than Human: See Marathon. Just makes the game longer since it takes more time to find a psion.
Save Scum: Really beneficial to your cause in general. Makes the game super easy.
Mind Hates Matter: I've played with this before. It doesn't really affect the game as much as I thought it would. You will have to be a bit more conservative with gene augmentation though.

[>//The_FALCON]

Though you should take into account that some of them are only unlocked by beating the game on a certain difficulty

[di eshor ribly]

I usually use Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, Red Fog, Absolutely Critical, Aiming Angles, and Mind Hates Matter, sometimes I'll throw on Training Roulette. Really the only reason I use MHM is so I have a better defined corps of troops: MEC, Genetics, and Psionics. I found gene modded psions were so ridiculously OP that it hurt some of my fun factor. Mileage may vary of course.

[Mhblis]

For fun.

Training Roulette is a must. It just creates so much soldier variety.

Beyond that folks have given a good idea of what everything does so it's your call as to what type of game you want to play.

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I'll plug it as well now since its also an option.

Long War mod.

Makes EW this almost a new game, and it is easy to tweak to be at the difficulty you like.

[red255]

yeah, NCE is making the game easier. I generally would not suggest using it. the range of stats are prettylarge +/- 15 aim. thats basically a free scope and gets you 80 aim heavies at the first level.