First thing to research?

[Mandrake]

Playing on L/I, what's the first thing that should be researched? I'm thinking experimental weapon. Or is it better with the standard - rush for battle scanner?

[Darkrage_nl]

Experimental weapon? that tech is useless until you finish building a proving ground. And most legend build orders do not see one finished in the first couple of months.

Research takes a lot longer in legend so you must save time wherever possible or you get behind in tech. So unless you need the battle scanner you can also delay the autopsy until you got enough corpses to do it instantly.

Edit:Rush for battle scanner was for the faceless but you face only 1 faceless in the first retaliation so you won't need 1 that badly until you are 50+ days into the campaign unless you are unable to fight the assassin without it (what you should learn IMHO)

My research order is modular weapons then 2 days worth of biotech then resistance comms as I want to contact a second region before the 2nd guerilla ops no matter what)

Modular because weapons can get more modding slots and with the right research weapon mods can be replaced and moved so there is less of a penalty to modding your weapons early.

[Mandrake]

Alright, thanks man! So you need proving grounds to manufacture the weapons ey? Well, that becomes meaningless as a priority then :) Is there always only one faceless on the first retaliation? Why do you want a second region before second guerrilla ops?

[.O.]

Originally posted by Mandrake:

Alright, thanks man! So you need proving grounds to manufacture the weapons ey? Well, that becomes meaningless as a priority then :) Is there always only one faceless on the first retaliation? Why do you want a second region before second guerrilla ops?

so you can actually choose which dark event to counter.

[Artek [General]]

Magnetic weaponry, new armor and resistance radio.
Honestly L/I was a bad idea, you are going to get butt-kicked...

Build advanced warfare center, power relay, ressistance comms (after related research) and Guerilla Tactics school ASAP. In any order. But preferably AWC first.
But its going to take a while... You need lots of engineers and supplies.
From there proving grounds and later on shadow chamber.

Boy, you have no idea what you got yourself into with that L/I.
And its your first playthrough too, right?
You are so dead.

[Mandrake]

Originally posted by Artek General:

Magnetic weaponry, new armor and resistance radio.
Honestly L/I was a bad idea, you are going to get butt-kicked...

Build advanced warfare center, power relay, ressistance comms (after related research) and Guerilla Tactics school ASAP. In any order. But preferably AWC first.
But its going to take a while... You need lots of engineers and supplies.
From there proving grounds and later on shadow chamber.

Boy, you have no idea what you got yourself into with that L/I.
And its your first playthrough too, right?
You are so dead.

Naw man, already beaten standard xcom2 several times on L/I. Now I'm going for WotC ;) Xenos are the ones who are ded :P

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Mandrake:

Naw man, already beaten standard xcom2 several times on L/I. Now I'm going for WotC ;) Xenos are the ones who are ded :P

Then i dont see the point of this thread.
Shouldn't you have enough experience by now to know what to do?

[Tamiore]

I'd say in WOTC you build resistance ring right away, probably even boosting it's construction with an engineer. The sooner you get it up and running, the sooner you can recruit the next engineer.
P. S. And I do mean "right away". Before GTS, before anything else.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Artek General:

Then i dont see the point of this thread.
Shouldn't you have enough experience by now to know what to do?

It's always a good idea to exchange your thoughts with the community, you might improve your game in things you may have overlooked.

[learnedhand]

I'm feeling like I have an optimal start in my new L/I grim horizon campaign. In my last borked campaign and this one, the natural first build is GTS. This is primarily because you can't build the resistance ring until the 3rd or 4th mission when you've met the first faction (playing integrated story mode). I guess if you start at a faction then you have an advantage in unlocking resistance ring from the start.

Short of that, however, its GTS then Resistance ring, unless you want to try something different with a lab rush. Let the GTS build itself (no engineer) and clear out another room with one engineer. Build the resistance ring in that second room with the one engineer. Both GTS and Resistance ring finished at the same time (about a month into campaign), right before a supply drop and right before I had a Sergeant for squad size upgrade.

So on integrated story mode, I really don't see any other build order being more optimal.

Edit: Lol, failure to read the op's question about RESEARCH. Anyway, I think is is almost always modular weapons. basically the priority in the first two months should be mag weapons but it depends on what opportunities you get around research breakthroughs. I've skipped resistance communications and advent officer until much later my last few games but I have prioritized sectoids (mindshields are great now with those early chosen encounters). Even though mag weapons is the general priority, I feel its not worth it to lock that in when it takes 60 days or more. When you only have one scientist, you might as well get one or two faster research techs because your overall time to mag weapons won't be effected much. In my current game, I got mag weapons on April 17th. You're not going to get much faster than that unless you get a hacked breakthrough.

[V-Fib]

I usually go for armor first, then weapons.