How long can you feasibly hold off Avatar project?

[Rain]

Is it possible to continue playing and get every upgrade and whatever built into the Avenger before you decide to continue the story?

I mean possible in the way of consistantly pulling that off in every playthrough.

[gimmethegepgun]

Well, you can get Facility Leads from Skullmining enemies (pretty hard hack though) which will let you create a facility holding part of the avatar project progress so you can go blow it up.

[linkfire12]

I am planning to only destroy facilities when it's on the countdown clock, but I'm unsure if later in the story before the final missions (which I haven't played), if you can stop the project and do things before then.

[Wealthy Peasant]

Make contact with regions and skullmine for facility leads and you will be able to hold it off indefinitely.

[linkfire12]

Originally posted by Wealthy Peasant:

Make contact with regions and skullmine for facility leads and you will be able to hold it off indefinitely.

How can you get your hacking ability high enough to consistently be able to get facility leads?

[Damedius]

You need to follow the story a bit to put off the avatar project forever. Following the story will reverse the progress of the Avatar project.

So you can let progress go for awhile, till the project gets 1/2 to 3/4 then start pursuing the story to knock it back down.

[Wealthy Peasant]

Originally posted by linkfire12:

Originally posted by Wealthy Peasant:

Make contact with regions and skullmine for facility leads and you will be able to hold it off indefinitely.

How can you get your hacking ability high enough to consistently be able to get facility leads?

It doesn't have to be right away, but both upgraded gremlins and the skull jack give bonuses to hacking. Otherwise, a soldiers hacking stat will go up when they perform hacks.

[Rain]

Originally posted by Damedius:

You need to follow the story a bit to put off the avatar project forever. Following the story will reverse the progress of the Avatar project.

So you can let progress go for awhile, till the project gets 1/2 to 3/4 then start pursuing the story to knock it back down.

I havent finished the game yet. I just now completed the Shadow Chamber and my Avatar project meter is three pips away from completion. I was thinking of starting over.

I like prolonging the game as much as I can, but short of tweaking the INI file to get like 24 pips, Im not sure what else I could do to stall it.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by linkfire12:

Originally posted by Wealthy Peasant:

Make contact with regions and skullmine for facility leads and you will be able to hold it off indefinitely.

How can you get your hacking ability high enough to consistently be able to get facility leads?

Each successful hack of any kind permanently raises the hacking stat by 5. Also, even though it's not a terribly high chance, the avatar project doesn't progress very quickly later in the game (I get the impression that it advance very rapidly outside of facilities early game to rack up a bunch of points for you to knock out with story steps, and then mostly relies on facilities later in the game, which can be directly countered) so it's not THAT hard to get leads as fast as the aliens get non-facility points.

[Damedius]

Originally posted by Skully:

Originally posted by Damedius:

You need to follow the story a bit to put off the avatar project forever. Following the story will reverse the progress of the Avatar project.

So you can let progress go for awhile, till the project gets 1/2 to 3/4 then start pursuing the story to knock it back down.

I havent finished the game yet. I just now completed the Shadow Chamber and my Avatar project meter is three pips away from completion. I was thinking of starting over.

I like prolonging the game as much as I can, but short of tweaking the INI file to get like 24 pips, Im not sure what else I could do to stall it.

You should be fine.

Start following the story and/or do any red facility missions to knock it back down.

[Wealthy Peasant]

Originally posted by Skully:

Originally posted by Damedius:

You need to follow the story a bit to put off the avatar project forever. Following the story will reverse the progress of the Avatar project.

So you can let progress go for awhile, till the project gets 1/2 to 3/4 then start pursuing the story to knock it back down.

I havent finished the game yet. I just now completed the Shadow Chamber and my Avatar project meter is three pips away from completion. I was thinking of starting over.

I like prolonging the game as much as I can, but short of tweaking the INI file to get like 24 pips, Im not sure what else I could do to stall it.

Avatar progress is tied to alien facilities in parts of the world. When you find one, blow it up and that will set it back.
Also, when the meter is completely filled, you still have roughly 3 weeks time to reduce it. It really isn't as bad as you probably think it is.

[Rin]

You can hold it off almost infinitely late game. The difficult part is stablising early game.

Avatar Project gains progress by:
- 1 point every month by default, but this can be delayed.
- 1 point for new Alien Facility built.
- 1 point per month for every Alien Facility in operation.
- 1-2 point from random Dark Event.

Avatar Project loses progress by:
- Main missions generally reduce the progress by at least 2-4. E.g. Blacksite.
- Destroying an Alien Facility reduces progress by 1 point + ALL the progress that was generated by the destroyed Alien Facility. For example, if an Alien Facility was running for 5 months straight since its construction, destroying it reduces progress by 6 points.
- Completing main missions further delay the progress (both the default progress and progress of other facilities), so you will get a month where there isn't a tick.

If you play smart and destroy Alien Facilities ASAP (thus keeping the progress generated by facilities to 0), and if you only play a main mission when the progress bar is already 3+ (from monthly progress), you can probably extend the playthrough well above 24 months. Not sure why you'd ever want to do that though, since you'll literally have EVERYTHING in the game, and will simply be running missions without any reward.

ADD: Remember that Facility Lead is only useful IF there is an Alien Facility still left standing. The aliens only build a new facility every 5-7 weeks, so once you catch up to their Facility building, Avatar project becomes a non-issue.

[jeffy]

the problem is your men will get wounded no madder what

and youll not be able to keep up with hard missons with noob crews

[linkfire12]

I managed to get a good rotation of experienced soldiers that can heal once the next batch is wounded, works well.

[ThatGuyUSA]

Originally posted by Wealthy Peasant:

Originally posted by linkfire12:

How can you get your hacking ability high enough to consistently be able to get facility leads?

It doesn't have to be right away, but both upgraded gremlins and the skull jack give bonuses to hacking. Otherwise, a soldiers hacking stat will go up when they perform hacks.

I was able to get a pretty constant 60% success rate on facility leads which is good enough to try and re-load save if i dont get it....of course this is an option for non-ironman players. And that specialist isnt a colenel yet. Mark II gremlin, plus equip a skullmine and you get a +45 bonus to hacking, so ALWAYS give it to your specialist...and also make sure specialist has haywire skill because taking command of heavy mecs is very satisfying...

[linkfire12]

Hmm I do that already.

The problem is that the RNG is seeded.