What triggers enemy progression?

['nitzen]

As in facing better equipped ADVENT, new or more advanced/stronger aliens etc. Is it time, number of missions, reasearch, story missions? Are there any ways to keep them from progressing?

[fewerjungle]

Time, so no, no way of stopping them from progressing, short of finishing the game early.
Some dark events temporarily provide enemies with special ammo, better armor, special abilities etc. You can counter those. Probably not all but some.

['nitzen]

Thank you!

[HazardHawk]

It is based on what is called "force level." Force level advances by what you have researched, facilities you have built, missions you have accomplished, and the rank of your soldiers basically. It also only advances and does not go backwards to lessen.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by HazardHawk:

It is based on what is called "force level." Force level advances by what you have researched, facilities you have built, missions you have accomplished, and the rank of your soldiers basically. It also only advances and does not go backwards to lessen.

Are you sure?
If that was the case, a player who hasn't completed X research or building / achieved X rank shouldn't be seeing X enemy, and they do.
I think it's simply time-based, but I could be wrong.

[HazardHawk]

Originally posted by fewerjungle:

Originally posted by HazardHawk:

It is based on what is called "force level." Force level advances by what you have researched, facilities you have built, missions you have accomplished, and the rank of your soldiers basically. It also only advances and does not go backwards to lessen.

Are you sure?
If that was the case, a player who hasn't completed X research or building / achieved X rank shouldn't be seeing X enemy, and they do.
I think it's simply time-based, but I could be wrong.

Different researches trigger the level value so even if you skip some, you still wont delay Force level increase by much, but you can manipulate it that way along with if you maintain enough rookies and keep your units lower level with more ranked up into those lower levels, that helps delay as well. It is not a simple on off switch of one particular thing.

[HazardHawk]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1550396115&searchtext=Force+level

Here, this is not direct force level, but it is an adjustable version so you can play around and see what is what and how it works by accelerating the triggers. If you want to see different pieces so you can put it together in your head the way you will personally understand, search workshop for "Force level" download the mods, use the AML to look thrugh the config files all together and you will see the patterns and triggers.

[fewerjungle]

Thanks for the info. I usually follow more or less the same strategy so I never noticed it.
I suppose it could be manipulated, but I prefer more experienced troops and especially squad sizes over less force level.
That info however would explain why I never got strong and numerous enemies when I fired up a skirmish map with high force levels and tech while picking up a captain and two troopers as a squad :p

EDIT: I always also asking because I didn't want 'nitzen to think not building, researching, leveling up and going on missions was the best strategy. That will go sideways quickly.

Cheers.

[Mitzruti]

force level goes up by one every 10-15 ingame days depending on difficulty. (that is, +2 per supply drop unless you're on legend). what you do during that time doesn't affect it at all.

there's one enemy that only starts spawning after you do a certain thing, and certain story missions are forced to spawn particular enemies regardless of your force level.

[HazardHawk]

Originally posted by Mitzruti:

force level goes up by one every 10-15 ingame days depending on difficulty. (that is, +2 per supply drop unless you're on legend). what you do during that time doesn't affect it at all.

there's one enemy that only starts spawning after you do a certain thing, and certain story missions are forced to spawn particular enemies regardless of your force level.

The best advice I can give towards generically helping people understand the internal workings behind the scenes is to go through workshop and grab relevant to what you are interested mods and look through their config files.

No one can specifically tell you how to manipulate anything in this game. There are too many variables we trigger that can override anything we target to attempt. This is because no two people will progress exactly the same in any game. Not even you will play the same game twice though we each will have similar playthroughs in our own games. This makes understanding HOW it works the important part in order to manipulate within our own game.

[Crypto Gamer]

Force level goes up one every 10,5 days on first three difficulties. 210 days to max

And up by 1 every 15 days on Legend but you do stuff much slower as well. 300 days to max.

Capped at force lvl 20 some pods can be +-2 force level so stun lancer(force level 3) can appear with +2 on the first after gate crasher missions.

Most story missions can have some unique fixed pods disregarding force level.

[oceansoul]

Originally posted by HazardHawk:

No one can specifically tell you how to manipulate anything in this game. There are too many variables we trigger that can override anything we target to attempt. This is because no two people will progress exactly the same in any game. Not even you will play the same game twice though we each will have similar playthroughs in our own games. This makes understanding HOW it works the important part in order to manipulate within our own game.

Why are you talking so confidently about something you know nothing about? Everything you have posted in this thread is wrong. Not just wrong but WRONG.

Force limit is solely controlled by time end of. It's easy enough to open the config files and check.

[Icedfate]

so, if one somehow rushes out mag weapons and plated armor super early, the enemies aren't suddenly going to rush and catch up?
it's soley based on how much time passes?
i know in veteran and commander, sectopods and gatekeepers start showing up in august.
i'm playing legendary and someone said the enemies progress slower?
if that's true, i'm relieved, because i'm playing on legendary. it's already july and i only just now unlocked gauss weapons. i usually have the bluescreen protocol and plasma rifles when august rolls around. if sectopods aren't appearing in august, then i still have time. .

[Crypto Gamer]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

so, if one somehow rushes out mag weapons and plated armor super early, the enemies aren't suddenly going to rush and catch up?
it's soley based on how much time passes?
i know in veteran and commander, sectopods and gatekeepers start showing up in august.
i'm playing legendary and someone said the enemies progress slower?
if that's true, i'm relieved, because i'm playing on legendary. it's already july and i only just now unlocked gauss weapons. i usually have the bluescreen protocol and plasma rifles when august rolls around. if sectopods aren't appearing in august, then i still have time. .

Yes it is time based only,on Legend they progress slower but you research I think at 50% rate so technically aliens progress faster than you on Legend and of course have better stats and more mob count and soldiers have much higher exp requirements etc.

Codex only shows up once it is triggered via skulljack after that they can appear at force lvl 7 and up.

Most primary mission have some fixed mobs eg.blacksite always have fixed some basic troops even if you are force lvl 20.

And last mission I think entirely ignores force lvl.

Sectopods are added at force lvl 16.

So on Legend 16x15 240 days after game start they can appear on random mission but they are capped at maximum 1 and 2 depending on random missions type.

Of course primary story missions can have"fixed" sectopods even before force lvl 16 and can ignore maximum caps.

Some pods can be"weak"-2 force level and some can be "strong"+2 force lvl.

I think only reinforcements can be "strong" so with bad luck you can get stunlancers(force lvl 3)at the start of the game(force lvl 1).

[Icedfate]

I just passed september 11 on legend and i still have mag weapons. haven't seen sectopods yet, but i'm seeing lots of mutons and an occasional andromedon or archon and yeah, these enemies are ridiculous, often 5-6 pods on a mission.
i struggled to take down viper king with mag weapons. it took 2 reloads, because another pod kept getting pulled in and then we got wiped.
lots of mutons.
lots and lots of mutons.
i ave learned to hate mutons.
they aren't that hard to kill, but those grenades.
i do have bluescreen bullets to deal with robots.
and i got a resistance order to get a +1 to all armor shredding attacks.
i just built the psi ops room and the psion doesn't just need double training time, their training times are tripled! like, on commander, powers take 5 days, on legends, it takes 15 to train just one power.

i was suspicious there was something going on with the soldier xp, because all my soldiers are still stuck at sergeant and lieutentant levels , except for 1 colonel and 1 major that i kept sending those on covert events for promotions. and then i just rescued 2 captains in a mission and they are so far ahead of my other troops i'm wondering if i did something wrong, like is that where all my guys should be at this point?

i watch a guy playing legend ironman on YT and he just doesn't seem to ge caught in some of these impossible misisons, but then again, i did see him bail out of a couple of missions.
maybe that's the missiing piece? i need to know how to identify if i'm in over my head and bail out and just let the mission fail?

the chosen assassin filled up her meter and attacked my ship and that fight so long and drawn out and took quite a bit of save scumming to get through and i feel like i'm not even earning it. i'm just doing it for the steam achievement , then i'm probably gonna just play commander from then on

[Crypto Gamer]

15/10,5 is 1.4285 round it up Aliens need 43% more time to reach the next force level but many stuff for you takes double or triple time like psi training excavation and wound times are also I think doubled.
Lab is more useful than on lower difficulties.

I think Chosen progress bar has same rate as commander but as Legend is longer so Chosen assaults are much more likely to happen.

Those assaults if done well can be source of many loot as there are 30+ enemies and you keep all the loot.