Am I making a mistake by rushing to get Magnetic Weapons and better Armor (Ironman Commander)

[merkava808]

On Normal, previously, I made a point of getting better weapons and armor as soon as possible. Was a wonderful strategy in Normal, and it wasn't difficult to keep the alien ticker timer from going down because of resistance missions and waiting until the last moment (when I'm most prepared) to do more critical missions that will affect the progress bar like Blacksite and Ruler bases..

One of the first things on Commander I've noticed that the rulers/chosen spawn *much* sooner than previous, and I wanted to reach out to see if it is related to my rushed research of better weapons and armor? I.E. Does it notices that I've "tech'd up" for lack of a better phrase, so they "tech up" the AI as well?

If it is due to an improper research order, surely someone has a created an optimal WOTC-Legendary/Commander research order spreadsheet (akin to the build order spreadsheets you can find), but the root of this post is about if research causes different enemy outcomes on higher difficulty, and sadly that is not something that I can discern from a spreadsheet.

If there is someone with access to such a spreadsheet for the research and build orders tailored for the highest difficulty that would be immensely appreciated. I have never been one to min-max, but I actually enjoy it in Xcom and that is why I ask :)
Thank you so much in advance for any advice regarding this, and honestly research order in general!

[Stardustfire]

you get it the wrong way. on normal it dosnt matters so hard to get better weapons fast, on higher diff it does.
you can see a few ppl advice in normal to just jump over mag weapons and directly aim for the endgame weapon stuff. in higher diff this woud be a fatal mistake, because you need the rise in firepower from the mags to survive midgame.
in legend it can take wooping 42 days only to do the research for mag weapon, means i mosttimes see mutons before getting a mag rifle (a lucky inspiration is a godsend here) .

[Nixonator]

I have always rushed magnetic weapons on higher difficulties. Of course it also depends what resources I have on hand. There is a balance between different tiers of weapons and armor and when more powerful aliens are introduced so you have to keep that in mind. But generally speaking rushing magnetic weapons is a good strategy.

[mk11]

Your tech rate has no effect on the alien force level. That is driven purely by time (but is slower on Legendary - but not as slow as your reduced development rate).

There is a concept of "strong pods" that are above normal for force level. It may be that the chance of those happening increases with difficulty. There is also a concept of "weak pods" and they are less frequent than on Veteran.

Unless you have included the story missions, the first Chosen always appears on the first retaliation mission and the rate Chosen appears is the same regardless of difficulty. You may have been fooled if you ended up with all your early contacted areas having the same Chosen.

Rulers spawning on missions I think does not depend on difficulty. Not sure about rulers attaching to facilities. Rulers first appearance depends upon game options at start.

[Zeonista]

If you choose not to take the Alien Rulers story mission, the Viper King shows up on the first Supply Raid. Did you remember to build the special weapons, Commander? You didn't? Ouch!!The Viper King is a real bastard as part of an ensemble, and against a 5-man squad with no Bradford he is dangerous. After that the Rulers will show up as usual, but with an early start, having the Berserker Queen appear before Tier 2 gear has been researched & equipped is possible. If so, it's a ticket to the pain station. You can win that scenario, I have, twice, but the squad members won't be good to go for a while. This is why I ALWAYS integrate the story mission for Alien Rulers when doing Ironman.

[Stardustfire]

If you choose not to take the Alien Rulers story mission, the Viper King shows up on the first Supply Raid

partly to full wrong info.
if you integrate they will show up as facility guards first.

[Zeonista]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

If you choose not to take the Alien Rulers story mission, the Viper King shows up on the first Supply Raid

partly to full wrong info.
if you integrate they will show up as facility guards first.

The Rulers will show up as facility guards, of course. But the Viper King WILL show up on a Supply raid if the story mission is not integrated at setup, and so will the others in time. This has happened in both Legacy and WOTC campaigns. If the story mission is played, the Rulers will show up for facility raids, or random missions. This is why it's a big deal to incorporate the DLC for Ironman campaigns, especially when trying for Valhalla achievement.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by Zeonista:

The Rulers will show up as facility guards, of course. But the Viper King WILL show up on a Supply raid if the story mission is not integrated at setup, and so will the others in time. This has happened in both Legacy and WOTC campaigns. If the story mission is played, the Rulers will show up for facility raids, or random missions. This is why it's a big deal to incorporate the DLC for Ironman campaigns, especially when trying for Valhalla achievement.

Integrated content ON
Rulers will initially show up only on facility missions. If you fail to kill a particular ruler there, he/she will show up on random missions as well.

Integrated content OFF nest mission ON
Viper king is fought on the nest mission. After that rulers start to show up on random missions, the viper king as well if he wasn't killed in nest.

Integrated content OFF nest mission OFF
Kings will show up on random missions. It's not necessarily supply raids. Once in vanilla I got the viper king on the 5th mission. I think it was a VIP one I believe.

In my opinion, not integrating DLC and playing the old nest mission is the easiest method:
-Freen dlc hunter weapons via scan somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd mission.
-No kings will be present until you decide to do the nest mission
-Small drawback of not being able to upgrade dlc hunter weapons until nest mission is done.

[Boshiken]

for Hunters Weapons upgrade - you must delay the Magnetic upgrade

[hazrob52]

I play on commander difficulty and I never rush research magnetic weapons, because it doesn't save you any time. Early game you have at best one scientist.Better to do a lot of shorter research items which will have an immediate benefit. Also delaying might mean you get magnetic weapons as an inspired research. Prioritise getting a second scientist, then do mag weapons.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by hazrob52:

I play on commander difficulty and I never rush research magnetic weapons, because it doesn't save you any time. Early game you have at best one scientist.Better to do a lot of shorter research items which will have an immediate benefit. Also delaying might mean you get magnetic weapons as an inspired research. Prioritise getting a second scientist, then do mag weapons.

I can't argue with immediate benefits and possible inspired research, but the point of rushing mag is to get them as soon as possible. I don't exactly know what you mean by saving time.
The only way to save time is to get more scientists which will speed all research up.
If you mean that by rushing you won't get mag faster, that's incorrect.

Say modular research is 5 days and mag is 35 (numbers may be slightly off but it's irrelevant) and you get a day 10 scientist.
Your mag is ready at day 30.1. Then you do alien biotech (5 days) and trooper autopsy (5 days) which finishes at day 36.8 due to the scientist bonus.

Now say you do modular, then biotech, then trooper autopsy and finally mag and get the same day 10 scientist.
You get mag at day 36.8.

The point is you do get them faster.

[Zeonista]

There is a mod that can help. The ADVENT Pistol mod puts a pistol available as dropped loot on missions. The pistol can be used as a weapon; it does current tier damage but has +5% accuracy. BUT, obtaining a pistol creates a Research project for it. The research requires 1 ADVENT pistol. Upon completion the research time for Magnetic Weapons is reduced by about 33%. I've seen 15 days' time reduced to 6-9 days, depending on the number of Scientists.