Looking for advice or a guide to start a LW2 game

[Black Album]

Hi,
I've just finished my 1st vanilla run on Xcom2 ... it was alright but a little bit too easy and quick for me. .... (I'm still a fan of the original incarnation of Xcom from early 90's .. now those were the days)

So I went to Nexus to look for LW2 but couldn't seem to find it there ... only addons for the main LW2 mod. I'm at the XCOM2 page and I've searched "Long War 2" and "LW2" ... and even "Long" just to be sure. To be honest, I found less than 10 mods relating to LW2 so somethings up.
So I've arrived here looking for a little advice.....

Edit: I've now found LW2 on Nexus ... content blocking was the problem

I'm not a novice to modding and have heavily modded both Skyrim and Fallout 4 ... I'm reasonably well known on both of those forums.
I do try to follow the rules and will build a stable game that will last ... if possible ... but I need to find the correct advice before I can follow it.

So .... is there a good guide that you regulars can link for me that has what I will need to put together a well rounded game?

Just the basics on load order and installation techniques and hopefully some suggestions on the best mods to use that work well together. Not looking for 1000's of new weapons or costumes as I'm more interested in the gameplay enhancements. I'm sure that a lot great improvements to the game have been made and equally that there's tons of crap to be found too.
I'm used to running 300+ on the Bethesda games.
(Although if I can only find 10 mods for LW2 on Nexus then I shouldn't need to worry much)

I'm not a time waster and won't argue back. I'm happy to learn from the experts so any tips will be helpful but hopefully there's a well written guide so you all don't have to type out the same stuff that you've answered many times before ...

My thanks and best wishes to you all.

[Black Album]

Thanks ...
I'm actually just going through the mods now ...
What I like about DerAva's mod list is that it lists the "Stop wasting my time - legacy" mod rather than the WOTC version ... that's a good sign.

Anyway .. I've given up trying to get Vortex to see my Xcom game so I'm moving to manual/workshop method.
I've created a "XCom/xcomgame/mod" folder.
I'd already selected the workshop variant of LW2 so I'm going to unsubscribe from that and download the Nexus version as suggested earlier ...
Hopefully my game will see it ... and then I'll start adding the mods.

Would you suggest I stick with one method ... manual Nexus installation or workshop ... or is a mixture of both ok?

and finally .... is it the best idea to start LW with a modded game or should I test a vanilla LW2 first?
I know over at Skyrim/F4 we would recommend starting small and adding mods as and when you know what you want ... but I don't want to get bogged down in testing so I'm thinking of picking the tried and tested selection of mods and seeing how it goes.
2nd finally ... is it ok to add mods to an ongoing playthrough or should I always start a new game ...??

Sorry for the questions ... I hope you all understand

[frankie60]

I hold my esteemed colleague Sabaithal in highest regard, however, in my opinion (only) the steam workshop is fine. I don't see any need to make it harder than it needs to be - creating folders and etc. I've got 1200 hours in LW2 and everything is from steam. To me, it's easy. It works.

Just get LW2 from steam. Run the mod (vanilla LW2 as you said). Exit out. Install the mods you want and start a new campaign. I don't think I'd load like 100 mods right off the bat. I'd just load anything by "Robojumper" from the mod lists. His are usually information mods. And load "Gotcha Again", so you can tell when you are flanking enemies. The game will run fine with hundreds of mods installed, if you have even a half descent machine. Add the other stuff as you see fit.

You can do all that other manual stuff if you want though. I personally don't have time or desire for that.

[frankie60]

And we don't mind questions. Not that many people are talking about the game anymore, lol. Most mods you can add on the fly. But read the descriptions in case the author has instructions pertaining to installation.

Removing mods once installed is a different story. Your game saves will store the data from all the mods you use and if you remove one and try to start the game, it doesn't like it. So you want to install this mod too.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=641394554&searchtext=remove+missing+mod

[Sabaithal]

Автор сообщения: frankie60

I hold my esteemed colleague Sabaithal in highest regard, however, in my opinion (only) the steam workshop is fine. I don't see any need to make it harder than it needs to be - creating folders and etc. I've got 1200 hours in LW2 and everything is from steam. To me, it's easy. It works.

Just get LW2 from steam. Run the mod (vanilla LW2 as you said). Exit out. Install the mods you want and start a new campaign. I don't think I'd load like 100 mods right off the bat. I'd just load anything by "Robojumper" from the mod lists. His are usually information mods. And load "Gotcha Again", so you can tell when you are flanking enemies. The game will run fine with hundreds of mods installed, if you have even a half descent machine. Add the other stuff as you see fit.

You can do all that other manual stuff if you want though. I personally don't have time or desire for that.

I'm not saying steam workshop is terrible or anything. Just that Long War 2 specifically from the workshop I've heard people have issues with. But if that's not true feel free to ignore me.

I just find manual downloads (and handling of them) to be a bit more reliable in my personal experience. I still workshop mods anyway.

[krabdr]

Автор сообщения: frankie60

I hold my esteemed colleague Sabaithal in highest regard, however, in my opinion (only) the steam workshop is fine. I don't see any need to make it harder than it needs to be - creating folders and etc. I've got 1200 hours in LW2 and everything is from steam. To me, it's easy. It works.

Just get LW2 from steam. Run the mod (vanilla LW2 as you said). Exit out. Install the mods you want and start a new campaign. I don't think I'd load like 100 mods right off the bat. I'd just load anything by "Robojumper" from the mod lists. His are usually information mods. And load "Gotcha Again", so you can tell when you are flanking enemies. The game will run fine with hundreds of mods installed, if you have even a half descent machine. Add the other stuff as you see fit.

You can do all that other manual stuff if you want though. I personally don't have time or desire for that.

I've been running LW2 and mods from Steam on two computers since it came out. I'm now runnign LWotC on both as well. The only issues I've had are when there's a hiccup somewhere and I have to reload subscribed mods. This has only happened a couple of times. I found a workaround to that recently which is to disable Steam from automatically running on start up. Start game, exit, and start again. It can take some time depending on how many mods need to be reloaded.

The mod lists that others have posted are all excellent choices. The game guide on the pavonis website is also excellent and describes the liberation mechanic as well as other aspects. You must understand the mechanics of liberation, but once you've got that down, the rest of the game becomes tractable. For LW2 I'd also suggest the mod that allows you to carry off corpses (evac corpses?) and the Metal over Flesh mod for mechs. Neither are game breaking and the former makes the long war into more of a medium long war that is less resource starved.

[Black Album]

Just a little note to say thank you all once again for your help ...

First tests of the game shows it all works .... a couple of little stutters but nothing to worry about ... and already the game feels a lot better, especially the info I'm receiving about soldiers. I can actually choose the right people for the job at the select screen.

ohh ... and I got my butt kicked on the 1st mission with only 2 surviving ... exactly what I wanted !!

[redsky14]

Автор сообщения: Black Album

Just a little note to say thank you all once again for your help ...

First tests of the game shows it all works .... a couple of little stutters but nothing to worry about ... and already the game feels a lot better, especially the info I'm receiving about soldiers. I can actually choose the right people for the job at the select screen.

ohh ... and I got my butt kicked on the 1st mission with only 2 surviving ... exactly what I wanted !!

Well, welcome to the best mode ever, commander. Maybe one day you would be Elite if you manage to beat LW2

[Black Album]

Hi again ...

One last question, if you don't mind ...

I'm noticing a lot of stuttering and lag in the animations since I started the LW playthrough. Also it's taking some time to enter and leave a mission before I can click.
Although this isn't too much of a problem atm I'm a little worried that it may get worse as I progress so do I try and get to the bottom of it now.
I had no problems playing vanilla Xcom2 or any of my other games.

Here's a brief rundown of my specs ....
MSI GE72 8QD
16gb ram
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU@ 2.60GHz
GeForce GTX 960M

Not the greatest gaming laptop but usually ok for my needs.

I'm only using the gameplay mods from the listed guides ... none of the voice-packs etc and no mods that weren't listed in the guides i.e. no personal choices.
Approx 60 mods in total
I'm using the Nexus version of LW2 but all the addons are from the Workshop

So ... is this normal or do I need to pull it apart and rebuild?
and will it get worse as the game increases in size??

I'm only about 4 or 5 missions in so a restart is no big problem?
I would list the mods if I knew how but normally that would be something LOOT would do for me.

Many thanks in advance.

[frankie60]

Dial back the graphics settings. There are articles that tell you how to find the optimum settings, but you are not gonna run the game at high settings on that laptop. There is a balance you can find between looks and playability. Once you find it, you can pretty much run as many mods as you need.

[Sabaithal]

Автор сообщения: Black Album

Hi again ...

One last question, if you don't mind ...

I'm noticing a lot of stuttering and lag in the animations since I started the LW playthrough. Also it's taking some time to enter and leave a mission before I can click.
Although this isn't too much of a problem atm I'm a little worried that it may get worse as I progress so do I try and get to the bottom of it now.
I had no problems playing vanilla Xcom2 or any of my other games.

Here's a brief rundown of my specs ....
MSI GE72 8QD
16gb ram
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU@ 2.60GHz
GeForce GTX 960M

Not the greatest gaming laptop but usually ok for my needs.

I'm only using the gameplay mods from the listed guides ... none of the voice-packs etc and no mods that weren't listed in the guides i.e. no personal choices.
Approx 60 mods in total
I'm using the Nexus version of LW2 but all the addons are from the Workshop

So ... is this normal or do I need to pull it apart and rebuild?
and will it get worse as the game increases in size??

I'm only about 4 or 5 missions in so a restart is no big problem?
I would list the mods if I knew how but normally that would be something LOOT would do for me.

Many thanks in advance.

My rig is slightly above yours (Gtx 1060, but everything else is pretty much the same) and I have issues running the game at maximum settings.

I would recommend dialing your graphics settings to 'high' or lower.

[Black Album]

So .... I checked my graphics and these were the results.

Preset ..... Low
Anti A .... Disabled
A O ...... Tile A O
Decals .... All Static
Shadows .. Low
T Detail .... Low
T Filter ... Trilinear
DOF .... Disabled
Draw D .... Low
Other options not selected

And then I switched all the mods off except LW and tested a new game ..... No Stutters
Select all mods again ... confirm graphics .. load a save .... and Stutters.

So it's the mods slowing it down ... ah well
It turns out I've got to follow the advice I give out in the Skyrim forums ...
"I'm sorry but you can't just add a ton of mods to your game and expect it to work ... add slowly and test"

It's all my fault so I'll start working through the list and see if I can find a tipping point where the lag is induced. It does mean I'll have to be more selective with my mod choices and actually do some research this time. I knew it wouldn't be this easy even when I was merrily selecting "Evac All" and many others without even reading the description.

Anyway ... I'd like your opinion if this would be a good way to test ....
Start a game with only LW and find a save point just before I alert a large group of aliens.
Add 10 mods and test ...
Add 10 more and test ... and see if I can find a balance where the lag is acceptable (which it nearly is btw)

Hopefully I'll find out it's one mod that's the problem but I doubt it ..

I've only one other bit of info from my tests ...Once when I attempted to restart the game I got an error from steam that said it couldn't open because a mod was already running. Steam restart fixed the problem but could it be related??

[Sabaithal]

You could always list the mods you use here. We might be able to help narrow down the problem quicker.

[Black Album]

A cunning plan ...

Sorry if this is a noob question but is there a way to pull up a list of the the workshop mods I'm using so I can cut and paste it. I know how to do that with LOOT and MO2 (Skyrim modding tools) but this is my first time with the Workshop.
If I've got to write it all out by hand then I'm going to need a fresh pot of tea.

But I am only using mods from the linked guides and it actually could be a lot quicker to only list the mods I'm not using ...

[Sabaithal]

Автор сообщения: Black Album

A cunning plan ...

Sorry if this is a noob question but is there a way to pull up a list of the the workshop mods I'm using so I can cut and paste it. I know how to do that with LOOT and MO2 (Skyrim modding tools) but this is my first time with the Workshop.
If I've got to write it all out by hand then I'm going to need a fresh pot of tea.

But I am only using mods from the linked guides and it actually could be a lot quicker to only list the mods I'm not using ...

....exactly how many mods are you using anyway? I've got no more than 20 and I have issues.

[Black Album]

Quite a few ....
I went through this guide ...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1644778655

and added the gameplay mods from it ...
No voicepacks or new costumes ... a couple of the new icon mods ... nothing that added content from other game etc ... but if it looked like it was gameplay then I selected it.
My fault as I was under the assumption that all the mods would work together.
I looked through the other guides later and added a few other but tbh ... most of the good ones had already been covered so there wasn't much to choose.