https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1311300228

Can you send me the link for the wotc version of this mod?

Modded game to death and this is my fav enemy. Always casualties

No, the WOTC mod has an options menu that lets you disable the other stuff.

Does this work with WOTC? I know there is a WOTC version but it includes additional features and I just want the Venator.

Just a warning to anyone else like me who misses the Black Ice Codex and thought this might be a good alternative:


Nope. Nope nope nope. Nothing like it. :(

Well the feedback thing is just the risk you are taking when bringing psi-troops. They are - after all - designed to be scary for psiops. However give that psiop a mind shield and place it somewhere, where it cant hurt other squad members (or hide it even), and you'll be fine. I actually sometimes "bait" a Venator to "waste" its turn by feedbacking a lone psi op that can easily heal himself via soulsteal. There are times where this is preferable to a paralyze hitting 4 of your troops (especially if they lost cover somehow).

Again: The enemy is designed in a way to provide a new challenge that requires a different approach than many players typically chose (no medics, squad bunched up nicely around the best cover spots, as many psiops as possible, alpha strike everything).

However, if you strongly feel it's too strong for your liking: have a look at the mods ini files, you can reduce stuff like the feedback AoE yourself ;)

LeaderEnemyBoss:

Yes I learned the hard way that the best thing to do actually is not to attack a Venator until the other stuff is dealt with.

The reason why I don't think I agree entirely with your point that you can just ignore Venators for a while is their teleport ability, which you have programmed them to use to maximum effect (nice job!). They will almost always teleport next to a Psi or into the largest group of your squad and do a feedback or a AOE stun. The AOE paralyze isn't so bad. You lose an action point. Multiple Venators/Venator clones doing feedback is deadly.

Also, there have been countless times that Venators or their clones have dodged, taking only 1 point of damage which means another clone.

Riftkeepers are powerful no doubt, but you can focus fire them. Venators are actually much harder to focus fire because once hit they clone and teleport out of range.

I playtested them extensively on legendary, yes even against 4 of them, heck even when having a psiop with me. Typically youll want to NOT attack them if you have to deal with other stuff. If you start attacking them, you should be able able to always kill the clones (which is possible with all the sure hit abilities. If you have freeze or flash, you can prevent splitting alltogether. Yes you will take some damage, but thats intended in order to encourage medic specialist use. (The same holds true for if you get hit by feedback).

There was the occasional mission where I messed up, activated one pod of them too many and had to bail. This happens and it's needed if you want the strategical part of the endgame to be harder than it is in vanilla X2 or WoTC.

If a single Venator is on the same level than a Riftkeeper for you than I think you are doing something wrong. You can largely just ignore it until you have dealt with everything else, which is not possible with other big enemies.

I like the Venator as an upgrade very much, but there are 2 things I think are over the top:

1 - the AOE on Feedback is ridiculously large and should be reduced a tile or two in radius.

2 - One Venator is comparable to a Gatekeeper, a Riftkeeper or a Sectopod, and you have them running in pairs?? And if there are Psi Hunting mobs there can be as many as FOUR Venators on the map??!! Come on, that's just simply too much. One Psi or Sectoid in the area and your party stands a good chance of a total wipe.

There's almost no way to kill a single Venator in one round. With the amount of health, armor, defense and dodge plus cloning, it is nearly impossible. Which means clones all over the place. Multiple Venators is, as I said, a bit over the top.

hello can you please make another mod thats is an elite Venator Enemy. please?

Understand, real life gets in the way for me too. Im going to do my current pass of the game which will likely take a while as i tend to not have much time during the week, and i take my time playing anyway. Then i will check to see progress on various mods, then do another modded pass. I will likely have several playthroughs too, so i appreciate you uodating and when you are do e i will be here :)

the plan is there ... but it will be a while, so dont wait for it

@LeaderEnemyBoss
Several of your new enemy mods are what made my specific iteration of XC2 so awesome, I hope you are planning to update your various mods from Vanilla.

@Spiner909:
No. A WoTC-specific version will need to be made. Have patience.

WOTC?

@Invisigoth:
Adds

it replaces or just adds?

Oh I totally agree, I also like my creation ;) But it has to fit gameplay wise. However I have some ideas how i make them a bit weaker against (not so OP) PsiOps in LW2 while still providing a challenge. Maybe if I find time in the future ;).

Yeah. I loved the 'oh shit' feeling and the challenge whenever facing one. That's why I loved her!

@Icezera ... I dont know ..the thing is this enemy was designed to hunt down Psi Operatives (which were pretty OP in vanilla). Until LW2 1.3 was released, Psi Operatives were rather underpowered, so I didnt see the point in transfering them. I may change my mind in the future, now that PsiOps got buffed.

Will you update this for LW2? This is my favorite enemy mod and it sucks not having her in my game to fight.

@LeaderEnemyBoss
Thx

This is very possible yes. This mod uses a custom mechanism to prevent to many Venators from spawning (since vanilla hasnt a suitable one) but it may interfere with LW2. Currently this mod is not compatible twith LW2.

i found some bug with LW2 in determining mission enemy numbers mechanism.
use this mod with LW2 and launch "0%" mission , the enemy numbers is not "Heavy" or avove enemy activities but only "Extremely Light" numbers.
i doubt some enemy spawning mechanism in this mod conflict against LW2 alien activity system ?

No, also I dont think this enemy is needed in LW2 (since it is meant to punish PsiOps, and PsiOps dont need punishment in LW2 ;) )

compatible with LW2?

@LEB like I found out the hard way :D

It is a hard enemy for people that want a hard lategame enemy. Dont cluster, dont use psiops without mind shields. Have a healing ready. Also: dont use it together with mods like partially gifted.

@Dragon32
Ya it was a mis-type

@oldman22:
This is the Venator mod page, not the Black ICE Codex one. Or was that a mis-type?

These girls are tough but, apart from if you've a psionic in the squad, pretty manageable. Well, fairly. Well...

dude its game breaking, it can literally kill your whole team alone, for example:
I was moving, then I found a codex with 2 black ice codex...
I tought it wouldnt be so hard since I have 9 soldiers...
The next turn one of them literally killed 4 of my soldiers
WTF

@Dragon32 Yeah, I really need to get better guns. However, a lot of the mods I use add so many research projects and with Grimy's Loot Mod taking up a pretty big chunk of time, I have fell behind. I really need a mod that makes force level go up slower.

And I would have a Shadow Chamber up for the mission, except I forgot to build it(oops). I did not expect it to count Partially Gifted Soldiers as Psi-Operatives, and when the only cover is cars, then it's a bad time :(

@boisegangpc:
Ouch. You really need better weaponry tech against these. I think I had Pavonis' Lasers when I encountered them in my last campaign. They only became what I'd call manageable when I got to plasma though.

When I unlocked the Shadow Chamber I used to think long and hard about bringing one of my Psi Operatives on a mission if these were predicted.

How these beauties will play with Partially GIfted though... Ouch.

Personally, I think that this and the Riftkeeper are phenomenal new enemies. They're so much more than just a re-skin of the vanlla enemies with slightly changed stats, as a number of other mod-added enemies are.

They're true top-tier baddies which really make you think about how best to deal with them, excellent work on both by LeaderEnemyBoss.

Well partially gifted essentially breaks the design of my enemy, ofcourse you gonna have a bad time ;)

As I've said, my tech is extremely far behind(whoops) and I have 16-18 enemies on an "Easy" mission due to ABA 2. With the amount of HP and armor and cloning the Venator has, it's easily extremely difficult to go up against, and since I'm using Partially Gifted(limited to 2 skills), pretty much everyone takes damage from it. It's too punishing because I can't deal with it AND its followers at the same time. I'm sure plenty of higher-skill players enjoy this, but I'm a filthy casual who hasn't completed the game on Veteran difficulty when modded because of stuff like this where a test run just gets blocked by something I forgot to take into account.

Since it only deals 3-4 damage with normal shots and casnt crit i think it actually offers a new challenge: an enemy that you dont need to bring down immeadiatly, and where its sometimes even better to let iot live for a turn or two. Considering sectopods appear around the same time (superior hp, damage, armor), i dont think its too much to handle, but yes it punishes careless psi play pretty hard (which was intended since psi is OP in vanilla). However i can see that its not for everyone.

I have one in a mission right now and I can't go back to a pre-mission-generation save. And I'm only in Predator armor and ETC(T1.5) weapons(I blame Grimy's Loot Mod). Once this mission's over, I'm probably going to just uninstall this mod because every turn one of my soldiers dies or bleeds out. I've been making a real effort to not save scum, and this enemy takes all of the fun out of it. It feels very, very cheap.

Usually not actually dealing with until you have enough firepower to kill mos tof its clone in one turn is the best way to deal with it. Honestly: this enemy is designed to be challenging in a vanilla game. I dont know how it works out if you added a whole lot of other stuff. But turning down the damage and the aoe of it smost dangerous ability should pretty much neuter it even if you have psi guys without mindshield.

What suggestions do you have for Casualifying this enemy? I've toned down the HP and AoE damage, but with Epigenetics from SWR, I can get one that has way too much health. It's ridiculous, frankly.

I know exactly what you mean :). I enjoy LW2, I enjoyed the Venator+ Riftkeeper, and in time I may also see both them and your more Gatekeepers+Sectopods mod in LW2, when you have the Fingerspitzgefühlen of Johnnylumps madness

NO! I will eventually port my enemies to LW2, but for now i have to play it enough to get a grasp at its lategame balance. I dont just want to slap my hard enemies on an already hard mod and call it a day ;). It will take some time, but it will come (maybe in a few weeks or so)

I fucking love this enemy. But is it ready for LW2?

Yeah partially gifted is a mod that i didnt account for so far. Since in this case its technically not a bug (he is able to use psi abilities after all!) i dont think i will release a fix. However you can just reduce the damage or the AoE of the ability by yourself in the ini (XComLEBVenator.ini in the mods config folder).

Oh, I see. So that's why. I have the "partially gifted" mod to balance out ABA2. I didn't know the venator was only supposed to target Psi-ops period. So that's why. XD I done goofed it myself. Well, if they really only can target Psi-ops with that attack (normally) then it's totally fair. Thought it could target anyone.

Please disregard my earlier stuff then.

@Sunwave So a "normal" ranger cannot get targeted by the feedback-aoe of the Venator. Do you have a list of your mods? Does he have psi abilites (from a mod). Does he have psioffense (maybe you are using not created equally or hidden potential?). This sounds more like a bug which i may be able to resolve with a bit information ;).

I playtestet extensively on a Legendary/Ironman setting (with a mostly vanilla game, so no (OP-Classes or similar things on my side). You have to change your playstyle, but it is very well balanced while being different and challenging in my opinion. What you describe resembles the first reaction I had after encountering some of the vanilla XCom 2 enemies (stun lancers, sectopods), but in the end I learned how to deal with them.

In case all this doesnt convince you: You can reduce the AoE of Psionic Feedback in the mods .ini ;)

@Sunwave I assume you are talking about the damaging aoe (Psionic Feedback)

So this enemy had several design goals: Make the player reconsider if he wants taking a psi op on missions were venators appear. To do this, the attack needs to be threatening enough, so that it may possibly offset the immense value (aka as OPness), that vanilla PsiOps bring to the table. However there are ways to work around this. Equipping the PsiOp with a mindshield considerably reduces the damage of the ability. Also: you dont have to spread out your whole squad. You just have to position the psiop in a way that few/no teammates are near him, possibly move him out of sight entirely until. Additionally, a well trained healing specialist can offset all the damage done easily.

(continued in next comment)

Well, thanks i guess....

Well my enemies are intended to make the lategame harder, not easier which would essentially be the case if you could just mindcontrol them. Only possibility to control them without cheating is to be lucky with a watchpost hack ;).