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MEC Troopers

Charge into the fray as a MEC Warrior, take all the shots as a Jaeger, or become an unflinching wall as a Titan.

If you played Enemy WIthin, you'll get the general gist of how you'll get MEC Troopers with this mod: after researching and building the required facility upgrade at the Proving Ground, you'll be able to take soldiers of Squaddie rank or above and chop them into becoming XCOM's own take on the hero classes: the MEC Trooper.

There are exceptions you'll run into (Templars and Psi Operatives will be unable to become MEC Troopers), along with needing the required resources (supplies and elerium cores), but MEC Troopers can be a powerful force on the battlefield.

MEC Troopers become available after unlocking SPARKs, whether through the story mission or after researching Mechanized Warfare. They are cheaper to make than SPARKs on some level (you are sacrifricing the original cass abilities after all), but at the same time have additional weaknesses (MEC troopers can get tired, get traits, are vulnerable to psionics, etc)

Mechanized Warfare or Lost Towers must be completed first, depending on your campaign.

Research MEC Augmentation in the proving ground. This will cost 50 supplies and time.

Build the MEC Foundry upgrade in the Proving Ground. This will need 150 supplies and 2 power.

You will then gain two slots to augment soldiers in. Each MEC Trooper augmentation will cost 150 supplies and an elerium core.

Applicable candidates must be:

At least Squaddie rank.
Must be either human or a Skirmisher.

Candidates can be wounded at time of surgery. Surgery times scale with the unit's rank, at a rate of two days per rank.

MEC Troopers use the same armour and weapons as SPARKs.

When prepped for surgery, a soldier can pick one ability specialization, with how many options they have determined by their class and/or their primary weapon selection.

Body Shield - available to Grenadiers and other cannon wielding classes
Reduces the aim and crit chance of the nearest visible target.

Shock Absorbers - available to Rangers and other close range classes
Reduces damage from targets 4 tiles or closer.

Steady Hands - available to Sharpshooters and other sniper wielding classes
If the unit does not move, gain +10 aim and +10 crit.

Taunt - available to Specialists and other rifle wielding classes
The unit may mark itself, making it a more attractive target...and giving it +50 dodge.

Conceal - available to Reapers only
The unit may conceal again.

Marauder - available to Skirmishers only
The unit may fire without ending their turn.

Later class abilities available to all include Kinetic Strike (12+ punch with no cooldown, but the MEC has to be adjacent to a target first to use it), Hammer Protocol (immunity to being knocked out, 75% damage reduction against melee attacks), and Overclock Core (keep firing at visible targets until you run out of ammo. Shut down for a turn afterwards from overheating).

Uses SPARK armour cosmetics and human/skirmisher head cosmetics by default. This should allow maximum compatibility with any mods made for either categories.

They can use SPARK launchers. However, they do not gain any benefit from Metal Over Flesh.

Mana for basically providing the critical assets that let this mod exist at all.

Musashi for providing major help on adding animation work to the SPARK animations. (Otherwise MEC troopers wouldn't be able to open their eyes!)

Spart117MC for porting and modifying the EW base augments for the underlays MEC troopers use.

Can I use this in a mid-progress campaign?
Yes.

Some of my MEC troopers aren't using the base augments?
Use the command FixMecUnderlays.


BITs sometimes do not return to their normal position after firing a heavy weapon.

Heavy weapon fire sometimes does not come from the BIT.

MEC Troopers may sometimes initially appear asserting dominance. IE t-posing. This will fix itself after that trooper goes on a mission and comes back.

MEC Troopers will not appear in some mission intros or on the initial walk back to the Avenger after a mission.

Body Shield can apply multiple times instead of just one enemy per turn. Still investigating why.

Legs may sometimes flicker out of existence in combat. This seems tied to some of the vanilla legs, so worst case scenario install a SPARK cosmetic mod to help deal with it.