SPARKS worth it?

[UrzuS3V3N]

So yeah, SPARKS.

From my recollection I never really used them in the standard campaign... but how about in longwar 2? Are they worth the expense?

[Goumindong]

Yes. Especially if you're set with specialists: two specialists can perma- aid protocol, which gives your spark 50 defense, the same as an average unit in high cover. Even when aided the spark tends to get shot at a lot. Which is handy because they have high armor and good ablative hit points. Plus you can bring them to missions when damaged and so you're not quite as reliant on the wounded timer.

Most importantly the spark allows you to maneuver without regard for cover. They can collect loot in the open field, they can take advantageous heavy weapon positions. They can flank enemies freely. On to their abilities they can create cover for allies*, force enemies to attack them for half damage, panic enemies that shoot at them. They can autodestroy cover, they can produce regenerating** armor, Plus they can hack at range(even if their hack skill is not good)

Its definitely very good to have one or two around

*This has downsides, do not take +cover and +punch because enemies will be able to use your spark as cover too.

**Both covering fire and damage control will produce regenerating armor. Maximum armor the unit can get is 4 with covering fire, 5 with damage control active, and i am not actually sure with sacrifice and damage control because i don't have one max rank. Covering fire and damage control are mutually exclusive. Also not sure if higher tier bodies have better armor.

[UrzuS3V3N]

Yes

Thanks for the detailed reply!

Sounds like a worthy investment then...

Couple of further questions... they sound helpful but HOW much of a battlefield impact? Would you rush mechanised warfare or just coast till lost tower?

And what is the impact on infiltration?

[UraniumOverdose]

I recommend using them on some easy missions (150 to 200% infil) to get them a level or two first.
On missions where you have no timer, just keep them in the back for some supportive overwatch or something until they get a few levels.

SPARKS are kind of crap at low level, but if they get some experience they can be amazing assets. I think 1.1 lowered the cost of them as well, I could have swore they were 200 supplies in 1.0. Last I checked it was down to 100. They are a bit of an investment, I wouldn't expect to have more than two or three.

[Goumindong]

Yes

Thanks for the detailed reply!

Sounds like a worthy investment then...

Couple of further questions... they sound helpful but HOW much of a battlefield impact? Would you rush mechanised warfare or just coast till lost tower?

And what is the impact on infiltration?

1.34x infiltration cost compared to a baseline solider. So its fairly significant.

More or less i would not take them on any mission that did not involve killing a lot of advent. The main advantage is that, because they're going to be up-front, close, and "valuable" enemies will like shooting at them, even when they have high defense. If you know you're going to take a bunch of return fire anyway, that is when they shine.

Running them on some easy-ish hack/whatever missions would also be OK to grab XP.

[trihero]

They bring a lot of damage to the battlefield, combined with good survivability, and can be sent on missions while wounded.

By punch, I mean

- they come with a built in shredder gun (4-7 aoe damage), which is silly strong. It actually gets somewhat absurd when you learn the tier 2 perk "Rainmaker." (going up to 6-9 damage in a pretty generous and long cone)
- their basic gun hits as hard as magnetic tier weaponry (4-9)
- their innate skill override gives them an extra action point so you can triple dash or double dash shredder gun, or shoot 3 times, etc

On the defensive side

- 5 ablative points built into it, unlike the 2 you get from ceramic armor
- 12+? hp points right off the bat, with 1 built in armor point
- built in 20 defense, not sure exactly but it's close to always being in low cover.

And he only gets better as you up his weapons/armors. On the other hand, you may find it difficult to pay the resources to build more than a couple, and remember that only one spark can heal off-battle at a time! I'm fine with using just one.

[Hazelnut]

How do you get SPARK class? I'm up to Coil weapons and Battlesuits, but no mention of SPARKs yet.

[UrzuS3V3N]

How do you get SPARK class? I'm up to Coil weapons and Battlesuits, but no mention of SPARKs yet.

You either need to complete the lost tower mission or do the mechanised warfare research.

[Hazelnut]

How do you get SPARK class? I'm up to Coil weapons and Battlesuits, but no mention of SPARKs yet.

You either need to complete the lost tower mission or do the mechanised warfare research.

Not seen either of them yet. Lost tower, is that RNG dependent? What are the pre-reqs for mech warfare?

[8wayz]

The main question is do you have Shen's Last Gift DLC installed ? Because SPARKS are part of it.

[UrzuS3V3N]

The main question is do you have Shen's Last Gift DLC installed ? Because SPARKS are part of it.

Been an xcom fanboi since before ufo defence was called ufo defence... I preordered the digital deluxe version :-p

[trihero]

To get the lost towers mission you need to find a point of interest (one of those locations you can scan on the world map), which you get by the "intel package" reward from some missions, but there's also a time gate on it. I don't know precisely what the gate is, but it's at least 3 months in before you can possibly get it.

The mechanized warfare research comes after either the mec wreck research or the 3 drone wreck research, I forget which one.

[nmkaplan]

You need Hybrid Materials Research as well as Alien Biotech --> Trooper Autopsy --> Advent Robotics

Advent Robotics research unlocks the "Mechanized Warfare" project in the Proving Grounds, which gives you a SPARK.

[Daergar]

Spark has one perk that was not mentioned yet; cover destruction.

Forget everything else it can do (shredder cannon from the start, hello awesome?) and overdrive with punch, once you can path Wrecking Ball through most of the enemy pod's covers, letting your ranger or such clean house, things get interesting. Plus, as mentioned, quite sturdy.

[trihero]

Well there are other things we haven't talked much about either, like it can jump to high ground, immune to fire/poison.

I don't like the punching route; I like the overwatch route with shredder/rainmaker/sacrifice. It has a unique scouting function since it can fire overwatch shots immediately on pod activation, which is even better with Cool under Pressure.

[Maala]

Then again, you want to scout with your Shinobis...

[LordYanaek]

You don't need to scout with the spark to benefit from Hunter Protocol. When you are overwatch-camping in ambush missions and an 8 man pod shows up, you'll often empty your weapon between the normal overwatch shot and the bonus 33% on enemy activations. Think of it this way, how often have you been annoyed by those yellow alert action when a pod sees you. Well, now it's your turn to punish them, and they are out of cover when you do

I just wish i could give them an expanded magazine to get more shots

[nightwyrm]

Too bad Hunter Protocol is on the same level as Bombard. I really like my infinite range grenade that's actually good at environmental destruction.

[Jacke]

Haven't gotten to SPARKs yet in the campaign since getting Shen's Last Gift DLC, but I think I'll follow the overwatch build and employment.

...once you can path Wrecking Ball through most of the enemy pod's covers....

Though once I read the Wrecking Ball description, this is how I imagined a SPARK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qko6wTN_DA&t=10s

Wondering how it is in the insurance business on ADVENT Earth.

[JulianSkies]

Just want to point out my own experience.
0% troop column, rookie difficulty (which still has no modifiers on enemy aim).
Terrible, terrible activation, over twenty enemies. What do I do? Drop a dense smoke on my SPARK, start firing away. After three turns he hadn't taken any more damage than his shields, drawing all enemy fire, energy channelling making him deal over twenty damage every attack.
I love tank SPARKs

[Hazelnut]

The main question is do you have Shen's Last Gift DLC installed ? Because SPARKS are part of it.

Ah, no - I thought this was an unlockable class introduced by LW2. I finished vanilla Xcom2 twice before DLC was released so never bothered to get any.

[Balor]

I love Sparks, YAY robots.

They have a lot of good aspects and a number big issues.

Currently the largest drawback before you even look at abilities is the upkeep and maintenance of the Sparks. At best you really can only have a few Sparks as part of Xcom. For those that don't know you can only repair one Spark at a time so if something goes bad in a mission it can take an insanely disproportional amount of time to repair them. I have a mission go sideways to I put my tank Spark out there to help save the day taking it down to one HP but repairing up to max by the time we had to evac.

The game gave me a 58 day repair timer for my Spark. If I have the resources I could build 11 new parks in the time it would take to repair this one Spark.

So if anything goes bad in your missions you could have a crazy backlog of repairs for months on end.

But they are good tanks and ranged damage dealers with low end hacking support when you don't have anything else to use. Plus the mobile cover is fun.

Ok back to taking care of the baby.

[Manifest]

Spark has one perk that was not mentioned yet; cover destruction.

Forget everything else it can do (shredder cannon from the start, hello awesome?) and overdrive with punch, once you can path Wrecking Ball through most of the enemy pod's covers, letting your ranger or such clean house, things get interesting. Plus, as mentioned, quite sturdy.

I was never able to use this even with Waypoints. Is there a good video out there or something?

[Valaska]

Yes. NEXT QUESTION.

Lol but seriously, yes, sparks are brutal murder machines now they Pavonis increased their armor and gave them +5 ablative armor. With Phase Canons and Anodized Chassis they are very accurate murder machines, overdrive with the right skills is great. You don't even need the no recoil skill, though I kind of regret not taking it time to time. If you have one spark with heal and the others offensively and defensively built, they can do serious damage and keep the rest of your squad alive.

Take them along in invasions, supply raids, and other heavy hitting missions. I bring up to 3 from time to time and ignore the infiltration %.

[Balor]

Yes. NEXT QUESTION.
%.

Valaska I love the idea of a three man spark team but how do you manage the repairs and maintenance? The only things I have been able to work out is using my repair power to repair the deployed damaged sparks in the early game so they will survive. In theory I have been thinking on building a support team around them so they take far less damage but this is more forcing them to work within the repair and maintenance penalties.

To me the bigger focus for "SPARKS worth it" is what do you need with them to synergize well and how do you manage the repairs and maintenance mini game?