I have an idea for a new Pandoran enemy type that fills two missing tactical specialties among the current lineup of Pandoran enemy species. In a previous post I made yesterday I described how the Pandorans are missing a heavy assault/pressure unit enemy type that could be fulfilled by reintroducing the Juggernaut Pandoran enemy concept back into the game. But I think the Pandorans are also missing a dedicated support caster and Mist bioengineer unit type in the game.
The Mist in-game is a lot less dangerous in-game than it is described in the Phoenix Point short stories. Exposure to the in-game Mist makes Pandorans harder to detect and restores one Will Point to Pandorans in Mist each turn, while automatically revealing operatives in the mist and causing them to lose two Will Points each turn. But these negative effects are relatively minor compared to how infectious, deadly and mind-enthralling the Mist is in the lore. The Mist doesn’t even appear all that much in missions anyway. I think it would be better if the Mist is actually treated as an evolving Pandoran enemy in its own right, where it becomes more prevalent in missions, more dangerous to humans and more supportive to Pandorans over time through the course of a Phoenix Point campaign.
To make this happen in-game, I think it would be appropriate to introduce a new Pandoran enemy type that focuses on spreading, modifying and evolving the Mist. A new support caster ‘Mist Bioengineer’ type of Pandoran enemy that is highly intelligent but physically weak and vulnerable in a straight fight, similar to Zerg Defilers in Starcraft 1 or Abathur in Starcraft 2. It would lack any normal attacks and have low hit points but would protect itself by having a stealth rating and staying behind the other frontline types of Pandorans, so that finding and killing them would require aggressive scouting by operatives.
There could be two main types of this new unit. One mutation variant that concentrates on increasing the offensive capabilities of the Mist, where it can launch Mist bombs at operatives that disperses Mist that deals a variety of different damage-over-time and debuff effects against operatives.
Another mutation variant would be one that concentrates on increasing the defensive and support capabilities of the Mist, where it spreads Mist locally around nearby Pandorans that slowly heals the Pandorans in the Mist, gives them greater Will Point regen per turn or converts Pandoran corpses into worm/mindfragger eggs that hatch soon afterwards, for example.
Each variant of the Mist Engineer support caster would also have the ability to enhance the Mist effects of other Pandorans capable of generating Mist, such as Mist Sentinels, Mist Emitter arm Tritons and Mist launcher/Mist carapace Scyllas, based on the same Mist enhancement mutations that the Mist Bioengineer Pandorans on the map would possess.
A first draft name idea for this new Mist Bioengineer support caster Pandoran enemy type could be the ‘Miasmancer’ or something like that.
I’d like to know what other players think about this idea for a new Pandoran enemy. Good idea, bad idea, or needs improvement?