We often ask the devs to bring Second Wave options to the game, and it’s one of those things that I would put in the “probably eventually happening” box.
So, what kind of Second Wave options would you like to have? The idea is it should be something that looks easy to implement, like adjusting a value, without requiring a new functionality.
A couple of ideas:
May I ask why you need a second “Wave”? For whom and why? What is it supposed to do? Then I can give my opinion.
The term “second wave” is from Firaxis XComs and means deeper player options to turn on/off or in several steps in favour for anyone’s taste.
For instance and what I would like to have (and I don’t use any fancy fantasy name):
Anything that is currently controlled by the difficulty settings to get a “custom difficulty”, every single point separate adjustable in the four steps Rookie / Veteran / Hero / Legend:
I see, you want to set everything and every feature yourselves. It reminds me of Age of Wanders. Where you can configure everything and everyone (hero) yourself. If you like it, that’s a fine thing, no question. But PP offers too few possibilities to be able to choose all the features freely. Why can’t the opponents just get better and smarter than all the options? Quite simple.
Because they maybe can’t get better and smarter that quite simple?
These are just additional options to let the player decide by himself how he wants to play or to get a fine tuning of the difficulty setting.
When someone don’t want to change anything than he can still go with the standard settings. Quite simple.
Ever played Civ6? The KI starts with much better and countless soldiers and further in research than the player himself. Overtime, the player catches up, if he succeeds in doing so. Why can’t the PP KI do that? Why all the hocus-pocus? Has the side effect that all the OP skills you want are suddenly essential. Saves a lot of threads 
Yes, yes, they should just use the same approach, because the difference between PP and Civ 6 is neglible, like between a cat and an air balloon.
Can we please stay on topic?
Improving the AI would be better than asking for the second “wave”. My opinion. Anything else would be “Christmas”. Letter to Santa. 
I really like the “all soldiers not created equal” option. That might be a LW2 option.
12 hour base attack warning. With the current 24 I’ve seldom been able to get a ship there in time. Should be a trivial bit of code to change.
“+ reinforcements”. When enemies receive reinforcements, they get 1 additional unit. LW2 made reinforcements increasingly numerous such that you would be overwhelmed unless you left. This is how the new scavenging missions were advertised, where the player would have to choose between grabbing goods and getting out alive.
“multiple breaches” On base defense a small group of pandorans begin at the access lift.
This is a must!
+1 to Not Created Equal - especially some small changes to Aim and Perception, not just the 3 abilities you can adjust with Skill-points.
Soldier progression:
Adjustable skill points for levelling up (currently fixed at 20 per level).
To weaken or strengthen training centres.
Adjustable skill points for missions (currently fixed dependent on difficulty at 5 / 8 / 10 / 12).
To weaken or strengthen the progression by doing missions.
Max skill points per character (currently up to fully maxed out all stats and skills).
Max cap for speed and damage (probably other stats?) to reduce the stacking effect of skills and abilities.
Wounds can only partially healed with medkit, full heal only at bases.
Manufacturing cost and time for equipment.
Research times.
Higher level soldiers also from PP pool plus equipped / unequipped selectable.
Generally recruitment cost: cheaper / normal / more expensive or slider.
I have to say I see SWO a bit differently. For me a SWO is a small change that has a bit impact, not the ability to minutely adjust every parameter.
I think it can be both, I don’t see a reason to restrict it in any way when we can have it.
At least these are only options and it is of course a matter of possiblility, but why restrict them right away?
I would like an option in the way when i buy the game from Epic Games it would be nice that they also give me the latest and correct version of the game !!
After that we can go and talk about “second waves”
Or maybe Snapshot and Epic Games are not interested in paying customers ??
SWOs exist so that you get to play the game you want, with all the OP skills and exploits that turn it into a joke for experienced Legendary players, while they get to select the game they want, with all the loopholes closed and the game made as challenging as they feel it should be.
It’s a win/win for both sides, without excluding anybody and lets players tailour the game to their own personal tastes without imposing their preferences on everybody else.
To that end, my SWOs would match a lot of my own personal self-restrictions: https://forums.smes.com/t/what-self-restrictions-do-you-use/12819?u=michaelignotus
No Terminators: A global button that would automatically set the toughest settings for the following Terminator Skills (which could then also be tweaked manually):
RB HMG - Rage Burst is confined to HMGs (like the Deceptor) only.
Leg Reinforcement - A Squaddie can only equip and use a Torso Mount or Jet Jump if (s)he is equipped with a Heavy &/or Techhie Torso & Legs, to take the weight and impact of the recoil.
Base Kit Only - Squaddies can only exchange kit between Squaddies a different location if they are both in a Base, though the Bases can be on other sides of the world.
Tooling Up - The only items that can be equipped directly from a Transport are spare Ammo, Medkits and Grenades.
Enhancement Recovery Time - A Squaddie can only be fitted with a Bionic Enhancement or a Mutation in the Base that contains the Lab. In addition, that Squaddie is out of action recuperating for 1 day per full X Resources spent on the surgery (where X = 1-1000)
Surgery Time - Any Squaddie who loses a Location during a Mission must heal back in a Medbay, where their Location is surgically operated on.
Diplomacy Hit - sets a multiplier for negative Dip every time you act like a Dick to a Faction: x1 - x5.
Limit Alliances - Limits the number of Factions you can be Allied with to 1-3
Limit Alignments - Limits the number of Factions you can be Aligned with to 1-3
Limit Frienships - Limits the number of Factions you can be Friendly with to 1-3
Burn Your Bridges - You cannot Trade with any Haven you have Attacked.
Raid Limits - Sets the number of consecutive Raids against the same Haven you are allowed to make from 1-00
Vehicle Stats - Allows you to set the Capacity/Number of slots filled by each vehicle in the game from 1-0 (10)
Max Squad Size - Allows you to set the maximum squad size per mission from 1-0 (10)
Haven Recruits Come - Naked/Armoured/Fully Equipped
You’ll notice that apart from Recruits above, I haven’t fiddled with the base Difficulty Settings, mainly cos I think they’re fine(ish) and can be used to set a baseline against which the rest of the game can be tweaked - but if others wanted to tweak them too that would be another set of SWOs.
The other thing to say is that the default settings for all of these options would be Current Game Vanilla.
The thing is, Omega, if something like this was in place I suspect you would select all the easiest settings and I would select all of the hardest, and we would both really enjoy this game without feeling short-changed in any way. But as things currently stand, you feel cheated every time something like RB gets tweaked to stop it breaking the game and I feel cheated every time it isn’t - and nobody wins.
Second Wave Options are designed to make everyone happy.
Of course I agree in principle, but as I said before I think an SWO should be a little change that has a big impact, rather than adjusting many different parameters.
I discussed this on Discord with @MadSkunky, who wants a custom difficulty setting where he can adjust all the parameters that make up a difficulty level. I have nothing against something like a custom difficulty setting, I just think it’s different from a SWO. It would be nice of course to have both a custom difficulty setting and SWO.
I also have nothing against having the kind of options you describe, though I think some of this stuff should be addressed in the base game.
I’m sorry to be so pedantic about the difference between a SWO and any parameter adjusting 
The are 2 reasons for this:
For me it’s fun to think about how to radically change the game experience with a little change to a (few) number(s) somewhere
I assume that SG won’t do 20+ SWO, but something under that. Some level of customization will always have to be left to the mods.
When it comes to skills, for example, you are looking at the 5 skills that you are familiar with, and the way you use them (or don’t use them), but there are 35 skills in the game and I’m sure that for all of them there would be some players who would want to be able to adjust how they work, and it’s simply not practical in the context of SWO.
I think there’s room for both and we shouldn’t be proscriptive.
The way XCOM did it, they started with a handful of SWOs and by the time LW2 came around, both it and the vanilla game had a list of SWOs that ran off the screen.
As I’ve said to Stridtul: start small and expand it as you see what people are most commonly calling for. It’s why my Terminator list only deals with the 5 most egregious skills - there’s no need to have an SWO for a skill no-one is complaining about.
The whole point of SWOs is that they should give players the option to adjust the parameters that concern them most, to suit the particular taste of every player.