Advanced Warfare Center | Available facilities XCOM 2 Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
The Advanced Warfare Center facility is one of the most unique ones in the game. By itself it won't give you must and you will be able to complete the game without even thinking about construction it, nevertheless setting it up gives you access to two new functions.
The first and the most obvious one is the ability to reset your soldiers' abilities - you have to place a soldier there and after a few days he / she will come back, with the soldier rank untouched, but allowing you to select abilities once more. It comes in handy when you've put a point in an ability by mistake, or if you simply want to experiment a little bit.
The second novelty is the possibility of giving your soldiers an additional, free, randomly selected ability when they are advancing to the higher rank. It's important to construct this facility as early in the game as possible (if you care about those bonus abilities), as the whole mechanic works in quite a peculiar way. The abilities are selected twice:
- When you place the facility, those are randomly selected for all of your soldiers already present in the base.
- When the facility is standing, and you recruit a soldier, or have one that hasn't reached the highest rank yet. The game chooses a rank at which the soldier will get the bonus ability and he / she will be given that ability when advancing to the specified rank. If the soldier already reached a rank beyond the one selected, the ability will be permanently lost.
You should remember about a number of things associated with the facility:
- It won't unlock abilities that the soldier will gain in a "normal" way (class abilities of the soldier). A Grenadier soldier won't be able to get, for instance, the Salvo ability from the AWC facility, because it's his own class-specific skill.
- Each one of your soldiers can unlock any of the abilities listed at the end of this chapter (provided that it's not his/her class-specific ability). In case of, for instance, the Shredder ability (originally belonging to the Grenadier soldier), the soldier who manages to unlock this skill will be able to shred armor by attacking enemies with his / her primary weapon.
- You can't reset those abilities with the help of the Advanced Warfare Center facility - they are bound to the soldier permanently.
- Soldiers can unlock from 0 up to 2-3 additional abilities - the number depends on the stage of the soldier (his / her rank) that he / she was when the facility was constructed, as well as on luck. Most of your soldiers won't get any additional skills.
- Resetting your soldiers' abilities with the help of the Advanced Warfare Center facility won't allow them to draw the bonus abilities once more - it happens once and you can't influence it in any way.
Facility description
Requirements | Costs | Function | Upgrades and staff influence |
Alien Biotech (research) | 115x Supplies 3x Power Construction takes 11 days. Monthly upkeep cost - 35x Supplies. | - The possibility to reset your soldiers' abilities, allowing you to select them once more. - The possibility of unlocking a random, additional ability for each one of your soldiers. | none |
Available abilities
Ability | Description |
Ever Vigilant | If you spend all of your actions on moves, you are granted an automatic overwatch shot at the end of the turn. |
Guardian | Grants 50% chance during Overwatch to perform an additional shot if the previous Overwatch shot hits. There's no limit as to how many times Guardian can trigger. |
Covering Fire | Overwatch shots can now be triggered by enemy actions, not just movement. |
Salvo | Using the grenade launcher or a heavy weapon as your first action does not end the turn |
Shredder | Higher rank weapons shred more points of armor. The shredding effect applies before damage. |
Hail of Bullets | Fire a shot that is guaranteed to hit. Uses 3 ammo. 5 turns of cooldown. |
Blast Padding | Your gear includes layers of extra padding and blast plates, granting a bonus point of Armor and 66% less damage from explosive attacks. |
Volatile Mix | Grenades gain +1 tile to their radius and deal +2 damage. Does not increase environment damage. |
Chain Shot | Fires a shot with a penalty of 15 to aim. If it hits, immediately fire another shot at the target. Uses 2 ammo. 3 turns of cooldown. |
Holo Targeting | Any directed cannon shot, hit or miss, will mark the target, increasing your squad's aim by +15 against this target. Applies to standard attacks and single-target abilities, including suppression. |
Rapture | Fires a shot that deals critical damage. The target, if hit, will also take 3 additional damage from all sources. Uses 3 ammo. 3 turns of cooldown. |
Deadeye | Take a shot with a small aim penalty for a significant damage boost. 2 turn cooldown. |
Serial | Each kill made with your sniper rifle completely restores your actions. With each consecutive kill you get a critical chance penalty. 4 turn cooldown. |
Kill Zone | Take a reaction shot against any enemy that moves or attacks within a cone of fire. 3 turn cooldown. |
Death From Above | Killing an enemy at a lower elevation with your sniper rifle costs only a single action and does not end your turn. |
Aim | Hunker Down now confers +20 aim to the first shot on the following turn. |
Deep Cover | If you did not attack this turn, hunker down automatically |
Rapid Fire | Fire twice in a row at an enemy. Each shot suffers an Aim penalty of -15. There is no cooldown on this ability. |
Phantom | When the squad is revealed, this soldier remains concealed. |
Untouchable | If you score a kill during your turn, the next attack against you during the enemy turn will miss. |
Shadowstep | This soldier does not trigger overwatch or reaction fire. |
Run and Gun | Take an action after dashing. 3 turn cooldown. |
Implacable | If you score one or more kills on your turn, you are granted a single bonus move. |
Lightning Reflexes | The first overwatch and reaction shot against this soldier is guaranteed to miss. |