XCOM: Enemy Unknown Warspace Extension mod rebalances darn near everything

Taken out of context, “Warspace Extension” sounds like the subject of a cheeky spam email to a military general. For XCOM: Enemy Unknown commanders, it’s the name of a mod overhauling weapons, enemies, armor, squad performance, and practically everything else housed beneath Firaxis’ turn-based Sectoid-slayer. Commence Operation: Righteous Replay.
Author BlackAlpha suggests enjoying Warspace on Classic difficulty, but before you reach for that laser wrist-cutter you just researched, he assures the mod’s tweaks retains Normal mode’s challenge for easier engagements. The sizable change notes display in full over at Warspace’s Nexus entry, but we’ve snipped some of the more interesting adjustments for reading below:
Weapons

• The Arc Thrower now goes in the pistol slot.
• Pistols (except the Laser Pistol) need to be reloaded.
• The sniper rifle’s close-range accuracy penalty has been removed, but it still requires two actions to fire.
• Environmental structures now withstand a few more hits before collapsing. This allows for better cover use and increased tactical play.

Enemies

• Enemies have been changed in such a way that combat becomes more logical, resulting in more fluid battles.
• When a Chryssalid kills a civilian offscreen, the civilian will now always turn into a zombie. (NOPENOPENOPE)
• The AI will now always use more than five NPCs in combat instead of hiding when reaching the NPC limit.

Strategic map

• Ignored missions no longer increases the overall panic level of a continent but only of specific countries at a larger penalty.
• Satellites are much more likely to decrease panic levels of their assigned countries at the end of the month.
• Increased research time of plasma weapons to make it harder to unlock them and make lasers more attractive.
• Workshops are enabled from the start, allowing the player to begin the strategic game with a different starting move.

Soldiers

• Armor plays a large role in how fast soldiers will panic: The higher the HP bonus, the smaller the panic chance becomes.
• Panicking soldiers no longer shoots their teammates.
• Injured soldiers require a significantly longer recovery time, especially for gravely injured squaddies.

Armors

• Armors are now divided into Heavy and Light variants: Carapace, Titan, and Archangel for the former and Skeleton, Ghost, and Psi for the latter.
• Heavy armors provide two item slots. Light armors provide only one slot.
• Carapace reduces mobility by one square. Titan and Archangel reduces mobility by two squares. All Light armors increases mobility by three squares.
• Light armors have special mobility abilities (except Psi armor) that allow them to move around the battlefield with more ease.

General

• Normal, Classic, and Impossible difficulty levels should be the same now apart from hard-coded differences.
• Second Wave is enabled. You’ll need a completed Impossible campaign to unlock all the options.
• Second Wave Marathon mode is fixed. You can build the Hyperwave Relay with just one Hyperwave Beacon.