![]() With the Shen's Last Gift mission on you're not only getting one for free, it's well before you could arrange to build one, even if you pretend the sheer cost of building a SPARK isn't, itself, a burden in the early game. While SPARKs aren't as much of a pay-to-win superclass as I feared when first seeing them, they do have their quality a bit frontloaded. Particularly in the base game and/or on lower difficulties, turning on Shen's Last Gift tends to make the game easier. Resource crunch tends to be more significant than time crunch up on Legendary, so if you're struggling with Legendary you might consider not turning on Integrated DLC to give you a small edge. In that case, you'll actually start with SPARK construction unlocked the instant you've got the Proving Grounds up, but you won't get a free SPARK. If you're playing War of the Chosen, you have a third option: integrated DLC. This will take 10 days (5 with an Engineer, longer on Legendary), but it actually costs nothing and gives you a SPARK for free once completed. In that case, you'll have to perform a Mechanized Warfare Proving Ground Project, which has no requirements beyond the Proving Ground itself. The second option is to turn Shen's Last Gift off when starting a run. (On Legendary, it costs 150 Supplies, 2 Elerium Cores, 30 Alien Alloys, 10 Elerium Crystals, and takes 20 days to build with no Engineer) Incidentally, each further SPARK costs 100 Supplies, 2 Elerium Cores, 20 Alien Alloys and 5 Elerium Crystals, as well as taking 14 days with no Engineer assigned to the Proving Grounds. ![]() The first option is to turn on Shen's Last Gift: in this scenario, you'll have to scan a couple of Rumors to unlock access to a special mission with lady Shen herself coming along for the trip, and completing this mission will get you a free SPARK as well as unlock the ability to build more at the Proving Ground. When starting a campaign, you have 2 relevant options. Well, for one thing you need the Shen's Last Gift DLC installed. I'll talk a bit more about that in a bit. The one (major) direct change War of the Chosen makes to SPARKs is that in the base game weapon attachments cannot be applied to the SPARK's cannon, but in War of the Chosen it can be. There's a sub-point to the Fatigue consideration that multi-segment missions, such as Chosen Stronghold assaults, are treated as multiple missions for Fatigue capping and so SPARKs are worth considering sending to reduce how many people end up Tired or even Shaken, but there's very few such missions, and one of them is the final mission where Fatigue doesn't matter. Notably, this means if you get a SPARK out early in War of the Chosen it might actually end up being your strongest for a portion of the midgame by virtue of hitting max rank while the next-highest soldier is merely a Captain. The overall net result being that SPARKs are notably less powerful relative to other classes in War of the Chosen, with the primary upside being that they can be sent on several missions back-to-back without tiring out. War of the Chosen does have a fairly notable impact on the SPARK, but the majority of it is indirect they don't benefit from the switch from the Advanced Warfare Center to the Training Center, they inexplicably can't form Bonds, they ignore the Fatigue mechanic, and they can't be sent on Covert Operations. Like the Psi Operative, I'm only going to do one post on the SPARK.
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