XCOM 2 is a tense game about a high-stakes resistance against an alien occupation. Resources are hard to scrounge up and personnel are even harder to find, and so it's essential to build the Avenger's facilities in a way that makes the most sense.

However, there are a few issues that players have to deal with before they can decide on the best layout. First, most of the rooms need clearing, and while a cleared room gives back a pile of resources it also costs valuable days and at least one engineer's time. Second, the players' needs will change as the game advances, and so a useful facility in one month could end up being a waste of space in the next.

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Facility Basics

• The Laboratory speeds up research at a set rate. Players can also staff a lab with two scientists to improve research time even further. This is on top of the faster research each scientist provides already.
• The Workshop can hold up to two engineers, and each engineer gives the workshop two GREMLIN drones that can fill engineer slots in other rooms. However, the GREMLIN bots can only reach the rooms up, down, left, and right of the workshop.
• The Guerilla Tactics School offers several upgrades and new abilities players can buy with supplies. Players can also train Rookies into specific classes instead of leaving things to chance. The GTS doesn't interact with the other facilities, but if players demolish it then all the upgrades it provides will vanish.
• Resistance Comms increase the maximum contacts the Avenger can handle. The max starts at 3, and one comms facility can boost this number by up to 8 once fully upgraded and staffed. In the base game players need two resistance comms to contact all 16 regions, but the War of the Chosen expansion adds ways to boost the contact limit without this facility.
• Power Relays are essential, because facilities need power to operate. Each relay adds 3 power on its own, but with two engineers and two upgrades a relay can offer 21 power. Players will likely need 2 power relays to support the facilities of a full Avenger.
• The Proving Grounds are where players can build special equipment not available from the regular engineering area. One engineer can work here to cut production time in half.
• The Defensive Matrix gives players two turrets to use during the special Avenger defense missions. An upgrade doubles the turret count, and an engineer on staff improves the turrets' stats. Losing an Avenger defense mission will end the game, but they tend to be rare and the benefit of a defensive matrix might not be worth the space.
• The Psi Lab is where the special Psi Operative class trains its abilities. An engineer can speed this training up, and an upgrade can let two operatives train at the same time.
• The Shadow Chamber is a special facility that players must build to beat the game. It doesn't take any staff, but it uses more power than almost any other facility.
• The Advanced Warfare Center boosts soldier healing time, and an engineer on staff can boost the healing rate even further. Players can also assign soldiers here to retrain their abilities. However, the War of the Chosen expansion replaces the AWC with two new facilities.
• The Infirmary boosts healing time in War of the Chosen, and soldiers can rest here to remove negative traits. An upgrade lets players sacrifice an elerium core to bring a soldier back to 100 percent, but this only lasts for one mission and can never affect the same soldier twice.
• The Training Center lets soldiers retrain their abilities in WotC, and it's also where players can spend Ability Points to give soldiers extra abilities. Furthermore, this facility lets soldiers create and improve bonds.
• The Resistance Ring is where players of WotC can access special covert actions that deliver very useful rewards. An engineer on staff can increase the speed of these actions.

Power Coils

In XCOM 2, two random facility rooms start out as "Exposed Power Coils" and give the player elerium when cleared. They usually sit on the bottom two rows, but not always. Aside from elerium, these spaces let players build facilities with zero energy cost, and any power relays built on Shielded Power Coils give +7 power. The only two facilities (at least on Veteran difficulty) that use more than 7 power are the psi lab and shadow chamber, and since both are late-game facilities they make great choices for these rooms.

Workshops

As far as base layout goes, the most important facility in XCOM 2 is the workshop. One workshop turns two engineers into four, but the four GREMLIN engineers can only reach adjacent facilities. This means the best place to put a workshop is on the second column and on the second or third row. The best facilities to build next to the workshop are ones that use two engineers, like resistance comms and power relays.

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This also means that facilities that don't use engineers should go in the corners, far away from the workshop. This includes the laboratory, the guerilla tactics school, the shadow chamber, and the training center.

However, near the end of the game players may have enough engineers to not need a workshop. This is especially likely in War of the Chosen games since players can get extra engineers from covert actions. If this happens, the best thing to do is demolish the workshop and replace it with something more useful, like a power relay or defensive matrix.

Removing Facilities

Not all players may know that they can destroy facilities in XCOM 2. This is because clearing a room or building a new facility is as easy as clicking on it from the main Avenger screen. However, removing a facility is a bit more involved.

To do it, players must click on Engineering and choose "Build Facilities" from the menu at the bottom. Once they do, the screen will focus on the facility grid and each one will get a big red X in the lower-left corner. Players can also see this screen by clicking on an uncleared room, but once all the rooms are clear the only way to reach this screen is through engineering.

Unlike most actions in the game, removing a facility happens immediately. It also doesn't refund any supplies or elerium, so be careful about hitting confirm. In addition, the game won't let players remove a facility if it would drop the total power below the power being used or drop the contacts available below the number of contacts made. This means that players who want to move power relays or resistance comms will need to build (and upgrade) a replacement first.

Overall, the base game of XCOM 2 has 10 different facilities while War of the Chosen has 12. This means players of the base game can build one of each facility plus one extra power relay and resistance comms, but War of the Chosen players will need to skip building something since the Avenger still needs two power relays. Losing the laboratory will make research slower but otherwise keep things the same, but losing the defensive matrix may be the best choice since it only comes up during certain rare missions. The workshop might be unnecessary towards the end of the game, but early on it's essential.

XCOM 2 is available now on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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