Zooming in on them, angled facets show a brick wall with a window, facets facing the camera seem to be reflecting a sprite of a green-irised eye.

There are reflective Meld 'crystals' in the Ant Farm view.For consideration on building them early or late whether you want 5 engineers, or low-level MEC troopers, with what limited resources you'll have early on, for example.The Cybernetics Labs count as workshops and the Genetics Lab with Laboratories for adjacency bonus. Both cost §50 and require 3 power and 10 days to build. The Meld also brings 2 new base facilities: Genetics Lab and Cybernetics Lab.In the overarching plan (caution: spoilers) the aliens have, it seems more in line that deliberate manipulation of Earth's biology is the intent for the sometimes haphazard placement of the canisters.Ĭonveniently, once captured or timed out: the canisters can still be used as cover, and destruction afterwards does not reduce the amount of Meld recovered. While 'Paedia and in-game descriptions include 'self-destructs' and 'explosions' as the canisters count down, this is not the case: it appears that the canisters seen in the field are possibly dispersion systems. Explosions, and misses from any sufficiently powerful weapon may also destroy them.Ĭertain aliens ( Mechtoid and Heavy Floater) will also provide small quantities of Meld with their corpses, upon completion of a mission. The containers are equipped with self-destruction devices with timers so it will be necessary to reach the canisters before time runs out to capture the substance. The Meld will mainly be recovered from the aliens, during Abductions or UFO missions, where there will be canisters spread around randomly on the battlefield.

After its recovery from a battlefield and upon completing the necessary Research, the Meld can be used by XCOM to transform soldiers into MEC Troopers or to perform genetic augmentation on different parts of their bodies. The Meld is an alien substance introduced in the Enemy Within DLC whose precise origin and composition are unknown but which allows the aliens to perform cybernetic and genetic modifications on life forms, including humans.

Long war meld use