
This section is under construction Dealing with the AVATAR Project However, as additional facilities are added, research will accelerate a lot from June to December in the absence of XCOM disruption and loosing to the AVATAR Project completion is a real possibility. This might give the impression that it will take years to complete the project. Additional pips take 40 days (almost 2 supply drops) to be generated. The first "pip" appear after 20 days (on Legend) which is one day before the first supply drop. Research starts slowly as only the Alien Fortress is generating research at the start of a campaign.

Difficulty will affect each aspect of AVATAR Research Research generated by facilities have a chance to be immediately transferred to the Fortress when generated, affecting the ability of XCOM to disrupt their progress. The research generated by facilities comes faster (with some random variation) and every facility will generate it's own research. In addition, ADVENT will build facilities throughout the world that will generate additional "pips". The Alien Fortress will generate research at a regular rate. This is the first major objective a player receives in a new campaign so usually the AVATAR Project won't stay hidden very long but it's a good idea to try and complete that objective relatively early (ideally before the end of June) in order to have a better view of the Aliens' progress. To learn about the existence of the AVATAR Project and uncover the "Doom Meter", a player must complete a series of missions to liberate a region for the first time.


Fortunately, this progress starts out slowly and the "Doom Meter" has been increased from 12 to 20 "pips" so the time required before ADVENT can win the game in the absence of XCOM intervention is longer. As a result the Commander and thus the player don't have any knowledge about the existence of the AVATAR Project or it's progress. At the beginning of the game, the Resistance has no clues about the Aliens true motivations.
