1.5 Troop Column schedules

[faket15]

Does anyone know anything about the new Troop Column schedules in 1.5 other than what is in the patch notes? Will the new encounters be alien-only or can they have an alien leader + advent followers? Will they be large 8-man pods or smaller than that? Will the composition be fixed for each Force Level like what already happens with rainbow pods, Muton warbands and command pods? How early will they start to appear? Will they replace a normal open pod or one of the special ones?

[chrisb]

They are a 6-man alien pod. There are certain enemies that are forced starting at certain force levels, the rest are random aliens. They replace the rainbow pod when they show up. In general it's a 50/50 whether you get the rainbow pod or the alien pod schedule.

[DaviBones]

How common are officers in the other pods in troop columns?

I was thinking, if there was a 50/50 chance for a single officer to be at a troop column, and they were removed from Rendezvous missions but guaranteed on supply raids, it might nerf incendiaries to some extent (so maybe the burn chance could be increased a bit to compensate), and make for an interesting strategic decision of skulljack vs. incendiary.