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Target preview is the one thing about WOTC that I think is clearly better than long war 2. One thing I hated learning in long war 2 was how far I could move, or in fact had to move my soldiers to get in range of a pack of aliens I'd already detected with my phantom.

Target preview not only shows flanks, which can be handy in a few very rare bizarre scenarios involving which way your soldier will lean out a window, but it shows if aliens can be targeted at all from the square you move to. It's not IMO OP though because it only shows you these previews based on the aliens you can already see. All it does is count for you, and counting to 20 or 30 or whatever the number is every time I move isn't what I consider fun.

Sorry if this has already been asked a million times, but when I try to google it all I get are articles and threads referring to WOTC not vanilla.

I don't know if this comes from LW2 or vanilla, but I know that when I move my cursor around to move a soldier, a little red dot appears beside the health bar of any alien the soldier will be able to see from the space my cursor is currently sitting on. Doesn't show flanks explicitly, though.

I think it might be Gotcha Again, or maybe Additional Icons. I know there's something which puts a red/yellow (if flanking) target reticule on a target if I can see them from a position. Also adds a diamond icon for squadsight vision and a green, hollow one for spotting allies (essential for Command). It doesn't help for squadsight really far away but it's good enough.

isnt there something called LOS Preview? I saw Xwynns use it in his playthrough

Gotcha Again is what you want. Line of sight preview is different, for a different task, but it can help if you use it as well, makes my game really laggy when I do though (only when I click the icon, not the whole time). The real reason I have LOS preview is that it has a "body location preview" button for those times when a soldier gets blown several tiles away and you can't really tell where the body is.

Gotcha Again will also show that you will activate a pod if you move into a certain tile, if you can hack an objective from a certain tile, and it does show if you can see something from squadsight range, as well as a bunch of other useful stuff.

the gotcha again mod doesn't tell me if I will activate a pod unless I have a scout showing the location of the pod? does it? I don't want a mod that makes the game easier, I just want a mod that doesn't require endless square counting for optimal play...

You need to see the pod to tell if it'll activate. As you know, sometimes the fog of war bugs out and reveals a pod that shouldn't be seen but that's not the mod's fault. If an inactive pod is visible for whatever reason (hello battle scanner), then the mod will tell you which tiles will activate it with an unconcealed soldier (or if a concealed soldier would crash through a window).

Psieye wrote:You need to see the pod to tell if it'll activate. As you know, sometimes the fog of war bugs out and reveals a pod that shouldn't be seen but that's not the mod's fault. If an inactive pod is visible for whatever reason (hello battle scanner), then the mod will tell you which tiles will activate it with an unconcealed soldier (or if a concealed soldier would crash through a window).

Actually, it's squad member based, not squad based. Aka if you see one member, but not the others, you can't be sure if the pod activates if you only see one member and move close to a point where they can see.
As multiple enemies have different sight variables and when one activates, all of them activate. Now of course if a sniper activates a pod that a concealed ranger sees and the sniper and ranger are well placed, the idiots will just twittle their thumps even when active.

The WotC also has this same feature when facing the Lost pod and another Alien pod, if they are not active nor detected, they can pass each others like ships in the night, but as soon as they are detected by the player, their AI changes A LOTS ! When they move and see each others, they both activate, which can very well reveal the player, but if they don't, they will try to hit each others, so long as the player is hidden in concealment, or is out of their line of sight.

I hate the Lost AI only for one thing, they should run to the nearest hostile opponent and try to hit it, be it XCom or Advent. Now they use a percentage that's heavily weighted against the player(70%) to try to move and hit vs. but like said, it's stupid for stupid sake...
Yes, there's also a mod that sets the percentage to 50% ... but I hate that too, as the behaviour should be clearly defined, not % based.

And like already said, the Gotcha is what's wanted here.