Buildable Units (TJ)

Buildable Units

Ted Jam offers a variety of specialized mechanical, biomechanical or even biological units. They can be created in the Proving Grounds with some resources and enemy corpses. These buildable units have special attributes compared to your standard soldiers, namely:

They are incapable of leveling up, but they also do not count as a unit for experience distribution on mission completion. A squad of 3 humans and 2 BU's does not count as 5 soldiers for experience distribution, it counts as 3. This results in much faster leveling.
Most BU's are mechanical, like a Spark. Celatid turrets and Chryssalid Hound are biological units with will.
BU's besides S.H.I.V. units do not have weapon or armor upgrades in standard sense. Instead they are upgraded globally through the research lab. Frost Droid is the exception as their primary weapon is the same as what XCOM soldiers use, be it a sniper rifle, cannon, shotgun, smg or assault rifle.
- These upgrades are retroactive and affect Haven units XCOM has aquired through Full Override or covert operation
  - S.H.I.V. units use Gremlins as their secondary weapon
More types of buildable units are unlocked through autopsies or proving ground research topics, S.H.I.V. types are unlocked through armor research.

Aquiring BU's

Starting research

At the start of the campaign, XCOM has access to 2 special research topics, these will deposit a S.H.I.V. unit in to the barracks directly, twice. These armoured robotic tanks can crash through walls, heal injured biological units or attack enemies with their miniguns.

Proving Grounds

Proving grounds are the source of all other BU's XCOM can make. S.H.I.V. units and the Frost Droid are the only BU's that do not require a corpse to make. XCOM can make the following:

Super Heavy Infantry Vehicle - S.H.I.V., these robotics tank come with a heavy machinegun and gremlin.
- S.H.I.V. units gain abilities of all the previous tiers - a Elerium S.H.I.V has the abilities of Alloy and Standard S.H.I.V.
  - All BU's that have multiple tech tiers behave like this.
Advent Drones - Come as standard, hunter and enigma versions. Considerably faster at infiltration when compared to other BU's and their repair beam capabilities make them excelent support units alongside other mechanical units.
Phase Drone - Capable of phasing through walls, Phase Drone has better offensive capabilities than the normal Advent drones
Celatid Turrets - Floating acid spitting specialists, behave more like a mobile turret. Exist in 3 tiers, these are bio-mechanical units, they cannot be hacked, but are vulnerable to psionics and weapons like EMP. They also have the ability to open Advent crates or mark them. Celatid turrets cannot be deployed while injured.
MECs - Come in greatest variety - Ressistance MEC, Archer, Pyroclast, Frost MEC, Junk Spark and two different Assault MEC versions. All of these can mark crates and even loot their contents and with sufficient upgrades, they are capable of engaging in melee combat.
- Ressistance MEC - the standard Mech from Long War 2, armed with a cannon and micro missile launcher
- Archer MEC - Bombardment mech, comes with improved launcher that holds 3 micro missiles charges that they can launch up to 40 tiles away, but Archers are more fragile and have weaker cannon
- Pyroclast MEC - Flamethrower mech, they come with no micro-missile launchers but come with ability to overcharge their flamethrowers to deal magnetic type damage, letting them damage even fire immune enemies.
- Frost Mech MEC - Support fire Mech that inflicts bitterfrost with its cannon, suppression or micro missiles, they also are the most durable standard Mechs due to innate Impact Compensation perk.
- Junk Spark - The cheapest and weakest buildable units, they come with low health, high armor, cannon and ability to self destruct.
- Assault MEC - Come in two variations, prototype and standard one. These heavily armoured frontline units are armed with a shotgun and shoulder mounted miniguns.
Frost Drone - This humanoid shaped mech can use XCOM's infantry weapons and has special perks that let them adapt to the weapon type they have been given. This is the only BU that can take cover and can mark or loot crates.
Chryssalid Hound - Agile melee fighters that can burrow to ambush XCOM's enemies, these are biological units.
- Chryssalid Hound does not have the chryssalid poison ability, just the standard one.

Limitations of BU's

All of them are incapable of hacking, even the S.H.I.V. despite having a Gremlin as they lack the Intrusion Protocol.
Beside drones, BU's are harder to infiltrate than normal soldiers.
Only Mechs, Celatid Turrets and Frost Droids are capable of marking crates or looting them. But all BU's can still, interact with rebels for example to rescue them.
No bleedouts, BU's die when their health drops to zero. But mechanical BU's can be deployed while damaged.
Mechanical BU's can be hacked by Advent, hack defence is bound to their tier and cannot be upgraded. Biomechanical and biological BU's can be mind controlled and can suffer from fatigue.
Chryssalid Hound is treated in the infirmary instead of the repair bay. So staffed Infirmary can speed up its recovery.
BU's do not have the PCS slot
S.H.I.V. cannot vault over most obstacles, which can create issues with movement without breaking concealment in some way.

Special interactions or hidden features

Leadership - BU's can build up this bond with an officer, while will is mostly pointless, dodge and faster infiltration is not.
Very fast recovery - BU's are really fast to repair compared to Sparks.
Vertical movement - Besides the Frost Droid, all BU's are capable of jumping up buildings without ladders or staircases.
ADVENT and Alien Defector Covert Operation - Because this covert operation cannot fail, it is possible to send something like a S.H.I.V. for this type of mission instead of a normal soldier.

Full Override

In Ted Jam, permamently stealing a robotic units has few notable differences when compared to Long War 2, mainly, the unit type stolen will be preserved - a Mech Archer will not turn to a generic resistance Mech - almost all robotic units can now be stolen, Stolen units that become a part of Haven do benefit from upgrades XCOM conducts on the Avenger.

Sectopods can be stolen and do become part of a Haven, but they lose some of their durability. Despite not being buildable by XCOM, they do benefit from upgrades.
Upgrades are applied retroactively, no matter how long a fully overriden unit has spent in a haven

Table of BU's and requirements

BU requirements
Unit type	Supplies	Alloy	Elerium dust	Elerium Cores	Research	Corpse	Cryolite
S.H.I.V.	25
Alloy S.H.I.V.	45	3	1		Plated Armor
Elerium S.H.I.V.	65	5	3	1	Powered Armor
Drone	10					1x Drone wreck
Hunter Drone	20			1	Stunlancer autopsy, MEC breakdown, Advent Robotics	1x Drone wreck
Enigma Drone	25			1	Spectre autopsy, Advent Robotics	1x Drone wreck, 1x Spectre corpse
Phase Drone	10				Phase Drone autopsy	1x Phase drone wreck
Frost Drone	15	2			Hybrid Materials, Bitterfrost Protocol		3
Resistance MEC	20				MEC breakdown	1x MEC wreck
Archer MEC	25			1	MEC breakdown, Exosuits	1x MEC wreck
Pyroclast MEC	40			1	MEC breakdown, Purifier autopsy, Advanced Magnetic Weapons	1x MEC wreck, 1x Purifier corpse
Frost MEC	25			1	MEC breakdown, Bitterfrost Protocol	1x MEC wreck	5
Prototype Assault MEC	40			1	Assault MEC breakdown, Exo Suit, Advanced Magnetic Weapons	1x Assault MEC wreck
Military Assault MEC	60			2	Assault MEC breakdown, WAR Suit, Heavy Plasma	1x Assault MEC wreck
Celatid Turret	10				Celatid autopsy, Advent Trooper autopsy	1x Celatid corpse, 1x Trooper corpse
Alloy Celatid Turret	25				Celatid autopsy, Trooper autopsy, Officer autopsy, Combat Armor, Magnetic weapons	1x Celatid corpse, 1x Officer corpse
Elerium Celatid Turret	50			1	Celatid autopsy, Muton autopsy, Powered Armor, Plasma Rifle	1x Celatid corpse, 1x Muton corpse
Chryssalid Hound	30			1	Chryssalid autopsy	1x Chryssalid Corpse

Upgrades

XCOM can further upgrade their buildable units through the research lab. Each research mentions what applies to which unit if you inspect it in the Proving Grounds. These upgrades do affect already exisiting buildable units and any units in Havens.

Upgrades
Upgrade	Research	Cost	Abilities
Firepower - Basic	Laser Weapons	25 supplies, 3 alloys, 3 elerium dust	Surprise, Concentration, Bigger They Are (All BU's), Biggest Boom (Frost MEC and Frost Droid)
Firepower - Advanced	Magnetic Weapons	50 supplies, 5 alloys, 5 elerium dust	Soften Up (All BU's), Nova (All the MEC types and Junk Spark), Tesla Attack (S.H.I.V.), Demolition Cannon (Frost Droid)
Firepower - Superior	Coilguns	75 supplies, 10 alloys, 1 elerium core	Anatomy (All BU's), Supernova (All MEC types), HEAT arsenal (All except the Chryssalid Hound and Drones)
Defense - Basic	Hybrid Materials	25 supplies, 3 alloys, 3 elerium dust	Formidable, Iron Skin (All BU's), Moving Target (Drones, Chryssalid Hound, Frost Droid), Draw Fire (All units except Drones, Chryssalids and Frost Droids)
Defense- Advanced	Plated Armor	50 supplies, 5 alloys, 5 elerium dust	Cybernetic Conditioning, Reactive Armor (All BU's), Triangulation (All BU's except Drones, Frost Droid and Chryssalid Hound), Layered Armor (All BU's except Drones, Frost Droids, and Junk Sparks)
Defense- Superior	Powered Armor	75 supplies, 10 alloys, 1 elerium core	Impact Fields (All BU's), Damage Control (All BU's except Drones and the Frost Droid), Intimidate (All MEC's and Junk Spark)
Utility - Basic	Advent Robotics	25 supplies, 3 alloys, 3 elerium dust	Charge (All BU's), Neutralizing Agent (S.H.I.V. units), ECM (Drones), Corpsman (Frost Droid)
Utility - Advanced	MEC breakdown	50 supplies, 5 alloys, 5 elerium dust	Combat Fitness, Hidden Reserves (All BU's), Sensor Overlay (Drones), Blend (Frost Droid, Drones, Chryssalid Hound, Celatid Turrets)
Utility - Superior	Andromedon Autopsy	75 supplies, 10 alloys, 1 elerium core	Charger (All BU's), Overdrive (Junk Spark and MEC's), Botnet (S.H.I.V units and Drones)
Melee - Basic	Faceless Autopsy	25 supplies, 3 alloys, 3 elerium dust	Strike (Junk Spark, all MEC's), Cutthroat (Chryssalid Hound), Take Down (Junk Spark, Frost Droid, all MEC's, Chryssalid Hound), Beatdown (Frost Droid)
Melee - Advanced	Berserker Autopsy	50 supplies, 5 alloys, 5 elerium dust	Counter-Strike, Concussive Strike, Assault Servos, Strike Out (All MEC's and Junk Spark)
Melee - Superior	Muton Elite Autopsy	75 supplies, 10 alloys, 1 elerium core	Lightning Strike (All MEC's and Junk Spark), Whirlwind (All MEC's, Junk Spark, Chryssalid Hound), Bloody Knuckles (All MEC's and Chryssalid Hound)
Sectopod Grade Refinements	Sectopod Breakdown	200 supplies, 20 alloys, 2 core	Heavy Hitter (All BU's), Resilience (All BU's), Double Time (All MEC's, Junk Spark).
Chryssalid Hound Modification	Chryssalid Autopsy	35 supplies, 4 alloys, 3 elerium dust	Adaptive Bone Marrow, Social Dynamo, Thrash, Salt in the Wound