Summary:
Hero difficulty is still a relaxing experience as the Veteran run was.

Bug with dmg reduction?
Revenant Resistance - High Damage Attacks (75% dmg reduction from 1st hit)
Heavy (History of Violence), Goliath grenade (66 dmg, 10 shred) vs Triton (the scripted one with Gauss AR on the mission Biogenesis) =
head 0/40 0/10, arm 0/40 0/10, arm 0/30 0/10, arm 0/40 0/10, arm 30/40 0/10, both legs 0/50 0/10
Berserker (2 mutations, 1 Delirium), Goliath grenade (62 dmg, 10 shred) vs Acheron (50% Dynamic Resistance after 1st hit) = leg 87/100 0/10, leg 87/100 0/10, arm 85/100, torso 235/250
I don’t understand the math. I case of the Triton I assume that the 1st hit was on the then non-disabled arm. I can’t come up with a formula to explain 30/40 0/10. In case of the Acheron I expect for the 1st hit (62 - 10)*0.25=13 dmg on armored part or 62*0.25=15.5 dmg on unarmored part. On all other parts I expect (62 - armor value)*0.5=26 or 31 dmg. Even if the armor is subtracted after the dmg reduction the values aren’t explainable.

Cost of Archaeology Probes and excavations; bug?
I had to pay only 0 tech+2 materials/probe (and no food/excavation). On day 19 all ruins had been excavated. I explored 3 ruins the next day.
The next RL day I thought less than 4 Archaeology Labs must be more cost effective because of the fixed rewards. The plan was to un-power the labs to learn more about the new cost scaling of manufacturing probes (couldn’t do that for excavations anymore):
To my surprise the manufacturing costs reverted(?) back to Vanilla values.

LotA rework:
*SPOILERS*




Compatibility with old game saves:
After a fresh start of PP I loaded my recent (tactical) Veteran difficulty save (pre rework). After completing the base defense I’m offered Living Crystal Analysis and Protean Mutane Analysis research.
Before loading an old save one must uncheck Impossible Weapons Adjustments in the mod settings, quit and restart the game. Otherwise the Rebuke nerf will be present which might screw those people who have replaced all Goliath Grenade Launchers with Rebukes.

About my typical team composition for doing the ancient sites:
In Vanilla: 1 Heavy, 1 Infiltrator, 3 Technicians. Spider Drones for scouting and activations. Turrets for the hard work.
In TFTV, pre rework: The core is the same as in Vanilla. Because of the Remote Control nerf to turrets and much later access to advanced turrets I use more Spider Drones for attacking and more shots by Infiltrators (in the Veteran run a Berserker/Infiltrator scored most kills with his Crossbow).
In TFTV + LotA rework: I did the 1st ruin on day 20.
My team was (A-team + 2 soldiers): 1 Heavy, 3 Snipers, 3 Assaults, 1 Berserker (6 lvl. 5, 2 lvl. 4) (2 Grenade Launchers, 1 Missile Launcher, 2 Gauss MGs, 5 Sniper Rifles, 3 Assault Rifles) vs 1 Cyclop and 6 Hoplites. Perfectly viable.

Feedback on the encounters:
The nerf to all Ancient Beams and removing the Cyclops buff to Hoplites is much appreciated. No more danger of being one-shotted (especially on Proteane Mutane maps). In Hero difficulty there were only 6 Hoplites (might be Vanilla numbers) but I’m used to face more in Legend.
The EM field on the Cyclops is interesting. Although it is still possible to use brute force it is favorable to kill a few Hoplites first (as the hint says). Usually at least one is activated when attacking the Cyclops (IIRC my “record“ in Vanilla Legend was 6 ... on a Proteane Mutane map).
The Hoplites starting in varying states of disrepair is interesting, too.
After doing the first two ruins where the Cyclops were relatively nearby: too easy. I never felt threatened.
The 3rd ruin was different. This was a large map and the Cyclops were as far away as possible. I did a long range activation and after a few turns moved a bit forward to have it come to me. But this gave some Hoplites enough time to reach full potential. A melee and a beam Hoplite got near to 4 of my soldiers. Instead of retreating to the other 4 I decided to kill the melee Hoplite and tank the beam. Nope. The beam Hoplite picked up the Drill (this has been hinted at) and proceeded to kill a soldier (interestingly this triggered Revenants (intended?)).
I’d rate this a tomato surprise. Although in later ruins I was hit again in melee (I actually have now to count tiles because of more mobile Hoplites) this was my fault playing carelessly.
Final rating: too easy. I don’t think upping the dmg is the way to go but maybe one more Hoplite?

Fixed amount of resources:
I got enough resources for 1 set of Impossible Weapons. This was in line with the mod settings (1). But according to the change notes it should be more on Hero difficulty.

Rebuke nerf:
Nice. It may be argued if it is overdone - maybe leave 5 shred? But maybe not because now the amount of Impossible Weapons is limited and people should't be encouraged to do the unequip-equip-on-other-soldiers dance.

Bypassing the Dr. Symes quest line:
I think this is nice for people who don’t like the Seeking Dr. Symes missions and To Antarctica.
But if I want to rush I will only do these missions. Reason: this path need less research effort (when I switched to the new LotA research on day 20 the remaining time on Antediluvian Protocivilization was 1d0h) thus allowing me to do more of the other important research projects. I’m prepared to face the scripted Explosive Bomb Chirons in Legend in the 4th week. I lay the foundation for reaching Antarctica in the 3rd week.
If I take more time I will do both paths.
Either path the real road block is waiting for the Pandorans to evolve Citadels and Scyllas. In Legend that’s usually on day 29. In Hero probably 1 or 2 weeks later.