JDDysart

Hello xkopofil, My apologies in taking so long to reply. When I first came onto the EU modding scene most mod makers were overly involved with mods for "Long War", which I had no real interest in, but these mods do delve into just about all the interesting parts of the game. To handle the number of units taken on a mission might I suggest - With ini loading enabled, the DefaultGameCore.ini file contains three (3) relevant lines:NUM_STARTING_SOLDIERS=12BARRACKS_CAPACITY=99SKYRANGER_CAPACITY = 4notes:These lines are usually maintained in any save files, requiring a new game be started to see the effect(s).The units shown (in the hanger) are: up to the first five (5) auto-selected units and the last auto-selected unit.I recommend that you maintain: SKYRANGER_CAPACITY <= NUM_STARTING_SOLDIERS < BARRACKS_CAPACITY. When otherwise unmodded, the game will add any OTS Squad bonuses to the SKYRANGER_CAPACITY and (when enough units are available) take that number of units on a mission. To handle the spawning issue (with EU) might I suggest - Where the DefaultGameCore.ini is located, there is also a DefaultInput.ini file, at the bottom of which I have included the following: [Engine.PlayerInput] .Bindings=(Name="S", Command="exec SHQResources.txt", Control=True) [XComGame.XComTacticalInput] .Bindings=(Name="T", Command="exec TSquadUnit.txt", Control=True)placing these lines at the bottom of the DefaultInput.ini file will override any other bindings to THESE KEYS.the SHQResources.txt file contains lines such as GiveResource Scientist 5, GiveResource Engineers 10 and ;GiveItem WeaponFragment 250, (the semi-colon makes the rest of the line a comment);the TSquadUnit.txt file contains the TeleportToCursor command, among other console commands (such as ReloadAmmo and ResetUnitMovement); For the more or less vanilla versions of EU there appear to only be two issues:the UI functions for selecting which units to take on a particular mission;and the "spawning" function on the maps.My first thoughts - Adding more units to the "spawning" function should be easy enough, however the original code included a six unit limit which will need to be modded. But the big block, at least to me, is the UI coding for selecting a squad - which will probably far exceed my poor graphic abilities; IMO not really worth doing, unless you can actually select which units to take! My work around currently is to keep the SKYRANGER_CAPACITY equal to the number of units in the barracks, and use the TeleportToCursor function (as suggested above) to retrieve any "out of bounds" units. Edit: I am currently reviewing this thread to see what I might have forgotten. Seems that the R&D started with EU (Enemy Unknown) before more recent Official Patches were released, and at some point transitioned to EW (Enemy Within) - with some Longwar revisions thrown into the mix. Not to mention the use of some fairly early versions of certain modding tools. Once I have enough of this clear in my own mind I expect to have at least a current status report to post ...

While on a mission, have you tried the console command "GiveAbilityCharges"? In tactical mode, said console command will super charge each ability that the current unit has; to like 10 to the 3rd (or 4th) power, in charges. Of course all charges are dropped at the end of a mission, and re-loaded at default values at the beginning of a mission. Should someone want to actually write a mod that allows more control over the number of charges and/or specifying a single ability, said console command should give you a good start on what is needed.

These tools (both vanilla and WotC) should (for those that purchased XCOM 2 & the WotC DLC from Steam) still be in Steam Tools: XCOM 2 Development Tools XCOM 2 War of the Chosen Development Tools [full content requires authorization (i.e. opt-in) via "beta" tab in properties window] Both of the above, by default, install into ...SDK folders. Please explore the nexus XCOM 2 wiki for more information.

Personally, I do not know just what the "codex" that you refer to is, but in regards to the more official general XCOM 2 : There is a preliminary list of interesting locations for the Directory Structure that XCOM installs into on the XCom2-Wiki. Both of the article templates have these "interesting locations" included (as an example); a more comprehensive list of locations is in the works (mixed in with other wiki articles that I am working on). You might check to see if your directory structure conforms to what is shown on the referenced wiki ... as a starting point (for finding potential mistakes).

The Developers, in producing War of the Chosen, made a few (relatively) large changes and several (relatively) small tweaks to the "vanilla" source code ... For most (those that don't conflict with changes/tweaks) "add-on" mods should (other than lacking a WotC "stamp") still work? For any modification to the "vanilla" source (especially those that conflict with changes/tweaks) will put one back to getting the SDK and doing a (more or less) major re-write of the entire mod. Regardless - due to directory-tree-locations - those that made tedious small manual changes to the "vanilla" files are going to need to go back and make all of those tedious small manual changes to another (the new WotC) set of files!

Already in-game is a buildable room that will train rookies to a particular (you choose) squaddie "class". There is also a console command (see various CheatManagers for source code), MakeSoldierAClass "Joe Doe" Grenadier while aboard the HQ ship, that allows for dynamic in-game changing of a soldier's "class"; while SPARK may be used (in place of Grenadier) this is NOT recommended!

What the OP (back in 2014) was asking for was basically a re-skinning of existing armors - which, in the OP case might(?) be accomplished by assigning existing skins-art-work in place of existing armor-skins-art-work in the DefaultLoadout.ini; basically replacing the values on the "iArmor" parameters. Personally, I am not sure how well this would have worked ... Also see: "ArmorDeco" lines in DefaultContent.ini - for how the developers re-skinned armors.

In case you have not already noticed (and as you have asked?) email addresses are masked on these forums; proper contact - when a simple forum reply is not enough - should be a PM address, such as: Your (Spruence) PM address is https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?app=members&module=messaging&section=send&do=form&fromMemberID=53239586 ... My PM address is JDDysart ... Viewing another's profile should also provide an option ("Send me a message" button) to send a message to the owner of that profile ...

Please be advised that my knowledge of LongWar is limited to knowing that it started out as a player developed mod on par with Enemy Within or War of the Chosen ... With the above disclaimer taken into account ... generally class restrictions are implemented via configurable options in INI files; more commonly found on Primary and Secondary Weapons (and less commonly -if ever- found on armors, grenades and utility items). So you might want to see if you can find something similar that is already class-restricted - to compare to what you are attempting to do?

Back to basics ... First on the 3 small item slots? Are you wanting to add slots to a particular armor? or be able to see lower slots (on the load-out screen) after you have added slots to a particular armor? To add slots - use PatcherGUI to enable INI loading - then change the Armor line(s) in the DefaultGameCore.ini file. To see lower slots - when you add too many? - you will need an actual mod to do this. Then on to modding basics ... Have you reviewed what is available on the XCom Wiki? in particular have you seen the "Hex values XCOM Modding" article? Do you have access to the UE Explorer ("Unreal Engine" Explorer)? UPK files are "Unreal Package" files ... similar to DLL files (if you have any experience with them?) ... this is a collection of what programmers refer to as "object code modules", with several of these packed into each UPK file. Similar to ZIP files - UPK file contents may be uncompressed, (partially compressed?) or fully compressed. UE Explorer won't work with FULLY COMPRESSED UPK files; but PatcherGUI (or actually PatchUPK) checks for compression state then deals with what it finds. PatcherGUI, which you should know - if you have read the ReadMe.txt files that come with it, replaces the need to manually "hex edit" UPK files ... PatcherGUI does such editing for you! based on the pseudo-coded contents of a text file. The general modding procedure is to use UE Explorer to find the function (or whatever) that you want to modify (and to get some ideas on what you want to modify whatever to); ... then either copy mixed code from UE Explorer or use HexToPseudoCode (from the UPKUtils toolkit) to get the before code; ... once you have the before code - you then have to "MODIFY" it (based on what you are wanting to do) to get the after code; ... finally you put the before code and after code together in a PatcherGUI text file and attempt to apply it to the UPK file of your choice. And if the mod you are making is not for JUST your personal use, then it needs to be extensively tested before you publish it. BUT PatcherGUI does have some paths that must be properly set before it will work; one of these is the "Backup path". From personal experience, I know that the 0F 00 in your example is a length value, in pseudo-code you might use [@] where you want a length value, followed by "(" & ")" around what you are wanting the length of. The 1D Is an "Unreal Token" specifying that an unsigned-32-bit-integer value follows (the %u in your example, with a value of 10000000 being replaced with a value of 99999). What is actually happening in your example is that PatcherGUI is setting the RelativeOffset to where it finds that particular string of code within OBJECT=XGTacticalGameCore.GetXPRequired, then placing the modded code value at that relative offset, while updating the memory and serial sizes as needed for <iXPRequired>. A good place to start learning might be to get the entire mixed code (hex & pseudo) from HexToPseudoCode of XGTacticalgameCore.GetXPRequired (from the XComGame.upk file), and place all of it in a [bEFORE_CODE] ... [/bEFORE_CODE] section. Then find the code string that is being altered and see if you can write the [AFTER_CODE] .. [/AFTER_CODE] section? Clue: for this mod you need to make sure that the before code and after code both start with same code and both stop with the same code (and the UPK_FILE= and OBJECT= lines go above the before code section). Caution: if you have the Display Soldier's XP, PsiXP & Mobility mod already installed - then the mod you are writing may conflict with it! Hopefully something above helps, ~ JDDysart

I am glad to hear that you have your mod loading without errors now. Still, being the curious type, I have noted several changes: ARC_Helmet_BlacklightGhost_M in >ArchetypeName="AamaxuMod_Assets.Archetypes.ARC_Helmet_BlacklightGhost_M"< .Archetypes. (context) in >ArchetypeName="AamaxuMod_Assets.Archetypes.ARC_Helmet_BlacklightGhost_M"< AamaxuMod_Assets in >ArchetypeName="AamaxuMod_Assets.Archetypes.ARC_Helmet_BlacklightGhost_M"< which you did mention and TemplateName="Helmet_BlacklightGhost_M"I suspect that all of the above factor into your mod now appearing in the game without errors; ... while I am left to wonder if AamaxuMod_Assets could be something closer to Helmet_BlacklightGhost and still work? But this last is just my overactive curiosity at work and definitely NOT your problem. Please have a great modding future, ~ JDDysart

Referring to the DefaultContent.ini (for current naming conventions) your ArchetypeName="BlacklightHelmets.ARC_Ghost_F" should probably be ArchetypeName="Helmet_Blacklight_Ghost.ARC_Ghost_F" (or maybe ArchetypeName="Helmet_Blacklight_Ghost_F.ARC_Ghost_F"). Which would mean your TemplateName="Blacklight_Ghost_F" should be TemplateName="Helmet_Blacklight_Ghost_F". I am thinking that Ghost is one style (of several) that Blacklight Helmets may have. If you are NOT using an existing (already in the game) "ARC_Ghost_F" 'as-is' then I would recommend that you use the name "ARC_Blacklight_Ghost_F" on the one you are creating. So, if I have this correct, ArchtypeName="<TemplateName>.ARC_<associatedArchtype>" ? Now, I'm guessing here, do you know if the BodyPartTemplateConfig is creating the Template it is configuring? or do you maybe need to create said template before you can configure it? Seems you might still be missing a file - the one containing the code that does a CreateTemplate() for the appropriate type of template? ... say maybe an X2BodyTypeTemplate ? Missing file, if you need it, should be one of these two: I had thought I mentioned a "missing file" earlier ... but if I failed to (or you failed to notice when I did) ... it must be time for me to make another attempt to bring this to your attention. If the other mods that you are modeling yours on don't show how to create the proper template - then you might want to take another look at ExampleWeapon (in ModBuddy) to see if you can work out how to create said proper template? You will probably want something other than a WeaponTemplate ... say maybe an X2BodyTypeTemplate (as defined in X2BodyTypeTemplate.uc) ? Please note that said file must be listed on an include line in the file that specifies which files & folders to include. ~ JDDysart

If - by any chance - you have not already seen X2DownloadableContentInfo.uc (can be found in "<InstallFolder>\Development\Src\XComGame\Classes\"), then you may want to review this file for ideas on what the loading possibilities are for a mod? Does explain, in part, why I tend to be so concerned with folder names. Might be nice if someone could be found to do a wiki article on this file?

Okay folks, I think I have it ... "there is no longer any real interest?" (or no one can find the "XCOM 2 | XCOM2-WarOfTheChosen" wiki pages?) So, lacking any feedback, I guess I will just plod along as the mood moves me? I did add some templates today: Template:Mods XCOM2 & Template:Modding Subject XCOM2 to assist those willing to contribute to this wiki. If anyone would care to leave feedback (or wonder of wonders want assistance with the above linked wiki): I will be checking for new posts to this topic? or you might try sending me a PM?

Shameless bump :sleep: Okay, there is a very small Wiki for "XCom 2" and "XCom2: War of the Chosen" started at Wiki-Link !! Should someone with the proper authorities care to place a link to it on the Main XCom2 Forums Page, like there is for XCOM:EU on the XCOM Forums Page, maybe wiki-contributors might be able to find it? ~ JDDysart