PaxEmpyrean

Apologies for the double post. It would seem that some weapon abilities are class restricted. PrecisionShot only works for Snipers. Others are universal, like ShotSuppress or RapidFire. Weirdly enough, ShotSuppress seems to work fine for everyone. RapidFire shows up on the bar for everyone but can't be activated; it's grayed out like an ability that has no charges.

not true - you can restrict any ability to any property - such as soldier type. See above image - squad-sight restricted to Sniper use only on Assault Rifle and Pistol/// no other class can do this. http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/807501-modding-soldiers-weapons-and-items/ How did you add the ability to a weapon while restricting it to a specific class? Also, does this work for any soldier of that class, or do they need to have the ability themselves as well?

Yes, you're going to have to hack the executable, or use the Modpatcher which will do it for you. I'm not sure how it interacts with Steam. I assume up front that when I mod a game, multiplayer is off the table in most cases. I've been able to launch the modded game without Steam checking the file and overwriting what I've done, so at least that much works.

From what I can see, everyone is assuming that all the variables exposed in DefaultGameCore.ini work. I have tested many of them, in a re-balance of aliens, weapons, and armor and nothing came through into the game. So then I deleted the file and to my horror the game worked just fine. That means most, if not all, is not referenced from it. Likely all the variables were baked into the engine, meaning most of this *may* not work at all. I am still waiting for confirmation from a few of the modders that have released mods that claim to actually have modded these values. If they got it to work, then I will let you know. For example, change the health bonus on Kevlar armor from 1 to 10 and start a new game. It has no effect on any solider. Since the grapple is confirmed, as well as a few other special features, it does sound like some parts of this file are being referenced, but not all (or they are being over-ridden by code in the exe). The values being changed are in the executable. DefaultGameCore.ini is a copy of that part of the executable but it doesn't seem to be used for anything. I've made changes to the relevant portion executable and they work just fine.

As far as I know, we still don't know where the ability information is stored. Most abilities seem to be keyed to specific weapons, and you'd need to add pistols to the list for it to work with them. A possible workaround is to add eAbility_Squadsight to the pistol, but if it works that would give the Squadsight ability to anyone using the pistol, not just those who have the ability unlocked. I've added other abilities to weapons this way and that's how it worked, but I haven't tested Squadsight specifically.

TO DO: Nothing but testing at this point, unless somebody figures out how to edit abilities. DONE (untested): Panic UFO_ignored reduced from 2 to 1 DONE: (tested, confirmed working) Buff SHIV base HP from 10 to 15, increase accuracy, alloy and hover get +5 HP instead of +8 (they shoot as well as good soldiers, but that's about all they can do) 100% Psi-talent, training takes 24 hours Make South America not suck (3 scientists and engineers with 2 satellites on easy/normal, 2 scientists and engineers on hard and impossible) Normalize stat progression (snipers have same HP progression as other classes, all classes have aim bonus progression at +5, +5, +3, +3, +3, +3, +3) Rebalanced weapon damage and accuracy (accuracy bonuses with pistols don't work; they inherit bonuses from the primary weapon instead. I gave crit bonuses to pistols; bigger crit bonus for lower damage pistols) Modified environmental damage values for human and alien weapons. Rifles and pistols are less likely to destroy terrain. Heavy plasma weapons are unchanged. Bullets are the least likely to destroy terrain. Lasers are midway between ballistic and plasma weapons for destroying terrain. Frag grenades do 4 damage and have a larger radius (same as rockets) and alien grenades do 6 damage with a shorter throw distance. Aliens can still chuck them for days, but not quite as long as before. Add 2nd backpack slot to all armors (high level supports get 3; the UI is wonky and only shows half of the item, but it works) Buff early game aliens (+2 HP Sectoid and Thin Man, +1 HP Floater) All OTS upgrades available with a Squaddie, larger squad size upgrades cost $10 LMG-type weapons and SHIV weapons do not need to reload Make shotguns and assault rifles available to all classes Add suppression to all LMGs and ARs Increase base armor to +2 HP instead of +1 Blaster launchers and rocket launchers still do the same damage as before, but rocket launchers can be fired after moving to make them a more competitive option with blaster launchers

So, I've been poking around to see what I can change and what I can't, and I've decided to make my mod publicly available using the Modpatcher instead of just changing my own executable with Resource Hacker. I've got a solid decade of modding experience (including the original X-COM), so I fully expect to be able to manage all of this and come up with a more varied and better balanced game than what we have currently. I also have a ridiculous amount of free time and expect to use most of it to work on this mod, so expect fairly rapid progress. Here is an overview of what I plan to change, including what I know I can change and what I still need to figure out how to do. Overview of Mod Goals: Make shotguns and assault rifles available to all classes. Rebalance weapons to make everything viable throughout the game, regardless of tier. Add inherent abilities to weapons where appropriate. Normalize stat progression across classes. Rebalance abilities and aliens in light of other changes. Minor tweaks to the strategic layer of the game to better balance strategic options (making South America not suck, etc). Other misc. changes A little more detail on each of these goals: Make shotguns and assault rifles available to all classes. I can already do this. Getting Heavies to use some weapons took an extra entry in the weapon properties, but that's working fine. Class abilities are typically tied in with the weapon type the class was intended to use, and will need to be adjusted to make them usable with other weapon types where appropriate (no Suppressing Fire with shotguns, etc). I can't edit abilities yet, but when someone finds out where that information is stored and how to change it, I plan to make changes there as well. Rebalance weapons to make everything viable throughout the game, regardless of tier. This is a sweeping change that will seriously disturb the balance of the early game if I don't modify aliens to compensate for it. I want all of the weapons have their own role. That includes the basic weapons you start with. I'm using the plasma weapons as a baseline; they'll have the fewest changes, and I probably won't touch the aliens' weapons at all (the plasma rifle a Muton uses is not the same weapon as the plasma rifle you can use). The approach I've decided upon to accomplish this is an inherent accuracy boost for laser weapons, with a smaller accuracy boost for ballistic weapons combined with a damage boost that puts them midway between laser and plasma weapons. I can do all of this already, and I've got it all set up in a spreadsheet for comparison purposes already. I'm balancing damage output against an assumed 60% hit rate; for more difficult shots, lasers will give more damage in the long run, while plasma weapons will be better if you've got a target flanked or otherwise have an easier shot. Ballistic weapons are a balance between the two. Plasma weapons that currently do 9 damage will be reduced to 8. There are a number of other buffs being thrown around for the XCOM side, and taking the heaviest hitters (sniper rifles, heavy plasma rifles, alloy cannons) down a peg will help keep things in line. Alien weapons still do their damage as normal. Add inherent abilities to weapons where appropriate. All automatic weapons (Assault Rifles and LMGs) will have the inherent ability to use Suppressive Fire. LMG-type weapons will no longer have to reload, allowing them to keep up suppressing fire, as LMGs are meant to do. If I can edit the abilities themselves, I'll increase the ammo consumption of Suppressive Fire to encourage using LMGs (which won't have to worry about ammo) while still letting you suppress with an assault rifle if you have to. I can already add Suppressive Fire to the various automatics. Normalize stat progression across classes. This is another big change. Currently, advancing a Sniper to Colonel rank gives +40 Offense, while Supports get +25, Assaults get +24, and Heavies get +10. This is presumably how they wanted to make some weapons more accurate than others, but they decided to tweak stat progression rather than the weapons themselves. That approach works when weapons are class-restricted, but without that restriction the modifiers need to be applied to the weapons themselves. That means Sniper Rifles will get a +15 Aim bonus (a total of +35 for the laser variant). LMGs will have a corresponding penalty to hit. This is effectively just keeping the same chance to hit with various weapons without making Heavies inherently awful at aiming any weapon and Snipers inherently awesome with any weapon, which is how things would be if I didn't adjust stat progression. I can already do this. Rebalance abilities and aliens in light of other changes. When ballistic weapons are a viable alternative to plasma weapons, the early game will need to be adjusted. Increasing Sectoid and Thin Man hit points from 3 to 5 is a start. When all LMGs have inherent Suppressive Fire ability, that makes the Heavy ability to use Suppressive Fire redundant and in need of modification or replacement with some other ability. I can already modify alien attributes, but editing abilities isn't something I can do just yet. Minor tweaks to the strategic layer of the game to better balance strategic options (making South America not suck, etc). I plan to slightly adjust a few things here, like have South America give +3 Engineers and +3 Scientists when you get the whole continent. That would make it the best return on staff per satellite in the game to help compensate for its poor continent bonus. No other changes are planned at the strategic layer just yet, but if I think of something that could use an improvement I'll do it. This is something I can already do. Other miscellaneous changes. This includes things like 100% Psi-talent for all soldiers, increasing default backpack slots to 2, boosting the accuracy of SHIVs to make them worthwhile, or whatever else I can think of. If I could find a way to have all soldiers who haven't used all of their actions to automatically enter Overwatch when I hit "end turn" I'd do that in a heartbeat. If I can add weapons to the list of sellable items on the gray market I'll do that as well; not at a profit, certainly, but at least as an incentive to take aliens alive for the extra cash you could get from selling their guns. Feedback is appreciated and will be taken into consideration, but ultimately I'm making the mod I want to make, so we'll see how it goes.

Bonuses gained when your chance to hit are low have a greater impact on your damage output than bonuses gained when your chance to hit is high. To use an extreme example, getting +10 Offense when your chance to hit was only 10% to start with doubles your chance to hit. Getting +10 Offense when your chance to hit was 80% increases your odds of hitting by 1/8th. If you want to make a smoother progression from newbie to expert, start with smaller bonuses and increase them slowly.

The thing to keep in mind is that the classes are balanced with their weapon in mind. The LMG weapons do more damage than assault rifles and neither one has an accuracy modifier on it, but the Heavy class gains Offense ("Aim" in game) at a slower rate than other classes so in practice the LMGs have their superior damage balanced out by their poor accuracy. I've been juggling this with my own mod project that I've been working on, and unlocking weapons for all classes is a big part of it. The main thing I need to learn how to do is edit the abilities themselves; I'd love to switch abilities between classes, edit their functions, or change the rank at which those abilities become available.

The modpatcher is not required to get any of this stuff to work. I'm using Resource Hacker and it does the job just fine. This has been stated. We're aware. This is not true. While you can add the suppressive fire ability to a weapon and all characters will be able to use suppressive fire while they have that weapon equipped, characters with the appropriate skill can use their class weapon for suppressive fire even though it is lacking the ability in the weapon itself. Assault Rifles do not have eAbility_ShotSuppress but Supports with Rifle Suppression can do it. Likewise, all LMGs are lacking eAbility_ShotSuppress, but Heavies can suppress with them if they have the appropriate skill. Adding an ability to the weapon does not make that weapon compatible with the skill, it makes that ability usable whether you had the skill or not.

I didn't have to start a new game in order to get my changes to weapon class restrictions to take effect. I enabled shotguns and assault rifles for all classes just by using eWP_AnyClass and eWP_Heavy for each of them. I replaced the eWP_Rifle property with eWP_AnyClass and was able to use rifle suppression. However, when I equipped a Heavy with an assault rifle I was unable to use suppression with the Heavy, even with eWP_Heavy as a property (listed after eWP_AnyClass). Rifle suppression and LMG suppression seem to be keyed to the weapon type within the skill itself, rather than from the weapon properties. Support were unable to use Rifle Suppression with shotguns, and the Sniper was unable to use Headshot with an assault rifle (although it didn't have eWO_Sniper, I used eWP_AnyClass for it). Without editing the skills themselves, it looks like at least some of these abilities only work with the weapons the class was intended to use in the first place.

I was interested in doing this as well, and I initially ran into the same problem as you. I tried adding the eWP_AnyClass property to the assault rifle. That's the property that universal items like medkits and grenades have. It allowed my snipers to equip assault rifles, but my heavies still couldn't. No idea why not. I added eWP_Heavy as the next property and that fixed it.