Daemonjax

Sounds cool. Best of luck! :D

Fair enough. Matter of opinion. I modded mine so that 10-100% more exp needed for each officer rank, so I like the high rank rewards to be larger than that. ;) So, I prefer the inverted bell curve. m_iSoldierXPLevels=0 m_iSoldierXPLevels=90 m_iSoldierXPLevels=300 m_iSoldierXPLevels=560 m_iSoldierXPLevels=820 m_iSoldierXPLevels=1325 m_iSoldierXPLevels=2400 m_iSoldierXPLevels=4300 It's easy enough to get to Sgt/Lt (and get the majority of your perks), but after that it's increasingly difficult. Makes you be really careful with your Colonels, and more willing to sacrifice your other troops to save the higher ranking ones. I prefer the system used in the OG for promotions, but whatever. Offtopic: I think that willpower increases for officer ranks should be higher than 2, so that panic feels more like how it did in the OG (High ranks couldn't care less if 4 rookies got their faces melted off). i.e. a progression like: 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Yes. Both eWP_AnyClass and eWP_Heavy seems required to him to equip it. I've tried every combination of eWP_Rifle, eWP_Heavy, and eWP_AnyClass that I can think of. Even eWP_AnyClass and eWP_Heavy without the eWP_Rifle to avoid any possible hardcoded checks. ... but no suppression for the Heavy class. I figure this should work perfectly for the Heavy, but it doesn't: Weapons=(iType=eItem_AssaultRifle,ABILITIES[0]=eAbility_ShotStandard,ABILITIES[1]=eAbility_NONE,ABILITIES[2]=eAbility_Overwatch,ABILITIES[3]=eAbility_NONE,ABILITIES[4]=eAbility_NONE,ABILITIES[5]=eAbility_NONE,Properties[0]=eWP_AnyClass,Properties[1]=eWP_Sniper,Properties[2]=eWP_Heavy,Properties[3]=eWP_None,Properties[4]=eWP_None,Properties[5]=eWP_None,iDamage=3,iEnvironmentDamage=20,iRange=27,iReactionRange=-1,iReactionAngle=200,iRadius=0,iCritical=10,iOffenseBonus=0,iSuppression=0,iSize=eItemSize_Large,iHPBonus=0,iWillBonus=0) Any other ideas? Is this something that definitely works, but I just screwed it up somehow? Or does this problem go deeper? UPDATE: I thought about it some more, and I realize now that it's not that big of a deal if the Heavy Can't suppress with his the standard rifles. Since you can build him without suppression, and his suppression is a little different from Support's, then it can almost make sense (almost but not quite). What would make the most sense is if his enhanced area effect suppression perk (Danger Zone) only worked with the LMG type weapons. But, I realize that is beyond what is current modding possibilities.

I've made assault/laser/plasma rifles available to all classes. However, I'm having a problem with getting assault/laser/plasma rifles to work with the Heavy class. He can equip and use it just fine, but not with his suppression skill. I tried everything I could think of. Anyone got this to work? If not, I'll have to abandon doing this at all since it would be inconsistent (Sniper abilities seem to work as expected). I hate inconsistencies. :D

But then you end up with a Sniper that is not any better of a shot than Assault or Support at the squaddie rank. I dunno, I think a 10 point reduction is kinda extreme.... maybe a 5 point reduction is warranted, but I'm not convinced of that yet. :D Snipers do receive one less hitpoint than the others, and get a relatively useless perk at squaddie.

yarp, as originally suspected this re-arrangment of stats doesnt work well in-game. It makes early game far to easy with "super-snipers" the main culprits. Snipers in particular need to be a class that requires slow-cooking. It would probably work better for the others, but I still think something like the inverted bell curve is best for gameplay for balance reasons. One change I did make was that I distributed 5 more aim points to the heavy class over the course of his career. ;) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Squaddie, iHP=1, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=5, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Corporal, iHP=0, iAim=2, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Sergeant, iHP=1, iAim=2, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Lieutenant,iHP=0, iAim=2, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Captain, iHP=1, iAim=1, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Major, iHP=0, iAim=2, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) SoldierStatProgression=(eClass=eSC_HeavyWeapons, eRank=eRank_Colonel, iHP=0, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 ) Ignore the reduced hitpoints, since it has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. :D

Classic feels like 50% more enemies than Normal, and Impossible feels like 50% more enemies than Classic. I could be wrong, but it's something like that.

On Normal you can lock down the AI easilly using just overwatch. Once I realized that, I couldn't play on Normal anymore.

I think that if you engage the ufo, and then abort, it's 1. That's reasonable, and would require no change to that value. In my own personal mod for Classic (just tooling around currently), I put the units starting hit points up 1, but then took 1 away from each unit on their level progression. The reason I did this was because I didn't like the fact that new hires ignore the health modification, so it really only affects the units you start with. Removing the penalty removed this bug. ;)

The inverted bell curve makes sense to me from a game design point of view. There's two conflicted goals that need to be resolved: 1) You want the player to feel like he's progressing, so you want bigger bonuses as you increase in level. 2) The character has to be proficient enough at the beginning in order to survive. The inverted Bell curve solves the above, but sacrifices a little bit of realism. If you frontload too many bonuses, then there's less of an impact as you gain in level. So, with your mod, there's less change in a Soldier's aim as he increases in rank. But, as you said, it's your mod and your game. Have fun! :D

I read in another thread that that value is the divisor used in the calculation, so you have to reduce it to increase the odds of getting a gifted rookie. You could try a value less than one... like .1, may or may not work.

Off the top of my head, things you can do to make Classic easier in the beginning but notsomuch nearing the middle/end: 1) Increase starting cash. 2) Decrease the bonuses of enemies you are more likely to encounter at the beginning of the game, while increasing those of enemies in the endgame. 3) Increase the hitpoints of your starting units. 4) Decrease the engineer requirement on workshops and labs to 5. 5) Decrease research time of beginning techs, while increasing those of endgame techs 6) Decrease XP required for gaining ranks up to Lt., while increasing XP requirements for higher ranks 7) Increase the power of starting base, while decreasing the power grained from high end Power Plants eight) Increase the starting Armor hitpoint bonus to 2

Yeah, .net and java standard libraries are rather great. I've never tried modding any game built on the Unreal engine, but anything programming related I can do. I don't know what you mean by "editor switch". I understand there's a freely downloadable SDK for it, right? I also read it doesn't work correctly with xcom, though. Anyways, I already modded Classic to be a little more like Normal. :P

You're right. It's more work. ;) Anyways, what I was hoping to accomplish doesn't seem possible atm. I really just wanted to unshackle the Normal AI. It's so stupid that Normal is unfun for me. But... that looks like it's hardcoded, and the the .exe is 27 megs... I'm not dedicated enough to scope through something of that size. It looks like it's MUCH easier to just modify Classic to be exactly like Normal, and then I'd have Normal with the better enemy AI.

Yeah, Tortoise is the way to go on windows if your programming IDE doesn't have built-in SVN support (ala Netbeans IDE). There's even a Notepad++ plugin for it. :D @dreadylein I downloaded your patcher, and I plan to use it. I was thinking about what happens when Firaxis decides to change some of these settings... Your patcher would overwrite them, even of the author of the mod didn't want to touch those settings. Wouldn't it be better for the .mod file to only have lines that are changes? Or does the .exe work that way already? i.e. does your patcher expect there to be a certain number of lines in the .mod file? Also, does your .exe rely on the position of binary data? So, when Firaxis puts out an .exe patch, will it break your code until you find the new addresses for the data? Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know how your patcher actually works. ;)

Thanks, this is pretty awesome. :D One quibble: For the love of baby jesus, can you please use dropbox or google code to host the file? EDIT: Google Code can track number of downloads in addition to providing version control through subversion (if you choose to use that feature). You don't actually have to use the source section at all, but it would behoove you to do so. ;) TL;DR: Dropbox is the #1 choice for pure hosting and ease of updating (the new version would have the same download link as the old one), but Google Code has a lot of features you may like.

Perhaps you should try landing the dragon near the player, rather than exactly on him. Just a thought ;) I would try not to use SetForcedLandingMarker() at all. Instead, use PathToReference() to get the dragon to a distance sufficiently close to the player. Once sufficiently close, use SetAllowFlying(false) to cause him to land. What sufficiently close means is up to you.