Game doesn't respect MaxCharactersPerGroup for followers?

[LeaderEnemyBoss]

Hey Everyone,

 

I have made the strange observation, that the MaxCharactersPerGroup entry in XcomGameData_CharacterStats.ini does not get the respect it deserves when it comes to followers! As most of you know, pods in XCom 2 consist of a leader and one or several followers. MaxCharactersPerGroup does work when it comes to determine wether followers can be of the same type as the leader. So if I want to add gatekeepers to the follower pool i will get no pod with a Gatekeeper leader and Gatekeeper followers if MaxCharactersPerGroup is set to 1. BUT it does not seem to work for the followers itself. So in a pod consisting of 4 enemies, i can for example have a sectopod leader and 3 Gatekeepers as followers even if MaxCharactersPerGroup for the Gatekeeper is set to 1. If I have no misunderstanding, I think this is a bug.

 

I also discovered, that Alien followers in general always seem to be of the same type. In a 4 enemy pod i will never get for example an archon leader, and 3 different aliens as followers, it's always 3 sectoids, 3 mutons, etc. Advent followers on the other hand can be mixed (stun lancer, mech, trooper for example is possible). If anyone know how to set it up so that alien followers can also be mixed teams, I would appreciate any advice.

Edited March 18, 2016 by LeaderEnemyBoss

[LeaderEnemyBoss]

For those who are interested, I am a bit smarter now. If an enemy is defined as advent, the game DOES respect the MaxCharactersPerGroup entry correctly for followers and leaders. The bug only occurs, if an enemy is defined as Alien. The definition is stored in the Character template (X2Character_DefaultCharacters for the unmodded enemies).

 

My goal is to provide a mod, that increases the number of possible boss enemy spawns in the lategame without allowing for ridiculous pods of 5 gatekeepers or similar. I could just edit the mission schedules and encounters, but this would make my mod incompatible with other popular mods like Additional Dark Events or IESS. I think i will just try altering the gatekeeper and sectopod templates and define them as advent. I do not know however, if this has any unforeseen side effects.