Modding Questions

[Siresmith]

I know it hasnt been out that long... but if you know about the JA fanbase, you know our love of modding the game.

Anyhow, to the point... there are tons of lua and xml files, so modding should be quite fun.
I have two questions... that I hope someone can answer:

1) IMP - what file contains a cap that resets your ability/skill scores to 85 and except for medical which gets dropped back to 50? I have found where to tweak the amount of points you have to spend to raise skills, as well as where the min/max values appear... but the game seems to ignore my changes to the min/max value adjustment.

2) IMP - is there a location that I could enable the creation of more than one IMP personality, and which file is it?

Someone please help.

[Erik Rutins]

Not sure, off the top of my head. The person at Matrix who would likely know is at a convention until next week, I'll ask him to post then but most likely you all will have found the answers yourselves.

[vorkosigan]

I have taking a look... and HG is definitely moddable.

For instance, most of the data for items in the game is nicely stored in MSXML Excel Spreadsheets, or the scripts they use to compose the game UI are there as well, in plain text.

[ArtVan9000]

In Hired Guns\basis\scripts\logic there is a excel spreadsheet "weapons", so there is a rarity and a phase column in there. Would editing rarity/phase column or any give better weapons at start???

[SlickWilhelm]

I wonder how big of a job it would be to make an "English native language" version of all the dialog in the game. The faux-English grammar in the game is annoying the heck outta me. 

[zknight]

Well if someone gets their hands on all the original dialog in Russian, I can definitely do it easily if it's just text/xml files that need to be changed.

Although anybody can probably just go though and fix it based on what they were most likely trying to say...usually the wording is just off.

[SeanD]

Well if someone gets their hands on all the original dialog in Russian, I can definitely do it easily if it's just text/xml files that need to be changed.

I'm not sure this is the case but I can look into this.

[Imvarda]

I'd like to know how to edit the breath / endurance thing in this game...could anyone find a place where I can set it so that breath is completely out of the game? I don't think it makes the game fun for me at all so I'd just like to play without collapsing idiot mercs.

[ArtVan9000]

Seems that if you edit phase in weapons or clips you can get any weapon/ammo at the start

[milkweg]

ORIGINAL: Imvarda

I'd like to know how to edit the breath / endurance thing in this game...could anyone find a place where I can set it so that breath is completely out of the game? I don't think it makes the game fun for me at all so I'd just like to play without collapsing idiot mercs.

Found this in another thread. Haven't tried it yet but will shortly. Thanks to author.

"I have found a rather easy fix. Just half the BP value for single and burst in "Hired Guns\basis\scripts\logic\action_cost.xml" and the mercs will stop passing out just because they fired a couple rounds."

[Siresmith]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Not sure, off the top of my head. The person at Matrix who would likely know is at a convention until next week, I'll ask him to post then but most likely you all will have found the answers yourselves.

BUMP

Erik can I get that info now?
There is a file on upping the points you have to spend... that helps, but is there a way to increase and have it hold the maximum you can take a stat too?

[SeanD]

Re: New IMP character - At this point I don't know if it's is possible without code changes (which means there's no way for a regular user to do it themselves). My gut is that you can't do this but I will investigate a bit further and confirm.

Re: Modifying max points - Unless we get a way to edit sav files I don't think you can directly edit your IMP character. If there was a way to edit your max points I think it would be a LUA file somewhere in the basis/campaigns folder. Again, I'm not positive but I can look into this further.

[ShadoWarrior]

Siresmith, as I posted in another thread, in the file Constants.xml you can alter the number of points available to spend on your custom merc. The same file also contains an entry called "TRAINING_RATING_CAP" which is set to 85 and is probably the cap you're looking for. As Sean says, though, such changes will only be effective in a new game.

[Siresmith]

SeanD - Thanks.
I'm thinking you are right... it appears tied somewhere to the actual engine or code.

ShadoWarrior - Thanks, read through the Mod posts.
I have edited the Constants.xml, and it lets me change the Imps skills/attributes until I go out to the actual world then they drop back to 85.[&:]  Does this not happen to yours once you leave the IMP generation point?
I have also changed the training_rating_cap but it does not appear to be tied to IMP, it appears to be tied to the Mercs being trained by each other in-field.

[ShadoWarrior]

I have not altered TRAINING_RATING_CAP in my Constants.xml file. I've only altered the number of points you can spend, and the number of points you get from reducing a skill to zero, and I know those changes do work because I'm playing a game with a merc that's been created with the changed values. If TRAINING_RATING_CAP only affects training max, and not max stat value, then the value must be, as Sean has surmised, hard-coded into the program (bad, bad coders, shame on them). I wasn't aware that HG limited your stats to 85, period. I was (perhaps wrongly) assuming that HG was like JA2 in which you cannot start with a stat higher than 85, but you can raise them to 100.

[NobillyT]

ORIGINAL: ShadoWarrior
I wasn't aware that HG limited your stats to 85, period. I was (perhaps wrongly) assuming that HG was like JA2 in which you cannot start with a stat higher than 85, but you can raise them to 100.

I'm going to do a test to see if it's possible to boost an IMP merc's stats beyond 85 during gameplay. I will start a new game and only hire 1 merc with very high accuracy, set them to trainer and my IMP to student (with 85 accuracy), then let time go until I run out of money. During this time, it is likely that if 85 is not the max, then my IMP's accuracy will be bumped above 85.

Of course this test is not proof positive either way if it fails, it can only provide conclusive evidence if I can bump the stat to 86.

I will post the test results here shortly.

edit: Noted I would start my IMP with 85 accuracy.

[NobillyT]

Results: it doesn't look good for getting IMP stats beyond 85. I started an easy game (for most money) made an IMP with 85 accuracy, and was only able to hire Venom (the better mercs refused due to lack of reputation), but she has accuracy 94 so I figured it would do fine for the purposes of this test.

I had Venom train my IMP for 17 days, the IMP had his Strength, Dexterity, and Agility each bumped by 8-9 points, but no change in accuracy.

As I said before, this is not conclusive but it would seem as though 85 is a hard coded IMP stat limit.

edit: scratch that, the max IMP stat limit is NOT 85.

[NobillyT]

OK guys, I loaded up my save game from the actual game I was playing and I my IMP's accuracy was 86. So this is good news to me, because it means that the max for the stats is not hard-coded at 85. Instead the max for training is 85 is (and even if I change the TRAINING_RATING_CAP value to 100 this still seems to be capped at 85) and I can live with that. That means if you want a stat beyond 85 it must be raised with actual field experience, which makes sense as there is only so much you can teach something, people still need to "do" to learn.

[clayog123]

ORIGINAL: ArtVan9000

Seems that if you edit phase in weapons or clips you can get any weapon/ammo at the start

This is true, but DJ's will still come up random with what they have to sell. So if you quit and reload, there may be a different selection. I have noticed this at the start of the game only, as I have not yet even made a character and started.

I played the demo, and modded it...because it was just too darn difficult on easy to kill anyone. Once I picked up the full retail version, I knew that I would not like it unless there were some changes; especially after reading in these forums.

So I tweaked a few things, now at least I can equip my squads and have ammo to fit. Will have to wait a bit yet to see if they can take down any targets...but I can mod that later if need be.