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[WOTC] Iridar's Five Tier Weapon Overhaul - Vanilla Balance

This mod sets up a five tier weapon system: conventional -> magnetic -> coil -> laser -> beam.

All of the affected weapons, research and schematics are finely tuned to preserve the overall balance of the War of the Chosen without any mods.

Conventional and beam weapons' stats are the same as without mods. Magnetic weapons become slightly weaker, and coil weapons take their place. Laser weapons are slightly more powerful than vanilla magnetic weapons.

Researching weapon technology will take the same amount of time overall: there are more techs to research, but each tech will take less time.

Buying weapon upgrade schematics will cost you the same amount of Supplies, Alien Alloys and Elerium Crystals: there are more schematics to purchase, but each one cots less.

Research takes more time and upgrades are more expensive on the Legendary difficulty, same as without this mod.

Melee weapon schematics additionally require Stun Lancer -> Muton -> Archon -> Andromedon autopsies.


Requires a new campaign. Add this mod to existing campaigns at your own risk.

• X2 WOTC Community Highlander
  
• [WOTC] Iridar's Template Master - Core
  
• [WOTC] Iridar's LW2 Laser and Coil Weapons - Ghost Templates
  
• [WOTC] Iridar's LW2 Laser and Coil Weapons - Assets
  
• Long War Laser Pack - WotC (unofficial)
  
• Coilguns for War of the Chosen

Q: Why did you put weapon tiers in this order?
A: All weapons have a hidden property called Weapon Tech. Breakthroughs and many soldier perks scale with Weapon Tech. The game - and many mods - expect there to be only three possible values for Weapon Tech: conventional -> magnetic -> beam. For example, Shredder perk is hardcoded to give more shred to weapons of beam Weapon Tech. Weapon Tech also determines which weapons are affected by which Breakthroughs. So to me it made the most sense to group magnetic and beam weapons with each other.

Q: I don't like the order of tiers in this mod. Or I don't want vanilla balance. Can you change it or make a different mod?
A: No. But you can change which weapons go into which tier and rebalance them in this mod's configuration. You can also reskin weapons with Weapon Skin Replacer or XSkin.

Q: Which weapons are affected by this mod?
A: Currently it affects sixteen weapon categories, five weapons from each. Full list is here.

Q: Can I preview the new Laser and Coil weapons somewhere?
A: Sure, go here.

Q: Can you make this weapon overhaul compatible with <Insert Mod Name>?
A: No. But you can add configuration for more weapons in the config yourself.

Q: Can I copy this mod's configuration, change it, and release it as my own weapon tier overhaul? Or as a plugin to make <Insert Mod Name> compatible with this overhaul?
A: You are welcome to do so.

Q: How does this weapon tier overhaul work with mods that add three tiers of their weapons?
A: It does a bit of trickery: the Tier 3 "coil" research and schematics are actually magnetic ones behind the scenes, so mod-added weapons that require magnetic research/schematics will become available when you get to coil weapons with this mod.

Q: Can I use other coil and laser weapon mods instead of the ones specified in this mod's requirements?
A: No, this weapon overhaul is specfically set up to work with templates from those two mods.

Q: Compatible with LWOTC?
A: LWOTC uses its own five-tier system, use Mod Jam for LWOTC to integrate my Laser and Coil weapon variants into LWOTC.

Q: Vanilla version?
A: No.


This weapon overhaul is explicitly configured for weapons from the following mods. Their schematic costs will be adjusted automatically, and the weapons will use stats specified in this mod.

• Long War SMG Pack - WotC (unofficial)
  
• [WOTC] LW2 Secondary Weapons
  
• [WOTC] Iridar's SPARK Arsenal
  
• [WoTC] Hunter Rifles
  
• [WoTC] Pathfinders

This mod completely reconfigures all of the affected weapons. Base game weapons, like Magnetic Rifle, no longer take their stats from the game's XComGameData_WeaponData.ini configuration file. Instead, their stats are set in this mod's configuration.

Same goes for mod-added weapons of affected mods, like LW2 Secondary Weapons. If you install this weapon overhaul, these mod-added weapons will ignore configuration in their own mod, and instead will be configured by this mod.

This is not scary, and this is not a problem, just something to be aware of.

In base game WOTC, faction hero weapons, like Autopistols, are added to HQ inventory when you first get a soldier of that faction, e.g. a Templar. With this weapon overhaul, all first tier weapons are added to HQ inventory on campaign start. You still need a soldier of a fitting class to be able to use them, of course.


This mod is essentially a few thousand lines of configuration for the Template Master, so it is entirely configurable through various configuration files in:

If you make any changes to this mod's configuration I highly recommend you make a backup copy so you don't lose them if I update this mod.

Each weapon of each tier is configured individually. If you wish to tweak specific weapon stats, find the config folder with the corresponding weapon category.

To configure strategic balance, like resource costs and research time, go to 2StrategyBalance folder.

To reorder weapon tiers, go to 2WeaponTiers folder.

To make all weapons affected by this overhaul become single-buildable (finite items), go to: ..\Config\4FinalAdjustments\XComTemplateEditor.ini and replace:with

Thanks to Flamingcheesepie and Chris the Thin Mint for gathering and organizing weapon stats for this mod.

Huge thanks to my wonderful patrons who helped me produce this mod. Please consider supporting me on Patreon[www.patreon.com] if you require tech support, have a suggestion for a feature, or simply wish to help me create more awesome mods.