A Better Barracks Arsenal for LWOTC

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Author: Kiruka

Last revision: 28 Mar, 2023 at 22:44 UTC (4)

File size: 172.4 MB

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Description:

A Better Barracks Arsenal, or ABBA for short, is a collection of weapons and accompanying abilities that are designed and balanced to be played with alongside Long War of the Chosen, but can be enjoyed by anyone who’s willing to do some tweaking. Every weapon in this pack is either copied straight out of, or inspired by, A Better Barracks, which was the first major XCOM 2 overhaul that I played and enjoyed.

ABBA brings 63 new weapons to the table. Here’s what’s going on:

• Advent weapons, which use visuals from the Total Advent Weaponry mod (those are integrated, you won’t need to download that mod) and have 3 tiers each: CV, MG, and BM. CV is roughly the equivalent of LWOTC Laser tier. MG falls in between LWOTC Mag tier and Coil tier. BM is roughly the equivalent of LWOTC Beam tier. These weapons come in loot crates that can drop from any enemy’s timed loot that can include weapon attachment drops. The loot crates must be opened in the Proving Ground, and will require a different number of Engineers, Scientists, resources, and time based on their tier.
• A handful of new conventional weapons and their accompanying upgraded versions, based on the sidegrade techs from ABB. These new tiers are Enhanced Laser (which uses TLE Laser weapon visuals), Master-Crafted Laser (which uses Claus’ Mercenary Plasma Weapon visuals, or TLE Laser if you don’t have those mods), Prototype Plasma (which uses TLE Plasma weapon visuals), and Turbulent Plasma (which uses Team CX’s EU/EW Plasma Weapon visuals, or TLE Plasma if you don’t have that mod). These new weapons are unlocked with the equivalent Magnetic or Beam weapon research, and then built one at a time in Engineering.
• One new later-game rare PCS containing the Trigger Happy ability from ABB.
• An option to bring back Collateral Demolition as a replacement for LWOTC’s (or vanilla’s) Demolition ability. Whether or not you want to use this at all, as well as its more specific traits, are all configurable. It’s busted right now, don’t use.
• Pre-written configurations for Iridar’s Weapon Skin Replacer, Bayonets and Underbarrel Weapons. The WSR configs allow the new sidegrade techs to have different visuals from each other, as well as to have visual attachments. They also give the Advent weapons visual attachments, and impart some more unique behaviors into a few of the weapon types.
• Many new abilities. Other than the Trigger Happy PCS, all of the new abilities are worked into the weapons. Some are "bonus" type ones you’ll use in a pinch, while others fundamentally change how the weapon is used all the time. Be sure to read the descriptions and even poke around the Localizations if you want.

Go to the discussions page for a breakdown of each of the weapons and new technologies.

• Iridar’s Weapon Skin Replacer (and by extension the Highlander) and Open Class Weapon Restrictions are hard requirements. There is literally no reason to not have these amazing tools. Without WSR, the Auto-Sniper Rifles and Advent Breaker Rifles won’t visualize their burst fire properly, and the Advent Acid Launchers won’t fire their proper projectiles. Not to mention everything will look significantly less tasty. Without OCWR, no soldier can equip the Advent Acid Launchers.
• Long War of the Chosen is not a hard requirement, but having it will ensure you have to do the least amount of configuring in terms of stat balance and economy, and you’ll also ensure that there are no missing ability icons or SMG mobility bonuses. Any version should do fine. If you insist on not getting LWOTC, you should consider using WSR to replace missing ability icons and remove or replace the SMGs (not the Advent ones, the XCOM ones) or their abilities.
• Veehementia’s TLP Weapons With Visual Attachments REDUX series of mods, Team CX’s EU/EW Plasma Weapons, and Claus’ Mercenary Plasma Weapons and Mercenary Plasma Hero Weapons are all not hard requirements, but I insist you consider grabbing them. Everything looks so much nicer. For the EU/EW Plasma Weapons, Veehementia’s Ghost Templates version is the one I personally use and tested ABBA with.
• Iridar’s Bayonets and Underbarrel Weapons are not hard requirements, but they go nice with some of the more exotic weapon types here in terms of giving your soldiers a backup offensive option. I’ve also already done the dirty work in configuring them.
• Iridar’s Spark Arsenal includes an Experimental Magazine attachment and a Speed Loader attachment, which many weapons in ABBA can benefit from. They have pre-made WSR configs.
• My Heavy Barrel Gun Attachments For LWOTC mod of course includes the Heavy Barrels, which many weapons in ABBA can benefit from. They too have pre-made WSR configs. This one in particular is thematic because its concept is also inspired by ABB.
• TheNiTrex’s Remove TLP Items mod will remove the original versions of the TLP items to help reduce inventory clutter. Their archetypes etc. will still be accessible by mods like WSR to be used by things like ABBA’s weapons.

(Please note that all of my personal testing has been with all required and optional mods.)

• The Advent Acid Launcher projectiles are sort of janky; they don’t spawn directly from the tip of the barrel. I don’t personally mind, though. It’s still really satisfying to use.
• Stocks on Advent primary firearms may clip with certain TLE attitudes. I don’t really care. If you want to write a better-looking WSR config for them and slip it my way, I will incorporate it and credit you.
• I can’t guarantee every combination of weapon mods will look great on all of these weapons. Experiment, see, and tweak as you need to. I’m not a modeler, I’m just a bad coder.
• Not really an issue, but just in case you’re curious: I didn’t port the Advent Flammenwerfer because Mitzruti’s, RustyDios’, and Iridar’s various Chemthrower-related mods already fill that niche quite nicely.
• The Collateral Demolition feature doesn’t currently work. I’ve disabled it for now.

If you run into other bugs, bring them to my attention and I’ll try my best to fix them. If you have balance-related feedback, I’ll hear you out (especially if the change is easy to do code-wise), but don’t forget you can always customize the mod to your liking as well. Everyone’s toybox is filled with different stuff.

If you’re using ABBA’s Collateral Demolition option, make sure you aren’t using other mods that mess with Demolition or I can’t guarantee it’ll work. In terms of loot drops, all references to vanilla loot tables in this mod use RollGroup 4, which as of right now I don’t believe any other mods are using. I also have new localization entries for SniperStandardFire and SniperRifleOverwatch. Mess with them if you need to.

• I might do some more PCSs if the one I already added actually ends up working. Totally didn’t test to see if it even drops.
• I’d like to make the Hunting Shotguns and Advent Shotguns play nice with Iridar’s WSR Shotgun Animations mod. This would involve using the new reload animation for the Full Reload ability, and the vanilla animation for the Single Reload ability. I do not currently know if all of that is possible.