mod J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4

[pandakraut]

If anyone is looking for tips on recent versions two playthroughs are currently in progress

 

[Sc0rch1ngDr4g0n]

Has anyone been having trouble getting the newest update? I've just redownloaded the game recently. I've extracted the ZIP files and replaced the files in the Data folder but its still showing up as the vanilla game for me. 

[pandakraut]

23 hours ago, Sc0rch1ngDr4g0n said:

Has anyone been having trouble getting the newest update? I've just redownloaded the game recently. I've extracted the ZIP files and replaced the files in the Data folder but its still showing up as the vanilla game for me. 

Others have gotten it working, so it's probably just a location issue.

The default path to extract to is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data

Make sure you aren't in the UGCWReporter_Data folder as that is a common mistake. If you're still having trouble let me know.

[Sc0rch1ngDr4g0n]

I'm an idiot, I extracted to a nearly identical file name for Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) (nice early access game imo). 

Thank you though, the mod works just fine now.

[PaulD]

I've run into an issue where I am building new Corps getting ready to go into Gaines Mills.  By chance, the game has generated officer names in the barracks that are duplicates to two wounded officers.  When I purchase those officers the unit efficiency is a 3 and command drops way down - as if the game see them as wounded and not new officers to purchase.  My work around is to pay for them to get them out of the barracks and dismiss them (because I am making more units than officers so I need to empty all available officers to get the game to give me new minimum required officers to keep making units... of course, I am out of the money that I pay for them and dismiss them.  Never ran into this before (have played over 1,000 hours on the game according to GoG stats) - only seen this since updating to 5/27/21 update.

Thanks

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, PaulD said:

I've run into an issue where I am building new Corps getting ready to go into Gaines Mills.  By chance, the game has generated officer names in the barracks that are duplicates to two wounded officers.  When I purchase those officers the unit efficiency is a 3 and command drops way down - as if the game see them as wounded and not new officers to purchase.  My work around is to pay for them to get them out of the barracks and dismiss them (because I am making more units than officers so I need to empty all available officers to get the game to give me new minimum required officers to keep making units... of course, I am out of the money that I pay for them and dismiss them.  Never ran into this before (have played over 1,000 hours on the game according to GoG stats) - only seen this since updating to 5/27/21 update.

Thanks

This is a bug where when an officer is wounded they are getting added into the academy in a wounded state. This makes it possible to buy them and put them in command of a unit, but they count as wounded and provide no command bonus.

A patch will be out for this soon, though it won't clean up any of the duplicates. Instead of dismissing the officer, you can just replaced them with a different one and they will go back into your reserve with a wounded tag. After the next major battle the officer will be healed and should work as normal.

[Raymond Sebastien]

Two questions:
1) Is there a way to modify the maps?
2) Is there a way to increase the percentage of speed on the road layout? Because there is a huge difference between walking in plowed fields vs a dirt road.

Have a nice day and take care. 😊

[JonnyH13]

Updated to 1.27.4.3

[pandakraut]

1.27.4.2 Change log

Bug Fixes
- Detached skirmisher stats should now be correct after battle save/load.
- Wounded officers should no longer appear in both the Academy and the Reserve after minor battles.

1.27.4.3 Changelog

Bug Fixes
- Fix bug with detached skirmishers not having a parent unit present. Skirmisher will now shatter after a short time if parent is missing.
- Fixed issue around detached skirmishers that was decreasing performance.

Balance Changes:
- Volley duration increased for mounted units
- AI infantry's rotation speed is doubled as if running.
- Fix bug with cavalry rotation speed being higher than intended.
- Mounted Infantry range increase now only applies when dismounted.

Edited June 16, 2021 by pandakraut

[pandakraut]

5 hours ago, Raymond Sebastien said:

Two questions:
1) Is there a way to modify the maps?
2) Is there a way to increase the percentage of speed on the road layout? Because there is a huge difference between walking in plowed fields vs a dirt road.

Have a nice day and take care. 😊

1) Not that anyone has discovered yet.

2) As far as I can tell there the roads are purely cosmetic, the game does not provide a way to track if a unit is on a road vs a field.

[AlJabberwock]

Hi, great updates to the mod (which I have been using since its very early versions).  Loads of fun (I can tell because it gets me cursing pretty regularly- lol)!  

 

I wanted to list a few things that look to be very minor problems of the bug type, and I have only noticed them since I updated (I had not updated the mod for nearly a year, so unfortunately these could have been introduced any time since the last version I was using from over a year ago....although I imagine they would have been pointed out by now if they were not very recent).  

 

I have wiped the mod and the original game and reinstalled again to test if there were any untoward corrupt files and the results were identical.  There well may be other things, but after a good 50 to 60 hours, and a number of replays, I find these minor things you may be interested in:

1)There is something not quite  right with the bookkeeping on some unit losses when replacing losses in camp.  Several times with artillery, cavalry or skirmishers, I have added one man to a unit only to have it not reflect in the unit count (meaning the added 1, takes away a man from the population of the force pool, and it records as one down at the bottom of the unit where a weapon is being used, but the actual count of the unit in the upper right in larger numerals is not showing.  Should you hit 'apply' the unit does not appear to increase in size, yet the force pool is reduced by one and a weapon will be taken for the addition of the now invisible soldier.  I don't know whether this is a fractional issue, but in these cases one has to add TWO men to get to ONE added to the force total in the upper right, after which the units act normally as they receive replacement.  I have not seen this on an infantry unit yet, I don't think, but I have also spied one or two cases where the units' strength count display and its losses display do not pencil...and this DOES include especially infantry units on the battlefield. Again that number will be about one.  The latter issue is not as troublesome as the former, where one may be trying to get a specific number of weapons to go with a specific number of men, and inexactitude makes it a an annoyance.

 

2)Odd and also very minor, but early on (before they are even made available in  the Government Screen) when one is looking at the Armory Shop, ,there are either none or some number below 50 Whitworth's with telescopic sights.  However,, I noticed when looking for alternative weaponry for my first skirmisher/sniper unit, I could see well  over a hundred or even over two hundred Whitworth (TS)'s in the options on the change weapon screen in the upper right.  Again, swicthing back to the armory would confirm there were no such units available, but one could still buy them in the options screen... Weird.  I do not know for which other weapons this might also be true, but I know the Whitworth is not supposed to be an early game weapon avaible in significant numbers so I only tested for that. 

 

3)This may be specific to buffs to the AI in MG/Leg.  but 2 star Brigades (in this last few days I have been playing CSA so these are Union Brig.s) when 'routed' very often simply stand where they are firing away as if the routing legend has no relevance.  The units may turn white or flash white or whatever but units will stand for some time continuing to fire, sometimes still advancing,  or in a few cases firing and meleeing and then if they DO withdraw from battle, annnoyingly will decide to reluctantly 'rout' recalcitrantly BEHIND my lines even when it would make far more sense to retreat towards friendly lines just from the standpoint of immediate safety...  If one is playing the Union where units may be more plentifull this is less problematic since one can afford to detail a 'minder' to deal with the lunatic brigade(s).  As the CSA, this becomes problematic when one cannot tell off brigades one to one to watch all the odd units that begin to collect behind the lines (this was particularly problematic in this last run through of Cross Keys where at one point I had three enemy brigades behind the lines needing to be minded. )

 

AS I said, these are pretty minor and I am ridiculously entertained and enjoying the mod immensely!  For that though, I figured I owe you at least mentioning these items since I know often people don't have the time to let you know.  

 

Thank you so much for your work and you guys making such an active response to all your comments and questions!  ~AL 

Edited June 22, 2021 by AlJabberwock

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, AlJabberwock said:

1)There is something not quite  right with the bookkeeping on some unit losses when replacing losses in camp.

Unit hp is stored as a decimal and depending on where rounding occurs you get these of by one errors. I recently made a change so that artillery units would allow the player to top off a missing man, but this unfortunately made the off by 1 instances more common in other places. I'll probably revert the artillery focused change in a future patch and see if a different fix is less disruptive.

4 hours ago, AlJabberwock said:

2)Odd and also very minor, but early on (before they are even made available in  the Government Screen) when one is looking at the Armory Shop, ,there are either none or some number below 50 Whitworth's with telescopic sights.  However,, I noticed when looking for alternative weaponry for my first skirmisher/sniper unit, I could see well  over a hundred or even over two hundred Whitworth (TS)'s in the options on the change weapon screen in the upper right.

I'm not able to reproduce what you are describing. The numbers displayed in the armory matched the numbers when assigning a weapon to a unit. Are you sure you weren't seeing the Whitworth infantry rifle and mistaking it for the Whitworth TS? The infantry variant is shorter ranged and available in larger quantities than the skirmisher only variant. Or am I missing something here?

4 hours ago, AlJabberwock said:

3)This may be specific to buffs to the AI in MG/Leg.  but 2 star Brigades (in this last few days I have been playing CSA so these are Union Brig.s) when 'routed' very often simply stand where they are firing away as if the routing legend has no relevance.  The units may turn white or flash white or whatever but units will stand for some time continuing to fire, sometimes still advancing,  or in a few cases firing and meleeing and then if they DO withdraw from battle, annnoyingly will decide to reluctantly 'rout' recalcitrantly BEHIND my lines even when it would make far more sense to retreat towards friendly lines just from the standpoint of immediate safety...  If one is playing the Union where units may be more plentifull this is less problematic since one can afford to detail a 'minder' to deal with the lunatic brigade(s).  As the CSA, this becomes problematic when one cannot tell off brigades one to one to watch all the odd units that begin to collect behind the lines (this was particularly problematic in this last run through of Cross Keys where at one point I had three enemy brigades behind the lines needing to be minded. )

It sounds like you are describing multiple issues here, but the wavering functionality has changed somewhat recently. In older versions when a unit hit the wavering morale threshold they would fire off a very quick volley and then retreat. This was done to prevent the base game abuse of AI units who would fire incredibly slow volleys when they started to waver allowing the player to potentially score a large amount of extra kills at very little cost. This has since been replaced with a new system where units will now fire longer volleys(firing sporadically) and the less experienced a unit is the longer the unit will be stuck. 

I'm unsure if you're describing a new issue with your comments on routing. There are some detached skirmisher bugs with infinitely routing units that can occur in multiphase battles when saving and loading, but that shouldn't be coming up on cross keys. If what I'm describing below doesn't sound like what you are seeing please let me know.

In general, routing units try to rout to the area with the least enemy strength. If the unit is in melee and becomes intermixed with your unit, the shortest distance to an area with the fewest enemy units can be behind your line. Keeping reserves, artillery, or detached skirmishers behind your line reduces the chances of this happening. There isn't a lot that I can do about this unfortunately, though the shatter/surrender at 0 morale system has made it a lot easier to get rid of these units before they get through your lines. Have you tried out cavalry? They are extremely effective in the current version at getting rid of stray units.

Thanks for the feedback and glad to hear you're enjoying the mod overall

[AlJabberwock]

@pandakraut

Thank you for your rapid reply and detailed analysis/suggestions!  

On background, Steam suggests I have logged about 1400 hours on UG:CW, easily about two thirds of which I can attribute to your guys' Mod.  (Thanks for contributing to the delinquency of a geriatric... LOL!).

1)Right - makes sense. 

 

These others I respond to in reverse order 

3) For #3 I realize I did a rather poor job of giving you a full  picture of conditions that I imposed. My own analysis on # 3 is as I am faced with a no-pass on CrossKeys with smaller units (I am currently testing nothing larger than 1150).  Since I cannot keep below the 40% force loss, I always draw even though I have held both points. 

As I adopt two lines at the VP's with infantry and or artillery in the second row, the enemy brigades ARE passing through other brigades (even if only glancingly as they try to squirt through gaps that inevitably open up as things get more chaotic in mid to late mission).  It seems to me that both units in this case (the second line units and the reverse-router) DO register contact but only slightly as not much damage is done if any on either side- but units can be seen to be flashing from melee contact.   Perhaps these are cases where the spread of the attacking unit is such that slight, barely perceptible contact is already being made with second line units and then they 'squirt through' instead of back because they consider the second line unit to also already be "where they are"?  ... But I digress.

I had also failed to mention (because it hadn't occurred to me at the time) that I have also nearly uniformly applied the accuracy-buff to all CSA units save the one that originally starts with the melee buff.   Based on some comments you have made in earlier notes, these buffs enter into how the AI calculates the 'strength' of enemy units for melee success.  This helps explain the extreme frequency with which the AI charges even though my units are in superior position and unit numbers (not unit size).   

I should have further also said the CSA Brig's are also only mid to high-level  1-stars since they took such a brutal beating on Shiloh that I couldn't afford to get them to 2-star.  -  but does any of this help explain standing/advancing routing 2-stars?  While I understand the long volley finish, what I am describing appears to be more than one volley, and some 'advances' seem hard to explain as retreats if they are not in contact with the unit they are advancing toward.  Perhaps my unit composition (acc buff, small-ish size, 1-star) is simply SO enticing on MG/Leg. the Ai is just drawn towards them like a bee to honey or zombies to brains  ( ) - or AI 2 star units are vacillating between rout and 'waiver' fast enough they can still stand or advance because they recovers SO quickly from rout to waiver...?  

I will continue to look at this, and if it is prevalent enough where my particular playstyle/composition is NOT the only determinant, will endeavor to get you a video. 

 

2)   Unfortuantely I didn't make a screenie of the weird availability issue, and once the Whitworth (TS)'s show up in the Government window, the problem apprentlly disappears.  Since I wiped/reloaded principally for this problem, and noted it a second time, I am pretty sure I am accurately describing what I saw -but as an infinitely fallable old man I cannot _completely_ discount the possibility that I made the same mistake...twice. Doh! 

  Since it may be siimply that 1150 is too small (for me at least) to get through with all wins given the buffs and other financial/career point decisions I have made to this point on MG/Leg (currently running two concurrent, one of each) - I will go back and start a third just MG with a different set of decisions based on your comments about melee buffs.  If that doesn't do it, and/or a better 1st day Shiloh win isn't possible, its a size limitation - at least for me - and in the process I will see if I can see the availability issue I mentioned a third time and get a screenie (which as an experienced tester, best practices should have been screaming in my -apparently deaf- ears to get!).  ~Al      

   

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by AlJabberwock
Fat fingers, bad grammar, and some simply unintelligible nonsense

[pandakraut]

Here is a recent video series that may help with cross keys or the leadup to it. The carbine cavalry have since been patched and won't be as insanely effective, but should still be quite good. Small brigade sizes are used so it should be a good comparison.

https://youtu.be/PiA_8YGx0MA?list=PLF9w8nYzOAnya5tJqhlB0lYHl-LFC7m-m

Video would definitely help with identifying the other issues if you run into them again.

[AlJabberwock]

Yes!  Excellent series that I thanked you for suggesting.  You will see me singing its praises in your discord chat, and thank you for answering queries there as well! 

I should mention that it is quite possible some of it is underlying game mechanics but even forefall also mentions several times in the first half dozen or so battles what appears to be the occasional imexplicable behavior of routing units towards units of his or towards his rear, or standing and -not continuing a volley- but beginning one, while 'routing'.  

I am still using slightly smaller units than he is (his Brigs look like my largest AFTER he has detached skirmishers), but I will readily say the completely OP look of carbine cav at Cross Keys was outside reasonable expectations, so not surprised that got patched!  Still worth a serious consideration, if one also has a melee cav in the cupboard for skirmisher happy missios like Winchester. 

See you on the Discord!  I will still post creen/vids here on what I find when I do a third CSA campaign.  ~Al 

Edited June 24, 2021 by AlJabberwock

[dixiePig]

On 6/16/2021 at 10:53 AM, pandakraut said:

On 6/16/2021 at 4:54 AM, Raymond Sebastien said:

Two questions:
1) Is there a way to modify the maps?
2) Is there a way to increase the percentage of speed on the road layout? Because there is a huge difference between walking in plowed fields vs a dirt road.

Have a nice day and take care. 😊

1) Not that anyone has discovered yet.

2) As far as I can tell there the roads are purely cosmetic, the game does not provide a way to track if a unit is on a road vs a field.

I was whining about this a while back.  Inability to recognize or use roads (even tho river crossings are recognized) and inadequate troop marching forms are a couple of major fails in the original basic game.

[dixiePig]

Hi PandaKraut & Jonny

Just completed Chancellorsville as Secesh:

In previous versions it's a 2-3 phase battle. Day 1 is frontal attack by Lee. Day 2 is Jackson's flanking attack.  Now, everybody appears on Day 1 and Lee is the only commander on the field. 

Far easier to overwhelm the Feds on day 1:  Was able to take & hold Chancellorsville and it was all over.

Massing for a frontal assault was fun - if brutal.  But Jackson's flanking march is generally recognized as the brilliant piece of work which won the battle.

Is this design change intentional?  What's the rationale?

Does Jackson's end-around attack remain in the game if you're playing the Union?

Optional Frames

Don't know if it can be done, but offering the option of Jackson's end-around OR everybody attacks from the front might add a little zest to the Chancellorsville battle.  Ditto - other battles.  Credible 'What If' scenarios allow me (or the AI)  to make reasonable strategic decisions that would liven up the predictability of sameOld/sameOld.

There might be some excitement if both player and AI make strategic decisions which frame each battle. For example: 

• What If : Jeb Stuart's cavalry had been present from the beginning at Gettysburg?
• WHEN troops arrive and WHERE are a couple of variables that could be interesting

I realize that it may be a heavy lift, but  ... maybe not

[pandakraut]

23 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

Hi PandaKraut & Jonny

Just completed Chancellorsville as Secesh:

In previous versions it's a 2-3 phase battle. Day 1 is frontal attack by Lee. Day 2 is Jackson's flanking attack.  Now, everybody appears on Day 1 and Lee is the only commander on the field. 

Far easier to overwhelm the Feds on day 1:  Was able to take & hold Chancellorsville and it was all over.

Massing for a frontal assault was fun - if brutal.  But Jackson's flanking march is generally recognized as the brilliant piece of work which won the battle.

Is this design change intentional?  What's the rationale?

Does Jackson's end-around attack remain in the game if you're playing the Union?

Optional Frames

Don't know if it can be done, but offering the option of Jackson's end-around OR everybody attacks from the front might add a little zest to the Chancellorsville battle.  Ditto - other battles.  Credible 'What If' scenarios allow me (or the AI)  to make reasonable strategic decisions that would liven up the predictability of sameOld/sameOld.

There might be some excitement if both player and AI make strategic decisions which frame each battle. For example: 

• What If : Jeb Stuart's cavalry had been present from the beginning at Gettysburg?
• WHEN troops arrive and WHERE are a couple of variables that could be interesting

I realize that it may be a heavy lift, but  ... maybe not

We haven't changed any of the phases that occur at Chancellorsville. Both CSA corps arrive on the field on day 1 and you can win the battle on day 1 if you want in the base game as well. This behavior is mostly the same for the union though the spawn points have some minor differences.

Timers in general are too long in the CSA campaign at the moment(probably some Union ones as well.) The new morale damage focus and the shatter/surrender at 0 morale system are working pretty well, but they do allow battles to wrap up much faster then when you had to grind every enemy unit down to 10-35% health and the extra time was needed. This will be adjusted in future versions. For now, consider holding back a bit if you're looking for battles to go into later days.

We would like to experiment a bit more with battle adjustments in the future. Not sure how much is possible, but cleaning up spawn camping opportunities, adjusting timers, and perhaps randomizing spawn locations and timings so the player can't just memorize exactly what is coming are all things we are looking into.

The big restriction with adding strategic choices is how to let the player input those choices. If we can make it work technically, it would certainly be a neat feature to add. Making the choice random, or dependent on winning/losing prior battles would work but would also force the player into some pretty undesirable gameplay loops to get the outcome they want. Could always make it optional I suppose, but still not really optimal.

Edited July 1, 2021 by pandakraut

[dixiePig]

9 hours ago, pandakraut said:

We would like to experiment a bit more with battle adjustments in the future. Not sure how much is possible, but cleaning up spawn camping opportunities, adjusting timers, and perhaps randomizing spawn locations and timings so the player can't just memorize exactly what is coming are all things we are looking into.

Thanks for thorough and speedy response to my comment, PandaKraut.  It's been a while since I played this far in the game. I agree that the most enjoyable & competitive battles are in '62, so forgot that this was how Chancellorsville works.

Good luck with enabling Variations on a Theme:  It will increase playability tremendously.  Dependency on previous strategic actions would be a brilliant addition, but probably difficult to implement.

Still enjoying mod 1.27.3d on MG mode, with a fair amount of value-setting in the tables which resonates with my understanding of historical factors.  

Antietam as the secesh was a good, tough fight.  Fredericksburg was - as always - a turkey shoot.  I am still a little daunted by the (imo) excessive losses and the lack of Spoils Of War at that level, so I tried saving mid-game and then finishing with a different strategy - in hopes of measuring the results and played 2 different endgames.  Here's what I found:

• Aggressive tactics imposing maximum losses on Union, but also suffering heavy losses
• Reserved/conservative tactics imposed fewer losses on enemy, but also incurred (somewhat) smaller losses myself
• There is little advantage in getting aggressive if Victory is based on simply holding a strategic location
• Aggressive attack is worth it when you can seize a strategic location and the game timer is on your side

The enemy continues being suicidally aggressive until the end, even when there is No Hope or advantage.  Battle often ends with enemy infantry totally destroyed:  though I will continue to incur losses, even if I am 'laying back'.  Thus; I'm likelier to get a draw or even defeat because my own losses are over the game's Victory Conditions threshold.  It's non-stop exciting and challenging, but ultimately kind of predictable.

Bonus:  The enemy is often eager to leave strong defensive positions in order to attack aggressively and foolishly.  Even when I am the Assaulter, it is easy to lure the enemy to expose themselves to piecemeal destruction.

The tactical solution is 

1. plenty of massed artillery (which soon becomes very experienced) 
2. Infantry in strong defensive positions (with ability to rest stressed units)
3. concentrated fire on piecemeal frontal attacks
4. cavalry behind enemy lines to take out exposed artillery, capture supplies, and create diversion
5. after that, rested cavalry to deliver coup de grace to weakened attacking enemy infantry units
6. strong 'lines' of infantry deliver supporting fire, are cohesive, and - with concentrated artillery fire - can deal with enemy cavalry attacks

This set of techniques is good, historically successful military tactics - and works against foolishly aggressive armies.

Net/Net:  I can win most engagements, but it's a fairly predictable grind.

Another improvement to AI would be to have enemy behavior somewhat dependent on Command Profile:. The behavior of the enemy army will vary, depending on the profile of their commander.  i.e. They might be aggressive or timid, competent or clumsy, etc.

Thanks again for an excellent set of improvements.

Edited July 1, 2021 by dixiePig

[dixiePig]

12 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Making the choice random, or dependent on winning/losing prior battles would work but would also force the player into some pretty undesirable gameplay loops to get the outcome they want.

Intriguing.  Also consider taking the choice out of some of the chronology. Some battles might be forced on you by the AI. Saunders Farm after Chancellorsville is one such example, the pre-battle (Rufus King) before 2nd Bull Run is another. The 'forced' battles would most likely be defensive ones.

[dixiePig]

Process:

I now (after Chancellorsville) have a huuuuuge Barracks of 13 so-so/weakXP Colonels and a fairly complete army - so I don't really need them..  

• Is there any point in keeping them?
• Is there any advantage to getting rid of many of them?

It seems to me that I will get more value by buying stronger officers from the Academy.

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Process:

I now (after Chancellorsville) have a huuuuuge Barracks of 13 so-so/weakXP Colonels and a fairly complete army - so I don't really need them..  

• Is there any point in keeping them?
• Is there any advantage to getting rid of many of them?

It seems to me that I will get more value by buying stronger officers from the Academy.

You can dismiss them if you want, but there is no upkeep cost or anything like that.

[Revan]

It saddens me that Sharps Rifle is no longer available to equip infantry brigades. I think I understand the reasoning for it, even if I disagree with it - seeing how it was rarely used by line infantry (if still used).

On the other hand, I'm not sure, if removing Sharps but keeping the 1855 revolving rifle, as well as Henry and Spencer rifles for the same role makes sense, considering how rarely were they used in that manner. Not even mentioning such weapons as Whitworth rifle (which to my knowledge was exclusively a sharpshooter weapon) and Joslyn Rifle (which only saw limited production and use). In my opinion, out of all these, Sharps would have perhaps the strongest case for remaining available for infantry anyway. Leagues above Whitworth at least. Of course I understand potential balancing issues that may have led to this decisions, but still - it puzzles me to see every advanced rifle available to equip line infantry, except the Sharps.

On a side note - I've been trying to poke around modding game files to fix this problem at least for my personal use, but failed to find a good way - seeing how modding of UGCW remains rather... complex. There were some walk-around methods, like giving Sharps stats to other rifles, but I found that to be not optimal. If you could potentially give me any guidance on that issue, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.

[pandakraut]

3 hours ago, Revan said:

It saddens me that Sharps Rifle is no longer available to equip infantry brigades. I think I understand the reasoning for it, even if I disagree with it - seeing how it was rarely used by line infantry (if still used).

The main reason it was removed is that we wanted to restore it to a longer ranged rifle to provide a mid tier sharpshooting option and match its historical usage more. We don't want infantry units to have access to weapons with more than 400 range, and it simplifies certain things behind the scenes, so it was removed from infantry.

Many of the weapons featured never saw any large scale historical use. For a vague lore type explanation, it's kind of an alternate reality where those weapons got the backing or overcame their flaws to be used if the player spends the money to acquire them. The main justification is that we want to provide options for the player to progress their equipment later in the campaign.

3 hours ago, Revan said:

On a side note - I've been trying to poke around modding game files to fix this problem at least for my personal use, but failed to find a good way - seeing how modding of UGCW remains rather... complex. There were some walk-around methods, like giving Sharps stats to other rifles, but I found that to be not optimal. If you could potentially give me any guidance on that issue, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.

Allowing infantry to equip sharps as is would require some semi-complex changes to the dll. If you'd like to partially go back to how things were setup before, you can use the weapon files in the /mod/rebalance folder to rename and change the descriptions for an existing weapon that infantry can equip. It is not possible to add weapons currently.

Changing the actual weapon stats would require hex editing. Normally I'd recommend copying the sharps stats over to the colt RR and renaming it, but the colt RR is currently setup as a magazine weapon and there is no way to alter that without dll changes currently. A guide to weapon editing can be found here https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/26225-weapon-and-perk-modding-guide/

Edited July 23, 2021 by pandakraut

[Revan]

Thanks a lot for your reply, seems I at least have some options now.

12 hours ago, pandakraut said:

The main reason it was removed is that we wanted to restore it to a longer ranged rifle to provide a mid tier sharpshooting option and match its historical usage more. We don't want infantry units to have access to weapons with more than 400 range, and it simplifies certain things behind the scenes, so it was removed from infantry.

Figures. Suspected something like that. Sad face. Always liked giving some elite brigades of mine Sharps rifles for great effect.

12 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Allowing infantry to equip sharps as is would require some semi-complex changes to the dll. If you'd like to partially go back to how things were setup before, you can use the weapon files in the /mod/rebalance folder to rename and change the descriptions for an existing weapon that infantry can equip. It is not possible to add weapons currently.

Well, that would depend on how exactly "semi" those complex changes are. I tried renaming some things before, more so hoping to bring sharps back to how it was, but obviously failed. Simply changing descriptions however seems only cosmetic.

12 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Changing the actual weapon stats would require hex editing. Normally I'd recommend copying the sharps stats over to the colt RR and renaming it, but the colt RR is currently setup as a magazine weapon and there is no way to alter that without dll changes currently. A guide to weapon editing can be found here https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/26225-weapon-and-perk-modding-guide/

Yeah, that's what I figured - from the limited guide i managed to find before. This one seems more in depth, thanks a lot. Maybe I will copy sharps stats to some other weapon, I d don't know. Thanks in advance anyway!