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Buildable Units (LWOTC compatible)

Buildable Units is a series of Proving Grounds projects that will allow you to build cheap, disposable robotic units to add to your barracks and deploy into combat in place of regular soldiers, much like SHIVs from XCOM EU/EW. This mod was designed with Long War of the Chosen in mind, but it is not a hard requirement. Many aspects of this mod are configurable, including but not limited to resource costs, build time, required research, and character/weapon stats. All character and item templates are used only by this mod, so you can mess with them as much as you want. If you want to customize even more about Buildable Units, like adding other resource requirements besides just supplies/corpses, I recommend Iridar's Weapon Skin Replacer. You can also use LWOTC's XComLW_Overhaul.ini config file to do similar things.


Here are some traits common to all of these robotic units:

• They don't rank up at all. They begin at Automaton (Squaddie) rank and stay that way indefinitely.
  
• Each of them comes with their own gear. They can't use any other equipment and have no utility slots.
  
• Although they cannot hack or interact with most objectives, they can still rescue civilians, and some of them can mark supply crates and pick up timed loot as well.
  
• They can't form bonds, but much like SPARK units they can always be deployed into combat regardless of damage taken. Unlike SPARKs, they don't share a repair slot in engineering and are slowly repaired as the days pass much like how your biological soldiers heal. If you want them to be repaired in Engineering like SPARKs, you should download RustyDios' Expanded Robotics Repair Bay mod. Not only will that make the function actually work, but with the number of robots you'll be able to amass quickly with Buildable Units, you will need the extra slots.
  
• Any unit that has a wreck/corpse in its build costs will drop one of the same kind if it gets destroyed in battle, which you can recover as long as you don't have to evac from the mission. Other resources are lost. Note: the Enigma Drone only drops a Drone Wreck, not a Spectre Corpse, this is by design.
  
• Although each of them has an armor item, it doesn't actually do anything for them stat wise. Its main purpose is to provide something to add to the EquipmentCovertness setting in XComLW_InfiltrationSettings.ini, which is used by LWOTC to determine how much or how little time a unit takes to infiltrate a mission. By default, SPARK-sized units take about as long to infiltrate as a SPARK does, while units around human size or smaller take much less time.

• A lot of the same kind of jank that the Playable XCOM 2 Aliens mod features is also present here. T-posing during certain cutscenes or photobooth, for example. They also don't walk or fly directionally at all during the deployment or returning to Avenger scenes, they just stand or hover there staring at you like you're the one who doesn't know how to move properly. During missions however, they behave just fine.
  
• If you use config options to give the robotic units utility slots and then give them things like grenades or medkits or a Skulljack, they'll glitch out or maybe crash the game when they try to do an animation that they don't have.
  
• Likewise, if you use Weapon Skin Replacer or something to change around their main equipment, I can't guarantee all of their abilities will still animate properly or even work at all depending on what you go with.
  
• You should probably not mess with their customization in-game at all, other than text-based stuff like name.

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.

Since everything in this mod uses a new template, there should be no major conflicts whatsoever. The Bulwark, Mark Target and Celatid Immunities abilities have new localizations but nothing that will break your game.

• Perhaps a series of Proving Grounds projects to marginally improve these units by granting them new abilities, much like certain SHIV techs in EU/EW, or RealityMachina's Metal Over Flesh mod. If I did this, I'd likely need to rebalance the unit costs a bit.
  
• I might add more units if I can come up with more ideas (no, not a Sectopod, they're too big, I don't care if Nintendo put Ridley in Smash).

• Pavonis Interactive for making Long War 2, which the Drones, MEC Archer and Resistance MEC in this mod are from, and for making it available for the community to use in their own mods.
  
• Lots of folks on the XCOM 2 modding Discord for hearing out and answering my embarrassing rookie-tier questions while I made this mod: Iridar, E3245, Grobobobo, SolarNougat and Mitzruti.
  
• RustyDios, who provided code (based on Iridar's and Mitzruti's) to fix the issue of PG Projects not showing up, and for hooking me up with, and showing me how to use, the new Proving Grounds project images and class icon images (also making the latter, with the exception of the SHIV one which is based on a Ketaros 2D assets icon, edited by me and touched up by RustyDios). Also for helping me fix the console commands and generally pointing me in the right direction when it comes to coding. Also for making the New Class Icons 2020 mod and Expanded ROBOTICS Repair Bay mods, which make Buildable Units much better.
  
• nelVlesis for making the new Proving Grounds project images.
  
• Claus for creating the Spark Flamethrowers mod, and Iridar for created the Spark Arsenal mod, which the MEC Pyroclast's weapon borrows an archetype from either.
  
• Iridar yet again for making WSR, which let me cut lots of corners with my code and add extra features.
  
• Team CX for making the Celatid Turrets and the Phase Drone, which Buildable Units adds its own versions of.
  
• fireborn and Team CX for making the SHIV and Alloy SHIV, which Buildable Units adds its own versions of.
  
  (If I need to credit anyone else, let me know and I will do so ASAP.)