No, this is a spinoff of ABB. Everything in here is already in ABB.

can this be used alongside ABB?

For those that want to try (like i did) the changes in ABW with a (mostly barebones) Proficiency class playthrough: It works mostly fine, but the APA marine does not get along with the changes to cannons at all. Sustained Fire/Traverse fire never kick in. Which is expected given the changes, but this can serve as record/warning for those that are looking to attempt it (without writing a bridge).

Relevant mods:
ABW, WAIO and dependencies.
Proficiency Class pack and dependencies.
Armor and Vest overhauls.

oh yeah since I'm running the WiO smg mod I don't need that mod anymore right? does it still keep the unique smg weapon slot that the WiO SMG mod covers?

Say does this also include some of the added on stuff from ABBA like the new conventional weapons and Advent weapons?

So for anyone interested, making A Better Weaponry lootable weapons work with [WOTC] Loot Pinatas Light turned out to be pretty easy.

1) Open \steamapps\workshop\content\268500\1343283560\Config\XComGameCore.ini
2)A Better Weaponry's loot drops to somof the loot tables in that config

I chose to add them to ADVENT tables specifically (seems to make sense) but there are other tables(like Alien or Boss), all clearly defined in the file.

Search for ";Custom Loot Tables". Below it there are three tables for early, mid and late loot respectively.

Edit so that lines including LootPinatas_ADVENTEarly, LootPinatas_ADVENTMid and LootPinatas_ADVENTLate end with

, Loots[7]=(Chance=30,MinCount=1,MaxCount=1,TableRef="ABW_Weapons_CV",RollGroup=8) )

, Loots[7]=(Chance=20,MinCount=1,MaxCount=1,TableRef="ABW_Weapons_MG",RollGroup=8) )

, Loots[7]=(Chance=10,MinCount=1,MaxCount=1,TableRef="ABW_Weapons_BM",RollGroup=8) )

respecitely.
And that is it.

I appreciate the detailed explanation! Thank you! Will try and work something out with this.

For applying ABW changes to other weapons:
Check out Config>XComGameData_WeaponData.ini
At the end of that file are lines where the vanilla (and TLE) weapon templates are added to which weapons are to be edited. If you have weapons from other mods, you need to know their templatename, then you can add them to the appropriate index.
Again, i don't have MOCX installed (actually, i don't even have XCOM installed right now^^), so i can't give you a specific example, but you can hopefully work out how it's done from what is in the file and the comments i put in there.

For Loot:
Check out Config>Loot>XComLoot.ini
In that file i add my loot to the vanilla loot tables. Those vanilla tables are called ADVENTEarlyTimedLoot, ADVENTMidTimedLoot and ADVENTLateTimedLoot. If any other mods you use cause your enemies to drop from other tables than those, you'd have to edit my XComLoot.ini to add my loot to those other tables instead. I am not familiar with the Loot Pinata mod so i can't tell you specifics.

Hey, first of all thank you for the awesome mod! Really freshens up the vanilla options and actually introduces some variety and choice. Well done!

I do have a question though. What is the condition for getting the scavenged weapons? I am yet to see a single one. I suspect the cause might be Loot Pinatas Light mod that I'm using. If that is the case, any way to make that mod and this mod friends?

Another is - it is stated that there is an option to add ABW changes to MOCX weaponry but I can't find the option in the files - could you please tell me where it is?

Not without doing some modding of your own, there is no simple ini switch to throw out weapons.

I'm quite new to mods, is there any way to disable custom weapons?

Nope, no plans. In fact, i haven't been modding for two and a half years now. I don't expect i will pick it up again.

i don't remember if it was asked, but any plans for pistols, or adjacent mod for it?

Yep, that is correct.

Just as a heads up for anyone in the future who might be curious like me, this mod innately works with Superior Explosives since that mod doesn't touch tier 1 frag grenades, and this mod doesn't effect any grenades besides the tier 1 frag or introduce any grenades past the tier 1 flechette. ABW keeps the vanilla plasma grenades as the tier 2.

The compatibility section in the description already has a warning about running this mod with RPGO, although for a different issue. I wasn't aware that RPGO also alters the weapons, when i last used it it was only doing skilltrees and skills.

Fair warning to those who actually read, there's a incompatibility with the RPGO mod; things like the shotgun re-balance overlaps with the shotguns in RPGO, even after you turn off the RPGO shotgun change in the mod config. If you're reading this DerBK, I recommend letting others know about this before this comment fades.

I'm not aware of any that work out of the box, but i would assume that there are some around that let you add my grenade to their ini. I don't know any specific ones though, never used any myself.

Fwiw, once you upgrade to Plasma Grenades, the grenades are vanilla again so the other mod would take from that point again.

Nice mod, you made me unsub the 5 tier weapons mod.
Do you know any other grenade mod that works with the new base grenades you add?
Grenade Rebalance does not boost the range of the explosion of your grenades, and playing against more enemies is kinda hard with small explosions.

Well, ABW exists as a version of ABB that is compatible with other mods, so that hopefully wouldn't need further adjustments.

If you want to use actual ABB with CI and SO, then that falls squarely into the "don't mix ABB with other mods" thing that i have been preaching for years. You might be able iron out some of the kinks with heavy editing, but probably not everything.

Learned about SOCI and Covert Infiltration today and I'm stoked to try em out. But I've been using ABB for literally years at this point, and the spreadsheet it causes issues with the economy in SOCI. That seems like something that could be addressed via file edits. Is there an easy list of what to look for and tweak, or would I need to spend some quality time with notepad to manually rebalance ABB for use with SOCI?

well alright then.i'll live with it. Thanks for the work btw!

No, i'm afraid that is just a straight up mod conflict that you can't solve from ini.

Question, when running both this and Chosen Reward Variety, there's an item called Pulse Cannon in that mod, which means I'll never be able to see it as this mod also contains Pulse Cannon. Is there a way to edit the ini on my own to resolve this?

All you need for the initial Laser and Prototype Plasma Research is Modular Weapons. This is intentional, as these sidegrades are supposed to be able to allow you to shortcut some research on the main path (although at the cost of a lot of resources and you will eventually need the main path as well).

The names for the coil, rail, prototype plasma stuff changed a bit during the lifetime of ABB, that's why the ini is a bit confusing. Basically, anything called "Coil" in the ini is Prototype Plasma. So for example, if you find a reference in the inis to CoilSniper, that's the Protoype Plasma Lance.

is it normal that u can build research plasma prototype and laser so early? I can research them after i build the proving ground as first building. What research as prequisite is needed for them(to find a conflict)
am i blind or is there no ini for the prototype plasma weapons, only for all other ones?

Ok, as far as I can tell, everything is working fine on my end. I used your idea and renamed the ability template to ABW_Spray and changed everything related to it and it's showing up in game and working alongside RPGO's Spray ability. Currently it has all my personal .ini edits but when I have a minute I'll probably reset them to your defaults and reupload it as RPGO-compatible. Thanks for the encouragement and the awesome mod in the first place!

Good luck with that! Be sure to use the search function of the SDK that brings up all instances of Spray in my mod. Because you'll not just need to edit the class that creates the ability, but also any that reference it (like the one that assigns abilities to weapons and possibly others i don't remember). Also the localization and ini references.

It's a good introductory thing to practice with the SDK, sure. Although i don't envy anyone who has to wade through my messy coding :D

Ok, maybe I'll try and change the templates in the SDK just so I can have both working in my game and get a little practice with that tool. Guess with your permissions I could always re-upload it but it might screw with anything dependent on it. I'm gonna guess your mod is less likely to have dependencies than RPGO, although idk how many other mods would ever reference either Spray ability in the first place.

You can't change the template names from ini or localization, that has to be done in the actual mod files (.uc) with the SDK. You won't be able to actually fix this and you might even have your Spray ability behave different from day to day depending on which mod gets priority when the game starts up... it should go by some sort of load order, but (unlike with ini overlaps which can be solved with load order) that never was very reliable for this sort of conflict in the template creation.

No problem, just having fun trying to get everything balanced in my game. It does seem to clustermuck the abilities together, like I'm getting the text from your mod for the ability, but it's applied to the Autopistol like in RPGO. I can't really tell which ability itself is being used but I think it's pulling yours. Would making it compatible on my end just involve changing the template names for one of the "Spray" abilities and all corresponding references in all the files on Modbuddy, or is there more technical stuff than that?

Yeah, that's the conflict. An overlap in the template name and XCOM will only ever load one of the two abilities. Not sure how it decides which one.

I guess that's on me (and on RPGO), we should've named our abilities ABW_Spray and RPGO_Spray instead of just Spray to avoid this sort of thing. But nothing i can do about it now, i am afraid.

I will add a note about this to the compatibility bit in the description. Thanks for doing the legwork on that.

Ok, so the only thing I'm having an issue with configuring is getting the Spray ability to show up on cannons, even with Ability to Slot Reassignment. However, RPGO adds its own Spray ability to Autopistols. The Localization files in both call for
[Spray X2AbilityTemplate]
LocFriendlyName="Spray"

I'm gonna guess that's the conflict? It would explain why only cannons have this issue and means the MCM probably does actually do something.

No worries, thanks for the prompt response. It's just weird that it only seems to be the cannons. Shotguns still have single reloads and deep cover, all the .ini edits seem to be working for damage on all the weapons, not sure how the range tables are affected but I haven't done that much in-game testing. There's even an MCM dedicated to turning off RPGO's weapon changes, but turning all of those off doesn't seem to change anything.

I did do enough testing to verify that the MCM settings do nothing to revert cannons to having Spray or taking 2 actions to fire, but they do still get full reload. Pretty sure there are a few mods that would let me add Spray back to cannons, mods or .ini tweaks to make firing 2 actions again, and Limited Reloads plus Reload Rework lets me achieve my personal spin on that part of the game.

If there is an overlap in the template names (their unique IDs, basically) of the abilities or weapons between the mod, there is nothing you can do. Same goes for if RPGO also wipes and reassignes abilities to the base game weapons. I assume the latter is the case here.

I did take some measures to make ABW a good deal more compatible than my full ABB package, but of course RPGO is a massive beast itself so it might just not be something that works together.

Sorry, i don't have anything more definite to say about it, i am not too familiar with RPGOs inner workings.

I was using this with RPGO and didn't notice right away that it was conflicting with the cannon. It's hard to say exactly how much is being conflicted overall, but the other weapons at least retain all their ABW abilities, but the cannon doesn't get spray and even though the text says it takes 2 actions to fire, it only requires one. I was poking around in the .ini files for both mods and didn't come up with anything useful, is this just a hard incompatibility?

Weird that you would get a Headshot with the Strafing Shot in the first place then. Oh well.
If you want to see if any other mod causes it, the change would have to be made in the GameData_SoldierSkills.ini where skills can be added to a list of "ValidHeadShotAbilities". ABW doesn't even have one of those, as none of the skills in this mod are valid headshots, but some other mod might add the StrafingShot there (because they have an ability of the same name perhaps?)
Other than that, i don't have an idea what could cause the issue.
I suppose if you have some other way to make Strafing Shot not end your turn you could run into something similar.

No, I didnt change anything with the abilities. Also, I didnt know that Strafing Shot couldnt trigger Lost Headshots before this LOL. Well, if the intention was that Strafing Shot shouldnt trigger Lost Headshots, then it all balances out I guess.

That makes sense to me, mechanically Strafing Shot applies a movement malus onto you until end of the turn.

That being said, Strafing Shot isn't supposed to be able to trigger Headshot. So this is only an issue if you added it to the list of Headshot abilities yourself?

Not sure if this is the one causing it or [WOTC] Weapon and Item Overhaul: LW SMG Plugin, but SMGs' Strafing Fire seems to have a bugged interaction with Lost Headshots. If a soldier using a SMG has 2 AP and lands a Lost Headshot, the rest of their 2 AP movement is halved.

You don't, at least it's not configurable from ini.
You'd have to make an actual mod specifically for that.

How do I make it so Shotgun reloads 2 ammo per reload instead of just 1. Personally, I feel like 1 ammo per reload is too harsh even with increased damage / Deep Cover

[WotC] RW Realistic Aiming Angles & Highlander+ (but not the Original,"Wotc Realistic Aiming Angles") should work now with this mod, it ignored negative aim modifiers before patch

Might still work, but you could end up with something weird like three different meme bacons instead. Depends on how they do their thing.

guessing this wouldnt work with savage items beta because that mod adds a shittier version of the meme beacon but the average meme beacon is nerfed in this mod

yea, i disabled it for now, its too risky, and informed the modauthor,
it modifiers the same class as eu aim rolls, but this works,
it added ApplyVerticalBadAngleAgainstHigherTargetAsProportionalHeightDisadvantage and
AllowFarCoverToGiveSomeCoverProtection, rly fancy

In that case i would question what other modifiers that aiming angles mod purges. I am really not doing anything fancy or special with Spray.

found the conflict, doesnt work with [WotC] RW Realistic Aiming Angles & Highlander+

yes, im wondering about that too, what could possible remove the aim without changing the ability
in its core
xcom2 is so weird
could it just no show up in the preview, so it shows wrong aim and it is actually working without knowing?