Mod

First time attempting a mod - I'm trying to make a few simple tweaks that would make a big overall change to the style of the game. I think most of these changes are possible, any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

The premise of the mod is that the alien's strategy was to launch a swarm of reapers as their first shot and Earth has become overrun, the only survivors are a few military outposts and the occasional fortified town. So the big change I want to make is that lots of wandering reapers appear on every mission - I'm not at all sure how to do this one.

The second change is that weapons and ammunition are very limited. You begin with a bunch of bullets but you have to ration these as you can't build or buy more. The only way to survive long term is to scavenge from the aliens ships and hope that you have researched how to use/adapt them before your supplies of ballistics run out.

In this timeline, the humans tried to nuke the aliens in orbit, lore lore lore, it is nuclear winter and every mission is a night mission. Vision cones will be longer but only if the lighting permits, so ground combat requires extensive use of flares and fires. You can still get shot out of the dark but not if you've lit the area up effectively, and if you haven't then you are susceptible to reapers pouncing from the shadows.

I want the game to rely less on funding from the supporting nations (the post apocalypse world has little economy) and instead focus on a countdown of how many humans are left alive. High ranking alien ships will be around from the start but you wont be able to shoot them down, instead you'll have to find where they land. The point is that the early game is somewhat hopeless but that you aren't punished much for not winning - you've just got to fend of the (frequent) terror attacks and survive.

Later when you have discovered some key technologies (for air combat and more ammo) you can fight back properly - I want the phase of interrogating live aliens to come towards the end. So you are literally fighting in the dark until quite late on.

Are these changes feasible, are they difficult? I've had a look at the editable files to inspire the above ideas but I'm not sure how much work it will be or skill it will require.

Also any ideas or suggestions would be great, thanks.

So, not speaking from personal experience, but just based off what i've seen done I think most of these are doable.

1. The game has a map editor, so you could make your own maps based on that scenario, as for the reapers, I think there's a way to change how many/what type of aliens spawn in GC.

2. There are several mods that limit ammo, grenades, equipment, etc. Again, not from personal experience and I dont know how to do it myself yet but I think it's doable.

3. Modifying the vision is possible, as for only night I don't know.

4. Im pretty sure you can modify the funding you get from supporting nations.

Many of the above I've seen done, or at least partly done, just not that exact way. I'd think it'd be pretty difficult for some of those things.

Thanks, I had another look at the file I thought would let me spawn reapers, it is actually for the civilians. Derp.

Although there is the folder 'ufocontents' which seems to dictate what enemies spawn for each mission type. Will have a go at changing the files in there, though it wont seem like the reapers are roaming around on the ground. Will do for a start though.

Vision Modification is done through the "amrour_gc" and "aiprops" the variable which affects human night-vision is in the "config" file.

Ammo limitation is buggy in the fact that an ammo clip which is not used up returns to inventory as a full clip.

Funding is modified through the "gameconfig" file--same goes for funding penalties.

Any file or folder that has the word 'aircraft' in it affects aircraft.

From what I've heard; the number of casualties are based off of cumulative funding damage OR in one of the script files.