Is it possible to modify soldier's stats in any way?

[MindMessiah]

I've been playing the game for a while now, and I love it. I went through the classic X-Com routine of naming every single soldier, customizing their loadouts, and then watching them die horribly the moment they stepped off the dropship. The only problem is that I want more. Now that every soldier has their own preset name, face, and nationality, I don't feel like I have full control over them any more. I remember that in the original game, there were plenty of editors that you could use to edit your squaddie's stats, but from what I've seen so far Xenonauts is much more moddable. Is there any way of changing a soldier's name and such within the game files, or will I have to wait for an editor post-release?

P.S. I don't have a lot of modding experience. If you have any advice, please put it in "layman's" terms.

[Buzzles]

Well, you can change a soldier's callsign in game anyway (on soldier equip screen, click on the name in the top leftish bit).

As for actually changing the names, yes you can. There's an xml file called soldiernames.xml.

I think you can guess at what it's used for

Stats: No.

Maybe at some point if someone makes a save-game editor, but for now, no.

[James009]

I have to admit, I'd love to see a savegame editor or the ability to custom create/edit our soldiers. For me, that just adds to the immersion and attachment to those characters.

[Lionheart_Law]

It's actually quite possible to edit many aspects of the soldiers, if you're willing to put a lot of time and effort into it.

Using a HEX Editor, even a freeware one works well. XVI32 is a nice hex editor.

With a basic understanding of HEX and how to work it, you can somewhat easily edit the stats of soldiers in the game, by editting the savegames directly. Of course, this would encourage making a backup of the savegame before editting it.

You can also change their appearance to a degree using this method.

Make note of either the names or the nicknames of the soldiers you wish to edit.

Open the savegame in the HEX editor, search for text, their name or nickname. Once you find it, you will find several related strings in either the hex or text side. For instance... if you were to see the nickname, their actual name is a few lines above it. And that is where their actual stats begin.

I myself am not too awfully experienced with HEX editting, but know enough that if I were to try to change the names, it could end up in changing the filesize of the savegame and corrupt it. Stats, however, can be easily editted. A few blocks away from their last name their first attribute, their appearance, is listed. On the text side you will see something like "afri" or "nor" or "asi". This denotes their appearance, which can be changed.

A few more spaces past that you see their first stat, TU. It's in HEX form so it will display the HEX number of the characters actual stat. Use the CALCULATOR that windows comes with in the 'View->Programmer' mode to find the HEX equivalent of their actual stat. For instance, if the soldier had 59 TU, that number will show up as 3B on the HEX side. Change 3B to 5F to make it actually 95. The stats that follow after that are in the same order they are shown in game. Happy trials.

Remember to back up that savegame.

-Lawhorn