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XCOM 2 >  Workshop > John's Workshop > (WOTC) Starting Soldiers > Discussions
(WOTC) Starting Soldiers
Description Discussions2 Comments226 Change Notes
Plat 2 May, 2018 @ 12:06pm
2
How to use this mod
Because there is no documentation available, I'm going to try to save you some headache.
The main method of you interacting with the mod is through the configuration file XComStartingSoldiers.ini.

At the bottom of the config, it has two true/false switches, you probably don't want to touch them unless you know exactly what you want to achieve. Here's what they presumably do.

bRemoveStartingSoldiers, if set to true, completely stops XCOM 2 from generating any soldiers when campaign starts, letting you have complete control over who you start with.

bReplaceStartingSquad only has an effect is the previous switch is set to false, and presumably, forces the soldiers generated by this mod into your starting 4-person squad.

What this mod does is that for every line of .CHARACTER_INFO=, it will add the corresponding soldier to your barracks at the start of the game. How exactly it will be done depends on your personal preferences.

So if you know for sure who you want in your barracks, you'll need to make 10 soldier entries and set bRemoveStartingSoldiers to true.
.CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="")
This will pull 10 random soldiers from your character pool.
If you instead do a
.CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="John Doe")
it will look for a character in your pool who has first name of exactly John, last name of exactly Doe, and if he's found, it'll add him to your starting soldiers.
If it doesn't find a John Doe, it'll make up a completely new soldier just as the game would usually do, which could be useful if you want to avoid having character pool soldiers at the game beginning, but in that case I'd rather do
.CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*") .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*")
with bRemoveStartingSoldiers set to true, as then it'd just make up 10 completely new rookies for me to command.

That's about it. I'll be here to assist if you have a particular setup in mind.
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Showing 1-15 of 23 comments
SinguLaurity 20 Jun, 2018 @ 11:52am 
Hi, thanks for the guide. However, I can't seem to assign WOTC classes to my custom characters.
This is the full content of my current XComStartingSoldiers.ini file:

[WOTCStartingSoldiers.X2DownloadableContentInfo_WOTCStartingSoldiers] .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="November Terra",SoldierClass="Sharpshooter",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Ayane Tenshin",SoldierClass="Ranger",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Wrex Urdnot",SoldierClass="Ranger",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Angela Ziegler",SoldierClass="Specialist",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Kasumi Goto",SoldierClass="Reaper",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Sarah Kerrigan",SoldierClass="PsiOperative",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Lena Oxton",SoldierClass="Skirmisher",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="Legion Geth",SoldierClass="Spark",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*",SoldierClass="Grenadier",SoldierRank=1) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*",SoldierClass="",SoldierRank=0) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*",SoldierClass="",SoldierRank=0) .CHARACTER_INFO=(SoldierName="*",SoldierClass="",SoldierRank=0) +bRemoveStartingSoldiers=true; +bReplaceStartingSquad=true;

All of the vanilla classes on custom characters work fine, however my Skirmisher, Reaper and Spark units are randomly generated characters instead of character pool characters.
Is it even possible to do this?
If so, please help :)
#1
Plat 20 Jun, 2018 @ 11:54pm 
@Singularity, I didn't manage to reproduce your exact problem, however I think you're failing to carry over your WOTC-class characters because they're not set as such in Character Pool itself.
You see, with the introduction of War of the Chosen, there were some changes under the hood and now any XCOM character can be one of five things - regular Soldier, a SPARK, or one of the three new factions. That's four groups, and each of them has its own set of cosmetic options and voices.
If you want to use the look of, say, Kasumi Goto for a Reaper soldier, you'll need to make sure that Kasumi Goto in Character Pool is also set as a Reaper under "Change Soldier Type", and you'll need to do so for any WOTC or SPARK character.
But because WOTC featured 4 extra places to add voices and cosmetics to for them to work, it's very possible that some of the characters you want don't support the voicepacks or cosmetics as non-vanilla classes.
If that's the case, you'll have to add the relevant content manually and then re-apply these in Character Pool by hand.

What you're asking is indeed possible, but it might require a bit of extra work if the modder of a mod in question didn't care about WOTC enough.
Let me know if I was correct with my hunch regarding Soldier Type not letting the mod import the look of your preferred characters.
Thanks.
#2
SinguLaurity 21 Jun, 2018 @ 7:49am 
Thank you for the fast response! you are entirely correct in that I did not set the soldier types. I will change it now and let you know the result.
#3
PizzaSHARK 2 Dec, 2018 @ 5:47am 
Any idea what SoldierRank is relevant to for SPARKs? Since they don't have a "base" like Rookies, I'm assuming setting it to 0 would produce an error and setting it to 1 would produce a Squire.
#4
Jermo9000 5 Jan, 2019 @ 7:30am 
I can't seem to find the file you are referring to I've searched though the xcom steam files. Any tips?
#5
N o i r 9 Mar, 2019 @ 4:32pm 
Likewise. Where the hell is XComStartingSoldiers.ini?
#6
Wordsmith_Vithar 10 Mar, 2019 @ 2:45pm 
".....\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\1147925885\Config"

Replace the "....." with your steam install directory
#7
N o i r 10 Mar, 2019 @ 6:35pm 
Thanks!!!
#8
necro55 16 Jun, 2019 @ 8:00pm 
As these instructions state it effects your soldier pool, does this also effect who is in Gatecrasher like the original version of this mode did?
#9
Lethaius 7 Oct, 2019 @ 3:15pm 
okay i admit this was a bit confusing for me, but i just wanted to make sure on this, the last segment with all the soldiers at level 2 is the part we edit for who we want in our starting pool correct? and how to we make sure they are in the starting squad?
#10
JimmyTheCannon 10 Jan, 2020 @ 10:33pm 
Okay so I've done a bit of testing over the past day.

Your starting squad will be the first 4 soldiers in the list.

When I first used this it worked perfectly - the 10 specific soldiers I listed were the ones I got in my barracks and the first 4 were my starting squad.

FYI if you put a Spark at rank 0 you get a Spark without Squaddie-level abilities and no heavy weapon - it'll rank up to Squaddie like any other soldier and get them then. Still OP for the first mission, but a bit less so.

What I'm having trouble with now, after assigning my starting squad, is having it randomly generate the rest of the barracks.
#11
Haerzog 27 Jan, 2020 @ 5:52pm 
Been trying to use this to import soldiers from the Allies Unkown mods, but it fails every time, presumably because they aren't SoldierType=Soldier or whatever. Any way to get it to work?
#12
Slackboy101 15 Jun, 2020 @ 1:05am 
Can I use Multiplayer versions of the Aliens with this mod?
#13
ShinyNobody 7 Dec, 2020 @ 7:47am 
Sadly it always adds new generated soliders when i do not add a name. So i need to do everything manually.
#14
Marceline the Gamer Queen 8 Apr, 2021 @ 7:50am 
Originally posted by Singularity:
Thank you for the fast response! you are entirely correct in that I did not set the soldier types. I will change it now and let you know the result.

I'm having an issue with this as well, currently. My soldier class is set to Reaper for the character and all of the vanilla classes work, but none of the others seems to work, even when set to Reaper, Skirmisher, etc in the character pool. Any idea what it is?
#15
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