super fun mod! could you add a specialist with some sort of shield?

I'm all for giving the player as many tools and options at hand as reasonable, and having freedom of choice. So I also thought about shields for a while. A shield doesn't really fit the violence of action/fast paced playstyle PMC is supposed to convey somehow, and I can't really see one of the Contractors fielding one. Maybe Weaver, or Oz?
Best solution might be to further refine the QRF Ghosts, and give one of their teams shields and crowd control gear, while the other gets heavy weapons?

Any thoughts on adding additional NVG options? Or even making it possible to work with this mod: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3428998204

Currently, I love the PMC squad, but just having that one NVG option available is my biggest complaint. Maybe making the standard QRF guys just have that one NVG, but the actual elite PMC "Ghosts" having the higher quality ones?

I'm getting some requests for better NVGs indeed. Reasoning for the simple Mono NVG was that it kinda remedies your extreme advantage against factually blind insurgents on night maps by the smaller field of view, and that Monos look goofy enough on basecaps already ;)
If I could specify NVGs to only be usable with certain headgear options, I'd have them introduced for the helmets only some time ago.

But now as SSI and better enemies become more prevalent, maybe it is indeed time to upgrade their NVG options.

Originally posted by Pilzquadrat:

I'm all for giving the player as many tools and options at hand as reasonable, and having freedom of choice. So I also thought about shields for a while. A shield doesn't really fit the violence of action/fast paced playstyle PMC is supposed to convey somehow, and I can't really see one of the Contractors fielding one. Maybe Weaver, or Oz?
Best solution might be to further refine the QRF Ghosts, and give one of their teams shields and crowd control gear, while the other gets heavy weapons?

Thank you so much for the reply! I was thinking along the lines of PMCs who are contracted to train other paramilitary/police forces, and units like them have ex-police and train others with shields! However, if it doesn't fit your vision for the mod that's cool with me, I think it's fantastic either way! Would you also consider putting some extra cool weapons/gear behind Battle Honors? I think they could really add some flavor to the mod. Thank you!

Added GPNVGs to contractors at a high BH cost and shields for the Ghosts QRF.

Originally posted by Pilzquadrat:

Added GPNVGs to contractors at a high BH cost and shields for the Ghosts QRF.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? That quick. I was thinking this will be months down the line lol. Thanks. I'll have to test them out this weekend. If I find any bugs or anything, I'll let you know, but good thing I had saved up battle honors for PMC

Originally posted by Pilzquadrat:

Added GPNVGs to contractors at a high BH cost and shields for the Ghosts QRF.

dude that was awesome, thank you so much! sick mod, can't wait to see what you have in store for the future

so with the way doctrines are, the PMC unit is left with 2 more doctrine points at the end. are there any plans to flesh out the tree a bit more? can you add the fast swap/transition to handgun doctrine as a choice? fantastic work as always

I tried to avoid the simple "+2% attackspeed" or "+1% reloadspeed" type of doctrine nodes that fill parts of the vanilla trees, as those seem rather bland and boring to me. Especially when you can put 2 or 3 points into a single node to stack the buffs.
I also do not like the idea of starting with a gimped squad that turns overpowered once most doctrines are unlocked, rather have a balanced squad from start to end.

Most of the contractors have the transition to sidearm as an innate skill from the get go (I know this isn''t mentioned anywhere :) )

I really like this mod's distribution between roles, operators, equipment, doctrines and more. Given this nice balance, 'better' equipment progression would be a lot of fun I think. Some broad suggestions Let me know if you'd like more (or less) detail.

Many of operators weapon choices seem nice side-grades to one another rather than one, overall best in slot. But with some slight exception.

• XM7 and ADV/AP rounds access should be behind Battle Honors instead of just regular stars. Whilst it's not the best weapon every time, always. It is the high end stuff that's very hard to beat compared to the other weapon selections available.
  
• Operator unlockable weapons & equipment could use a price hike of around +2 stars across the board where possible. More or certain things behind BHs instead of stars.
  
• Mk262 77g Match for 5.56 based weapons. (Only CIA has this right now in unmodded DK2, don't know if it's incredibly strong or not.)
  
• Start out with lvl3 ranger vest or raid vest instead of 4. Extended vest/ SAPI for Oz & weaver perhaps? (might go against the fast PMC theme though.)
  
• Maybe a middle of the road helmet as star unlockable, next gen helmet as BH unlock.

I like their addition and especially their unique specialisations. Even more so these being BH-unlocks. Forcing the choice of investing BHs into making your individual operators better, or unlocking QRF's potential. While they don't outshine operators, they're a bit too close in terms of their power/equipment I feel. So:

• Possibly give them more Nowheraki flavour in terms of equipment rather the wide array of modern, high grade western weaponry. QRF might be locally sourced after all. I'd say making them similar-ish to NW:Swat but with twists. I think the suggestions below would work greatly with AK's RPK's, etc.
  
• ADV/AP and XM338 access seems out of place. Operators should be going toe-to-toe against SSI and the likes. QRF not so much unless it's a heavier weapon.
  
• Grenades per slot to x1 instead of x2.
  
• Body armor access nerfed with stricter progression.
  
• Shield Element: Shift focus on more CQB weapons (SMGs, PDWs, possibly the odd shotgun) and secondaries. Rather than LMGs or rifles. Armor-wise should keep Extended vest/ SAPI or Sapper Combat Vest as their best armor but maybe not start with it.
  
• Disruption Element: SMG/Carbine focus. Specialising on following up shield element in CQB. No extended vest SAPI, Ranger SAPI/Tac vest Lvl III as armor
  
• Rifle Element: Small selection of non-top tier LMG's, Long rifles, possibly DMR's to make up for the lack of unique utility. No extended vest SAPI Maybe access to ESAPI/SAPI or Tac vest Lvl 4 as best armor.
  
• Ordnance Element: x2 grenades in their slots whilst others have x1. Mostly rifle focus. Ranger SAPI/Tac vest Lvl III as armor.

Originally posted by Bloodeye:

I really like this mod's distribution between roles, operators, equipment, doctrines and more. Given this nice balance, 'better' equipment progression would be a lot of fun I think. Some broad suggestions Let me know if you'd like more (or less) detail.

Operators

Many of operators weapon choices seem nice side-grades to one another rather than one, overall best in slot. But with some slight exception.

• XM7 and ADV/AP rounds access should be behind Battle Honors instead of just regular stars. Whilst it's not the best weapon every time, always. It is the high end stuff that's very hard to beat compared to the other weapon selections available.
  
• Operator unlockable weapons & equipment could use a price hike of around +2 stars across the board where possible. More or certain things behind BHs instead of stars.
  
• Mk262 77g Match for 5.56 based weapons. (Only CIA has this right now in unmodded DK2, don't know if it's incredibly strong or not.)
  
• Start out with lvl3 ranger vest or raid vest instead of 4. Extended vest/ SAPI for Oz & weaver perhaps? (might go against the fast PMC theme though.)
  
• Maybe a middle of the road helmet as star unlockable, next gen helmet as BH unlock.

Ghost QRF

I like their addition and especially their unique specialisations. Even more so these being BH-unlocks. Forcing the choice of investing BHs into making your individual operators better, or unlocking QRF's potential. While they don't outshine operators, they're a bit too close in terms of their power/equipment I feel. So:

• Possibly give them more Nowheraki flavour in terms of equipment rather the wide array of modern, high grade western weaponry. QRF might be locally sourced after all. I'd say making them similar-ish to NW:Swat but with twists. I think the suggestions below would work greatly with AK's RPK's, etc.
  
• ADV/AP and XM338 access seems out of place. Operators should be going toe-to-toe against SSI and the likes. QRF not so much unless it's a heavier weapon.
  
• Grenades per slot to x1 instead of x2.
  
• Body armor access nerfed with stricter progression.
  
• Shield Element: Shift focus on more CQB weapons (SMGs, PDWs, possibly the odd shotgun) and secondaries. Rather than LMGs or rifles. Armor-wise should keep Extended vest/ SAPI or Sapper Combat Vest as their best armor but maybe not start with it.
  
• Disruption Element: SMG/Carbine focus. Specialising on following up shield element in CQB. No extended vest SAPI, Ranger SAPI/Tac vest Lvl III as armor
  
• Rifle Element: Small selection of non-top tier LMG's, Long rifles, possibly DMR's to make up for the lack of unique utility. No extended vest SAPI Maybe access to ESAPI/SAPI or Tac vest Lvl 4 as best armor.
  
• Ordnance Element: x2 grenades in their slots whilst others have x1. Mostly rifle focus. Ranger SAPI/Tac vest Lvl III as armor.

Thank you very much, those are very good and detailed suggestions. If you have more detail, feel free to add to it.
Equipment costs could definitely go up a bit, I had a hard time on deciding costs, so I made most of the stuff relatively cheap to enable players to utilize the fun stuff as soon as possible. But the sense of progression suffers from it indeed. I also feel especially Advap ammo became my go-to loadout over time with SSI and armored enemies in general becoming more prevalent.
The extended vest/SAPI is indeed too heavy to suit the fast paced PMC theme, but you're right it would fit best to Weaver and Oz if any.
I get a few requests now and then for a mid tier helmet and will probably add one in the next weeks (high cut?).

For QRF, they were created as a very (very) basic unit just to fill up the ranks when the mod was initially created (with just 4 contractors back then), so yes, they could be fleshed out even more. Personally I don't really see them with eastern block weaponry/as local assets, but I'll consider the other suggestions, especially loadout for the 4 different elements. Do you have detailed suggestions for their weaponry? I agree with the general direction of the loadouts. Will need some time to dig into it though.

If you have more inoput, always welcome.

So I base my suggestions of off in-game weapon info (I know it's very deceiving/incomplete) and equipment stats in this sheet. [docs.google.com] So there's definitely some chance of misinterpretation. I also have next to no modding experience. I read the game's XML files here & there but that's about it. So I'm sure you'll have a better feel for the details than me.

I also see you modded in some new weapons. I don't have enough real-life weapon knowledge to suggest new & fitting modded weapons so I'll just go off vanilla weapons. Of course altering them when appropriate so they're not unlocked right away.

Equipment and unlocks I looked at from a completely fresh game.

(some repetition from the previous post)

• ADV/AP rounds should be accessible behind BH's. either for SCAR/Mk48/DMR's as an ammo type or for the 6.8 weapons such as XM7, etc. outright. Simply because it's best in slot. There's little to no reason to take any other ammo type over it. Which in itself is fine but should either be a late game thing or something you b-line for unlocking. SSI right now are the only guys with lvl4 armor. they're insane but somewhat weaker from long distance and that's where there are already some good DMR's/LMG's without ADV/AP to fill the gap before you unlock it. They're by no means unbeatable but definitely tough. ADV/AP levels the playing field. But so would a shotgun. ADV/AP's great against and meant for SSI but also just overall better against almost all other enemies due to the damage per bullet threshold that it exceeds. There's some argument for modded enemies but that'd go beyond the scope of this mod.
  
• Armor-wise. Raid 4 is a strong start, Once Tac vest 4/all around ESAPI's unlocked, there's little reason to unlock any of the others that are available. Mid helmet would be interesting and have the next gen be a BH unlock.
  
• Higher equipment cost: +0-2 would be sufficient I think.
  
• G17 pistol as starter and G19custom as unlockable or just remove the G17.
  
• Mk262 5.56 access for the URGI, HK416?
  
• x3 grenades in equipment slots are unlocked by default.

I think the 1-3BH price for the best in slot goodies is fair. Helmet setup is fine as-is including NVG's and pricing. Tried to keep the selection western-ish and without selecting weapons that are too strong and making them thereby outshine the Operators & their equipment. Hence the sparsity of lvl4 armor as well. There's 12 operators total after all. Ghost QRF being lesser than operators is totally fine even for the hardest of missions.

Possibly limited primary weapon suppressor access across the board?

Shield:
SMG/PDW focus, broader selection of sidearms to compliment shield usage. Shotgun + heavy armor as an alternative.

• Starting weapon(s): APC9-K, G17
  
• Unlockable weapons(s): MP5A5, Raider PDW, G22, M17
  
• BH weapons(s): Shield lvl3 2BH, Remington 870 2BH, (or vanilla's M500 shotgun) Mk24 mod 0 1BH
  
• Starting armor(s): Ranger vest/SAPI
  
• Unlockable armor(s): Sapper Combat Vest
  
• BH armor(s): ESAPI/SAPI combo, 2BH
  
• Equipment: x1 grenades, access to slap charges. no frags.
  
• Misc: No suppressors/subsonics. up to x3 optics. Possibly add a lvl4 shield for high BH cost. but lvl3's fine imo. Maybe dynamic hammer, breaching shotgun and/or 1-2x slaps in equipment slot?

Disruption:
Weapon selection adheres to mostly western rifles. Their unique utility does plenty to make them unique. doubled down on with non-lethal equipment availability

• Starting weapon(s): M16A4, APC-9K G17
  
• Unlockable weapons(s): M4, Mk17 carbine(high price), Vulcan(low price) MP5A5, M17 custom, G22.
  
• BH weapons(s): Mk17 CQB 3BH (??) AK105 2BH (??)
  
• Starting armor(s): Ranger vest/SAPI
  
• Unlockable armor(s): Tac vest lvl3
  
• BH armor(s): ESAPI/SAPI combo, 2BH
  
• Equipment: x2 flash/smoke/stinger. No frags.
  
• Misc: No subsonics, ADV/AP. Optics up to 4x. The BH weapons... don't really know which would be interesting to put there without equating or overshadowing operator equipment.

Rifle:
A team focused on supplementing the team with heavier weapons platforms to provide overwatch & fire superiority. Rilfe access is spread around to both disruption & ordnance teams so you can field x8 rifle guys if needed. Thereby making the original rifle theme obsolete. M4 with mk262 access as a BH unlock for something special & universal.

• Starting weapon(s): Squad DM rifle, Hk21 LMG, FAL (w/ optics) G17
  
• Unlockable weapons(s): M249, M240, Mk17 long barrel, M17 custom, G22.
  
• BH weapons(s): Mk48 2BH, M14 EBR 2BH, M4 3BH (w/ mk262 access).
  
• Starting armor(s): Ranger vest/SAPI
  
• Unlockable armor(s): Tac vest lvl3
  
• BH armor(s): ESAPI/SAPI combo, 2BH
  
• Equipment: x1 grenades.
  
• Misc: No subsonics, ADV/AP, Optics up to 10x. Possibly rename to "Weapons" (?) or something to reflect the DMR/LMG nature.

Ordnance:
Weapon selection adheres to mostly western rifles. Their unique utility does plenty to make them unique. doubled down through lethal equipment availability.

• Starting weapon(s): M16A4, G17
  
• Unlockable weapons(s): M4, Mk17 carbine(high price), Vulcan(low price), M17 custom, G22.
  
• BH weapons(s): AK105 2BH (??)
  
• Starting armor(s): Ranger vest/SAPI
  
• Unlockable armor(s): Tac vest lvl3
  
• BH armor(s): ESAPI/SAPI combo, 2BH
  
• Equipment: x1 grenades. x2 frags
  
• Misc: No subsonics, ADV/AP, optics up to 4x. The BH weapons... don't really know which would be interesting to put there without equating or overshadowing operator equipment. No UGL weapons because that'd invalidate the idea behind the various M320's in the equipment slot.

Latest update added a lightweight helmet for contractors. I didn't forget about the rest, it's on my list of potential stuff to do :) Especially cost rebalance and advap BH locks. For Ghosts, I'll see how much I wanna diversify them without losing focus.

Originally posted by Pilzquadrat:

Latest update added a lightweight helmet for contractors. I didn't forget about the rest, it's on my list of potential stuff to do :) Especially cost rebalance and advap BH locks. For Ghosts, I'll see how much I wanna diversify them without losing focus.

Awesome stuff on the helmet! I'm still holding out a bit for your bigger update before hopping back into DK2.