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Imperial Surplus: Buildable Dark Troopers (WOTC)

DESCRIPTION
The Dark Trooper program was designed to create versatile droids and infantry exoskeletons that would combine the creativity and versatility of organic soldiers with the armor and weaponry of heavy battle droids, thus creating the next generation of Stormtroopers.

The ultimate results were the three phases of Dark Troopers. The Phase I Dark Trooper is a simply programmed droid armed with a shield and vibroblade. The Phase II Dark Trooper boasts additional armored plating and its armament is upgraded, with a heavy repeating blaster and rocket launcher, while its mobility is augmented with the introduction of a jump pack. The Phase III Dark Trooper is a piloted, armored exoskeleton equipped with an assault cannon and missile launcher.

Dark Troopers may be built in the Proving Ground after unlocking their schematics. The Phase I Dark Trooper may be built after researching Hybrid Matierals, the Phase II and Phase III Dark Troopers may be built after completing the research to construct Plated and Powered armor.

All Dark Troopers rank up with experience and may choose from a limited selection of abilities (mostly vanilla abilities with some substitutes where original vanilla abilities didn't work). They lack many of the context-sensitive abilities of your regular troops (they cannot knock out/rescue VIPs, hack objective computers, carry wounded or plant X-4 charges, for instance) so keep that in mind when deploying for missions where objective completion requires using context-specific abilities.

The quality of equipment for these units improves with Soldier Armor and Cannon upgrades.

This mod should work with pre-existing saves.

There are voiced and silent variants selectable via config (not in-game). See the customization section for details.

REQUIREMENTS
DLC
WOTC
Shen's Last Gift
Alien Hunters

Mods
Advent2Empire Content
Community Highlander

Plug-in
Starting Phase I Dark Trooper (adds a Phase I Dark Trooper to your starting unit roster at the beginning of a new campaign)
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2540272109

CUSTOMIZATION
This mod does not support in-game customization, apart from renaming. However, there are voiced and silent variants that can be selected via config.

Go to the XComBU_DarkTrooperOptions.ini file in this mod's config folder. If you do not know where to find this file, the easiest way is to use the Alternative Mod Launcher (https://github.com/X2CommunityCore/xcom2-launcher/releases). Just right-click the entry for this mod and select Show in Explorer.

The default Dark Trooper archetypes are the voiced variants. To choose alternatives, put a semicolon ; in front of the line such as the one that reads as below

BU_DT_Phase1Pawn = "TFU_PurgeTrooper.Archetypes.ARC_DarkTrooper_Ph1" ;Voiced

and remove the ; from the line representing your preferred Dark Trooper variant.

Build costs, schematics and tech prerequisites can be adjusted in this file as well. If you want access to Dark Troopers earlier, for instance, you can change the tech prerequisite to HybridMaterials, which you will generally research early on in your campaign. See this post for other alternative tech prerequisites: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/44ioyc/xcom_2_console_commands/

Please note that, even if you zero out the requirements for Elerium Cores, the game will not let you build the Phase III Dark Trooper unless you have at least 1 core. You can use a console command to add this item: "additem eleriumcore X" where X is the number of cores to be added.

I recommend keeping notes of any changes you make to config files. Any time I make updates to this mod, it will reset the config files to their default settings (so I will try to do so rarely).

CREDITS
Cavily ported the TFU Purge Trooper used as a stand-in for the Phase 2 Dark Trooper.

Phase 1 Dark Troopers are kitbashed from Old Republic HK Droids by DrDCB.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1127256716

The Phase 3 Dark Trooper came from a resource hosted by Servius.

Kiruka's buildable units mod, from which I liberally borrowed code.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210732936

Iridar's jetpack Mod, from which I got the code used to enable the tech project on pre-existing saves.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1576958692

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Will you do vehicle XYZ next?

I'll read suggestions but I'm not prepared to make promises. These buildable unit implementations are pretty time consuming to make.

The textures are glitchy/models are missing.

Make sure all requirements are installed and enabled.

Do I really need the Advent2Empire Content Mod? It's huge.

Yes. That mod contains art assets utilized in this one.

Do I need Advent to Galactic Empire to use this?

No. You need the Advent to Galactic Empire CONTENT mods Volume 1 and Volume 2.

What's the difference?

The Advent to Galactic Empire Content mods contain the art assets used in the Advent to Galactic Empire mod. The Advent to Galactic Empire mod itself is what replaces vanilla Advent units with Imperial units.

An additional difference is that the Advent to Galactic Empire Content mods are linked requirements of this mod (check Required Items) The Advent to Galactic Empire mod is not.

Will this work with LWOTC?

No idea.

Vanilla Version?

No. I do not have the vanilla SDK or the drive space for it and have no idea what would be involved in making this compatible with vanilla.

DISCLAIMER
Certain assets in this mod originated from The Force Unleashed, Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Star Wars: Empire at War. Star Wars is rightfully owned by Disney. The assets here are for non-commercial uses. No payment or donations will be accepted. I do not have a patreon.

KNOWN ISSUES
The Phase I Dark Trooper's vibroblade (Secondary Weapon Slot) and the Phase II and III Dark Troopers' heavy weapons are sometimes not correctly assigned when the units are generated in the armory. The correct weapons can be manually assigned.

The Phase 3 Dark Trooper model is rather low poly and low res. It's an old model.

The textures for the Phase 1 Dark Trooper don't always match up very well depending on the light. I got them as close to each other as I could but it is a kitbashed model.