Unit Guidelines

When creating new groups and characters, especially when for GC Units, it is important to comply with the guidelines listed on this page.

Some of the Mission Guidelines also apply, in particular the things said about images and workshop terms.

Note

Creating _P groups and characters is no longer required and should not be done for future factions! Just create regular "AI" prefabs, then tick "Set Playable" on the group after placing it in the mission.

Characters

Character Inheritance

Characters should use the following inheritance structure:

• A common AI base character. Example: New Character_FKEY_Base.et, inheriting from existing Character_Base.et (you may duplicate an existing faction base character, this is equivalent in terms of inheritance)
• All other AI characters should inherit common properties from the base character, and only have role-specific properties
• All playable characters should inherit from their AI counterpart, their only property should be playability.
• If two loadouts are identical in every way that matters for AI, they may be merged (e. g. "Driver", "Gunner" into "Crew"), and multiple playable characters may inherit from it and make small scale changes in addition to playability (e. g. name).

Other character guidelines

Characters should also follow these guidelines:

• Medic characters must have a finished loadout. It does not need to meet specific item requirements, but should be "finished" in the sense of not requiring GM intervention.
• Character names should be set in the EditableCharacterComponent, not the PlayableComponent. When available, it is recommended to use localization keys (look at e. g. vanilla units) instead of plain text.
• Playable characters must have Playable ticked in their PS_PlayableComponent to be playable. Their name should end with _P.
• If a mission maker needs a very customized prefab variant that is not commonly useful, they may themselves inherit it from an existing character and include it in their mission folder. Always use inheritance for making selective changes.

Groups

Group Inheritance

Groups should use the following inheritance structure:

• A common AI base group prefab, analogous to the character base prefab (a new group base prefab is not necessarily required when just creating a new branch, you only need to do this if you're actually adding shared properties to it). Example: New Group_FKEY_Base.et inheriting from Group_Base.et, or Group_US_LAR_Base.et inheriting from the existing Group_US_Base.et
• AI groups inheriting from the base group, with non-playable AI characters in their characters array
• Playable _P groups inheriting from their AI counterpart, with _P characters in their characters array

Other group guidelines

• Playable groups must end with _P, and have a PS_GroupCallsignAssigner component.
• Only the playable group variants should contain crew, as crew is almost never needed when placing AI groups and instead spawned directly in a vehicle.
• You may include a sources.txt file alongside your groups, listing where your information is from. This can help others who may want to contribute at a later date.
• You may predefine CSI fireteam colors using the array, but this is not required.

Factions

Faction creation guidelines

• All faction information must be included in a faction config, akin to the existing configs.
• Only a reference to the faction config is added to the FactionManager via the prefab override.