Hi everyone.

We are going to discuss the way to change soldier's name in UFO Aftershock. First I tried it with CZECH version of Aftershock with patch 1.2 and it worked wel!!! It should work with any language version but I haven't tested it. I also tried it with ShadoWarrior's Rebalance mod and I haven't found any problems, except the language ;-)

Limitation is that I was only able to change names for initial squad and new recruits. Changing names to soldiers I already had in my squad caused problems(one was changing mane of soldier to "human") - I also changed savegame and still no progress. But if you can live with it, you're fine. Initial squad had changed names from beginning(after starting new game) and "recruits" showed with changed names without needing of restarting the game.

So the file you need to change is LOCALIZATIONPACK.VFS!!! Forget files like initial squad or troopname - you DON't NEED to change them!!! Copy your LOCALIZATIONPACK.VFS to location where you're going to work with it. Example copy LOCALIZATIONPACK.VFS from C:\UFO AFTERSHOCK\LOCALIZATION to C:\NAMEMOD. Now make directory called LOCAL for example. Unpack LOCALIZATIONPACK.VFS with VFSTools to LOCAL directory. You should now have 2 files: C:\NAMEMOD\LOCAL\lANGUAGEINDEX.TXT and C:\NAMEMOD\LOCAL\SYSTEM\PACK.TXT. Now open PACK.TXT with notepad or any other editor. You have to find name(s) you want to change. Let assume you want to change BETTY POWELL to KOLINE POWELL ;-) So find POWELL(there's only ONE name POWELL) and you will find this:

STR_RES
ID "TroopName/065::NAME"
LOCALE "Betty Powell" <- this is name, YOU WANT TO CHANGE THIS
END_OF_STR_RES
STR_RES
ID "TroopName/065::SIGN"
LOCALE "Betty" <- this is her nick, you can change it here or in game, it doesn't matter
END_OF_STR_RES

Now change her name, so it should look like this:

STR_RES
ID "TroopName/065::NAME"
LOCALE "Koline Powell"
END_OF_STR_RES
STR_RES
ID "TroopName/065::SIGN"
LOCALE "Badass"
END_OF_STR_RES

Close and save your changes. Pack your changed files to localizationpack.vfs - either to your old one or make a new one with your vfstool. DON'T FORGET TO CORRECT "MD5" OF NEW LOCALIZATIONPACK.VFS OR ELSE YOU WILL RECEIVE CRC ERROR AND WON'T BE ABLE TO RUN THE GAME!!! Last thing you have to do is copy your "new" localizationpack.vfs back to C:\UFO AFTERSHOICK\LOCALIZATION\. And that does the trick. :-)

Now run the game and have fun. YOU DON'T HAVE TO START A NEW GAME!!!(but you should, who wouldn't like to have his/her "superhero(es)" right from the beginning? ;-) ) Your new names should show up immidiately, except one thing - soldiers you already have in your pool(see top of my thread).

Any comments, ideas, question are welcome. I don't explain working with VFSTool, you will need to search forums for tips. If someone thinks it's necessary to have it here, just write it. I personally think if you can't work with VFSTool you can't change anything.

Have fun and happy modding

PFM

P.S. does anybody know how to change/make weapon models for Aftershock?

Welcome to the forums, and thank you for your post. The issue of changing soldier names has been discussed before. A SEARCH on this forum would have revealed various threads on this, such as this one: Troop Name Editor.

As for how to use VFStool, that is explained in other posts, such as this one pinned to the top of this forum: ShadoWarrior's Guide to Modding AS for Beginners.

Since you are new to these forums, you should take the time to read what has already been written by others before you. Perhaps you might even learn something about weapon models ...

thanks mate!

I'm sorry I wrote something that was discovered long time ago. My bad. But I always found "no you can't" answer to question about changing troop names. I was looking at the wrong place as I see...

yeah, I read your Guide for dummies ;-) but there's no information about how to edit AS weapon models except that's difficult. Or did I overlook something else???

Besrt regard

PFM