Improved Skills Pack
Version 1.1
By Drifty Flintlock

Purpose
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The Improved Skills Pack makes a number of tweaks and changes to skills, for smoother progress and more varied character options.


Details
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Fixes in game notes related to bonus XP and weapon specializations. Bonus XP from Dojo, etc, DOES work on specializations even in the base game, contrary to some information out there. However, this is not properly indicated in game.
Powerhouse and Reflexes now benefit from bonus melee XP.
Multikills and Headshot Streak now give proper XP bonus to gun specializations.
Characters with Reflexes now get a reload speed bonus to most guns (but not LMGs or grenade launchers).
Splits skills so you can both take a melee and a ranged specialization, as well as both a stamina skill and a special skill.
Snap bonuses have been removed from Shooting and Rifle specialization, since they don't actually do anything on PC. All snap bonuses have been replaced with rate of fire bonuses.
Pistol specialization rate of fire bonus has been reduced, to about 20% at max specialization. That sounds like a lot, but the actual bonus in the base game is nowhere near the claimed 150%. It's hard to quantify, and it seems to vary by gun, but there's no way it's more than 50% at max level, and I'd say it's closer to 30%. This is partly a case of fixing the notes, which are just completely wrong.
Pistols now have faster movement while aiming with specialization.
Fiddled with Pistol recoil. They now have slightly lower base recoil, but slightly higher recoil at high levels, as a result of removing the hidden recoil bonus from the specialization. You might not even notice a difference on this one.
Some XP requirements for skills have been changed from the base game. Cardio and Wits now require about 1/3 less XP to level, while melee skills take 40% more than before.
Melee kills now give a small amount of Cardio XP. It's not very much, and running is still better, but it should help raise Cardio a little faster.
Surveying now gives Wits XP. You get a certain amount for completing a survey, the number of objects spotted is irrelevant.
Stealth kills now give Wits XP.


Installation
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Copy the Game folder into your root State of Decay folder. Only the .bmd files are strictly necessary. The diff files and the XML won't hurt anything, but they aren't needed for the mod to work. They are intended to be a resource for modders.


Modes
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This mod is fully functional in story, Breakdown, and Lifeline.


Feedback
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If you have questions or comments, please contact me on Nexus Mods.
The changes in XP requirements are largely an educated guess. If some skills seem too fast or too slow to level, tell me. If they seem about right, tell me that too.
Of course, please report any bugs you find.


New Game?
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A new game isn't absolutely required, but it's recommended. If not, you may notice some odd side effects, such as skills that were max level not being max level anymore.


Compatibility
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This mod only alters expertise.xml.


Version History
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Version 1.0
Initial release.

Version 1.1
Further adjusted XP gain rates for melee, Cardio, and Wits.
Snap bonuses which were previously replaced with accuracy have now been replaced with rate of fire bonuses instead, after I found out spread doesn't really do anything.
Made some more changes to the Pistol specialization.
Adjusted legal permissions. They're not any more restrictive than before, I just made a slight clarification.


Future Plans
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The new XP requirement levels will probably need some tweaking.
I'd like to do more with the gun specializations. The changes I know how to make are (at least currently) quite limited. If anyone can explain to me how in the heck the Revolver knockdown bonus works, I would be extremely grateful. It's not the same as any of the other specializations/properties, and may be hard coded or something ridiculous like that. I'm also interested in adding a completely new properties for specializations, such as bullet penetration, but I don't know if that's actually possible.
I hope to finish fixing tier notes on the gun specializations if I can figure out how to quantify the remaining ones in a way that makes sense. For now, just know that the numbers from the base game are almost certainly wrong.
Nexus Mod Manager compatibility.


Bugs and Limitations
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I've occasionally seen the bonus notes display things that shouldn't apply. For example, displaying notes for Fast Hands AND Coward, on a character that only has Fast Hands. It's not consistent and I'm not sure why it happens, nor am I entirely certain it's a result of the mod. I'm pretty sure that it's just a notes problem, and that actual XP gain is correct. I'll fix it as soon as I figure out what's causing it.
Some of my % bonus notes on gun skills are rough guesses. I've made them as accurate as possible but they're probably not perfect. They should give you the general idea of what everything does, though.


Legal
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I've shamelessly stolen some ideas, but all grunt work is original.
I consider this mod to be open source. You can do whatever you want with it as long as you give credit where credit is due, and any changes or improvements are shared with the community. In other words, if you use this mod as a resource, do everyone a solid and publish your XML/other source with your mod.
If you would like to include this mod or some part of it in your own mod, it would be nice if you let me know, but you don't need my permission.
The latest version of this mod can always be found on nexusmods.com.


Special Thanks
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MattyDienhoff - For his technical explanation of the spread property, and for several suggestions related to XP gain.
afetogbo - I've made some changes very similar to his Don't PIS on my RIF mod.
SilentResident - Likewise, this mod makes basically the same changes as his skill splitting mods.
Phacops - His debug tool saved me an enormous amount of time during testing.
thexshadow - For the unpacking tool.
dude1234 - For the xml2bmd tool.
notepad++ - Because there is apparently no other text editor in the entire world capable of automatically collapsing all levels of code folds.