Mod Explanation:
Instant Action Overhaul XL (IAOXL) is the sequel/remake of the Instant Action Overhaul (IAO) mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/starwarsbattlefront22017/mods/6249). I did not intend on ever continuing modding bf2 again after helping with private match modding support however unexpectedly the Frosty tools became open source and thus a bunch of things that were previously impractical or impossible were could now be done. I designed this mod to push what Frosty and the game engine were capable of doing to their absolute limits. The result is a mod far larger in scope than IAO but with the cost of potential stability.

I had intended to complete this and release this last year however unfortunately about half-way through I had to cease all development due to personal reasons I'd rather not get into. I had hoped to pick it up again later but that never happened and now I don't think it ever will due to my limited amount of free time and general lack of interest in BF2. That left me with a half complete mod and three not particularly ideal options: 1) Scrap the mod completely 2) Try and crowd fund the remainder of the development or 3) Release what I have as an "Alpha" build. I opted for option 3 as I really didn't want all my efforts to go to waste but I also don't think there would be enough interest in the mod to fund its remaining development. I don't know if this mod will ever be completed so I ask that you be respectful and don't harass me for further updates or changes in the comments. So that should hopefully explain why I'm releasing the mod in this state.

Another quirk about this mod is I am releasing it in two versions. One is the "Standard version" which should work in the current public build of Frosty Mod Manager (FMM) but there is also a "Future Proof" version which does not work on the current version of FMM. The future proof build requires FMM to support the creation of new bundles (a FB3 term which refers to how the game loads assets), this has never been done before in a mod so FMM does not currently support this. To make these changes I've had to make my own branch of the Frosty Editor tools which allows the game to compile with new bundles, however the Frosty developers have requested that people do not share their modified versions of Frosty with the public so in order to run the "Future Proof" build you will either have to wait for the public build which supports the creation of new bundles to be released or you will have to compile your own version of Frosty which includes those changes.

Mod Changes:
This section lists all of the changes compared to the previous IAO mod, if you want a full overview of what this mod does you have to read the IAO description page (https://www.nexusmods.com/starwarsbattlefront22017/mods/6249) and then read the list on this page to see what's changed.

• Added a Cargo gamemode with full AI support. 
  
  
  
  
  
  This works the same way as the multiplayer version of Jetpack Cargo except the jet troopers have been replaced with standard teams of classes, reinforcements and heroes. Works across all the Jetpack Cargo maps: Tatooine, Yavin IV and Bespin. This is my personal favourite of the new modes since the AI works surprisingly well.
• Added the Strike gamemode with Semi-Complete AI objective support.
  How well the AI logic works varies from map to map and objective type to objective type. The bomb gamemode works perfectly but the package delivery mode has issues with AI becoming braindead after picking up the package. I was never able to find a fix for the braindead AI and I believe it's an issue with the game engine. Some of the maps also suffer from bad pathfinding. The only maps I can confidently say are completed in both objective logic and map pathfinding are: Naboo, Kashyyyk and Tatooine.
• Added the Galactic Assault (GA) gamemode with no AI objective support (currently). 
  I did have some test version of this mod which did have working AI on some maps but there were some issues which I thought were so prevalent that I decided to completely scrap it from the mod in this version. The unfortunate reality of GA is the maps that people most want to play offline tend to be the most challenging ones to do. Maps like DS2 and Kamino should be "easy" to do but they're basically identical the existing Missions Attack/Defend gamemode so aren't very interesting. Whereas maps like Geonosis, Crait and Naboo are near impossible to do offline. I know there are mods which have added some degree of AI support to GA but I wouldn't hold your breath for full-fledged offline GA mod ever.
• Added faction selector options to the IA settings menu.
  
   
  You can set Team 1 (Lightside) and Team 2 (Darkside) to any of the following: 
  • Galactic Republic - Phase 1
  • Galactic Republic - Phase 2
  • Separatist Alliance
  • Rebel Alliance
  • Galactic Empire
  • Resistance
  • First Order
  • Heroes (Republic + Rebels + Resistance units)
  • Villains (Separatist + Empire + First Order units)
    
  This works in any combination and across all gamemodes besides HvsV and GA (currently). Unfortunately due to modding limitations this option does not support modded reinforcements or heroes, it won't crash the game if you have them they just won't appear in the team. The appearances of the faction selector teams are also not currently map specific so you won't get Hoth Imperial Snowtroopers on Starkiller Base for example. I would like that to be corrected.
• Added four AI restriction menus accessible from the IA settings menu which allow you to control the maximum amount of every reinforcement and hero that an AI can play as.
  
  
  
  
  Using these options you can set up specific battles of your choosing. Want to setup a fight between Anakin and Obi Wan or Darth Maul and Emperor Palpatine? Want to have 32 Landos fighting 32 Bobas in HvsV? Want to disable Wookie Warriors on Clone Wars maps that aren't Kashyyyk because why the hell would they even be there in the first place? You can do all that. 
  
  The "Alternate" options are for when you're using the faction selector to put a darkside team in place of the lightside or vice versa. There is also a Frosty icon under the "Hero AI Restrictions", this represents the maximum amount of modded AI heroes so you can tweak that as you please.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Made significant changes and improvements to the HvsV gamemode:
  • Added an option to the IA settings menu which allows you to set the maximum amount of eliminations required to win HvsV from 1-1000. Since I know people will ask: I tried to add this option to blast as well but unfortunately it's more difficult and I could not get it working in time.
  • Added an option to the IA menu called "Teams Selector" which let's you set different team combinations such as: Heroes Versus Heroes, Villains Versus Villains, Heroes & Villains vs Heroes & Villains, Reinforcement HvsV, Reinforcements Heroes & Villains vs Heroes & Villains, Reinforcements vs Heroes & Villains. Using this option will remove any modded heroes due to modding limitations. 
  • There is now an option to enable/disable duplicated AI heroes, unlike IAO which always had duplicated heroes enabled in HvsV. However, this creates a problem as with duplicate heroes disable a careless player could add more AI to a team than there are playable heroes, in order to prevent spawns from being deadlocked I have added a generic clone/droid "Infantry" unit that the player and AI can use when all hero slots are filled up. 
  • Added all of the capital ship HvsV maps which were missing from IAO. They all work well besides the Venator which has some odd pathfinding issues I did not fix in this version.
  • Future-Proof Build Only: Added a completely custom Naboo - Theed City map. This map takes place in a similar area to the strike map and contains full AI pathfinding with custom spawn points and custom boundaries. From a technical standpoint this is the first ever mod to add a completely new "subworld" (basically map/mode), previously mods have only ever replaced existing ones. For this reason the map does not work on the current build of Frosty and will require a future version to support the creation of new bundles (Frostbite levels basically).
  • Future-Proof Build Only: Added a custom Endor - Ewok Village map. This works the same way as the blast map except it is using a new subworld like the Naboo map so won't work until the new Frosty Mod Manager is released.
    
• Mod Compatibility Changes:
  • Added 10 new Hero IAOXL compatibility slots for modders to use meaning mods like BF+ can add more heroes whilst maintaining compatibility with IAOXl, unfortunately retroactively updating the main IAO mod to include them would be a pain in the ass so I won't be doing that, meaning these new heroes won't have battle points or max count limitations when run with the old mod.
  • Due to popular demand I have modified the spawn screen menu to display four heroes/vehicles/reinforcements vertically rather than two, allowing more characters to be visable in the spawn screen. If any mod can add more heroes and reinforcements than this new spawn screen can display I will be very impressed. There are some small visual bugs with this that I didn't have time to fix but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 
    
    
  • As previously mentioned, modded characters will not be usable when the faction selector and HvsV team selector options aren't set to their defaults. While not impossible to fix, it would require major changes be made to Frosty and the general mod making process so I doubt will ever be done. Modded characters also cannot appear on the new completely custom maps also due to modding limitations.
  • Ported IOI logic which allows for squad spawning upon modded reinforcements and heroes.
    
• Map Changes:
  • Added an unused Crait Blast map set in the same place as the HvsV Crait map (Phase 2 of the GA map). This area does not have pathfinding but is so open that I don't think it matters that much.
  • Moved the Geonosis Blast map to the Phase 3 area of the GA map. This may seem like a weird and maybe even unpopular change to make but I decided to do this because the area has pathfinding for the AI and is otherwise not at all playable in IAO which I thought was quite unfortunate. I also don't really like the standard blast map for Geonosis so that's also why.
  • Future-Proof Build Only: Added two completely custom HvsV maps: Naboo - Theed City and Endor - Ewok Village. The Naboo map takes place in a similar area to the strike map and contains full AI pathfinding. The Ewok Village map does not contain pathfinding but because the map is open that does not cause many issues.
  • Added the death traps from the Ewok Hunt version of Ewok Village to the Blast and HvsV maps. Also improved the spawn points across Ewok Village, they now use the same spawn points as the Empire do in Ewok Hunt.
    
• IA Settings Menu Changes:
  • (Detailed Earlier) Added faction selectors, AI kit restrictions, HvsV team setup and HvsV maximum elimination options
  • Added options to control the battle point requirement of Heroes, Reinforcement, Light Vehicles and Heavy Vehicles for the player. For each option you can choose anywhere between 0 and 10000. 0 should make them available from the very start of the game for free in each gamemode though there maybe some issues there. Unfortunately I could not extend this option to the AI due to seemingly an engine bug.
  • Added a "Cross Era Hero AI" option to the IA settings menu. This will allow you to easily prevent the AI from spawning as Heroes from other eras/factions. This option is tied to the used faction, not the map. So if you had this option disabled whilst the AI was playing as the Separatists on Jakku, Kylo Ren and Darth Vader would be disabled but Count Dooku would be enabled.
  • Added a "Duplicate Heroes" option across all gamemodes which simply let's you have multiple of one hero available at once. Mainly useful for HvsV but I decided to let it be usable in the other modes because why not?
  • Moved the old IAO "Prequel Hero AI", "Original Hero AI", "Sequel Hero AI", "Lightsaber Hero AI", "Blaster Hero AI" and "Droid Hero AI" options to HvsV only to prevent some nasty bugs. These options technically speaking are redundant since you can just use the AI kit restrictor now but I kept these in just in case someone liked being able to do this quickly. Once again these options don't effect modded characters because that's not how modding works.
    
• General Changes:
  
  • Anakin's AI can now use retribution (have fun with that)
  • Found out DICE forgot to give BX their unique AI names so I fixed that.
  • Significantly Improved Droideka AI logic. They will now almost never go into ball mode whilst fighting enemies.
  • Additionally AI will now use some close range abilities only when enemies are at an appropriate distance. This includes: Dooku's Lightning Stun, Yoda's Unleash, the Wookie Warriors's Slam and the Clone Commandos' Repulsor Blast
  • The Wookie Warrior AI is now automatically disabled in the Clone Wars. This can be changed by modifying the limit in the AI restrictions menu.
  • Hero AI can now use all of their base game skins though this is disabled on some maps. E.G Han will still always have his Hoth look on Hoth Supremacy but can use any skin on Geonosis HvsV.
  • Rebel AI can now use all available skins across all maps.
  • Added tags to map and gamemode names in the IA settings menu to indicate how well they perform.
    
    • [AI Incomplete] = AI somewhat works but not perfectly. For maps this means the pathfinding is probably broken, for gamemodes it means that some of the objective logic isn't fully working
    • [AI Unsupported] = AI are completely broken in some regard. For maps it means there's no pathfinding at all, for gamemodes it means there's no objective logic.
    • [AI Complete] = Fully working AI map and objective logic. Used for Strike maps only.
    • [Crash Risk] = Map now sometimes crashes for unknown and probably unfixable reasons. This is only applies to Death Star 2 currently. I have no idea why this is happening as it is inconsistent so I have no means to fix it.
      

Cut Features:
This is basically just a list of things that I was working on during the development of this mod but just never made it in. This does not mean that if there was a "Completed" version of this mod that it would include all of this, it just means that I was working on and made some progress with them. This should hopefully explain some of the decisions I made with the mod.

• GA objective logic for bots - Made some progress in particular with Kashyyyk, Yavin and Kamino.
• Completing Strike AI objective logic - doesn't really require much explanation.
• Weather options - Completed a proof of concept test of having the weather of Naboo be tied to an option in the IA settings menu. Just never got around to actually finishing it off.
• Generating new pathfinding - A friend of mine discovered how the pathfinding format works but unfortunately generating it requires the use of a kd tree algorithm which neither of us understand. If you happen to know how these work and would want to help out, feel free to comment.
• Bespin and Crait Supremacy
• More general options like hero and reinforcement counts for other modes
  

Credits:
Apologise to any modders I may have missed, my memory from when I worked on these mods is pretty poor.

• Mophead - Mod Developer
• Cade - IA Menu Appearance & Logic, Extraction AI Objective logic, Base HvsV game logic, Ai Restriction menu UX design
• Cosmicdreams - Portraits for Clones and Droids in HvsV
• Y wingpilot2 - AI Logic Inspiration
• Zatomos - Ewok Village lighting tweaks and French translation