UPDATE 11-29-12-:I have had little time for gaming lately, but I did confirm that "psi rift" is an attainable ability by ALL PSIONIC SOLDIERS, not just the volunteer. So after you get 3rd rank at 500xp (vs 100 vanilla) you get psi storm at 1000psi xp (xp gained using psi abilities) you will just get psi storm, but no lvl up saying you got it, just appears next time that soldier deploys. I may adjust the xp required to get to psi storm, as 1000 seemed to be a little short still, as rift is DEVASTATING. Also I am about to release pretty much my final until mod tools get released, included in this will be the drastically increased prices and research times on higher tech items, the higher the tech the bigger the increase, and also a sort of "maintenance" for the containment lab and surgery, as it now takes elerium and alloys to perform autopsies and interrogations, kinda like you gotta feed the devices elerium and are going to need repairs. Also this mod drastically changes the way the game plays, amaking it MUCH longer, making labs and workshops worth building, making you wish you did have more room at the base not beating it with a half full base, the aliens are strong, your soldiers got skills, some of the logical issues have been corrected and with reaction fire, ghost armor, lightning reflexes, smoke, mind control and telekinetic field are MUCH more important, as some enemies take 3 and 4 shots at you if you close without one of these abilities, and makes the aliens EXTREMELY dangerous with damage rouletter, as a muton elite will do up to 30 points critical dmg on a reaction shot, and sectopods are the giant death robots they look like now. Trying to approach a sectopod or etherial with its muton elite bodyguard without ghost armor is SUICIDE. Various other tweaks will be included, inluding I will add in the pack the gfx mod and free camera mods (clutch) all in one installer, so you can play the game the way I am tweaking it to be.


When I played my first play-through on classic, I really felt like the soldiers that you started with were a bunch of incapable morons who were just going to panic and shoot their buddy. Made them feel much more competent. Incorporated seans marathon mod and raction fire, 2nd wave is enabled. This mod is meant to be played with damage roulette and not created equal.

Installation:
1:download the 2files included
2:place them both in the "binaries" foloder located in you X-com directory.
3:run patcher.bat
4:open your hosts file(c/wondows/system32?drivers/ect/hosts
5add these lines to that file: (VERY IMPORTANT YOU CLICK "RUN AS ADMIN" when opening this file or you will not be able to save your changes, my copy of windows is always logged on as super administrator, win 7 ultimate 64 xdark deluxe 5.0, so the steps I need to take MAY be different from your, as my windows has been HEAVILY modified.
# Prevent XCOM Phone Home
127.0.0.1 prod.xcom.firaxis.com
127.0.0.1 65.118.245.165
6:PLAY!!
The +10 aim and crit bonuses were never removed from impossible, only classic, and then they were 5, I am thinking about boosting all the enemy stats, and have not changed any aim or crit bonuses.
NOTE:As of now the reaction fire is EXTREMELY dangerous, and probably why they left it out other than so they can make it a perk. I had a drone and disc take a total of 6 shots at one guy as he moved thru their line of fire, as I think it gives a % chance on every tile in the range of the reflex shot, so be warned. At first I was going to remove it, but it makes sense, if you run through where someone is aiming, chances are they are going to take a shot at you. I may boost all enemy reaction fire% to 50, and maybe leave the soldiers at 25. REALLY changes tactical gameplay, especially when you run into a group of 12 mutons like I did last night
Major changes that I did:
Added 2 item slots for carapace ghost archangel and psi armor (may remove for psi armor) and 3 for titan, as I feel a dude in titan armor should be able to carry a truck, and mobility bonuses for carapace (its super light) skeleton ghost and archangel armors (powered exoskeleton) and 1 for titan since it is also powered, just have to use self control to equip a nano fiber vest and a chitin. More for say a grenade and a vest, or scope and grenade. This involves self control to not make the game too easy stat stacking.
Also, I reduce the chance for panicked soldiers to shoot their buddies the 10%, as 50% was EXTREME to say the least.
1.1:
Added in reaction fire, 20% for organics, 50% for robots (including shivs) and 25% for your soldiers, based this off reaction fire mod on nexus site. EDIT:It seems that reaction fire was taken out for a reason, as it makes the game run somewhat poorly. I get somewhat regular hangs when running thru the sight range of say 4+ enemies, usually takes a min to get to the destination, I hafve had it freeze mid turn once where thee game just stopped progressing, but sound was playing and animations still running, but nothing happening.(soft freeze?) Probably the engine, but like I said I am pretty noobish.
Increased research times a lot, like 100 for psi link, REALLY makes lags and scientiscts worth the investment.here are just lasers and plasma:
LaserWeapons,iTime=10, iAlloys=5, iElerium=0, iNumFragments=10, iNumItems=0)
PrecisionLasers,iTime=12, iAlloys=5, iElerium=0, iNumFragments=5, iNumItems=0)
HeavyLasers,iTime=12, iAlloys=5, iElerium=0, iNumFragments=5, iNumItems=0)
Plasma_Pistol,iTime=20, iAlloys=0, iElerium=5, iNumFragments=40, iNumItems=1)
Plasma_Light,iTime=25, iAlloys=0, iElerium=5, iNumFragments=40, iNumItems=1)
Plasma_Rifle,iTime=30, iAlloys=10, iElerium=10, iNumFragments=40, iNumItems=1)
Plasma_Heavy,iTime=35, iAlloys=10, iElerium=10, iNumFragments=40, iNumItems=1)
Plasma_Sniper,iTime=35, iAlloys=10, iElerium=10, iNumFragments=50, iNumItems=0)
Alloy_Cannon,iTime=35, iAlloys=25, iElerium=5, iNumFragments=40, iNumItems=0)
BlasterLauncher,iTime=40, iAlloys=20, iElerium=10, iNumFragments=75, iNumItems=0)

Toughened up all enemies, going to do a playthru and adjust this based on how hard it becomes.:
Sectoid,HP=5
Floater,HP=6
Thinman,HP=6
Muton,HP=12
Cyberdisc,HP=20
SectoidCommander,HP=12
FloaterHeavy,HP=15
MutonElite,HP=20
Ethereal,HP=25
EtherealUber,HP=30
Chryssalid,HP=15
Zombie,HP=12
MutonBerserker,HP=30
Sectopod,HP=38

1.0:
I removed the aim and crit bonuses, but am going to put them back in.

Soldier progression changes:
Support
Squaddie,iHP=2, iAim=7, iWill=4, iDefense=1, iMobility=2 )
Corporal,iHP=1, iAim=5, iWill=3, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 )
Sergeant,iHP=1, iAim=4, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=1 )
Lieutenant,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=3, iDefense=0, iMobility=2
Captain,iHP=1, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=1 )
Major,iHP=1, iAim=4, iWill=3, iDefense=0, iMobility=1 )
Colonel,iHP=3, iAim=5, iWill=4, iDefense=1, iMobility=2 )

Heavy
Squaddie,iHP=1, iAim=5, iWill=3, iDefense=2, iMobility=1 )
Corporal,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=0 )
Sergeant,iHP=1, iAim=4, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=0 )
Lieutenant,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=3, iDefense=2, iMobility=1 )
Captain,iHP=1, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=0 )
Major,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=0 )
Colonel,iHP=1, iAim=6, iWill=3, iDefense=2, iMobility=1 )

Assault
Squaddie,iHP=2, iAim=5, iWill=5, iDefense=2, iMobility=2 )
Corporal,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=0 )
Sergeant,iHP=1, iAim=2, iWill=3, iDefense=2, iMobility=1 )
Lieutenant,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=4, iDefense=1, iMobility=2 )
Captain,iHP=1, iAim=4, iWill=3, iDefense=2, iMobility=0 )
Major,iHP=2, iAim=3, iWill=2, iDefense=1, iMobility=1 )
ColoneliHP=2, iAim=5, iWill=5, iDefense=2, iMobility=2 )

Sniper
Squaddie,iHP=2, iAim=10,iWill=4, iDefense=0, iMobility=1 )
Corporal,iHP=1, iAim=7, iWill=3, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 )
Sergeant,iHP=1, iAim=6, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 )
Lieutenant,iHP=2, iAim=5, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=1 )
Captain,iHP=1, iAim=6, iWill=2, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 )
Major,iHP=1, iAim=7, iWill=3, iDefense=0, iMobility=0 )
Colonel,iHP=2, iAim=10,iWill=4, iDefense=0, iMobility=2 )

I doubled xp for psi and rank progression. I upped base starting power and funding to speed the early game up a little , I am going to put it back. I made the high aim 85 and will 65. I also upped the sat capacity for the nexus to 6 and the reg sat to 4, plan on setting it to 4 or 3 for the nexus and 1 for the regular. I plan on making research MUCH longer and if I can change the triggers for certain missions, but like AI said I am not even really a modder, just enthusiastic. I really want to make the enemies tougher, since I can't make it spawn more enemies. I am probably going to start off with mutons getting double at least HP and more armor, and reg floaters get 5 maybe 6 hp, and heavy gonna get 12 probably. I want to give chrysalids more move points and hp, but do not know what exactly, but all of it will offset the bonuses soldiers get. So you will always hit a muton with your sniper, but may need to put 5-6 rounds in him to put him down. Like I said first real try at ANY official editing so please be gentle, and I am going to change a lot once I get done with this current playthrough. Also I doubled fuel, but am going to change it back.

UPDATE:
Going to list changes I WANT to make here as I play so I will not forget them, not a list of changes I have made only ones I plan to, some only if possible.

:rebalance item pricing and really the cost of everything, making high tech and later game stuf VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY expensive, and take a few downed ufos and couple months salary to afford say a nexus. I want to have elerium generators have an upkeep of elerium as well and really make them insanely expensive, so you have to feed the reactor, probably need mod tools for this part.
Rebalance heavy weapon damage, so that the further away the enemy the chance to hit drops off less, but damage drops off pretty significantly, as at least one bullet will always hit, but not the whole barrage, also shotgun weps.-update:I have been looking into this, it looks like the only way to accomplish something like this is "damage roulette", and it changes it for everything. I guess that will have to do, snipers will not always score a clean killshot, and someone CAN get shot in the head and still be up and fighting for a bit til they drop, still looking into this.
Maybe increase sight ranges to account for higher accuracies, I don't know yet, but now it seems like as long as some units can see an enemy, they have a really high chance to hit, but may balance this with decreased ranged damage for heavy, dunno yet.
I want to see if its possible to make accuracy go down the further a soldier moves, like if they go their whole 1st move range a -10, and a run and gun significantly more, but I want to make it go up incrementally as you move, so if you go a few feet, its a -1, and with mod tools add a stat or skill, like a combat stim, to counter it. I see it as kinda like they get a little winded running, and have less time to take aim when moving and firing.
Rebalance armors to make them all feel more unique, and I want to make the grapple distance 17-20 vs 15. I want to rabalance the changes I made to panic levels, as now the panic lvl is too easily managed I feel.
foundry projects are going up somewhere around triple and aircraft are going thru the roof, no pun intended.