OK...seems the hardcore has been tweaked, and is even more hardcore than it use to be. At least, that is my personal observation, bias potential acknowledged.
With that in mind, I decided to "poke around", where I dont belong.
Changelog indicated difficulty settings could be found in tunings.json; which I found readily enough in the Mods folder under baseassets. Made a few relatively minor tweaks, but did not get the expected results.
I changed lines 75 onward to read:
"hardcore_difficulty_char_points": 14,
"hardcore_difficulty_debt": (5000000,7000000),
"hardcore_difficulty_debt_payments": (1000,2000,3000,5000,10000,15000,25000,35000,45000,55000,75000),
"hardcore_difficulty_mc_xp_rate": {
"combat": 0.67,
"mechanics": 0.67,
"electronics": 0.67,
"computers": 0.67,
"sex": 0.67,
"social": 0.67,
"mood": "2.0 if xp<0 else 0.67",
},
"hardcore_difficulty_bots_xp_rate": {
"bot_combat": 0.80,
"bot_mechanics": 0.80,
"bot_electronics": 0.80,
"bot_sex": 0.80,
"bot_social": 0.80,
"autonomy": 0.80,
},
"hardcore_difficulty_hardcore_mode": True,
},
instead of the original;
"hardcore_difficulty_char_points": 10,
"hardcore_difficulty_debt": (5000000,7000000),
"hardcore_difficulty_debt_payments": (1000,2000,3000,5000,10000,15000,25000,35000,50000,75000,100000),
"hardcore_difficulty_mc_xp_rate": {
"combat": 0.5,
"mechanics": 0.5,
"electronics": 0.5,
"computers": 0.5,
"sex": 0.5,
"social": 0.5,
"mood": "2.0 if xp<0 else 0.5",
},
"hardcore_difficulty_bots_xp_rate": {
"bot_combat": 0.75,
"bot_mechanics": 0.75,
"bot_electronics": 0.75,
"bot_sex": 0.75,
"bot_social": 0.75,
"autonomy": 0.75,
},
"hardcore_difficulty_hardcore_mode": True,
},
Started a new game, still had 10 skill points to assign, not the expected 14, so I doubt the other changes will take affect either.
My intent?
Skill Points:
10, lets you make every skill and E, and 1 skill a D.
14 will allow 2 skills to start at D level vs 1.
MC XP
HC cuts MC XP awards by 50%.
I want to reduce them by 1/3 vs 1/2
BOT XP
HC cuts Bot XP by 25%
I want to cut it by 20%
Payment Progression
HC takes the 10 day payment to 100k
I want to progress it to 75k (this is probably the most impactful change right here. The Business is booming entry on the net, pays a max of 75k. Getting that once every 10 days as is, puts you at negative cash flow. I want it to be break even)
So, if I may impose upon those who know WTF they are doing...lol...please, and TYVM!
Is there another file I need to tinker with?.....
oh oh...I think I figured it out. I backed up of course my tunings.json, by renaming it tunings1.json. HOWEVER, dummy me left it in the original folder. The game is loading that, after the ammended tunings.json isnt it? (Let me go look. I am leaving this up, in case someone else who wants to poke around, runs into the same thing. Now to go see, if my 'epiphany', was correct. YES! That was it. lol)