ACM Overhaul Version 6 is here! feature

Special Thanks to
Larnievc for being a community champion and helping out since day one
TheSpoons313 for all the testing and support
Matt Filer for creating the awesome intro video and helping with moddb
NewTimeTimmeh for some quality playtesting and feedback
TeacherGalante for helping out and giving great feedback
XSlayer300 for creating the logo and helping out in the community
Kasugano for creating the restart bug fix
Agatsuma for figuring out how to mod ACM
Wellen1981, Deus Wolf and Masp1911 for being a stand out members of the community
All of the ACM community!
The hardworking developers and artists who made the stuff thats awesome in this game

Overview :
Aliens Colonial Marines Overhaul (ACMO for short) has always been about getting the best out of every aspect of the game. There is denying the game even after patches was lackluster at best. The AI sucked, the gunplay sucked, the story was eye-roll worthy and the characters under developed and overly cliched. It was not all bad though, and it had its moments. The levels could look fantastic, the weapons look great and the sound is very faithful to the source.
ACMO is primarily focused on three areas of the game, AI, Gunplay and Graphics. Each area has been heavily tweaked, playtested, balanced and tweaked some more to get the best out of every mechanic possible.
While there is nothing that can be done about the story the rest of the game is much more enjoyable than it was before with more varied and improved gunplay, unpredictable and deadly xenomorphs and darker atmospheric lighting and effects.
See below for a full rundown of the changes!

What to expect :
Unfortunately ACMO is not a miracle patch that turns the game into what was promised and teased back in the day and there are still many bugs and issues that remain that cannot be fixed with a hex editor.
Despite that buried under bad design choices, rushed development and typo's there is a decent game to be found, certainly better than the one that was released by Gearbox. When you play ACMO you are still playing the same game, its just everything works better, everything looks better and as a result the game is much more enjoyable.
The AI can still get stuck, and sometimes they still bug out and just stand still but it happens less often and is much less likely to impact gameplay progression than before. Human vs Human combat is not exactly what you would call tactically sound and their choices are often still suicidal
Due to how these changes have been applied to the game, it is one change for the entire game and all the modes. This can lead to pacing issues with your ally marines either leaving you behind or not following at times. Triggering the next sequence will make them catch up if they are behind or they will wait there for you. If you are seperated to much they will eventually be teleported to you.
When its all working however you can expect much more satisfying and enjoyable encounters, especially with the xenomorphs who move much more like they did in the bullshot video crawling over everything and being much less predictable foes

Pre Installation :
ACMO V6 should be applied to a freshly installed fully patched original version of the game with no modifications or tweaks applied. Please re-install the game or verify the installation before installing this mod.
If you have previously played ACM you will need to remove the games configuration files located in My Documents\My Games\Aliens Colonial Marines\
This folder must be renamed or deleted in order for the mod to function correctly after it has been installed. This includes users of ANY previous version of ACMO!

Installation :
Copy the contents of the ZIP into your games installation folder
e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Aliens Colonial Marines
Execute the Install batch file now located in your games installation folder. This will remove certain game files to allow mods to be used and apply a fix to the EXE to prevent the steam restart loop bug.
If the installation was successful, the install batch file should disappear. You can now run the game and enjoy the mod!

Graphics Options and INI Tweaks :
ACMO v6 includes all the ini tweaks I know of, as well as the various typo fixes and other improvements to take advantage of todays hardware built right into the game, no edits needed. Simply run the game and use the ingame video sliders to configure the game to your liking.
It is highly recommended to reconfigure the brightness in game video settings before playing the first time. This game is intended to be dark, and having brightness too high will wash out the graphics and ruin the atmosphere.

Hiding the in-game hud :
Pressing F6 during gameplay will toggle the ingame hud on and off for greater immersion on lower difficulty levels. Note that the hud is required for the smartgun display.

Features

Campaign (Main and Stasis Interrupted) :
Difficulty levels have been reworked to provide great challange variety.
Recruit - Ally Marines are very effective in combat and will kill enemies quickly. Enemies have less health. WY Mercs will not flank or throw grenades. Xenos rarely pounce with a long cool down if they miss
Soldier - Ally Marines are effective in combat but can be overwhelmed by Xenos if outnumbered. WY Mercs will flank sometimes and rarely throw grenades. Xenos will pounce regularly
Hardened - Ally Marines are mostly effective in combat but stumble easily and can be overwhelmed quickly. Enemies have more health. WY Mercs will flank if possible and throw grenades regularly. Xenos will pounce regularly with a short delay between attempts
Ultimate Badass - Ally Marines are effective when ganged up on a single target but otherwise its on you. Enemies have more health. WY Mercs will flank if possible and throw grenades if you give them an opportunity. Xenos will pounce if they can with very little delay between attempts
Ammo cache's around the levels are no longer based on the ammo you need but randomised. Random wieghting has been adjusted to compensate
Ammo dropped by WY Mercenaries is based on ammo you need

Bug Hunt :
Money earned while Solo increased by 1.5x to make the initial stages easier
3 and 4 player games each player earns 25% less cash to slow progression
Cash per kill increase reduced for xenos
Cash per WY Heavy Merc increased
Turret Kill cash halved
Super Weapon pickups cost slightly less and can be used 10 times
Secondary ammo refills cost slighly less
Xenos always use the dark skin instead of the brightly coloured ones

Competitive Muliplayer Modes (TDM, Extermination, Escape, Survivor) :
!!DO NOT USE THIS MOD IF YOU INTEND TO PLAY COMPETITIVE MODES!!
Unfortunately the multiplayer xenomorphs are based off the campaign AI xeno's and so are effected by changes made to them.
This also goes for the weapons for the marines

Engine / Other :
HUD toggle feature mapped to F6
INI tweaks and changes are now applied directly by the game itself into your config file, so no custom tweaks are required
Each graphic slider in game has been updated so that the last 3 positions on each apply more tweaks and updates to improve graphics
The lowest 2 positions on each slider remain unchanged from the original base game setup to maximise performance on old computers

Graphics :
Increased lighting quality, shadow distance, shadow count, shadow resolution and enabled shadow casting on most light sources
Texture upscaling and sharpening applied to all model and world textures
Increased particle emitter max draw distance, particle count, lighting quality, lifetime and spawnrate
Increased material shader quality and render distance
Increased decal creation distance, visible count and lifetime
Material properties on character and weapon models as well as most mettallic and infestation surfaces reworked to remove fake lighting effects and improve image quality
Higher quality shader settings applied to base game
Hud toggle button added to base game

Special Effects :
Smoke, Fog, Dust, Steam and Vapor particle effects reworked to ensure the highest quality effect is always generated when on screen
Slime, Sparks, Electricity, Rain and atmospheric effects reworked for greater visual impact
Acid Blood special effects reworked to be more visible and create significantly more burn decals on surfaces
Human Blood special effects reworked to be more visible from a distance to help with hit feedback
Character-on-fire special effect reworked so the entire body looks like its on fire
Bullet Impact sparks significantly increased to help with hit feedback
Bullet Tracers reworked to make shots visible and assist with aiming
Shotgun Shells, Bullet Casings and Grenade Shells are now ejected by the appropriate weapons and fall to the ground
Front and Rear Armor plates fall from the player when losing all armor and fall to the ground

Sound :
Ambient sound effect volume and pitch variance increased
Sound Occlusion enabled on all weapon sound effects and enemy voice effects
Sound Attentuation adjusted on many special effect sounds

Xenomorphs :
Heavily reworked AI state rules and attributes to give maximum freedom to the xenos
Removed and Replaced many instances of buggy functions with similar stable functions (eg replacing displace with repath)
Reworked pathing costs to heavily favor walls and ceilings, and anything out of view
Enabled tail attacks from any surface
Disabled melee encounters to allow xenos to attack you from the front
Increased melee damage, attack speed and maximum combo count
Reworked skin materials to be less visible in the dark, but show greater detail under light through specular lighting
Switched Soldier Xeno leap for the Lurker leap with QTE struggle
Ranger xenos allowed to spit while moving and are more likely to engage in melee combat
Lurkers have been given more freedom on how far they can roam and how long they can hide when stalking
Raven 2nd and 3rd stages are easier to make the boss fight more enjoyable

Colonial Marines :
Rebalanced health, accuracy and damage to increase marine reliability and usefulness
Reworked pathing costs to promote keeping close to the player but prefer covered and less open routes
Adjusted combat timing rules to improve reaction time to changes during combat
Reworked skin, metal, fabric and rubber material properties
Shoulder Lamp angle adjusted so that during combat it is pointing roughly where the AI is shooting

Weyland Yutani Mercenaries :
Reworked pathing costs to significantly promote use of cover and flanking positions over direct combat
Adjusted health and armor to make accurate shooting more important
Weapon usage and damage rebalanced
WY Mercs will throw grenades if an enemy remains in cover or still for too long. Elites throw firebombs
WY Heavys have significantly more health
Reworked metal, fabric and plastic material properties

Weapons - General
Weapon hip fire position moved down to a more realistic position
Weapon Wander aiming mechanic completely reworked
Recoil Recovery rate used to simulate weapon wander while shooting
Max spare ammo for primary and attachments rebalanced according to weapon power

Weapons - Pistols
Slight damage increase at range
Large damage decrease during a Xeno pounce QTE

Weapons - Pulse Rifle (Hudsons)
graffiti removed from body
Switched to fully automatic firemode
Rebalanced recoil
Large long range damage boost
Significant damage boost over MK2
Highly effective against armor

Weapons - MK2 Pulse Rifle
Rebalanced to be a less powerful more versatile and controllable Pulse Rifle
Medium long range damage potential
Underbarrel Shotgun now fires Incindiary rounds instead of standard buckshot

Weapons - Pump Action Shotgun (Standard and Hick's)
Very high close range damage potential but extremely limited long range potential
Hick's Shotgun stronger for medium range engagements
Weak against armor

Weapons - Tactical Shotgun
Extreme close range damage potential but extremely limited long range potential
Fires special high pellet count ammunition with a high spread
Weak against armor

Weapons - Assault Rifle
Rebalanced recoil and damage to excel in human combat
Increased Rate of Fire
Defaults to Fully Automatic, can be upgraded to 5 round burst
High long range damage potential
Very strong against armor
Underbarrel Shotgun fires Incindiary rounds instead of Buckshot
Underbarrel flamethrower has significantly more fuel to compensate replacing the flamethrower pickup with the smartgun

Weapons - Battle Rifle
High damage at all ranges
Significant damage boost to ensure good shots are one hit kills

Weapons - Submachinegun
Boost to rate of fire
Low long range damage potential
Very weak against armor

Weapons - FlameThrower
Rebalanced to require a short sustained burst on untouched xenos to kill
Damage over time from fire is high but not enough to kill on its own

Weapons - Smartgun
High damage at all ranges
Increased rate of fire
500 round drum magazine
Tracking mechanic improved to lock faster, stick with moving targets and compensate for recoil more reliably
Weapon dispersal inversion disabled to make short bursts more reliable than continual fire
Smartgun has replaced the Flamethrower during the campaign any time it was found in the game world

Weapons - Plasma Rifle (DLC)
Extreme damage output over a small target area
Switched to instant fire
Only 2 shots per cannister

Weapons - S.H.A.R.P (DLC)
Projects fly significantly faster
Projectiles will explode via proximity during flight otherwise projectiles explode a short moment after contact
High damage over a small target area

Weapons - Double Barrel (DLC)
Extreme damage at close range over a large area
Significantly more spare ammo

Weapons - Ripleys Badass Contraption (DLC)
Pulse Rifle portion mimics Hudsons Pulse Rifle above
Slightly less vertical recoil but slightly more horizontal recoil than Hudsons Pulse Rifle
Flamethrower starts will a full tank but otherwise mimics the standard Flamethrower

Also available for Download are a series of ADDONS that allow further customization of the mod for a more personal experience (see readme included with download for full details) :
Adjusting Xenomorph health and movement speed
Adjusting WY Merc health
Adjusting Xeno and WY spawn counts
Adjusting Smart Gun spawn chance
Adjusting Weapon hold position
Adjusting UI Style