Poïpoï, Lonemasterino, niol, Phenom, ZetaDaemon, 10 FPSs, Novenic, Elektrohund, lollixlii, Bra2ha,
Nexus-Mistress, Erthwormsam, apple1417, TheNiTrex, Aaron0000, Stygian Emperor, RadiantArin

THIS IS A STAND-ALONE MOD!!! DO NOT USE ANY OTHER MODS WITH
THIS ONE, BECAUSE THEY WILL CAUSE THIS MOD TO WORK INCORRECTLY...
THE REASON WHY IS BECAUSE THIS MOD AFFECTS:
LOOT POOLS/DROP RATES, ENEMY HEALTH/DAMAGE SCALING,
PLAYER HEALTH/DAMAGE SCALING, VARIOUS PASSIVES ON GEAR,
INTERACTIVE OBJECTS, PLAYER/ENEMY PHYSICS SCALES, ETC...
ALSO, THIS MOD IS FOR ARMS RACE ONLY DUE TO CUSTOM SCALING
TO COMPENSATE FOR LACK OF ACTION SKILLS AND GUARDIAN RANK PERKS...
BALANCING WILL BE OFF IF USED ON ANY MAP BESIDES ARMS RACE!!!
This mod is designed for VETERAN players that are looking for a fun challenge ;)

This combination of numerous edited mods FINALLY makes Arms Race an absolute blast to play.
Massive thanx to ALL original modders for all of their hard work on the initial mods that I combined,
tested, and completely reworked to make this version where I'm trying to keep everything properly balanced.
My inspiration for this mod was the Boss Race mod by SkruntSkrunt which I thought was an excellent
concept, but it did not feel balanced to me and running thru it with friends gave me numerous ideas, so
I started looking over all available hotfixes and set out on a 11 month-long journey to create this mod.
- The timers are extended to a total playtime of around 160 minutes per run, plus killing the final bosses.
- All spawns have been modified to be replaced with mini-bosses and bosses from the main game and
all the DLC's, plus the Cartel's Event, Wotan and some of the Trial bosses too. Skags/spiderants have been
replaced with dinos/boss spiderants. Massive chubbies have been added. Heavyweight Harker now
spawns in the Hag of Fervor, One-punch and Voltborn during the final boss battle with him.
- 190 weapons (including the Eridian Fabricator) have been custom balanced for this mode,
along with various overall weapon improvements, including a faster reload time on all weapons
- 20 grenades have been custom balanced for this mode, along with various overall grenade improvements
- 6 shields have been customized, including an extensive re-work of the rough rider shield
- 3 artifacts have been customized, including an extensive re-work of the Pearl of Knowledge
- various buffs to passives on class mods and on artifacts, including some fixes
- the addition of the unreleased class mod for Zane that drops on the arms race map
- Player/enemy health/damage has all been customized, including enemy resizing and display name
corrections, and swapping weapons that some enemies have equipped (including Harker)
- various changes to ammo chests/pickups, vending machine changes that now include the Arms Race map
- custom loot pools assigned to various enemies and a custom loot pool for the eridian fabricator
- various fixes to descriptions on weapons, shields, and artifacts
- removed all anointments that are useless in arms race, with exception of action skill end
splash damage anoint because some weapons spawned with no anointment if that one
was not in the anointment pool. not sure why this was the case, however any anointments
that are action skill start/end dependent have been removed since you can't proc them in Arms Race
- included various UI/QoL fixes to keep things nice and clean, including red text explainer,
removing xp bar, improved photo mode, no loyalty reward notifications, etc.
- various changes to enemy/player movement mechanics and enemy weapon stats
- increased ammo carry count, unlimited backpack and bank capacity expanded to 9999
- increased xp gains to enable a New Game character to reach lvl 72 before end of run
- added the ability to use arms race gear during the run on the arms race map
- Customized the map and fast travel station to include name of mod and new description
- fixed some weapons/gear to be able to drop with an anointment since they now drop on this map
- increased player base health, increased player base melee damage (including ability to crit on melee)
- removed heavy weapon penalty and player self-splash damage (except Backburner child projectiles)
- non-elemental damage is now more balanced, with enhancements to elemental DoT damage
- enabling Cartel Event enemies to spawn in the arms race map (works about 10% of the time)
- the addition of "classic" loot beams that replicate the look of loot in Borderlands 2
- better loot odds from area challenge chests and final extract station expanded to send more items
- FFYL Time extended from default 12 seconds to 45 seconds to compensate for no guardian rank perks
- enemies get 35% tougher, instead of the default 20%, every time the Murdercane moves
This is designed to be playable solo or with friends (co-op is HIGHLY recommended)
WHEN STARTING A RUN, it is HIGHLY recommended to start with some "starter" gear using
the VAULT CARDS: The Super Soldier shield, Pyroburst grenade, Overclocked Troubleshooter, and
a Shlooter artifact (specifically with a HEALTH REGEN roll on it, due to damage taken during run)

This is designed to be played with a level 72 character on Mayhem 10/11, however is also a LOT of fun
if played by host with a New Game character that is now available to allow for mayhem to be unlocked...

There are a few things that affect the HOST ONLY and do NOT carry over to guests:
- the "unlimited" bank does NOT carry over
- the final extract station being expanded does NOT carry over
- any name changes, character resizing, UI changes does NOT carry over
- weapon/gear changes are NOT visible to guests when gear is laying on the ground
HOWEVER, guests DO see the changes once they pick an item up (equipped or in their backpack)
console-players CAN join this mod and play, BUT OLD-GEN consoles will CRASH after 60-90 minutes
IF the loot is NOT picked up and just left on the map. OLD-GEN consoles will also CRASH
IF there is more than about 150-180 items in the backpack, so stuff needs to be sold during run.
60% of my testers were on console, with half of them being on OLD-GEN console, so this has been
extensively tested and I feel that this is a good warning for people of possible crashes and how to avoid them.

ADDITIONAL THANX TO ALL OF MY ALPHA, BETA, AND PRE-RELEASE TESTERS THAT GAVE THEIR TIME
AND HELPED WITH NUMEROUS SUGGESTIONS FOR SPAWNS AND CORRESPONDING DEDICATED GEAR TO MAKE
THIS A FUN, CHALLENGING, AND REWARDING EXPERIENCE FOR ANY PLAYER REGARDLESS OF PLAYSTYLE.
WE HAD A LOT OF FUN TESTING NUMEROUS ENEMIES, INCLUDING ONES THAT DIDN'T MAKE
THE FINAL CUT DUE TO BROKEN MOVING MECHANICS, BROKEN IMMUNITY PHASES AND VARIOUS
OTHER BUGS AND GLITCHES... I AM GRATEFUL FOR Y'ALLS PATIENCE THROUGH ALL CRASHES,
FROZEN GAME SESSIONS AND ALL THE TIMES Y'ALL HAD TO WATCH CLAPTRAP DANCE YET AGAIN ;P

In no particular order, some of the ones (not everyone wanted to be named) that contributed to testing were:
mojejaja69, belphagor1234, razor-dtr, Ms_Ducky, vovip77, body-snatcher, cor319ey, about25schmeckls,
FxR_MONSTER, MzSkittlez, Kuudere, un1c0rn_gal, sphericbones, evilempire2000, and brokenwings99...

as of 09242023, the mod is COMPLETE!!! I am very happy with the result and now just need to clean-up the code
before I feel comfortable releasing this.... but still, after eleven long fucking months of development, with me
starting on this last Halloween, this thing is finally close to what I wanted in my mind when I first started... YAY!

The following are KNOWN issues that may occur during a run, which I have NOT been able to fix:

- occasionally The Sky Bully enemy will spawn on top of a structure/building and will just sit there idly.
Due to changed player movement mechanics, in some instances, you can still reach him to initiate
the battle, but in some cases this is not possible. Homing grenades can be used to kill them, but the loot
can't always be reached. While this can be a little annoying sometimes, it never breaks anything if you
can't kill him since he doesn't spawn in places where this would end up being a progression blocker.

- occasionally, when Wotan splits into his "Upper-half" and "Lower-Half" during a battle, if it's in a tunnel
his "Upper-half" or "Lower-half" can glitch under the floor or above the ceiling where that part can not be
killed. This never occurs anywhere where it would end up being a progression blocker. If you are fighting
him in some of the buildings, occasionally when Wotan splits, his "Upper-half" will end glitching onto the
roof of the building and you will need to finish killing that part there. Again, not a progression blocker.

- occasionally, when first loading into the game (on any map EXCEPT the Arms Race map,) the SandHawk
sniper rifle sometimes shows x8 projectiles while consuming 3 ammo per shot, instead of showing
x9 projectiles while consuming 1 ammo per shot and game needs to be reloaded to fix this. Best way to
avoid this is to load into Sanctuary DIRECTLY from main menu and then fast travel to Arms Race map...

- Mr. Titan ALWAYS spawns in as "Raging Titan" and will immediately start fighting enemies near him.
So there are times where he will kill a weaker enemy for you. However, this is not a progression blocker.

- occasionally, Rachael the Anointed will float thru structures and land on top of them when spawning in
in the Plunderdome. However, this is not a progression blocker because thanks to the changed player
movement mechanics, it is easy to run up the wall and kill her so that the chest room still opens there.

- Cartel Event enemies do not spawn in every session. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

- There have been changes made to the Vending Machine, in order for them to show much better loot.
I added statements that are specific to the Arms Race map and while they work for all machines on map,
for some reason, the Airdrop machines (and their itemoftheday) are the ONLY ones that are unaffected.

- The Maliwan enemies that spawn during the Wotan fight are unaffected by the health buffs that I
implemented, even though the code works when fighting Wotan on the Maliwan Takedown map.
Not sure why it doesn't carry over to Arms Race map, however this is not a progression blocker.

- occasionally, weapons will spawn with the "action skill end increase splash damage" anointment which
is useless on the Arms Race map. This was done intentionally due to the fact that if I did not include that
specific anointment, some weapons would spawn with no anointment at all even when I tried adding
extra statements for anointments to those weapons. One useless anointment is better than none at all...

- the damage buff on the AAA seems to only affect the primary burst-fire mode

- while self-damage is disabled, the child projectiles from a Backburner can still damage you

- due to the Gunerang and Bangerang sharing a barrel, only the Gunerang is buffed properly

- due to changes to the Bearcat, firing it continuously for a long time may lag the game a little bit

- spamming elemental versions of the Surge grenade may lag the game a little bit

- the damage buff on the Craps seems to only affect the Impact mode and has no affect on Sticky mode

- the damage buff on the Ion Laser seems to only affect the Primary Firing Mode

- the damage buff on the NightHawkin seems to have made the burst-fire mode display 0-burst,
instead of 4-burst which makes it full-auto even though the weapon says that it's burst-fire

- the damage buff on the Hornet seems to only affect Primary Firing Mode

- the damage buff on the Ruby's Wrath seems to only really work right when the tracker is active

- the damage buff on the S3RV-8OS-EXECUTE seems to only work right when spamming reloads

- when doing a New Game run, some of the passive percentages on some artifacts and class mods
show a NEGATIVE value and this is NOT a graphical glitch. Most artifacts are not suppose to be able
to drop below lvl 27, which is where their "baseline" starts, so gear at lower levels is impacted
negatively because of this but still drops since I had to make changes to level requirements
due to the necessity of having active health regeneration from the beginning of a run

The following is a list of featured named enemies (excluding dinos/spiderants/chubbies) currently in the mod:

Lagromar, SpongeBoss BulletPants, Yellow Force Trooper, Caber Dowd, Anointed Alpha, Wotan the Invincible,
Gideon, Facemelter, One Punch, Xam, General Blisterpuss, Tink of Cunning, Skag of Survival, Aurelia, Shiv,
Handsome Jackie, Mr. Titan, Tyrone Smallums, Sky Bully, Demoskaggon, Tom, Loot Skritaari, Josie Byte, Hydragoian,
Beef Plissken, Franco Firewall, EVIL Saint Lawrence, Dr. Benedict, Borman Nates, Billy the Anointed, Tony Bordel,
Rachael the Anointed, Jerrick Logan, Gigamind, Hag of Fervor, Heavyweight Harker the Invincible, and Voltborn.

This mod will continue to be updated for the foreseeable future... It will be based
on user-feedback and there are still a few things that I would like to add/change:
- more shield variety
- more artifact variety
- more grenade variety
- possibly more weapons, although I honestly think what's already here feels like is enough
- possibly more or altered/different custom loot pools
- would like to fix the airdrop machine and its itemoftheday to be like other vending machines
- would like to add more ammo machines on the map

Stormblind Complex name/description/fts changes - Created by me (BlackberryShadoe)