[Answered][Question] Should the soldier bonuses stack?

[Thallori]

There's an existent implementation in Terra Invicta's traits system. Each trait is given a group, if the game tries to give another trait from that group to an agent then that trait is ignored. I think a best of both worlds implementation for OpenXCom might look something like..

All commendations/transformations can now be given a group number.

"Group: 0"
Default. Previous behaviour.

"Group: +X"
Sorts all awarded commendations by rank, then selects the highest rank and only uses the bonuses from that commendation. If more than one commendation is the same rank, then the game selects the earliest awarded commendation of that rank.
ex.
Sniper III: +3 firing, +3 reactions; group: 1
Overwatch II: +6 reactions; group: 1
Supergun I: +100 firing; group: 1

In this case, only Sniper III's +3 firing, +3 reactions bonus will apply to the soldier. The biggest problem is that someone's stats might fluctuate more than people are anticipating. A soldier that's been getting two awards in the same group, but the bonus stats are in health or bravery respectively might have 83 health, 20 bravery in one mission and 53 health, 80 bravery the next. This would be up to the mod author to sort out.

"Group: -X"
Looks at each bonus from each commendation, comparing stat by stat. Only the highest stat found is used for the bonus.
ex.
Sniper III: +3 firing, +3 reactions; group: -1
Overwatch II: +6 reactions; group: -1
Supergun I: +100 firing; group: -1

In this case, the bonus applied to the soldier from group -1 would be: +100 firing, +6 reactions.

[Juku121]

As you admit yourself, this will not solve the problem we're having with "Master of X" making soldier stats fluctuate
for no reason other than technical. How do you differentiate between "Master of Shotgun" and "Master of Kitchen Knife"? They're technically the same commendation with the same bonus, but conceptually they should stack, i.e. be in different groups!

And it explicitly requires that Meridian "design and implement a completely new soldier bonus mechanism", which is the biggest reason why this going nowhere right now, and possibly never.

[Thallori]

It does solve it, but in a more tedious way for the modders. You'd have to create a group, then add every weapon to it manually in the code. For your example, you could conceptually say that guns are group:1 and melee weapons are group:2, then make a commendation for every weapon in both those groups.

[Juku121]

The whole point of multiple "Master of X" commendations is that each of them does something. It is already possible to make commendations for all (or some) melee or ranged weapons with a fraction of the work necessary for redoing a stacking "Master of X" in the current system. Indeed, both XCF and XPZ already have such commendations in addition to "Master of X". That is not the problem here.

All your solution does is attribute the bonus to one of the "Master of X" commendations, which is essentially the same as having one mega-commendation awarding that bonus for an overall weapon class, and leaving all the "Master of X" commendations without bonuses.