I studied programming briefly in the early 90s. So my knowledge is limited to CoBOL, RPG, pascal and basic. I'd like to try the extended version, but it's sounds a little to complicated for my old ass to implement. Anyhow, it seams a good place to start, creatively, would be to design a totally brand new game with all the changes you'd like to see, then work backwards from there. Some simple logic flaws always bugged me, like, if you are chasing an alien sub and it touches down, you can't attack it? What is it about being on the sea-bed that makes it immune to sonic oscillators? When aliens attack an underwater base, why dot just breach an exterior wall and watch the puny humans all drown? The "aquatic" aliens are obviously "amphibious" aliens because I don't see them wearing water-filled SCBAs when they are on land. I think I will do this and start a new thread about it. XCOM3 : Total Earth Defense. Maybe some actual modders who know what their doing can glean some ideas from it.