Custom mercenaries

In vanilla JA2 every character was baked into the binary file Prof.dat and edited with ProEdit. 1.13 externalized all of it — the feature is called PROFEX (profile externalization) in Ja2_Options.INI — so a mercenary today is defined by a handful of plain XML files in Data-1.13\TableData, plus face, voice and text assets in ordinary data folders. This page walks through those pieces: the profile itself, opinions, the A.I.M. and M.E.R.C. hiring sites, speech files, and the steps for building a new merc of your own.

It assumes you know the general 1.13 editing workflow — put changed files in your own mod folder and layer it with the VFS, never edit the installed originals. See How 1.13 modding works, XML modding and XML files & the XML Editor first.

How profile data is loaded

The switch lives in Ja2_Options.INI under the "PROFEX" heading:

; If TRUE, reads "MercProfiles.XML" and "MercOpinions.XML" for profile data.
; If FALSE, reads profile data from PROF.DAT.
READ_PROFILE_DATA_FROM_XML = TRUE

TRUE is the default, and the INI notes that the New Trait System requires it. Everything on this page assumes XML profiles.

Converting an old Prof.dat mod

The companion setting WRITE_PROFILE_DATA_TO_XML = TRUE writes the loaded profile data back out as XML before the main menu appears (the game creates TableData\MercProfiles out.xml). Load an old Prof.dat-based mod with READ_PROFILE_DATA_FROM_XML = FALSE and this set to TRUE, and you get its profiles converted to editable XML.

Profile slots and types

TableData\MercProfiles.xml contains one <PROFILE> per character slot. Its own header states the rules: profiles run from 0 to 254, and index 200 cannot be used. The uiIndex is the character's profile ID — the key that every other file on this page refers back to.

Each profile declares what kind of character it is with the <Type> tag:

Type	Meaning	In current data
0	None (not used)	1 (the reserved index 200)
1	A.I.M. merc	72
2	M.E.R.C. merc	43
3	RPC (recruitable in Arulco)	19
4	NPC	84
5	Vehicle	7
6	IMP slot	29

Type-6 profiles are the empty shells your player-created IMPs are written into — see Creating IMPs. The counts above matter for a modder: every usable slot in the shipped data is already occupied. There is no free index to claim, so a new merc means repurposing a slot — typically converting one of the 29 IMP slots (lowering the maximum number of IMPs) or replacing a character you do not need. The old SVN merc examples used slots 170–177, which were free in 2010 but have since been filled by officially added A.I.M. mercs such as Monk.

MercProfiles.xml

A profile is large — Barry Unger's entry is over a hundred tags — but it falls into a few clear groups. This is the start of the real entry:

<PROFILE>
    <uiIndex>0</uiIndex>
    <Type>1</Type>
    <zName>Barry Unger</zName>
    <zNickname>Barry</zNickname>
    <ubFaceIndex>0</ubFaceIndex>
    <usVoiceIndex>0</usVoiceIndex>
    <usEyesX>10</usEyesX>
    <usEyesY>8</usEyesY>
    <usMouthX>7</usMouthX>
    <usMouthY>28</usMouthY>
    ...
</PROFILE>

Identity, face and voice

Tag	Meaning
zName, zNickname	Full name and nickname
ubFaceIndex	Number of the portrait files to use — see Faces & portraits
usVoiceIndex	Number of the voice set — see voices below
usEyesX/Y, usMouthX/Y	Eye/mouth animation coordinates in the portrait (faces)
uiEyeDelay, uiMouthDelay, uiBlinkFrequency, uiExpressionFrequency	Portrait animation timing
bSex	0 male, 1 female
ubBodyType, uiBodyTypeSubFlags	Tactical body model
PANTS, VEST, SKIN, HAIR	Clothing/skin/hair color names, e.g. TANPANTS, BLUEVEST, PINKSKIN, BLACKHEAD

In the shipped data ubFaceIndex and usVoiceIndex are equal to the profile's uiIndex, but they don't have to be — that is exactly how a new merc can reuse an existing voice set or portrait.

Stats

bLifeMax/bLife, bStrength, bAgility, bDexterity, bWisdom, bMarksmanship, bExplosive, bLeadership, bMedical, bMechanical and bExpLevel are the familiar attributes and experience level. fRegresses and the per-stat GrowthModifier... tags (0 for almost every shipped profile) influence how stats develop over the campaign.

Traits — new and old system

The profile carries trait picks for both trait systems; which set is used depends on the new-game option:

• bOldSkillTrait / bOldSkillTrait2 — old-system skills, numbered 0–15 (1 Lock Picking, 2 Hand-to-Hand, 3 Electronics, 4 Night Ops, 5 Throwing, 6 Teaching, 7 Heavy Weapons, 8 Auto Weapons, 9 Stealthy, 10 Ambidextrous, 12 Martial Arts, 13 Knifing, 14 Rooftop Sniping, 15 Camouflaged).
• bNewSkillTrait1 … bNewSkillTrait4 — new-system (STOMP) traits. Repeating the same major number in two tags makes the merc an expert — Scope, for example, has 3 twice and is therefore a Sniper.

The STOMP numbers, from the file's own comment header:

Major traits	Minor traits
1 Auto Weapons/Machinegunner	10 Ambidextrous
2 Heavy Weapons/Bombardier	11 Melee
3 Marksman/Sniper	12 Throwing
4 Hunter/Ranger	13 Night Ops
5 Gunslinger/Gunfighter	14 Stealthy
6 Hand-to-Hand/Martial Arts	15 Athletics
7 Deputy/Squadleader	16 Bodybuilding
8 Technician/Engineer	17 Demolitions
9 Paramedic/Doctor	18 Teaching
20 Covert Ops	19 Scouting
	21 Radio Operator
	22 Snitch
	23 Survival

Personality is set with bCharacterTrait (0 Neutral, 1 Sociable, 2 Loner, 3 Optimist, 4 Assertive, 5 Intellectual, 6 Primitive, 7 Aggressive, 8 Phlegmatic, 9 Dauntless, 10 Pacifist, 11 Malicious, 12 Show-off, 13 Coward) and bDisability (0 None, 1 Heat Intolerant, 2 Nervous, 3 Claustrophobic, 4 Non Swimmer, 5 Fear of Insects, 6 Forgetful, 7 Psycho, 8 Deaf, 9 Shortsighted, 10 Hemophiliac, 11 Fear of Heights, 12 Self-Harming); bAttitude (0–9) is the old-system attitude. What all of these do in play is covered on the Skills & traits page. A profile can also carry a usBackground from TableData\Backgrounds.xml — 255 means none (a comment in the file notes that 0 cannot be used for "none").

Salary and hiring terms

Tag	Meaning
sSalary	Daily rate
uiWeeklySalary, uiBiWeeklySalary	Weekly / two-week contract rates (A.I.M. contracts; M.E.R.C. mercs have 0 here and are billed daily)
bMedicalDeposit, sMedicalDepositAmount	Whether hiring requires a medical deposit, and how much
usOptionalGearCost	Base price of the merc's starting equipment. With gear kits the website recalculates the price per kit — see Starting gear

Relationships and prejudices

Five buddy and five hated slots, each holding a profile ID (255 = empty): bBuddy1–bBuddy5, bHated1–bHated5 with matching bHatedTime1–bHatedTime5, plus bLearnToLike/bLearnToLikeTime and bLearnToHate/bLearnToHateTime. The hated "time" values set how long the merc tolerates that person — the game counts down from this value, the merc's opinion of the offender worsens as it runs out, and a merc can ultimately quit over someone they learned to hate.

The flavor fields feed the 1.13 morale and dynamic-opinion systems: bRace, bNationality, bHatedNationality (+ bHatedNationalityCareLevel), bRacist (0–2), bSexist (0 Not, 1 Somewhat, 2 Very, 3 Gentleman), bAppearance (0 Average, 1 Ugly, 2 Homely, 3 Attractive, 4 Babe) and bRefinement (0 Average, 1 Slob, 2 Snob) with their care levels, and ubNeedForSleep, bReputationTolerance and bDeathRate from the classic profile data.

Placement — for RPCs and NPCs

Characters who stand in a sector (Types 3 and 4) use sSectorX, sSectorY, sSectorZ, ubCivilianGroup, bTown, bTownAttachment, fGoodGuy and the usApproachFactor... tags. Miguel, for instance, sits at sector A10, basement level 1, in civilian group 1. A.I.M./M.E.R.C. mercs leave the sector fields at 0.

Profiles contain further tags not listed here (for example bArmourAttractiveness and bMainGunAttractiveness). When in doubt, copy the whole entry of a similar merc and change what you understand.

MercOpinions.xml

What everyone thinks of everyone. One <OPINION> block per profile, containing one <AnOpinion> element per character they have an opinion about:

<OPINION>
    <uiIndex>0</uiIndex>
    <zNickname>Barry</zNickname>
    <AnOpinion id = "11" modifier = "25"/>
    <AnOpinion id = "66" modifier = "-8"/>
    ...
</OPINION>

id is the target's profile ID (0–254 — 1.13 extended the vanilla limit of 75 to cover all profiles), modifier is the opinion value: positive for approval, negative for dislike. Only non-zero opinions are listed. zNickname is for human readers. Opinions feed the morale system, so when you add a merc, give the roster some opinions about your new profile ID too, not just opinions held by it — otherwise everyone is perfectly indifferent.

Putting a merc on the hiring sites

A.I.M. — AIMAvailability.xml

TableData\AIMAvailability.xml maps website slots to profiles:

<AIM>
    <uiIndex>170</uiIndex>
    <description>Monk</description>
    <ProfilId>170</ProfilId>
    <AimBioID>40</AimBioID>
</AIM>

The file has all 255 entries; every entry whose ProfilId is not -1 becomes an A.I.M. member (the game builds the member list by skipping the -1 placeholders — with Prof.dat profiles only the first 40 vanilla slots are scanned). description is a human-readable comment; the game reads only uiIndex, ProfilId and AimBioID.

AimBioID selects a record in BinaryData\AIMBIOS.EDT — a fixed-record EDT file holding each member's biography and "additional info" text. EDT files are edited with the community EDT editors (see Tools).

M.E.R.C. — MercAvailability.xml

TableData\MercAvailability.xml (43 entries in current data) controls Speck's site:

Tag	Meaning
uiIndex	Position in the M.E.R.C. list
Name	Comment for human readers
ProfilId	The merc's profile ID
MercBioID	Bio record in BinaryData\MERCBIOS.EDT
StartMercsAvailable	1 = on the site as soon as it opens
NewMercsAvailable	Used by the game to track mercs unlocked during play; 0 in the shipped file
usMoneyPaid	Merc appears once your total payments to Speck reach this amount
usDay	…and not before this campaign day (both conditions must hold)
Drunk	Marks the drunk duplicate of Larry Roachburn (entry 33, profile 47)
uiAlternateIndex	Links Larry's two entries together (-1 for everyone else)

Related knobs in Ja2_Options.INI [Recruitment Settings]: MERC_WEBSITE_IMMEDIATELY_AVAILABLE, MERC_WEBSITE_ALL_MERCS_AVAILABLE, and the switches for the extra recruits (RECRUITABLE_SPECK, RECRUITABLE_JOHN_KULBA, RECRUITABLE_JA1_NATIVES) — see the options tour.

Supporting files

File	Role
TableData\Email\EmailMercAvailable.xml	Per-profile e-mail sent when an A.I.M. merc who was away "contacts you back"
TableData\Email\EmailMercLevelUp.xml	Per-profile e-mail from Speck when a M.E.R.C. merc's salary increases
TableData\OldAIMArchive.xml	The A.I.M. alumni pages; per its header you delete a <MERC> block to remove a veteran, and FaceID picks a portrait from Data\Laptop\OLD_AIM.STI
TableData\HiddenNames.xml	Profiles flagged <Hidden>1</Hidden> show ??? as their name in tactical view until you first talk to them (used for RPCs/NPCs whose identity is a small reveal)
TableData\MercQuote.xml	Per-profile QuoteExp... flags describing quirks of the voice set (read by XML_Qarray.cpp); e.g. QuoteExpGenderCode filters who may speak certain comment lines. The flags are not formally documented — copy the entry of the merc whose voice set you reuse
TableData\RPCFacesSmall.xml	Eye/mouth coordinates for RPC/EPC small faces (FaceIndex, EyesX/Y, MouthX/Y)

Voices: speech, subtitles and battle sounds

A voice set is a number — the profile's usVoiceIndex — and the engine builds all file names from it (verified in Tactical\Dialogue Control.cpp and Tactical\Soldier Control.cpp):

File pattern	Contents
Speech\<voice>_<quote>.wav	One spoken line per quote number (.ogg is also supported)
Speech\<voice>_<quote>.gap	Optional lip-sync data: silence timing used to pause the talking-portrait animation; lines play fine without it
MercEdt\<voice>.EDT	The on-screen text of every quote in the set
BattleSNDS\<voice>_<sound>.wav	Short battle cries
Npc_Speech\<voice>_<quote>.wav + NpcData\<voice>.EDT	Dialogue for NPCs and not-yet-recruited RPCs

File names use three digits: voice set 170, quote 4 is Speech\170_004.wav. Quote numbers are a fixed event list defined in the source (Tactical\Dialogue Control.h): quote 0 is "spotted an enemy", and the list runs through events like "gun jammed", "killed an enemy", "buddy died" and so on. As a scale: the voice set of Monk (170) in the current game data contains 102 lines numbered up to 116.

Battle-cry names come from a fixed table: ok, cool, curse, hit, laugh, attn, dying, humm, noth, gotit, lmok, lmattn, locked, enem, punch, knife. Numbered variants (170_HIT1.wav, 170_HIT2.wav, …) are allowed — the engine counts them and picks one at random.

The practical takeaways:

• Reusing a voice is trivial: point usVoiceIndex at an existing set and you are done — this is what the SVN example mods did, shipping no sound files at all.
• A new voice is a lot of work: a full set of WAVs, the matching MercEdt EDT file with every quote's text, and a set of battle sounds, all under an unused number.
• NPC dialogue (NpcData\*.NPC files) is a separate scripted-conversation system, out of scope here.

IMP voices are chosen from TableData\IMPVoices.xml, which simply lists voice-set numbers with a label and a gender — the current data offers 15 sets, several of which (51–56, 169, 192–194, 300–304) exist specifically for IMPs.

Faces

Portrait file names are driven by the profile's ubFaceIndex. Everything about the STI files — the five sizes, folders, 256-color palettes, eye/mouth animation frames — is on the Faces & portraits page. For an A.I.M./M.E.R.C. merc you need at least the big face (the website photo) and the 48 × 43 tactical face.

Starting gear

Each profile owns one <MERCGEAR> entry in TableData\Inventory\MercStartingGear.xml; A.I.M. mercs can have up to five selectable kits. The full format, pricing rules and a worked example are on the Starting gear (NSGI) page — don't forget to fill a kit for your new merc, or they will arrive empty-handed.

Step-by-step: a minimal new A.I.M. merc

The cheapest possible new merc reuses an existing voice set and ready-made portraits, and sacrifices one IMP slot. All edits go into your own VFS mod folder.

1. Pick a slot. Choose a Type-6 profile in MercProfiles.xml (for example one of the PGmale/PGLady entries) and note its uiIndex.
2. Write the profile. Set <Type>1</Type>, name and nickname, stats, traits, salaries and relationship slots. Point ubFaceIndex at your portrait number and usVoiceIndex at the voice set you are borrowing, and copy that voice owner's eye/mouth coordinates if you also borrow their portrait.
3. Faces. Supply or reuse portrait STIs named after your ubFaceIndex — see Faces & portraits.
4. Put them on the site. In AIMAvailability.xml, set your profile ID in an entry's ProfilId and pick an AimBioID; reuse an existing bio or add a record to your mod's copy of BinaryData\AIMBIOS.EDT with an EDT editor.
5. Quote flags and opinions. Copy the MercQuote.xml entry of the voice's original owner to your profile ID, and add MercOpinions.xml opinions in both directions.
6. Gear. Give the profile's MERCGEAR entry at least one kit in MercStartingGear.xml (details).
7. Test. Start a new game so the changed profiles are actually used, check the A.I.M. page, hire the merc, and listen for missing speech in tactical play.

Keep the files consistent

Nearly every file here is indexed by profile ID, and the game trusts the XMLs to agree with each other. A ProfilId pointing at an empty profile, or a voice index without speech files, shows up as blank website entries or silent mercs. Change one thing at a time and keep backups — and remember the reserved index 200.

The SVN example packs

The SVN-era Modding Examples folder contains Additional Merc Examples.zip: seven self-contained VFS data folders (Data-AIM-WF, Data-AIM3, Data-IMP-WF, Data-JA1, Data-Mercs, Data-Mix-Example, Data-WF-JA1) that add Wildfire, JA1 and other characters to slots 170–177, each with ready vfs_config.*.ini files. They demonstrate exactly the file set described on this page — MercProfiles.xml, MercOpinions.xml, AIMAvailability.xml/MercAvailability.xml, MercQuote.xml, HiddenNames.xml, RPCFacesSmall.xml, MercStartingGear.xml, faces, MercEdt texts and AIMBIOS.EDT/MERCBIOS.edt — and are still useful as templates. Two caveats from comparing them against current data: their XMLs predate tags added since 2010, and two files they ship (SoundsProfiles.xml, SenderNameList.xml) no longer exist in the current TableData. The download location and the related Additional_Female_IMPs.zip (extra IMP portraits) are covered on the externalized content page.

If you get stuck, the Bear's Pit modding forum and the 1.13 Discord are the places to ask — see community links.

Sources

• Data-1.13/TableData/MercProfiles.xml, MercOpinions.xml, AIMAvailability.xml, MercAvailability.xml, MercQuote.xml, HiddenNames.xml, OldAIMArchive.xml, IMPVoices.xml, Email/EmailMercAvailable.xml and Email/EmailMercLevelUp.xml from the current 1dot13/gamedir repository — tag names, comment headers, entry counts, profile-type counts and examples.
• Folder listings of Data-1.13 (Speech, Npc_Speech, MercEdt, NpcData, BattleSNDS, BinaryData with AIMBIOS.EDT/MERCBIOS.EDT/PROEDIT.EXE) from the same repository — file naming patterns and the voice-170 file set.
• Data-1.13/Ja2_Options.INI — PROFEX section, [Recruitment Settings].
• 1.13 source code from 1dot13/source: Tactical/Dialogue Control.cpp/.h (speech/EDT file name construction, quote event list), Tactical/Soldier Control.cpp (battle-sound names and numbered variants), Tactical/Soldier Profile.cpp (A.I.M. roster built from availability entries), Tactical/soldier profile type.h (255 profiles, 5 buddy/hated slots, opinions extended to 255), Tactical/XML_Profiles.cpp, Tactical/XML_Opinions.cpp, Tactical/XML_HiddenNames.cpp, Tactical/XML_Qarray.cpp, Tactical/GAP.cpp (.gap lip-sync files), Tactical/Interface.cpp and TacticalAI/NPC.cpp (hidden names shown as ??? until first talked to), Tactical/Morale.cpp (hated-time opinion scaling), Laptop/XML_AIMAvailability.cpp, Laptop/XML_ConditionsForMercAvailability.cpp, Laptop/mercs.cpp (money/day unlock conditions, drunk-Larry handling), Laptop/AimMembers.cpp and Laptop/mercs Files.cpp (bio EDT files).
• Additional Merc Examples.zip from the 1.13 SVN Modding Examples folder — contents of all seven example data folders.