Overview:
AGE is a comprehensive overhaul of nearly every gameplay aspect of TTW's rendition of Operation Anchorage. The loadout selection is now dynamic and not set, there's a new armor and much more weapon variety for the enemies, new enemy robots, new encounters and bosses, hidden weapons, balance changes, variety improvements, and the difficulty has been tuned up dramatically.

When should I start AGE in my playthrough?
I recommend around level 25 at the minimum, and that you should really make sure to have at least one weapon skill maxed - having Explosives or Big Guns maxed as well is also highly advised.

Features:

• The simulation no longer uses Alloy Steel copies of weapons. Instead, non-playable and quest item flags are added to the base versions of the weapons during the sim, and removed afterwards. This means that visual and statistical changes to the weapons will apply during the sim.
  While this does remove the "unique" aspect of the slightly different colored weapons, it also serves to allow this mod and any other mod to very easily add to the available selection for both the NPCs and player without asynchronicity.
• The vanilla loadout format, where you're given a specific set of weapons for stealth/heavy/assault/close loadouts has been totally scrapped in favor of the player being allowed to choose one melee weapon, throwable, handgun, rifle/shotgun, and "special" weapon, like grenade launchers/flamers/plasma casters. By default the available selection will restrict your choices based on your weapon skill - if a weapon's skill requirement is greater than your current base weapon skill, it will not show up, though there is a default weapon available in each category at all times. You can also change your loadout weapon selection as many times as you'd like, instead of just twice.
  This can be turned off. Restriction based on Strength requirements can also be turned on. The Strength check is off by default.
• You are given a prompt at the start of the DLC to select a new Sneaking Suit with optional Bandana or Combat Armor with optional Bandana or Combat Helmet. This armor will be retained upon phase transition. A set of combat armor can be found in the tent across from the command tent in the second phase for players to switch to if they choose to.
  The Bandana's DT/DR can be modified in the config ini - this was done to make this aesthetic choice less of a death sentence for JIP Localized DT/DR users.
• Stealth is still very difficult - however, I have helped this by providing the player with an invisible perk that increases crit. chance and damage to enemies outside of combat in the sim.
• The new Chinese Observer robot will ping local troops to start combat with you when it initiates combat with you. It needs to be killed very quickly while in stealth to avoid this alert.
• A set of six Chinese weapons can be found during the sim - an Officer's Sword, Pistol, Carbine, Assault Rifle, Grenade Rifle, and Sniper Rifle. These will be retained upon phase change after the Artillery segment, and allow you to supplement your other loadout choices. An in-game challenge tracks their collection.
  Multiple copies of the AR can be found, but you only need to find one of the ARs to be given its progress for the challenge. A few other weapons can be obtained, such as a laser pistol and combat knife - they do not count toward the challenge.
• The new Chinese Sniper Rifle and Carbine have optional wasteland integration.
  Integration is turned on by default.
• Flashbangs have been added around the frag grenade placements. While in the sim, these will give enemies massive spread and reload speed debuffs - permanently.
  This was done to give them more appeal over simply attempting to out-DPS enemies, and the impermanence of the sim gives me the leeway to comfortably just make it permanent instead of short lived.
• Weapons will degrade during the sim - this is done both for the sake of ease of integration of weapons into the sim, and it will also make jamming more of a reality. Ammo boxes will repair the durability of all of the weapons you hold when you use them.
• Health dispensers no longer give infinite healing - instead, they will each give you a total of one full health bar's refill before becoming depleted. They will still always heal all of your limbs to max, however. They will also restore all of your hardcore needs when used, to support mods which give chems needs penalties. Stimpaks and Med-X have been placed around a number of these dispensers as well.
• Ammo dispensers will still infinitely dispense ammo for your non-special weapons. Each one will refill your "special" weapon ammo once.
  Special ammo is not handled the way the health kit is, where it's a total sum that you can dip into multiple times - you touch the box, it fills the remainder of your missing special ammo supply and that's it for that box. While the Grenade Rifle is considered a special weapon for loadout selection, the Red Victory Grenade Rifle is treated specially, and you will always receive one refill of grenades for it per box.I will not be attempting to change this.
• A total of ten Disposable Rocket Launchers can be found in both obvious and hidden locations throughout the sim. These are powerful and highly useful against bunkers, chimera tanks, and the secret bossfight. They can each only be fired once, and they are kept during phase transition. An in-game challenge tracks their collection.
  In contrast to the M72 LAW implementation in Hit - Explosives, the launchers as integrated in AGE cannot be rearmed. I will not be changing this, as I prefer it this way. The movable statics that are created upon firing are intentionally not pickup-able.
• The Gauss Rifle will be retained upon phase transition. The previous speech challenge to acquire it from the quartermaster has been changed to a flat speech check of 65+, and it will instead grant a Fat Man with three Mini Nukes. This will be retained upon loadout change.
• In addition to the standard method of lockpicking the doors to the rooms in the Artillery segment containing the intel briefcases, each door has been given a nearby terminal which will call a security team, the leader of which holds a key to the door and a plasma weapon that can be looted to use.
  This has been done to allow all characters the capacity to get all intel, regardless of lockpicking skill. These encounters can be quite tough. The plasma weapons will be removed upon phase transition. The intel message pop-up has been changed to a corner message.
• The sim rewards have been expanded to cover one of nearly every generic weapon in the game, and a large amount of almost all ammo types.
• If all of the security team leaders have been killed, upon collecting the final intel you will be accosted by a final security team commander.
• Spider Mines have been added in more places. They're now a staple of the DLC, rather than a short setpiece.
• New, half-sized, "Chimera Drones" have been placed in a few locations. A third full sized Chimera Tank has been added to the Chimera outpost.
• Dragoon Units have actually had their speed bonus nerfed by half to reduce their absurdity. They now use Katanas alongside the Chinese Officer Sword.
  (200%->150%)
• Chinese soldiers have a dramatically wider range of available weapons, many of which are much more dangerous than their stock assault rifle. "Launcher" enemies are particularly dangerous. They also have a backup pistol and melee weapon, as their weapons can now be shot from their hands.
• Chinese soldier health has been standardized, and will no longer scale with level.
  American troops also have a higher variety and backup, but this barely affects gameplay.
• Jingwei's ridiculous health has been reduced a moderate amount.
• A new black and orange Hazardous Sneaking Suit can be found in Broken Steel, in the upper floor of the Deathclaw pen on the Mobile Base.
• Three semi-unique gas masks can be found in the post sim rewards with very high durability.
• TTW's added "Violence In Videogames" challenge has been renamed to "Violence in Virtual Reality", had its total count increased to 150, and set to display updates every 50 kills instead of every 10.
• TTW's placement of the "dropped" Gauss Rifle in the cave near the start of the Artillery section stood vertically - this has been corrected to be on its side.
• Sim rez out behavior can be disabled. This is highly recommended to be left on, but I made the setting anyway. Turning it off will likely have notable performance issues. It is not supported.
  

Secret Boss:To fight the secret boss, select the Sneaking Suit + Bandana option at the start, summon and kill all security teams and complete the chinese weapon collection, disposable rocket launcher collection, intel collection, and hostage saving challenges. If you've done so, a red button will appear next to the final door to the Chinese HQ. Get ready for a tough fight! Defeating the secret boss will reward you with some stylish and powerful armor and sunglasses. Wild Wasteland players will have additional enemies added to this fight.

Customization:
bDebugNote=0
;Setting this to 1 adds a cheat note at the start of the sim detailing the locations of all 10 intel files, along with the location of all the launchers and chinese weapons

bWastelandIntegrationChineseCarbine=1
bWastelandIntegrationChineseSniper=1
bWastelandDisposableRocketLauncherIntegration=1

bLoadoutStrengthCheck=0
bLoadoutSkillCheck=1

iBandanaDT=5
iBandanaDR=10

fHealthDispenserMaxHeal=1.0
;this is the maximum/1.0 health that each dispenser can heal before being depleted
;0.5 = 50%
;2.0 = 200% of your health
;99.0 = functionally infinite

iVoxType=1
;Selecting 0 will play no sound when security teams are called, 1 will play custom edited VOX sounds, 2 will play standard Fallout Klaxon
bSearchPartyVox=1
;Setting this to 0 will disable the VOX sound played when the search party sniper dies
bRezOut=1
;Setting this to 0 will disable the rez out behavior for all troops in anchorage
;This may have a pretty substantial performance cost and come with other bugs, so be careful if you set this to 1

Mod Integration:
Integration of other mods' weapons into the sim loadout options is quite simple, and can be done without a plugin.
There are five formlists of weapons, one for each weapon type:

Adding a weapon to the melee/unarmed choice is as simple as adding it to the formlist:
ListAddForm FLSTSimMelee MyWeaponID

Throwables require setting a count value as well:
ListAddForm FLSTSimThrowables MyWeaponID
AuxVarSetFlt "*_iSimThrowableCount" 3 0 WeapMinePlasma

Ranged weapons require addition to the formlist, an ammo base form aux ref set for them, and an ammo count:
Handguns:
ListAddForm FLSTSimHandguns MyWeaponID
AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimAmmo" NVDLC02Ammo45Auto 0 NVDLC02Weap45AutoPistol
AuxVarSetFlt "*_iSimAmmoCount" 120 0 NVDLC02Weap45AutoPistol

Rifles:
Submachineguns and Shotguns are also placed in this list as a standard by AGE.
ListAddForm FLSTSimRifles MyWeaponID
AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimAmmo" NVDLC02Ammo45Auto 0 NVDLC02Weap45AutoSubmachineGun
AuxVarSetFlt "*_iSimAmmoCount" 240 0 NVDLC02Weap45AutoSubmachineGun

Specials:
ListAddForm FLSTSimSpecial MyWeaponID
AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimAmmo" AmmoFlamerFuel 0 WeapFlamer
AuxVarSetFlt "*_iSimAmmoCount" 150 0 WeapFlamer

To override the default weapon for each category, these lines can be used:
player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultHandgun" WeapNV9mmPistol
player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultRifle" WeapNVServiceRifle
player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultSpecial" WeapNVGrenadeRifle
player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultMelee" WeapKnifeCombat
player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultThrowable" NVDLC04WeapGrenadeFlashbang

You do not need to disable the AGE script which assigns any of the above vars to change the defaults, or their sim ammo/ammo count - this can be done by simply overriding the value change a short time after the game restarts:
SetGameMainLoopCallback ({} => player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimDefaultHandgun" Weap10mmPistol) 1 60
SetGameMainLoopCallback ({} => player.AuxVarSetRef "*_rSimAmmo" Ammo556mm 0 NVDLC04WeapSMMG) 1 60

Requirements:
JIP LN, xNVSE, Johnny, ShowOff, the usual stuff
kNVSE is required.

Installation:
Install the requirements listed above.
Install the main file.
Install the assets pack.
Install any desired patches.

There are two plugins included and required in the main file:
AGE - Anchorage Gear Extension.esm
AGE - Anchorage Gear Extension.esp
Move AGE - Anchorage Gear Extension.esm below any conflicting .esms. Move AGE - Anchorage Gear Extension.esp below any conflicting .esps.

Compatibility:
S6S Perks and DMT are internally patched for the three new weapons. Most mods shouldn't need any changes, as the weapons used in the sim are the normal forms, and they will abide balance and model changes natively.

Fafnir's Fallout 3 Uniques TTW:
Compatible, just place the master patch lower than theirs, so that my armor entries win over theirs.
Inherently compatible with my lite version.
Cyberware
Compatible with the patch that stops the weapon forms from being removed by AGE.
TTW Operation Anchorage Rewards:
Incompatible, redundant, and not supported.
Delay DLC Redux:
Internally patched - make sure that AGE's esp overwrites Delay DLC's or you will break AGE sequencing and scripting.
TTW New Vegas Speech Checks:
The speech check is already changed to an NV style specific skill level check. Ensure that AGE - Anchorage Gear Extension.esp is placed lower.
Weather/Lighting Mods:
These will work totally fine, just place them later than both AGE plugins in your load order.

Limitations:

• The spider mines get stuck on geometry with some frequency. This is likely why their segment in the base game gave them very flat spaces to exist in. I do not consider this a substantial enough limitation to diminish their value-add in the new placements.
• If a soldier that's supposed to rez out is disintegrated or gooified, they won't rez out. I don't have much interest in fixing this, as I personally like it, and I'm not really sure how I would go about fixing it. It's ostensibly a vanilla issue anyway.
• Enemies have one of each ammo in their inventory, for ease of integrating items into their loadouts. These are all removed at the moment that they die along with their weapons, but when using Auto-Loot, this can result in you picking all of that ammo up if you're looking directly at an NPC at the moment they register as dead. I plan to look into blocking this at some point, but I may not be successful or potentially even bother looking into it.
• Enemy weapons can fall on the ground and persist after they're killed. This is due to using standard weapon forms instead of custom ones with huge durability. There's nothing I can really do about it.
• If you pickpocket one of the sim NPCs, you can take one of each ammo. Frankly, I don't know if I'll bother to do anything about it.
  

Bugs:

• Benjamin doesn't do a great job at attacking enemies that are targeting you. I don't know what's up with this. I've abided TTW's faction addition to him, but he'll just walk next to enemies that are chasing you sometimes.
• At the end of the listening post, Benjamin will greet you and say that the outpost is secured before the final rooftop ambush party spawns. I tried upping the count of enemies required to meet the objective, but anytime I change that number at all, the trigger breaks and doesn't fire, or he says his lines and you don't get teleported back to base properly. I can't even tell how that value is actually being tracked, so I have no ideas on what to do about it.
• I've had reports that mines take longer to detonate in the simulation. I didn't touch them at all here, so I have absolutely no idea why it happens.
  

Content Note:
Comments in the posts which glorify violence against Chinese, American, communist, or capitalist troops, nations, economic structures, ideologies or people will be removed. So will comments regarding the viability of either economic structure. I understand that communism is classically treated as an enemy in the Cold War style world of Fallout is a standard, but I just don't care for that kind of thing in the real world, and I don't consider this the place for those discussions.

Questions:
I already finished Anchorage, is there any way for me to get these items?
Use FNVEdit to locate EIDs to add things to yourself with the console.
F3 Version?
Absolutely not.
MCM instead of config ini?
Absolutely not.
Strike Team marker/troop change?
I don't really want to screw around with the quest stage management that the strike team uses, so I left this alone.
Where is ___ missable item in the sim?
There's a debug note that you can have added to the pipboy when you start the sim, using a config ini option.

Credits:
Chinese Arsenal - Chinese Sniper Scope Graphic
Fafnir's Fallout 3 Unique items Overhaul TTW Edition by FafnirEtherion
Swarmbot and Mr Handy Concept Art 2 Modder's Resources by Prodlimen
Lambda HEV Suit by Cat
Dragonskin Tactical Outfit by Antistar
HEV Stealth Suit by ElderianLancer
Legacy of X13 by EmeraldReign
Operation Anchorage Covert Ops perk guide by EtrianTech of the Steam Fallout 3 guides was used as the text for the debug note.
Legendary Bandana by AlexScorpion
The WA2000 and AK74 models were provided by Arccharger/eliteriotgearenjoyer via the Another Millenia models edited from Millenia's original mods.
The LAW models were ported from New World Interactive/Sledgehammer Games by 123456 and edited by Desmo, Wall_SoGB and lolwutyyy. The icon was provided by Zealotlee. The FX was provided by MadAce. The animations were done by hitman47101.
The WA2000 and AK74 animations were done by hitman47101.

Permissions:
When it comes to the work that I did here, i.e. everything other than the credited armor and weapon assets, do whatever.
In regards to the assets from other modders, please see the permissions on their pages.


Support:
If you'd like to support my modding work or say thanks, feel free to donate via the Nexus or here at Ko-Fi.