TABS Cinematic Overhaul

by SeriousMango21

Turns Totally Accurate Battle Simulator into a war film. Hits throw bodies around like Euphoria and Max Payne. Units at zero health aren't dead yet: they stagger, clutch their wounds, grab walls and slide down them. They collapse, crawl for cover and die slowly while their friends kneel beside them begging them to hold on. There's dark, directional blood, wounds that stay on the body, broken bones, dismemberment and synthesized gore sounds. The AI fights smarter, uses cover and talks, and an automatic cinematic camera finds the best moments.

Everything is procedural, with no asset bundles. Nearly every feature can be tuned or switched off in the config.

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Hotkeys

Key	What it does
F9	Director camera on/off: an automatic cinematic camera that follows the action. Also lets friends run to the wounded (see below).
F10	Director camera: cut to a new shot
F8	Film look on/off (vignette, contrast, grain, chromatic aberration)
F7	Letterbox bars on/off
F6	Clear all blood
F5	Tactical AI on/off (to compare with vanilla)

All keys can be changed in the config, under 5. Hotkeys.

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Features

Ragdolls and hit reactions

• Euphoria-style reactions: the struck limb jolts, the body twists away from the blow, and the head whips. The arms fly out and wheel against the hit before the hands go to the wound.
• Real stagger steps: a hit takes the strength out of a unit for a moment. Its own legs step it along the blow: back from a hit in front, forward from one behind, sideways from one on the side.
• Knockdowns: heavy hits and explosions put units on the ground. Cannonballs and blasts throw bodies, scaled by how heavy the unit is.
• Heavy, grounded bodies: corpses are loose and heavy (LimpCorpses, BodyWeight), with no floating mannequins.
• Fall bracing: falling units throw their hands out to catch themselves.

Out of health isn't dead yet

• Dying on their feet: a killing hit leaves the unit standing for a few seconds. It reels away from its killer, lurches, spins or drops to its knees, and doubles over its wound. Its knees buckle and it grabs at walls and nearby allies. Cannonballs, close blasts, very heavy hits and head hits still kill instantly.
• Downed: then its legs give out, but it lives on for a while on the ground. It writhes and rolls clutching its wound, tries to push itself up on shaking arms and collapses, or drags itself hand over hand towards cover. At the end it makes one last trembling reach.
• Out of the fight: enemies leave dying units alone, but a violent hit or a third blow finishes them.

Catching themselves on walls

• Grabbing hold: a unit reeling into a wall, rock, crate, fence or tree throws its hands out, grabs it and steadies itself. It leans in, head bowed, chest heaving.
• The living push off and fight on.
• The dying hold on for a moment, then their knees go. They slide down the wall on their hands, fingers dragging bloody streaks, and end up slumped at the foot of it.

Grabbing injuries

• What they grab: hurt units press bleeding wounds, grip broken bones above and below the break, cradle a broken arm against the chest, and squeeze the stump of a lost limb.
• Hands that stay put: the hands lock onto the spot and stay there as the body moves.
• By chance: it isn't every time. Each new injury has a chance to be grabbed, and every few seconds the unit may switch injuries or let go.

Friends in the field

• "It's gonna be okay": a friend right beside a downed unit drops to a knee at its side, presses the wound and talks it through: "Stay with me! Look at me!", "It's gonna be okay...". The dying unit reaches a shaking hand up to the friend's face. If it dies there, the friend cries out and often goes after the enemy.
• Shouting from where they stand: other friends nearby call out to the downed unit ("Hang in there!", "MEDIC!").
• With the Director camera on (F9):
  • Friends also run over to the downed. Under fire, they drag them by the collar behind real cover; in a lull, they kneel by them.
  • Others stand guard over the fallen.
  • Without the camera on, nobody leaves the fight for this, so normal battles play out as usual.

War-film AI

• Cover: archers, gunners and other ranged units find firing positions behind walls, rocks and fences and fight from there ("In cover!"). Badly wounded units of any kind get out of the line of fire.
• Heroics:
  • Last stand: a badly hurt or hopelessly outnumbered unit charges ("I'm not done yet!").
  • Revenge: a unit that sees a friend killed next to it goes for the killer.
  • Help: free units help an ally fighting two enemies.
  • Sacrifice: when a squad falls back, one unit stays behind to buy time.
• Squad tactics:
  • Units form squads with leaders and follow team plans: pincer flanks, holding lines, coordinated charges, falling back.
  • Leaders shout orders and wave their arm.
• Smarter movement:
  • Melee units flank on arcs, sprint into contact, and step around while trading blows.
  • Ranged units strafe.
  • Units spread out instead of clumping, steer around obstacles, and limp when badly hurt.
• Battle chatter: the wounded cry out ("My leg!"), the dying beg ("Medic...", "Don't leave me here..."), and units shout "Man down!" and call out kills. It's rate-limited so the screen never fills with text.

Blood

• Dark and directional: dark, realistic blood. Hits throw a cone of elongated drops and spray streaks behind the victim, onto the ground and walls.
• Spurts and pulses: wounds spurt and mist, and bad wounds pulse with the heartbeat.
• Pools: blood pools spread under the dying and the dead.
• Trails and smears: badly wounded units leave drip trails. Bodies smear blood as they crawl and slide, and leave bloody handprints where they brace. Blood runs down walls.

Wounds on the body

• Shaped by the weapon:
  • Blades leave long, open slashes along the line of the swing.
  • Spears, daggers and stabs leave deep slits that pour blood.
  • Bullets and arrows leave punctures, often with a torn exit wound.
  • Blunt blows leave bruises that darken from red to purple over half a minute.
• They stay: wounds follow the curve of the body and bleed down it with gravity. They stay before and after death.

Broken bones and dismemberment

• Broken bones: heavy blows break bones with a crack. A broken limb goes floppy and bends the wrong way.
  • The worst breaks are open fractures, with splintered bone poking out of a bleeding wound.
  • A broken leg sends the unit down, then it limps. With both legs broken it drags itself along.
• Dismemberment only from truly violent hits:
  • Cannonballs, boulders, close explosions, big blades and heavy weapons on brutal blows.
  • Gunshots only bleed (unless you turn BulletDismember on).
• What it looks like: limbs tear off with meat chunks, bone shards, dangling flesh and splintered bone in the stump. Point-blank blasts can blow a body apart.
• Surviving it: units can survive losing a limb. The stump pumps blood and they bleed out over time unless it clots. A unit that loses a leg drags itself along with its arms.

Sounds

• The library: 114 synthesized gore sounds across 13 kinds, built when the game starts:
  • drips, splats and spatter;
  • flesh ripping;
  • four kinds of bone crack;
  • meat landing;
  • blade slices, stabs, blunt thuds and bullet impacts;
  • arterial spurts;
  • gurgling from the dying.
• Volume: they play through the game's sound channel at a moderate default volume, with separate sliders for blood, gore and bone.

Cinematics

• Director camera (F9): cuts between orbit, over-the-shoulder tracking, low hero angle, fly-by and wide shots, with depth of field and letterbox bars. It's drawn to rescues, last stands, explosions and fresh kills.
• Kill slow-mo: occasional slow motion on kills near the camera, big multi-kills and explosions. It's off in online play.
• Film look and impact pulses: a vignette and chromatic-aberration kick on nearby kills.

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Config

The settings are in r2modman → Config editor → com.seriousmango21.tabscinematicoverhaul.cfg (or BepInEx/config/ in the profile). The ones people change most:

Setting	Default	What it does
1. Reactive Physics → RagdollDrama	1.5	Overall violence of hit reactions (1 = subtle, 2 = action movie)
1. Reactive Physics → DyingTimeMin / DyingTimeMax	2.2 / 4.4	Seconds a dying unit staggers on its feet
1. Reactive Physics → DownedTimeMin / DownedTimeMax	5 / 12	Seconds a downed unit lives on the ground
1. Reactive Physics → WallCatchChance	0.8	How often units grab walls and objects
1. Reactive Physics → ClutchChance	0.55	How often units grab their injuries
2. Blood → Amount, SpatterAmount, PoolSize	1.2 / 1 / 1.2	How much blood
3. Tactical AI → ComfortChance	0.25	How often a friend kneels by the dying
3. Tactical AI → HelpDownedOnlyWithDirector	on	Friends only run to the downed while the Director camera is on
3. Tactical AI → UseCover, BattleChatter, Heroics	on	War-film AI pieces
6. Gore → DismemberChance, BoneBreakChance, Brutality	0.6 / 1 / 1.5	How gory
7. Sound → Volume	0.5	Master volume of the mod's sounds

Every system has an on/off switch, and there are about 130 settings in total.

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Compatibility

• Requirements: BepInExPack TABS 5.4.16 (installed automatically by r2modman).
• Other mods: works alongside unit and map mods. Other ragdoll or blood mods that change the same things may fight with it, so use one at a time.
• Online: slow-mo turns itself off in online play. The mod changes physics and AI on your side only, so it isn't meant for multiplayer matches.

Credits

Made by SeriousMango21. See the changelog for the version history.