Featured Geko's Better Progression 1.1.3

Do not ask when mod authors will update their mods or if they can upload older versions of their mods.
Bothering mod authors will lead to warnings and repeat offenses will lead to bans.
Due to an unusually high volume of traffic, our site may be experiencing intermittent slowdowns. If you notice any issues, log out of your account and browse anonymously so you can better utilize caching or try using forge.sp-tarkov.com to search for and download mods.

What if EFT's progression wasn’t built and balanced around pay-to-win? What if you could actually level up skills? This mod (gently) reworks the entire progression system for smoother, more meaningful growth—fully customizable down to the tiniest detail.

[tabmenu]
  • Version 1.1.3

    - Improved error handling in the case of some other mod adding a trade for an item that doesn't exist

  • Version 1.1.2

    • Fixed a bug where skill buffs were not being updated correctly on game start
      • Thanks to Big_Daddio_Paddio and Seriy500 for the report
  • Version 1.1.1

    • Fixed stupid ass typo that broke the Ref reputation gains on PMC kill
      • Thanks to DevilFlippy for the report
  • Version 1.1.0

    CONFIG FILES FROM PAST VERSIONS OF THE MOD ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THIS VERSION


    • Added workaround to breaking SPT bug in more recent versions that would strip guns and cause other oddities when the algorithmical rebalancing was enabled
      • Thanks to DevilFlippy and DirtyWindshield for the report
    • Improved Secure Container grid changing logic to no longer overwrite container filters with default ones
      • This should help with mods such as Gilded Key Storage that modified the allowed items in containers. Previously the compatibility with such mods depended on load order, now it should work regardless of order
      • Thanks to JulioZer for the report
    • Secure Container grid sizes are now considerably easier to customize in the config file

    Images

  • Version 1.0.1

    - Fixed a breaking bug with FiR requirements in repeatable quests

    - Now requires SPT 3.11.1 or above (3.11.0 is no longer supported)

  • Version 1.0.0

  • Hi,


    I'm trying to add additional trades for late game, and I'm having trouble finding what the IDs for "_id", "rewardId" and "targetId" do and where to look for the correct values for new trades. Can you point me to where you got the correct IDs for the RGN impact grenade trade included in the mod?

    • If you don't know what you're doing i would advise against messing with the advanced configs as you can easily cause bugs and stuff but here's an explanation anyway:

      Ok so, each trade is made up of three parts: the actual trade, the barter scheme and the loyalty level

      The key for the trade itself is the trade ID and can be set arbitrarily, you can use Tarkynator's ID Generator to get one. The _id inside the trade itself must be the same as the one you just generated that we will henceforward refer to as the trade ID. The _tpl is the table ID of the actual item you want to put for sale which you can find on Tarkynator or inside the SPT files as instructed in the first block of comments of the main config file of my mod.

      Barter scheme and loyalty level both need to use the trade ID as the key so that the game knows what trade they correspond to. Inside the barter scheme there's one more _tpl which is the ID of the currency to be asked for trade

      You mentioned rewardid and targetid but these are for quest rewards, not for trades, you're probably looking at the wrong file. Although if it's quest rewards that you want then the _id inside an item reward is another arbitrary id that points to the reward entry itself. The item you want to reward is specified by _tpl as before. target needs to be the same as the aforementioned _id

    • Thanks, with the instructions You provided I've managed to add 5.45x39mm BS gs to Prapor LL4 after a quest Gendarmerie - Mall cop. I think I know what I'm doing (mostly) and even if I didn't, I have backups of your original config so if I mess something up really badly I can fall back on that. The only thing that really confused me was those ids I didn't recognize, and it turns out those were for the arbitrarily added. Generating them with Tarkynator's ID Generator solves my problem completely.


      Now all I have left is to add every locked ammo, which is probably going to take a while but that's a commitment I'm willing to make.

      Thumbs Up 1
  • Geko's Better Progression might be incompatible with Friendly PMC. The error below appears when both mods are active, but goes away when I disable Friendly PMC

    ——————————————

    • Thanks for letting me know. The error is very bizzarre and I'm not sure i can do much to fix it sadly, it seems like Friendly PMC (if that's truly the cause) does something weird with item quest locks

      I added this to the "Other Mods" section on the mod page for others to know

  • Yo, I was just curious if there was a way to make the Massivesoft Guns mod work with the algorithmic balancing. I've got your mod at the bottom of the load order after it in the list and the 100-round 7.62x51 drums and whatnot the mod adds are still on Mechanic loyalty 1. And sorry if there's an easy fix for this i'm not seeing.

    • Actually, I just realized something. The mod seems to load after the algorithmic balancing process regardless of load order. So it's likely his mod, not yours, if I was to infer off of that.

    • I'll add that my mod doesn't affect attachments unless they are part of some weapon's default build (in which case they are put at the same tier of said weapon)

  • Hi, I have an issue where after completing Tarkov Shooter Part 3 I was unable to craft .336 TKM AP-M Ammo. I assumed it was locked behind Level or Workbench level after looking at the configs, but I'm now level 32 with a level 3 Workbench and still can't craft the ammo. Am I missing something?

    • It's a known issue, it's in my priority list for when i'll go back to working on this mod. In the meantime you can disable the crafting tier rebalancing in the ammo module inside the configs of the mod

      Thumbs Up 1
    • Thank you, glad to know!

  • Hi Geko!

    I'm loving this mod.
    I have a question: I reset my level back to 1 in the hopes of quickly gaining new skill points to add to my skills. This, however, did not work. Where can I add skill points manually? I tried looking in my profile.json file, located within the "user" folder, and could not find anything.

    Thank you very much!

    • In the bepinex folder for my mod you should find a save data file. It's written in json so it should be easy enough to edit. Beware though that you might get oddities in game if you mess with it

    • Thank you for the reply.

      If I am correct, the file name is "skill_levels_savedata.json."
      I see there are skills with numbers next to them in which I assume are the amount of points I put into that skill.

      Is there a section within this .json where I can add skill points that can be allocated to other skills, or can I only edit the skills of which I have already put points into?

    • The points available for allocation aren't an actual number that is saved somewhere, they are calculated dynamically as (level * pointsPerLevel) - totalAllocatedPoints

      If you add new entries to the json corresponding to any skill you can cheat in any amount of points into any skill

    • Thank you very much for your help.


      I went ahead and changed the value of the "skillPointsPerLevel" within the config.json as a work around, so I gain a few more skill points.

  • Hey, absolutely love this mod, but is it normal that modded weapons aren't getting balanced? I tried loading this mod both before and after all the weapon mods I have but they seem to not care, is there any other config I haven't noticed besides the weapon global delta?

    Correction, only some weapon mods have this problem, not all

    • If my mod loads after it should work. That said weapons of brand new calibers will need extra adjustments in the config files since the mod doesn't know how strong that caliber is

      Have you tried doing something silly like setting the global delta to a very high value to double check if they are actually being affected or not? Cause if that applies then everything else also should and it could be that the weapon just happened to remain in the same tier it already was in. You can tweak my mod's config to change the balance of cases like that

    • thanks a lot for the consideration, I did try to put the delta only up to 4 so I will try both that and fidgeting with the configs too, cant wait to play this mod when the realism mod finally updates

  • I think I already know the answer but want to confirm before I give up on it. This is incompatible with AQP - Algorithmic Quest Progression, right? I would love to be able to have both.

    • I honestly have no idea but i suspect it should be fine. I think that at worst you'll have some kinks here and there that you can iron out by tweaking the respective configs. But again, no actual idea, i haven't tried

  • Hey, I opened the source of the mod and I think there’s a bug that happens specifically when applying skill points and possibly affects other skills too, not just Mag Drills.


    In AdditionalSkillLevels.cs, the SkillClass.Level getter is patched to add the delta from AdditionalLevels, which makes the displayed level go up (like showing level 28 even if the base was 12). But I noticed that the actual bonuses applied still follow the original base level.


    So after assigning points, the game says “Skill leveled to 12” and bonuses stay at that level, even though the visual level is higher. I think this happens because EFT’s bonus logic and internal systems don’t use the patched Level value — they still rely on the native XP level from progress.


    Unless the bonus and event logic are also patched to use the augmented level, the bonuses will stay out of sync with what’s shown.

    It only happens first time you enter a raid after allocating skill points while outside the raid, possibly could happen even when you allocate points during the raid.

    • Reentering raid or the game fixes it.

    • From what i understand It's not because of what you said, it actually happens because EFT caches buff values and you have to call an update function to make them notice the skill level change. I do call it but I probably messed up somewhere and am not calling said update function in all the places where i should

      Thumbs Up 1
    • Yep you are right, that was my first thought but now i can confirm this is the case. Good luck fixing, and yet again really sick mod, changes the way i look at Tarkov.

      Heart 1
  • hey so quick question I'm getting an error message chain repeating "[gekos_betterprogression-1.1.3] Trader item [object Object] with table ID "code here" couldn't be found in the tables ! I don't know what's causing it or if it's just a bug and I do not know how to fix it

    • Some other mod adds a trade that has no item corresponding to it. Basically a trader is selling something that doesn't exist. It shouldn't be a problem, you can just safely ignore it (for the purposes of my mod, idk about others)

      Thumbs Up 1
  • how do i config this for my loyalty and skill points? I'm in the json5 file but idk what to put in the open spot

    • I'm not sure i understand what you're trying to do

  • Hi Geko,

    There's a bug with automaticallyRefundOverflows in Better Progression.

    When a skill like Mag Drills gets to ~45+, it starts showing “Level 1”, “Level 2” on level-up, and the tooltips says it’s a lower level.

    This isn’t just visual — the skill actually behaves like it's level 1 again (slow reloads, etc.), even though the XP bar and level number look correct. Disabling the setting fixes it.

    Looks like the refund logic breaks the actual skill level and not just the display.

    Thanks for the great mod.

    • Yeah i had a few reports of that, will look into it

      Thumbs Up 1
  • Hi, have been playing the mod. Occurred to me though that the waist pouch has a cultist circle recipe to recieve a kappa container. Is this intended?

    • As in you can sacrifice a waist pouch to get a kappa? My mod for sure doesn't add that but i'm not aware of it being in vanilla either

      EDIT: lmao the gif was not intentional, it just appears on its own in place of the world sacri/fice

    • I'm pretty sure something in our mod list has it backwards or something. It used to be that if you sac'd a kappa container it would give you a waist pouch. I don't think that's the case anymore in

      live tarkov.

  • hello, so the mod now works good for me except for the fact that I'm getting spammed by the notification "mag drills leveled up to 1" even though I maxed it out 'naturally' (not by allocating points to it)
    it's at every start of raid and also pops up randomly 12-15 times in a row giving me huge lags, any fix?

    • Hmmm i'm not sure why that could be happening, do you have any other mods that might reasonably mess with skills?

  • hello, love the mod so far. the economy never felt like a challenge in spt for me but this mod fixes that perfectly.


    i was curious if custom traders were affected by the algorithmic rebalance by default? i love the extra quests they add but i have a few that offer items that seem a little overpowered at the moment. i looked through the config.json but didnt see anything on this.


    anyways love your mod thanks for making it

    Heart 1
    • Yes they do get balanced by default but it's always just ammo and weapons that are affected (maybe i will add an armour module as well in the future but no promises). There is a blacklist option to disable the balancing on specific traders (even modded ones)

      For that to work however my mod has to load after the mods that add the traders so if it doesn't work you may want to double check the load order


  • By turning on EnableDeallocation, in-raid I seem to be able to just... remove all the skill points from a given skill completely. I have (with the help of rewarded Skill Points) ELITE Strength, I turned on De-allocation and decided to test it in-raid (where in all likelihood I... shouldn't be doing allocation in the first place) and... I was allowed to remove every Skill Point in Strength, both Allocation and Natural Progression.
    After checking outside of Raid, yep I can... just remove Skill Points from Naturally levelled Skills. This seems unintended, and for me it's just confusing. Based on the comment in the config file I was under the assumption that I could ONLY remove Invested/Allocated Skill Points given from the mod.

    Under another commenter you mentioned the Mod's save file, is that in .qodo as "history.sqlite"?

    Apologies, the Skill Levels Savedata is located within the BepInEx part of this mod's files, I should have checked all facets before questioning that.

    I also wanna say, man this mod is cool. I'm not sure what the impact of the Algorithm Rebalancing has at base (I never paid too much attention to Trader stock to begin with, but it seems to tier weapons of the same caliber and only offer them based on Loyalty Levels, as if that's the next "Tier" from the Trader to offer said gun which is REALLY COOL). The impact of not being able to Flea anything really made me re-consider what I take out of Raid, and overall streamlined my looting experience. Having a Full Container Progression built in for me is awesome, for Zero-Hero playthroughs having no container and having a Quest provide them all made me REALLY FOCUS questing. Being able to manually adjust and change individual Skill XP gain is an immense tool for tuning a specific feel of the game, Base Game Skill progression just doesn't make a lick of sense to me (it's terribly slow with INSANELY QUICK XP Falloff), and having Metabolism actually... y'know... not be at Elite before Level 20 just makes me happy. It's also more in depth compared to something offered from say, SVM, which I always love depth. You made the Config file easy to approach and digest with the comments you left in it, which is peak coding.

    Heart 1
    • Thanks, i'm really glad you're enjoying the mod so much!

      And yeah, unallocating natural points is unintended, i thought i had put a check in place to prevent that but i suppose i fucked something up at some point, i'll add it to the ever-growing todo list and will get to it once i have a bit more time. Thanks for the report!

      Thumbs Up 1
    • No worries, I understand modding is a passion project and will always take time. Take care of yourself outside of the project.

  • So it sounds like I can keep low tier equipment and guns throughout the whole play through, right?

    • I'm not sure i understand the question. You can tweak the settings in such a way that even late game you will only be able to purchase low tier equipment, yes, if that's what you were asking

    • Yes, sorry I am awful at explaining things. Would that keep PMC's with the same lvl of gear?

    • Depends on the mod you're using for PMC gear. Afaik the only one that bases PMC gear on trader level is ALP

  • How could i get money if flea market is totally disabled

  • Hmmm for scavs the skill distribution seemed inconsistent. As if first time i put points on pmcs the second time i started with those points where i distributed them and from after that it was always like that. I'm not sure maybe the spent points are shared?

    • Now that you mentioned it that could be the case, i never play scav on SPT so it just entirely escaped my mind

      Will add to the to-do list

    • Great, also wiping profile does not reset the skill per level.

      Lets say i gained skills up to lvl 15, after i wipe profile i can't gain skills until lvl 15 and they are not even refunded.

    • Yeah mod data is stored separately from the profile data because of how mods work. If you make a brand new profile then you should be fine, allocated points are bound to the profile ID. Otherwise you can go inside the mod folder and edit or delete the save file to obtain the same result

  • Hi, has anyone had this issue where 545 PP ammo cannot be crafted even after completing punisher pt3? I was thinking that it could be related to this mod because that is the only one I have that impact traders and progression. Please let me know if anything.

    • I had a few reports of quest-locked crafts not showing up. I've been rather busy these days so i haven't looked into it yet but you can temporarily disable the rebalancing of crafts in the config file and you should get the recipe back

      Thumbs Up 1
    • Thanks for the reply! Your mod is awesome btw, I understand you guys have a life too, so take that as simple feedback. It's alreay appreciated that you take the time to look into it. Have a great one!

      Heart 1
  • Kick ass mod, love the whole idea thanks alot!!!!!


    Silly question I'm sure but has anyone had ragman (only) not equipping clothing items after the install of this mod. any ideas related or unrelated idea's.


    (No clothing mod or mods installed)

  • hey,

    first of all, awesome mod!


    but I'd like to ask, if not to much, for a version with only the skill points and ref standing parts, or a way to only have that because that's what I'm interested in.

    I tried tweaking the config, but there's so much going on with the algo rebalance that it kept breaking the game for me...


    I have other mods but I'd like to keep the game as base as possible with being able to level up skills (with intellect being bugged and doesn't level up at all) and your points allocating is just genius.


    thanks, I hope it's possible and not too much trouble.

    Heart 1
    • The config is split in sections and each section you can just entirely disable by setting enable = false. It's always the first option in each section

      So you can just do that for every module you don't care about and then disable the remaining things in the misc section

    • oh yeah I saw, and it was actually the first thing I did, but still I had issues with the algo changes when running the server...


      I don't have the best hardware right now so maybe it took so long to run that it displayed an error or something.


      I'll try again with the enabling and see.


      thank you

  • Heya, just recently found out this mod also happens to conflict with the Friendly PMCs mod. It spits out an error in the console when doing the algorithmical rebalancing, most likely since the friendly pmc mod includes new quests.

    • Could you please post the error?

  • Hi Geko! Good mod!


    Wanted to ask. Would I be right to understand that your mod doesn't support other locales than eng when cleaning FiR lines from 'in raid' part?


    JFYI russian counterpart for this is 'Найти в рейде' (or 'найти в рейде' for lower case), and part to remove would be 'в рейде'.

    • Yes indeed, the mod doesn't support languages other than english

      Trying to do so would spawn too many edge cases in languages i don't even understand, it would be a nightmare to deal with, sadly i can't promise i'll ever do it

    • You can just set up config for locales corresponding to locale names and leave it to the community. Whenever nothing's provided in config (entry not found), use default en case or don't do regex parse at all.


      In my book that shall be the best option there is code-wise.

  • Very awesome mod and not what i expected. Color me impressed. I'm playing around with the skill multipliers, i activated all of them. Becoming a tarkov boss as i level up ^^

    Trader Modding And Improved Weapon Building is definitely a must have since without flea market the weapon builder is rendered useless.

    Heart 1
  • Does this by chance effect Boss spawns in any way? or even if it doesn't change anything, does it have a default value that it may over-write the spawn chances I set in SVM? I'm starting a zero to hero profile so I have absolutely nothing to really allow me to take a hit from a boss with any decent ammo. After making it through the starting ground zero quests I started on woods and customs. I have run about 15 raids between customs and woods now and have been killed every time by either Partisan or the Goons. Half way through those raids I put Goons to 20% from 30% and Partisan to 5% from 30%. Killed by Partisan the very next raid. Am I just unlucky?

    • I guess so, my mod doesn't mess with boss spawn chance in any way at all

      Did you remember to check the little box that overrides Partisan's unique spawn behavior in SVM?

    • I did. I think it's just bizarrely bad luck. Thanks for the reply. This progression is exactly what I've been trying to build with a collection of mods by the way. Kudos to you mate. good shit.

      Heart 1
  • Good day,

    I'm still a bit away from jumping to 3.11, but I've begun building my modlist for it and am especially looking at new-to-SPT mods in 3.11's life cycle and doing research into if I want to include them in the eventual complete list.
    I note that you recommend the Ref tweak for SPT - that I love and am already including - which if I recall adds the Theta container.
    I also note that the Theta container doesn't seem to be in the list of containers that your overhaul touches in the description and I have concerns that it's now significantly weaker than secure containers that seem to appear earlier in an account's lifespan.
    Is that an oversight of the description, or are you intentionally not touching that container in this overhaul?

    • I didn't change it because having never gotten it i don't know excactly where it fits in the progression curve. That said applying your own modification to it in the config file is rather trivial if you want to. If you end up doing that please do let me know how you modified it and how it feels and fits in the progression of the game

    • Ah I gotcha. Well that's good. When I finally get into 3.11, I'll have to pop open your config and see what's going on in there.

      In my older 3.9.0 playthrough when I first got the Theta, it had 10 slots, giving it +1 over Gamma, but it was segmented like a vest instead of just a larger square. It used to be like 2x2 + 1x2 + 1x2 + 1x2. Which I personally found to be like a side-grade to the Gamma. The segmentation made it a bit awkward compared to just *big square*.

      But I think Live Tarkov changed the Theta a bit ago to be 4x2 + 1x2 (So now it's an Epsilon with an extra mag-pouch). I don't know if AcidPhantasm updated his Ref mod to match between 3.9 and now because I don't see it in the changelog and haven't played a newer version of the mod yet to see if it was a silent update.
      So still 10 slots, but now the first 3 segments have been fused into one longer space. I think people consider it an upgrade over Gamma nowadays with that layout. For me personally, it's like a... diagonal-grade for me. Kappa is very clearly a direct upgrade over Gamma, but Theta not having any 3-wide segments sometimes makes me want to continue using Gamma in some cases, but Theta does objectively have more room in it.


  • What is this error I'm getting? I'm not sure what's causing this.

    • Are you using the latest version of SPT (3.11.3) and of my mod (1.1.3)? There used to be a bug that looked kind of like that with an older version of SPT (iirc it was 3.11.1) when it interacted with my mod

  • Hi. There seems to be an issue with "Settings specific to hideout crafts of ammo". When it is enabled the recipe for .366 TKM AP-M that you get from Tarkov Shooter Part 3 is missing from Level 3 workbench. Can you please verify that one? Thank you in advance.

    • I have had other reports of that happening, when i have some spare time i'll look into it.

      In the meantime you can disable the craft rebalancing and hopefully you'll have the craft back (at its vanilla tier)

    • Already did :) I only submitted the comment after I verified that it is that option indeed. If it is turned off the craft is returned.

  • sorry to be pain but im new to this. so if i want flea market on do i just change the true to false

    • Indeed

      Although if you're gonna do that i highly suggest also disabling the part that removes FiR otherwise you trivialize too much of the game imo, but it's up to you of course

  • I want this mod so bad. Wonder if the older version of this mod work with SPT 3.10?

    Thumbs Up 1
    • I was initially building it on 3.10 (before i released the 1.0 version) but it shouldn't support it anymore as some features rely on things added in 3.11

      Crying 1 Thumbs Up 1