OK, so I'm producing a RFG based machinima series and have been making great strides, however there is one issue in particular that is causing a lot of time wasting.

The issue is that two of our main characters in the show actually have multiple possible maultiplayer skins that are selected randomly prior to joining a match. The characters in question are the EDF Grunt and the EDF Specialist.

The EDF Grunt has two possible helmets, and the EDF Specialist has 3 possible helmets. The helmets are the only things that change about the skin, but which helmet you get seems completely random.

As you can imagine, with machinima, continuity is very important, so our characters need to be wearing the same helmets in every match. What we have to do at the moment is host a match, check both players, and then more often than not have to close the match and start a new one. It's one extra level of complication that is slowing down our shoots considerably.

With my limited understanding of modding, one solution I came up with is to simply unpack the data file that contains MP character skins, replace the two skins we don't want with copies of the one we do want (ie, still three different variations of the skin but they are all the same) then repack the data file. Essentially the game will still be randomising the skins but they are all the same so we'll have no issues.

I'd love to know how feasible this is or if there's a better solution.

I have an old tech demo of the show if anyones interested in seeing where I'm going with this: http://vimeo.com/69959934

And a blog post specifically related to these issues:

http://blog.recycledmedia.com.au/2013/07/recycled-retrospective-part-3/

Have you tried seeing if the helmets are individual files? If so you should be able to (like you said) just replace them all with the same one.

If that doesn't pan out, you may be able to change something in one of the table files.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't have RFG installed right now to look at the files...