hey wow, heres me, never actually read a tutorial on modding, learned how to the way you're meant to, poking around in .ini files and finding out what everything does; theres you reading that tutorial "ready to start modding". what the hell does that even mean? heres what you need:
practical. experience.
it really does give a better understanding of how everything works.

dont get me wrong, tutorials are a good way of getting the basics, but you need experience to understand how all of this works. i agree that we need more resources for new users to ease them into the process (ffs we need less noob mods), but following tutorials will only get you so far, and to be honest, it isnt hard to learn from the base.rte files.
heck, most would be "ready to start modding" with, um, notepad and paint (except the windows 7 version, i dont know what's going on there. no palette support? O_o). the fact that you can get onto a forum and go through the process of registering means your savvy enough with computers to EDIT VALUES IN AN INI FILE TO MAKE A GUN SHOOT DIFFERENT OR A MAN LOOK DIFFERENT.
cause in essence, its all you ever do.
(until you get to lua. then you're actually scripting.)

ugh.

OP > Well sir, you do know that most of these "veteran users" never read any tutorials, the learned on their own. *Gasp!* Almost everyone making mods now just started by copying base.rte files and changing the variables (Many still do this). Tutorials aren't very useful when mod making works like this, if it were to use actual code, then maybe they'd work. If you have a problem, or just don't know what a variable does, search and ask at the Mod Making forum.

Still, his point is valid. The wiki is a potentially valid resource. Sure, hardcore vets learned the hard way, but think of all the ♥♥♥♥ mods that could be avoided by a better understanding of the system.

Hereby attempting to organize some Cortexpedia volunteers to get ♥♥♥♥ together.

This man has made my point better than I ever could. I did the tutorials Duh uploaded to get to know syntax and other things about creation that editing won't tell you. Now that I've got that done, I'm cocking about with the Dummy weapons like I'm apparently supposed to, but it wouldn't have done me any good without knowing what I'm doing.
I mean, I'm already taking requests for new weapons, so I can practice. I've got some mates that I badgered into downloading CC that were like, 'You know what would be awesome? A shotgun with no spread that shoots through everything!' So I agreed, for the practice. I promise I won't publish it, by the way

What is this I don't even...

Ha ha, right? That's a direct quote from a friend, I'm not saying it makes sense. I guess I'd need to do this.

Taken from Base.rte\Devices\Shotguns\Shotguns.ini
As an example, mind.

EDIT: Is Separation a float or an int? I could just set that to 0.01 or something...

If this wiki does ever become useful, It'll just be spoiling new modders that didn't know how to mod and will lead to more crappy mods, in my opinion at least. But if making a useful wiki is what everyone wants to do, then it will get done. (or not)

Relatively few variables are floats; data tries to avoid excess CPU time as much as possible.

Seperation of 0 is all you should need for just about ANY mod. It refers to a quantity in pixels, so yeah, no decimals.

Particle Spread Range is what you should modify for shotguns, and it goes to a minimum of 0. That'll literally make all the bullets in one line. Also, I believe you can set it to at least one decimal place, though I'm not really sure.

ShellSpreadRange refers to the range of the CASING. You don't need to modify that unless you really care about presentation.

EjectionOffset, by the way, is not where the bullets are ejected, it's where the casings are.

Thank you, Grif; the gun is coming along nicely. I actually made a faction with a custom icon and everything for the guy that requested the gun. I also modified the default dummy to be carrying the gun, for ease of testing and use...
Now, should I upload the mod? If I'm going to, it'll be here and not anywhere near Mod Releases, I promise.

yeah dont upload it to mod releases. theres reasons people dont release things like "lol i made the AK shoot at 100000 RPM and have 2183956943 bullets amiawesome?" because as you pointed out, it takes about 12 seconds and consists of a base gun with 5 variables edited. this would take 1.
however, if you made a new sprite, you could justify the gun having a simmilar function. hell if youre zalo, you dont even make sprites, you just make stuff thats interesting.

on the vars:
anything that isnt in pixels is a float, and if its an angle that isnt specifically in degrees, it will be in radians. anything to do with spread really.
separation is horizontal spread, not vertical spread. make it 0 and all your particles will overlap.
is all you need.

I didn't resprite the gun, because I didn't feel like recalculating the offsets. But I did sprite the faction, as I don't have to worry about palettes. Give me credit for that...

The only things that don't conform to palette are glows.
Also, offsets for guns are easy. Just put the offset to the center of the weapon and find the difference between your intended point and your center. Left is -, down is +.

Don't really worry too much. If it's not drastically bigger, just change the one offset (-half of x, -half of y) in sprite offset. Then it should work really.

Duh, I updated and wikified your rather good tutorial on the Wiki. http://datarealms.com/wiki/index.php/Modding_107

I snipped a little bit out for things that are maybe a bit more advanced, so right now it is about as simple as it gets. I created Modding 101 to explain the basics of OOP and how the CC interpreter works. 107 is your handy dandy tut.

If you send me tutorials, I'll wikify them and post 'em :]

Nicely presented.
I'll see what I can make of an AEmitter tutorial. I'll throw in Attachables on the side, for shits and giggles.