RL EXP: How much is needed?

Long hours.

I started from no experience other than BASIC a loooong time ago, and now, after two years of UScript experience, I am comfortable with my ability to code an entire mod. Individual experience may vary, other terms and conditions may apply, see store for details.

a long time (over 10 year) in various languages.
All procedural and OO programming languages are the same, it's just a different syntax. So for UnrealScript I just started to learn the syntax.

As above, had some contact with basic & asm years ago. The language itself is relatively simple. Engine is a black-box in large part and the script code is often messy. If I had to start learning unrealscript from scratch I'd focus more on debugging and code-reading skills.

4 years and many long hours. Though...I would have sworen I've been doing it for far longer given the surface area I've covered.

Suggest in order to take on a task this size?
Couldn't tell you, don't know how big of a mod project you are working on

Where did you start?
In a highschool class with a teacher who was guessing his way through C.

How did you learn UnrealScript?
Unreal Wiki + This forum + Decompiling other moders code to see how they pulled off certain effects in their game using the unreal engine.

Did you have to learn Java or C++ first in order to understand it?
No, I didn't learn those languages as a means to the ends of learning unreal script. Unreal Script was just another in a long line of languages I've learned for purposes of game design.

Do HTML/JavaScripting skills help at all?
No. What's important is your ability to logically work through a problem. If you can do that, no language or programming barrier will ever stop your progress.

Hard work is really all there is to it. There's really no magic equasion or secret to it. I wish there was sometimes, but I just take another swig of coke and continue working on whatever it is I'm doing.

download the ut (uscript)source and just start to read and try to understand the structure, also take a look at the wiki and read as much code from other people as possible.

i'm using uscript since about 3 years now, started learning c++/uscript at the same time.

been doing unrealscript for about 2 years here. As El Muerte said, basically all procedural languages are the same. I'd played with just about everything before - C/C++, java (and javascript, actionscript), perl, PHP, VB, blahblahblah.

Id say the real key to picking up unrealscript is learning the engine structure and decompiling other people's stuff to see how they did what (yay open source!). After that it's just a case of trying some simple things like weapon mutators to get the hang of things and then you can pretty much just refer to the wiki and UDN to work out what you need to know for bigger projects.

Started with BASIC (over 20 years ago ) and some app-specific languages like Dbase, FoxBase. (Qbasic rocks) Learned a little C before C-shell (Unix/linux). (HTML) Maya's MEL language. (ten years ago) A couple propreitary C-like languages for high-end animation. Then UScript (began a couple years ago) and now ActionScript for Flash. All self taught.

Of course the wiki and UDN are good bookmarks to have. I also suggest asking questions on the wiki and at forums like this one and Unreal Playground. I'm in agreement with suggestions above about reviewing the structure of UScript, browsing the code, etc. It did help to be familiar with C syntax in order to read UScript, but it wasn't absolutely necessary. Browsing the code, tracing through functions and events, finding out how things work was how I learned what I know now. I'd see something in the stock code similar to what I was trying to do, I'd trace through the code and learn something new each time. (along with asking questions, of course) Once you have a firm grasp of the syntax of UScript, the structure of Objects and the methods used are the next things to learn. So it's really just about getting to know it. For your mod: Defining a plan, going one step at a time and asking questions as they arise is probably the best way to go.

Holy crap reading this makes me remember just how long ago it was when I first opened up QBasic and tried to do stuff (10 years!!!!!! More than half my life has been wasted in the programming world!!!)

I started out with C++ in a highschool class, then learned Java in college. Shortly after this I picked up Unrealscript, and got a decent working knowledge with the help of the unrealwiki and this forum.