Need Help Modding Ammo Reserves in Original Campaigns

[Leto Atreides II]

I'm currently preparing to play through the Half Life 2 and Episode One campaigns for the second time, and Episode Two for the first time, but before I do that I want to make some changes to the game. I want to change (increase) the reserve ammo capacity for all the weapons in the game (maximum extra ammo, not the ammo capacity of the weapons themselves). The low ammo caps on some of the weapons (mainly the overwatch assault rifle) really annoyed me the first time around.

I tried the sv_cheats 1/sk_max_XXX method but I like to load my saved games a lot and I would have to type an exec command every time I did so, basically ruining my experience. I also tried adding those commands to autoexec.cfg, but they would not parse. Adding an exec cfg command to autoexec.cfg also did not work.

So, it would seem that I have to mod the base game for HL2/Ep 1/Ep 2 to effect my desired changes. How would I do this? Also, if there's a way to get the sv_cheats/sk_max method working without my having to exec a cfg every time I load a saved game, that would be fine too.

 

[99.vikram]

Bind a key to "exec Script1.cfg" and enter all your settings in that script.

 

[Leto Atreides II]

Would it really be that difficult to actually mod the game files? I'm assuming there's some type of override functionality that could be used for small mods like this and that the ammo caps are stored in some small config file. Or is there no way to force the game to recognize cheat commands in autoexec?