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Topic Summary

Posted by: sarge945
« on: 19. September 2024, 16:51:30 »

Here's a sneak peek for the upcoming Version 2.0 release.

Enemies in new spots:







Hazards in new spots:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umCuY-0DlJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOiKg16aedk

(enemies and eggs maintain the same numbers in each map, so some old spots will be removed, while new spots will be used instead.)

And finally, something I have been wanting to do for a long time, a lot more item spots rather than just using the existing ones:








Some of these item spots were in the previous version, but there was an issue where having more possible outputs would unbalance the number of items in containers vs physically placed in the world, getting worse with each new spot added. Since the randomiser rolls for each output in random order until it runs out of things to randomise, containers were making up less and less of the total number of possible outputs as more and more locations were added, which would result in levels filled with empty containers, which felt really unnatural/bad. As a result, in the current version, the number of extra item spots is very limited, usually less than 5 per map. For 2.0, this has been resolved, it now auto-balances between containers and output locations based on the ratio of the items in the original game, so there is now no practical limit to the number of possible item locations, outside of the tedium/manpower required to create the DML for each of the markers, which isn't particularly time-consuming but adds up quickly.

I will hopefully have 2.0 done by the end of October, but please don't take that as a promise/deadline. It will be done when it's done.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 05. July 2024, 00:23:14 »

Quote by Joe:
sarge945Rather than just randomizing loot already contained in the map and shuffling it around, consider true randomization of loot outside of critical items, including loot found on enemies.
Loot on enemies is already (mostly) random.

The problem with a random pool vs shuffling the existing items is that SS2 has a very well designed item distribution already (for the most part), and I don't want to disrupt it. Making it truly random is likely to provide too many or too few toxin hypos, ammo, etc. Some items like Cyber Modules would still need to be shuffled anyway because changing the availability of CMs is a big no no.

This is especially important given the way the loot hose works.

This is a specific design choice that I'm sticking to.

Quote by Joe:
That's what I want to see, anyway. It was cool having the items in new spots, but unless I'm mistaken, that's the only randomized thing about them.

Yes. But you say that like it doesn't already significantly change everything.
Posted by: Joe
« on: 04. July 2024, 20:55:28 »

sarge945Rather than just randomizing loot already contained in the map and shuffling it around, consider true randomization of loot outside of critical items, including loot found on enemies.

That's what I want to see, anyway. It was cool having the items in new spots, but unless I'm mistaken, that's the only randomized thing about them.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 04. July 2024, 00:54:35 »

Quote by ZylonBane:
FFS, no community mods are going to be "integrated" into SS2EE. It's going to have a built in general-purpose mod manager, and some community mods will be included (i.e. pre-downloaded) by default.

Presumably the description for each mod will also include where to go to check for updates, which puts players in no different a situation than if they downloaded the mods themselves. It's always been up to the individual to keep on top of updates.

You severely overestimate the intelligence of gamers.

If they weren't already playing the standard version using ss2tool, there's little chance they are going to bother to read changelogs, look for updates, or go mod-hunting. As far as the average player will be concerned, they will go into the mod manager, tick some boxes, and hit play. If something breaks with one of the mods they will blame nightdive. If one of the mods gets out of date they won't update it.

(Stupid) people want their games to "just work" with no effort, reading or fiddling.

You're correct in that, from a technical perspective, a mod manager with included mods is essentially the same as what we have now, with a few steps removed. The issue is one of perception. Instead of being a community mod manager where all mods are downloaded individually, this will instead be seen as "official", which means people will have the expectation that they can simply enable what they want based on a brief glance of the description, and expect it to work forever, because Night Dive is expected to look after everything. Even if nightdive was to plaster a huge red banner at the top of the mod manager saying "PLEASE READ DESCRIPTIONS AND UPDATE AS NECESSARY", people are still going to treat it as if it should all just magically work.

As someone who puts a significant amount of effort into my work, and who also provides a donation link on my website, I'm really not interested in a bunch of people acquiring my mod elsewhere, not reading the readme, and thinking it's actually nightdives work (or, at least, some nebulus "community" mod attributed to nobody in particular). Especially if it also takes attention away from the excellent community mods on the forum, encouraging people to only play the "blessed" mods. If the randomiser was included, for instance, I'd really want people to play it with rsd since, while it works perfectly fine with vanilla and SCP, I feel the item distribution is better overall with rsd's item rebalance.

I'm probably overexaggerating here, I'm basing this off the general modder drama from when the Nexus added collections, which for the most part took attention away from the original creators and encouraged people to download from (and tip!) the collection creators instead, which was a major backwards step for everyone. Mod makers hated it because it took recognition (and money) away from them, and would result in a lot more false bug reports when the collection maintainer screwed up and broke their mod, usually by including an incompatible mod.

This is all largely moot anyway though, since nightdive has not asked to include any of my mods in SS2:EE, nor do I expect them to ever be interested in doing so, and I didn't intend for this thread to become a discussion on included mods vs manually downloading them.
Posted by: ZylonBane
« on: 04. July 2024, 00:35:35 »

FFS, no community mods are going to be "integrated" into SS2EE. It's going to have a built in general-purpose mod manager, and some community mods will be included (i.e. pre-downloaded) by default.

Presumably the description for each mod will also include where to go to check for updates, which puts players in no different a situation than if they downloaded the mods themselves. It's always been up to the individual to keep on top of updates.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. July 2024, 23:23:43 »

Quote by tiphares4:
I hope randomizer in general will be one of those toggable integrated mods of the enhanced edition : )

There's nothing worse as a mod maker than having your work picked up by someone else, especially if it's an older version, and then sold. Doubly so if you get nothing in return.

I could just imagine the sheer number of "sellout" emails...


Quote by tiphares4:
I'm trying to think & to come up with further ideas for randomization, maybe os & cyber-enhancement upgrade stations as well?

OS upgrade stations make sense actually. I might add that.
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 03. July 2024, 22:36:21 »

:l since nobody else dares to reply.. yes... yes, that would be awesome. I hope randomizer in general will be one of those toggable integrated mods of the enhanced edition : )

I'm trying to think & to come up with further ideas for randomization, maybe os & cyber-enhancement upgrade stations as well?
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. July 2024, 14:13:27 »

Here are some potential ideas for the next version, let me know what you all think:

- Environmental Regulators randomised to new positions
- Sim Units randomised to new positions
- an optional addon to randomise camera and turret positions, allowing them to appear in new spots. Not sure how possible this would be with alarm ecologies
- Security Computers randomised to new positions around the map.
- A bunch of new spawn locations, and some new logic to prevent too many items from appearing in one location if an area has lots of possible spawn locations.

Anything else I've missed?

To really do this properly will probably be another 100 hours or so on a mod I've spent 500 hours on, just because I'm a perfectionist and placing everything and testing everything takes an insane amount of time once you factor in things like item filters, whether or not spawn spots are secret, whether or not to allow junk, etc.

I just hope enough people play it to make it worth it.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 04. June 2024, 10:50:52 »

ahh ok. edited.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 04. June 2024, 08:41:33 »

Quote by voodoo47:
still don't see no 1.21b anywhere but done.

It was here

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=12152.msg152150#msg152150

But the download counts for it probably don't matter all that much.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 04. June 2024, 08:00:27 »

still don't see no 1.21b anywhere but done.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 04. June 2024, 02:41:12 »

yes, plus the whatever 1.21B count
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 03. June 2024, 18:13:49 »

so, whatever 1.2 count move to whatever 1.22?
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. June 2024, 18:00:27 »

Yeah I screwed up the versioning and I'm too lazy to change it.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 03. June 2024, 15:53:39 »

I see only 1.2s and 1.22s though?
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. June 2024, 12:37:05 »

@voodoo47 can you please transfer the download counts of 1.21B and 1.2 to the new 1.22 version so I can nuke the old ones?

The only change from the beta and the official version is the version number.
Posted by: Joe
« on: 13. February 2024, 02:12:14 »

sarge945If it makes you feel any better, I love your mod.  :)
Posted by: gunslinger12
« on: 09. February 2024, 23:21:55 »

gunslinger12
I've been playing with the beta 1.21B and I found 4 Toxin A containers on deck 3, which is great. Anecdotally, I seem to be finding more things on the floor in general this time, which may mean that they fell through the floor on version 1.20 playthroughs. Could just be my bias though. Thanks again for this fantastic mod.
Posted by: gunslinger12
« on: 08. February 2024, 22:34:28 »

sarge945
Thank you for the fix, I played through 2 different games and could only find 3 toxin A containers each time on Deck 3 on v1.20. Had to use the console command to proceed. I'll try this beta to see if it happens again.

You may want to post an edit in the first post of this thread since I didn't realize there was a 1.21B bugfix until I had a problem. Thanks again for putting this mod together; it's a breath of fresh air for this classic game!
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 07. February 2024, 12:47:23 »

we wouldn't want it any other way.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 07. February 2024, 12:31:13 »

And when they do, they post bug reports in the wrong thread and don't elaborate enough to get anything fixed.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 07. February 2024, 12:01:15 »

welcome to SS2 modding, where your mod doesn't matter because it's not SHTUP.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 07. February 2024, 10:35:06 »

Now if only anyone actually downloaded any of my mods...
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 06. February 2024, 17:03:38 »

Quote by sarge945:
I might make you a custom version

This is nice..   SS2 developers / modders are the best     :l
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 30. January 2024, 03:53:32 »

Here's a new beta version that should HOPEFULLY fix any potential items falling through the floor. It might actually make everything worse, though.

Quote by changelog:
1.21 Beta:
- Attempted fix for objects falling through floor.
- Objects now use radius instead of a fixed height for spawning, which should result in less objects "jumping" after being spawned
- Added a "Less Shotgunners in MedSci" addon (Less OG-S)
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 28. January 2024, 23:33:21 »

It's very easy to lower the chances in the dml. I might make you a custom version
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 16. January 2024, 19:00:44 »

Nice   :)        So i wasn't imagining things...


Btw.: Regarding those shotgun-hybrids - it was stupid suggestion by me - i totally forgot about that chasing scene in medsci 1. Makes total sense to have them, but lower chance would be nice nonetheless..    :l
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 16. January 2024, 13:31:23 »

I have found the issue

The Toxin A vial is supposed to be here, but for some reason it seems to have fallen through the floor for you and was at some ridiculous Z coordinate (-12537625375367 or something).

You can fix this in your savegame using

Code: [Select]
summon_obj Anti-Annelid Toxin
Honestly, I don't know how this was even possible. Objects are supposed to "bump" themselves into position, and for some reason this one seems to have failed.

I will test this further and maybe adjust some things.




[ss2_vial.PNG expired]
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 16. January 2024, 00:06:07 »

Great, I go to finally check this out and ufile is down....
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 08. January 2024, 03:30:40 »

It would be much easier if you zipped them
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 08. January 2024, 03:25:23 »

:l    i've uploaded the save states, 'hydro2.mis' should be the one:


zip:  https://ufile.io/125npirk
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 08. January 2024, 02:56:13 »

Quote by tiphares4:
:l  But would be greater if the player would encounter shotgun-hybrids for first time in med / sci 2 even with randomizer on - in compliance to ascending difficulty curve. Its a bit over the top encountering  hybrids with shotgun when just having a wrench.... Especially for new players.

You can already experience Shotgun Hybrids in the original game with just the wrench, as they can naturally respawn from the ecology in that level. It's rare but it does happen.

I could reduce the chance of shotgun hybrids in that map.

Quote by tiphares4:
BUT now here is the problem: I have found only 3 toxin-vials instead of the usual vanilla-5.


I've searched every nook&cranny of all hydro subdecks 2 times to be sure...    :/

Please send your save. This shouldn't be happening.

Quote by tiphares4:
Also that hybrid (Turnbull?) at the end of Hydroponics A when trying to get back into the airlock didn't carry any vial. Wasn't she having one in inventory in vanilla? i don't remember. Anyways, there isn't enough toxin now, just for info.

No, she only carries a log.
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 07. January 2024, 21:01:22 »

:l  But would be greater if the player would encounter shotgun-hybrids for first time in med / sci 2 even with randomizer on - in compliance to ascending difficulty curve. Its a bit over the top encountering  hybrids with shotgun when just having a wrench.... Especially for new players.

Anyways, otherwise Randomiser is extremely great so far, all the other items & enemies are very greatly distributed - it's a nice change to encounter psi-monkeys in those coolant tubes for a change for instance or one of those protocol droids in engineering auxiliary storages..  Or finding gamepigs™ & cartridges etc. in places never seen before - it implies new ways how things did happen via enviromental storytelling on each run.  Really adds up to the experience.

Placement of items is extremely great, really really brings fresh wind into the gameplay - now ss2 really feels like a rougelike - immense replay value now.
Really loved the new finding places of Toxin-A for example


BUT now here is the problem: I have found only 3 toxin-vials instead of the usual vanilla-5.


I've searched every nook&cranny of all hydro subdecks 2 times to be sure...    :/

Also that hybrid (Turnbull?) at the end of Hydroponics A when trying to get back into the airlock didn't carry any vial. Wasn't she having one in inventory in vanilla? i don't remember. Anyways, there isn't enough toxin now, just for info.


have to cast via console now - to finally be able to reach deck 4 for the first time with that rosedude's rapier assassin mod activated..............


[dump040.png expired]
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. January 2024, 22:55:34 »

Yes.

Quote by sarge945:
  • Enemies are randomised to similar ones, new strategies may be required! Care has been made to make sure the lore is followed.
Posted by: tiphares4
« on: 03. January 2024, 18:59:19 »

Playing SS2 from the beginning again as SCP Beta 5 version with Randomizer enabled: The very first hybrid on med/sci was a shotgun-hybrid. Is this intentional?  I made picture of another one    :l

Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. January 2024, 01:19:03 »

Update: I have given this a test with SCP b5 and it seems to work perfectly fine.

The only possible issues are if some object IDs have changed, but so far I haven't found any that are significant.

If anyone is playing this with b5, let me know if you find anything that isn't randomised that you believe should be.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 21. December 2023, 10:31:07 »

I may have accidentally deleted it, since I had to reupload 1.2 due to an issue.

Oh well. It had about half the downloads of full if I recall.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 21. December 2023, 09:41:51 »

done. no previous version of lite, it seems.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 21. December 2023, 04:27:16 »

I have just released Version 1.2. Secmod support is now official!

I actually broke assassins in the previous beta, whoops!

I briefly tested this with SCP b5 and it seems to work. The only issues should be new items and items/containers with chainged ids, which I haven't found any of as of yet.

@voodoo47 could you please transfer the download counts from the 1.1 version as well as the 1.2 Beta Releases so I can remove the 1.1 files?
Posted by: Joe
« on: 09. November 2023, 22:24:57 »

Ah, that's right... it must have been after you go back to Ops for SHODAN.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 09. November 2023, 20:10:44 »

the dml takes care of that, so no, not really.
Posted by: ThiefsieFool
« on: 09. November 2023, 19:54:46 »

That would explain things, my memory tells me I didn't add any rumblers, but you'd have to check to be absolutely sure.

Isn't there a tool to diff two mission files in these technologically advanced days? Then you would know if ecologies were modified pretty damn fast.
Posted by: voodoo47
« on: 09. November 2023, 14:05:20 »

ops4 will spawn rumblers when the give Shodan core control quest is active.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 09. November 2023, 13:59:41 »

Rumblers aren't allowed to spawn on ops, they aren't in the enemy pool until command, so I think secmod is doing it's own thing

@ThiefsieFool do you add rumblers to ops at all? Specifically ops4?
Posted by: Joe
« on: 09. November 2023, 13:05:01 »

Interesting... I swear my previous version of Secmod had an Assault and Security bot at the top. TF must have changed it, then?

RE: resources -- Yeah, fair enough. Personally, I'd *really* like a version that was brutal with regards to item placement. On a somewhat unrelated tangent, though, I did find a Recycler on a Maintenance bot. Not sure if that's a Secmod change or added by your mod but I had a Recycler before you typically get one on Ops (with Secmod, anyway). Things like that, finding certain rare items just because you get lucky, is very appealing to me. I am not opposed to you adding more potential item spawns with your mod, as long as they are rare. Not in the scope of your mod, I know, but it might spice things up even more.

RE: enemies -- I remember the level on Ops that has the armory I cheesed several times by loading. There were instances where there were like 2 or 3 Rumblers and I said fuck that even though I hacked the turrets, so I'd reload and then get some Midwives and Cyborg Assassins. I remember that very clearly, and it wasn't even that one instance, either.

BTW I wanted to say that I also learned that the Slug Turret is the undisputed GOAT of turrets with the latest Secmod. The others are absolute trash. Not necessarily a Randomizer thing although your mod does replace turret spawns which was both cool and irritating because I'd actually get upset at a Laser Turret spawn, reason being that they are so ineffective against the Annelids. Laser Turrets and Blast Turrets need a buff. This is not a knock at your mod, of course, just wanted to mention it while I'm here.
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 09. November 2023, 08:24:11 »

okay, I just checked.

Secmod 3 places a Cyborg Assassin and an Assault Bot at the top of the command2 elevator
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 09. November 2023, 06:25:56 »

On your points:

I've noticed during RoSoDudes scuffed randomiser streams that he was also a bit lower on resources compared to usual.

I chalked this up to missing various items due to either using optimized routes or just not looking in new places.

For instance, I noticed RoSoDude would skip looking in a few rooms in hydro which usually contain nothing, potentially missing items.

While there's no actual change in item numbers, this factor alone reduces the "real" number of items a player will get.

Think back to your first playthrough. I'm sure you missed tons of items.

With the randomiser it's largely supposed to be the same way, you'll miss stuff that you just don't notice because the item layout is essentially fresh again.

As for item removal, I could probably implement this. It's not really part of the scope of the mod, but multiple people have asked for it now, and you have to give the masses what they want.

Also, are you sure the elevator used to have assault droids? The randomiser is set up so that bots can only be replaced by each other or rumblers. This means that each bot must be either a bot or a rumbler. If one of them got replaced with an assassin then something is very off.

Also you shouldn't be getting significantly lower tier enemies. Usually a deck can only randomise between what that deck already contained, plus a low chance for some previous enemies, but it's very low. So difficulty wise, you shouldn't be having experiences that are significantly easier or harder than stock secmod. Was that the case? What sort of rerolls did you do?
Posted by: Joe
« on: 08. November 2023, 22:53:58 »

I finished my run with Secmod and Randomizer and it was very enjoyable.

I was worried there would be some issues with key items at first, and there were times such as in Hydro where finding the vials of Toxin-A were a bit hairy, but no true issues were found. I mentioned this earlier but after using Secmod for so long, I could identify what certain containers would have, and it was a pleasant change of pace to actually search containers that previously would have contained nothing and then actually find something new.

I'm not sure if this part was touched by your mod (I think it just moves things around, right?) but I felt lower on resources than normal, which was nice. I don't know if that was the latest Secmod being rebalanced RE: loot tables or not, but as an example, I was swimming in AP rounds whereas I was struggling with standard rounds which is the inverse of how things usually are. Keep in mind that I am a very thorough explorer and I can say I had a little bit  more than "enough" supplies to keep going, although I rarely bought Replicator items, which was disappointing. Still did, but not as much as I would have hoped I'd have needed to.

That last point brings me to some suggestions. Ideally, things would be a bit more random... this might be a hot take, but I'd really like the Randomizer to err on the side of giving you very few supplies so that playthroughs can be made or broken by the Randomizer. The description of this mod says that only existing items are moved, none are added. IMO, it should go a bit further than that -- I want to start sweating when I realize that my last playthrough at a similar point, I had X amount of ammunition and I currently don't.

Second point: some of the enemy spawns could be manipulated by saving before a level transition and loading if the subsequent spawns were not ideal. I am, of course, guilty of doing this. I suspect that this is unavoidable, but I know nothing. Furthermore, some parts were easier than with vanilla Secmod such as certain later areas normally being patrolled by Assault bots rather than the normal Rumbler spawns. Assault bots can be more easily cheesed with their fusion cannon than Rumblers can and so there were times when I was disappointed with the spawns because those hard moments that were guaranteed in Secmod are now up to chance, like the elevator up to the Bridge on Command -- when it was just Secmod, it was always staffed with an Assault and Security bot, and this time, it had a Cyborg Assassin and an Assault bot. I mean, it's fine, and I realize the potential for the balance pendulum swings both ways, but I just figured I'd mention it. I like that the enemies are randomized, though, so don't get me wrong. I'd rather have it than not.

Overall, great mod. Injected some much-needed variation for me and it will stay in my load order forever. :)
Posted by: Joe
« on: 03. November 2023, 00:46:51 »

Hey, as long as they actually shoot me again, it's cool with me. Well done!

Will report any other issues. Otherwise, so far so good. In the past, with Secmod, I knew certain containers wouldn't have anything no matter what. Now, I actually check them all. It's good stuff. :)
Posted by: sarge945
« on: 03. November 2023, 00:42:54 »

Yeah it will only work for new ones. May possible even require a new map.

I'm still a bit fuzzy on the finer details of exactly how Dark works here, but from my understanding, when ranged enemies are created, they get an AIProjectile. They essentially create the object they are going to be launching at the player. This object is usually created at the 0,0,0 point in a map, and is switched on and moved when they fire.

For some reason, when I was replacing the enemies, these projectiles at 0,0,0 would become visible (specifically only with Secmod for some reason, I still don't understand why), so I had to use a bit of a hack to make them invisible. In this case, I disabled the particle group for them, which seems to get automatically turned on again when they fire. So far so good. Works fine.

But for some additional reason, this would break the Hybrids shotgun projectile, which are already hidden using RenderType 1, so I had to add an additional check to only disable the particle group if the RenderType is 0 (Render Normally).

This definitely feels like I am hacking the engine and making it do things it doesn't want to do, but everything should be okay, hopefully. This is why we have betas I guess.
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