SS2 AlyaMod 2

[6740f20711f40Mr Rayford]

Right now I'm playing on normal as a Navy man. I've betten it on impossible several times, but I have trouble on hard with this mod.

[6740f20712228Rainalkar]

Well, you should .

I've beaten it two times on Impossible, first time Heavy6, Standard3, Repair, Modify, some help of Psi disciplines Tiers1,2. Second time Standard, Maintenance and Hack. Both builds were quite challenging, but I managed, barely. I have yet to play Exotic + Energy, I heard from some guy that it was very hard because of CM costs.

[6740f207123d8Mr Rayford]

I think I have some kind of solution to the laser rapier problem. Switch it with the emp rifle, increase the agility requirement, beef up its damage, and give it a battery life, similar to that of the laser pistol and emp rifle. You could make it a very deadly weapon, but you should make it costly, so much so that it should require you to choose between it and say, Hack 7 or the Fusion Cannon. Also, is the hack level for the droids the same, because Hack 3 if feel is a little low. One more thing, Hack 2 + Engineering A corridor with the three turrets + Security Alert=Massacre.

[6740f207125b4Rainalkar]

But I don't think it is a problem that the Rapier is not on top of it's tree. You should try to swing it maxed - it can hardly get much more powerful. Or, it can, it could kill Assaults in 1 instead of 2 swings

You mean Protocols? You think that Hack 3 should be higher? They are useless anyway, and are very difficult to hack cause of their charge, so it's mostly a novelty feature, I wouldn't bother that much hacking them, save for a joke. Bots, however, are a different matter.

Yes, that corridor is perhaps the most difficult place in the beginning of the game if you don't have Hack, but I guarantee you that you can pass with a Speed Hypo without a scratch. If you don't have one buy it. It is possible to pass without it, but quite difficult.

[6740f207126c9Mr Rayford]

A bout that corridor, I meant that if you hack all three turrents and them set of the alarm, it's a slaughter.

[6740f207127d5Rainalkar]

Yes, it is . But so was in the original as well. It's not you're gonna become rich by looting hybrids, unless you're willing to spend hours there.

[6740f207128f5Mr Rayford]

Holy Crap, the Hacker is God. I own Ops. Especially Ops D. 5 turrets and 2 security droids are mine in Ops D alone. It's freakin' fortress. I love it. I was setting of alarms just to see things get killed.

[6740f20712a2cYujiTFD]

After installation of any "shock2.gam" mods I'm having 5 red cubes around crosshair and I cannot move.
Inventory is working, but my legs are numb and not moving at all.
Was trying to Google it but way too unsuccessful. Any hints, please?

P.S. SS2 mod-ready, every mod is working fine except "shock2.gam" mods.

[6740f20712b13Rainalkar]

Go into your inv by pressing TAB, then you can right-click on any of the red cubes to select spawn type.

[6740f20712c87miracle.flame]

You get those cubes only in Ultimate Spawn mod, UARMM and this mod. That's a feature of these mods and it originates in Ultimate Spawn mod.

[6740f20712d9cYujiTFD]

Bah, my bad!
Really, never checked cubes' "clickage" with open inventory. Sorry for the mess

[6740f207130f2Mr Rayford]

Alright, I just finished the game, so here are my thoughts:

I can't really tell what you goal was with this mod, balance or difficulty. If you goal was difficulty, then you defiantly succeeded. You mad this 4 time impossible vet limp back to normal. The stronger, faster and more resilient enemies made SS2 a whole different beast. I especially like how much tougher you made the Rumblers. The fight with SHODAN is also much harder, but I feel that she is still too weak. She went down in less than 15 EMP grenades. She's the final boss; she should be really, really hard.

If you goal was balance, there is still work to be done. The weapons are balanced almost perfectly on paper, but the game play changes you made throw things out of whack. Weapons now feel too weak. Especially the higher-end weapons. The wrench is still your best weapon. You also have to remember that balance is not always a good thing. If you’re going to make such a large investment for a weapon, you want it to be powerful. The Fusion Canon is now far more useful but still woefully underpowered. If a spider can hold up to a projectile created by nuclear fusion, then we have a problem. Another note on spiders, I think you should tone down the toxin on the baby spiders, it's the same as the adults. I also find energy weapons being useless against annelids a little hard to swallow. Also, I feel that the hacker has too much power. The ability to hack Robots with only Hack 3 makes them no longer a threat. But I don't want you to remove this feature, it's too awesome. A assault bot fighting a Rumbler was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Korenchkin getting town up by an assault bot was also awesome.

I really like some of the graphical changes you made. The new explosions are great, (even thought the physics are a little screwy at times, and the new NPC deaths are fantastic. The Hybrid bum rush after the shuttles was one of the bloodiest moment's in gamming thanks to my hacked blast turret. And the darker areas really add to the tension.

This brings me to some gripes. Some of the areas are too dark, specifically the Rickenbacker and The Body of The Many. The Atmosphere went from tense to frustrating. Dark is scary, not being able to tell whether your walking down a path or into a wall is aggravating.

I also encountered a strange anomaly. Whenever you set a proxy grenade near another proxy grenade, a Fusion projectile is created of the other proxy grenade and just floats there, acting as a second mine. A mine that only I can set off.

Some things I think you should add. Camera hacking. The Arena FM has camera hacking and I think you should add it. You can hack everything else, why not cameras. Of course they should be hard to hack.

This mod has the potentially to not just modify SS2, but make it better than the original.

Also, did you add a log in the BOTM, if gound one by a soilder that I had never heard before. His name began with a C and he was talking about how he died serving the UNN.

[6740f2071381eRainalkar]

I appreciate very much your feedback. Step at a time:

-I felt Shodan should be a bit stronger too. I already placed it on paper for future changes regarding the update to the mod. I will not resolve it by pumping her HPs, but by making her Avatars faster and more precise, perhaps - perhaps - make her missiles home somewhat. If you are playing normal, then she shouldn't really be very difficult.
-Weapons aren't really that less powerful. Assault Rifle, for example, damages the same as in ADaoB, but it's the enemies that are tougher. You can't have a new improved Rumbler if it falls down to higher end weapons... I calculated for every weapon how many shots it takes to take down certain enemies, for example, I believe it was around 15 HE bullets from a Standard 6 Assault Rifle to kill a Rumbler, and that was exactly my goal, makes you think wether to use auto fire if he's charging at you, which no one ever really used in orig.
Fusion Cannon feels stronger, likely, that the Assault Rifle, but it's major strength is that it's the most efficient weapon nanitewise. I played Impossible only with it and I found it just as I want it to be, I had only 150 prisms when I finished the game, and I TRANSMUTED, not recycled, every plant I found.
EMP Rifle and Annelid Launcher I cannot comment, since I haven't played with them yet.
-Not being able to drop Arachnids with a single shot was deliberate. If you can do that, they are not a threat at all. But, if you need one more shot it becomes that much more thrilling, cause you can easily kill yourself when they are all over you. Which reminds me, the Death Fusion shot radius will be reduced from 15 to 10.
-I could reduce the toxin of the Babies, it's not that much of a deal. It wasn't my idea, someone else implemented it before.
-The exact info for hacking robots is:
Maintenance
Hack3, Cyb2, 20% success, 8 nodes, 12 nanites
Security
H4, C3, -20, 10, 25
Assault
H5, C6, -40, 12, 30
I found, on Impossible, hard to keep up with the demands of hacking Assaults for the least. It could perhaps be too easy on Normal, I will increase the diff somewhat. Btw, how do you hack them without them shooting at you, corner trick?
-Rickenbacker I found a little to dark as well, I will remedy that, but there is no way I'll change BotM , I killed myself on that level changing all those lights, and yes, you can't see where you're going all the time, but that is what I wanted, you are inside a huge monster and you should be scared like hell.
-The proxy bug is known from work of others before me. I don't know how to resolve it, but TF said he'll give it a try in the next SecMod.
-You said the Hack is too powerful a few times, I certainly felt it was an option to happen. That's why I didn't allow cameras to be hacked. I could think this through again though.
-I did add a log, but I think it was in Rickenbacker? Yours truly

Could you write your stats, ammo, etc. at the endgame?

[6740f20713a84Rainalkar]

Here is the table I made during my testing, it shows how many times you need to hit a certain adversary with a specific weapon to kill it, and the nanite efficiency of it. Of course, the numbers are far from, ideal, but will give you a picture of my intentions. Some stuff is in croatian, ask if you don't understand (green is the most efficient weapon per enemy).
Image: http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/1903/clipboard03dt5.th.jpg

And the table of how many hits does it take to kill BotM and Shodan (upper number, lower is the required multiplier):
Image: http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7362/clipboard04ke3.th.jpg

I did a lot of testing

[6740f20713cc3Mr Rayford]

I guess what I meant about Hackers having too much power is that they have to much power too early. I think that hack 2 for security consoles, Hack 3 for security assets, (turrets and cameras, if you decide to implement camera hacking, which I hope you do), and Hack 4 for and up for Robots sounds good.  The Maintenance Bots in Engineering were supposed to make you go "Oh Crap!", but I could just hack them. As for hacking the Robots, I had three techniques. the corner hack, which I used the most, the "Hack dance", where you hack while running around the bot, and the far less common sneak hack, where you run up on a Bot with its back turned and hack it. My stats

Standard 5
Heavy 6
Hack 6
Maintenance 5
Research 1
Strength 6
Endurance 6
Cyber Affinity 6

As for my supplies:

http://img102.imageshack.us/my.php?image=inventoryfb2.jpg

The only weapon not in terrible condition is the Shotgun, which is in shoddy condition.

Is there a way to add attacks to SHODAN? Like, say, a rapid fire laser. Faster enough that if you get caught in it, you’re basically toast, but slow enough that if your agility is up past 1 of 2, you should be able to out run it. I also encountered no resistance when hacking SHODANS terminals, not a single ICE node.

By the way, nice log. I guess I didn't listen to it until I got to the BOTM. The only reason I thought it was out of place was the portrait. You should try to do your face like the portraits in the game.

[6740f20713eddRainalkar]

All security consoles, turrets and crates have indvidual hacking difficulties which increase as the game progresses, while the requirements remain the same. I could do the same for robots as well, I'll check it out.

I am more willing to add camera hacking if it does not trigger alarm free period like security stations, but instead blinds and freezes that camera only.

Sure, it's possible to add different kind of attacks to all enemies. Yes, Shodan terminals have success -70, 0 nodes, 3 nanites, Hack 6, Cyb 6 requirements. Basically, if you have invested in hack and cyb, you don't have to deal with the shields. Maybe I can add 9 nodes or so (so 3 in real), but I don't want it to be too difficult, it is your reward for going the hack route.

How do you want me to add a picture like ingame? I would have to draw it Maybe you have an undiscovered gift in art?

I see you've been buying ICE-picks?

[6740f2071407cMr Rayford]

I didn’t buy those ICE picks, those were the three found in game. I usually save them for SHODAN's consoles but I wanted to hack them with my own two hands this time, since I was a dedicated hacker practically this game, (which made the BOTM very difficult since you can't hack Rumblers). Isn't there a way to make hacked cameras reveal enemies? That’s what I meant when I said camera hacking. Being able to hack turrets, Robot's, and cameras really gives you the feeling of reclaiming the ship.

[6740f207141b4Rainalkar]

Ah yes, normal difficulty, I forgot about that. Heck, I even forgot how many ICE-picks did I allow per difficulty, I will have to recheck that.
What do you mean reveal enemies?

[6740f2071440dMr Rayford]

I believe in the Zygo Arena FM, you could hack camera to show you enemies that were in their line of sight. They would show up on the map like that one psi ability (I never use psi so I don't know what it's called and I'm too lazy to look it up.)

[6740f20714502Rainalkar]

I will check that too. I haven't even tried Arena yet, it slipped me.

[6740f2071460eViralHatred]

I remember rumour of a mod that once made it so that when you hacked the security, cameras would then spot for you and would display a message saying things like "Intruder detected at:.."

[6740f2071498amiracle.flame]

How do you want me to add a picture like ingame? I would have to draw it Maybe you have an undiscovered gift in art?

Maybe you could borrow some of the unused log faces from Arcaniac's graphic mod. They are very similar. Arcaniac would not mind as long as you give him credit..I guess.. after all he offered his work as stock material.

[6740f20714ca7Mr Rayford]

Maybe you could borrow some of the unused log faces from Arcaniac's graphic mod. They are very similar. Arcaniac would not mind as long as you give him credit..I guess.. after all he offered his work as stock material.

Yeah. Or hell, even use the Starcraft ghost.


I forgot to mention something strange about the Fusion Canon. At very in opportune times, mainly in the Brain of the Many and every time at SHODAN, when I fired it, the shot would detonate in my face, like it was hitting the ejected casing or something.

[6740f2071544fRainalkar]

Maybe you could borrow some of the unused log faces from Arcaniac's graphic mod. They are very similar. Arcaniac would not mind as long as you give him credit..I guess.. after all he offered his work as stock material.

Very familiar to what?