SS2 AlyaMod 2

[67409d6a45a6fEnchantermon]

I just tried the terminal and it lights up for me.

Really? The one right across from the keycard-locked entrance to the crew sector?

[67409d6a45cf6Rainalkar]

Yes. There is nothing different on it, AFAI see.

[67409d6a45de0Enchantermon]

Well...um...okay, then. Weird.

[67409d6a45ebdRainalkar]

You can send me the gamesys and the mis, I can check it out.

[67409d6a46204Nameless Voice]

And this is off topic from what I was talking about before but a feature I always liked from Arcaniacs mod was the fact that when you smacked screens and such on walls or computers they changed into the green static texture.

That's a standard feature; it happens in the original game, too.

[67409d6a462f2Rainalkar]

I can't recall, does it happen when you wrench something as well?

[67409d6a463ccNameless Voice]

It should, though I think it sometimes takes more than one hit.

[67409d6a464faRainalkar]

NV, is it possible to change Psi>Alchemy Val and Psi>Fabricate Cost depending on difficulty, to add some multiplier to the values? Molecular Duplication and Transmutation cannot be balanced otherwise imo. If I make the item duplication cost roughly the same as the replicator cost, the psi skill becomes obscenely powerful on Impossible. If I make the item duplication cost roughly as the replicator on Impossible, Duplication becomes useless for lower difficulties. Similar for Transmutation.

[67409d6a46787Raz0r]

When I played multi with a few people, once therd was 4 of us, it worked like a charm. It can only be due to spawn mode selection, but that was fixed. Should it be that it's causing problems again, I'll turn it off completely. If you want, we can try to play together in multi.
haha :-), i tebi pozdrav iz makarske ;-) sta je za rec da si zavrsio na system shocku?

Budemo probali sutra-prekosutra opet (bas smo stavili frisko OS gore), mozda bude OK. SS2 igramo vec odavno, imamo tradiciju da ga igramo svaku godinu u proljece i zavrsimo prije ljeta 

Any news on V3 ?

[67409d6a46896Rainalkar]

Bit ce v3, ali ne skoro, uvodjenje nasumicnosti je nevjerojatna gomila posla, tek sam zavrsio pola engineeringa. Nadam se da bih do ljeta mogao sve zavrsit. Tu u profilu imam msn ime, pa me stavi ako koristis.

[67409d6a469b0Raz0r]

Evo samo da ti javim, nista od toga. Nikako ne mozemo sinkronizirati igru, bilo da ja hostam ili frend. Mozda je do tog spawn mode-a, da li se moze iskljuciti ? Imas kakav prijedlog ?

Thanks 

PS budem te dodao na MSN

[67409d6a46aaaRainalkar]

Moze se iskljuciti ali je komplicirano. Kad startate igru, i kad vam se pojave crvene kockice, nemojte se micat prije nego kliknete na jednu. Takodjer, vidi jeste li sinkronizirani prije nego kliknete. A mozemo i ja i ti pokusat, dogovorit se preko msn-a

[67409d6a46d39Join_us]

rainalkar and i had some brainstorming about how to improve the game balance even further. one big point was repairing. in the current state it is sort of pointless, because maintenance is more effective and the few repair tasks eventually needed can be done with buyable auto-repair units. although we had some ideas how to change it, we are unable to convert them into the mod. so he asks me to post them here.

changing the task directly

currently repairing seems to remove the status "broken" and increases the condition by around 1. so the ideal solution would be to make the amount of condition gained with the task depend on the current repair skill level, for example with repair 6 your repaired object gains + 6 condition.

changing the status "broken"

if a weapon breaks, it is not useable anymore. i would be better, if the status "broken" only would not allow you to reload/change ammunition/change fire mode, but let you continiue firing. that would favor energy weapons more, but could be compensated with increased minimum repair requirements.

alternativly the event of breaking could make a weapon unuseable, but increase the condition by a amount depending on your repair skill. that way it would not always stay around 1 and breaking relativly shortly after the last repairing task.

tools

another possibilty would be to change the mechanics of the auto-repair unit in a similar way to the maintenance tools. you should be able to use them on objects regardless how their current state is/if they are broken or not. the usage should increase the condition by an amount depending on your repair skill.  or they offer always repairing to 100% and the skill level determs on which items you can use them.


so what we ask, are any of these changes doable? if this is case, can anyone tell us how we could achieve that, alternativly who is willing to do that on his/her own? or if anyone has other practical solutions, could he/she share them with us?

[67409d6a46e4bRainalkar]

For truth's sake, pretty much everything are your ideas. What I know of Repair ís what NV told me: skill is hard coded and cannot be changed.

[67409d6a4707dEnchantermon]

I don't know if this is a problem of if you set it up this way, but during the final battle with Shodan: how the crap are you supposed to kill her?! I can shoot her avatars and they eventually die, littering their deathplaces with never-ending particle effects, and respawn elsewhere. But whenever I shoot The Big, Giant Head^TM, I don't get a health bar. I don't get any indication that I'm doing any damage at all to it. The only time I did was for a second or two one of the many times that I took a couple of spare shots in between running for my life from the avatars. Also, when I kamakazied onto her platform and started gnawing at her chin. Other than that, I don't seem to be getting any response. I'm using standard bullets, because that's all I have. Do they not affect her at all (or very little)?

Oh, and the new replicator in the BotM, the one in the first ship section, seems to have a bug. I hacked it and not only did its inventory not change, but the prices on everything went up.

[67409d6a471a9Rainalkar]

Shodan is immune to Standard, but both HE and AP will do. Did I mention that in the readme?

Ah LOL The particle effects were meant for the Head only. I will fix it.

You are correct of the replicator, join_us already warned me of it, it will be fixed. I just switched the values.

[67409d6a4736aJoin_us]

(experience from impossible only)

preparations:
- endurance 4+ with eiter implants, psi spells or skill is recommend; also heavy armor/ reflec armor/ or psycho-reflective aura are helpfull
- hacking the 3 consoles is a must after buff of the shield hitpoints; achieveable as dedicated hacker with hack 6/ cyb 6+ or you have to buy two additional ice-picks, f.e. in BotM (one is found in command)


encounter
- medical kits/ adv. cerebro-stim. reg. have to be used almost on cooldown, saving some speed boosts is recommend to evade the avatars/shodan missile
- killing the avatars is pointless because of their insane respawn rate. they have to be stunned during the encounter with either the secondary fire mode of the emp-rifle or stasis generator or blocked with metacreative barrier
- as indicated in the readme, shodan´s head "is affected only by some form of energy: EMP, Energy, High Explosive, Incendiary, Psi, Cold, Fusion, and Armor Piercing (balance purposes)",
so she is immune to wrench, standard bullets, shotgun slugs, frag grenades, disruption grenades and crystal shard.

[67409d6a4752aEnchantermon]

Um.
Okay...
All I have left are standard bullets and rifled slugs. I used up all of the others in the BotM. And I have my Shard. Which is also useless.
While I see now that this is all mentioned in the readme, I didn't want to go in knowing what to expect, as you're not supposed to know, so I didn't read the whole change log. I didn't realize I would cripple myself in the process, though.

EDIT: Anyway, I went through the brain room again, this time using my standard ammo and saving my anti-personnel for Shodan. I already had planned on the ICE-picks. It's much easier when you actually use something she's vulnerable to. :p Nice touch with the screens exploding as you damage her, by the way.

[67409d6a47693Rainalkar]

Which difficulty? Maybe I can add a log or something about Shodan, but, then again, you're not supposed to know everything I had plenty nanites to buy enough AP/HE on Impossible, then again, I know my modifications

AR, on Auto especially, can work very well with Shodan. Death Fusion works too for it hits 2 shields at once. EMP Rifle has the stun on Avatars, as does SFG. I think every build has something, except Exotic of course.

I can't recall that I did the screens. If I did, I forgot.

[67409d6a47878Join_us]

black is beautiful:

to be fair, the head was already immune to wrench and crystal shard in the unmodded game, which was not indicated anywhere, too. it should be somehow to be expected to face the last boss of the entire game with high tier weapons/psi skills; rainalkar just made her immune to low tier weapons/basic ammuntion (except disruption grenades).

every character build i could imagine has means to deal with her. as marine any of the nonexotic high tier weapons, as osa any direct damage spell or psi sword and as navy you could have access to the grenade launcher with emp-grenades or pistol/assault rifle with ap-/he-bullets, all three reachable with low cm cost.

i have to admit the first time i played the mod i could not beat her, too^^. that was as marine with just heavy weapons, but i was low on prism due to the increased ammo consumption because of the buffed enemy hitpoints and i had recycled my stasis generator after BotM. i also just had around 15 hitpoints (basic endurance + tank) like i always had in the unmodded game. all this results in thousand deaths until i decided to reload the BotM-start savegame and prepare better^^.

not sure about that, maybe a replicator with the contents large prism, ap-bullets, psi hypos and emp grenades should be added at the start of the last level, so you do not have to replay two entire levels if you are not explicitly prepared for the final encounter.

[67409d6a48392Enchantermon]

Which difficulty?

Normal.

Maybe I can add a log or something about Shodan, but, then again, you're not supposed to know everything I had plenty nanites to buy enough AP/HE on Impossible, then again, I know my modifications

Right, but like I said, I saved all of my Standard ammo specifically for Shodan since it's normally more effective against machines than anti-personnel.

AR, on Auto especially, can work very well with Shodan.

Yeah, that's what I used. I ended up just circling the room non-stop after hacking the shields and taking one or two shots at her every cycle, hitting my hotkey for medkits when I got low. Took a little while but it got the job done.

to be fair, the head was already immune to wrench and crystal shard in the unmodded game, which was not indicated anywhere, too.

This is true, and I was prepared for that. Thing is, unless you're playing melee-only, typically you're not going to jump over and whack Shodan in the jaw. :p

not sure about that, maybe a replicator with the contents large prism, ap-bullets, psi hypos and emp grenades should be added at the start of the last level, so you do not have to replay two entire levels if you are not explicitly prepared for the final encounter.

That's a great idea, imo.

[67409d6a48566Rainalkar]

Standard ammo yes/no is pretty much a matter of choice. I really thought adding vulnerability to AP/HE only would suffice. I guess I was wrong Still, I'm not that keen on changing this... When I played the game I always spent standard ammo like nothing, and at the endgame, bought a bunch of the specialized versions. I never ended with only standard bullets.

Maybe I'll add a bit of homing to shodan projectiles 

The problem with adding a replicator in shodan.mis is that the mission is stripped. So, all the architecture that makes the replicator what it is cannot be done. What can be done is the screen and the replicator functionality. It will just look real odd having only that and items appearing in thin air.

[67409d6a48a49Enchantermon]

Maybe I'll add a bit of homing to shodan projectiles 

O_O For the love of sanity, please no. I was getting hurt every few seconds without it. :p

The problem with adding a replicator in shodan.mis is that the mission is stripped. So, all the architecture that makes the replicator what it is cannot be done. What can be done is the screen and the replicator functionality. It will just look real odd having only that and items appearing in thin air.

Actually, that's pretty much the only level in which you can get away without making the replicator architecture. Stick it somewhere in Citadel and it won't look out of place among the missing walls, wireframe, etc.
If you were to do this, it would, in my opinion anyway, be a fair trade-off for the standard ammo being useless against Shodan (because then, as Join_us said, you won't have to replay older levels and reformulate your strategy; you can just reload that level and buy different bullets.

[67409d6a48becRainalkar]

ok... maybe ok...

Well, I will check the replicator.

Ah, you have to see this:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121082&p=1857219&viewfull=1#post1857219

Remember when you asked me about that here? It is fixed anyways now.