SS2 Dan's Multiplayer Gameplay Tweaks

[67432733730e9Dan]

  Hello everyone!

In a nutshell: This mod aims to significantly change the gameplay experience in System Shock 2's coop mode.

Background: I am well aware SS2's multiplayer is not overly popular among the "hardcore fan base", and I fully acknowledge the key points made against coop mode in an immersive survival RPG. However, two friends of mine and myself have been hosting coop events once a year for more than a decade at this point. We keep having a tremendous amount of fun every single time. We also always relied on the amazing mods posted specifically in this community to "spice up" our common gameplay experience. Now, with the kind help of voodoo47 and ThiefsieFool, who endured and replied to my countless embarrassing posts, I was finally able to tweak the necessary difficulty settings and some other mechanics to (hopefully) make the multiplayer aspect significantly more challenging and centred around diversified class / skillset synergy. Additionally, it was very important to ensure general compatibility to the System Shock 2 Community Patch and being able to combine this mod with as many of the wonderful fan projects out there as possible.
So, anyway, this is all very much still work-in-progress, and many things will require extensive testing and tweaking. Indeed, most future implementations are essentially pipe dreams of mine - but I would like to share what's there & working for now:

• Features:
• Significantly increased difficulty settings
• Modified traits
• Changed gameplay mechanics
• Future additions

Significantly increased difficulty settings:

• Massively increased research time for alien organs & artifacts.
• Nearly doubled damage output against enemies with "researched" weaknesses.
• Reduced damage increase per weapon stat level to +3%.
• Higher stat upgrade costs (at a factor of 2.25)
• Slower walking speed for players.
• Reduced hitpoints for players
• Decreased item loot rate from bodies (loot hose: 85%)

Modified traits:

• The "Tank" trait HP bonus is 8hp.
• The "Sharpshooter" trait now adds 33% damage to ranged weapons.
• The "Lethal Weapon" trait adds 50% damage to melee weapons.

Changed gameplay mechanics:

• Camera destruction will always trigger the alarm.
• NB: Polito's dialogue was changed accordingly, as suggested. I also changed the subtitles for those who use them.
• Security cameras are much less noisy.
• Vastly increased projectile speeds for most weapons (monsters & players).
• The Midwife leads the target while aiming. Avoid encounters in open spaces.

Things I would like to implement in the future:

• Disabling the alarm requires a security terminal to be hacked, instead of merely frobbed.
• Include the ingenious Spawn Randomizer by Zygoptera (but ensuring SCP compatibility).
• Entirely disabling automatic respawning for players. Respawns can only be triggered manually by activating a Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Machine.
• Combine this mod with ZylonBane's fantastic Health Randomizer and Vague Healthbar.
• Proximity-based voice chat.
• (Yeah, yeah, I know ... not going to happen, I suppose. Arma & Minecraft mods did it flawlessly, though..!)
• No crosshair while weapon is equipped and aiming via ironsights

Again, thank you all very much for the time and effort you continuously pour into this amazing game, even 20 years after its release.
If you have any ideas and/or suggestions in regards to balancing aspects, recommended settings to add & tweak, and especially for the implementation of the future features listed above, please bring these points up here!

[67432733732f3voodoo47]

the gamesys.dml needs to be fingerprinted to not load for SCP (and Secmod?), and the files and folders need to be directly in the archive (so no Dan's Multiplayer Tweaks folder in the archive). camera sound volume can also be dml tweaked I think, so no need to edit the sound files (though this will work, of course).

item location randomizer has been done by ZB, it was floating around Engineering, if memory serves.

[6743273373459Dan]

Cheers, voodoo!

Fingerprinting the gamesys.dml with

Code: [Select]

!FINGERPRINT
{
   GAM shockscp.gam
}
would kill the projectile speed adjustments, though, right? Or is it sensible to transfer all of these to the shockscp.gam.dml?
I uploaded the corrected archive structure, thank you!

[6743273373557voodoo47]

yes, adding that would indeed not load anything from that dml should SCP be detected. just copy and paste everything into the SCP b4 dml for the time being, once b5 is up, we'll kill the b4 dml and remove the fingerprint from gamesys.dml.

[674327337363dDan]

Great, thank you very much! Edited, removed the gamesys.dml and re-uploaded.

[6743273373942ZylonBane]

item location randomizer has been done by ZB, it was floating around Engineering, if memory serves.

I hadn't gotten to the point of figuring out how to make it work in multiplayer. In its current state it probably makes randomized objects appear in a different location for each player.

[6743273373b92voodoo47]

removed the gamesys.dml

nno, you misunderstood. basically, we have gamesys.dml, which contains all the tweaks and will activate for everything but SCP, as that requires special handling on the camera archetype, and the SCP specific dml, which will activate only for SCP b4, and contains all the tweaks from the regular gamesys.dml, but with modified camera stuff to work properly.

[6743273373c7fZylonBane]

Also SCP B5 significantly changes the camera scripting.

[6743273373da6voodoo47]

yes, that's why I was saying, with b5, the extra SCP dml won't be necessary anymore (so once b5 is out, the mod will have to be updated, deleting the scp dml and removing fingerprinting from gamesys.dml).

[674327337437fDan]

nno, you misunderstood. basically, we have gamesys.dml, which contains all the tweaks and will activate for everything but SCP, as that requires special handling on the camera archetype, and the SCP specific dml, which will activate only for SCP b4, and contains all the tweaks from the regular gamesys.dml, but with modified camera stuff to work properly.

Welp, I think we've previously established that I am an idiot, so no need to dwell on it - corrected and re-uploaded once more :-)
Thanks again!

I hadn't gotten to the point of figuring out how to make it work in multiplayer. In its current state it probably makes randomized objects appear in a different location for each player.

Would somebody kindly point me in the direction on this script? I found this but I suppose that's not quite the correct mod? I will be most keen to test it in coop mode and perhaps modify it further if this is within my limited set of expertise!
Also, ZylonBane, would you perhaps be so kind and re-upload your Enemy Health Randomizer? :-)

[67432733744eaZylonBane]

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147760&p=2378108&viewfull=1#post2378108

[67432733748dcDan]

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147760&p=2378108&viewfull=1#post2378108

Oh my goodness, thank you so much! This would make the ordinary coop mission intense as hell. If I understand correctly, your script would have to be included in the mod folder / archive and specific, manually chosen items within each map (represented within a mapname.dml) would have to call on it to switch places randomly?

[6743273374a46ZylonBane]

The script was written to be used by authors. To be used as a mod for existing maps, you'd also need additional scripting to spawn script host objects, location markers, and create links between them all.

[6743273374b50Dan]

Hmmm, mhhh, yes, I understood some of these words! 

addendum: time to read up on more things, I guess!

[6743273374c86voodoo47]

you have used the SCP camera alert code in the regular gamesys by mistake. also, both vanilla and SCP complain about Droid Laser Shot not existing (which is correct).

Code: [Select]

WARNING: no object named "Droid Laser Shot" was found, skipping
WARNING: invalid object id 0, skipping
WARNING: no object named "Droid Laser Shot" was found, skipping
WARNING: invalid object id 0, skipping
WARNING: no object named "Droid Laser Shot" was found, skipping
WARNING: invalid object id 0, skippingshould be Droid Laser Bolt. fixed everything, and attached the new archive to the first post. will move to the mods subforum soon (would be nice if someone gave it a run).

[6743273374dabDan]

Ah, thank you so much, voodoo47! Entirely missed that.. 
I am afraid there might be more blunders hidden beneath. I did not undertake a full playthrough yet, though we do plan on starting our annual coop session soon.
Perhaps it would be best to wait with the move until after we are through and see how the changes pan out for three players.

[6743273374f15voodoo47]

ok.

you can use the dbmod_load command in the editor to load a dml, and the console will spew out errors and warnings in case something straight out doesn't work (things like broken syntax and non-existing props or archetypes. successful load of course doesn't mean that everything works - whether the dml actually does what you intend it to do is a different matter entirely. basically, the console will only show whether the dml is getting applied properly, nothing else).

[67432733753e6sarge945]

I personally would LOVE to see the "no respawning without QBRM" mechanic implemented. It would make multiplayer actually have some level of challenge associated with it.

I wonder if it would be possible to add in a "once all players die, you restart the map" mechanic if you haven't activated any QBRM's yet. I wonder if that could be combined with the broken QBRM's mod to make multiplayer a bit more survival focused, only respawning players once a new map loads etc. An optional "drop everything on death" setting could make this even more important. All that said, I would think the biggest problem with a mechanic like this (aside from the coding) would be making sure the game is never unwinnable. What if the player with a key item dies, no QBRM is activated, and the other player is stuck behind a locked door etc? I can't think of any places in the game where an area closes behind or anything, but that doesn't mean the problem wouldn't be there. I am assuming they added the "always respawn" mechanic in the first place because of the possibility of getting stuck.

Also, if you do figure out how to make the random spawner mod work with SCP compatibility, be sure to release it as a seperate mini-mod, as I'm sure there are some people who would want to use it in single player as well.