SS2 Rebalanced Skills and Disciplines

[674076cb8d024RoSoDude]

In Beta 13, I was able to rebuild the entire hacking minigame essentially from scratch. It wasn't pleasant, but it was preferable to slow recompilation.

Reworked Hack/Repair/Modify minigame (BETA):

• Now deducts nanites per node click for 1/5 original cost (minimum 1)
• Board start/reset deducts 2/5 original cost (minimum 2)
• 1 ICE node removed per CYB above 1 (was CYB above 0)
• Psi hacking now counts Power Psi +3 PSI overload up to PSI 11
• Psi hacking now has double psi costs with Recursive Psionic Amplification active

Video demonstration here. Based on the ICE nodes you get, you can scan for nodes that give you the best chance at multiple sequences of 3, and re-evaluate as they light up or go dark. It's not the deepest minigame by any stretch, but it is at least now a bit more engaging, as there's a tradeoff between nanite cost and time spent scanning the board, where getting good at doing it quickly actually has consequences --  time passing in SS2 means more enemy respawns, implant drain, security timer running out, etc.

Full changelist:

1.08 BETA 13
-Fixed broken recharger compatibility with Inventory Fumbler
-Fixed half-annelid enemies getting 2.0x damage multiplier on Armor-Piercing instead of Anti-Personnel
-Fixed Psi Booster and Crystal Shard not requiring research due to testing changes
-Fixed debug log message when installing rate of fire mods on weapons
-Fixed Exotic weapons research strings not matching "?" strings
-Fixed Pistol slide animation capping burst mode fire rate to 960 rpm
-Fixed Soma Transference not reliably targeting through Metacreative Barrier
-Fixed Shotgun repair/modify having 10 base ICE nodes while Hybrid Shotguns had the intended 5
-Fixed dead power cells not being placeable into containers
-Fixed hack/alarm overlay text appearing over new custom overlays
-Fixed rec1.mis changes not getting loaded due to DML error
-Fixed added decos in hydro2.mis not having physics
-Fixed added pipe in rick1.mis not having physics
-Fixed psi pullable maintenance tool in Med/Sci 1 sometimes appearing on the ground
-Fixed power cell door in Hydroponics being openable by monkeys
-Fixed power cell door in Ops C making it very difficult to pick up nearby items
-Reworked Hack/Repair/Modify minigame (BETA):
    -Now deducts nanites per node click for 1/5 original cost (minimum 1)
    -Board start/reset deducts 2/5 original cost (minimum 2)
    -1 ICE node removed per CYB above 1 (was 0)
    -Psi hacking now counts Power Psi +3 PSI overload up to PSI 11
    -Psi hacking now has double psi costs with Recursive Psionic Amplification active
    -Window no longer closes abruptly when the object disappears from the world due to success/failure
-Rebalanced repair minigames:
    -Spent prism: Repair 1, 4->3 nanites, 5% base success, 8->5 ICE
    -Spent battery: Repair 4, 15 nanites, -15% base success, 10->7 base ICE
-Decreased Pistol BURST mode rate of fire from 960 rpm to 645 rpm
-Added "Modification completed!" message when selecting mods with French-Epstein devices
-Slightly improved tracers for bullets/slugs/pellets fired by the player
-Increased Pistol reload time by 1.2x
-Increased Shotgun degradation rate from 1.0% per shot to 1.5% per shot
-Increased Assault Rifle break threshold from 1.0 to 2.0
-Increased Grenade Launcher break chance from 0.5-5.0% per shot to 1.0-10.0% per shot
-Increased Grenade Launcher break threshold from 1.0 to 2.0
-Increased Shotgun TRIPLE slug spread from 350 to 450
-Decreased Fusion Cannon NORM mode projectile speed by 50% (vanilla)
-Increased Fusion Cannon DEATH mode projectile speed by 12% (vanilla 50% faster)
-Using the repair skill now adds +2 for weapons with a break threshold of 2/10 (Assault Rifle and Heavy weapons)
-Installing redundant softwares now checks base CYB for nanite conversion
-Equalized Replicator base/hacked cost for psi hypos from 75/40
-Decreased Replicator base/hacked cost for anti-armor bullets from 120/90 to 100/75
-Decreased Replicator base/hacked cost for anti-personnel bullets from 120/90 to 100/75
-Rearranged Med/Sci 1 Replicator database so anti-toxin hypo requires a hack while anti-rad hypo does not
-Added an annelid healing gland to Med/Sci 1
-Added radiation to Engineering nacelles
-Added grub pod eggs to Recreation A gym
-Replaced 10 prisms in a Rickenbacker A Replicator with 6 AP bullets
[hotfix additions]
-Fixed crashiness when repairing batteries/prisms
-Added custom overlays to earth.mis

[674076cb8d1cbSergiy]

Hi there! Thank you for this great mod - having a blast with System Shock 2 right now (with SCP installed)
But I have a question though - after this playthrough I plan on having a SECMOD run. I know that RS&D was created with SCP in mind.... but will it totally break the experience if I use it alongside the latest SECMOD as well? 

[674076cb8d34evoodoo47]

rule of thumb is that if something was not made with Secmod in mind, it will not work properly with it. so probably not.

[674076cb8d5d2Sergiy]

voodoo47Yeah, that I'm aware of. The point is - to what extent will it not work: will it break the experience entirely or just overwrite a handful of SECMOD changes, leaving its core intact.

[674076cb8d982sarge945]

Ideally @RoSoDude himself should answer this, but...

The mod DMLs are fingerprinted to not load for Secmod, so with Secmod you won't get any changes from RSD at all. So technically not "incompatible", the game won't explode violently, but it will be as if this mod was not installed at all.

But even if it did work with Secmod, why would you want to use them together? This mod is designed to create a balanced game, which is done through a lot of careful consideration of multiple different and cooperating design decisions - changing item placements, statistics, moving things in tiers, adding new mechanics, etc etc, all in a very meticulous and careful way so as to preserve the delicate balance of SS2. Secmod, on the other hand, adds it's own set of extremely wacky and bombastic gameplay changes and additions, some of which are extremely radical. It is largely not concerned with balance at all. Even if this mod did work with Secmod, it would end up as a horribly unbalanced mess, defeating the purpose of this mod entirely.

There are also several features which are contradictory or exist in both mods. For instance, both mods implement battery recharging. Both mods have incompatible weapon modification systems. "Doubling up" feature sets would be a nightmare for everyone involved.

If you like a specific feature of this mod and you want it to work with Secmod, it can probably be done by creating a new DML and copying over just the parts you want, but it's not recommended unless you know what you're doing.

[674076cb8dc9dSergiy]

sarge945
 "It is largely not concerned with balance at all" THAT is exactly the reason. :-) I thought RS&D could make SECMOD more balanced. But I see your point...

[674076cb8de13sarge945]

If any mod was going to make Secmod more balanced, it would have to be done by making a balance mod specifically for Secmod. I doubt RoSoDude would be interested in such an endeavour since creating this mod has already been a lot of work, and Secmod has it's fair share of design quirks that make it much harder to work with than vanilla in many ways.

Obviously, unless we hear it from the horses mouth, there are no guarantees that we won't see it, but I would sooner expect to win the lottery than to see something like this.

Even if someone was interested in balancing Secmod, I don't think anyone will. Virtually nobody else other than TF really contributes to it, it's basically their mod. Someone else coming in and making a bunch of radical changes would probably not feel right.

[674076cb8e0bcSergiy]

sarge945I guess you are right. Maybe I should try SECMOD as it is. Some time later. Thanks for such an extensive reply!

Actually, the only real thing that got me interested in SECMOD was extra Hydro level. It's a pity, that it comes only as a part of the whole mod. If only it could be installed seperately, I would definilely try it out...

[674076cb8e239sarge945]

You're not missing much by not trying it.

I don't want to badmouth Secmod too much, I know a lot of work has gone into it and I have a lot of respect for the mod, but that level is basically a big empty area with a water puzzle in it and a few turrets. You can see the map here

There are definitely some aspects of RSD that I believe should be available as standalone mods and usable with other mods (like Secmod), like the weapon icon for upgraded weapons. But short of that, this mod really has nothing to offer Secmod, since it's balanced completely differently to vanilla.

[674076cb8e4b2Sergiy]

sarge945
Well, empty or not that still looks quite atmospheric. :-)
Once again - thank you for the reply!

[674076cb8eac7ThiefsieFool]

Ideally @RoSoDude himself should answer this, but...

The mod DMLs are fingerprinted to not load for Secmod, so with Secmod you won't get any changes from RSD at all. So technically not "incompatible", the game won't explode violently, but it will be as if this mod was not installed at all.

But even if it did work with Secmod, why would you want to use them together? This mod is designed to create a balanced game, which is done through a lot of careful consideration of multiple different and cooperating design decisions - changing item placements, statistics, moving things in tiers, adding new mechanics, etc etc, all in a very meticulous and careful way so as to preserve the delicate balance of SS2. Secmod, on the other hand, adds it's own set of extremely wacky and bombastic gameplay changes and additions, some of which are extremely radical. It is largely not concerned with balance at all. Even if this mod did work with Secmod, it would end up as a horribly unbalanced mess, defeating the purpose of this mod entirely.

There are also several features which are contradictory or exist in both mods. For instance, both mods implement battery recharging. Both mods have incompatible weapon modification systems. "Doubling up" feature sets would be a nightmare for everyone involved.

If you like a specific feature of this mod and you want it to work with Secmod, it can probably be done by creating a new DML and copying over just the parts you want, but it's not recommended unless you know what you're doing.

You seem to bring this up a lot, and I mean a lot. Can you explain what is unbalanced in the mod and how, specifically in the context of the mod itself, not the vanilla balance which was very flawed in itself.

[674076cb8f4acsarge945]

Overall I have probably been too harsh on Secmod, and I realize reading back that I am coming across as quite negative. Sorry. I know a lot of work has gone into the mod and I don't think it's a bad mod, just an unbalanced one (I would say my overall criticism is moreso that Secmod's gameplay is kind of a collection of features that have been added on top of the largely unbalanced core of SS2). I am probably jaded because of how janky some parts of it can be and how much of a nightmare compatibility patches for it can be to make, so take my opinions with a large bag of salt. I am also extremely biased.

My biggest balance criticism with vanilla SS2 is largely the existence of dominant strategies. Virtually nobody who knows what they are doing will invest in Hack above 4. You can leave Research at 1 and research every organ, trivializing investment in the skill. Standard is generally the best weapon class. This makes the game extremely trivial to beat by an experienced player, to the point where Impossible really isn't very hard if you know what you're doing. There's virtually no decision making or tradeoffs being made by the player because they are given unequal choices and the correct answers are obvious. While you CAN do a Psi build or an Exotic build, you're essentially doing a challenge run and gimping yourself by doing so.

To answer your question more directly, in my opinion, the largest issue with Secmod's gameplay is that it addresses this imbalance in entirely the wrong way. Instead of undermining dominant strategies, Secmod mostly makes the game numerically harder. Enemies move faster, hit for more damage and have increased awareness, etc. Most of the core SS2 mechanics are the same or only slightly changed. In my opinion this is a bad approach to balance and doesn't actually fix the problem, because the same lack of strategy still exists, you just have to be better at it. Building on top of the unbalanced core of SS2 without addressing it's massive gameplay shortcomings is why I believe Secmod is unbalanced.

You may consider that unfair - you're not responsible for SS2's vanilla balance. That's true. However, we are talking about Secmod in the context of other mods that attempt to fix the underlying issues (like RSD). Therefore, if we look at it in context, Secmod, and any other mod that bases itself off the core SS2 mechanics without resolving them (AlyaMod, SCP, etc) is inherently unbalanced.

There are definitely areas where Secmod changes mechanics in an attempt to fix the underlying balance issues. In some cases, these work quite well, however in others I feel like the mod exacerbates the existing issues. Here are a few examples off the top of my head:

• While some good work was done to improve Repair (like with the battery repairing mechanic and turret repairs), I feel like a lot of that work is undone in the early game because of how many decent-quality non-broken weapons are available. In medsci alone, I can find 2 laser pistols, several standard pistols, and a grenade launcher, all working and in mid-condition, making the main draw of repair largely moot regardless of your preferred weapon class. Being able to loot working shotguns (at 1 quality) from virtually any shotgun hybrid further breaks this for Standard players, who will have a near infinite supply of working shotguns if they play aggressively. This abundance of weapons also has knock-on effects. The main draw of the Marines Energy and Heavy career paths is the free weapons they give you at the start of the game. That doesn't mean anything anymore when players can find an identical weapon in better condition within 10-20 minutes of gameplay. Other mods exist (like repairman) which add in similar Repair changes without the weapon placement changes, and with them installed Repair is still somewhat niche, even with the broken weapons lying around from Vanilla. RSD improves upon repair further by tweaking the broken weapon placements to incentivize getting Repair early, and by adding repairable prisms, to the point where Repair is somewhat worthwhile, especially for Heavy players. I feel like Secmod tries to take the same sort of approach but mostly undermines itself with other parts of it's design. Repair is better in some ways and a lot worse in others, and overall is still a very mediocre skill as a result.
• Some O/S upgrades were massively buffed, others were left vanilla or barely changed, leaving a huge power disparity between them. What would you prefer, 3 measly extra inventory slots, or the ability to make large amounts of extra hypos that heal insane amounts of HP and PSI using organs? I applaud Secmod for attempting to fix some of the less-useful O/S upgrades like Tinker and Spatially Aware, but the changes are either unfinished or poorly designed because the O/S upgrades are still horrendously balanced against each other.
• The changes to the security mechanics don't really fix the core issues and kind of make it worse. The big problem with security in vanilla SS2 was that cameras were a non-threat and the optimal strategy for dealing with them was to shoot them. SecMod tries to make cameras harder by making them silent and more alert, but does nothing to alleviate the dominant strategy - they still die quickly with no consequence. Requiring Hack 1 to turn off alarms actually exacerbates this because it further punishes players for not shooting cameras instantly, reinforcing the dominant strategy. Worse, it also further incentivizes taking the Hack skill, which is already one of the most powerful skills in the game by far. To be fair, I don't exactly love the solution presented by Alarming Cameras either, but I feel it's still a much better thought out solution to this problem. This also has implications for the Security Expert O/S upgrade. Despite being changed, it's still mostly worthless because all it does is punish your mistakes less, the dominant strategy is still way too effective for it to matter.
• I don't have access to the script code, so this is a guess, but from my understanding, you can find CMs, ICE Picks, Repair Tools etc in the randomised loot system. That's a pretty big no-no! These items are special and inherently limited for a reason, and I feel like this could cause a lot of issues purely due to RNG (like not finding enough ICE Picks to instakill Shodan, meaning the difficulty of the final fight is essentially random). System Shock 2 is a game where hypos and batteries and other items can be farmed, so it's not the biggest deal ever, but there are plenty of special items that are specifically limited or in specific spots for specific reasons. This is exactly why my randomiser usually doesn't touch special items and when it does it maintains the item distribution exactly.
• Not strictly a balance issue, but organs seems a lot more common now. I seem to find creature organs on a significant number of enemies. It feels like every enemy was supposed to have one, and then the loot hose removed some of them, so I would find them pretty frequently. This bloats the creature loot and reduces organ rarity to virtually nothing. I don't like this personally - the vanilla game was very specific about guaranteeing organ drops at certain times and keeping them rare outside of that for pacing reasons - but I can't really fault this one objectively, I just don't like it. Combined with the 1 Research requirement for organs, this makes it extremely easy to research things very quickly for that sweet damage bonus.

That's not everything, just what I could come up with without putting in much actual effort to analyse things in-depth. I really should do a deep dive into Secmod at some point, since it's a mod I have issues with, but can't always pinpoint exactly what I don't like.

Most of the new additions to Secmod are good. From the very small immersion features (like the bloody wrench) to the larger scale feature sets (like the throwable grenades), there's a lot of fun stuff in there. It's just unfortunate that the core underlying systems haven't really been thoroughly revisited and some of the new stuff doesn't gel well with the game's existing mechanics (like the Hybrid shotgun "realistic jamming" feature I talked about above). We have a much improved Modify next to the same old mostly useless Research, for instance, and it clashes really badly and in my opinion reinforces many of the same dominant strategies of vanilla. I don't think this is intentional, it seems like some parts of the gameplay had a lot more effort put into them than other less problematic areas, which is fair enough since modders don't have unlimited time to work on projects. I feel that with a proper balance pass and modifications to the mostly untouched areas, a hypothetical SecMod 4 has potential to be much better balanced and feel much nicer to play.

Probably the only part of Secmod I actively despise is the general feature cruft (like the "Debris" item in medsci1 cryo who's physics dimensions don't fit it's model properly - what purpose does that even serve and can it be implemented in a less crusty way?), and some of the jank. I don't hate your work and I will try to be less negative towards the mod. It may be unbalanced but it's still very impressive. There's a huge amount of stuff in Secmod that's excellent. SecMod has done many impressive things with the engine and it's not been until very recently (the last 4 years or so) that other mods have really been able to compete with creating an experience anywhere near as interesting.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't want to discourage people from playing Secmod in general. I think it's a massive improvement over the vanilla game. I go out of my way to make my mods compatible with it because I respect it enough to support it. But I don't think it's balanced, because I don't think the vanilla games mechanics are balanced, and I feel many of it's attempted solutions are misguided or cause other problems. I appreciate that Secmod makes an attempt to balance some of the more egregious things, I just feel like it doesn't change the core systems in the way that it needs to to actually facilitate balance, instead it mostly just makes stuff harder or adds new mechanics on top of the existing ones. There are some nice balance features introduced by Secmod that I like. I like that some of the useless O/S upgrades which were changed are a lot more useful, despite the issues I noted above. I like how the light armour is removed from the medsci2 closet, since it never made sense to me why the game designers would put it there and make the armour you have to hack the forcefield for mostly worthless. There's plenty to like. At the same time, in a thread about a balance mod where people are specifically wanting a more balanced but mostly vanilla SS2 experience, I am actively going to recommend against playing Secmod, because it won't be what they are looking for.

I am by no means an expert on Secmod's mechanics or design. Hopefully after reading this you can understand why I don't really like many of the decisions made in Secmod, and that my reasoning is hopefully rational, rather than just being a blind hater or fanboy. Feel free to write long walls of text under my mods describing what you don't like about them (assuming anyone actually played them).

[674076cb8f5dcThiefsieFool]

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=7153.msg146240#msg146240 I've replied here

[674076cb8fc7btiphares4]

-Added an annelid healing gland to Med/Sci 1

This again is another awesome subtle improvent of the game imo by some single item repositioning alone; it's a very fitting location, gives you more to do (the chemical neccessary for it is even in the medsci-storage), tightens/draws the player's attention to the much underused research skill in the right spot of the game, adds even more immersion, atmosphere & meaning to those annex lab facilities, does a little bit environmental storytelling and it just feels right within the game's curve of progression..

just like it was always meant to appear at this point of the game

but when i came into that room it was floating above the table  :/

it's also hard to see especially due to it's transparency, so it also would look nicer when placed into that microscope's light   : )

[674076cb8fda4voodoo47]

the transparency is actually a SCP/SHTUP bug, fixed in the latest vip build. physdims should be correct, but will double check.

//physdims ok for all practical purposes.

[674076cb8ff08sarge945]

Unfortunately the healing gland is always a little blobby so always floats a little bit (the large section is bigger than the small section and the object is square, so the small blob floats). I recommend sinking it into the table just slightly to make it look alright.

@tiphares4, to position it slightly lower and in a brighter area try going to medsci1.mis.dml and changing line 190 from

"Location" -28.2654, 51.9167, 0.192457

to

"Location" -25.5554, 53.7167, -0.317543

Which will move it to a brighter location and not floating above the table
[glaand.PNG expired]

[674076cb90011tiphares4]

nice, although i liked the position i've contrived a bit better..    :3

[674076cb90114OName]

WTF. I thought the healing glands being transparent was fully intentional. Like, there are invisible spiders

[674076cb90305sarge945]

tiphares4
wtf is that thing on the floor?

[674076cb903fcvoodoo47]

it's a tablet, one of the few unused objects that exist in the game resources. some mods restore it.

[674076cb9058eZylonBane]

There's actually quite a lot of unused objects floating around in the game files. You can see most of the interesting ones in these demo missions:
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=2752.0#msg26893

[674076cb9083atiphares4]

There's actually quite a lot of unused objects floating around in the game files. You can see most of the interesting ones in these demo missions:
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=2752.0#msg26893

So we were able to carry around light sources at some point..  it makes me wish once again that all lamps would be destructible & repairable as well; replacement bulbs would be mainly in the engineering storage rooms then, for new janitor gameplay loop  :)
also it would be nice to have light switches for each & every room for more immersion  :)

its maybe all very off-topic, but i don't see any suggestion thread here..

[674076cb90960RoSoDude]

@tiphares4 I can move the healing gland a bit; I probably just used "Floor Me" and just used whatever Z coordinate the editor gave me. Thanks for the suggestion.

[674076cb90c50sarge945]

So we were able to carry around light sources at some point..  it makes me wish once again that all lamps would be destructible & repairable as well; replacement bulbs would be mainly in the engineering storage rooms then, for new janitor gameplay loop 
also it would be nice to have light switches for each & every room for more immersion 

its maybe all very off-topic, but i don't see any suggestion thread here..

My guess is that this sort of mod would do a lot of terrible things to Dark's dynamic light limit