SS2 Rebalanced Skills and Disciplines

[67417c3662864Rudolph]

(I was going to post this yesterday but I was too tired to create an account, coincidentally you just released another update)
Hi, I just started my first playthrough in a while with this mod and think it's incredible, I don't think I will ever play vanilla again.
I have some suggestions to make Exotic weapons a more viable character build (keep in mind that I'm not a modder):

• Switch the Viral Proliferator with the Crystal Shard, like you did with the Grenade Launcher and Stasis Generator.
• Remove the "hold-down" mechanic on the Viral Proliferator, just make it click to shoot like any other weapon.
• Make it so worm piles don't disappear when you use beakers on them. According to the wiki, there is only a total of 184 worm ammo available in the entire game, this tweak would make it so you are only limited by how many beakers you can find. (Alternatively, you could find a middle ground and make the worm piles temporarily switch to a "depleted" state when used, and the player has to wait for them to regenerate. This would require new models and textures).
• Move the Viral Proliferator to the Hydroponics level (this is where worm piles and beakers start appearing iirc), and move the Annelid Launcher to Recreation, where the VP previously was.

I think this would make the Viral Proliferator about as useful as the Laser Pistol, but for organics instead robots.
I also thought about making the Rumblers a full-annelid enemy, instead of hybrid, but I imagine that would have ramifications on other weapons and damage types as well.

You guys talked in a previous page about how moving the exotic weapon locations would break the lore, but how exactly would it? If I'm not mistaken, the only weapon that's mentioned in audiologs is the Crystal Shard.

Lastly, thanks a lot for making this mod, here's hoping for more updates 

[67417c3662a6dvoodoo47]

worm piles only disappear when you consume them with the wormblood implant equipped. so they are infinite as far as worm collecting goes - however, what is finite here is the beaker supply, as you cannot buy them anywhere and no creature is dropping them as loot.

unless you install the shard hybrid mod, then both the shard hybrid and the grenade hyubrid will drop them every once in a while.

[67417c3662dc6Kolya]

- All biomass should deliver infinite worm refills
- For a one shot refill  you don't need a beaker as you fill it directly into the gun, but it randomly takes 5 - 25 seconds to do so

[67417c3663153Rudolph]

worm piles only disappear when you consume them with the wormblood implant equipped.

Oh, my mistake, it's been a while since I played, should've double-checked.
Maybe a good solution would be to make some enemies drop beakers (like in the mod you mentioned), making them available for purchase in replicators, or just adding more of them around the map

[67417c366326evoodoo47]

it's been discussed in a SCP dev topic recently, SCP will most likely go the replicator way, the adding beakers as loot option will be left to mods.

[67417c3663ec3RoSoDude]

(I was going to post this yesterday but I was too tired to create an account, coincidentally you just released another update)
Hi, I just started my first playthrough in a while with this mod and think it's incredible, I don't think I will ever play vanilla again.
I have some suggestions to make Exotic weapons a more viable character build (keep in mind that I'm not a modder):

• Switch the Viral Proliferator with the Crystal Shard, like you did with the Grenade Launcher and Stasis Generator.
• Remove the "hold-down" mechanic on the Viral Proliferator, just make it click to shoot like any other weapon.
• Make it so worm piles don't disappear when you use beakers on them. According to the wiki, there is only a total of 184 worm ammo available in the entire game, this tweak would make it so you are only limited by how many beakers you can find. (Alternatively, you could find a middle ground and make the worm piles temporarily switch to a "depleted" state when used, and the player has to wait for them to regenerate. This would require new models and textures).
• Move the Viral Proliferator to the Hydroponics level (this is where worm piles and beakers start appearing iirc), and move the Annelid Launcher to Recreation, where the VP previously was.

I think this would make the Viral Proliferator about as useful as the Laser Pistol, but for organics instead robots.
I also thought about making the Rumblers a full-annelid enemy, instead of hybrid, but I imagine that would have ramifications on other weapons and damage types as well.

You guys talked in a previous page about how moving the exotic weapon locations would break the lore, but how exactly would it? If I'm not mistaken, the only weapon that's mentioned in audiologs is the Crystal Shard.

Lastly, thanks a lot for making this mod, here's hoping for more updates 

Hey, glad you like the mod! After every update I have a good hour where I think to myself "Well, the mod's pretty much done, no more updates in the near future... wait... what if..." and start working on the next version all over again haha. So keep the feedback and suggestions coming.

The Viral Proliferator is actually kinda overpowered if you can spare the modules for it, it's just counter-intuitive to use and collect ammo for. As voodoo noted, the worm piles are actually infinite unless you eat them with WormBlood, the limiting factor is actually beakers. However...

worm piles only disappear when you consume them with the wormblood implant equipped. so they are infinite as far as worm collecting goes - however, what is finite here is the beaker supply, as you cannot buy them anywhere

The bolded is no longer true in SS2-RSD. In 1.05 I added the following:

-Replaced Repair 3 software in Command B with a Small Beaker for --/90 nanites

You can also use the Molecular Duplication psi discipline to create more worm ammo. I actually think the worm economy is pretty well-balanced right now; my Energy/Exotic OSA run made quick work of both the Rickenbacker and Body of the Many. It's just not something that first-time players are likely to pick up on.

I'm open to radical suggestions like rearranging the Exotic weapon skill order. Let's think "out loud": The Crystal Shard is actually a really attractive reason to try out Exotic, and putting more points into it is quite good for the damage multiplier alone. If I swapped Crystal Shard to skill 4, that's a 25% reduction in damage at Exotic 6 (1.3x multiplier instead of 1.75x), so I'd have to bump up the base damage by 35% to compensate. The first Crystal Shard should stay in Ops (as SHODAN has a unique dialogue for it), but the first Viral Proliferator could be earlier. Early as say, Hydroponics (as you suggested), which is right after Polito adds Exotic to the weapon skill upgrade machines at the end of Engineering. So that's actually pretty good, and gets people researching and worm collecting earlier. Not to mention, it means I can nerf the Viral Proliferator a bit so it's not directly competing with the Worm Launcher (ADaOB Viral Proliferator is more ammo efficient than the Worm Launcher and makes the latter questionably useful). However, we should review the relevant lore issues for doing this.

Problems:

• The Viral Proliferator is first mentioned in Recreation by a few audio logs [1][2]. It's a bit off if we're hearing about it so much later after encountering it, and it also makes it less of a reward in Recreation.
• The Worm Launcher is more or less bound to Diego's bedroom at the end of the Rickenbacker, as it's his parting gift for you right before he dies. I've had thoughts about adding another one to the Command deck in a high-security crate or something, since that's where it's first mentioned, but it would cheapen that moment.

So, I'm on the fence about this. I think it's better for gameplay which is my main priority, but I don't want to outright trample on the story, which also plays a role in communicating with the player about the available mechanics. Very conflicted on this suggestion.

[67417c36658e5sarge945]

While I personally don't know much about exotic, and there's likely not much that can be done, I thought I would throw in some (admittedly quite bad) ideas to try and address some of these problems. Even though I'm mostly fine with Exotic being left alone since it's already SIGNIFICANTLY better than vanilla.

The Viral Proliferator is first mentioned in Recreation by a few audio logs [1][2]. It's a bit off if we're hearing about it so much later after encountering it, and it also makes it less of a reward in Recreation.

Giving access to exotic earlier will help with the following:
1. Polito's message enabling you to research Exotic will make actual sense
2. Newer players will be encouraged to collect worms much earlier
3. Exotic-based builds will be more viable. For every other weapon class, someone can go "purely" into them (no other weapon types) and be mostly okay. Exotic won't have any real access to proper weapons until at least Ops normally, and even then it's a melee weapon after using another melee weapon for half the game, so it's likely to be quite boring. More knowledgable players might go to rec first, but it's very hard with just a wrench.

At the same time, I understand not wanting to ruin the reward for getting through rec or WBD's moment.

Proposed middle ground:
A viral proliferator is available in hydro, in one of the annelid-rooms, but it's broken. It should be somewhat difficult to find. This still doesn't betray the lore, as it makes sense why the people in rec wouldn't know about it, and it is a nice reward for players who search their environmemt and who have specced into Repair. Every other weapon type has at least one weapon available early by repairing, so I don't see a problem with this.

The Worm Launcher is more or less bound to Diego's bedroom at the end of the Rickenbacker, as it's his parting gift for you right before he dies. I've had thoughts about adding another one to the Command deck in a high-security crate or something, since that's where it's first mentioned, but it would cheapen that moment.

It might not feel so cheap if it's a MAX CONDITION, FULLY UPGRADED worm launcher. It's so late in the game that upgrading it like that is not likely to have a serious effect on balance, and exotic players already get the short end of the stick in so many other areas. I dunno, just a thought.

So, I'm on the fence about this. I think it's better for gameplay which is my main priority, but I don't want to outright trample on the story, which also plays a role in communicating with the player about the available mechanics. Very conflicted on this suggestion.

Except Polito talking about exotic when you don't get one for at least a few more hours (in regular play) IS conflicting with the gameplay.

The Viral Proliferator is actually kinda overpowered if you can spare the modules for it, it's just counter-intuitive to use and collect ammo for. As voodoo noted, the worm piles are actually infinite unless you eat them with WormBlood, the limiting factor is actually beakers.

I wonder if more players would use the proliferator if it had "hold fire" mode and "normal fire" mode, with Anti-Annelid and Anti-Pers being ammo selections instead. To do the same treatment to the Worm launcher, I would cap it off by giving it a "homing" firemode, which is what we have now, and a "non-homing but slightly bigger explosion radius" mode. I dunno.

Most of these ideas are admittedly terrible. Hopefully someone can use them to make something better.

Also, I am still more of a fan of the "balance exotic by making other things work with it in interesting ways" way of balancing it rather than just straight buffing it, since Heavy weapons are already the "hard hitters" and the main appeal of Exotic is that they are EXTREMELY FUCKING WEIRD.

[67417c3665bcfRoSoDude]

Version 1.08 is all about the newly overhauled weapon modification system.

-Choose 1 of 3 exclusive mods for each modification level
-Still 2 modification levels; each level has its own skill requirements and minigame difficulty
-Each weapon has unique mod choices, 9 possible combinations in total
-Upgrades can be swapped at any time (pending Modify minigame completion)
-French-Epstein devices are limited to level 1 modifications (unless you acquire the Tinker O/S Upgrade)
-French-Epstein devices can not be used to swap modifications
-All mods provide +10% damage alongside their main benefit, except the pure damage mod available for all weapons
-All weapons except Exotic have a -20% degradation mod and a mod that unlocks secondary fire
-Other mods: reload time, clip size, ammo consumption, projectile speed, rate of fire, and several other unique mods

You can find some videos of the feature here.

I'm going to be doing a prolonged beta period to iron out any bugs and ensure that the various mod options are balanced. You can download the beta from this post and give me feedback here, or on my Discord server.

Also worth mentioning, I went ahead and followed @Rudolph's suggestion to swap the Viral Proliferator and Crystal Shard in the Exotic skill tree so I can make the former available earlier in Hydroponics.

EDIT: made a silly error that resulted in incorrect log messages (e.g. "%d nanites used in healing"). Reuploaded the beta with the fix.
[SS2-RSD_1.08_BETA11hotfixed.7z expired]

[67417c3666040Chandlermaki]

RoSoDude
That is... really, really sick. Giving this a shot NOW.

[67417c36661ddRoSoDude]

Minor update for beta 2 (see the last post):

-The currently attempted mod is now displayed in the Modify minigame window
-Installed mods are now displayed near the ammo counter in the MFD
-Decreased Pistol vertical recoil from 6.59° to 6.00° and increased horizontal recoil from 0.00° to 3.00°

[67417c36663ffZylonBane]

That mods installed panel seems excessively large for something that's going to be onscreen constantly while a weapon is equipped. The ammo panel under it is smaller yet displays even more information. Something more compact could work just as well:

[67417c36664fdRoSoDude]

It's only on screen when the MFD is in "Use" mode, but I can think about sizing it down slightly.

[67417c36665d3ZylonBane]

Oh, never mind then, that's fine.

[67417c3666888tiphares4]

i find that one aesthetically much more appealing..  awesome enhancement once again btw., i've already tried it out briefly

[67417c3666b34RoSoDude]

Right after I released the second beta, I guess I went a little nuts and started tearing things apart... but what do you know, I added more mods, this time for armor! Hopefully that will keep me going long enough to figure a way to get people to test the damn thing...

-New armor modification system:
    -Same as weapon modification system but with only 1 modification level (3 exclusive mods) per armor
    -Access by right clicking the armor in the inventory to open up the new stat display window
    -Hazard Suit, Light Combat Armor, and Medium Combat Armor have level 1 mods
    -Powered Armor, WormSkin Armor, and Heavy Combat Armor have level 2 mods (require Tinker to use French-Epstein devices)
    -Mods: reduced STR requirement, impact DEF, energy DEF, rad/tox DEF, and several other unique mods

Updated the prior post with 1.08 BETA 3. I don't think there will be any more Modify expansions after this -- getting everything together for armor was quite an ordeal, and I'm worried about the stability of my hacking job as it is.

EDIT: Oops, I forgot to update the modify minigame difficulties in 1.08 BETA 3, and update the modify jargon strings.
Also, I got a suggestion I liked to add movement speed penalties for wearing heavier armor, so that's in the now uploaded 1.08 BETA 4 as well. I'm open to tweaking or outright removing it based on feedback, but it seemed worth experimenting with.

-Armors now come with a movement speed penalty
   -Can be reduced by upgrading STR beyond the requirement
   -Light Combat Armor: 15%-5% per STR above req
   -Medium Combat Armor: 15%-5% per STR above req
   -Heavy Combat Armor: 15%-5% per STR above req
   -Powered Armor (charged): 10%-2.5% per STR above req
   -Powered Armor (unpowered): 40%-10% per STR above req
   -WormSkin Armor: 10%-2.5% per STR above req

[67417c3666d3bRoSoDude]

Still updating the beta. Toning down the armor movement speed penalties a bit, changed the bonus effect for Strong Metabolism, and moved the 4th O/S Upgrade station to earlier in the Rickenbacker

-Removed DML fingerprinting that allowed SS2-RSD changes to be applied to missions without SCP
-Relaxed protections for auto-equip feature so it reliably works on any proximate weapon
-Fixed alcohol not properly deducting (vanilla) 4 psi with Pack Rat O/S Upgrade
-Fixed Disruption Grenade radius not being increased from 6.5 to 7.0 as intended
-Strong Metabolism O/S Upgrade now removes negative effects from drugs and alcohol in addition to reducing rad/toxic damage by 25%
   -Removed halved rad/toxic tick frequency feature
-Armor rebalancing:
   -Powered Armor STR req 3 -> 4
   -Powered Armor mod A changed from STR req -2 to STR req -1
   -Movement speed penalties for most armors unified to 10% - 5% per STR above req
   -Unpowered Armor at 30% - 10% per STR above req
   -Hazard Suit at 5% - 5% per STR above req
-Moved the Rickenbacker O/S Upgrade Station from the Bridge to Pod 1

[67417c3666f4eHikari]

Suggestions:
If possible allow modify to be used on implants either to halve energy drain, or to double the effect (no energy drain component.)
This is admittedly a boring suggestion.

I agree the modify skill is frankly... lackluster. So here are a few 'oddball' suggestions i'm not sure are doable.
use Modify on a replicator which brings up your invenotry. Clicking an item then allows the replicator to start selling that item. Unsure how you would do this but it could lead to interesting concepts like solving the limited beaker supply problem, or to stock a replicator where you are with things you want instead of hoofing it back to where you saw psi or med hypos sold last.

Use Modify on QBR machines to remove their nanite costs

showing my ignornace here but if you can make drones inactive (security hacking?) use modify on drones to loot them (and then loot the corpse after they explode.)

Tempting to suggest modify an upgrade machine to reduce upgrade costs by x percent but either that is a modify 6 task, which then is so late game that it's not really valuable, or can be done so early that it kinda hoses any attempt at balance.

[67417c36670bfRoSoDude]

I actually had very a similar idea for modifiable implants: modify to double the effect AND double the drain.

At this point, though, I don't plan on expanding Modify any further. Some of the ideas I had for Modify expansions (implants, turrets) were in the context of not wanting to develop custom UI to add mod choices for guns. But now that I've done just that, I'm happy with the skill overall. More importantly, I've learned that making objects other than guns modifiable is a absolute nightmare. So we're leaving it at guns and armors. Maybe check it out and let me know if the skill is more interesting to use.

The Replicator idea is neat, though I see no way to communicate it to the user outside of a changelist.

[67417c3667200JDoran]

RosoDude, what third party add-ons (such as Repairman, Recycler, modern menu, the English subtitles, Droid immortality, etc) will or won't work with your mod, please?

[67417c366765eRoSoDude]

RosoDude, what third party add-ons (such as Repairman, Recycler, modern menu, the English subtitles, Droid immortality, etc) will or won't work with your mod, please?

While SS2-RSD is only compatible with SCP among gamesys mods, it is compatible with most of the DML mods on this site. It's actually harder to think of ones it doesn't work with:

• Don't use Stackable Snacks as I already have that folded into the Pack Rat O/S upgrade
• Don't use Heavily Tweaked as I have my own reworked Heavy skill progression
• Don't use Ball Lightning Rifle as it conflicts with my own EMP Rifle changes
• Don't use Kyu's WeaponSTATS minimod (the other minimods are fine) as it conflicts with my weapon rebalancing/Modify expansions

It's not an issue right now, but if anyone makes any UI expansions (not simple stuff like tweaking HUD textures or activating HUD logs, but custom overlays and such), they won't be compatible either. You can only have one custom overlay handler active per mission, so mine has to take precedence.

For some of the others you have to be a bit careful about the order -- SS2-RSD should generally be given higher priority, as I've manually patched some inconsistencies with Repairman and Stasis Trap. Obviously it's compatible with all of my other mods as well.

[67417c36679dbvoodoo47]

generally, if two mods do the same thing (like changing how one particular weapon works), you don't want them to be active at the same time.

I've manually patched some inconsistencies with Repairman and Stasis Trap.

something I should know about/fix on my side?

[67417c3667bf5RoSoDude]

voodoo47
Nope. I modified and replaced Repairman's wrenchier script to change the Maintenance formula on weapons, and rebalanced Stasis Trap if the user has the mod installed. Everything's fine as long as you load SS2-RSD higher than both of them.

[67417c3667cd1JDoran]

RosoDude, thanks for the information.

[67417c3668053sarge945]

@JDoran there is also another aspect of mod compatibility to address - balance. Mods may be compatible, but may change the games in ways that have unintended side-effects for the balance.

Luckily I haven't really found many mods that are really badly incompatible with this mod, other than maybe the Enemy Health Randomizer Mod, since at it's default setting, it tends to result in a huge lack of resources when combined with RSD, since the significantly tankier enemies tend to work alongside the loot hose changes to drain what little ammo you have. This is likely something that can be easily fixed by tweaking the numbers a bit, like reducing the value for health modification (positive and negative) to a smaller range. I also feel like the Big Droid Immortality Protocol mod is a tad overpowered normally, but with this mod making repair more useful, it seems like overkill to me, so I don't use it. Repairman is still good to use, though

As for what IS compatible balance wise, while I can't speak for @RoSoDude, this mod seems almost designed to work with Alarming Cameras and Scary Monsters, and I consider the mod unbalanced without it. Alarming Cameras is especially important, since the Stasis Field Generator changes fit very nicely with Alarming Cameras ability for it to stun cameras. It gives nice synergy, especially for early-game Heavy players. The resource availability and difficulty also seem to be tuned around the harder enemies from Scary Monsters.

Personally, my mod list looks something like this (minus graphics mods):

SCP4 (with Prison Event)
Repairman
QBR Breaker
SS2-RSD v8 BETA 5 (this mod)
Alarming Cameras
Scary Monsters
Health Bar Mods (Vague).