SS2 TF's Secmod 2.8 [obsolete]

[66f900df1637fThiefsieFool]

that is also an acceptable explanation

PASGHETTI!!!!!!!!!!

[66f900df164a4Mr Rayford]

Turns out, all I had to do was click on the big orange rectangle next to my cpu and line up three nodes.

I did the same thing with my Xbox and it plays NES games now. My alarm clock exploded, though.

[66f900df165d0m00man]

This is going to sound sad, but can someone tell me where the battery in Med/Sci is located? I don't mean the one you need to get out of Cryo--rather, the one that you need to get to Medical for the access card to personnel chambers. I've looked all over the bits of the deck that I have access to, and I simply can't find it!

[66f900df1675aKolya]

I'm not sure if this was changed, but it should be loot on a corpse next to the bulkhead where you will use the recharged battery eventually. If it it isn't on that corpse take a look around that area.

[66f900df168a6m00man]

Yeah, that's where it was in the original too. With the current version of the mod, though, they decided to put it into a security container nearby that had to be hacked. Funny thing is I already hacked it earlier but somehow missed picking it up, and subsequently I obviously did not think of rechecking all the containers that were already opened.

Speaking of which, I really like how this mod makes evident where you've checked and where you haven't. Presuming you haven't forgotten things like I had, it makes searching much less redundant.

[66f900df16a0fNameless Voice]

No, that's not quite right.  That crate starts off pre-hacked, so you don't need to have hack skill to proceed.

[66f900df16b53Da9L]

The new 2.8 doesnt fix the problem with entering engeneering in multiplayer i suppose?

[66f900df16cd8Mr Rayford]

Okay, so I finished up a run of SecMod 2.8 and I have to say that it was the most fun I've ever had playing System Shock 2, apart from the first time. Most mods make the game stressful, this was just plain fun. Except the fight with SHODAN. Holy hell, that was hard. 

I do have two suggestions/request for SecMod 2.9 or 3, if they ever happen:

A third shotgun ammo - It's always bothered me that the rifled slug makes the shotgun better than the pistol in terms of standard ammo. I was wondering if you could make a type of buck shot the shotgun's standard ammo and make the rifled slug armor piercing. That way, the shot returns to close combat duty. Of course, this would require altering the Shotgun Hybrids, so I don't know if it's do-able.

Assault Rifle Hybrids - You already added a Grenade Launcher and Crystal Shard Hybrid, so I don't think this one is too outlandish. It's always bothered me that there are so few hybrids on the later levels, so adding a hybrid that would be deadly at a distance would remedy that.

[66f900df16e1cThiefsieFool]

That's great, I think that makes two people or so who've actually finished this.
Might add something vaguely approaching those changes later on but I wouldn't hold my breath, this is just about complete save for multiplayer bugs.

[66f900df16f29Mr Rayford]

An alternative to the shotgun ammo suggestion would be to make the pellet ammo the standard ammo for the shotgun and change the slug to armor peircing (change it's ammo box color an it's statistics), keeping the shotgun with only 2 ammo types.

[66f900df17009Da9L]

I finished it too some time ago.. And yes i do remember the fight with shodan was insane :p

[66f900df1710eSlithytove]

First, thanks for creating this excellent mod, SS2 is the one game I keep coming back to over and over.

Is there a way to get the high-rez monitor animations or (SHEMP) included in ADAoB 3.0 working with Secmod 2.8?  I can live without 'em
but would be nice to have.

[66f900df17209ThiefsieFool]

I'm not sure how those even work i'm afraid. Maybe NV can shed some light on this but I don't think it will happen very soon, also thanks.

[66f900df17330Nameless Voice]

It's a fair amount of work, though it would be possible.
Right now, though, I'm waiting on ZB to make an updated version of SHEMP that uses DDFix to allow extremely high-resolution monitor replacements, which will allow the replacement of every single monitor texture, even in the stripped missions.  It seems a waste of time to update SecMod with the old method we used in ADaOB 0.3.0 rather than waiting for the new method.

[66f900df176a9Magus Zeal]

Alright, I've been talking this over in the IRC channel and I'm not sure what's going on. I'm seeing lots of weird things going on with SecMod and others installed.

Yes, I have tried doing this with fresh installs and more.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. Fresh install of SS2.
2. Run SS2Tool (even grabbed a newer version as the version I was first using was old). Patched and applied fixes.
3. Installed Rebirth.
4. Installed SecMod.
5. Installed Rebirth/SecMod patch.
6. Installed various other graphics-only mods:

• Tacticool weapons (Pistol, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Laser Pistol, Laser Pistol SecMod patch
• Raven's Fusion Cannon and Grenade Launcher
• SHTUP
• Ejecting Brass

One small note: The Mod Manager complained about everything except Raven's FC replacement conflicting with SecMod once the patch was installed. Bizarre but none of the weapon models were weird, all showed the modded versions.

I play, everything looks peachy. First weird issue I noticed: No dead power cell on the cryo bay. I summon one in, everything goes smooth from there. I continue to play through the game, everything's going good. I noticed another issue on the Hydroponics deck, where the Replicater near Sector A/B dispenses Scrambler Grenades once hacked. No icon in the menu, odd... And when buying them, nothing pops out. Bizarre...but not game-breaking. What really alarmed me was that I couldn't find the Sector A keycard to continue no matter how hard I searched.

So I decide to repeat the process with the newest stuff possible and give it another whirl. Rather than spend two hours into the game and find out that things are still broken, I go through the training and start some experimenting (also worthwhile to note that the same power cell issue occurred. In the room with the recharger there's another wrench rather than a power cell). First experiment: summon_obj plasma uzi. Nothing happens. Maybe I have the name wrong. I check the strings file and try 'puzi' instead. Still nothing. Weird, but OK. I probably have it wrong. So I try another one. 'Smartgun'. Still nothing, wtf? Then I notice this while looking at the ground:
Image: http://www.royalarmoredlancers.com/smartgun.jpg
Note how there's nothing there but the infobar clearly shows an object there. I can't pick it up or anything but it's...there. At this point I need some help. I was able to make all this work just peachy with an old, beta version of SecMod.

[66f900df17832Kolya]

I suggest installing SHTUP as a base mod. If you used SS2Tool v2.9 and up, you can extract it into your DataPermanentMods folder, or just activate it before the other mods in the mod manager.

The Ejecting Brass mod IS NOT a graphics-only mod. It contains a gamesys file (see it's tags) that completely disables Secmod. (One gamesys rule)

You might want to try looking for that power cell instead of cheating stuff.

The second wrench has always been there (for multiplayer). See original game.

[66f900df17929Nameless Voice]

The power cell is most certainly not missing.  It's just been moved.

[66f900df17a14Kolya]

Thinking about it, he probably couldn't find the power cell because he overwrote Secmod's gamesys with the Ejecting Brass mod.

[66f900df17bf0Magus Zeal]

The Ejecting Brass mod IS NOT a graphics-only mod. It contains a gamesys file (see it's tags) that completely disables Secmod. (One gamesys rule)

*bzzzzzzzt* WRONG. Before I started playing again I was using the SecMod 101 Beta with Ejecting Brass and everything worked peachy. Nothing missing and aside from the few bugs present in the beta. I just recently did a fresh install and skipped Rebirth and the patch entirely. Everything else (including Ejecting Brass) is installed and functions perfectly. I've seen all the weapons present in SecMod, the items, been able to use the Grafter, etc. It would seem the issue is with the patch as it's not fixing everything present. I haven't tried just SecMod and Rebirth together, alone, so I don't know if it's some sort of unholy tri-combination that's wrecking havoc or just the patch.

You might want to try looking for that power cell instead of cheating stuff.

Wow, way to assume a lot. I did search, for about 10 minutes. I know SecMod moves stuff around, and once I did the reinstall mentioned above, I found it in 5 seconds. The container it was in wasn't accessible with my earlier issue.

[66f900df17d6cKolya]

Haha, I feel a lack of trust here...

Listen, only one gamesys (filename: shock2.gam) can ever be active in a game. Now take a look into the EjectingBrass mod, it contains one. So does Secmod. And when you activated the EjectingBrass mod after Secmod you overwrote it, disabling all of it's gameplay changes.

When you played that secmod beta before, seemingly with the EjectingBrass mod, you probably had secmod activated later. You wouldn't have noticed that the EjectingBrass mod isn't working, because - here's the thing - Secmod includes brass ejection.

Once you have Secmod working correctly you'll be able to find that powercell. And a whole lot of other things will work as well. Have fun.

[66f900df17e42ThiefsieFool]

what Kolya said. entirely.

[66f900df1817cEnchantermon]

For more information about gamesys files, see this.

[66f900df184e2ZylonBane]

Right now, though, I'm waiting on ZB to make an updated version of SHEMP...

You are? Crap. Guess I better get on that then.

Listen, only one gamesys (filename: shock2.gam) can ever be active in a game. Now take a look into the EjectingBrass mod, it contains one. So does Secmod. And when you activated the EjectingBrass mod after Secmod you overwrote it, disabling all of it's gameplay changes.

Y'know, I think maybe the SS2 Mod Manager should have two categories of conflict warnings-- a low-priority warning for asset mods like sound and graphics that usually play well together, and a high-priority warning for things like strings and gamesys files that will seriously mess things up.

[66f900df18969Magus Zeal]

Haha, I feel a lack of trust here...

Not at all. I am simply telling you what is working for me. I am not doubting what you are saying.

Listen, only one gamesys (filename: shock2.gam) can ever be active in a game. Now take a look into the EjectingBrass mod, it contains one. So does Secmod. And when you activated the EjectingBrass mod after Secmod you overwrote it, disabling all of it's gameplay changes.

Except now I have both running, albeit sans Rebirth. And all of SecMod's gameplay works fine.

When you played that secmod beta before, seemingly with the EjectingBrass mod, you probably had secmod activated later. You wouldn't have noticed that the EjectingBrass mod isn't working, because - here's the thing - Secmod includes brass ejection.

Not seemingly, with. And even if I did have it activated later, I most certainly don't now. I always activated SecMod first so any graphics mods would overwrite it.

Once you have Secmod working correctly you'll be able to find that powercell. And a whole lot of other things will work as well. Have fun.

Also answered in my previous post.

However, in the interests of bugfixing, I'll reinstall SS2 and apply all the mods I did before (including Rebirth) except Ejecting Brass. It might work, might not, I'll report back.

Edit: Ok, everything sans Ejecting Brass works fine. It's bizarre, however, that only the combination of Rebirth + SecMod + EB would cause things to fail. Assuming both SecMod and EB do modify the gamesys files, and only one can be active at a time, that wouldn't explain why SecMod + EB (no Rebirth) work just fine with no issues. Regardless, thanks for the help.