Give Me Deus Ex: Augmented Edition

[68116151a06fdsarge945]

Hey there everyone!!!

Most of you probably know me from my SS2 mods, but I have also been working on a fork of GMDX over the last year or so. This is based off (and is a continuation of) the vRSD fork of GMDX v9, made by our very own @RoSoDude.

Originally this started out as a few bugfixes and QoL additions for vRSD, but it has since grown into it's own behemoth with it's own goals and vision.

Most of the changes have been run by Rosodude and Totalitarian, and they seem to largely approve of them, which fills me with confidence that this will be a worthy successor to both GMDX v9 and the vRSD fork.

Amongst the major changes are:

• Addition of literally hundreds of little quality of life adjustments and fixes, including a QoL menu with over 60 entries to tweak the mod to your liking. This should be the smoothest, most modern feeling version of Deus Ex, bar none, with many modern game conveniences - belt improvements including slot memory, laser sights remembering their state when holstering weapons, a dynamic crosshair, being able to use the number keys for dialogue choices, etc. It basically works "as you would expect", with most if not all the clunkiness and unintuitiveness of the original game removed.
• A complete overhaul of Hacking mechanics. Now, cameras and turrets will "reboot" after some time (usually a few minutes, dependent on Hacking skill), giving you good reasons to use multitools on some cameras, and making hacking less overpowered and ubiquitous as a "fix all" solution. It also makes your trip back from the Ocean lab a little more interesting...
• Augmentation Rework. As awesome as GMDX and vRSD are, I have always felt that their augmentations were on of their weakest points. Previous mods like Biomod had, in my opinion at least, more interesting and involved Augmentation systems. GMDX v9 mostly kept the vanilla spirit of Active augmentations for everything, and vRSD added a lot more passive augmentations, neither of which are approaches I particularly like - lots of active augs makes aug management a chore, and lots of passive augs makes their gameplay uninteresting and makes them feel like they lack impact. To remedy this, many passive (and a few active) augmentations have been converted to "Toggled" augmentations. When activated, Toggled augmentations will "reserve" a portion of your energy pool, making it unusable to anything else. So for instance, if you have a total of 100 maximum bioelectrical energy, and you activate a Toggle augmentation that reserves 20 energy, your maximum bioelectrical energy will become 80. This is designed to add some more resource management to augmentation use (including always-active, "passive" augs, by making them toggled), outside of the standard "augmentations draw energy when used" system. A typical Toggle-focused augmentation build will generally leave you with about 30 bioenergy to play with, which isn't much.
• Massive code cleanup. HDTP and New Vision have now been made optional, you can run the mod without either one. Every single HDTP object can now be toggled in the HDTP toggles menu, including decals, fragments, etc. Some major optimisations have been done around HDTP trees, giving some players a whopping 40 FPS increase in certain areas when using HDTP trees.
• General gameplay balance adjustments and improvements. The Assault Rifle grenade launcher can now be used immediately when changing ammo types, no need to reload! Buffs to certain weapons like the Sawed-Off, Augmentation Swapping to make duplicate aug cans less worthless, the ability to have 5 damage mods on certain guns, the Dragons Tooth sword now has a battery and recharges using biocells (but has been made more powerful), the GEP Gun requiring a special perk in order to attach a scope or laser sight, the flamethrower can be reduced in size with a perk, and other interesting gameplay additions!
• General Non-Skill Perks. Enjoy new non-skill related perks like Firefighter, which makes fire extinguishers into potent explosive weapons, or Lawfare Expert which allows you to carry a whopping 3 LAWs at once.
• Multiple new playthrough modifiers and gameplay settings, including Unknown Codes (basically the Deus Ex version of No Keypad Cheese), enemy Weapon shuffle, and several other options
• Full compatibility with The Lay-D Denton project. Now you can play as Female JC and enjoy all of the features of this new GMDX version!
• Comes with a new version of ConFix created by Flippers, integrating several vanilla conversation fixes for both male and female JC
• Much, much, much, much more. The full list of changes is absolutely huge!

Currently, the planned release date is: End of April/Early May

You can see the mod in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3fsUhjchLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfjVw6Aghs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wqWh_LaAGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTkKT8N7IKY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R9uciRt3cI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UR0hQclVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g82KEQxRxk

[68116151a09e8voodoo47]

good. now I only need Miguel to not be a complete moron, and a (cfg) switch that would make the sawn-off shotgun fall under the pistol skill.

[68116151a0adesarge945]

Why would you want the sawed off to be a pistol?

There's an option to let you arm Miguel, so there's that at least.

[68116151a0d33voodoo47]

because it makes a pistol specialist build viable. also a sawn-off is usually wielded single-handedly in movies/games, so it actually makes a lot of sense.

sawn-off is useless as a rifle, because you can get the auto shotgun just a bit later, taking just one more inventory slot (or rather, square) and being superior in every other regard. as a pistol, it's great, because it allows a pistol skill player to dish out some serious close quarters anti-personnel AND armor piercing damage.

and this is not an assumption, I actually have an old custom GMDX build somewhere I played back in the day, and this worked great - though I understand this might be too much for the main build, hence, a minimod/cfg switch would be good.

my last bugreport is still available on this forum, I'll probably check it later - off the top of my head, I really disliked how inconsistent the door breakage was, basically sometimes you can whack through a wooden door with a knife, other times you need the gep gun (not talking about the quest doors, which are sometimes unbreakable because plot). I think I suggested something like rotten door = whatever blade, wooden door = crowbar (would actually give the player a reason to carry a crowbar around), steel door = explosives and so on. hated that you can upgrade the sniper rifle and use it as a battering ram.

as you may have noticed, I dislike useless items/skills, so just like with SS2, I'd like to give them some value - think the redone OS upgrades, the Repairman mod etc. to make everything have worth in some specific situation.

oh here's one more - lams as the stealthiest lockpick, that one was fun, if you were in an area where you were not supposed to do bad things you usually had guards go nuts the moment you touched a lock with a lockpick, even if nobody was close enough to see/hear it (maybe even with the stealth aug active, but don't quote me on that), buuut you pop a lam on, shoot it with a silenced gun, boom there's your loot and nobody cares. btw this totally should destroy pretty much all the loot if the boom was close enough.

yep, you probably are getting my eyes on this whether you like it or not, rather sooner than later.

[68116151a1886sarge945]

because it makes a pistol specialist build viable. also a sawn-off is usually wielded single-handedly in movies/games, so it actually makes a lot of sense.

sawn-off is useless as a rifle, because you can get the auto shotgun just a bit later, taking just one more inventory slot (or rather, square) and being superior in every other regard. as a pistol, it's great, because it allows a pistol skill player to dish out some serious close quarters anti-personnel AND armor piercing damage.

Someone hasn't played any of the previous GMDX versions. Or at least, not v9/vRSD.

In vRSD, the Sawed Off is the only shotgun capable of using rubber shells (newly added non-lethal damage type for assault builds), deals significantly more damage per shot than the assault shotgun, is WAY more accurate, to the point where it can be used at medium/long range with adequate skills and upgrades, and in GMDX UE, has also had an additional pellet added.

This essentially makes both the shotguns work as sidegrades. The assault shotgun can pump a lot more ammo down-range significantly faster (especially with the full-auto mod), but is essentially worse than the regular shotgun in every other way.

This is especially important in Hardcore mode, where ammo management is critically important.

and this is not an assumption, I actually have an old custom GMDX build somewhere I played back in the day, and this worked great - though I understand this might be too much for the main build, hence, a minimod/cfg switch would be good.

my last bugreport is still available on this forum, I'll probably check it later - off the top of my head, I really disliked how inconsistent the door breakage was, basically sometimes you can whack through a wooden door with a knife, other times you need the gep gun (not talking about the quest doors, which are sometimes unbreakable because plot). I think I suggested something like rotten door = whatever blade, wooden door = crowbar (would actually give the player a reason to carry a crowbar around), steel door = explosives and so on. hated that you can upgrade the sniper rifle and use it as a battering ram.

The sniper is naturally limited by the rarity of it's ammo. 3006 is very powerful, loud, and more importantly, extremely uncommon.

The GEP is the real doorbuster. The DTS was a pretty serious doorbuster too, and it still can be, if you're willing to feed it biocells like candy.

I do agree some door consistency could be good. There are lots of wooden doors in the game that are invulnerable, and a few steel ones that can be blown through. Making everything breakable is probably a bad idea for a number of reasons, but I might tweak some of the values for some of the doors. If I get time. I am in a pretty rapid bugfixing phase right now, I just want this to release (I originally set a release date for last July, then December, and it kept getting pushed back as more features were added).

as you may have noticed, I dislike useless items/skills, so just like with SS2, I'd like to give them some value - think the redone OS upgrades, the Repairman mod etc. to make everything have worth in some specific situation.

There are no useless skills/augs/perks in GMDX.

oh here's one more - lams as the stealthiest lockpick, that one was fun, if you were in an area where you were not supposed to do bad things you usually had guards go nuts the moment you touched a lock with a lockpick, even if nobody was close enough to see/hear it (maybe even with the stealth aug active, but don't quote me on that), buuut you pop a lam on, shoot it with a silenced gun, boom there's your loot and nobody cares. btw this totally should destroy pretty much all the loot if the boom was close enough.

I might have a look into this

yep, you probably are getting my eyes on this whether you like it or not, rather sooner than later.

You can play the beta if you would like.

[68116151a1a15voodoo47]

yeah, it's been a while.

so now you basically need two shotguns to fully utilize the potential of all shotgun ammo, and both are governed by the same skill. I still think this is not the best solution, but I'll probably stop here, and maybe continue after I've actually played it (almost sure the result will be the same though - yeah it's ok, can I have my sawn-off as a pistol mod now? I've enjoyed it too much).

ok maybe one more (looking at the linked post, or rather the few above it) - stealth pistol possible to have no scope sway without the accuracy aug or not?

[68116151a1c70ZylonBane]

...and damage is reduces significantly.

Typo.

[68116151a1d9dvoodoo47]

ok one more - is the PS20 plasma pistol still complete garbage? iirc last time I suggested it should just be converted to a single shot weapon (and you would collect ammo by picking another PS20s), with a normal reload animation after each shot (not that throw it away nonsense which takes 5 minutes).

[68116151a1ed5sarge945]

The PS20 is a 100% accurate instant-kill on anything below an MJ12 trooper, which is pretty dang good. Especially against transgenics.

Yes it still has the throw away animation, but you can pick up 5 or so of them, many more enemies have them now, and Plasma damage is a lot more reliable (hits anywhere now count as torso hits), so they feel a lot better to use. Put them in your secondary slot for a quick one-button shot and they're effective little killing machines.

[68116151a1fc4voodoo47]

ok, that doesn't sound too bad. also you probably meant commando.

[68116151a2103sarge945]

I actually meant an elite.

They will take out the regular mj12 troops but not the elites or commandos in one hit.

[68116151a21desarge945]

Well this thread died a horrible death...

[68116151a22a8voodoo47]

where?

[68116151a23f7Salk]

Personally I don't like the new hacking mechanics as concept.

The Augmentation Rework is something I'd need to test, too. It seems like a big departure from the original game's system.

[68116151a24fasarge945]

The new hacking mechanics are optional and not enabled unless you turn them on in the Gameplay menu.

(Except on Hardcore where they are always enabled, but Hardcore is meant to pull out all the stops and be as difficult as possible)

You're going to love the new augmentation system, I promise.

[68116151a25feSalk]

I have no reason to doubt your words.

I'll make sure to give this a try.

Thanks!

PS - I left a small suggestion at the YouTube video about the blood mini pools. Please feel free to disregard it, in case you think it does not make much sense.

[68116151a2735ModdedInstall2]

I just got Deus Ex on GOG. Would you guys recommend GMDX:UE for a first playthrough?

[68116151a281evoodoo47]

yes.

I did not play the latest version, but pretty sure it's going to be a good experience. it's in my backlog, hopefully later this year.

[68116151a32f9sarge945]

yes.

I did not play the latest version...

That's a lot of confidence considering you haven't played it at all. I guess I should feel flattered that you think so highly of my work despite not having really experienced much of it.

I do believe it will be a good first experience for people, yes.

The general advice (for games in general, not just Deus Ex) is usually "play vanilla first to see how the game actually is, then mod it". I can see why people say this, especially because a lot of mods tend to change games in very significant ways. However, I fundamentally believe that your first experience of a videogame is also a very personal and deep experience, and you will never get more joy out of a game than from your first exploration of it.

Given that, you want your first experience to be as pleasant, well-rounded, and generally as memorable as possible. Given how janky Deus Ex is (even with a lot of Vanilla friendly patch mods, like Transcended), I absolutely would recommend playing this version of GMDX for your first experience, as long as you go into it with some caveats and understandings.

Here's something to consider before playing:

This mod is NOT a completely 100% vanilla faithful experience. There are new mechanics, alterations to the maps, the addition of perks, and meaningful choices and consequences added to a lot of areas in Deus Ex. However, at the same time a lot of care has been taken to ensure it fits with the lore, direction, and style of the game, both in terms of gameplay mechanics, level design, and immersion features.

This means, for example:
- You will see new content, but it will fit in alongside the old content seamlessly.
- Many of the mechanics will also feel ingrained into the game, as if they have been there from the start.
- While there are some significant changes (perks, hacking overhaul, new toggle augmentations and energy management, etc etc), there's no changes to the plot, no major map overhauls, no new weapons, and nothing specifically that will make you feel like you're playing a modded version of the game.

This does mean that you won't be getting an authentic experience, but you will be getting a good one.

Keep in mind that the original Deus Ex (and by extension all mods that attempt to retain the vanilla gameplay while fixing bugs or adding qol features) have the following major issues:

• Extremely poor sound design. Weapons use very repetitive, badly mixed and often overlapping sounds.
• Very clunky gameplay from a User Experience perspective, including active augmentations that should be passive (having to manually turn on an augmentation that makes your other augmentations more efficient every time you use them, what the hell!)
• Very unbalanced gameplay, including some extremely busted overpowered skills (Hacking) and some nearly useless ones (Swimming).
• A lackluster difficulty curve that tapers off towards the middle and eventually becomes a complete cakewalk. The final base is supposed to be a stronghold and it's pathetic.
• Horrendous graphics, which mostly come through in the maps. Very big open, empty, bland empty rooms a lot of the time, and awful 16-bit baked lighting that hasn't been updated in 25 years. The actual models and textures are okay which is why I recommend using the original graphics instead of HDTP and New Vision, but both will work alongside this mod just fine and are officially supported

GMDX fixes every single one of these issues and a whole bunch more, and it does it seamlessly and in a way that feels like it's always been that way.

Meanwhile, Deus Ex has a lot of strengths that are left intact in GMDX:

• Excellent atmosphere. While the maps can be quite bland at times, the music is on point, and the design of the areas is also good overall. GMDX enhances the maps in subtle and believable ways that feel like most veterans remember them. Other mods like Revision go completely overboard and you end up with maps that have lots of dead ends and extraneous details. GMDX eschews all that for a clean aesthetic that fits the original vision while polishing up most of the big boxy bland rooms.
• Good story. There's a small amount of cut content added, to taste, all of it based on real content by the developers rather than interpretations or "cool additions that would be nice".
• Good Music. The music is mostly unchanged, except for the addition of 1 track which is a remix of an existing track, and a few minor changes to where songs are placed, all done with the intention of allowing the original music to work at it's best, rather than replacing it or overshadowing it with "cool" music.

And then, to top it off, a bunch of QoL stuff has been added (specifically in this version that isn't in v9 or vRSD), including

• Belt Memory. You know how in modern games when you use the last item of a stack on your hotbar, it keeps the item in the slot, so that when you pick it up again it goes back to where it was? Deus Ex was released long before that was a thing. But now it has it.
• Autofilling. The original Deus Ex would automatically add items to the hotbar at the bottom of the screen whenever there was a free spot. While this was standard for the time, it's very annoying now. Anyway, it doesn't do that anymore
• Remembered Laser Sights. Deus Ex offers togglable laser sights on many weapons. However, you have to remember to re-enable them every single time you put the weapon away (which happens a LOT). This is made even worse in GMDX because of the addition of mantling which temporarily puts your weapon away while you climb. Now the laser state is remembered, and it will toggle itself back on when necessary. Which, honestly, is the bare minimum you should expect. Either way, it's here now.
• Proper dynamic music. Originally the game would continually restart the same track every time you entered a new area, so you'd be hearing the same 30 seconds of music sometimes repeatedly. If you died and reloaded the music would start again. On GMDX Hardcore mode (which is very very hard), I die a lot, and I got so sick of the music looping that I decided to fix it. Now, your position in the track is remembered through map transitions and through dying and reloading.
• Data Cubes show Images. Deus Ex contains a lot of written text, and sometimes images too. Whenever you find an image inside a datacube, you get a little screen that tells you "[Image: Walton Simons]" or whatever. To actually view the image, you have to go to the Images screen in the UI. Which makes for a horrible experience. Now, you can just view the images right when you read them.
• Enhanced Corpse Interactions. In the original game, right-clicking on a corpse will grab everything in their inventory. But, if they were carrying nothing, you will pick up the corpse instead. This is problematic because many of the corpses in the game contain nothing, so you're frequently picking up corpses by accident when searching them. In GMDX, the first time you interact with a corpse will always search it, even if it contains nothing, with a second click picking it up.
• Many other modernisation features including a stance display in the HUD, a fully dynamic crosshair, alternate weapon offsets and cutscene FOV adjustments to make the game look much nicer in widescreen or with a higher fov, the ability to use the number keys to select dialog topics, "Searched" labels on corpses you've interacted with, datacubes turning off their screens when you've interacted with them, inventory icons for modified weapons, and much much much more.

I would highly recommend giving this a go when it comes out (very soon, I promise!), even as your first Deus Ex experience. It will be a much better experience compared to the busted, dated but also excellent and timeless original version.[/list]

Here's something that didn't make it into the mod and probably never will, but was a fun little experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZsQOsL7EmE

[68116151a3a62ModdedInstall2]

The general advice (for games in general, not just Deus Ex) is usually "play vanilla first to see how the game actually is, then mod it". I can see why people say this, especially because a lot of mods tend to change games in very significant ways. However, I fundamentally believe that your first experience of a videogame is also a very personal and deep experience, and you will never get more joy out of a game than from your first exploration of it.

Given that, you want your first experience to be as pleasant, well-rounded, and generally as memorable as possible. Given how janky Deus Ex is (even with a lot of Vanilla friendly patch mods, like Transcended), I absolutely would recommend playing this version of GMDX for your first experience, as long as you go into it with some caveats and understandings.

Here's something to consider before playing:

This mod is NOT a completely 100% vanilla faithful experience. There are new mechanics, alterations to the maps, the addition of perks, and meaningful choices and consequences added to a lot of areas in Deus Ex. However, at the same time a lot of care has been taken to ensure it fits with the lore, direction, and style of the game, both in terms of gameplay mechanics, level design, and immersion features.

This means, for example:
- You will see new content, but it will fit in alongside the old content seamlessly.
- Many of the mechanics will also feel ingrained into the game, as if they have been there from the start.
- While there are some significant changes (perks, hacking overhaul, new toggle augmentations and energy management, etc etc), there's no changes to the plot, no major map overhauls, no new weapons, and nothing specifically that will make you feel like you're playing a modded version of the game.

This does mean that you won't be getting an authentic experience, but you will be getting a good one.

Hey, all I ever want in a game is to have fun. If GMDX lets me get a good experience, then it sounds perfect.

• ...The actual models and textures are okay which is why I recommend using the original graphics instead of HDTP and New Vision, but both will work alongside this mod just fine and are officially supported

Noted.

Here's something that didn't make it into the mod and probably never will, but was a fun little experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZsQOsL7EmE

That kinda reminds me of the Smart Pistol present in the finale of Titanfall 2. I thought that was a really memorable setpiece tbh. (Cue the getting banned because I gave praise to a modern AAA FPS on a forum full of old folks playing System Shock.)

Anyway, thanks for replying to me! I'm really excited to be able to try out the mod!

[68116151a3bbdsarge945]

I just finished adding Pagination to data cubes that have both text and an image.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBKXQvxJrg

I think this is the last feature. It's basically ready for release now, sans some potential bugfixes, an installer, and a website.

If anyone wants to test a largely complete product, now's the time.

If anyone knows anything about creating interactive installers, PLEASE hit me up.

[68116151a3e1bModdedInstall2]

If anyone knows anything about creating interactive installers, PLEASE hit me up.

I'm not the most experienced, but I might be able to set something up rather quickly. Is installation technically just as simple as extracting the mod files into the game folder, or is there anything else needed? Never mind - I installed the latest version and it seems to be working, so I'll try and get started on an installer today.

[68116151a3ff8voodoo47]

That's a lot of confidence

yes. stealthy lam snipe container blow-opening fixed, btw?

[68116151a4a55sarge945]

I'm not the most experienced, but I might be able to set something up rather quickly. Is installation technically just as simple as extracting the mod files into the game folder, or is there anything else needed? Never mind - I installed the latest version and it seems to be working, so I'll try and get started on an installer today.

It's just a drag and drop on the technical side.

But please don't just make an installer. It needs to do a lot of specific things, like being able to choose to install HDTP, New Vision, LDDP and a few other things, as well as things like renderer selection and updating default keybinds.

The actual install itself is simple, but this will need proper designing, not just slapping together an installer.

yes. stealthy lam snipe container blow-opening fixed, btw?

What? First I've even heard of this.