SS2 DGM Open Character Development

[67510cf20e417DGM]

I've never liked the way a few situations in SS2 require you to have certain skills or equipment.  I've also never liked the way certain items (like the ICE pick) can devalue skills by taking their place.  But then, the first sort of mandates the second.  So I've made a mod that does away with both, in the hopes that it will shake things up a bit.  I've tested the altered areas using the level selector and all seems to be in order, so I'm publishing it for open playtesting and feedback.

You can find it here.  I have to host it myself for now as it's just a bit over SBF's attachment size limt.  Here are the details:



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Open Character Development Mod
for System Shock 2.
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This mod is built on top of Straylight's ADaoB v0.3.0 mod, and includes all of ADaoB's content.  This mod is not compatible with any other gamesys-altering mod.  Its purpose is to allow a wider range of character builds to be able to complete the game without having to resort to special items that replace skills, and to remove those items so that all skills used have to be properly paid for.


CHANGES:

1) It is no longer necessary to research Toxin-A yourself on deck 3.  A research log can be found which will flag Toxin-A as researched when collected.

2) It is no longer necessary to hack the shuttle bay replicator on deck 6.  When you are told to use the replicator, it will be set to an unhacked state and both the hacked and unhacked purchase lists will have the Sympathetic Resonator.  The e-mail telling you about it has been slightly edited to remove the claim that hacking is required.

3) Two of the shield segments for the final boss have been removed, giving players small gaps to shoot or jump through if their timing is good enough.  This allows players who lack the firepower to punch through the shields or the hacking abilities to turn them off to still win.

4) All of the items that replace skills - ICE-picks, Auto-Repair Units, French-Epstein Devices and LabAssist Implants - have been removed and replaced with piles of nanites.


NOTES:

1) Getting the Research Report will not flag the "Find and research Toxin-A" quest as complete, but you can still use it.  Also, if you are already researching Toxin-A the normal way when you get the report, the research process will continue in the background.  You can just suspend it to research something else when you need to, though.

2) This mod has not been tested for multiplayer.

[67510cf20ebe7Kolya]

There are very few situations that require certain skills. These skills can be bought easily for a few CMs of which there are more than enough scattered around the levels.
Now things like the ICE-picks are really necessary for people who, for example, play a straight grunt or even wrench only game. Taking these items out in fact limits their character development.
I know it's funny, different folks different strokes, you know. In the end I fail to see a necessity for this mod, which is 99% ADaoB anyway.

I think you should have talked with a few people before making it, these are few and small changes after all. Why did you not suggest them in the ADaoB thread, that might have saved you a lot of work.

[67510cf20f082DGM]

Now things like the ICE-picks are really necessary for people who, for example, play a straight grunt or even wrench only game. Taking these items out in fact limits their character development.

It wouldn't be difficult to put in the other 3 changes and leave those items alone.

which is 99% ADaoB anyway.

This I grant you, but I didn't want to go back to the vanilla game and all its uncorrected flaws.  The one-gamesys-altering-mod-at-a-time limit forced my hand.

these are few and small changes after all. Why did you not suggest them in the ADaoB thread, that might have saved you a lot of work.

Because I wanted to learn how to mod myself, not just get someone else to stick a few changes in their mod.  And I had some ideas for expanding on this once I had learned enough.

I admit that my experience has left me reluctant to continue, though.  The engine is limited and buggy, the editor is unwieldly and I've encountered a "sink-or-swim" attitude from the community on a couple of issues.  All of which makes me doubt it's really worth the frustration of going further.  But I at least wanted to finish what I started.

As for suggesting this in other threads, I do have detailed notes on how to recreate the changes I made.  I can put that and the audio file for the edited e-mail up if anyone wants to use some or all of these changes.  Armed with the notes and .WAV file, anyone already comfortable with modding should be able to reproduce all of this on their lunch break.

[67510cf20f179Kolya]

Huh, well I hope I haven't contributed to that reluctance now. I'm naturally glad to see someone pick up SS2 modding.

[67510cf20f36aDGM]

You haven't.  Honest, constructive criticism isn't the problem.  I was thinking mainly of 3 things:

1) This, where I ask for help learning to script and get told to figure it out myself.

2) This, where I ask for help for a problem with ShockEd and it takes over a year for anybody to answer.  Yes, it was a silly newbie mistake and yes, I deserved some ribbing for it, but that was absurd.

3) After all this time there's still no effort to recreate the terrain data for the 5 stripped missions, even though that'd be quite useful (at least SHTUP seriously needs it).


I'm amazed at the talent and effort some of you have put into your mods, but I get the impression the experts aren't much interested in anything beyond their own projects.  It's your right to be that way, of course, but I suspect the SS2 modding community could be larger and have a greater number and quality of mods otherwise.

[67510cf20f5e8Nameless Voice]

1) Well, that's how I figured it out.  Script modules are basically renamed .dll files written in C++, and there's no easy way to write them, and certainly no easy way to explain how to write them.  I'm far too lazy to write a step-by-step guide, in any case.  You have to just look at how they were done, and check the header files with the list of services that Dark exposes.

2) There aren't really very many experts for ShockEd.  The reason that question was overlooked for so long was simply because no one who saw it knew how to answer it.  I don't see the point of posting just to say that I don't know something.

3) I'd thought about it, but it's a lot of work.  More than I'm willing to spend on the limited returns it would bring.


Again, the real problem is that there are practically no experts.  I know a lot about DromEd and scripting, but that's nearly all from a Thief background.  Most of what I know about ShockEd is carried over from there, and relates to things that are the same between the two editors.

[67510cf20f96bZylonBane]

3) After all this time there's still no effort to recreate the terrain data for the 5 stripped missions, even though that'd be quite useful (at least SHTUP seriously needs it).

No, SHTUP doesn't.

[67510cf20fb1cZygo]

SHEMP/ ADAOB could use it though, presumably.

I actually had a look at recreating the original architecture from the stripped missions. My conclusion: barring some major computer boffin having a large amount of time on their hands it would be quicker to rebuild the levels from scratch in DromEd (which I'd estimate at a bare minimum of six weeks per level to do, more if you really wanted everything done properly) as you'd have to work out the format which is not known unlike the one for the primitive information, then reverse engineer all the primitives from the portal information which I'm not sure is even really feasible, it's certainly way beyond me.

I never saw the post on the second problem, which I knew how to avoid even if I didn't know exactly what caused it.