SS2 Straylight ADaOB v0.3.0

[67420c13cbb27Join ussss!]

actually, it is. look for elevator.wav and delete it. that will get you the original music. if you want to remove that, you will have to yank it out of snd.crf as well (7zip can open it).

Thanks.

[67420c13cbcdbjg18]

Interesting about the ADaoB elevator music, because I actually liked it, although I haven't played SS1 yet. Specifically, I liked the bizarre juxtaposition of the cheesy elevator muzak with the horrors that await you on each deck. I had the in-game music playing as well. Then again, after I play SS1, I might feel differently, although maybe you could say that TriOptimum just never changed their elevator music supplier?

Separately, the final boss battles were brutal for me when I was playing as a Navy character, even though I was using Standard and Heavy Weapons. I'm thinking of playing as OSA next time.

P.S. ZB, hi from HLP! I wasn't around when you were active there, although I've seen your "rawhide!" masterpiece.

[67420c13cbf80Th3 Many?]

What I'm trying to fix is that the muzzle flash on player-held weapons is currently not "attached" to the gun. It's spawned into the world at a fixed position, so if you're moving or turning while firing, the muzzle flash gets visually left behind. It doesn't look good.

What became of your efforts, ZB?
That fixed muzzle flash always annoyed me. Luckily it is only noticable on the assault rifle IIRC.

[67420c13cc17avoodoo47]

would it be possible to use let's say, 0.3.0 files together with 0.2.9 gamesys and nvscript 1.2.2 without negative side effects? while I really like what ADAOB does for most part, I would really prefer to have the old laser plasma pistol back..

[67420c13cc2f4Kolya]

Apart from degrading faster the 0.2.9 "plasma" pistol was just a renamed original laser pistol. Why do you want it back so badly?

[67420c13cc48aZylonBane]

That plasma pistol always struck me as ADaOB going a little bit too far. Yes, the "laser pistol" doesn't literally fire a LASER beam. Oh well.

[67420c13cc57dKolya]

Actually it should be a "phaser", considering how much the gun (and the whole Von Braun) resemble Star Trek gone bad.

[67420c13cc660Kolya]

Wait, I know, a CHASER gun. Yep that's it. 

[67420c13cc772voodoo47]

I just.. don't like the 0.3.0 laser pistol too much. I feel like it has strayed a bit too far from the original concept. matter of personal preference, I guess.

using 0.3.0 maps with 0.2.9 gamesys would allow me to have both SHEMP and the original pistol at the same time - as long as this combination won't cause game stopping issues.

[67420c13cc870Jaesun]

 fixed a bug where player would spill casings while hacked turret was firing by moving the pistol casings up in the projectile hierarchy.

This is still happening in 3.0 in the maintenance section, if you hack the turrets there.

[67420c13cca36Visitor]

I have noticed that some of the weapons do not get damage bonus from the specializing in their respective weapon cathegories. The viral proliferator, for instance, is a level 4 exotic weapon, thus a player with 6 points in exotic weapons (2 above the minimum) should get a 2x15%=30% damage bonus with a viral proliferator. I think it happens with the EMP rifle too and some others.

Researching about this I ended up coming across this mod, ADoAB. The mod balances many things of the game, including this issue (which has all the looks of a bug). It seems nice and I am ready to get it and use it BUT there are two problems for me:
-once the mod is applied, the single player needs to be restarted: I am as far as the Rickenbacker now... aw comon, I do not want to start it all over 
-it rebalances other things as well: although many of the changes are fine and I quite agree, the mod also changes other stuff that I find important the way that they are in the original.

So, my question is: is there any other mod or a patch (official or unofficial) that fixes this bug of the missing damage bonus? If there is not, then does anyone know a way to tinker with the game files to change stuff and add the missing bonus? If neither of both cases, then does anyone at least know WHICH game files have the data regarding damage calculation, wepon kinds...?

Thanks

[67420c13ccb90Kolya]

To my knowledge there's no other mod that has this fix. You'll need to get the ShockEd Toolkit (see MOTHER's SS2 editing section). The data is in the file shock2.gam, commonly called the gamesys, which you should load into shocked. The gamesys editor can be called up by one of the F-keys (F3?). It's a hierarchy tree that shows how props are inherited from archetypes (objects with negative IDs) to actual objects used in the game. Find the viral proliferator in the original (post SS2Tool) gamesys and compare it's props to ADaoB's gamesys.

[67420c13ccdd2Visitor]

@Kolya

Hmmm... first, thanks for the hint so far. I am clearly getting closer.

I have been trying that... but not working well. I managed to open shock2.gam with ShockED, but I can not do anything with it because the program window lacks the option menus (those ones that show on the tutorial video: File, Edit, Views, Shapes, Tools...). The options are just not there. 

Alternatively, I have tried to open the file with one of ShockED's tools, the ObjTree. It opens the file and I used it to open both shock2.gam files (the original and ADaoB). I found a few "items" in some of the hierarchies with names that clearly refer to the weapon kinds (pistol, EMP rifle, proliferator...), so those must be the ones that I must mess up with. The problem is that when I compare the "items" that sound like the Viral Proliferator in ADaoB's gamesys with those of the original gamesys they are either identical or they are different along with ALL the other weapons (and that is strange because the ADaoB mod does not change ALL weapons, so at least some of them should still be equal in both ADaoB and the original). Exemple: object -> physical -> weapon -> annelid -> viral prolif, and the "handle" values for "class tags" are different in ADaoB and the original gamesys... but so are all the other weapons! >.<

Any further hints?

[67420c13ccf01Silver83]

Is there a reason the assault rifle mentions a required standard weapon skill of 6 and I can use it with 3? I'm using ADaoB.

EDIT: And if I may aks: Although SHEMP has been implemented, I still find many low res animated textures, some of them are being shown as high res in other levels. Any ideas?

[67420c13cd05cvoodoo47]

the requirement for the rifle has been lowered. if I remember correctly, because of the training where you can "spend one year around shotguns and auto rifles", supposedly learning to wield them properly.

SHEMP textures could be used only in unstripped levels (basicaly, some shock2 levels are available in their fully editable form, while others aren't). NewDark removes this requirement, and in the (hopefully near) future, the stripped levels will be upgraded as well.

[67420c13cd1c4Erik]

Does that mean we could add an ammo vending machine to the last level of the game so you're not totally screwed in the final boss fight if you're out of ammo? I was unable to actually finish my last playthrough because all I had was the wrench, which does nothing.  Even after hacking the terminals I didn't really have enough health to make her minions kill her with that energy bolt they shoot.

I used all my ammo in the previous level, and I don't think that has a vending machine either. Or nowhere near the end anyway.

[67420c13cd2aevoodoo47]

this could be done (now or before).

[67420c13cd38aSilver83]

Thx for the insight.

[67420c13cd6aaKolya]

the requirement for the rifle has been lowered. if I remember correctly, because of the training where you can "spend one year around shotguns and auto rifles", supposedly learning to wield them properly.

That was only the lore explanation. The assault rifle used to be completely overpowered as everyone agrees. Straylight made it weaker in ADaoB. Unmodified it is now as powerful as a fully modified gun. Which is still a lot imo but also a lot less than it used to be. That's why it could be made available earlier. Because it's not such a END ALL weapon anymore.

[67420c13cd7a9Silver83]

But didn't you modify the descriptions accordingly to the modified values?

[67420c13cd8bbKolya]

Straylight made these changes. He was extremely thorough about such things, so I wonder if he missed it or possibly the change got overwritten later. Either way, the necessary standard weapon weapon skill should be changed to 3 in the description.

[67420c13cd9b9Silver83]

I did a new installation using SS2Tool and MM for all mods and now the description says "3". Thx.

[67420c13cdac6Silver83]

Will the next version of ADaoB have relit levels in 32bit? I'm asking because I'm thinking about doing it myself. The last time I used a level editor was for Unreal 1 so there's a LOT to learn for me and maybe, just maybe you guys are already on it

[67420c13cdbacKolya]

It probably will, but it might take some time til it gets released. So go ahead.